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

Hi! Has the driving test happened yet? If so how did it go. *wonders whether to mention how many tests it took me to pass* *thinks better of it*

Well 26 feels pretty old... Round here at any rate - I'm double the age of some of the regular contributers here! I actually bought Abba albums the first time round, but I'm surrounded by people who don't even remember the revival that happened about 8 years ago (Abbaesque, and the whole Bjorn Again thing.) But I know what you mean about 26 vs 28 - at 26 I can still reasonably claim to be in my mid twenties, and I suppose that might even hold as far as 27 (although I'm not counting on it...) but 28 is definitely into the late twenties. Still, I'm sure there are some advantages. Um...

Mmm...bacon... You've made me want to go out to the shops and buy some bacon now!

The hugely embarrassing mistake? Well I was just thinking about suggesting that you hit the 'Preview Message' button before posting the message, as that would give you a chance to notice mistakes that Word has made on your behalf and edit them out. But then I remembered that it's precisely this kind of hubris that would make me look *particularly* stupid if I then made some blunder of my own. A blunder would have been inevitable had I said that, but I wisely chose not to, so I think I averted catastrophe.

As for Kings College, when you say "stand in the market, walk in that direction", which direction would "that" be? If you mean "in the direction of Kings College", then well, yes, I suppose so. Kings is vast. If you stand in the market and face in the direction of the church, and then walk out of the market in that direction to the left of the church, you will be facing the Senate House. To the right of this is my college. To the left of this is Kings College. The most conspicuous feature of Kings is the chapel, a huge great thing that tends to appear on all of the post cards. It can also be seen easily from the other side of the river. (You have to carry on walking for about 6 minutes before you hit the river. There is a variety of colleges through which you can cross the river. Clare is one, Kings has the next bridge along, upstream of Clare.)

I think from your description that you're talking about Garrett Hostel Bridge - it's the next bridge downstream from Clare, and is not part of any college's grounds (although I expect it's probably owned by one of them). You'll have Trinity on your right and Clare on your left at this point. (The playing fields are just some of Trinity's spare land...) If you turn left and walk along the muddy path, the first thing you pass will be the back entrace to Clare on your left. The next thing on your left will indeed be Kings. You are now looking at the classic postcard picture of Cambridge. And some cows.

So in brief, I think the answer is 'yes'.

When you said 'the shop opposite Sidney Sussex' my immediate thought was 'Sainsburys? I would never have described that as cool...' so I'm glad you clarified it!

We used to have a Bens Cookies, but it made the mistake of opening in the Doomed Shop. There's this shop (just opposite Kings) which has had a wide variety of occupants, none of which seem to last longer than about a year and a half. It must be cursed.

The Science Park is less fun than it might sound... It's just the home to a lot of high-tech companies. In fact all the genome mapping stuff is done somewhere else AFAIK, in a village about 20 minutes from here. What do I think about it? Well I've been in partial news blackout this week so apologies for any inaccuracies... But I'm glad it was published before the private enterprise version managed to lock the whole thing up. Is it scary? Well I suppose, but I think it's less of a fundamentally alarming development than cutting up corpses would have seemed when the study of anatomy was first beginning, and I think that has turned out to be a pretty worthwhile bit of research. So I'm generally in favour of medicine having a greater understanding of how our bodies work, and looking at our genome seems positively mild in comparison. I think the GM food issue has been thoroughly mismanaged now, but it's evidently too late to do anything about it, as it transpires that these things have been out in the environment for ages now, so I don't propose to worry unduly about it. But as for human genetics, well I guess that the next couple of hundred years will be full of interesting experiments, horrible disasters, public debate about the increasing divide of inequal opportunities due to financial circumstances while rich people go and spend their money on the latest treatments anyway... So much like most of history.

OK, that's a massively cynical view. I'm being a little disingenuous though. I basically think that like most interesting developments in the history of the human race, it's exciting and potentially dangerous... Will we create monsters? Well possibly, but I find it hard to believe that they'll be any worse than what we're capable of wreaking without the aid of genetic modifications - human ingenuity for atrocity has rarely been significantly obstructed by insufficient technology. The whole imbalance wherebye the rich will have early access troubles me, but this is how so many medical treatments have become widely available: they start off as the preserve of the rich few, and then as the techniques are developed, they become standard practice available to all. Unfair though it may be to start with, if it's a fast and effective way do make the treatment available to all within a generation, then that's better than withholding from everyone for longer. And besides if a rich person wants both to fund the development of a new technique *and* be the guinnea pig, taking the risks then who am I to stop them? That's their personal choice, and the end result is better medical treatment for all.

Cows. Right. I'll look out for them.

You have a mobile *and* a laptop too? Hmph! I may have got this wrong, but I was under the impression that you were about 17 or 18? I know that mobile phones are ubiquitous now, but I thought laptops remained one of the few perks of being old. (Although when I went and did a little research at Harvard recently, I was amazed at how many of the students had laptops. But you have to be rich to go to Harvard, so I was less surprised.) How come you've got one of them then?

Blacks? In Cambridge we have Heffers (book company only found in Cambridge I think) who are pretty big, two fairly large Waterstones (one of them used to be a Dillons; I think one of the Waterstones is closing - evidently they only took over Dillons to get their building!), and I believe Borders are planning to open a large store here too. Not heard of Blacks. I bought the book you recommended in Blackwells (the London branch on Tottenham Court Road), which I presume you're familiar with, living in Oxford.

Orange cars in the 1950s? When exactly was the Ford Model T introduced? I thought it was a good deal earlier, and that is famously only available in black! But I've never been particularly into vintage cars, so I don't know much about anything that far back.

Your Scam of the Century (hosted by Nicolas Parsons?) sounds intruiging. I shall await further details with interest!

No, my curry didn't have bacon in it. In fact I don't think I've ever had a curry with bacon in it! Not sure if that would work too well...

I'm not advocating speed as the be all and end all, otherwise I'd be saying the TVR was better. One of the reasons I like the Elise is that it's just right for the road - you can have enourmous fun in it without having to break speed limits all the time. A TVR on the other hand is only just getting going a 60mph. This is fine on a race track (where admittedly a standard Elise starts to feel a little underpowered - once you get over 100mph, your speed creeps up awfully slowly) but unless you are just driving on the track, it's a bit of a waste to have much more grunt. Building a car which is at its best between 60mph and 130mph seems like deliberately torturing the driver! I mentioned the 0-30 speed just to illustrate that the Elise starts giving its best right off the line.

Oh and that TVR I saw the other day when I was out in my Elise was...yes, you guessed it, yellow!

Anyway, I'm theoretically working from home, and I'm off to London this evening, so I'd better get on with some work if I'm going to meet my deadline!

Before I start I'd like to apologise for any moaning which occurs during this but I shall try and stop myself before I start so you should be protected...stupid pigs blood... and the Womble wouldn't sing Anyway, I've got the new Bon Jovi album, it's great and it provides a much welcome break from Mozart which I have been forced to listen to since my exams started

Oh yeah, I'VE FINISHED MY EXAMS!!!I'M A FREE WOMEN AND CAN FINALLY BE RELEASED INTO SOCIETY And I got the job I went for, it's at UCI so it's not particularly rewarding but I get to watch films for free and harrass small and annoying children for ID and it'll hopefully allow me to make enough money to survive for the first year at Uni...and to make up the rest of the what would have been the student grants had stupid Tony Blair and stupid Labour gov...sorry

As for the driving test, I'd like to point out that you did it again with the context of 'soon', it's soon as in some unspecified time in the near future which we're not thinking about because then it won't happen, at least that's my theory anyway

26 is not old in any context (unless maybe you're viewing it from an eight year olds perspective and then it would be) you're just moaning unnecessarily (hypocrit? Moi?). Ummm, about the Abba revival thing, the only revival I remember was the one last year where they stuck Billie (hmmph...sorry) in red trousers and then murdered several decent songs much like Kelis did at Glastonbury but I'll not start with that moan or I'll never stop To make you feel better though, you could probably even pass for 24 ish and that's even less old, virtually a teenager although that might not be preferable. Whilst we're on the subject of age I protest at being called 17, I'm a very responsible adult...*evaluates dubious claims and wonders if she can get away with it*... o.k so I'm an adult...well I'm 18 so I'm alleged to be an adult. Can an adult still buy a talking Buzz Lightyear toy? It's so cool and says "To Infinity and Beyond" and then has flashing laser effect...hmm I think that answers my question, o.k so I'm not an adult but I probably could be if I wanted to be Can't have a womble though because it didn't work...sorry

You don't have bacon in your house? Wow, if I wasn't a vegetarian I could never not have bacon, I still make people cook it just so I can smell it frying...I feel I'm weakening as a vegetarian...must be strong! And it was Orinoco...

As for the preview message button, I shall aledgedly use it with this message although I may forget in which case the &26418; things are in there on purpose...as an ironic statement...that's deeply philosophical...and meaningful...it had a red hat to

On to the Cambridge thing (*I will not moan, I will not moan, I will not...*)that direction was in the direction of the church so evidently it is Kings college with the eveil viscious cows and even though you don't believe me I have photographic evidence and witnesses on four different occasions and on the last two you'll just have to take my word for it, but I assure you they're evil

I don't actually know any of the names of the places in Cambridge, just where they are and how to get to them and more importantly where to find the Cambridge cookies

Hmmm, it does seem unlikely that I'd be classifying Sainsburys as cool especially as it has the confusing bit when you walk in, of the randomly placed checkouts and the worlds slowest checkout assistant... well maybe not the slowest, the slowest would be the woman at the bank near us who counts out all your withdrawals in two pences and then forgets where she's got to and starts again, now she would be the slowest

Cambridge has a doomed shop? It has a fun market in the little fenced bit next to the church that always has the music sale in it (that sells really cool lightbulbs - no really they're great) but I didn't know there was doomed shop. There's a shop near Sidney Sussex, opposite the Oxfam bookshop and the man selling miniture kites (if you don't have one of those you really should get one, they're great) which constantly has a closing down sale, I think it's currently a cheap bookshop...which is/was closing down

I still can't think where the Science Park is, which side is it nearest, Hospital, Fitzwilliam, Arundal Hotel or other? When you say that the GM foods thing has been mismanaged (sorry, I'm going to have to interject with the fact that this album is brilliant, I bought some new speakers yesterday (Can you believe the transformer I needed was more expensive than the speakers?(can you have brackets within brackets? )) and so I can now hear it at a sensible volume and it's stunning, but I guess that depends if you like Bon Jovi (this is a long bracket isn't it? I wonder how long you can write in brackets for, Steven Pinkers doesn't tell you that when he's rambling about Faulkner does he? (BTW I caved and bought a new book but it's interesting so I'll have finished it by tomorrow but it does mean that my classic has been dumped unfinished (again (I'm confused now, I think I should stop it with the brackets))) What kind of music do you listen to?)(this is so complex, how many more brackets do I need, I can't cope this is too hard, aaargh)) (this should be a novel continuation ) do you mean that you're for it or against it? I.E do you think it's mismanaged because they didn't immediately stop the public fear and mass hysteria or do you mean it's mismanaged because the trials were so random, modified seeds got planted without knowledge and they never told the public about it? Or both? I go with Gm foods being a negative thing actually, having read a 200 page report by Monsanto before the mass hysteria started I can't help but feel there's so much the public aren't being told. Like no-one seems to know about the rats that were fed the modified potatoes and died or the 300 (I think) people in the US who were left with permanantly damaging diseases after eating a particular GM drug. Also I can't help but feel that no-one's evaluated the long term effects of this stuff, they've done short term studies and five year studies which are alleged to show long term effects but they don't. I think in the next 50 years things will happen that people will be able to attribute to GM foods and by then it'll be too late to do anything, IMHO.

As for medical treatment I read something really disturbing about that but I can't remember where so it's not much use. It was fairly obvious all about the fact that if the rich have early access to treatment it may become a repeat of the workhouse phenomenon where those less well off become less valued and get left to die whilst those who are rich are left to prosper and leave the poor in the gutter. French Revolution repeated, 1984 and all that kind of thing...not that I tend to take a drastic stance on these matters you understand

Errr...the laptop *looks guilty* it was a 'gift'/bribe and I never actually use it...except when my coursework was due and I went to play in Edinburgh as I could take it with me and finish it (Edinburghs great isn't it? I went up just after Christmas and stayed in this guesthouse called Roselea and because it was off season I think it was only about £20 and the rooms were huge, with four poster beds, chaise longs (o.k I can't spell that ), ensuite facilites, sky TV etc...anyway, I detract from the point. My room looked out over the castle and it started snowing and it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen...I'm rambling aren't I? ) but other than that I just keep it because...well just because Can I just make a small point too "when I went a did a little research at Harvard" You're amazing, you just dropped it into the conversation as if it was the most natural thing in the world to swan off to the most prestigius uni in the world and do a little research I told you, you should (ooh this is dodgy bizarre Walt Disney kinda song, oh wait guitars are here now ) revel in what ever it is you get to revel in as a...umm, convincing genius

It was Heffers I was thinking of and I was going to write Heffers but then I decided that it couldn't possibly be, as heffer (as well as an eveil brand of cow) is the kind of joking insult you'd use for someone who didn't share pie with you...or tipped pigs blood all over your foot...uggh, sorry, bad experience at Tescos I've worked out that Blacks is the camping shop in Sheffield where I bought my mates rucksack (that was funny, bloke assumed I had no idea what I was doing because 'hikings for blokes' and so tried to sell me a really shoddy bag because it was a 'nice colour', it was only when I asked him about taped seams and Karibina (You'd think after using them for 16 years I'd know how to spell them ) hooks that he shut up and got me a decent one ) and that Blackwells is the bookshop I was thinking of as there's one near me. Ummm, I don't live in Oxford? Where did you get that from, I'm leaving to Oxford in September but I don't live in Oxford at the minute, maybe that was it?

See, the Ford Model T in black, that's cos black dried quickly and so could be used but the other colours took about three days and so were less good. Have you seen The Italian Job? That had orange cars! ...and the most annoying ending in the history of film ever...apart from some dodgy film with a weather girl who killed everyone and then her boyfriend got locked up but I can't remember what that was called

I'm too young to remember Sale Of The Century ...darn I feel my understanding of your reference may have given away my deception My scam of the century is indeed the greatest thing ever and the estimated chance of being caught is only about 30% currently so the odds of pulling it off are looking quite good Having said that I have to get up at 4:20 am (That's as in in the morning, as in objective evidence that it appears twice in a day at times other than the British Grand Prix and Touring Car races) in order to catch a train before I get a lift with someone I know only by name into an unspecified destination before hiking across wilderness to get to final destination (aaargh, flashbacks of scary film) where my scam will be put into action...but other than that I'm sure it'll be great

I don't think curry has bacon in it either, I was just preoccupied with the thought of a bacon sandwich...or a pork sandwich or...steak mmmm *chants "quorn is nice, quorn is nice, quorn is nice"*

You'll be pleased to know that I have bought a book on the Lotus and have seen the new model and will agree it may possibly, perhaps, maybe look slightly more fun than the TVR, but only slightly and it's not as pretty so it only looks better as a performance car not as a sports car So when I've read the book (you're right to be dubious ) I'll be able to prove conclusively that the TVR is a better car...and if that fails I'll move onto the McLaren super car because you'll never be able to beat that Although I'd prefer a Mercedes S class, or a Lexus or a Subaru or a...TVR Tuscan

You did not see a yellow TVR, you were just dreaming, TVR would not stoop to building a yellow car because that would lower their greatness and that would never d

Woohoo, I never have to do work ever again...mention university and I'll mention Richard Burns and add a week on to the length of acceptable time to brag about my supreme scheming Have fun in London, although you've already gone so that's not much good but if you imagine I said that yesterday then it'll be o.k...just like you imagined the yellow TVR

Before I start I'd like to apologise for any moaning which occurs during this but I shall try and stop myself before I start so you should be protected...stupid pigs blood... and the Womble wouldn't sing Anyway, I've got the new Bon Jovi album, it's great and it provides a much welcome break from Mozart which I have been forced to listen to since my exams started

Oh yeah, I'VE FINISHED MY EXAMS!!!I'M A FREE WOMEN AND CAN FINALLY BE RELEASED INTO SOCIETY And I got the job I went for, it's at UCI so it's not particularly rewarding but I get to watch films for free and harrass small and annoying children for ID and it'll hopefully allow me to make enough money to survive for the first year at Uni...and to make up the rest of the what would have been the student grants had stupid Tony Blair and stupid Labour gov...sorry

As for the driving test, I'd like to point out that you did it again with the context of 'soon', it's soon as in some unspecified time in the near future which we're not thinking about because then it won't happen, at least that's my theory anyway

26 is not old in any context (unless maybe you're viewing it from an eight year olds perspective and then it would be) you're just moaning unnecessarily (hypocrit? Moi?). Ummm, about the Abba revival thing, the only revival I remember was the one last year where they stuck Billie (hmmph...sorry) in red trousers and then murdered several decent songs much like Kelis did at Glastonbury but I'll not start with that moan or I'll never stop To make you feel better though, you could probably even pass for 24 ish and that's even less old, virtually a teenager although that might not be preferable. Whilst we're on the subject of age I protest at being called 17, I'm a very responsible adult...*evaluates dubious claims and wonders if she can get away with it*... o.k so I'm an adult...well I'm 18 so I'm alleged to be an adult. Can an adult still buy a talking Buzz Lightyear toy? It's so cool and says "To Infinity and Beyond" and then has flashing laser effect...hmm I think that answers my question, o.k so I'm not an adult but I probably could be if I wanted to be Can't have a womble though because it didn't work...sorry

You don't have bacon in your house? Wow, if I wasn't a vegetarian I could never not have bacon, I still make people cook it just so I can smell it frying...I feel I'm weakening as a vegetarian...must be strong! And it was Orinoco...

