Revolutionary Rants

Well, it is back. Again. Yes, indeed, Big Brother has yet again returned, for its eighth UK run. I must admit I watched The Apprentice*… Things have got that bad… But hey, somehow it always ends up dragging you back in (apart from the Cameron-the-Scottish-guy-who-went-to-South-Africa (and was a virgin) year). I am quite pleased with the twist – an all female house – although most people seem pissed off about it. I think it needed a kick up the arse after last year and after the infamous Celebrity addition early this year. Plus we get rid of the possibility of tw*ts like whatshisname who won the series before last and had Craig in love with him. Or, even worse, a Maxwell or Shezza type.

However, it is likely men will follow: one on Friday and no doubt more there after…

OK, anyway, I usually do a run down of my first impressions on the housemates, so why stop now?

Carole – I think she’s great, but I expect she’ll piss off the younger viewers who want botoxed and brainless bitch fights rather than anti-war protesting.

Laura – Beth Ditto wannabe, but then again, who wouldn’t want to be the lovely Beth? She seems nice and bubbly but I think she could be a chatter-box who will annoy.

Amanda and Sam – waste of oxygen. Kill them now.

Chanelle – Anyone who wants to be Victoria Beckham should be sectioned not promoted…

Charley – Gh-ast-lay. This wannabe will be out on her arse in a week or two.

Emily - Known to a friend. Drama student. That’s all that needs to be said, really, innit?

Lesley – What is she doing in there? She’ll be out, escaping through the diary room a la Big Ken no doubt.

Tracey – Not so much “just Trace” as just a Pete wannabe?

Nicky – Seems sweet, probably boring.

Shabnam – Deffo boring.

* I won’t comment on Apprentice because I would imagine a lot of people tuned in to BB and plan to catch up with S’Alan with the Tuesday repeat next week.

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Apparently dyslexia is just a middle-class excuse for stupidness. The fact that I cannot learn phonically is, in fact, because I am a thicko, not because I have a brain which doesn’t seem to learn that way but instead has to recall words visually. That explains a lot, really. The sheer panic of not being able to read when I should have been able to, staring at pictures and guessing at words is explained. I was just not very bright. My parents must have wished to cover this up, after all I was home educated and therefore my thickness would reflect even more heavily on them…

Luckily for me I wasn’t in the school system and had time for my poor weak little brain to sort itself out and learn to read and write. Once that huge mass of stupidity was mastered I managed to scrape together Junior Certificates, A Levels and a First Class degree. Oh, and an MA.

Perhaps at some point those who need ’scientific’ proof of dyslexia will come to consider that people with whatever level of “learning difficulties” don’t necessarily have anything wrong with them, they just have trouble with the only way they are given to learn. People are not uniform, but the school system is.  But, of course, it is easier – and cheaper – to blame it on middle-class failure phobia. Definitely cheaper…

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Woooo-hooo, the sun is back! It is perhaps a little bit jaded, ready to leave again in a second, but hey, it is here for now! Which is a much better state of affairs than yesterday, in my view.

Also, when we returned yesterday the clapped out car which has blocked our one sided little tiny road since we moved was gone!!! This probably doesn’t sound like much to you, dear reader, but to us it is bloody brilliant. It is a very hard spot to back in to at the best of times and gets crowded at the weekend, often meaning a struggle for us to get back in to our spot when we get back from a weekend visit or shop or whatever. Today, for example, we have a badly parked and never before seen Scoda and an enormous piece-of-shit-gas-guzzling-murder-wagon Range Rover to vie with.

Lewis Hamilton only managed second, but I watched my first GP since, well, 2001. The last one I saw was when a friend visited me at Ashenhurst in the first week or two of my first year. I used to watch it all religiously and supported Jacques Villeneuve, but having seen yesterday’s race (which was Monaco, of course, the highlight of any season) I must admit I wondered how I sat through so many qualifying rounds and 78 laps of so many races! It just isn’t football, that’s for sure…

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We are returned from the caravan because the weather has turned. It has become grey and windy with very heavy showers. Oh well… We had a nice (short) visit arriving on Friday afternoon. We had a nice walk and a trip out to evil capitalist store with a blue and red sign because of a lack of frying pan. In the evening we had a pub meal and watched the end of Great British Menu (Jeremy Lee didn’t win, sadly, but the South West chef Mark Hix won two courses so well done him) and Ugly Betty.

On Saturday we went for a lovely lunch at a local seafood place (I had my first ever crab, yum) before heading in to Ilfracombe and Woolacombe. We flew the kite in Woolacombe, until Chicken was out-done-by a bloke with a huge harness kite. Compensating for something, I’d imagine!

We enjoyed our stay but we were glad to get home (we used the new bridge for the first time) and have a hot bubble bath! I have been surfing the web for old friends tis afternoon, which always keeps me amused for a hour or two… No future plans as yet, but enjoy your Bank Holiday Monday whatever you are up to.

