The Firstest Worstest Week

The first week of school is always a fun experience, especially if you take 'fun' to mean 'excruciatingly long' and experience to mean 'time during which I would rather be sawing off my own foot with a steak knife'. Five long, long days to get used to the idea of being back at school again. They don't even ease us into it. If a Formula One racing driver had a horrible accident while on the track, and woke up the next day crippled for life because of it, you wouldn't buy him a car as a get-well-soon present. Partly because Formula One racing drivers make far more than the likes of you or I and they should learn to buy their own damn cars. But mostly because it would be inhumane and bring back all kinds of messy, repressed memories that should really stay bottled up.
Now I've created that metaphor I can't remember exactly what point I was trying to make with it, but I'm sure it was an important one. All I meant to say was that we should be given time to get used to school, an hour a day for a couple of weeks, building up to the full seven hours around week nine or ten. Not thrown, struggling, into the deep end of the pool.
I don't like to get bogged down in metaphors (not after that first one, anyway), but in this case I don't think that applies, because for this week at least, school has been extraordinarily similar to a swimming pool. That is to say wet, cold, and filled with soggy people.
It's spring, for goodness' sake. Yet it poured with rain for three of the five days of our school week. Monday and Thursday were fine. The rest, not so much.
One of the more interesting side effects of rain - aside from the cold, damp, and generally wet-making aspects, which aren't interesting so much as irritating - is that it encourages all the worms, slugs and snails to come out from wherever they're hiding and grace the humans with their presence. Yes, nothing says 'spring rain' so much as a dying worm which has attached itself to the bottom of your shoe in a last, great effort and doesn't seem keen to be unstuck. It also encourages all kinds of different behaviour in people. In me, for example, when walking on pavement, I have to stop every two or three metres to rescue a snail which has strayed on to the path. Not because I like snails, I just hate the noise they make when they're stepped on. In fact, the only reason I move them is so I don't have to step on them when coming down the same path later in the day. This is surprisingly ineffective as snails are not the brightest of creatures and the time it takes them to travel back on to the exact same position on the path is almost always roughly equal to the amount of time it takes me to do whatever I was going on a walk for and come back to the snail. So I move them again, they move back again, and the cycle goes on.

This is nothing, however, to what these creatures do to Ness. Ness has a thing about worms. By which I don't mean that she is fond of them and actively seeks them out: more a kind of mortal terror situation. Vyvyan discovered this early on the Tuesday, and took no little pleasure from exploiting it. At one point, Ness, Giuseppe and Marie-Clare were chatting somewhere near our locker area. I went up to engage them in conversation (I was Vyvyan's decoy). Vyvyan then approached, cheerfully wielding a worm. Ness wears glasses, has quite poor vision, and was therefore not aware of the worm until it was within five centimetres of her face. She noticed it, let out a blood-curdling scream, and pelted away until she judged she was a safe distance from the creature (about five metres - although what would a worm actually do to you if you were less than five metres at you? Jump at you, fall into a puddle and get stepped on?). Giuseppe, who I hadn't realised didn't like worms (that is to say, she'd told me and I'd forgotten), did the same thing, but in the other direction. Marie-Clare remained in the middle, slightly unsure as to what had happened. Vyvyan collapsed, laughing, and I nearly did the same, despite trying my hardest to look like an innocent, oblivious victim. Yes, if you read this post without knowing who we are we sound like six-year-olds. I don't care. Fun for all ages.

Another thing that worms (or slugs, in this case - lovely) have revealed about my friends is Chinny's true nature. Virtually every day before school, Chinny and I are there before most other people. She does homework. If she doesn't have homework she does revision. If she doesn't have revision she studies sheet music. I hang around her and do incredibly witty things like pretending to speak a different language or think that her copy of Bach's Thirty-Second Prelude (or whatever it was called) is a copy of an adventure novel. You know, exciting, hilarious things like that. Anyway, on this morning - it must have been Thursday, as the SCARF INCIDENT (see below) happened on the same day - Chinny arrived slightly before I did. It had been raining the day before and presumably all the table were too wet for her to work on, as she had her books on top of a wall and was working there. The wall was bordering a garden - 'garden' in the school sense, that is to say a large pile of dirt with various shrubs and leaf-litter. I intended to go up and lean on the wall next to her, but was annoyed to find a small slug exactly where I wanted to put my elbow. I carefully rolled it off into the garden with a bit of stick and reclined on the wall. I looked up to discover Chinny staring at me reproachfully. 'Leslie!'

'What?'

'That was animal cruelty. You can't do that to slugs.'

'It was in the way!'