As for the preview message button, I shall aledgedly use it with this message although I may forget in which case the &26418; things are in there on purpose...as an ironic statement...that's deeply philosophical...and meaningful...it had a red hat to

On to the Cambridge thing (*I will not moan, I will not moan, I will not...*)that direction was in the direction of the church so evidently it is Kings college with the eveil viscious cows and even though you don't believe me I have photographic evidence and witnesses on four different occasions and on the last two you'll just have to take my word for it, but I assure you they're evil

I don't actually know any of the names of the places in Cambridge, just where they are and how to get to them and more importantly where to find the Cambridge cookies

Hmmm, it does seem unlikely that I'd be classifying Sainsburys as cool especially as it has the confusing bit when you walk in, of the randomly placed checkouts and the worlds slowest checkout assistant... well maybe not the slowest, the slowest would be the woman at the bank near us who counts out all your withdrawals in two pences and then forgets where she's got to and starts again, now she would be the slowest

Cambridge has a doomed shop? It has a fun market in the little fenced bit next to the church that always has the music sale in it (that sells really cool lightbulbs - no really they're great) but I didn't know there was doomed shop. There's a shop near Sidney Sussex, opposite the Oxfam bookshop and the man selling miniture kites (if you don't have one of those you really should get one, they're great) which constantly has a closing down sale, I think it's currently a cheap bookshop...which is/was closing down

I still can't think where the Science Park is, which side is it nearest, Hospital, Fitzwilliam, Arundal Hotel or other? When you say that the GM foods thing has been mismanaged (sorry, I'm going to have to interject with the fact that this album is brilliant, I bought some new speakers yesterday (Can you believe the transformer I needed was more expensive than the speakers?(can you have brackets within brackets? )) and so I can now hear it at a sensible volume and it's stunning, but I guess that depends if you like Bon Jovi (this is a long bracket isn't it? I wonder how long you can write in brackets for, Steven Pinkers doesn't tell you that when he's rambling about Faulkner does he? (BTW I caved and bought a new book but it's interesting so I'll have finished it by tomorrow but it does mean that my classic has been dumped unfinished (again (I'm confused now, I think I should stop it with the brackets))) What kind of music do you listen to?)(this is so complex, how many more brackets do I need, I can't cope this is too hard, aaargh)) (this should be a novel continuation ) do you mean that you're for it or against it? I.E do you think it's mismanaged because they didn't immediately stop the public fear and mass hysteria or do you mean it's mismanaged because the trials were so random, modified seeds got planted without knowledge and they never told the public about it? Or both? I go with Gm foods being a negative thing actually, having read a 200 page report by Monsanto before the mass hysteria started I can't help but feel there's so much the public aren't being told. Like no-one seems to know about the rats that were fed the modified potatoes and died or the 300 (I think) people in the US who were left with permanantly damaging diseases after eating a particular GM drug. Also I can't help but feel that no-one's evaluated the long term effects of this stuff, they've done short term studies and five year studies which are alleged to show long term effects but they don't. I think in the next 50 years things will happen that people will be able to attribute to GM foods and by then it'll be too late to do anything, IMHO.

As for medical treatment I read something really disturbing about that but I can't remember where so it's not much use. It was fairly obvious all about the fact that if the rich have early access to treatment it may become a repeat of the workhouse phenomenon where those less well off become less valued and get left to die whilst those who are rich are left to prosper and leave the poor in the gutter. French Revolution repeated, 1984 and all that kind of thing...not that I tend to take a drastic stance on these matters you understand

Errr...the laptop *looks guilty* it was a 'gift'/bribe and I never actually use it...except when my coursework was due and I went to play in Edinburgh as I could take it with me and finish it (Edinburghs great isn't it? I went up just after Christmas and stayed in this guesthouse called Roselea and because it was off season I think it was only about £20 and the rooms were huge, with four poster beds, chaise longs (o.k I can't spell that ), ensuite facilites, sky TV etc...anyway, I detract from the point. My room looked out over the castle and it started snowing and it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen...I'm rambling aren't I? ) but other than that I just keep it because...well just because Can I just make a small point too "when I went a did a little research at Harvard" You're amazing, you just dropped it into the conversation as if it was the most natural thing in the world to swan off to the most prestigius uni in the world and do a little research I told you, you should (ooh this is dodgy bizarre Walt Disney kinda song, oh wait guitars are here now ) revel in what ever it is you get to revel in as a...umm, convincing genius

It was Heffers I was thinking of and I was going to write Heffers but then I decided that it couldn't possibly be, as heffer (as well as an eveil brand of cow) is the kind of joking insult you'd use for someone who didn't share pie with you...or tipped pigs blood all over your foot...uggh, sorry, bad experience at Tescos I've worked out that Blacks is the camping shop in Sheffield where I bought my mates rucksack (that was funny, bloke assumed I had no idea what I was doing because 'hikings for blokes' and so tried to sell me a really shoddy bag because it was a 'nice colour', it was only when I asked him about taped seams and Karibina (You'd think after using them for 16 years I'd know how to spell them ) hooks that he shut up and got me a decent one ) and that Blackwells is the bookshop I was thinking of as there's one near me. Ummm, I don't live in Oxford? Where did you get that from, I'm leaving to Oxford in September but I don't live in Oxford at the minute, maybe that was it?

See, the Ford Model T in black, that's cos black dried quickly and so could be used but the other colours took about three days and so were less good. Have you seen The Italian Job? That had orange cars! ...and the most annoying ending in the history of film ever...apart from some dodgy film with a weather girl who killed everyone and then her boyfriend got locked up but I can't remember what that was called

I'm too young to remember Sale Of The Century ...darn I feel my understanding of your reference may have given away my deception My scam of the century is indeed the greatest thing ever and the estimated chance of being caught is only about 30% currently so the odds of pulling it off are looking quite good Having said that I have to get up at 4:20 am (That's as in in the morning, as in objective evidence that it appears twice in a day at times other than the British Grand Prix and Touring Car races) in order to catch a train before I get a lift with someone I know only by name into an unspecified destination before hiking across wilderness to get to final destination (aaargh, flashbacks of scary film) where my scam will be put into action...but other than that I'm sure it'll be great

I don't think curry has bacon in it either, I was just preoccupied with the thought of a bacon sandwich...or a pork sandwich or...steak mmmm *chants "quorn is nice, quorn is nice, quorn is nice"*

You'll be pleased to know that I have bought a book on the Lotus and have seen the new model and will agree it may possibly, perhaps, maybe look slightly more fun than the TVR, but only slightly and it's not as pretty so it only looks better as a performance car not as a sports car So when I've read the book (you're right to be dubious ) I'll be able to prove conclusively that the TVR is a better car...and if that fails I'll move onto the McLaren super car because you'll never be able to beat that Although I'd prefer a Mercedes S class, or a Lexus or a Subaru or a...TVR Tuscan

You did not see a yellow TVR, you were just dreaming, TVR would not stoop to building a yellow car because that would lower their greatness and that would never d

Woohoo, I never have to do work ever again...mention university and I'll mention Richard Burns and add a week on to the length of acceptable time to brag about my supreme scheming Have fun in London, although you've already gone so that's not much good but if you imagine I said that yesterday then it'll be o.k...just like you imagined the yellow TVR

Pigs blood?!!? Hmm!

Ah! Summer jobs! I worked for Mars Electronics between school and University. Yes they're the same group that make Mars bars, but this is the bit that makes coin validation units - every time you buy a ticket in the London Underground you're using one of Mars' bits of kit. Anyway, they gave me the fun job of taking an example of every coin in circulation in the world, and a good few that have long been out of circulation (a couple of filing cabinets full of coins basically), and measuring all of them... Weighing, testing resistivity, dimensions, design, induction characteristics. A few thousand times over. I developed a temporary hatred for the Baht (the Thai currency) and the Thai royal family: the royals are really popular in Thailand, and every time anything at all happens they issue a coin to celebrate it. There was a coin issued just because some none-too-direct relation of the king's had got into college! I spent a whole week along on their currency! (I quite liked Thailand when I went there though...)

26 is clearly so old as to be one stage away from 'grandparent' to most 8 year olds. I suppose it's things like the fact that shortly after I went to college, I saw a film that ended up making it clear to me that I had a clear knowledge of about a decade of history. (The opening credits were over a song that had first been released when I was beginning to become aware of pop music, and started from Maggie Thatcher's election in 1979 (the earliest bit of UK policitical history that I can actually remember happening) and ran through to the current day (1991 I think) with a series of striking images from across the years - some from popular culture, and some things like the iron wall being destroyed. I remembered every single one of them.) This frightened me as I'd previously got used to the idea that history was basically either stuff that happened before I was born, or stuff I was too young to remember. But suddenly I realised I had an entire decade of lucid context. That suddenly made me feel quite old (being, what, all of 18 at the time!) And here I am the best part of a decade further on, feeling *really* old!

Billie? Pah! Just the other day, surely? OK I was pretty young when Abba were still releasing new material, but I certainly remember it. Bjorn Again are an Abba impersonation group (from Australia - home of the highly-accomplished tribute band, mostly because most western pop musicians can't be arsed to go as far as Austrilia on their tours) who suddenly became very popular in the early 90s and Erasure (heard of them?) cashed on in this by releasing an Abba tribute record of their own called Abbaesque. Bjorn Again then released a record called Erasureish... (Which was actually rather better than Erasure's effort, but I digress.) There has recently been another briefer Abba revival. Surely you must understand how this makes me feel old - not only do I remember the original, but I also remember the revival before the current one!

(At least I've not quite got to the point where I've heard *everything* at least twice over. But it can't be long before there are cover groups playing Nirvana tracks to people who've never heard of Curt Kobain...)

Well I'm pleased I could pass for 24 online... You might change your mind if you actually met me. Hard to tell though - you now know how old I really am. People who've not known my age have *always* overestimed. This used to be a good thing - it means I've never been asked for ID in a pub, even when I was 13! But when people think I'm over 30, that's less good... (Usually. Occasionally it's useful in my work for people to presume that I'm older than I am. But mostly it's just upsetting!)

And yes, an adult can still buy a Buzz Lightyear toy. I bought one for a friend of mine (who's slightly older than me) last Christmas, so there!

One of the reasons I don't have bacon in my house is that whenever I do, I tend to eat it.

So what's your cookie store of choice in Cambridge? I've not found one to rival the sadly defunct Ben's Cookies so far. (Although I'm on a diet, so maybe you shouldn't tell me...)

Strangely I don't have a miniature kite! How would that be useful?

The Science Park is in one of those bits of Cambridge you wouldn't know existed without living here! (And most of the students have no idea where it is either, being barely aware that there's anything of Cambridge other than the historic centre. ) It's way out North, practically in Milton. Strictly speaking it's in Chesterton, only that's now merged into the rest of Cambridge. If you picture Cambridge on the map, you've got the M11 running more or less N-S to the left of town, and this intersects with the A14 which runs more or less E-W along the Northernmost edge of the town. If you then take a line from the middle of Cambridge and connect it with Ely (i.e. go more or less due North) then the place where this hits the A14 is a good 200yds North of where the Science Park is. It's about as inconvenient a place as it can be relative to the station. (There is actually a station right by the Science Park, but Dr. Beeching thoughtfully closed it down a few years back.) Alternatively walk along the river heading roughly North and then bear left when you get to The Green Dragon pub. Or better still drop in at The Green Dragon for a swift pint then stay there until closing time.

GM foods... Well I think certain companies were pretty reckless. But I also think the issue is misunderstood - I don't believe there is anything intrinsically evil with GM per se. People talk about it like it's something you can test for - like there's some equivalent to litmus paper which you can dunk into an organism and find out whether it's GM or not. This makes no sense - genetic modification is part and parcel of how we reproduce, so artificial attempts at it will not necessarily be measureably distinct from what nature does. The fact that certain experiments have shown certain GM strains to be poisonous shouldn't come as any shock - you can breed poisonous characteristics into vegetables the more traditional way too - breeding is somewhat more laborious, but it's still deliberately meddling with genetics, and it's something we've been doing for millenia.

That said, I'm doing my usual trick of trying to see both sides of the debate, and having done one I'll now swap and do the other. We don't understand everything about DNA. We don't know how our attempts might differ in their consequences. There's no reason to suppose that they'll be any different from nature's own dicing with DNA, but the fact remains that we don't know. I think the right thing to do would have been to leave this in the laboratories for a good few years to come, but this isn't what's happened - loads of GM strains of one kind or another are already out there. This shouldn't have happened but it did.

If you're having a hard time working out whether I'm for it or against it, this means that I've probably done a good job of explaining my position. I have a fairly complex point of view on the subject, and any attempt to characterise it as 'pro GM' or 'anti GM' would be misrepresentation. There are horror stories you can point to that centre around GM. But what about disasters that can be averted with it - famines we can avoid? If you think food tragedies are unique to GM, ask any patriotic Irish person what's the first thing that comes to mind when you mention trouble with potatoes. (You might want to choose your Irish person carefully if you don't want to be punched though.)

The human race has a very long history of trying to exploit its new discoveries long before it understands them. The way we discover the pitfalls of any new technology is through experience rather than experimentation in most cases. I thing it's unfortunate but it seems to be human nature. I think we rushed in with GM foods but it doesn't surprise me. It doesn't worry me unduly. (I find antibiotic resistance plus the way some people take antibiotics like they were smarties considerably more worrying for instance.) As you say in 50 years it will be impossible to tell what is the result of GM foods and what isn't just as it's impossible to tell whether the relatively high rates of cancer in western society are because of the level of artificial hormones in the food, the pollution levels, eating too much fat, not getting enough sleep, living too near power lines, using the wrong kind of washing up liquid, or the increasing effectiveness of medical treatment of formerly fatal ailments that raising the profile of cancer because everyone has to die of something. We just don't know. I think GM food is in the public spotlight at the moment, but I don't think it is necessarily any more worrying than any of those things I just listed with the possible exception of medical technology which is probably a good thing, on balance.

Anyway, I could go on like this all day. In brief, as a race, we like to poison ourselves in exchange for short term benefits, end of story...

