Free Periods

Let me recreate the situation for you:

It was a French lesson. We were in the labs. We were, basically, doing nothing.

Phoenix and I were trawling through the files on my school server, looking for a certain document I was fairly sure should be there but for some reason couldn't find. Well, I was trawling and she was watching somewhat disinterestedly over my shoulder.

'What's "Shakespeare&Napoleon.docx"?' she inquired after some time.

'Last semester's History seminar.'

'How about "ReinhardHeydrich.docx"?'

'This semester's History seminar.'

'What about that one called "Free Periods"?'

I paused. 'What?'

'"Free Periods", it's right there.'

'I have no idea,' I said briefly, still hoping to find my other file. 'It says I made it sometime back in May.'

'Well, what's it about?'

'I really can't remember. Now, getting back to finding that document I made about Francophone countries last week -'

Phoenix glowered dramatically and unrealistically. 'Let's look at it.'

I sighed. 'OK. Let's look at it.'

I opened it.

I stared in amazement.

'What is it, exactly?' Phoenix asked doubtfully.

'It's a spare blog post. It's a blog post I wrote in May and never posted,' I breathed, barely believing my luck. At this point I was still in my two-month writer's block phase. 'I wrote virtually an entire post in the spare fifteen minutes at the end of one of my free periods last semester, and forgot about it. I just have to stick an extra 200 words on the end and it's a finished product. This is marvellous.'

Phoenix grinned. 'And this is why you listen to me.'

I never did find that document about Francophone countries around the world; I had to type it up again from scratch. But yes, thanks to Phoenix's curiosity, I discovered a post that would probably otherwise have been deleted by the server, unnoticed, at the end of the school year. And that's the important thing.

My free periods are the biggest waste of time since reality TV was invented.

It’s probably something to do with the name. In other schools they’re called ‘study periods’ or even ‘study hall’. My school chooses to refer to them as ‘frees’, which, being pleasantly reminiscent of ‘free time’ in kindergarten, I don’t think is likely to encourage us students to actually get things done.

Like now, for example. A perfectly normal free. I should be doing work. Instead I’m sitting here typing about not doing any work, which, to be honest, is a greater waste of time than not actually doing any work.

Let me explain to you what I’ve been doing.

 

It’s not a perfectly normal free today, to be honest. Initially, I was supposed to have been helping my Hospitality teacher out with preparing numerous snack-like foods for selling to the teachers, to raise money for something I’m not totally clear on.

I was prepared for this when Marie-Clare arrived this morning. ‘Ready for the English presentation, Leslie?’ she said blithely.

‘What presentation?’ I asked, somewhat confusedly.

‘The one during Period 2 today. It’s those Poetry in Action people again, remember?’

I had forgotten the English presentation. Probably something to do with sleep deprivation. I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep recently. I’ve taken to getting dressed in the mornings without getting out of bed.

‘That’s annoying,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘Now I have to go and see my Hospitality teacher and tell her I can’t help out,’ I explained. ‘Do you want to come?’

So we went up to see my Hospitality teacher. I knocked on the door, waited for a reply which didn’t come, knocked again, was almost slammed into the wall by the sudden opening of the door, explained why I wasn’t able to come, and left. That’s the problem with being charitable. If I’d decided not to help with the preparations I wouldn’t have had to worry about anything. As it was, I had to go to the effort of explaining when I couldn’t actually go. The world is hideously unfair.

Anyway, Period 1 passed with relatively few events – I’d forgotten to do my homework, but that turned out to be all right because the bell went just before I had to present – and, at the beginning of Period 2, I walked up to the Hall with Marie-Clare.

While I was missing a free to see this presentation, she was missing Japanese, and so was extremely happy. I considered this to be somewhat tactless. At any rate, we made it up to the Hall, where we met up with others in our class. They were discussing the prospect of another Poetry in Action presentation.

Today’s Wednesday. The same people presented to us on Monday about the war poetry of Wilfred Owen. Marie-Clare and I found them quite amusing. I think this was, on her part, mainly because she thought one of the players was very attractive.  Anyway, we were quite cheered at the idea of seeing them again.

To our surprise, while there were a few props set up in the Hall, the players were nowhere to be seen and only six people were there. After a few minutes of this Liss decided to call our English teacher (although why she has his number …). We watched as she talked to him.

After a minute, she turned to us and said ‘It’s not in the Hall, it’s in the lecture theatre, and it’s just for the Australian Literature class. They must have put the wrong dates on our note.’

So Marie-Clare and I walked down to the lecture theatre to see if this was the case. To our annoyance, it was; we stood behind the building for a bit and glared at the presenters through the windows, but it didn’t seem to do much.

To do this we had had to walk past the Hospitality classroom twice. Both times, I’d sprinted past, on the basis that my teacher wouldn’t look at me, and judge the reality of my so-called presentation, if I was merely a blur of light rushing past the window – or, more likely, a somewhat uncoordinated Year 11 jogging slowly along in plain view. Magically, she managed not to notice me.

She even completely failed to see me when I walked past for a third time. Marie-Clare had wanted to head back up to the Hall, just to double check they weren’t there. Despite the fact we had just seen them performing in the lecture theatre. She did assure me that this enthusiasm had nothing to do with not wanting to return to Japanese. However, she did also explain that she didn’t like the Poetry in Action people solely for the attractiveness of their members, and so, once again, I’m left to sadly point out that her word really can’t count for much.

In the Hall, we found three screens set up to look like a theatre’s curtains, a green bag full of mysterious black items we didn’t look at, several costumes, some steps, a few chairs, and a large leather suitcase.

‘Nothing here,’ said Marie-Clare disconsolately. ‘Let’s go. To the Common Room, I mean. There’s no point in me going back to Japanese halfway through the lesson.’

I was standing over by the screens when she said this, trying to figure out what was on the back. ‘All right, let’s head off.’