'Well, you could have leant somewhere else,' she said firmly, and picked up her books. I couldn't help being transfixed by something that had managed to climb on to the top of her science textbook. Chinny followed my gaze to see a giant slug crawling (or sliming, or whatever it is slugs do when they walk) along happily. She let out on ear-piercing scream (what with Ness, Giuseppe, and Chinny, I don't think my ears will ever be quite as they used to be) and flung the slug hard onto the concrete we were standing on, before backing away and giving it a disgusted look. After we'd all calmed down again (except the slug, who didn't look like it would be doing anything anytime soon), I looked at her meaningfully. From now on, her name is 'Double-Standards Chinny', or 'Disc' (for those who find it easier. I had to add the 'i' because it's incredibly hard to pronounce the work 'Dsc'. Really. Give it a go. Now. I don't care if anyone's watching you).

One of the less pleasant side effects of the rain - and believe me, worms aren't that pleasant, so that should tell you how bad this was - is that the ovals are now completely waterlogged. Not nice for walking over in the mornings, worse in the afternoons after it's been raining all day and the puddles are up to your ankles. But when it gets really bad is when you have to play lacrosse on said ovals.

For some time now I've been under the opinion that nothing, whether natural, manmade or Act of God, could possibly make my lacrosse-playing-skill worse than it is. Nope. Water, freshly mown grass (so that all the pieces are still lying around, looking like they're still attached), and me with a lacrosse stick are a combination made in either hell or perverse comedy writer's heaven. Add Vyvyan running around with her crosse confidently held at shin-level and you've pretty much got the idea as to what PE lessons have been like for me this week.

In fact, that's not the worst of it. You know what's worse than playing a sport you can't play on ground you're incapable of standing on with a homicidal crosse-wielding lunatic?

It's playing a sport you can't play on ground you're incapable of standing on with a homicidal crosse-wielding lunatic when people are taking pictures of it for the school book.

Luckily, the camerapeople seemed to have picked up the impression from somewhere that the most exciting thing to take pictures of in a game of lacrosse is the person who has the ball, and as my position in lacrosse is 'stay away from the action and it can't hurt you', I managed to avoid the worst of my failures being preserved on film.

In fact, Vyvyan was probably worse off in this case. She's actually quite a good player - well, better than me. Then again, you could just jam one of the sticks upright in the mud and would play lacrosse better than me. Anyway, she did get the ball enough that the camerapeople followed her on occasion. While there were plenty of good shots, somewhere, there is a picture of Vyvyan trying to throw the ball to someone across the field, throwing it up in the air instead, and then being hit in the back of the head with it. That might have been the high point of my lacrosse-playing career. Sadly.

In my year at school we recently received an exchange student from South Africa. She's made an exceptionally good impression on a friend of ours called Skeith. He's appeared in the blog before as 'STUDENT 2' in my 'Not-So-Sweet-16' post, when I couldn't think of a name for him. Luckily we were discussing name changes the other day in Media, and I discovered that his middle name is Keith, while his first initial is an S: S. Keith. Thus, 'Skeith' was born.

Anyway, Skeith has a number of clever ruses going to attract the attention of this exchange student. His first idea was feigning ignorance to anything she talked about, so that she would  be coerced into long explanations, giving him excuses to talk to her. After spending some time learning about what water polo is from her (he pretended to have confused it with lacrosse), he decided that a second idea would be in order. In this one, he decided to learn a lot of things instead to impress her with his knowledge. After I prevented him from using our Media computer to google 'South Africa', he decided to quiz me about it instead. 'Is it true that black South Africans don't exist?'

'No, Skeith, I think they exist.'

'You're wrong. They're imaginary, only white people live in South Africa.'

'I don't think that's right. There aren't as many of them, but they're there.'

'You're wrong.'

'No I'm not.'

'Yes you are.'

We went to the Wikipedia page for South Africa and scrolled down in an effort to find out if black South Africans existed or not. I pointed to one of the first pictures. 'That is a black South African, Skeith.'

He shrugged. 'No, that's a migrant.'

'What about those ones?'

'More migrants.'

'Well, how about -'

'No, they're all migrants.'

'They can't all be migrants!' I countered. He looked amazed. 'Of course not! The white ones aren't.'

I suggested that he try something else.

In that same Media lesson, we had resumed work on our project when Skeith had sudden doubts (we decided not to use the Drama students for our project, by the way, which was tricky as we'd already filmed some bits with a Drama student as the main character, a clown. So the clown swaps from being a Drama student to being Skeith halfway through the film. Saying that it looks tacky doesn't cover it). Anyway, Skeith nudged me and said 'Can I borrow your scissors?'

'Why?' I asked suspiciously. I haven't forgotten the time Vyvyan took my gluestick and used it to glue her socks up.

'Look at my hair at the back!' He spun around on the chair and showed me.

'What about it?'

'It's too long.'

'Well, cut it when you get home.'

'I can't. We have French after lunch and the exchange student is in our French class.'

'And?'

'If I cut it now, she'll never notice!' he enthused.

I was suspicious. 'You mean, you want to cut your hair at the back - without a mirror - with my scissors, to impress the exchange student?'

'That's it.'

I lent him the scissors, partly because I was interested to see if he'd go through with it.