As for workhouses, and so on... Well some people do live in the gutter, but thankfully far fewer than did a century ago (or even a decade and a half ago), and there are plenty of organisations you can offer pecuniary or pragmatic help to if you want to make a difference. There's still substantial progress to be made, but things are improving all the time. And the reason I don't think we're likely to see a total about face is that the media work very differently now compared to how they worked in in the times of the French Revolution. Homelessness is an important political issue, and if there were any sudden increases, it would become big news, and the government would have little option but to act. A return to workhouses would require total apathy from the press, which I suspect wouldn't happen because they're aware how much of the population have strong feelings about this, and strong feelings make good copy... (OK, I'm getting ultra cynical again; maybe the journalists have feelings too. Possibly.) I think workhouses are the product of an out of sight out of mind mentality. But these days you'd get a film crew in there, and a scandalous documentary. I don't think any serious politician believes they'd get away with a move in that direction. I hope.

Bits of 1984 may be coming true though... Newlabour speak... And more seriously universal surveilance. I was relieved to see that the government have finally backed down on their frankly outrageous Regulation of Investigatory Powers bill (the aptly named RIP bill). How much remains to be seen - this government have shown themselves to be big on statements and gestures but rather lacking in principal and substance. I expect they'll try and lever stuff in through the back door.

Anyway, I should stop talking about this kind of thing. I'm terrible at making my position clear in writing because I see hardly any political issues in black and white, and an unfortunate upshot of this seems to be that trying to write opinions down leads to a result that has something for everyone to hate.

Edinburgh's great isn't it? I went there in January of last year for a weekend, and had gorgeous sunshine, rain, snow, ice, sleet and fog - the weather seemed to change every half an hour. And whilst it's less inspiring in the rain or fog, it's just such a lovely town. I particularly like having the mountains right by! Must go back there some time.

OK, you caught me name dropping. Or rather institution name dropping. My 'little bit of research at Harvard' was just a trip to the library. They had a document I was interested in that isn't available anywhere else. Don't get the idea that I was doing a research fellowship there or anything. I happened to be working in Boston, so I arranged to turn up a day early so I could visit their library.

Sorry, my thinking you lived in Oxford was just the result of misreading one of your earlier messages. I do apologise.

The main cars I remember from The Italian Job were the minis of course... How can you not like the ending? It's a classic! Incidentally I've driven along the mountain pass where that was filmed in my Elise.

Your scam gets both more bewildering and more intruiging by the minute!

You bought a book on Lotus? Which one? Most of the ones I've seen around are about classic Lotuses.

So you're pitting my Lotus against a McLaren F1 now? Hmm... I guess my only way out of that is to say name the date and the track, and I'll be there in my car... (Doubtless you'd just use your extensive contacts in the motorsport industry and actually turn up in an F1 though...)

So you never have to do work again? Apart from this job you've just taken of course... University's the fun bit! Anyway, where are you going and what are you reading?

And finally, I suggest you look at the following.
[Broken link removed by Moderator]

Have you noticed how slow this site is getting by the way? It took me 20 minutes to get here and I gave up after half an hour of trying to get into the Forum and Firkin, I think I'm going to have to part with money and fit a quicker modem I hate spending money on useful things, toys are so much more fun to buy (I'm going to get that stupid womble and make it sing if it kills me in the process )

The pigs blood should perhaps be explained or else you may become worried about possible sacrificial tendencies I bought a CD at Tesco's and had to take the box to the desk to collect it but then this woman in front was carrying this box full of slushy brown liquid. She handed it over to the woman at the counter but in doing so tipped it up and split it everywhere in a huge waterfall type motion all over my feet, the floor, my legs etc. She then went oops and offered me a hand wipe! I thought hmmm, smells quite strong this, wonder what it is, must just be hair dye, smell gets worse, the woman behind the counter decides she'll scan the bar code to process a refund and once more tips it up so once more it goes everywhere. It's only when I manage to read the receipt and it says Pigs Liver that I really start to gag at the realisation that having been a vegetarian for three years I am stood in a pool of pigs blood with rotting pigs liver all over my trainers. The words eew and aaaaaaaaaaaargh sprang to mind especially when the helpful customer service woman said, is there a little dribble on the floor, don't step in it will you, would you like a tissue! I then stand employing Freudian repression techniques, grab my CD and run out to the car squealing in horror. Anyway, you get the picture, it wasn't nice, I'd had a bad day and it didn't make things any better hence restrained attempts to moan in yesterdays message

That's clever I've written 27 lines in response to three words, will my amazing waffling skills never cease

Hmmmm, your summer job sounds fun, quite like my work experience at a graphic design company where I was left folding and packaging t-shirts for a week Still, it provides me with an excuse for screwed up clothes on my floor though...possibly...again that's my logic working I feel

Lol You did it again, surely it must be intentional " I quite liked Thailand when I was there though". Honestly this calls for serious retaliation you are now going to have about four weeks of me going "did I tell you about the day I went to...and did...and met...and how much fun it was" (feel free to add in the option of "...and got caught by security...and was forcibly removed..." )
Demonstrating a more pleasant side to my personality, wow you went to Thailand! Most impressed, was it a business or pleasure trip? How much did you get to see? My Dad can bluff about when he went to Kuwait/Israel/Prague etc but because he was working he only got to see from the hotel to offices and back again and that was at about 5am which is why I ask how much you saw

Anyway, my scam is not bewildering it's just that if I tell you more about it then it is likely to become jinxed and then won't work and then I'd have to sulk for weeks and that wouldn't be a good thing Instead you have me bouncing in excitement as there's only ...19 days to go, bounce bounce, bounce (ooh that reminds me can you be an adult with a bouncing Tigger? Its so good, it leaps about and goes " Heheehehe bouncings what Tiggers do best". I also have a laughing cow which is much more manic but is of a similar high standard ), but bouncing has to be better than sulking or moaning about pigs blood...and wombles This is going to be so hard to follow I've merged many things into one large blob (oh for goodness sake why's the virus checker started, I know its efficient but this is absurd *randomly pushes buttons in the vain hope that it stops* ) of irrelevancy.

Why stop at grandparent? To an 8 year old 26 is probably great grand parent region Whilst we're talking about your age whats the "being what all of 18 at the time", I thought we decided (well I did) that I was able to qualify as an responsibleish adult despite the Buzz Lightyear toy? Although I suppose that didn't take into account the life size Darth Maul double ended Light Saber with noises? I didn't buy that though, actually I didn't buy the cow either..or the Tigger...or the life size Spike (Rugrats, V.Good), hey this is just a conspiracy to make me seem juvenile and foolish!Hmmm me thinks it works What golden oldie song was it by the way, I have the Music of The Millenium CD and it's great it has the "Hey Mrs Robinson, Kevin holds a plaice for you and all your brie, peas Mrs Robinson, cheeses love you more than you could know". And it has "Out on the whilly, windy moors we roll and fall in brie, you had a temper like my jelly seat, too hard too greedy...bad dreams in the night, you told me I had to go for the light...Oooh heathcliffe, it's me I've got brie can I come home now, so cold I can't eat anymore...noooo...Heathcliffe, I've got Brie can I come home now... I'll find the nuts, I don't mind the lumps, let me have brie, let me have it to my self, my one dream, I'll bring the mustard...Oooh, let me have brie, let me grate it with soul, you stole the brie can't eat, Heathcliffe!" Sorry, got carried away What was I talking about errr, oh yeah do you realise your earliest political memory occured before I was even born? My earliest political memory is about three weeks ago when I got talked into joining the young Lib Dems...still not entirely sure how it happened but the bloke was nice and I couldn't really say n Anyway, if you want to feel old, get someone to send a video you've never seen of yourself from when you were six, still with ringlets and frills, and were angelically being swung round in the air by your uncle and pushing a pram containing a new born baby who is now 13 and starting secondary school, that makes you feel old... It is quite funny though, I tried to feed this baby a leaf (I didn't realise it was being filmed) and then when I got caught I stood looking innocent and attempted to claim that she'd got it herself because she was hungry

It's nice to hear you share the same reaction to me with Billie although the official response is :P You ask me if I've heard of Erasure? You really have lost the grasp of how old 18 is haven't you Of course I've heard of Erasure and not just from hearing them on radio two either I've probably still got their stuff on tapes somewhere although Bros and NKOTB were much better Oh and I have the original Kylie album which taught me the basis of my french skills I do know who Bjorn Again are too, I just don't remember their revival although I would have been at the right age for the Jason Donovan era so I probably just tuned them out Never went to a Take That concert though...Boyzone possibly but Take That never *thinks, hmmm still have album somewhere...and magazine...and t-shirt...* As for remembering them from the first time I remember space hoppers from last time round, does that count? No thought not

As for the Nirvana thing, did you never see Take That's failed attempt to do Smells Like Teen Spirit to a crowd of 8 year olds or worse still Kelis's, oh so poor attempt to cover it as Glastonbury last weekend? You should think yourself lucky that you didn't is all I can say, completely trashed it! Was an abomination

For the record I didn't exactly say that you could pass for 24 online but seen as how it pleased you I'll not bother to challenge it How can you look 30? What does a 30 year old look like, surely they would be very similar to a 27 year old which you decided could be 26 anyway so you should have no complaints When you say you weren't asked for id when you were 13 does that mean you looked 30 then because that would be upsetting Besides you said I was 17 which is more upsetting because 18 and 2 months is so much older than 17...

What's wrong with eating bacon? (said by a vegetarian that's quite funny) bacons great and so very versatile...like waffles, waffles are versatile too as is quorn...it's just not as nice as bacon

The cookie store of choice in Cambridge is the one almost opposite but along a bit to the t.shirt printing shop which is near the bridge which is near the two charity shops on the hill down from Fitzwilliam multistorey car park. See it's all clear now isn't it? Actually its more of a food shop but it sells cookies too and it sells chinese food which is lovely and even better food for vegetables like me which is useful because not many places sell anything other than a cheese sandwich but that's entirely irrelevant to the cookies and makes this a really long sentence so I'll stop... Besides you'll never be able to find a better cookie shop than Bens Cookies so you might as well give up, I've never understood how they get them to stay gooey in the middle, mmmmmm white chocolate cookie...must go to Oxford...do you think the market hall is still open at 11pm? Still, I shall be going near to Oxford on my scam of the the century so I may have to stock pile them which will make the day even more exciting

What do you mean how would a miniature kite be useful? It doesn't have to be useful to be great its just miniature and kite like.However, if something has to be useful for you to appreciate it then contemplate the plight of the tiny ant, running back to it's home to it's starving baby ants, dragging the vital food, the only food remaining in the valley of ants, but then oh no! Huge elephant has seen poor tiny ant, occupied in its selfless act of kindness, and starts trampling towards said tiny ant, running, stomping, striking fear into the heart of little Annie Ant, creating a fearsome scene so scary it will undoubtedly become a folk tale for generations of ants to come. Little Annie is running, but weighed down by the life giving food and disorientated by her own hunger and fear she runs in the wrong direction, away from the small dust mound which has become her haven of safety and only home, and becomes trapped at the edge of a huge cliff face. The choice is for her to fall to her doom and be eaten by the hungry crocodiles in the raging rapids at the bottom of the chasm or to be crushed in a tortuorous death by the viscious elephant, either way her baby ants, alfie, annabel, and angelica will die from starvation but only after wandering lost in the wilderness desperately searching for their mother. But oh, whats this, there's Ian stood playing with his kite, and the string's just long enough for little Annie to grab with one foot whilst clinging onto the food she so valiantly collected. As the kite blows past, Annie makes one last leap to survive and grabs the kite, flying to safety and the welcoming legs of her tiny children. Disaster is averted, baby ants are saved and Queen Annie is so eternally grateful to the man who saved the life of her colony that he becomes a mythical legend of worship for ants throughout the world...It's obvious when you think about it

Errr, trouble with potatoes? That'd be the roots that appear if you leave them in a light place during storage I don't know any Irish people although if my scam is pulled off I'm likely to meet two of them...sorry, it's 1 hour away from July which makes it nearly time for my trip which means I'm getting more excited

I think I'm going to give up on the science park on the grounds that the idea of the pub sounds better, but I don't drink pints so I'll have to make do with several halfs instead The pub round the back of Sidney Sussex looks fun anyway, I've never been but from the bedroom window it looks good and has flashy lights and stuff. Although I didn't want to be there so anything other than where I was would've looked fun at the time...even Sainsburys

Hmmm, I think you said everything there is to say about GM foods but I have to say you seem to come down slightly more on the side of pro-GM than anti-GM but maybe that's just because you were trying to convince me...so shouldn't have done psychology it's made me into the kind of person who analyses everything. When I went camping the other week, Dave (the duck) was trying to steal our brioche but we kept shouting at him so then he started scratching his ear when we moved him which I maintain was a displacement activity because of his two conflicting drives for food and survival...apparantly I was over analysing it

As for the workhouse thing, I wasn't saying that that was what I thought just that that was what the article I read said. I thought it was slightly drastic but that it was an interesting viewpoint. I don't know about your opinions on journalism though because having studied media for two years I've noticed many things which have been covered in an extremely subjective manner and which otherwise would have caused a public outcry. The most noticable example being some of the political propaganda from both our country and others and the stance which journalists take when depicting the plight of other countries.From what I've seen I wouldn't be so certain about documentarys being made, if it showed up the government I'd expect the opposite in that it'd just be covered up and ignored. You just have to look at the US to see how easy it is.

As for finding a bit of your opinion to hate, it all seems pretty reasoned to me although I have just deleted a large chunk of what I wrote so I understand what you mean about offending others opinions. It's a lot easier to be opinionated if you know how the other person feels on a subject so just for the record, if my opinions on stuff seem a little standard and weak it's probably just because I've missed anything out which could possibly be seen as offensive to anyone, anywhere as I have the biggest conscience in the world and would just worry about inadvertantly insulting you.

I think I'm going to go back up to Edinburgh soon, my gran lives nearby so I'll be able to go on the way. I was going to go to Uni there and got accepted but then when they invited me up to talk to the lecturers I didn't actually like it. It was weird, the uni was too integrated and you just wondered up the hill past all the shops and then you were stood amongst all the blocks. Very strange. As for the mountains thats why I like living in Derbyshire because you're v.close to hills (I won't even pretend they're mountains, I think the highest one we have is Kinder Scout and I walked up that in the snow when I was about 5 so it's not exactly taxing ) and so can just wander off and go walking whenever you like...or canoeing which is also good round here, there's some great rapids on the way to Matlock.The climbings good too as we have Stanage edge which is fun but I'd done most of them by the time I was 10 so it's a bit dull just taking harder routes up stuff all the time. The best place for climbing is Bingham Rocks but that's millions of miles away so I hardly ever get to go there. This is all completely irrelevant isn't it? Oh well you started it by mentioning mountains, its one of the few key words which shouldn't be mentioned like bacon or Blade Runner or F1 but that's not so bad because you have an interest, for everyone else it's annoying

O.k I'm going to have to pick you up on this again, I have no idea if you're doing this on purpose but the Harvard bit was cool enough to start with but then adding that you went all the way for a document because you just happened to be in Boston...do you realise it sounds so impressive or are you really doing it by accident? I'm just going to have to keep chanting Richard Burns I think, I considered using my maths trophy but on the grounds that it was just a bribe to get me to do A-Level maths and you seem to have done mathmatically based things at Cambridge I decided against it and stuck with Richard Burns (which is always a good thing to d ).