We were just crossing the room when I stopped suddenly. ‘You know what I worry about at times like these?’

‘What?’ Marie-Clare asked suspiciously. In tutor period I’d gone off on two separate five-minute-long tangents which had only stopped upon threat of, and actual, violence. I can understand her hesitation upon the prospect of listening to anything else I had to say.

‘That the whole room is really full of people. Like, it’s actually an hour later in the day than I think it is, and for some reason I’m hallucinating that the room is empty. But really, the presenters are standing up by the screens wondering why I was walking around them, and the audience are waiting aghast for me to stop making a fool of myself, and now they’re just confused because what I’m describing is actually happening, and maybe in a moment one of them will come over to me and –‘

I stopped at this point because I was experiencing what has now become a familiar sensation for me. That of being dragged forcibly from a room.

I’d honestly like to say that that was the end of it. That would have been the end of it, if not for that part of my brain that subconsciously knows when I’m going to do stupid things and appears to find it hilarious.

Surely everybody has that. The tiny part of you that goes ‘No, seriously, Leslie, it’s a GREAT idea to see how far you can lean back on this log while wearing a heavy bag. What? You’ve fallen over backwards and are now trapped in the straps of your bag, meaning you’re forced to just lie on the ground until Phoenix and Cambridge stop laughing and help you up again? HA HA HA.’

Or ‘Look, Leslie, you’re wearing your watch. Why don’t you go and put that away. STOP LET’S GO BACK TO THE KITCHEN RIGHT NOW. What? You mean you tried to go in both directions at once, lost your balance and accidentally dived into the wooden floor in the hallway? Never mind. I’m sure your knees aren’t damaged permanently. Although how the hell would I know? I’m in your head.’

Actually, maybe it’s just me that has that part of the brain.

In this case, it’s the part of the brain that goes, ‘Ah. Marie-Clare is dragging us from the hall. This is a considerable loss of dignity. Let’s do this the proper way. Disentangle yourself from her. Good. Now go and stand on that leather chest the War Poetry people left behind. Then salute, and then leave the hall.’

At that point there was a brief, action-filled pause.

‘Ah, I see you tried to salute with some degree of force, hit yourself in the eye, closed both eyes in pain, overbalanced and fell off the chest. How ‘bout that. I bet you have a black eye and have to explain this awkwardly to people for the next two days.’

That kind of thing wouldn’t happen if they were called study periods.

The First Time I ...

Cherished readers and vaguely interested blog-trawlers alike,

You’ve been patient. It’s been roughly two months since my last post.

You’ve waited long enough.

I’ve chosen this glorious day, the birthday of Strictly Speaking star Andrew J Hansen, to make my return to the blogosphere. I’ve spent those two months frantically working and frantically not working but still, for some reason, not blogging. Well, that time has finished. My sabbatical is done.

And so welcome back to the Wonderful World of the Life and Times of Stranger Things.

Ah, the semester holidays. That blissful time of year between the end of one long, exhaustive, work strewn period and the beginning of the next. These holidays begin as we are freed from exams to flit, swallow-like, from the hallowed halls of our esteemed school to parties, events, disco ice-skating, film premieres, laser tagging. To unceasing celebration and congratulation, four and a half magical weeks with no major commitments and no need to so much as pick up a pen.

Unless, like me, you keep a pretty thorough diary which needs daily updates.

And if, like me, you’re an incredibly lazy person and waited until six weeks after the holidays had finished to start writing the holiday post, you’re going to be increasingly glad of this diary as it would otherwise be virtually impossible to recall incidents that passed roughly two months ago. As I only have one real style of free writing, I’ve basically just quoted directly from what I wrote at the time. I am a LAZY PERSON. You know this.

 

The most interesting thing about these particular holidays was the extraordinary amount of things I did for the first time EVER. Hence, to get this post into some semblance of order, these things are the only ones I’ll be discussing. 

  

1. The first time I went extreme laser tagging

Obviously I’ve been laser tagging before, but always with parties. You know, where everyone gets into teams and then you all finish happily at the end with pizza and cake. Not the kind where everyone’s on their own, you’re playing with no music and a group of strangers, and it basically feels like you’re involved in an actual fire fight, the difference being that when you shoot your friends they run away muttering accusations about you instead of you having to make a follow-up apologetic visit to their family bearing their corpse.

Lala, Peanut, Phoenix and I went laser tagging directly after exams. We’d all crammed spare clothes into our schoolbags along with our calculators and protractors and the moment they announced ‘You can leave the hall,’ we sprang up, leapt gleefully down to the bus stop and right on to a bus to the closer of the main shopping centres in our city. It was crowded with fellow exam-free Year 11s. Most of them hadn’t thought to bring extra clothes and so were fairly obvious. After arriving at the centre we found a public bathroom and changed out of school uniform, a subtle ploy that, as I later realised, was rendered completely pointless by the massive school logo on my bag.

We began by going to Max Brenner and eating waffles. Aviator, Giuseppe, Bob Dylan and a couple of other people were at a table across from us. Aviator came over at one point to chat to us. As one, everyone else at the table rose silently, collected their things, and slipped out the door, pausing only to motion us to be silent. They didn’t return. Aviator only noticed when an old woman noticed his schoolbag sitting alone under the now-empty table and stopped to harangue him about the importance of taking care of your possessions.

Shortly after that we headed off for Zone 3, the laser tagging place-to-be, with only minor injuries along the way (Peanut rolled her ankle in the middle of a zebra crossing and Phoenix cut her finger on the button of a traffic light. Lala had concussed herself on a cupboard the day before. Seriously. My friends are all idiots).

The first game we shared with a couple who appeared friendly until we’d been exposed to their technique of appearing behind you at inopportune moments, shooting you, and then melting away into nothing. Peanut and Lala’s team came first, then the other couple, then Phoenix and myself. The second game we played individually and Peanut more than doubled the next score down. This was a blow, as we’d been hoping her insurmountable self-confidence would prove a hindrance rather than a boon. Whenever she shot someone she’d skip away laughing.