He went through with it. Not a bad job, either, so far as I could tell, considering he couldn't see what he was doing. I'm not sure if the exchange student noticed or not, but our Media teacher certainly did. I won't go into that.

On the Thursday, I finally brought in the scarf I'd knitted for Falcon. I was confident - nay, certain - of its phenomenal powers of hideousness, the sheer clashing tastelessness of it all.

Therefore, I was quite put out upon Chinny's reaction to it (this was just several minutes after the DSC incident).

'It's pretty!' she exclaimed. 'I want a scarf just like it!'

I was shocked. How could she like the scarf?

'Well, I like that colour of green,' she admitted. 'And those pompoms look really soft.'

I charged her with wearing it, to see how much she liked it after everyone else commented on it. It didn't work. 'It's really comfortable too.'

It was quite funny to see how tactful people can be. 'That's . . . an interesting scarf, Chinny.'

'Leslie knitted it.'

'Ah. Well done, Leslie. It looks really . . . well done.'

I had to explain that I'd knitted it for the purpose of being horrible, which I'm not sure relieved anyone of the impression that I'm mentally ill, but at least reassured them that my taste isn't quite that bad.

Giuseppe and Marie-Clare's reactions were far closer to what I wanted. 'Oh, God, that's disgusting!' said Giuseppe after glimpsing it for the first time. Marie-Clare made a similar comment, but I can't remember what it was as she was laughing too hard. Aviator was extremely pleased with it. 'Give it to Falcon now, I want to see his reaction. We should catch it on video.'

Marie-Clare and Giuseppe acted as scarf bearers. On the way to Falcon we passed a friend of Marie-Clare's, Dancer, who is (it's only fair to say) fairly stylish. I swear he actually took a step back when we passed him with it, and the look of horror on his face would have photographed just as well as any of Falcon's.

When we did get the scarf to Falcon, there wasn't horror on his face so much as shock. 'I did tell you what to expect,' I said firmly.

'Yes, but I didn't realise there would be quite so many pompoms . . .'

He wore the scarf to half of Media (Media people are clearly far less tactful than most, as most of the scarf-related comments showed), then removed it for the rest of the day. DESPITE having promised - on a signed contract, no less! - to wear it for a whole day of school. I confronted him about it in Chemistry. 'Well, I didn't want it to get damaged in Woodwork,' he said guiltily.

Sure, Falcon. Because last time I checked, Woodwork didn't go for the whole day. Blog-readers, I know that a good few of you - Aviator, Marie-Clare, and Giuseppe, anyway - were interested in the progress of the scarf, and we can't let him get away with it. We need the other six-and-a-half periods of scarf wearing he promised in the contract. People of school, I'm relying on you.

Anyway, nothing brightens up the second week of school like a lime green/hot pink/pompom covered scarf. True fact.

Photograph courtesy of Phoenix, who is a close personal friend of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Read her blog. All the cool wizards are doing it.

What I Did In My Holidays

I would like to take a moment to apologise to my small number of fans, and slightly larger number of easily enraged readers, for the long time period I've left between my published posts. Clearly you people have a collective power I hadn't bargained on. For my own personal safety (and yes, Marie-Clare, the threats have mainly come from you), I am now presenting you with a post summing up my holidays, from the last day of school up to the present moment, so far. I could publish it in a number of smaller posts. That would keep you all off my back (metaphorically speaking) for any number of weeks. However, I have decided to do the noble thing and instead write a single post in sections. Some of what I've written was actually finished at the time, I just never got around to publishing it.

I would also like to take a moment out of my busy schedule to thank Giuseppe for standing up for my blogging integrity against the combined forces of everyone else, who really should have known better.

So, now I've frustrated all of you with this needlessly long description and apology (serves you right, too - you know who you are. Clogging up my Facebook page with negative comments regarding my blogging consistency. NESS. MARIE-CLARE), I present you with:

What I Did In My Holidays

an epic saga in four parts

1. Part the First - last day of school

Last day of school, thank you - for lack of a God - whatever it is you thank when you're an atheist. It coincided magically with the day I (a) brought my iPod to school and (b) discovered that my iPod has a video camera. I may do Media, but I think I have a great deal to learn in the filming department. I took a film of Chinny running away, one of me asking Shoelace to dance (for the sake of interesting filming - she gave me a quick jig and then gave up), and a two-second one of me confronting Aviator, yelling 'Smile!', with him responding 'Please don't'.

As it was the last day of school, the teachers should, by rights, have been just as keen to get out as us. They should have shared this feeling of approaching freedom by showing movies, playing games in class and maybe even letting us out early into the relatively glorious beginning-of-spring weather.

Unfortunately, teachers are also very unpredictable.

In English we analysed a poem of that most excellent of English writers, Robert Browning, entitled 'My Last Duchess'. Oh, yes. Nothing like spending your last day studying a poem about a man who hated - and possibly killed - his wife for being too nice to others. Wahay!