Oh yeah and on a similar subject :P because you've been to Italy and it's somewhere I've always wanted to go. How can you not think the Italian job has an annoying ending? It might be a classic but it's too ambiguous for me to cope with and just leaves me sitting muttering for hours on end (much like eXistenZ which you should really see if you haven't already because it's brilliant but very ambiguous and may annoy you )about the fact that a final equilibrium was never formed and the hero was never exposed as a fake with a new hero created (Propp and Todorov, revised for yesterdays exam, wasn't needed so is going to be used to justify hours of revision )

The book I bought is "Lotus The Leg End" but I saw the picture in Autocar because I don't think the book's modern enough to have it in, I'll just check...*ooh that's nice what is it...Lotus 1997 GT1, hmmm 550bhp, darn my argument has been destroyed, blimey what were they thinking with the Carlton/Omega*...nope it's not in there. However, I did notice that I already own Clarkons Hot 100 and Performance Cars which do have a Lotus Sport but it's not the one I saw but it does have my (ooh, many dependent clauses, Pinker could have a field day with this ) TVR and it's in chromaflair. Hmmm, I shall now turn to Clarksons book for some interesting quotes which can not be challenged because they've been said by Clarkson and he's never wrong, don't delude me, please . Right we'll start with this which seems to be quite a good one " It shares much in common with today's Formula 1 racers...I took this...to a runway and raced it against an Aston Martin Vantage, a Dodge Viper, a Caterham JPE, A Lotus Esprit V8 (you see where this is going don't you ) and a Porsche Turbo, to see which could get from rest to a point a mile away in the quickest time. And it was a joke. The Porsche made a bit of a fight but the Cerbera just walked all over it covering the distance, unbelievably,in under thirty seconds.", "I'll be admiring the interior, which quite frankly is in a clas of it's own". I could go on, but I choose not to as my point may become lost, anyway now for the Elise " When I first heard that Lotus was planning to build an all new sports car, I laughed so much that I burst", O.K so I'll conceed that that's the only negative comment and the rest might possibly say it's the best drivers car in the world ever but you don't have the book so you can't know that My argument seems to have fallen flat, hence forth I shall deny ever having said anything on the subject and declare you dreamt it all

You can't possibly expect to beat me in my McLaren F1...which I own...and can drive...darn hmmm...*thinks* I don't know anyone at McLaren I only have contacts at BAR, Jaguar and Ferrari O.K so I have contacts with Jaguar but I have contacts with contacts at BAR and Ferrari so it's similar...ish

You're not allowed to mention the U word because I don't want to spend another four years doing work...which obviously I'm not going to because I refuse to acknowledge it As for where I'd be going if I were to possibly be doing work at some stage it'd be *mumbles unintelligably* (not saying due to laughter which will ensue, and don't say you wouldn't because even my best mate keeps quietly chuckling to herself ) to read English

Where did you find all those faked pictures of yellow TVR's? It has to be said they've done a good job with airbrushing them all yellow, clearly the high quality chromaflair doesn't scan too well so they had to change it

Anyway, I have to go and read an annual financial review, why do they make the information for shareholders so dull and complicated?

I think the speed of the site is more down to problems either at h2g2 towers, or somewhere in the bits of the internet between you and them, so I wouldn't rush out to upgrade your modem just yet - you might be disappointed. (On Friday I was doing some work at a company which has a 512kb Internet connection - about 10x faster than the fastest modem you can buy. h2g2 was terribly slow. I think that's just because the time I was accessing it was one of their busy times. All the other sites I was looking at were coming up nice and fast.)

Packaging T-shirts? I can see how they would have thought that this would be a valuable learning exercise for someone doing work experience...

Thailand was a pleasure trip. I went just after leaving college. (Due to getting slightly overzealous with working during the holidays I actually ended up with a positive bank balance when I graduated, so I thought I'd better go out and spend it on a holiday and a car. This was 6 years ago, and I've been overdrawn ever since!) I went for 4 weeks with someone who was my girlfriend at the time. (Since then, some 4 years after we split up, she is behaving more like a stalker, which is a bit distressing.) I spent a while in Bangkok, went to a Thai cooking school for a couple of days, then went up into the mountains and spent half a week in the jungle getting bitten by all sorts of unpleasant things. Then we went down to Ko Samui. (I think this is one of the islands that the main character in The Beach goes to. When we went there it had already been fairly heavily touristified, but only one side of the island had been completely westernised; we ended up getting a gorgeous stretch of beach which we only had to share with about 4 other people, whereas when we went to look at the other side of the island, the beaches were absolutely heaving.) Then we came back to Bangkok for a little longer and then went home.

Can you be an adult with a bouncing Tigger? Well I don't have one, but a friend of mine from college has one, and she's 28! So I think that's allowed. How come you have a laughing cow if you think they're so sinister? Or is that *why* you think they're so sinister?

So now I'm in the "great grandparent region"? Way to make me feel good about my age... Anyway the "what, all of 18" comment was just that I don't think it's normal to regard 18 as being really old... And I'd be v. jealous if you had a Darth Maul light sabre - I really want one. The company I was working for a couple of years ago in London not only had *two* light sabres (well you have to!) but it also had a full-sized cutout of Darth Vader!

I always wondered what the words in Wuthering Heights were, so thanks for that!

And yes, I had already worked out that you weren't even born at the time of my earliest policitcal memory - this is precisely the kind of thing that makes me feel very old! So does the fact that I'm too old for anyone to have a video of me when I was six - that would have been 1979-1980, and the only people with video cameras worked for television companies; it was all cine cameras in my day! (I can remember when this was all fields etc.) I'm also fairly confident that there's no footage of me with ringlets! (And if there were any newborn babies on footage of me aged 6, they'd be, well, slightly older than you!)

As for Erasure, I lost track of them in the early '90s, so I wasn't sure if anyone had still heard of them... And I have clearly lost track of what it's like to be 18 - when I was 18 *nobody* would have admitted to having even *heard* of Radio 2, let alone the possibility that they might have listened to it. (Radio 2 is, for me, this channel that my mum listens to...)

Anyway, my life is clearly over - crappy covers of Nirvana tracks have already happened so the circle is complete: we have cover versions of songs that first came out at a time when other songs were being covered that I was old enough to remember the first release of. If that makes any sense... I might as well go out and buy some slippers, a pipe and a cardigan and give up now!

Well you did say "you could probably even pass for 24 ish", and since as far as I know you've only met me online, I don't see what's wrong with the claim that you said that I could pass for 24 online... So I don't understand now. I'm not sure if it's that I look 30, or just come across as being older in my demeanour. As for my appearance, I think my hairline's receding a bit, although it's always been pretty high and it might be that I'm just more sensitive about it these days... Plenty of people my age have a lot less hair, certainly, so I don't think it can be that. It may also be the amount of stuff I've done - I get bored staying in one place for too long, so I've got myself into a career where I get to move about all the time, I've lived in quite a few different places, and even outside of the UK, and have a tendency to mention things like dropping into Harvard when I'm in Boston. So people tend to add a few years onto their estimate of my age, rather than realising that I just pack a lot in!

But I'm pretty sure I didn't look 30 when I was 13. I suspect that in practice it's just that a lot of pubs don't particularly care about underage drinking. But in general I've always had people guess that I'm 3 or 4 years older than I am.

I do like bacon. Too much. Those tango adverts were aimed directly at me. (The ones with the picture of some frying bacon, and the caption "Diet Tango. You need it because you are WEAK!") Waffles are indeed waffly versatile. (That's actually an incredibly ancient advert... I couldn't believe it when they wheeled it out again. That and the Fry's Turkish delight one. These people are mocking me!)

OK, so the cookie shop is on Castle Hill near Magdelene Bridge? I shall have a look next time I'm in town. Maybe. Although I'm on a diet, so maybe I won't.

Re: miniature kites. All becomes clear. Silly of me not to have thought of that really.

The trouble with potatoes was the blight that caused the Irish potato famine, which decimated the population of Ireland a while back. I forget the exact date, but it's well over a century ago. A lot of Irish people still hold the English accountable though.

We're now a day and a half into July. How's the scam going?

Believe me, the pub is definitely better than the Science Park. It's on the river too, so ducks are not out of the question. (Ducks, if I remember correctly, being the sole attractive feature of the science park that led to me mentioning it in the first place.)

I'm not sure that I come down so much on the pro-GM side, as not coming down on the anti-GM side, which is subtly different...honest. In general I dislike scaremongering based on a misunderstanding of the issues - GM foods being the latest in the line which includes stuff like BSE (you're more likely to die of the flu), and the salmonella chicken thing. The annoying thing is that there *are* risks, but the magnitude of those risks is totally misunderstood - you get mass hysteria followed by the inevitable massive outpouring of public money which could have been far better spent actually saving people's lives in areas such as improved funding for hospitals... I think it's particularly dangerous with GM food because it's lead to this polarisation of anti-GM (fronted by people who apparently don't care about understanding the issue) and pro-GM (the food companies mostly, who are all to aware that there's now no point in presenting their case rationally because the self-appointed spokespersons for the anti-GM lobby won't listen anyway, and so the food companies may as well just press on and do what they want). Wilful ignorance just reduces debate to mud slinging, and the pro-GM bunch appear to have taken this as a license to ignore the debate. For that reason I don't identify myself as either pro- or anti-GM. I think some of the pro-GM lot have taken unnecessary risks in introducing these things into the environment so early. (And I'm thinking of the Americans in particular - they'd been farming this stuff for years before the debate even started in this country, and AFAIK there wasn't really any public discussion over there.) I'm aware by the way that my characterisation of the anti-GM lobby does not represent a complete cross-section, and that there are plenty of reasonable anti-GM people. But I fear these are not the ones getting the attention.

So, why do you suppose doing psychology has made you into the kind of person who analyses everything? How do you feel about that?

OK, my opinions on journalism are (surprise surprise) more complex than I represented them as being in that paragraph... I think in the particular case of workhouses, what I said stands - journalists seem (to me) to love the opportunity to point a camera into a scene showing squalid conditions and to demonstrate their compassion by saying how terrible this is. But I don't see journalism as a universal panacea for all social ills, and didn't mean to give that impression. I see it as an important component of democratic accountability, but I don't believe everything I see in the papers or on TV... Contemporary journalism is just the same as any historical document - it cannot be taken literally, but must be interpretted in the light of the environment from which it arose. (But I'll shut up now as you have evidently studied the media, whereas I am a mere consumer!)

Don't worry about insulting me - I've got a reasonably thick skin. But be warned that I tend to hold my ground when someone disagrees with me. Not that I'm not open to having my mind changed, it's just that I really make someone work if they want to get me to agree with them.

So you prefer a self-contained campus kind of arrangement, rather than a university integrated into a town? So I guess you wouldn't much like Cambridge then... As for hills and mountains - you're making me jealous. (We don't have them round here.) I haven't done any hill walking in ages.

My tendency to mention, say, that I dropped into Harvard whilst I was in Boston is doubtless rooted in deep insecurity or something. You tell me - you're the one who's studied psychology. Anyway, wouldn't you mention it? (Can I just turn the tables and say 'Richard Burns' at this point - showing off appears to be human nature!)

As for the Italian job, I *like* ambiguity. I don't particularly want to be led through a linear path where it's perfectly clear what happened at every stage; the obligatory Hollywood happy ending is much more annoying. (I find being removed from a plot with the feeling that things will carry on after you've gone somehow more satisfying - having everything packaged up into an 'everyone lived happily ever after' type finish is just unconvincing.) Although I'm also happy to have my ambiguity elsewhere - I think The Game is a superb film even though the layers of uncertainty all (eventually) get resolved. Not even heard of eXistenZ.

What were Lotus thinking with the Lotus Carlton? They were thinking "General Motors own us, they sign the cheques, they're giving us a lot of money to do this, better get on with it." Actually Lotus have worked on a ludicrous number of cars - I've heard (from a guy who works in the factory) that more than half the cars sold today have had at least some work done on them by Lotus. This can be something like companies bringing them an essentially complete design and saying "this car's handling is complete crap, can you fix it", and Lotus will do development work devising optimal tyre choice, spring rates, dampers settings, ride height etc to make the best of the available package. But in some cases companies essentially get Lotus to design the entire chassis for them - in an attempt to shake off their reputation for dismal handling, Vauxhall got Lotus involved right from the start of the design of the current Astra's chassis. Not a car I'd be seen dead in, but by all accounts it's in a totally different league from the previous one. I think they've also been involved in a few F1 teams since the demise of Team Lotus.

So the Carlton was not that different from what's been keeping Lotus in business for the last 2 decades (telling other people how to make their suspension work better, and how to tune their engines). It was just a bit more public.

Anyway, if you're invoking Clarkson, he once said on Top Gear words to the effect that the Elise is the most rewarding drivers car money can buy, even outdoing any Ferrari in this respect. (Clarkson being a noted Ferrari fan, owning one himself!) But anyway, I may have to get that book just so I can have more ammunition here.

Oh well, already mentioned the U word earlier, so I guess it's too late. I really wouldn't look at it as 'another 4 years of work though'. (I could really depress you by pointing out that work doesn't stop just because you've left full time education. In fact that's the point at which it gets a whole lot more effort! But that would be cruel.) I absolutely *loved* being at university. I worked reasonably hard (well...in my 2nd and 3rd year; I didn't do a whole lot of work in the 1st year), but I didn't care because I was really into what I'm doing. That's one of the great things about it (although obviously academic considerations come a distant second to the whole 'being a student' thing, which is just brilliant!) - you're no longer forced to do any stuff you're not interested in, and can just focus on what you actually want to do.

At least that's how it was for me. So long as you actually like your chosen subject, it's great!

Those pictures of TVRs, (which as you say are airbrushed...by TVR on the assembly line ) came, since you ask, from searching for "yellow TVR" at http://www.google.com/ - the best search engine on the Internet. I find it's a practical alternative to actually being knowledgeable. The great thing about communication over the Internet is that you can use this sort of thing to retrieve a whole load of information and the incorporate it into a reply, giving the impression that you knew it all along.

Information for shareholders is dull primarily because it is generated by accountants. It is complex in order to reduce the risk of shareholders gaining any insight into how their company is actually being run. Does that clear things up at all?

I just had my second (It was the first when I started writing this) day at work and it's great fun, free chocolate, free cinema tickets, free turquoise and green poloshirt and baseball cap...

I'm still not sure about my modem as everything is slow but I'll take your point and not bother to buy a new one although it is unlikely I would have bought one in the near future as my definition of soon doesn't seem to match anyone elses. Hence the fact that my friends allow me "Fiona Time" which generally lets me have 15 minutes either way so when they say meet in the pub at 8 it really means 8.15 or if they actually want me there at 8 then they have to tell me 7.30, either way I'll still be late but just less dramatically

V envious about Thailand but as long as you've never been to Montreal then I'll not sulk just yet This seems a long shot but have you read Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason? (bear with me to reach relevance )I was up til 5.30am finishing it and she went to Ko Samui and got arrested for drug smuggling...actually the only relevance was word association but it seemed useful at the time I liked the Beach that was another book that kept me up til stupid hours because once I'd started it I couldn't stop...it also allowed me to have a "discussion" with my head of year due to my "sixth form is a hotel" attitude which my form tutor claimed I had. Mind you she did also allege that I'd started a rebellion in the sixth form whch is why no-one was turning up to school so her word can hardly be taken as truth, especially as she attempted to get me thrown out every other week Anyway, back to the Beach, it was great but I couldn't bring myself to see the film as I would have undoubtedly been annoyed by the directors view of events if they didn't match with mine. That and they merged many of the characters, I don't think Jed was even in it, which would have really got me annoyed/confused

I can see how a stalker ex girlfriend could be distressing, have you tried making yourself look really unattractive or obnoxious whenever she's around so she goes off you? Anyway, you have my sympathy as my best mates ex did something similar and he got very annoying.