And that, waffles and hidden violence and not so hidden confidence, was my first time at proper laser tagging.

2. The first time I hosted a Beatle birthday

Giuseppe, Marie-Clare and I have a fine tradition of making cakes to celebrate significant dates in the Beatle calendar. To anyone wishing to track these:

 

Feb 24/25 – George Harrison’s birthday (the 25^th is also the birthday of James and Oliver Phelps, the Weasley twins in Harry Potter. If you’re interested)

June 18 – Paul McCartney’s birthday

July 7 – Ringo Starr’s birthday

October 9 – John Lennon’s birthday

November 29 – George Harrison’s deathday

December 8 – John Lennon’s deathday

 

Anyway, this was the first time I’d hosted a birthday one at my house. I think my last one was George Harrison’s deathday. Anyway, I made a fairly attractive cake for Paul McCartney’s 69^th, we got together and played Beatles board games for hours before watching heaps of the films. Marie-Clare managed not to cry upon Paul’s entrance in the Concert for George but was defeated by his and Ringo’s embrace at the end. Sad. Her behaviour, I mean.

And that, cake and dramatic heart-wrenching sobs from Marie-Clare at midnight, was my first time hosting a Beatles birthday party

 

3. The first time I went to a house with a tennis court

Eggleston has a TENNIS COURT at his house. AND a swimming pool. And a grand piano. He claimed to have a library, but Aviator and myself examined this closely and in reality it’s more like a medium-sized room with three shelves of books. Tennis courts aren’t really that exciting in real life. Sure, it’s fun to play tennis in the dark at 10 o’clock at night, listening to that Hi-5 L-O-V-E song on the speakers because Eggleston’s iPod is plugged in and he likes it. For about ten minutes. It gets a little wearing after that.

 

4. The first time I hosted a blog anniversary party 

Some time over my temporary hiatus, my blog had a birthday. Happy Anniversary, Stranger Things – may it be the first of many.

To celebrate I decided to have a blog party. Not a big thing, just something casual. I spent the day beforehand organising it. The idea was that Phoenix and Peanut would come over, and we’d plan slightly (or just talk about chocolate, as it turned out), and then go into Civic to purchase supplies.

I meant to wake up at 6:30 a.m. in order to have time to prepare before my friends’ arrival. It didn’t work out quite like that. Instead I awoke at 9:21 with Peanut standing outside my bedroom door.

I got ready in record time and, when Phoenix arrived, we headed into Civic and spent the whole day buying suspiciously cheap items from Hot Dollar and these amazing chocolate bars called ‘Titan Bars’. They’re like Mars Bars, but ten times cheaper AND are far more referential to Gattaca. We also found some insanely cheap, glittery shirts, and kept them for use in the pass-the-parcel.

 

The party was on the 1^st of July and those present were Ness, Marie-Clare, Brandine, Gwen, Aviator, Falcon, Phoenix, Giuseppe, and Shoelace. Phoenix had arrived earlier to help me stick streamers up and blow up some Christmassy balloons I’d found. She was also supplied with a camera. Thanks to her photo-taking abilities in conjunction with her subtle photo-editing abilities - in replacing all of our faces with blog-related images - I'm able to supply you, the reader, with some somewhat suspect images of the event. That's me on the left, hanging streamers. I don't know if you can tell but my jumper says 'Leslie M.' on the back.

We basically just played party games, such as Beatles musical chairs or ELO pass-the parcel. That's Marie-Clare and Ness in the picture, with Shoelace partially concealed in the background. Thanks to some fairly precise rigging of the music on my part, Aviator ended up with the glittery shirt. 

That's him in the picture - bear in mind he doesn't normally have Miley Cyrus's head. Phoenix just has a bizarre sense of humour. He tried it on (the shirt, not the head), decided he didn’t want it, and left it at my place. Now I have a shirt I have no idea what to do with. If anyone wants it, tell me.

We played a game in which we had to pin the head on Andrew Hansen. In hindsight this wasn’t the greatest idea. Not only was it fairly creepy, I now have about thirty little Hansen heads scattered all over my kitchen. There's about ten on a jar of macadamia nuts. The weirdest one is the one stuck over the head of a Barbie fridge magnet.

We also had a Secret Santa thing I rather enterprisingly called Hidden Harper. Aviator wrote me a letter. I’d given Marie-Clare a bottle of clear liquid labelled ‘DANGER: CHLOROFORM’. Giuseppe was given a can of minestrone. Falcon got an interesting feathery hat Phoenix had designed for him. Aviator's wearing it in the picture, along with a fake pirate hook and the ghastly scarf I knitted for Falcon after I lost that Doctor Who bet. I can't even begin to explain why.

Shoelace had brought a pinata stick for Vyvyan, which turned out to be very convenient.

I’d spent the past couple days creating a pinata of Matt Smith’s head. Much as I loved my creation, my personal favourite part of the party was when we got to bash his head open and basically consume his brains.

I have to admit I did a killer job on the papier mache, though. The pinata stick broke before the esteemed Messr Smith was so much as dented. We had to play cricket with it before we got it to open.

Finally, we had a Mystery Auction. Phoenix and myself were the auctioneers. The deal with a mystery auction is that you give out a very vague description of the object – such as ‘It’s convenient and basically a holy object’ for a mug with Jesus’ face on it – and then let people bid on it. Obviously we had to allocate a basic kind of money for this. I designed it myself. You could kind of tell. Not many regular banks include Stephen Fry’s face on the notes. And the TARDIS was a dead giveaway.