Following an entree of English was the main, double Geography. Actually, that wasn't too bad. We watched an Australian mini-series called 'Marking Time'. I quite enjoyed it. For an Australian series, I mean. Obviously it has nothing on Fry & Laurie.

Marie-Clare was sitting next to me. The main actor in the series wasn't too attractive, so I settled down for a peaceful hour and a half of watching, knowing that she would be unlikely to disturb me. Unfortunately - and he really should have known better - the father in the TV show mentioned George Harrison in passing, while discussing his love for the guitar. She didn't calm down again for a good few minutes, after disturbing most of the multiple Geography classes watching with her excited cries.

PE, then Chemistry to finish with. In PE we are playing lacrosse. WHY? I'd thought that game had gone out of fashion way back in the 1950s. In England it's only played by posh girls in private schools. In England, they have more sense.

Can I catch a lacrosse ball? No. Can I throw a lacrosse ball? No. Can I pick up a lacrosse ball from the ground with one of those ridiculous little nets on the ends of sticks you're supposed to play with? Yes. Barely. After several goes.

Half of the horror of this PE lesson stemmed from my inability to wield this stick with anything approaching competence. The rest, from Vyvyan.

Vyvyan is not a good person to have around while playing sport. When we did badminton, she hit me in the face with the racquet. When we did table tennis, she hit me on the wrist with the racquet while trying to give me a 'racquet hi-five' and then again in the face (this time without the racquet) when trying to give me an actual hi-five. I'm not sure if it's uncoordination or malice. Probably some sick combination of the two. All I know is that within ten minutes of picking up a lacrosse stick (or 'crosse', as I've just discovered they're called), she'd hit me once in the forehead with a ball, hit me twice in the shins with a crosse, and then hit me on the head with the net on the end of the crosse because it 'made a good hat'. This is what they look like.

Lethal, aren't they? All you need is a bit of a spike on the end and you'd have the perfect weapon. Assuming you were fighting people who didn't have guns, poison gas or long range artillery, that is. In that case it might not be such a perfect weapon.

Anyway, the second lesson - which is the one we had on the final day - I was more prepared.

Also in our PE class is a friend of ours called Beartrap (his chosen name. I didn't choose it. Still, it seems to work for him). He frequently claims to have either no heart or a heart made of complete evil. I'm a little confused about this, actually. I mean, he can't have both. Maybe he's just conflicted. Anyway, he seemed the perfect person for the job I had in mind.

LESLIE (L): Beartrap? Can you do a job for me?

BEARTRAP (B): What is it?

L: I need you to act as a bodyguard.

B: I could assassinate someone for you if you'd like. I'm not so sure about the paid protection thing.

L: That would work too. Can you assassinate Vyvyan?

B: No! I can't kill a girl. Why would you want me to kill her?

L: Well, it's like this - hey! Give that back!

(Vyvyan steals my shoe. I threaten her with my sock and then push her off the bench. Shoe is thankfully retrieved)

B: I can see why you might need personal protection. Can you pay me?

L: Yes. In a non-literal sense, of course.

B: I can't do it then.

L: Well, how about instead of paying for my retirement in fifty years time you give me personal protection now?

(Long story, but earlier this term we made a bet, the deal being that the loser would have to pay for the winner's retirement. Beartrap lost)

B: That sounds . . . reasonable.

That made this lesson far more bearable. Entertaining, too, as Vyvyan took grave exception to my having hired protection against her. Luckily, Beartrap took the brunt of it. I don't think I'll be missing my retirement money.

Last in the day was Chemistry. Not my best subject, especially on the last day of school. I made up three elements in the quick quiz our teacher gave us (although I'll be pleasantly surprised if 'Thithium' turns out to be real) and then spent the rest of the lesson talking to Falcon about the epic battle we intended to have later in the holidays. Read below for more. Anyway, the bell went, we followed shortly, and school was OVER for another term.

2. Part the Second - post-birthday dinner

The last day was over, school was complete, and I could now relax for the holiday? Not so. For I had organised a dinner at a restaurant near my house to celebrate both my birthday - despite the fact that it was weeks afterwards - and the end of term.

I had invited about eleven people, but only five ended up making it - Gwen was at the opera, Chinny was 'busy', Midgie, Shoelace and Vyvyan couldn't come for reasons I have now forgotten (but they must have been good ones, as otherwise I would've remembered), and Peanut somehow expected me to believe the flimsy excuse she gave of no longer being in the country. I'm serious. To show how committed she is, she even posted on HER blog about how she's gone to America - all lies, obviously. I mean, we all know she's just hiding in her house, refusing to answer the phone. Still, what can you do with someone like that? She even left school a day early, claiming 'that's the day the aeroplane is leaving'. Ridiculous.

Aviator had wanted to be invited. After I turned him down point-blank the first time he asked, he decided to use slightly more subtle techniques, such as this one.