Hmmm, how do you know that you class as an adult? Maybe because you don't have a bouncing Tigger that just emphasises the point that you're secretly not Anyway, I don't 'think' that cows are sinister (I think my exact words were actually eveil, viscious and sadistic) I know that cows are sinister and the laughing cow I have is actually very manic and quite scary because it goes (this should be novel) "hahahaha moo, mooooo, mooooo, hahahaha, mooo, mooo, moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo MOO!!! hahahahahahaha MOO, MOO, MOOO, moooooooooooo" and bounces round. I think it was meant to be aversion therapy but it's still scary

O.K *guilt* What did I tell you about my conscience? I wasn't joking! I hereby apologise for all unfair ageist remarks made against you, you are clearly not old as you're only 26 which is not much older than me and you don't actually get old until you're 38. I did also say that you were in the grandpa region to an 8 year old and I would be an old adult to them so you can't feel depressed about that Maybe you should buy yourself some toys and then you'd realise how young you were, I think you can get Lightsabre's like mine from Argos but I'm sure they'd sell some fun toys in that games shop at...er stand outside Sainsburys facing towards Oxfam Book shop, go forwards, turn right at the first road/precinct bit, not the one with the clothes shop on the corner that takes you to Starbucks, because then you've gone too far, wander along there and it's on your right hand side. Anyway, you could get some fun toys from there, although I assume you probably knew that because you live there

Hmmm, sorry about the Wuthering Heights thing, I may have got carried away with that, although at least you couldn't hear me singing...and I assure you that they're the correct words because if you listen to it you'll hear her say that. Anyway you needn't worry as I've now bought the worlds tackiest CD ever, anywhere in the world "Eurovision 1956-1999" with two bonus tracks, it's very high quality music

I think you're just trying to make me feel guilty now, you could so have been filmed at the age of 6 because there's cinefilm of my mother when she was 10 and she's well, older than you so you can't use that as a complaint. Besides you were probably unlikely to have attempted to feed a small child a leaf so you shouldn't worry about there being no footage of new born babies either. Oh and just for the record *evil grin (but in the nicest possible way bearing in mind my guilt problem)* if there were any new born babies when you were 6 they'd be the same age as my big brother

To follow that I would like to point out that you clearly haven't lost touch with the 18 year old (I didn't actually mean that anyway, I meant that you'd forgotten how far back 18 years took you) as I never NEVER said that I listened to radio 2 as I would indeed be laughed out of...well everywhere (Mind you, you'd get abuse if you admitted to having read a book voluntarily at my school so I don't think that's such a good example) I said I'd not heard them on Radio two which is entirely different as radio two lives in my dads car so whenever I get a lift it's playing. However, he does seem to have progressed to radio four now which is so dull and seems to be news or old men chatting 24 hours a day! Although, I will shamefully admit that I do listen to Jonathon Ross on Saturday mornings but that's alright because it's not really radio two as he keeps having to broadcast public apologies due to the excessive number of people he insults every show

I will now repeat myself in that I think you may be slightly over reacting to the age thing. I can't help but feel buying a cardiagn and slippers at the age of 26 is somewhat...er...drastic? And if we're going on the idea of cover songs, there's been covers of covers of Kylie so that would make me past it to

Errr, you really have a deep paranoia about your hair don't you I won't give you a psychological definition as you'd not appreciate it so instead I'll just be sympathetic and go "mmmm, yes, mmmm, poor you, I'm sure it's not as bad as you think,mmmm, yes I can see why you'd think that,no, really, mmmm, I'm sure it's lovely, yess, no, mmmm". See that worked didn't it I did actually manage an entire text message with my mate like that after her French exam in that when she's being historical it's easier to give her something to read so whenever she said anything I directed her to her mobile and she had my response. She was actually very impressed as I managed to get it word for word perfect which does take skill...I wonder if I should put that on my CV as an extra skill?

When I said that I didn't exactly say (ooh, linguistic feature, double verb use, must stop doing this it's very annoying ) you passed for 24 online what I meant was there are times when you do such as...ok I can't find any but you do sound 24 (and young) a lot and then times when you don't when you're talking about all the cool things you've done, hence my initial thoughts that you were older than you are...blimey this holes deep...And if you think about it I probably don't always sound 18 online...O.K so don't think about it for too long as it's not entirely (or at all) true...What I mean is I agree with you, the reason people think you're older is because you've packed a lot in and done much more than many really old people so they just assume you're older than the very young age which you actually are... oh I give up, you're just not old O.K

That waffles advert (They go with beans, BACON, bangers, burgers...Birds eye potatoooooooo waffles...they'rewafflyversatile) is not old at all, it's from the late 80's...*&#$... now look what's happened, I feel old! That's years ago... Change of subject, er, nice weather for this time of year isn't it

It has to be said you don't sound very convinced about the fact that you're on a diet but if you are then get thee away from the cookie shop because tis a bad place to be

As for the miniature (thanks for teaching me how to spell that btw I knew there was an a and an i but I just didn't work out they went together) kites it's really obvious when you think about it isn't it, I mean I would have expected someone with your high level of pretend geniusness to have thought of that

Ummm, I know I didn't do history but I know about the potato famine...Eddie Jordan suggested him and Irv went into business at Silverstone and grew potatoes in the car parks and campsites...which is an exaggeration because we only had to be towed three times in the whole weekend and one of the times I got to play on a quad which was great fun That's me with irrelevant fact again isn't it?

In answer to your question about the scam, *bounce, bounce, bounce* ...14 days to go, 14 days to go, tra lalalala, 14 days to go... Although worryingly I've managed to cadge lifts for varying lengths and stages of the journey from various people scattered around the country in order to get there but once I've arrived and scamed I can't actually get home again...but I'm sure it'll be fine...

Ducks are the sole attractive feature of most places except Birmingham which as far as I'm aware doesn't even have any ducks (apologies if you're from Birmingham)

Can I just warn you that by you talking about wastes of money you came dangerously close to starting me off about the Labour government and the Minnelium Dome, The Minnelium Wheel, The Minellium river of fire and the Minellium shelter for homeless people, oh wait no because that would be a sensible thing to do with peoples money...and there's no more wombles

Also I'd like to point out that I'm heavily anti-GM (at least until long term scientific studies have been completed) but I listened to your arguments so you can't really say that all activists don't accept the other side of the argument unless I'm the exception to the rule which seems unlikely...oh wait you just said that... "should concentrate more during lessons, very prone to day dreaming"

Why do I think I analyse everything, well from a Freudian perspective... Actually from a Freudian perspective I'd be classified in a very unflattering way so it's best to leave that

I do know what you mean about journalists liking to show the negative side to society but I don't necessarily think that it's down to them, more the public who respond to these images. If you showed a healthy looking adult from a drought striken country asking for help, the general public would ignore it but show a thin child crying and covered in flies and sympathy is evoked leading to a much greater response. The same applies to documantarys, all the trash on the TV recently of fly on the wall documentarys was just in response to public demand, yes the journalists showed it but if no-one had wanted to see it then they wouldn't have had the need. The sad fact is that human nature seems to show that we (I'm using the generic we by the way) want to see these squalid conditions in order to feel better about ourselves both through the fact that we can feel grateful for what we have but also because we can send our donation of £2 a month and think that we're doing some great deed to help but yet we don't actually go out of our way to do anything...except me who for the second year running is being dumped in a boat with 9 blokes and told to row as fast as possible towards the other side of a lake before being thrown in water and half drowned. Allegedly it's a charity event and I'm being sponsored £100's but somehow I can't help but feel that my mates are just wanting to laugh at me

Btw, I wouldn't exactly say I studied the media, more that I did (look did, wow ) media A-Level which is entirely different as I'm sure you'll know.

Hmmm, seemingly you're only thick skinned when not discussing your hair or age but I'll let that go and point out that if you think you're stubborn in arguments you are about to meet your match as I have the ability to argue about anything and win whether I have any idea what I'm talking about or (as is usually the case) not I was left to chair a debate with our local politician (who incase you were wondering is a typical politician and has his own agenda) in front of 200 other people, discussing the rights and wrong of labour party politics and how they had an effect on the modern day child and teenager. Needless to say I really took to the roll and became the female equivalent of Jeremy Paxman saying stuff like "If I could just remind you of the question you're supposed to be answering" and "If you could just try and give us a straight answer please Mr Barnes" but the best was when I just disagreed completely with what he said as I knew it wasn't true, it was something about local youth facilities and he was giving the usual politicians answer but then made the fatal mistake of saying that he would love to do something about it but didn't have the time to organise anything. I then penned him in a corner (using the handy fence in the store cupboard) and eventually got his home address and his signature on a petition which was presented in the Houses Of Parliament and a new youth club is being built. I was also invited down to sit in on a session in parliament and put across a youth view of Britains problems which should be most interesting bearing in mind my level of appreciation of both the Labour and Tory party


I wouldn't say I prefer a self contained campus, in fact I think I'd go insane in a self contained campus which is why Lancaster is my second choice as it's up a hill in the middle of no-where. It's just that Edinburgh felt weird and in actual fact I would have loved to have gone to Uni in Cambridge as it's the only place that I went to that I really felt at home in which should explain my issues with Cambridge, Sidney Sussex college and the number of which have been used in reference to said place When you say ages do you mean my ages as in about a day (which is novel considering my time system) or the normal ages as in an actual long time i.e years?

I would also like to make clear that I only mentioned Richard Burns because you mentioned your chromaflair Lotus so it wasn't entirely my fault Also I was only marvelling at your habit of name dropping because it seemed as if you didn't realise how impressive they were and they were in fact everyday occurences. Now I know better I will stop marvelling and just chuckle to my self instead

I wasn't saying that I liked Hollywood films because generally they annoy me due to their cliched and predictable endings but I still don't like the Italian Jobs ending as whilst it was ambigious it was also frustrating as once he'd had his idea you were given no idea what it was and as far as we can be aware they all fell off the cliff and died. . . in a cheerful kind of way As for the Game it was a great film but I wouldn't say the levels of uncertainty get resolved because someone bought the bloke a ticket to a game where he kept nearly being murdered and then was finally forced to face his fathers death by reenacting it himself, when he found out it was a game he just thanked everyone and laughed. This is in no way resolved as if that happened in real life you'd first of all punch the bloke and then sue for billions of pounds due to involunatry participation in an eventual act which caused mental harm . . . but then maybe that's just an example of me questioning everything Anyway, you should definitly rent eXistenZ as it is one of the greatest films ever, however, I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it as as far as I'm aware there were only three people who went to see it, me and my mate and then David Cronenbergs mother

As for the Lotus Carlton - Oh It might be a valid reason but it's still horrid

And in reference to your Clarkson quote (You'll never outquote me on Clarkson!) you'll also find that whilst he loves his Ferrari with a passion he also loathes it with a passion too because it's the most useless car he has ever owned and was forced into buying it by the bloke in the sales room as he really wanted a different model and colour but chickened out at the last minute. Therefore by saying that it's better than his Ferrari he's not actually giving it high praise Ummm . . . about the book . . . you can't buy it it's out of print. . . only available in Spanish . . .er . . . you just can't buy it as then you'll notice the slight bias in my selection of quotes and my argument will become flawed

Just because I inadvertantly annoyed you about your age doesn't give you the right to thoroughly depress me about the prospect of work forever therefore I shall now hold my breath and go purple and then scream and scream and scream until you retract that statement . . . *hmmph*

BTW, (and yes I'm still holding my breath) if the share reports are meant to be complex does that mean I'm not supposed to understand it and I can just file it in the bin?

These missives are getting impressively long! Your last post had over 3200 words in it!

Glad you're having fun at work. (Must be a great polo shirt and baseball cap for you to be so enthusiastic!) I'm a man of leisure this week. Just been asked to an interview tomorrow. Not entirely sure I want the job actually, although it would be a useful company to have on the CV...

A mere 15 minutes either way? A friend of mine is legendary for his inept timekeeping. His worst ever attempt was 7 hours late! It was another friend's birthday, and he was meant to drive from Reading (where both these people worked) to Cambridge, to pick up another friend (not me; I was living in Maidenhead at the time, not far from Reading), maybe have lunch there, then come back. They left reading at 10:30am (having meant to leave at 10). Driving within the speed limit, this should get you to Cambridge between noon and 12:30. A normal person would have then spent about an hour having lunch, and then come back, getting back around 2:30-3. But not this guy - he elected to fit in a bizarre bunch of errands, and two totally pointless and time-consuming detours and arrived just before 10pm!

So, you're not trying hard enough.

I've not been to Montreal, you'll be pleased to hear! I've also not yet read The Edge of Reason. I greatly enjoyed the first Bridget Jones book, but the new one is some way down my list. (In theory it just got one closer as I finished the Pinker book, but since I don't actually own a copy The Edge of Reason, and I've just been lent a different book, it's as far away as ever...) As for the Beach, I don't understand the connection with your alleged "sixth form is a hotel" attitude, but never mind. The film was OK but not all that special. As you surmised, it elides significant aspects of the book, most noteably some of the interesting characters.

So did you start a rebellion? A friend of mine did something vaguely similar at school. (Only very vaguely.) My school has that horrific thing known as the School Corps (aka CCF - Combined Cadet Force; basically playing at soldiers). I managed not to get involved (inexplicably - my head of house was in charge of the CCF, an I was the only person in my house in my year not to be in it), but this friend was forced into it. So in one of the unofficially tolerated photocopied 'magazines' that some of us used to produce from time to time, he wrote a series of satirical articles describing what it was really like in the CCF... It turns out that people actually read the crap we churned out because the following year, applications to join the CCF were down to one third of their usual levels!

As far as trying to put my ex-girlfriend off, my most recent tactic (and this has been a bit of a long term one) has been not to see, talk to or write to her for 2 years. (And it's been over 4 years since we stopped going out.) So deliberately trying to put her off when she sees me doesn't really apply as I've shunned all direct contact since 1998. Fortunately she hasn't got the hang of caller ID, which means as nuisance callers go, she's fairly easy to ignore, and thankfully I think she's given up on writing to and calling all of my friends and family on a regular basis. (Although they might just not be telling me about it...) But I think she just thinks I'm playing hard to get.

I know I class as an adult mostly by the quantity of debt I have and junk mail I receive. (My days of student debt are as nothing compared to my current financial mire - my monthly debt repayments are currently considerably more than the height of my total debt as a student! Although I was allegedly an adult for all but my first two weeks as a student (I was actually 17 when I went to college).) And I own a house - I'm fairly sure they try only to let adults do that. So I should buy more toys you think? Hmm... Has a slight hint of desperately trying to regain a lost youth... But on the other hand I'd really like a Darth Maul light sabre.

Anyway, please tell your conscience to give you a break - you've not offended me at all. I'm just liable to be neurotic about my age on my own account, so don't blame yourself!

Ah, I was being a little pedantic: yes I could have been filmed at age 6 (and indeed was), I was just pointing out that I couldn't have been *videoed*. I imagine that this must be something of a curse these days - at least any film of me as a baby can't be shown without setting up a projector, whereas with the advent of camcorders, all it takes is to put the tape in the video... Precisely the kind of thing parents like to embarrass you with when bringing home girlfriends or boyfriends... (The picture albums are bad enough - easy access to video footage sounds unbearable!)

Ah, so Radio 2 is still the station that parents listen to. That's a relief. It's just alarming that when I accidentally listen to it (happens sometimes - when I bought my Audi, the only station they'd tuned it into was Radio 2!) I discover with horror that I know some of the songs they play! As for Jonathon Ross, I very nearly listen to Radio 2 because he's on it (I used to enjoy his show on Virgin Radio), but can't quite bring myself to do it...

I think deep paranoia about hair is pretty common in men my age, with the possible exception of those who have already gone bald. I'm sure I'll have got over it by the time I'm 50. Anyway, give me a break I'm just going through my mid-twenties crisis.

To be honest I actually find it incredibly hard to tell most people's ages from what they say online. There are some eloquent 13 year olds and plenty of inarticulate 50 year olds around, but I also find that with everything coming through in print, devoid of all the other normal conversational cues, you can be lead astray a long way by your own imagination... I guess on this site it's usually fairly easy to tell who is either at college or school because of the mention of exams, but as for anyone much older, I often find I can have guessed someone was 25 when they turn out to be 50 or vice versa.

Now, I was convinced that waffle advert was first run either in the '70s or the early '80s. However my two housemates think early '90s (which is definitely wrong) or late '80s, so I could just be wrong. (You'd think there'd be a web site devoted to it, but inexplicably there appears not to be.) So I'll stick the the recently reintroduced Fry's Turkish Delight advert instead, which really does date back to the '70s.