Anyway, this part got pretty interesting. Giuseppe was delighted with the Jesus mug. Gwen got an exact copy of one of our Relay4life umbrellas. Someone got a pair of odd, fluffy socks and a rain poncho, and one of those stamps librarians use to mark the dates in the back of books. Aviator bid outrageous amounts for what turned out to be an image of the painting of the TARDIS from the final of the last series in a plastic frame.

The second he realised what it was he raged madly, and then claimed he would take it home and destroy it. Turned out he forgot about that. It’s been on my bedside table for the past three months.

Oh yeah, and that's the creepy Hansen jar.

And that, with the conclusion of my first year’s exploration into the blogosphere, was the first anniversary of Stranger Things.

There was actually something I noticed about the party several weeks on. Nobody had really wanted to take anything home, except for Giuseppe and her Jesus mug, so I hung on to most of it and chucked most of it out. Yes, Ness, I ate your chocolates. Sorry about that. Anyway, school had begun again and I was casually walking along, shivering in the early morning, when Aviator hallooed me.

‘You look pretty cold there, Leslie.’

‘It’s a cold morning.’

‘Not for me it isn’t,’ he said cheerfully, and pulled up one of his trouser legs to reveal his socks. They were pink, fluffy, and indubitably the ones from the blog party. He moved on before I could (a) comment or (b) laugh.

You can say many things about Aviator, but you can’t deny he has a certain style.

 

5. The first time I dyed my hair

I dyed my hair red. Not permanently red, just temporarily so I could figure out if I liked it or not. That was a little while ago and I’m still not sure whether to go permanent or not. Anyway, it was a relatively simple thing to do. So far as I can tell, dying your hair consists of:

(i) wash your hair. Put on those bizarre plastic gloves. Apply dye to hair. Apply dye to ears accidentally. Remove dye from ears.

(ii) chill for about an hour by reading gripping Raymond Chandler novel. I went with The Big Sleep.

(iii) wash remaining dye out of hair.

(iv) take pictures of new, coloured hair. Post on Facebook.

It only lasted three days, anyway. It had gone by the time we went disco ice skating.

 

And that, complete with the extra half an hour I accidentally spent with the dye in my hair because I’d gotten to an especially hair-raising bit in the book and didn’t want to stop, was my first time dying my hair.

 

6. The first time I went disco ice-skating

For the record: disco ice-skating is EXACTLY like regular ice-skating but with loud modern music pumped into the ring and a couple of occasional disco lights. And the ice-skating rink I go to has music anyway. Sure it was a little later than usual, and it was a Friday night, but that was basically it.

Getting there was interesting. Lala’s sister Helga was giving her, me, Aviator and Kevin a lift. Once Lala called front I was forced to cram into the back with Aviator and Kevin on either side of me. It’s not a large car. The rink was a relief.

Reedy, the virtually professional ice-skater, had organised the night. Also there were:

Hitler (also a virtual professional), Sharona, Latte, Bob Dylan, Shoelace, Ness, and Cthulu, not counting Lala, Aviator, Kevin and myself. I think that was everyone. Also Beartrap, whom I’ve barely seen (bearly seen … hilarious) since he left the school several months ago. Employment seems to be suiting him.

Actually, Eggleston was there as well, something I would’ve thought I’d find hard to forget, given a certain incident that occurred.

 

EGGLESTON (E): Leslie, you can’t just skate around the edges all night.

LESLIE (L): Why not?

E: Try coming out to where we are.

(I come out to where he is and frantically grab his arm to prevent a collapse)

E: Ok, you’re fine now.

(He lets go and skates away)

L: What? Where are you AAAARRRGH OH F***

(I fall over backwards, as may have been evident from the sudden change in dialogue)

E: Oh, sorry.

L: Can I have a hand up?

(He tries to help and then awkwardly drops me again)

L: ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

 

And that, in no real way different to my normal ice-skating experiences, was my first disco ice-skating session.

 

7. First time at a dinner party

Obviously I’ve been to dinner parties before, but it’s always been tagging along with my parents, never one of my own friends. At least until this holidays.

Ariane hosted a dinner party for a few choice acquaintances during the holidays. I’ve a sneaking suspicion she invited those she considered least likely to offend her mother’s sensibilities.

I arrived at Ariane’s house before anyone else: she’d laid the table elaborately, complete with napkins and champagne glasses. To be clear, the glasses contained sparkling apple juice. But they looked effective. The others all arrived in the next half an hour.

It was a fairly posh occasion. Both Aviator and Ram, the only boys, were wearing bow ties and suits. I’d opted for my semi-formal dress as it’s the only remotely dressy thing I own. It was topped off neatly by a weird, spiky necklace I made when I was nine and spent two years unsuccessfully trying to palm off on to people.

The guests were Brandine, Peanut – the first time I’d seen her since she’d returned from Melbourne – Marie-Clare, Hitler, Aviator and Ram. There were three complete courses. Little tomato-and-feta pastry squares, then chicken (despite the fact that Ariane herself is a vegetarian), and, finally, tiramisu. I’d never been to a dinner party like that before, with just my friends, but I certainly hope to again. They’re a classy lot. The conversation wasn’t memorable enough that I can recall anything we talked about, except for Aviator giving an intriguing example of ‘grippening’ on Hitler, yet was simultaneously so funny I had trouble not elegantly propelling a mouthful of tiramisu across the exquisitely laid table on a number of occasions. Sparkling, I suppose you’d call it, if not totally clean. When the meal was over we experimented with Ariane’s espresso machine, Brandine and I doing our very best to make Marie-Clare a latte. On the first attempt we ended up with two extra-concentrated coffee drops.

And that, elegant table laying and classy company, was my first proper dinner party.

 

8. First time at a midnight Harry Potter premiere

The return of Phoenix to the country, the school, and my group of friends has wrought a number of significant changes in my life. The most relevant one to the above sub-title is that of her obsession with Harry Potter. I like Harry Potter. I’ve always liked it. Phoenix, however, loves it.