AVIATOR (A): Hello, Leslie. How was your afternoon yesterday?

LESLIE (L): Good, thank you. And yours?

A: Oh, well, I didn't have dinner last night. My parents never give me dinner. It's terrible, it really is. So hungry . . . so very hungry . . . if only there was some way in which I could get dinner, maybe go to a restaurant with a kind friend . . . but that's probably just a crazy dream.

L: Nice try, but no.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to get across here is that the only persons in attendance were Marie-Clare, Ness, Lala, Ariane, Giuseppe, and myself. Ness arrived first. I gave her a quick tour of the house - featuring Drummer Boy, doing what his name suggests, as the main attraction - and we then retired to the kitchen, where we played with the magnetic letters on the fridge. We may be 16, but we're no more mature. Ness was considerably annoyed at the way there were no 'm's on the fridge. 'I mean, how can you spell words properly?' she complained, after fruitlessly searching for the letter that would change the phrase she was working on from 'happy en' to 'happy men', for reasons best known to herself.

I was perplexed. 'There are lots of 'm's.'

'I can't see any.'

'Look, there's one here!'

'That's not an 'm'!' she said indignantly. 'That's an upside-down 'w'.'

Ariane arrived shortly afterwards and changed it from 'happy men' to 'hoppy men'. After that, Marie-Clare and Lala arrived together. Lala had ignored my express wishes and brought me a present. I unwrapped it suspiciously.

'Have you nearly got the paper off?' Lala inquired cheerfully.

'Nearly - what's this?'

'Yeah, I wrapped it twice,' she explained. 'Once in proper paper and once in newspaper.'

Ariane, standing nearby, laughed. 'Why couldn't you just have used the paper or the newspaper? You didn't need both.'

'You know, I have no idea,' Lala told her thoughtfully. So nice to have this insight into the minds of my friends.

Anyway, once the present was unwrapped, it was revealed to contain (a) a pen that looked like a pencil (b) a stuffed panda and (c) a small box. Lala promptly seized the box, got down on one knee, and proposed to me with the ring that was inside. I accepted. Obviously we were married before, but it's nice to have it made official. I wore the ring for the rest of the evening and most of the next day. Then it got uncomfortable, so I took it off. It's still a commitment.

At this point, all necessary persons had arrived, and we made our way to the Vietnamese restaurant we'd chosen. I hadn't originally meant it to be the Vietnamese restaurant. I'd wanted to book at an Italian restaurant, for the sole reason that Marie-Clare is incapable of eating Asian foods. I'll never know how she managed to survive her sojourn in Japan: I suppose it's just one of life's mysteries. However, that restaurant had been booked out. Which left me a little worried as to what Marie-Clare was going to be able to eat. Still, we'd face that when we came to it.

We got to the restaurant in good time, and had ordered before Giuseppe arrived. Marie-Clare had decided that she actually quite liked the idea of sweet-and-sour pork, and ordered that. I don't have time to devote all that much to Marie-Clare's bizarre eating habits. In fact, I'm considering writing a post all about that - what to do when escorting Marie-Clare to a movie or restaurant. It could be invaluable to 25, you never know. However, I won't discuss it now. Enough to say that she got by mainly on the rice, which, thank goodness, was plentiful.

There's not a lot to say about the dinner, except that Lala and Ariane decided to try and convince Ness that Ariane was red-green colourblind, and enlisted everyone else to maintain this illusion. Sorry, Ness, if you're reading this now.

After the dinner we returned to my house, to await the arrival of various parents in an hour's time. We decided to pass the time by playing Monopoly. Lala was bank, I was property, and Ness suggested that Ariane take houses. Ariane looked at her sorrowfully. 'How can I give the houses and hotels out when I can't even tell them apart?'

'What are you talking about? They're different colours -' I began, before suddenly remembering the colourblind thing. 'Which, of course, you are unable to tell apart.'

'Don't worry,' Ariane assured me. 'I'm used to people not knowing.'

Anyway, Lala got a little carried away with the whole 'banker' thing. Being keen to play Monopoly I can understand. Putting a pimp hat on, drawing a moustache on in eyeliner, and glaring suspiciously at anyone trying to take money out of the bank is a little harder.

I was the one actually drawing with the eyeliner. We kind of forgot about the Monopoly then. I gave Ness a heart on her forehead (never know when it might come in handy), drew a flower on myself (which is harder than it sounds - it came out like a diseased cloud), and the Ariane and I collaborated in drawing on Marie-Clare. We drew her initials on one cheek and the initials of 25 on the other. We never got around to drawing on Giuseppe because she left early. Before she left, she presented me with a present, which was from her, Marie-Clare, Ness, and Shoelace (in absentia): a hard drive, with about 300GB of music, TV shows and movies on it. Does nobody pay attention to anything I say? I'm not complaining, though, I now have about three times as much music as I ever considered existed, as well as the complete series of The Chaser's War On Everything. In fact, I think it's about time for a gratuitous Chaser picture (yes, that time again):

Anyway, thank you again, Giuseppe. After Giuseppe left, we decided to completely forget the Monopoly game, much to Marie-Clare's annoyance. It seems fated that I am never to finish a game of Monopoly I have with Marie-Clare. Very strange. At any rate, I got my iPod out and made a number of short films of everyone. People left one by one, until finally only Lala remained. We'd decided to film a nature documentary with my panda, and were just setting up, when her sister arrived to take her home. Tragic.