Well I'm fairly convinced I'm on a diet - I've not had a chocolate bar for 2 and a half weeks, I've been eating more lightly than usual, I've been off stuff like ice cream (oh how I miss you Ben & Jerry ). But my weight seems to have gone down by all of 0.5kg, so some days I'm less convinced.

Let me guess - your scam is...to get lots of people to drive you a long distance for no reason at all? Anyway, if you need a lift to avoid getting stranded after your scam I'm always happy to show off the Lotus. (He says having not the faintest idea where on earth this might be anyway...)

Arguably the Millenium Dome et al are a complete waste of money. However as I understand it, none of it's actual government money, so if a bunch of big companies want to spend millions employing lots of people then I guess it's not all bad. However I have a pretty low opinion of the current contents of the dome... (Not that I've been, but absolutely everything I've heard and seen makes me not want to waste the money...)

I think I agree with you up to a point that the images journalists show us are the ones the population in general wants to see, but I think it's a two way process - consistently just trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator will, I suspect, drag the average level down gradually, or at least lower the minimum acceptable quality of journalism... (Actually what I really think is that some journalists are too quick to hide behind this kind of thing rather than living up the responsibilities that come with the power they have in their profession.) And I thought a large part of the reason for the proliferation of fly-on-the-wall documentaries was their microscopic budget requirements - it's just laziness really: they've discovered that this appears to be as popular as anything else they decide to put out at prime time, but it costs about a tenth as much to produce, so they may as well do that...

Touché (or possibly touche if that didn't work)! I go on about my age and hairline, but I've progressed beyond the "Too touchy to talk about it" point through to the "Able to make jokes about it, but still obviously a bit touchy, otherwise why would he be making jokes about it" stage. Any decade now I'll be normal...

I thoroughly applaud any attempt to corner an MP, but is that what the chair in a debate is supposed to be doing, strictly speaking? And as for winning arguments regardless of actually being informed or not, I'm glad I'm not the only one who does that... Actually on a couple of occasions I've won when I didn't think I was having an argument - I didn't understand someone else's point of view (I forget what it was, for some reason I knew what they were saying had to be correct, but couldn't see why it was correct), and my style of questioning tends to be focussing on something that seems to be a difference of opinion, and, well, disagreeing with what the other person says (even though I know that they're right) in order to get them to explain themselves. But some people just cave in under the pressure and agree with me! D'Oh!

When I say ages, I mean years. I've not been hill walking in over 4 years I think.

I don't exactly agree with your summary of The Game. First of all, the layers of uncertainty I was talking about were the fact that it's really not clear for a lot of the film whether it really is just a game, and the fraud sub plot is a part of the game, or whether it's really happening, and it keeps teasing you, making you think it's gone one way or another right the way through the film. (The same people who made The Game also made Seven and Fight Club, both of which do a similar thing but, in my opinion, cheat by using a cinematic device to resolve apparent contradictions, whereas the thing I liked about the Game is that they show you absolutely everything completely straight, but keep making you think you're being fooled.) I think you've mischaracterised the issue of his reaction to the whole thing - he's also been told that it's a game up front. In fact he sees exactly what we do, so when you suggest that it's a big surprise to him at the end that it's a game, that's not really right. Also it's revealed to him *before* he ends up confronting his father's death, and moreover it is *precisely* this cathartic experience that he is grateful for.

I would agree if you complained that the film is a little unreal - for example I don't believe that it would actually be possible to coreograph a game like that so exquisitely; it attributes rather more power to the science of psychology than is realistic for one thing. Also I suspect that if something has been haunting you for decades, then even as radical approach as renacting someone else's suicide (or at least thinking that's what you're doing) would probably take a lot longer than a few seconds to recover from - it might be the thing that would kick his character out of the rut, but I think it would take a good long while to come to terms with the whole experience. (But then again, it's not clear that he has actually done that - he's still clearly pretty bewildered whilst he's thanking everyone around him.) But the first of these is just your normal willing suspension of disbelief, and it's clear that it's going to be required very early on in the film, so I don't haved a problem with it, and the second, I'm not really sure it's that big a deal anyway - I don't think you have to accept the idea that he's been instantly cured.

I'm not trying to defend the Lotus Carlton by the way, just explain how it came into being. I think it's pretty out of character for a 'Lotus'. (Although I'm sure it's a blast to drive...)

*attempts to out quote you on Clarkson* So didn't you read his recent column about when he had to use the Ferrari as his daily driver for a while? His other car ended up in the garage for a couple of weeks, and he was just driving the Ferrari (or his mistress, as he describes it, the regular car being 'the wife') all the time. He ended up liking it a whole lot more after that experience, so he doesn't really hate it. (Which kind did he want to buy?)

So are you *still* holding your breath?

Nononono! You can't just ignore share reports and throw them in the bin! You have to ignore them and throw them in the filing cabinet! (Apparently this is different somehow.)

Hiya, this isn't a real message, well it is but it isn't...anyway, just saying that I'm not rudely snubbing you just feeling a bit rough so haven't been able to reply (probably as a result of holding my breath for too long ). Will hopefully write on Monday if I'm less acky (technical doctor like term),
speak to you soon,
Fiona - oh wait that should be Tinkerbell, never mind I think you probably grasped that I'm not a real fairy, if not sorry to dillusion you

*puts on stoic face and tries to cope with the bitter disappointment of discovering your non-fairy nature*

Sorry you're feeling rough. Get well soon and thanks for the courtesy 'ping'.

Courtesy 'ping'? Pingu? Penguin? Chocolate? Biscuit? huh?
Sorry, eveil doctor, disgusting medicine, woozyness, bleah

Sorry - reverting to type there for a moment. The verb 'to ping' is originally a technical term which now tends to be used colloquially amongst computer type people... Essentially it means to send someone a message either saying "I'm still here", or sometimes "are you still there?"

There's actually a program that comes with Windows called 'ping' (used to send the second of the two messages above) - if the h2g2 site seems not to be responding to your messages, you can type "ping www.h2g2.com" from a command prompt, and the result will tell you whether h2g2 is just being very slow (you'll get the "yes I'm still here" response back) or has actually gone away completely (you don't get a response at all). I tend to use this to work out whether I'm wasting my time sitting and waiting for a web page to appear.

But in its colloquial usage, rather than sending, say, email to someone saying "I don't seem to have heard from you, are you still busy working on my problem, or are emails not getting through?", and the reply "Yes I'm still here, my email's fine, I'm just snowed under, bear with me and I'll get back to you soon", these sentiments can be represented in the rather more succinct "Ping" and the canonical response "Ack". (Ironic, since you described yourself as being "Acky". )

Whilst this displays remarkable verbal efficiency, it's a bit obscure if you're not the kind of person who reads books about the TCP/IP networking stack for fun... On the other hand it has become a fairly popular bit of techno-slang, which is why I used inadvertently here. Sorry to go all techie on you!

Pingu??? "Meep meep"???
(sorry, still woozy )

I thought "meep meep" was roadrunner.

Road Runner goes er...they should have phonetics on keyboards... "Mep mep" whereas Pingu goes more "Meeeaap meeeaap"

Hi, I know I said I would be writing on Monday and I did start but my medicine is very strong so it made very little sense and I had to stop hence the very short message (or Pingu, which ever you prefer) which you're now reading. Anyway, hopefully I'll be better tomorrow so I'll write then, bye

But "mep" would rhyme with "pep", and that's not right at all. I can just about let you get away with "mip mip" if you like, but only because I'm being lenient on account of your illness.

Sorry your *still* ill! Hope it clears up promptly!

Mep Mep would only rhyme with Pep Pep if you said it slowly, if you say it "meP meP" then it makes perfect sense unlike "mip mip" which would rhyme with Pip Pip so is also a decidedly dodgy estimation

Anyway, I have come to the decision that you don't watch enough Pingu (I would hazard a guess that you've never even seen it?) so I hereby prescribe you at least an hour a day for the next week. This can be easily sorted with the BBC "2 0n 1" Pingu video which contains 17 Pingu episodes comprised from "Barrel of Fun" and "Building Igloos"... Not that I own it you understand, I'm just guessing that if there was an easily available Pingu video containing such episodes as "the new arrival", "Pingu goes fishing" and "Ice Hockey" they would probably be on a video with a similar title

Before I write anything else I'd like to put in a disclaimer as I'm writing because I said I'd write today (obviously I want to talk to you as well ) but I am still v.woozy from the medicine and I forgot to take it this morning which means I'm completely disorientated due to ickyness therefore I'm liable to write complete crap and not realise. Hence, I apologise for rubbish before I even start...which I seem to do a lot but I have a valid excuse this time

Hmmm, you're never going to remember what you wrote a week ago so this is actually going to have to have some form of logic and sense...err, maybe I could use headings because I'm too tired to make sense...actually I never make sense anyway so it's not going to make any difference...I'm rambling now aren't I? This is a good start

Long Messages - right then, see making sense already 3200 words?Either you're cheating and not using the work offline button like you told me to or you have way to much free time and need to go and do something more productive than counting words (she says having spent about 3 quarters of the past week asleep in bed )...although if you do that you'll not be here so maybe that's not a good thing to suggest...er hmmm. *thinks, should wait til tomorrow to reply when less woozy, realises that would be sensible so carries on*

Work - hmmm, no comment, not fun, v.poor.I did see Mission Impossible two which offers an Audi TT, what may be a Porsche, two Triumph bikes and lots of explosions as its main attractions hmmm, what else, your job interview ah...that's probably not still tomorrow, how did it go and what company was it? My brother was offered a job at IBM which would have been useful to have on his CV but he didn't like the job so he didn't bother...that had a point but I forget what it was, oh yeah (assembles voice of knowledge) you shouldn't take the job unless you really want or need it but I guess that's too late because it was a week ago and I'm rambling again...Have I actually wrote anything of use yet, I don't think I have...sorry

Lateness - 15 minutes is just an estimation of Fiona Time but that's not to say that I won't be late for that too, it just means I'm less late so we can normally get the bus after the one that I made us miss rather than the 1 after the 1 after the one I made us miss...
Anyway, I don't think I can rival your mates lateness but I did once arrange to meet my best mate at 11.30am but arrived at 10.45pm but that wasn't my fault! I went round to my mates house to give him his birthday gift but then his new boyfriend was there so I was obliged to stay and chat and then they gave me cookies and ribena so I got distracted and finally remembered what I was meant to be doing about 8 hours later. I often think I should place more value on punctuality but then I attempt it, realise how early it involves getting out of bed and so give up

Hmmm, bored with headings now as your paragraph has many topics modged together so I can't work out a label, err you'll just have to use your imagination but stop before you get to elephants and kites because that would probably be wrong

O.k then. I realise I probably didn't explain my link between the Beach and my hotel attitude that well, or at all if you're going to be pedantic Anyway, what I meant was I stayed up til some random hour in the morning reading it so didn't actually get up til about 11am which meant I didn't get into the sixth form until about lunch time. Hence, I received my daily "You think there's one rule for you and another for everyone else" speech which was closely followed by "We don't have to keep you in this sixth form, if you continue to treat the sixth form as a hotel, turning up when you like and then leaving at random I can quite easily throw you out" which was then enhanced by the "don't tempt me speech" until it was finally ended with the eveil glare and "Get thee to the office (although in slightly more viscious language)" speech. I'd then go to the office where the head of year would start laughing, give me a biscuit and ask what I was being thrown out for this time, before having hysterics and sending me back to my form tutor with a "I can't throw her out she's a straight A student and there's only you with a problem" letter. Needless to say this wasn't appreciated and so I was generally sent back the next day with her accompanying me until she finally gave up and just shouted abuse at every opportunity...it was funny though because she really did have an irrational dislike of me. On my first report in the Sixth Form she actually counted the number of times I'd been late, added up the hours and wrote about how unacceptable my attitude was, which was then closely followed by the comment from my head of year describing how I was a model student and everyone should be more like me I would like to point out here that her time keeping was obsessive and I never once (well maybe once but only towards the end) missed a lesson or anything of importance. I think she just disliked me because I refused to play hockey for the county team and being a PE teacher she didn't appreciate the failed chance to show off the school

Anyway, that handily leads to the point of my rebellion because she was the one who said I'd incited that. Which I was entirely misjudged on as it was about April time and all our coursework was due in, we were supposed to have started revision and all our teachers kept giving us pointless essays and tasks to do. Everyone was moaning that there wasn't enough time to do everything and all the teachers were moaning if we prioritised one subject over another so everyone was getting really hacked off. On the day of the allegations (sorry I'm getting carried away now, I think it comes with watching Diagnosis Murder on day time TV) I'd been up since 6.30 am the previous day finishing my media coursework and so hadn't done a Lit essay so my teacher started screaming at us all about a lack of effort etc. I just calmly pointed out that we didn't have to be there because it was entirely voluntary and that the best way to get the teachers to realise the amount of work we were doing was to not turn up until they stopped getting at us... How was I to know that people would actually listen to me Apparantly there were only 3 people in registration the next day. Somehow, I got the blame for it and had a fun speech about how being lead student meant setting a good example to others and my act of democracy was not quite the example they were wanting It was all highly unfair!

Anyway...I've never heard of School Corps before, did you go to an all male school or something? It sounds suspiciously like a ploy to get impressionable boys to think that the army's a good fun thing to do...much like our career programme which was sponsored by the army and coincidently said that whatever characteristics we had a job in the army was the best career option

Hmmm, your ex sounds err...persistant! Still my last boyfriend rang me up about a week after we'd first met to tell me he'd bought me a gift, I was quite chuffed until I realised it was a bed which he'd considerably got for me

As for you being an adult I wouldn't be too sure that the house counts as evidence because they'd let me have one and that wouldn't be a wise idea so it's obviously not restricted to sensible adults. Can I also point out (again) that 26 is not old therefore you can't possibly be trying to regain a lost youth by buying a lightsabre because you're only 1 year outside of youth...so quit whining and buy some toys (btw, my mates taking me to Toys r us tomorrow to buy the womble so I'll finally stop moaning about it )

Just out of interest did you know that cinefilm can be transfered on to video very cheaply and quickly nowadays? You should get the footage of you aged 6 copied onto videos to give to all your family at christmas, then you too could share the hours of amusement as it's shown to every single person who comes through the door...wouldn't that be nice

O.K I have a shameful confession to make, you know I said I didn't admit to listening to radio two weeeeelll... errr ... *tries to assess the probability of anyone else ever reading this* Stop laughing, it's not that funny...I'm sure many people my age listen to it...possibly...it's not as if anyone else knows...and I only listen to the late night shows because I can't get to sleep without music...and it's not as if I ever ring in...well I only did once but it's not as if I was on for long...well only 20 minutes and I was talking about F1...and I did get a load of Cd's and a Radio Two round thing...errr...shall I get my coat?

I don't know if there's any point continuing with this as you may just have run off laughing hysterically but I'll persevere on the offchance you might decide not to shun me

I know what you mean about people being older than they sound in e-mails because I was writing to a 19 year old for about a month before I found out he was actually 34 Admittedly I still don't believe him and am quite sure he's younger but I quized him on historical events in his lifetime (Viking invasions, Discovery of America that kind of thing) and he seemed to be convincing but I'm still not sure...

The waffle advert was definitely run in the late 80's the most obvious evidence being the fact that I remember it and if it'd been in the 70's or early 80's I wouldn't do. As for the Turkish delight thing how can you remember that from the first time round, even if it was in the 70's you would have only been 3 or 4?

0.5kg? I have no idea what that is, I can only cope in pounds etc so I'll just tell you that's vast amounts and well done

My scam...hmmm, you were very quick to offer me a lift in your Lotus considering you have no idea where you'd be picking us up from, I would really like to see what would happen if I accepted, I feel the scream of horror could be heard from here Anyway, that would be a foolish sort of scam, mine has much more purpose and going by continual updates from others involved (and organising, I'm not trusted with the details you see ) it's actually getting considerably better and if it keeps it's current status you will be soooooooo jealous that I'll be able to stop citing Richard Burns as my Lotus challenger and move onto higher standings

I don't know where you've got your information from about the Millenium Dome but vast amounts of government money have been put into the project and only the other month I think another £20 million was put in by them in order to keep it afloat. Admittedly lots of the initial money came from companies and the Lottery funding but I seem to think the Dome itself was relatively cheap, it was all the trash inside it that cost the money and that's what the governments paying for. But I could be wrong...