Hence her return means I’m far more involved in the Pottersphere than I would be otherwise. I’ve re-read the books, re-seen the films. My favourite characters are George Weasley and Fabian Prewett. I have developed a deep, unchangeable love for the Phelps twins, actors for Fred and George, more so the moment I realised they were on Kingdom as well. The moment the Magic Quill challenge on Pottermore came up I made my early access account and celebrated wildly when I was allowed in. My username is QuillStorm 142. If I actually know you, send me a friend request on it, we can do wizards duels and brew potions together and do crazy things like that. I may go into more detail about Harry Potter in relation to me in ensuing posts, but for now, all you need to know is that Harry Potter is becoming an increasingly large aspect of my life.

This is most noticeably relevant to the release of the last ever Potter film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2. I went to see the last one with a phenomenally large group of friends, as is mentioned in the post ‘Formalities’. But never before had I gone to the Australian midnight premiere of a Potter film, and I’d decided that this time, the last opportunity I would ever have, I would.

Of course, it’s not just as issue of seeing the film. The midnight premiere is when all the hardcore fans turn up and give of their best. Costume-wise, I mean. And we were determined to match them.

There were six of us going: Peanut, Lala, Helga (Lala’s older sister), Phoenix, Phoenix’s friend Tonks, and myself. Peanut was in Melbourne until shortly before the premiere and had already decided to go as Trelawney. Tonks, surprisingly, had opted for Tonks. This left the remaining for of us without a plan.

And so, five days before the premiere, Lala, Phoenix and I turned up at the shopping centre we also went to before laser tagging in an attempt to search for costumes.

Phoenix and I got there first and amused ourselves by looking at this weird Ken-doll thing that repeats your words in a disturbingly lower-pitched voice. Laura arrived shortly afterwards and told us about the idea her sister had had: that we all come as the founders of Hogwarts. Phoenix and I respectively called Slytherin and Ravenclaw the moment this was suggested, which Lala followed up by deciding on Gryffindor, leaving Helga to take up the part of Hufflepuff. To this end we all decided to knit scarves with our house colours. In five days. Not an easy task.

So that we’d all match, we all bought sparkly lengths of material in our respective colours, which we somehow managed to sew into capes over the next few days. Mine was the best. It really was. We wandered into Toys R Us to see if we could find soft toys of all the animals associated with the houses. Snakes, birds, and lions are relatively easy. You know how freaking difficult it is to find a toy badger? The closest we could find was a penguin and a panda. In hindsight, the penguin wasn’t all that badger-like. Actually, I was its only advocate.

Having done this, we bought props. I had a dodgy fairy tiara plus magic wand to act as Ravenclaw’s sacred diadem. Phoenix got a locket half-price because it was broken and Lala a foam sword and a plastic cup.

The next time we all met up was before the premiere itself. We arrived at Phoenix’s house beforehand – although Lala was two HOURS late – and prepared for the big event. Everyone else had put slightly more effort into their costumes than I had. Tonks had a Matrix-like coat and purple hair, and Peanut’s hair had to be seen to be believed. Phoenix and I had fun putting all the tangles in. Peanut probably had less fun removing them. I’d glued a bit of paper to the ‘diadem’ saying ‘Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure’ in biro. My scarf wasn’t finished so I just threaded some wool through where the needle had been. It looked dodgy. Super dodgy. Especially in conjunction with the lurid blue lipstick I was wearing. I didn’t look wise and noble so much as badly frostbitten.

We were the only people in the cinema dressed as the founders. There were Voldemorts, Gryffindors, a surprisingly small number of Harrys, Whomping Willows, two Snitches and one enterprising trio dressed as the Hallows. Phoenix thought it would be a wonderful idea to truly enter into the character of Salazar Slytherin and wander around telling the Voldemorts how proud she was of her descendants. By the time we’d left, the letters Lala had glitter-glued onto her sword, spelling ‘GODRIC GRYFFINDOR’, spelt ‘ORIC RFINDR’. Helga had brought individual packets of tissues as preparation for all the death scenes.

And then we went into the film. It was fantastic (although I always think every film I see at the cinema is fantastic. It’s only later I have second thoughts). I actually went to see it again with my family later that week. It’s the end of an age. Probably symbolic of the end of childhood. Most of us are 17 now – I certainly am – which makes us legally adults in the wizarding world.

Doesn’t really cross over into reality, but even so.

And that, sparkly capes and bizarre make up and Potter-loving friends, was my first – and last – time at a Harry Potter midnight premiere.

 

And that was my holidays, a collection of first-times and last-times and I-do-this-all-the-times. Not to mention my first time going over a month without posting.

So welcome back everyone, and let’s just hope it’s the last time as well.

It won’t be, but I’ve always considered myself to be a bit of a pessimist, and I’d like to have a go at unsubstantiated hopefulness for a little.

After all, there’s a first time for everything.

Leslie's Recipes: Cup of Tea

Certain of my friends love to tell me, often accompanied by various hyberbole and superlatives, that one of their favourite cultures, cuisine-wise, is that of the noble Brits. To this comment I’m used to responding with some surprise, not unmixed with concern. Surely one of the few benefits of living in this fully globalised society – as Geography videos have informed me on a number of occasions – is the ready availability of all kinds of world-wide cuisine. By taking a three-minute walk from my house one can make a close encounter with the Italian, Vietnamese and French cultures, not to mention a chemist, a hairdresser’s, and a solicitor’s office, just in case you’re ever in the mood to get a haircut, buy some medicine and then sue the owners for your terrible haircut and unforeseen side effects. Or perhaps you can be sued, buy poison from the chemist to use on the solicitors, and then cheer yourself up with a lovely haircut. There’s a post office there too. Not sure how that fits into the equation.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make here is that if you have free and ready access to any number of unique and exciting cultural cuisines, why would you pick British as the stand-out?* No matter what Masterchef says, there’s just no way you can make it as interesting as Thai or Lebanese food. Not only are there fewer things to eat, there are far fewer ways of preparing them. The British idea of a classy meal is to stick a few vegetables in a roasting oven, chuck a few more in boiling water and then combine all elements on a plate with an entire dead animal. Possibly battered. Maybe this is a stereotype, but stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. Just look at the stereotypes of other countries’ food. Typical Italian meals are pasta sauces and pizzas; the French have frogs’ legs and croissants; Indians have complex curries and Mexicans the humble burrito. All interesting, attention-grabbing dishes. British cuisine? I have nothing to say for it.