3. Part the Third - an epic battle

For a long time, Falcon and I have had quite a serious argument going. He sees it one way, I see it the other, and there doesn't seem to be any way of compromising our views. Eventually, we decided we would have to take this argument to the next level and sort it out, once and for all. Permanently. No turning back.

The subject we argue over is 'Who is the best Doctor Who?', and the battle we intended to have would be one of watching television.

The problem is this. Falcon believes that David Tennant is the best doctor of all time. I, on the other hand, believe it is Matt Smith. There seemed no way of making a decision.

We managed to think of one, thought.

Early in the morning in the first week of the holidays - early, that is, for a group of teenagers not on school time, which is to say at about 9:30 - I, Falcon, and our chosen three judges arrived at my place of residence. Well, I was already there, but you know what I mean. The judges had been selected individually on the basis of their Doctor Who-ignorance. Aviator, the first judge, had never seen an episode and was openly sceptical of the concept. I personally am of the opinion that he only turned up in the first place for the sake of the bet contract he'd made. More about that later. Our second judge, Giuseppe, is easily the most ignorant of all the people I know. She was once yelled at by her entire English class for not knowing what a Dalek was. Our third and final judge was Marie-Clare. I'd opted to have her on the basis that she owned all the series of Doctor Who except for the Matt Smith ones, meaning I'd only have to hire the latest series. Also, although she didn't have a particular favourite Doctor, she was inclined to lean towards Matt Smith. Falcon was indignant when he found this out. 'Are you trying to cheat, Leslie?' However, he soon came around and we settled down to watch. It was extremely hard first of all. Giuseppe and Marie-Clare tried to continue an argument they'd been having as to whether it was appropriate to celebrate John Lennon's birthday with a shop-bought cake or not, only stopping when Giuseppe got a call on her mobile and was forced to answer that for a few minutes. We managed to get a few minutes further in before Aviator pretended to get a call on his mobile and talk loudly on it for a few minutes. Eventually, we put subtitles on, and managed to get through four episodes, two for each of our chosen Doctors, with only major interruptions between episodes.

Of the people who read my blog, I'm not sure how many of you watch Doctor Who. I was going to add a list of the episodes we watched, but reconsidered it on the basis that most of you wouldn't understand it. So here is a clarified version for you non-Whovians.

EPISODE #1: THE GIRL IN THE FIREPLACE

DOCTOR: David Tennant

ACTUAL PLOT: Clockwork, humanoid monsters invade the life of Madame de Pompadour, mistress to Louis XV of France, via a number of time windows contained on board a spaceship, in the hopes of removing her brain and using it to power the ship.

SIMPLIFIED PLOT: Ticking things try and kill the king of France's girlfriend. They don't manage to. The Doctor saves the day.

COMMENTS:

GIUSEPPE (G): I don't think that was a proper episode.

LESLIE (L): Why not?

G: There weren't any Daneks.

L: It's pronounced 'Daleks'. And the Daleks aren't present in every episode.

G: What? Are you serious?

MARIE-CLARE (MC): Giuseppe! How can you not know that?

L: Right. What did you think, Aviator?

AVIATOR (A): Well, the girl was pretty hot.

FALCON (F): She was, actually.

A: Can we watch another one with a hot girl?

EPISODE #2: THE ELEVENTH HOUR

DOCTOR: Matt Smith

ACTUAL PLOT: The Doctor appears to a young girl, and fixes a crack made in space and time in her wall. He comes back to her as a woman, and discovers an alien called Prisoner Zero hiding in her house. The Atraxi, who originally held Prisoner Zero hostage, threaten to incinerate the Earth unless Prisoner Zero is returned to them. The Doctor eventually takes on the woman (Amy) as a new assistant.

SIMPLIFIED PLOT: The Doctor mends a wall, finds a snake-thing, and gives the snake-thing to a giant eye-thing. The Doctor saves the day.

COMMENTS:

A: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS GUY?

F: You're right. What do you mean?

A: He comes out of his box -

MC: TARDIS, it's called.

A: - finds a little Scottish girl, and forces her to cook for him, then spits yoghurt in her face. Why would you do that to a kid? She was adorable. I want a kid just like her.

L: Really?

A: A kid that can cook, AND has a Scottish accent? That would be both awesome and hilarious.

G: Yeah, he doesn't come across as a nice person.

A: Although when she grew up she was pretty hot. Let's watch another one with a hot girl.