What do you mean the job of a debate chairman is not to harrass the MP? Surely anyone who comes in contact with an MP has an obligation to abuse them? Besides he was really, really annoying and after I made an extremely valid point about a local open cast mining proposal, which he had no knowledge of, I then found myself reading my suggestion word for word, but alledged to be from him, in the newspaper the next week. So any abuse which I gave he thoroughly deserved and if they'd not wanted the chair to be er ...constructive... they wouldn't have picked me to do it would they

As for arguments, I'm really glad to hear that it's not just me who continues arguing even after you know you're wrong. The number of times I've continued to 'discuss' despite the fact that I realise I'm talking crap is impressive. I think it probably accounts for about 1 in 3 arguments and I am now famously quoted for saying "I think you'll find I'm right" and then completely conning the other person into agreeing with me. I once managed to convince all my mates that Sheffield was in the complete opposite direction because I was too stubborn to admit I was wrong, I eventually put across such a strong argument that everyone was convinced I was right and they forced the other correct person to shut up But if it's not just me that does that then I guess it's ok...

If you've not been hill walking in four years do you actually like it? Because not that many people can see the 'fun' in walking long distances up hills. I seem to recall an interesting weekend when I went out with all my mates on the Saturday night, got in about 4.30 and was then woken up at 8.30 to do a 19 mile walk...which was nice

As for the Game I'll have to watch it again because I only saw it once about 2 years ago and it was about 3am when I watched it and so none of us were actually concentrating that much, all I remember is saying What? at the end of it and then getting very confused as to why Michael Douglas (or it could've been Kirk, or neither) didn't punch his brother, which as I mentioned is my main complaint with the film.

What cinematic device is used in Seven? It was on TV again the other week and to my shame I found I knew most of the words so I now refuse to watch it again but I can't actually think of anything that they did other than rip off a load of cliched endings from other films. Technically that's not so bad because within a genre, films have a certain number of paradigms and then within the paradigms a set of signifiers. These have to combine in order to fit with 2 distinct narrative structures, either Todorovs balace of equilibriums or Propps search, block and escape structure. Therefore, as there can only be a certain number of ideological, mythical and thematic concepts explored within each generic structure you end up with very similar narratives and events (illustrated by Schatz's integrated/ ordered genre approach which can classify every film according to similarities rather than differences). Hence the fact that Seven steals many of its different events from other films of a similar genre or director. You just have to look at the similarities between John Woo's Matrix and Mission Impossible Two to see how this works, his auteurship is evident throughout as it mimics every other action film he's previously produced due to the limited signifiers. So when you think that the other two films cheated you have to bear in mind that in order to differentiate themselves from every other film of that genre they had to 'cheat' otherwise the narrative structure would become too complex. Which is why you end up with potential blockbusters which fail at the box office but become cult classics (such as Blade Runner and Twelve Monkeys), purely because the director attempted to change the generic conventions too much in order to avoid 'cheating'...errr, I just went into media essay mode didn't I? Sorry

So you read the Telegraph then? Hmmm, you'll get no decent Clarkson quotes from there, I can't remember which model it was that he wanted but I think it was on the Car Years programme or whatever it's called. He definitely didn't like it and said it was entirely impractical and useless

As for holding my breath I did stop but only when I fainted at work and remained passed out for about ten minutes...that was when I realised I was ill It was quite scary actually, if I'd fallen in the popcorn maker it would have took weeks to get it out of my hair

As for the share brochure thing you're too late because it has already been filed in the dustbin but I figure that I've never read any of the others and it's done me no harm so one more isn't going to make any difference...besides if you were meant to read them then they'd put pictures in them or little cartoon strips in order to keep your attention

Mep Mep would only rhyme with Pep Pep if you said it slowly, if you say it "meP meP" then it makes perfect sense unlike "mip mip" which would rhyme with Pip Pip so is also a decidedly dodgy estimation

Anyway, I have come to the decision that you don't watch enough Pingu (I would hazard a guess that you've never even seen it?) so I hereby prescribe you at least an hour a day for the next week. This can be easily sorted with the BBC "2 0n 1" Pingu video which contains 17 Pingu episodes comprised from "Barrel of Fun" and "Building Igloos"... Not that I own it you understand, I'm just guessing that if there was an easily available Pingu video containing such episodes as "the new arrival", "Pingu goes fishing" and "Ice Hockey" they would probably be on a video with a similar title

Before I write anything else I'd like to put in a disclaimer as I'm writing because I said I'd write today (obviously I want to talk to you as well ) but I am still v.woozy from the medicine and I forgot to take it this morning which means I'm completely disorientated due to ickyness therefore I'm liable to write complete crap and not realise. Hence, I apologise for rubbish before I even start...which I seem to do a lot but I have a valid excuse this time

Hmmm, you're never going to remember what you wrote a week ago so this is actually going to have to have some form of logic and sense...err, maybe I could use headings because I'm too tired to make sense...actually I never make sense anyway so it's not going to make any difference...I'm rambling now aren't I? This is a good start

Long Messages - right then, see making sense already 3200 words?Either you're cheating and not using the work offline button like you told me to or you have way to much free time and need to go and do something more productive than counting words (she says having spent about 3 quarters of the past week asleep in bed )...although if you do that you'll not be here so maybe that's not a good thing to suggest...er hmmm. *thinks, should wait til tomorrow to reply when less woozy, realises that would be sensible so carries on*

Work - hmmm, no comment, not fun, v.poor.I did see Mission Impossible two which offers an Audi TT, what may be a Porsche, two Triumph bikes and lots of explosions as its main attractions hmmm, what else, your job interview ah...that's probably not still tomorrow, how did it go and what company was it? My brother was offered a job at IBM which would have been useful to have on his CV but he didn't like the job so he didn't bother...that had a point but I forget what it was, oh yeah (assembles voice of knowledge) you shouldn't take the job unless you really want or need it but I guess that's too late because it was a week ago and I'm rambling again...Have I actually wrote anything of use yet, I don't think I have...sorry

Lateness - 15 minutes is just an estimation of Fiona Time but that's not to say that I won't be late for that too, it just means I'm less late so we can normally get the bus after the one that I made us miss rather than the 1 after the 1 after the one I made us miss...
Anyway, I don't think I can rival your mates lateness but I did once arrange to meet my best mate at 11.30am but arrived at 10.45pm but that wasn't my fault! I went round to my mates house to give him his birthday gift but then his new boyfriend was there so I was obliged to stay and chat and then they gave me cookies and ribena so I got distracted and finally remembered what I was meant to be doing about 8 hours later. I often think I should place more value on punctuality but then I attempt it, realise how early it involves getting out of bed and so give up

Hmmm, bored with headings now as your paragraph has many topics modged together so I can't work out a label, err you'll just have to use your imagination but stop before you get to elephants and kites because that would probably be wrong

O.k then. I realise I probably didn't explain my link between the Beach and my hotel attitude that well, or at all if you're going to be pedantic Anyway, what I meant was I stayed up til some random hour in the morning reading it so didn't actually get up til about 11am which meant I didn't get into the sixth form until about lunch time. Hence, I received my daily "You think there's one rule for you and another for everyone else" speech which was closely followed by "We don't have to keep you in this sixth form, if you continue to treat the sixth form as a hotel, turning up when you like and then leaving at random I can quite easily throw you out" which was then enhanced by the "don't tempt me speech" until it was finally ended with the eveil glare and "Get thee to the office (although in slightly more viscious language)" speech. I'd then go to the office where the head of year would start laughing, give me a biscuit and ask what I was being thrown out for this time, before having hysterics and sending me back to my form tutor with a "I can't throw her out she's a straight A student and there's only you with a problem" letter. Needless to say this wasn't appreciated and so I was generally sent back the next day with her accompanying me until she finally gave up and just shouted abuse at every opportunity...it was funny though because she really did have an irrational dislike of me. On my first report in the Sixth Form she actually counted the number of times I'd been late, added up the hours and wrote about how unacceptable my attitude was, which was then closely followed by the comment from my head of year describing how I was a model student and everyone should be more like me I would like to point out here that her time keeping was obsessive and I never once (well maybe once but only towards the end) missed a lesson or anything of importance. I think she just disliked me because I refused to play hockey for the county team and being a PE teacher she didn't appreciate the failed chance to show off the school

Anyway, that handily leads to the point of my rebellion because she was the one who said I'd incited that. Which I was entirely misjudged on as it was about April time and all our coursework was due in, we were supposed to have started revision and all our teachers kept giving us pointless essays and tasks to do. Everyone was moaning that there wasn't enough time to do everything and all the teachers were moaning if we prioritised one subject over another so everyone was getting really hacked off. On the day of the allegations (sorry I'm getting carried away now, I think it comes with watching Diagnosis Murder on day time TV) I'd been up since 6.30 am the previous day finishing my media coursework and so hadn't done a Lit essay so my teacher started screaming at us all about a lack of effort etc. I just calmly pointed out that we didn't have to be there because it was entirely voluntary and that the best way to get the teachers to realise the amount of work we were doing was to not turn up until they stopped getting at us... How was I to know that people would actually listen to me Apparantly there were only 3 people in registration the next day. Somehow, I got the blame for it and had a fun speech about how being lead student meant setting a good example to others and my act of democracy was not quite the example they were wanting It was all highly unfair!

Anyway...I've never heard of School Corps before, did you go to an all male school or something? It sounds suspiciously like a ploy to get impressionable boys to think that the army's a good fun thing to do...much like our career programme which was sponsored by the army and coincidently said that whatever characteristics we had a job in the army was the best career option

Hmmm, your ex sounds err...persistant! Still my last boyfriend rang me up about a week after we'd first met to tell me he'd bought me a gift, I was quite chuffed until I realised it was a bed which he'd considerably got for me

As for you being an adult I wouldn't be too sure that the house counts as evidence because they'd let me have one and that wouldn't be a wise idea so it's obviously not restricted to sensible adults. Can I also point out (again) that 26 is not old therefore you can't possibly be trying to regain a lost youth by buying a lightsabre because you're only 1 year outside of youth...so quit whining and buy some toys (btw, my mates taking me to Toys r us tomorrow to buy the womble so I'll finally stop moaning about it )

Just out of interest did you know that cinefilm can be transfered on to video very cheaply and quickly nowadays? You should get the footage of you aged 6 copied onto videos to give to all your family at christmas, then you too could share the hours of amusement as it's shown to every single person who comes through the door...wouldn't that be nice

O.K I have a shameful confession to make, you know I said I didn't admit to listening to radio two weeeeelll... errr ... *tries to assess the probability of anyone else ever reading this* Stop laughing, it's not that funny...I'm sure many people my age listen to it...possibly...it's not as if anyone else knows...and I only listen to the late night shows because I can't get to sleep without music...and it's not as if I ever ring in...well I only did once but it's not as if I was on for long...well only 20 minutes and I was talking about F1...and I did get a load of Cd's and a Radio Two round thing...errr...shall I get my coat?

I don't know if there's any point continuing with this as you may just have run off laughing hysterically but I'll persevere on the offchance you might decide not to shun me

I know what you mean about people being older than they sound in e-mails because I was writing to a 19 year old for about a month before I found out he was actually 34 Admittedly I still don't believe him and am quite sure he's younger but I quized him on historical events in his lifetime (Viking invasions, Discovery of America that kind of thing) and he seemed to be convincing but I'm still not sure...

The waffle advert was definitely run in the late 80's the most obvious evidence being the fact that I remember it and if it'd been in the 70's or early 80's I wouldn't do. As for the Turkish delight thing how can you remember that from the first time round, even if it was in the 70's you would have only been 3 or 4?

0.5kg? I have no idea what that is, I can only cope in pounds etc so I'll just tell you that's vast amounts and well done

My scam...hmmm, you were very quick to offer me a lift in your Lotus considering you have no idea where you'd be picking us up from, I would really like to see what would happen if I accepted, I feel the scream of horror could be heard from here Anyway, that would be a foolish sort of scam, mine has much more purpose and going by continual updates from others involved (and organising, I'm not trusted with the details you see ) it's actually getting considerably better and if it keeps it's current status you will be soooooooo jealous that I'll be able to stop citing Richard Burns as my Lotus challenger and move onto higher standings

I don't know where you've got your information from about the Millenium Dome but vast amounts of government money have been put into the project and only the other month I think another £20 million was put in by them in order to keep it afloat. Admittedly lots of the initial money came from companies and the Lottery funding but I seem to think the Dome itself was relatively cheap, it was all the trash inside it that cost the money and that's what the governments paying for. But I could be wrong...

What do you mean the job of a debate chairman is not to harrass the MP? Surely anyone who comes in contact with an MP has an obligation to abuse them? Besides he was really, really annoying and after I made an extremely valid point about a local open cast mining proposal, which he had no knowledge of, I then found myself reading my suggestion word for word, but alledged to be from him, in the newspaper the next week. So any abuse which I gave he thoroughly deserved and if they'd not wanted the chair to be er ...constructive... they wouldn't have picked me to do it would they

As for arguments, I'm really glad to hear that it's not just me who continues arguing even after you know you're wrong. The number of times I've continued to 'discuss' despite the fact that I realise I'm talking crap is impressive. I think it probably accounts for about 1 in 3 arguments and I am now famously quoted for saying "I think you'll find I'm right" and then completely conning the other person into agreeing with me. I once managed to convince all my mates that Sheffield was in the complete opposite direction because I was too stubborn to admit I was wrong, I eventually put across such a strong argument that everyone was convinced I was right and they forced the other correct person to shut up But if it's not just me that does that then I guess it's ok...

If you've not been hill walking in four years do you actually like it? Because not that many people can see the 'fun' in walking long distances up hills. I seem to recall an interesting weekend when I went out with all my mates on the Saturday night, got in about 4.30 and was then woken up at 8.30 to do a 19 mile walk...which was nice

As for the Game I'll have to watch it again because I only saw it once about 2 years ago and it was about 3am when I watched it and so none of us were actually concentrating that much, all I remember is saying What? at the end of it and then getting very confused as to why Michael Douglas (or it could've been Kirk, or neither) didn't punch his brother, which as I mentioned is my main complaint with the film.

What cinematic device is used in Seven? It was on TV again the other week and to my shame I found I knew most of the words so I now refuse to watch it again but I can't actually think of anything that they did other than rip off a load of cliched endings from other films. Technically that's not so bad because within a genre, films have a certain number of paradigms and then within the paradigms a set of signifiers. These have to combine in order to fit with 2 distinct narrative structures, either Todorovs balace of equilibriums or Propps search, block and escape structure. Therefore, as there can only be a certain number of ideological, mythical and thematic concepts explored within each generic structure you end up with very similar narratives and events (illustrated by Schatz's integrated/ ordered genre approach which can classify every film according to similarities rather than differences). Hence the fact that Seven steals many of its different events from other films of a similar genre or director. You just have to look at the similarities between John Woo's Matrix and Mission Impossible Two to see how this works, his auteurship is evident throughout as it mimics every other action film he's previously produced due to the limited signifiers. So when you think that the other two films cheated you have to bear in mind that in order to differentiate themselves from every other film of that genre they had to 'cheat' otherwise the narrative structure would become too complex. Which is why you end up with potential blockbusters which fail at the box office but become cult classics (such as Blade Runner and Twelve Monkeys), purely because the director attempted to change the generic conventions too much in order to avoid 'cheating'...errr, I just went into media essay mode didn't I? Sorry

So you read the Telegraph then? Hmmm, you'll get no decent Clarkson quotes from there, I can't remember which model it was that he wanted but I think it was on the Car Years programme or whatever it's called. He definitely didn't like it and said it was entirely impractical and useless

As for holding my breath I did stop but only when I fainted at work and remained passed out for about ten minutes...that was when I realised I was ill It was quite scary actually, if I'd fallen in the popcorn maker it would have took weeks to get it out of my hair

As for the share brochure thing you're too late because it has already been filed in the dustbin but I figure that I've never read any of the others and it's done me no harm so one more isn't going to make any difference...besides if you were meant to read them then they'd put pictures in them or little cartoon strips in order to keep your attention

Hi! Well I only accepted "mip mip" as a distant second best to my original choice of "meep meep", which is clearly superior. "meP meP" or any other spelling just doesn't work!