By the time I’ve given this answer, the friend who made the original supposition about the relative pros and cons of British food has generally become bored and wandered off. Which is why I’ve never been able to talk to long enough to reach the end of my argument:

Admitting a good point.

The British Empire’s far-reaching may not have made any major improvements in world cuisine. There is one dish, however, which has reached further and become more typically British than perhaps any other in existence.

I refer, of course, to the cup of tea.

Tea may be produced in China, Sri Lanka, India, and wherever else tea comes from, but it’s always been the British that truly claimed it for their own. In Victorian times British society surreptitiously engaged in a technical illegal triangle of trade that was overlooked by authorities in a number of countries for the sake of this drink. Opium from the British colony of Bengal would be traded to Chinese black-market merchants for silver. This silver would then, in turn, be traded legally for tea from Chinese tea-merchants. This cargo would make its way to Britain, leaving everyone happy. Yes. For once, tea was actually valued more than drugs.

Tea is the ultimate drink. It’s a social adhesive – why else would ‘tea parties’ be called that? It’s the drink you automatically gravitate to when it’s cold, or you need to stay awake, or you’re just eating a really, really dry biscuit – sometimes all three. Since the holidays began I’ve been drinking an average of a cup a day. It’s also the ultimate British emblem. Forget lions or unicorns (it’s always struck me as odd that of the two animals they have on the English coat of arms, one is fictional and the other native to a completely different continent. Everyone knows unicorns come from Antarctica), tea is the all-encompassing sign of Britishness, surpassing Colin Firth, the Beatles before they all emigrated and/or died, Henry Higgins, footage of the Royal Wedding you didn’t care about at the time but that they’re nevertheless jamming down your throat three months afterwards, or those Union Jack flags they have hung up for VE day in old English cartoons. In Britan, tea takes precedence over any number of things. I’d hazard a guess that citizens spend more time over tea than, say, on religion. Everyone knows tea is the real holy water of Britain.

The point of all this verbal wanking on about tea is to make a point: tea is highly important in an up-to-date modern society and as such, it’s crucial to know how to make it correctly. To this end read below to find a special edition blogiversary five-in-one recipe (still for the same price! As in, nothing). Each specifically tailored to match certain occasions, these recipes are guaranteed to work – if not perfectly – then at least with a given amount of semi-success.

 

*I’m allowed to say this kind of thing because my family are British. It’s like how the only people allowed to make racist jokes without going against all boundaries of political correctness are members of the racial groups the jokes are about. Also Driver.

 

1. BASIC TEA

The basic cup of tea. For some minor variations, including 19^th Century Tea, Common Room Tea, French Tea,  and Original Tea, scroll down.

 

You will need:

Water

A tea bag

A cup

Milk and sugar

Biscuits 

1. Boil kettle

2. Place tea bag in cup, pour boiling water in. Leave to brew for 3-5 minutes are the same length of time as it takes to sing ELO’s ‘Wild West Hero’.

3. Add milk and/or sugar to taste.

4. Consume with biscuits.

 

 

2. 19^TH CENTURY TEA

For the final lesson of my 19^th century literature class, we went to the school pavilion, dressed as they would have in that time had the only clothes available been ones from a dodgy costume shop in Fyshwick, and drank tea.

You will need:

Tea

Cake

Cucumber sandwiches

19^th Century costumes

1. Entire class arrive, expectant of somewhat unconvincing attempt by teacher’s to make us care about subject but eager for free food. Surprisingly, only real enthusiasm is shown by one of four boys in the class. ‘What are you talking about? I wish I lived in the 19^th century. Sexism!’

2. Teachers arrive, let us in. I was actually slightly late. I’d had to run from Hospitality with a box of orange-and chocolate shortbread biscuits Ness and I had created (we made up the recipe, patent pending. I may include it in a future blog post). Pavilion looks the same as normal, albeit with chairs arranged in a kind-of circle.

3. Several of us are forced into supposedly 19^th century dresses. Boys get to wear suits.

4. Cucumber sandwiches are handed out. Begin a ‘being dainty’ competition with Giuseppe.

5. Throw in ‘being dainty’ competition. Instead play ‘try to fit an entire cucumber sandwich into your mouth’. I win.

6. Cake is handed out. Cake is excellent.

NB: While not all of the above is technically necessary to 19^th century tea, it nonetheless adds a certain atmosphere to the proceedings, which is why I’ve included it.

7. Cups of tea are handed out in teacups. Consume. For weeks, have not tasted tea other than the kind I make in the common room with condensed milk and tepid boiling water. In comparison, 19^th century tea is beyond all leaps of the imagination.

8. Giuseppe and I finish our tea, find teapots, and drain them attempting to make ourselves a new cup. It takes seven or eight different tea pots until we find one that’s full.

9. Add milk from silver jug provided.

10. Eat more cake.

11. While drinking tea, debate whether it was worth having to get dressed up and paraded around. Remain undecided.

12. Drink more tea anyway. Try dipping cake in. Decide classical biscuit-dipped-in-tea is classic for a reason.

13. Remember Hospitality biscuits.

14. Consume tea with biscuits.

 

 

3. COMMON ROOM TEA

As a Senior, someone who has access to a source of boiling water as well as tea bags and a form of milk, I’ve taken to making tea in my free periods. At the time this seemed like a good idea. Later on it didn’t seem like quite as good an idea.