EPISODE #3: FEAR HER

DOCTOR: David Tennant

ACTUAL PLOT: The Doctor and Rose (his companion) discover a girl with the ability to trap people in drawings. After she traps an entire stadium full of people from the 2012 London Olympics in a picture, the Doctor realises she is possessed by an Isolus and is able to free her of it, as well as releasing everyone in the pictures.

SIMPLIFIED PLOT: Girl possesses creepy powers. Doctor discovers she has been taken over by small white annoying flower-thing. The Doctor saves the day.

COMMENTS:

F: Did they know that the 2012 Olympics were going to be in London when they filmed this?

MC: Maybe they didn't! Maybe the writers have secret powers.

A: No, I think they knew. They have these things organised way in advance. Who was the blonde girl, again? She was in the first one we watched as well.

L: Rose. Well, Billie Piper.

A: Wasn't she in that TV series about a prostitute? It was called something like 'The Life of a Prostitute'.

L: 'The Secret Diary of a Call-Girl'.

A: Yeah, she was pretty hot.

EPISODE #4: THE BEAST BELOW

DOCTOR: Matt Smith

ACTUAL PLOT: The Doctor and his companion (Amy) arrive on the Starship UK. After some investigation, after which they are almost fed to a mysterious beast (which is 'below' the rest of the ship - oh, you cunning, cunning title writers), they discover the animal is actually a Star Whale and is being tortured in order to fly the ship. Amy prevents the Doctor from killing it, and proves that it doesn't need to be tortured to fly.

SIMPLIFIED PLOT: The Doctor and friend arrive on what is basically England on a space ship. They wander around a little, are shoved into the mouth of giant mystical space whale-like creature, escape from the mouth of giant mystical space whale-like creature, and generally make everything good. Amy saves the day.

COMMENTS:

A: I'm serious. There is something very, very wrong with this guy.

L: How do you mean, exactly?

A: Did you see in the beginning, how the Scottish girl was floating around in space? Well, he was looking up her skirt. And she was in her NIGHTDRESS.

MC: How does that make it any different?

A: Well, who wears underwear to bed?

L: What are you talking about? Who doesn't wear underwear to bed?

A: Actually, I -

L: I don't want to hear it!

G: He's right. That is unduly creepy. At least David Tennant never did that to any of his assistants.

MC: No, but he did kiss Madame de Pompadour. Which is a bit strange.

A: That's acceptable, though. And not creepy.

F: What did you think of Amy, though?

A: I thought she was hot!

The watching over, it was time to vote. Before we did that, though, Aviator had a suggestion to make. 'Look. I made this bet contract yesterday. Basically, whoever loses has to do something. I don't know what yet. I thought we could decide now.'

We considered this for a good while. Aviator was unhelpful.

A: I think if Falcon loses, he should have to pull his pants down and run around Leslie's house.

MC: How can he run with his pants down?

A: That's part of the fun!

L: He'd have a hard time getting around my house, there's a fence and a garage in the way. I don't think it's a good idea, anyway. My family are easily scared.

A: It's a serious bet here, Leslie. It needs serious consequences.

F: I'm not doing that.

A: Come on, Falcon, we won't film it. Actually, that's a great idea! Leslie, do you have a video camera?

G: Forget it, Aviator.

A: You'll come round to my point of view eventually.

We didn't.

Eventually we decided that if Falcon won, I would have to knit him a scarf, and if I won, we'd get to spray Falcon with the hose for a minute and a half while filming it, and put it on Facebook.

Then, it was time to vote. I gave out voting slips, people filled them in, and then we put them in a pimp hat (actually, this hat has previously made an appearance in this post, as the one Lala donned to feel more like a banker. That hat has lead a rich and varied life). Here is the final result:

DAVID TENNANT: 4

MATT SMITH: 1

Remembering that I'd voted for Matt Smith, that meant everyone else had voted against me. 'All of you? Really?' I asked despairingly. 'I demand a recount.' It was still the same result.

'It was the yoghurt thing that did it, really,' confessed Aviator. 'I would have liked to see Falcon sprayed with a hose. But I just couldn't understand why Matt Smith would spit yoghurt at a Scottish girl. I mean, with that accent?'

This left me, then, having to knit Falcon a scarf. I did, however, manage to extract a promise from him that he would wear the scarf for at least one day at school. What's more, I would be able to pick any colours I wanted.

There IS such a thing as small victories.

Anyway, we had to stop at this point, as Aviator and Falcon were shortly going bowling and Marie-Clare was going to get her nails done. We spent the remaining time in my room, despite the fact that I'd done all I could to keep them out: I'm not the tidiest person. I showed everyone a love letter Marie-Clare had written for James McCartney the previous year, and that I had saved for an occasion such as this one. Aviator tried to convince us (a) he was an amazing jazz Irish whistle player and (b) he had syphilis (this is an extremely disconcerting thing to hear from someone when they've spent the last ten minutes playing your Irish whistle). Then everyone else tried to convince me that Matt Smith was gay.