I have seen one, or possibly two episodes of Pingu, several years ago. My housemates were quite into it at one stage, which is why I'm even aware of it. But I've not made a detailed study.

Hmm, wonder what I can use as an up front excuse for talking random bizarreness. Apart from that fact that that's just what I'm like. I guess I'll have to go with the excuse of disorientation due to having 3 browser windows open (1 to reply to your message, 1 with your message, and one looking at the message I wrote last week to remind myself of what I said) and having to flip back and forth. Well, something like that. Or I could claim emotional distress since my ex seems to be stepping up her stalking campaign again.

As far as word counts go, I used the simple expedient of copying and pasting the entire articles into Word, using Word's word count feature, and then typing in the result. Why would this be incompatible with the Work Offline thing? (Although the internet setup in this house is rather complex, with 3 of us all sharing a single ISDN connection, so in fact Work Offline is redundant in my case!)

Ah, one of my housemates went to see Mission Impossible 2 tonight, and came back in and accused me of being a miserable git for not having liked it. (I saw it ages ago when I was out in LA, (sorry - still can't help dropping things like that into the conversation ) and have been complaining about it ever since...) I felt it was a shame that a lot of it was very well done - beautifully shot and coreographed, very high production values, lots of action and explosions for those who like that kind of thing. But this just made it all the more annoying that the stupid aspects of it were intrusive enough to spoil it (for me). I was getting fed up of those rubber masks half way through the film, so by the end of it I was expecting the whole plot to turn out to revolve around some master criminal with an exceptionally small head... Although as my friend pointed out tonight, there's something rather entertaining that one of the masks Tom Cruise brings with him on missions is a Tom Cruise mask... What a brilliant disguise! And, um, yes, I *think* it was a Porsche, but it's been a while now and I can't remember. (Although it's in the trailer, which I think I've seen twice in the last two days! Saw Chicken Run yesterday which was superb, and saw American Beauty today because it was on and I'm working in town near the cinema...)

Actually I think that arriving at 10:45pm for an 11:30am appointment does in fact manage to beat my friend's lamentable record, so I take my hat off to you. *searches around for hat* Well OK, I would if I had one.

I'm deeply impressed with your recalcitrant approach to school. I'm afraid I never managed anything more rebellious than stubborn low level disobedience, and evasiveness (although I'm quite proud of the time I managed to get myself triple-booked into detention which I avoided by leaving the country...) And yes, I did unfortunately go to an all male school (although it has since merged with the girls school it was previously vaguely associated with, and bizarrely still has school corps! I'm sure the intention of corps was to try and lure people into the army, but I think it mostly had the effect of putting people off the idea for life...) This (the all-male bit, not the corps bit) could explain why I was so into music at school - it was one of the few activities that was completely mixed.

I was aware that cine film can be transferred to video, although I'm hoping my parents don't discover this... I'm certainly not planning to tell them any time soon, or at least not before I can destroy the relevant footage.

*shakes head sadly at Radio 2 revelation*

Shocking!



Well I'm not disputing that the waffle advert was running in the late 80s, I'm just saying that I think it was running before then too. But I've not been able to find any supporting evidence, or even anyone who agrees with me, so I guess I'll just have to remain stubborn until I can talk everyone round. And as for the Turkish Delight thing, well for one thing I can remember going to see Star Wars, which I saw on its first release (and Superman), and I remember getting Abba tapes for Christmas, so I do remember some stuff that happened in the 70s. Remember that by the end of 1979 I was 6!

0.5kg is about a pound. Anyway I seem to have lost a couple of kilos now, although I think the scales I'm using are very erratic, so it's hard to be certain. May be as little as 1kg.

Re: lift in Lotus for scam... Well I just like an excuse for a drive really. Anyway the "picking us up" bit implies that it wouldn't be practical wherever you might be going from and to, since it's not like I can take more than one person anywhere at a time! (And no, you can't borrow it! )

Well, the government money for the Dome is allegedly a loan isn't it? Although I don't expect there's much chance of seeing it back... I'd love to know how what's inside it cost so much - I've not been there, but the reports I've heard and what I've seen don't seem to suggest that the money was spent on anything especially worthwhile... Have you seen the latest adverts for the dome? They essentially say "So, you've not been to the dome? You must be a credulous sheep-like fool." Way to win people over...

Well I freely admit that there's a moral obligation to abuse any MP you meet, but there's a tension here between that and the role of chairing a debate. I'd never agree to chairing a debate because I think I'd keep throwing my oar in! In fact I suspect I'd never let any of the other speakers get a word in edgeways...

OK, so I do pick arguments when I know I'm wrong, but only when I'm trying to understand why I'm wrong, and I don't actually try to win these arguments, it just sometimes happens. However I can be very persistent when discussing something which essentially comes down to a difference in opinion...

I do like hill walking despite not having been in 4 years. The main reason I've not been is that I mostly used to go with my girlfriend-turned-stalker, and friends of hers. These days I just don't seem to know many people who are into that kind of thing, so it hasn't really happened.

The cinematic device used in Seven? Well actually I think it's debateable because it requires an interpretation of the film not everyone agrees with, which is that it's basically not meant to be real, it's supposed to be a figurative representation of hell. Something sort of similarish is done in Fight Club (I'm being vague because I don't know if (a) you've seen it and (b) whether you might, so I'm trying not to spoil it). Actually I suppose it's far more annoying in Fight Club than it is in Seven. But The Game tricks you into thinking that you're essentially watching fantasy, whereas it's really more down to earth than that, which is what I liked about it. And more importantly White Rabbit is a fantastic song.

And yes, I was just thinking "She's gone into essay mode" there, and then got to your comment where you'd evidently had the same thought! But speaking of subverting genres, have you ever watched Farscape? One of my housemates has had a long running interest in certain sci fi programs (especially Blakes Seven for some reason, although having met up with a few of her fan friends, B7 fans seem to like to talk about anything but what ostensibly binds them, and also mostly seem to share the opinion that frankly it's a bit crap). This combined with her background in sociology (and dabblings in media studies - I can't remember if I mentioned that she wrote a media studies paper for a laugh to see if she could get it published, duly succeeded and then started getting invited to conferences...) means she particularly likes this program - on the face of it, it's just another formulaic science fiction serial. However the fun part is that it assumes you're already familiar with all of the standard plot constructions from the genre, and will be able to predict the entire outline and outcome of any sci fi program from the first three minutes. Given that you already have this instant understanding of fairly large chunks of narrative, it duly messes with your mind by confounding your expectations. Basically it's able to put in a series of plot twists which would normally leave most audiences wondering what the hell happened, but because you're already familiar with what the plot was doing pre-twist, they can get away with a whole lot more.

At least that's what she tells me. I've no idea myself.

Um, I'm not sure how you're concluding that I read the Telegraph. Does Clarkson have a column in it or something? I'm afraid it's much sadder than that - I read his column in Top Gear magazine...

Hope you're feeling a bit better now by the way.

Hiya

O.K I have now consulted an expert on the subject and apparantly the correct pronunciation for Pingu is "Mwarp Mwarp" so they you go!

Hmmm, how best to approach this subject...Let me confirm this before I launch into tirade of amazement, you've only seen Pingu twice, that's two times, in your whole life time, that's 26 years? So on average you've seen Pingu once every 13 years? I'm sorry but that's appalling behaviour, how you can have the audacity to show disgust at my radio habits but then quite happily go through life oblivious to the wonder that is Pingu is quite beyond me

Just out of interest do you not have any juvenile traits at all because as far as I can tell you don't watch cartoons, you don't play with miniature kites and you have no toys (Lotus doesn't count) I'm beginning to feel like a rather immature 8 year old next to you

O.K Let me get this straight, I write about 5 pages of trash and random waffle, you write 3 possibly 4 pages of concise and to the point information and then you try to find an excuse for your random bizarreness? hmmmmm

Anyway as for your rather poor excuse of disorientation, I did consider giving you advice and telling you to print the messages instead of using many browser windows but then I realised that'd be foolish as you're a computery bloke and most days I struggle to find the on button on the monitor

Re: your ex/stalker problem can't you just pretend to have left the country? If you never see her anyway, you could quite easily get all your mates...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHH CHILLI IN MY EYE, CHILLI IN MY EYE, OWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW OOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW... Aww man that stung, sorry about that Anyway what I was saying (through one squinting eye) was couldn't get your mates to pretend you'd left the country? It'd be quite easy, to one of my errr...mates...I am allegedly in France, this was going quite well until they almost found me in a bar on Friday night, when a hasty exit had to be made ...which was quite disappointing as the bar men were doing a really cool dance thing with flaming Bacardi bottles and a line of fire on the bar

I considered ignoring your blatant bragging about LA but then I realised you'd ruined my helpful knowledge so I decided against it As for the masks how did you manage to last half way through the film? I was fed up with them after the first time because I foolishly expected them to have come up with something slightly more original for the sequel. By the end I was quite hoping that she'd take her mask off and be Tom Cruise and he'd take his off and be some random old woman... Chicken Run? Hmmmm. Did you not think that Rocky and Ginger's kiss at the end just ruined the whole thing? I know it was inevitable but unless I pretend that it was a deliberate satirical parody of the cheesy hollywood (at a guess your reply will contain the phrase, "when I was in Hollywood recently" ) ending I really can't apprecite it. Mel Gibson makes an attractive rooster though... Have you seen Final Destination yet? You really should although you do seem to fly a lot so maybe it's better if you haven't/don't

I don't think you should respect my poor punctuality that much as apparantly it's a bad thing...I also maintain that that particular occasion was not my fault. I was socially obliged to stay and chat with my mates boyfriend in order to a) provide gossip for other friends and b) appear extra nice in order to make up for my strong dislike of his previous boyfriend (who I may have possibly kicked at one stage or another but I fully deny all charges of pushing him into a lamp post as that was entirely his own fault...). Also the person in question has a worse track record than me as shown by the last time we arranged to go to the theatre (yes I know, theatre, radio two, art, all very funny hahaha ,sorry just thought I'd pre-empt you).I told him to meet three hours before we needed to, he didn't arrive and finally rang up the following morning to say he'd tried but had fallen asleep, lost his wallet, forgotten his coat, missed the bus and then couldn't remember which theatre it was. So as you can see it was clearly his influence and it was foolish of my friend to allow me to visit him before I met up with her

As for my schooling, I wouldn't actually say I was persistantly disobedient I just happened to have an agenda and outlook on life which didn't quite fit with some of my teachers. Besides I couldn't have been that bad to be made head girl could I? However, I'm most impressed by you leaving the country to avoid detention although I can't help but feel it was a little excessive as surely you could have just not turned up

Radio Two...hmmmm...*wonders what can be said in my defence, considers slipping into damage limitation mode, decides against it*...you should listen to it before you bag it...its actually not as bad and old fashioned as you'd think...try Steve Wright in the afternoons...to show my level of sadness it's 2-5...but don't stay for drive time with Johnny Walker because that's poor...Richard Allinson 10-12 is good too and he generally has interesting guests after 11ish...Lynn Parson's is good too from 12pm but I think tonight it's Janis Long from 1pm as before that there's whispering Bob something or other and he's quite dull...o.k I should stop now...change of subject... I got a really nice ball gown today, v.long and shimmery, in chromoflair purple (well apparantly it's spun silk or something more feminine sounding but hey ) with coordinating stole thingy (o.k so it's not spelt like that but you know what I mean)...

You do know that you're never going to convince me that the waffles advert was on before 1988 don't you? Just thought I'd warn you incase you planned on arguing I don't understand you (although maybe that's the intention) one minute you're moaning about receeding hairlines and cardigan/slipper expectations and the next you're proudly declaring the fact that you saw Star wars on it's first release...surely there's a conflict of interests there?

hmmmm...the scam...shouldn't be mentioned, may be falling apart around us...trying to work out how to justify £150 (each) travelling expenses before we even get to the scamming part...also vital tickets are missing from the operation and whilst confirmation letter has arrived as some form of compensation it misses several select details which may prevent us from going ahead...however, if we do get there, the scam will definitely be pulled off as that part (security evasion etc) has been arranged and completed...I reckon it was previous attempts to brag about it that jinxed it...hmmmm

...sorry depressive state now...white chocolate...*munches and immediately brightens*...The Dome advert is highly foolish, you can't use mass advertising campaigns to target oppositional audiences (or as they say the free minded) as it completely contradicts itself which leaves me with even less respect for the government Anyway, I hate to say it but I'm going to the Dome soon (although for some unknown reason the coach dumps us at Victoria coach park which, as you'll know, is the complete opposite side to the Dome) so I will be able to tell you exactly how poor it is

As for the role of a chairman I think I fill the criteria fairly well, I make sure my point is heard, ignore the opposition and harrass them into submission. Surely that's the right way to do it? Afterall the aim of a debate is to come out with most people on your side which is pretty similar to an argument (I would like to point out that I did actually take it very seriously and made sure that every single student from the 1st year upwards who wanted to ask a question had the opportunity to do so and I politely sat and waited through the arseymans answers...and then even more politely told him he was wrong )

Oh, you try to understand why you're wrong in arguments? Maybe we don't have the same approach I just try not to lose and if I win in the process then that's a bonus

Seven's not meant to be real? Where do you get that from? I thought it was just happily making a religious statement and showing off Brad Pitt I understand what you're on about with Fight Club connotating a hellish underworld as I studied it for the media violence debate...which is mainly a load of rubbish and falsely manipulated statistics but that's irrelevant. I was supposed to see the Game as unreal? Errr, maybe I should watch it again, 3am was probably a bad time to watch it as I doubt concentration was at it's highest...although me and Chris watched the entire modern animation collection over two days (Bugs Life, Antz, Small Soldiers and err, The Wedding Singer on one night and Mulan, Hercules, Simbas Pride and Twelve Monkeys (I know) on the second) and at 5am I still understood Twelve Monkeys so maybe time isn't a relevant factor...shock realisation, maybe I just don't understand something

Do you know what's most annoying about exams, you revise, remember nothing then weeks afterwards you suddenly remember everything and have excessive amounts of knowledge which is entirely useless and irrelevant to everyday life. When I saw Chicken run yesterday Adrian had to confiscate my popcorn because I started analysing the film and pointing out possible connotations and then I started psychoanalysing the chickens which was equally unappreciated

Your flat mate with the media studies paper, she wouldn't be responsible for anything I'm likely to have studied would she? Because if she was one of the people who wrote 25 page long papers on the symbolism of the colour blue in advertising then I would like it to be known that it can't possibly be misconstrued as funny Also if she has ever done any A-Level conferences and met a woman (if she was that woman I apologise) who gave a 3 hour speech about sexism within the news (apparantly because you generally see male murderers/theives/muggers and female victims this reflects sexist programming) and managed to persuade me to ignore all feminists forever can you ask her to say "just No!" if she ever sees her again

Mmmmm, Clarkson does a column in the Telegraph at the back of the motoring section which is after the sports section at the weekend. It's generally very funny but then I always find the Telegraphs sports features funny anyway so maybe that's just me Top Gear magazine's not so bad...I've bought it, errr, twice...well technically once because I was given the first one at Top Gear Live (When I met Jeremy Clarkson and Tiff Needel (who sent me a birthday card )) as a free gift ...and I did only buy June's issue because of the TVR's...but I'm sure it's fine (say's the avid reader of Motoring News )

You'll be pleased (no you will, honest )to know that I am feeling better although I think that's mainly due to the exceptionally strong medicine which the Dr bloke gave me which seems to knock me out during the day and stop me sleeping at night...which is nice