 

You will need:

Irish Breakfast tea bag (one)

Boiling water (one cup)

Condensed milk (some)

Cheap and tacky cup with various stereotypical British pictures on it, such as Big Ben and the flag

Somebody’s pen

Driver, Vyvyan, Brandine, and the Führer (recently known as Hitler, until it led to confusion)

 

1. Collect Irish Breakfast tea bag, cup, and condensed milk from locker. It has to be Irish Breakfast. That is the kind of tea I drink at school. You can mess around with other crazy flavours and varieties in the comfort of your own home.

2. Place tea bag in cup, pour boiling water in. Leave for 3-5 minutes, or as much time as you can spend away from Driver, Vyvyan, Brandine, and the Führer’s conversation before they say something so completely attention-grabbing you have no choice but to walk over and inquire. Normally about 30 seconds, or between a third and a sixth of George Harrison’s ‘That’s The Way It Goes’.

3. Add liberal amount of condensed milk from tube.

NB: It was originally Aviator’s idea to bring condensed milk intead of real milk to school. It’s more portable and, given the current nightly freezing temperatures, you can keep it in your locker rather than in the overcrowded Common Room fridge.

4. Return to table.

5. Make vital choice: who to sit next to. If you choose Vyvyan she will demand a percentage of the condensed milk. If you choose Brandine she will do the same thing, as well as emptying your pencil case. If you choose Driver, you will be constantly disturbed by the things he says and the interpretive dances he chooses to illustrate these things. People in my free will know what I mean. If you choose the Führer, she will draw swastikas in the back of your folders in highlighter.

6. Decide the Führer is the lesser of four evils. Sit down next to her. Take Driver’s pen to stir tea.

7. Decide a better decision could have been made after she draws a giant swastika on the table itself and labels it ‘Heil to the Führer Leslie Harper’. More beneficial action could also have been taken regarding tea-stirring, as Driver cheerfully tells you – after you’ve used it – it’s the one he chews in class.

8. Get wet cloth. Wipe table clean.

9. The Führer draws another swastika, larger than the first. Also in a slightly more vibrant colour.

10. Get wet cloth. Throw it at the Führer’s head. Hit her in face. Watch her clean swastika off table.

11. Have cloth thrown at you by the Führer. Deflect it cunningly with arms. Return to table.

12. Lift tea to drink.

13. Spill tea dramatically over table as Führer got excited about something and attempted to jump up at the same time.

14. Get cloth.

15. Clean table, jumper, the Führer’s jumper, the Führer’s skirt, Brandine’s Maths book, and floor with cloth.

16. Notice with some satisfaction that influx of scalding tea has managed to scour remaining traces of highlighter of table. Or something. Anyway, they’re gone.

17. Consume remaining half-cup of tea without biscuits.

 

 

4. FRENCH TEA (Or THÉ FRANÇAIS)

The type of tea one can make with a cheap kettle, some free milk, and some suspiciously coloured tea bags in a small French hotel room.

Or, to be more exact, the type of tea I made with a cheap kettle, some free milk, and some suspiciously coloured tea bags in a small French hotel room.

You will need:

A kettle

A green tea bag with indecipherable French writing on it

UHT milk in one of those little containers Fry & Laurie hate

A mint

A foam cup

A handy sink

1. Enter hotel room. Decide to make cup of tea.

2. Put off making tea to visit people in other hotel room. Get stuck outside room holding kettle. This incident may be familiar to some of you from ‘Continental Drift’).

3. Get back inside room. Decide to make tea to take mind off first horrifying and traumatic getting-lost-moment of trip.

4. Take kettle into tiny bathroom. Attempt to fill it up from sink.

5. Notice sink is ridiculously tiny and is, in fact, far too small to contain large item such as kettle. Convey water from sink to kettle with foam cup.

6. Put kettle down on flat, handy surface. Decide against using bed. Use miniscule desk instead. Be careful of stability of desk.

7. Ignore previous instruction.

8. Clean up water spilled in horrendous tripped-over-luggage-on-to-desk-causing-kettle-to-fall-off incident, as it will be known in your head from then onwards. Be glad kettle had not boiled. Be even gladder that nobody was watching but characters in French soap opera you tuned in to accidentally and were focussed on when you walked around the room, missed your luggage and tripped over it flailing madly.

9. Refill kettle using foam cup method. Consider patenting bright idea. Decide against it.

10. There are two types of tea bag on the complimentary tray, brown and green. Reason that green is environmentally friendly, rip it open, and place delicately in cup, completely failing to either read or comprehend the labels in French. Attempt to smell tea bag in attempt to determine its type: unfortunately, sense of smell is so poor can detect nothing more than pleasant tea-like odours.

11. Pour hot water on top of tea bag in foam cup. Leave for 3-5 minutes or the same lenth of time as it takes to darkly mutter the line from the end of Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick In The Wall – Part 2’ eighty times. Do not let whoever you’re sharing a room with come in and find you staring at a kettle muttering ‘Ow can you ‘ave any puddin’ if you don’ eat yer meat?’ in a terrible Scottish dialect. Don’t. It sounds funny. It wasn’t.

12. Remove tea bag, dispose of it in bathroom dustbin. Discover tea is a slightly different shade to the colour tea normally is. Decide to ignore it.

13. Add UHT milk. Tea goes a charming pale green colour which would be perfectly pleasant were it anywhere else than in the liquid you’re hoping to drink.

14. Try tea.

15. So that’s what thé au menthe means.

Decide never to mix peppermint herbal tea with milk again. Or ever drink herbal tea again. This experience has essentially ruined it for you.

16. Do what was, in hindsight, the stupidest thing so far. Reluctant to get rid of tea entirely, decide to make it more palatable by adding sugar. Being unable to find sugar, you find a complimentary chocolate covered mint instead.

D’you want to guess what happened next?