'Come on! He's practically admitted it!' Aviator enthused.

'How has he admitted it?' I asked, annoyed.

'It's the hair,' said Falcon solemnly. 'Nobody can have hair like that and be straight. Google 'matt smith gay' and you'll get your answer.'

We did, and came up with an article he'd done for the Gay Times.

'That proves it!'

'No, it doesn't! Look, he's going out with an underwear model!' I said.

'A male underwear model,' Giuseppe contributed.

'No, a female one - look, here's a picture of her -'

We found a picture. Aviator sighed. 'All right, you win.'

'I do?'

'Yes, you're right. He's definitely bisexual.'

I was quite glad when they all left.

Everyone but Giuseppe, that is. For we had a nobler purpose in mind. We went into Civic with but a single thought: to buy the wool for Falcon's scarf. That is to say, our single thought was 'buy wool for scarf'. When it got down to the actual details of the thing, it got a little confusing.

G: You should knit his name into the scarf.

L: Not sure my knitting abilities are up to that.

G: You know what you should do - you should knit David Tennant's face into the scarf. Or Matt Smith's.

L: Again, my knitting skills aren't up to much. Either way, I'd end up with a blobby pink face and various distorted features. I'm not sure you'd be able to tell who it was.

G: That's probably right. It was a nice thought, though.

L: I think I'll just stick to stripes.

G: Well, you should make it vomit coloured. Or just generally hideous.

L: Sounds good.

We entered the wool shop. First of all, I settled on a charming lime green wool. Giuseppe approved. We then found some of that wool that changes colours as you knit, in a number of exciting colours and flavours. I went for one that swapped between lime green/dark pink/light pink. We were just deciding the last one when we accidentally stumbled across a type of wool that - well, it's hard to describe. It's essentially a think cord of thread. Except every five centimetres or so is a large pompom of wool. Obviously, this was hard to resist. Giuseppe was keen to go along the 'vomit coloured' route and buy the orange. I, however, decided that I wanted it to match, and went for some that swapped between green, white, and pink. I started the scarf when I got home. That was a week ago, and I'm already more than half done. It truly is a thing of beauty, insofar is it is impossible to look at for more than a few minutes without your eyes watering at the hideousness of it. I have to wear protective goggles while knitting. I'll have it done for the first day of school, Falcon, promise. I look forward to seeing you wear it. Serves you right for thinking David Tennant is the best Doctor. I may be down, but I'm not out.

4. Part the Fourth - family holiday

I've spent the past few days on holiday with my family. Not much to do. We watched many movies ('Brazil' was awesome. Everyone must watch it. With the proper director's cut ending, though, not the happy American one), played table tennis - I knitted and listened to my iPod.

Actually, a bizarre thing happened pertaining to my iPod (the blue one). One night, I was listening to it, perfectly innocently, when it completely cut out. The screen went black, none of the buttons worked, it wouldn't appear on my computer desktop, etc. I considered it to be dead and duly mourned it. The strange thing is that the next night, at about the same time, it came back to life again. I was pleasantly astounded. I would have been happy for it to stay that way, but it was not to be. The next night, again, at about the same time, it cut out again, right in the middle of what I was listening to. This time it still makes the clickety-click noises when I press the buttons. It just doesn't do anything. Not so much dead as comatose. I've a sneaking suspicion that it was what I was forcing it to play. Both times, it was halfway through an episode of BBC radio comedy.

Actually, come to think of it, that's not all that coincidental, seeing as that's basically all I listen to.

That was exactly a day ago. I'm hoping it'll come back to life in a matter of minutes. I'm not optimistic. Still, you never know.

And there you have it, dear friends and less dear friends (Ness. Marie-Clare. NO COMMENT). My holidays as they've been so far. There are only four days left now, so not a great deal more to sum up. There is, of course, a great deal I haven't mentioned here - mostly, it must be said, the unexciting stuff. For example, I briefly created a Wikipedia page for Gwen explaining how she was an expert on the use of hard 'g's is the English language. The Wikifolk have taken it down now, but I've still got a screen shot of the page if anyone's interested. I also created a page for one of 'my' comedians, Lee Simpson, which is still up - I thought it was about time he had one, although the Wikifolk clearly don't approve and have covered the page in irrelevant tags. The way I see it, I'm fighting against internet oppression. Nice to have achieved something. I'm also friends with two of 'my' British comedians on Facebook. Well, I'm friends with one, and friends with the alter-ego of the other. Yes, one of them has an alter-ego who is a therapist. Sound familiar?

I suppose it's not actual friends, really. I mean, they'd probably take umbrage if I turned up at their houses in the middle of the night asking to come in. But it's a start.

And so, I hope this puts to rest all the complaints and complainees of the world - at least, all the ones pestering me - and convinces them to let me sleep for another couple of weeks.