17. Drop mint into tea, stirring optimistically for several minutes or the same length of time as it takes to warble as many verses of ‘Hallelujah’ as you can remember. The Jeff Buckley version, I don’t like Leonard Cohen. Although it’s somewhat difficult to tell given the standard of my singing. Sometimes it’s difficult even to tell what song I’m having a go at.

18. Cheerfully try a sip of tea.

19. Empty tea into sink. Rinse cup thoroughly. Rinse sink thoroughly. To be sure, throw away cup in bathroom bin and empty kettle.

20. Hotel roommate points out that the brown tea bags were the normal ones. Not only that, but there were packets of both normal sugar and artificial sweetener (and the labels weren’t even in French. Convenient for phenylketonurics such as the late and great Egg Zagar) hidden under them. Also discover the vital packet of biscuits.

21. Vow never to make tea under such circumstances again. That, or learn to think.

22. Consume biscuits without tea.

 

5. ORIGINAL TEA

This is more a long-term project than a simple cup of afternoon tea. Nevertheless, connoisseurs may be interested in trying it.

You will need:

Land in China, Sri Lanka, India or other tea-growing country (some)

Tea-plant cuttings

A cargo plane

A cow

A sugar cane plantation (optional)

Forest (at least one)

A tea pot

A tea cup

Biscuits (packet of)

1. Purchase land in profitable tea-growing area. Plant tea bushes. Hire team of underpaid native workers to care for your tea bushes in the two to three years it will take them to mature and sprout tea leaves of their own.

2. When tea has fully grown, buy a cargo plane. Use your underpaid native workers to pack plane thoroughly with tea leaves. Fly plane to Britain. While it is not integral to the recipe that you be in Britain, it will add a certain ambience to the atmosphere that would otherwise be lacking.

NB: Pack plane efficiently. While it is cheaper to ask your workers to do it without boxes, piloting a plane above the Atlantic ocean is difficult enough without majestic waves of loose tea soaring wantonly about with the air-conditioning. Although, theoretically, plunging your plane full of tea leaves into the sea will give you the largest cup of tea ever created by mankind, the excitement of the moment may be dampened by you being in the tea. And the sea.

3. To make black tea, leave the tea leaves to wilt and then dry them quickly. Crush them, leave them to oxidise, and then store them in vacuum container. Possibly purchase some kind of tea-preparing machine. Or, if your resources have been exhausted by the consecutive acquisition of land, human souls, tea leaves and a cargo plane, simply hire one for an hour. Prepare the handful of tea leaves you expect to use for your pot of tea. The other three hundred and ninety nine crates of tea you’ve brought over with you from the tea-growing nation of your choice are surplus to requirements. You probably should have thought of that before you started.

4. Put the tea leaves aside while you prepare the other elements of your pot of tea.

5. The next step depends on the individual choice of the person in question. Personally, I drink tea with milk and no sugar. However, I’ll incorporate both milk and sugar into the recipe in order to keep all parties happy. For the bizarre few of you who drink tea with lemon, feel free to purchase your own lemon tree. Or don’t. It’s a weird thing to do. I mean, why lemon? Why not vinegar or something? You don’t hear of people drinking tea with vinegar in it, do you? And yet lemon is seen to be normal?

6. Find a cow. Either yours or somebody else’s.

7. Learn how to milk a cow.

NB: If you’re using somebody else’s cow, there may be very little opportunity for you to actually learn how to milk a cow. In this case I would suggest that you wing it. How hard can it be? Baby cows manage it. Aren’t you smarter than a baby cow?

8. Milk the cow. (If you chose to go with the above step, that of ‘winging it’, step 8 should be followed by step 8.5: Run madly with milk from furious cow. Breaking your leg while frantically trying to escape over fences could be a major hindrance, as (a) it will reduce your tea-making abilities and (b) the cow will eat you).

9. Refrigerate milk and store tea leaves. Now, to move on to obtaining the sugar.

10. Buy a sugar cane plantation.

11. Remove several stalks of sugar cane and build a sugar-processing machine.

12. Realise sugar is incredibly difficult to create and is a job best left to professionals. Go to your local IGA. Find a bag of sugar. Smuggle it out by hiding it under your jumper. Or maybe in the cast on your broken leg.

13. Find a forest of rare and priceless trees.

14. Cut trees down, burn them to create enormous fire upon which to heat your water. Technically cutting down the entire forest is not entirely necessary, but lends your tea-making a definite style.

15. Find mountain spring of pure and natural water.

16. Put pure and natural water in Tupperware jug. Heat over giant tree furnace.

17. On second thoughts, using Tupperware was a stupid idea. Instead use something that doesn’t melt when exposed to heat.

18. Get tea pot and infuser (i.e. something that looks like this):

19. Place tea leaves in infuser, add boiling water. Leave to soak for 3-5 minutes or the length of time it takes to sing The Smiths’ ‘Girlfriend in a Coma’ three times.

20. Remove tea leaves from infuser. If you enjoy that kind of thing, tip some of them back into the pot to enable you to predict your own future with the tea leaves. It will probably have something to do with you being arrested for felling a priceless forest, mistreating third-world workers, abusing animals and stealing a packet of sugar, and your plane-licence being seized. Just a hunch.

21. Pour tea into cup, add milk and sugar to taste.

22. Nip down to the shops to buy a packet of biscuits. Seeing as you’re in Britain, you should buy some Jammy Dodgers. I recall them being excellent, as well as being the 11^th Doctor’s biscuit of choice.

23. Drink expensive, delicious tea. Have ethical debate with yourself and, when they arrive, the police, as to whether it was worth it or not.

NB: Check milk is not off before you pour it in. That would be the kind of waste that makes you want to stab somebody in the eye in frustration and exasperation as soon as you realise, and given the police are already coming around that’s not the frame of mind you want to be in.

24. Consume tea with biscuits.