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‘Tis a bad time for logs as no one is updating. Humph. I like to check all my blogs over my morning coffee but of late it has been a very quick job! Oh well.

Well, the Bank Holiday weekend approaches; will the bypass help with the evil of the traffic? Will the naff weather (muggy but gray so far this morning) mean people stick at home? We’re heading off to the caravan, so I hope we won’t be stuck in traffic for ages. We are looking forward to the longer weekend, although we have got used to the full-time work arrangements sometimes it is nice to revert to our student ways for a day or two. By that I really mean spend three whole days attached at the hip and sleeping until 9:30am before a slow start to a day of general pottling.

Sadly it looks like Lewis Hamilton will have to wait a bit longer for his first F1 victory, after having a smash in qualifying and with the Monaco course being basically impossible to pass on. You have to rely on engines blowing, crashes or such like usually. Never mind, maybe he’ll get lucky or if not I am sure it cannot be long until he zooms to the top of the podium.

Star Wars is thirty years old and there is a massive convention thing in LA. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love (the first three) Star Wars but I have never gone that mental about it. Probably it is a symptom of being a child of the 1980s (or does that makes me an 1990s child? Goodness knows) that Indiana Jones will always be more exciting to me than George Lucas’ epics. Sad but true, sad but true.

The Great British Menu finishes tonight, which Mr C and I have been enjoying for several weeks (it is on at 18:30, about when we normally sit down for our snap). We have voted online for Jeremy Lloyd who is great fun and cooks slightly less pouncy food than some of them (I mean, a four hour boiled egg?!). We shall see if he wins later on.

Anyhoo, I need to get our stuff ready for the caravan and get some petrol, so I’ll return on Sunday or Monday, I imagine.

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After almost thirty years of wait the new Barnstaple bypass and bridge will open today. ‘Citin’ as Mr Brand would say. I wonder if it will help out with the awful roads? I hope so. But I also fear it will not manage to tame the beast that is North Devon’s roads!

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The sun is out again, teasing us prior to the Bank Holiday weekend, which according to the weather forecast promises rain. Never mind, the sun is good whatever. Plus my ear, which was blocked all day yesterday due to the highly prolonged and annoying virus I am still enjoying, is now hearing again.

Off to Bideford shortly for my second session of volunteering there. I might make a visit to Atlantic Village afterwards, as I haven’t been there ever and apparently they have shoes. On the other hand, i might not.

Why do people always seem to say “like the film 1984“? I have heard this phrase about fifty times over the last couple of days, along with a fair sprinkling of “the Big Brother state”. I do not objectt to the phrase, just the fact that 1984 is surely more famously a book?

Speaking of BB the popular televisual series is shortly to return to our screens. Post-Shilpa will the ratings be up or down? I suspect up for a brief period before we find out what vacuous and awful people the latest crop are and then it’ll fall off. Until week four when they’ll be some sort of fight or slagging-match and everyone will watch again.

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Well, the return to Wembley lead to a verrrrry boring game with one utterly brilliant goal (loath though I am to say it as it was scored by the horrible Drogba). I always enjoy the cup final, and it is great to finally see the new Wembley in use!

We have had a fabulous relaxing day. We have done nothing, nothing at all. Got up late, watched Saturday Kitchen, bathed, played Mario and watched the cup. Now for quorn/haggis and veg and an evening of more of nothing. Hooray.

Feeling a tiny bit better, by the way. Just in case you were worried!

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Feel a tad better today, mainly thanks to a long lie-in which I enjoyed this morning. Mr C is off, as always, at 13:00 today, so we missed out on our half hour together in the morning. Chicken had a long day yesterday, as he and a colleague took a server to Slough/Maidenhead and to have a peek at the company where it is placed. He didn’t get home until almost 20:00 but had had a good day so was happy.

We are currently having a Mario Bros 3 fest! We started out with endless battle modes but now we are actually playing the full game. ‘Tis nice to have “us time”!!! Heehee. We also had time for some more Lost – Mikhail Bakunin is still alive… Crumbs. Still pondering over my philosophers theory, obviously.

It has been a really busy week this week, so we are looking forward to our weekend. Nothing much planned, just see where the wind takes us.

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I feel ill again. Where is the justice in that? I have already been ill for th e last, oh, month! And I was ill just before Christmas – Mr C was ill for the holiday itself, and it was full on man flu, I can tell you… Yesterday I coughed and coughed and today I sound like Greenback from Danger Mouse. Never mind…

I started my two new placements for my voluntary job this week. They already look about a million times better than the one we had to be removed from, so that’s good. I’ve also sent off for lots of information about social work.  On Monday I went with my niece to make puppets at school. My first hour or two within a school’s walls doing ’stuff’, which was quite weird.

The Apprentice  is hotting up, with only seven evil capitalist wankers candidates left. I am hoping Christina, the most horrific one of all, will be for the chop soon, but I sort of fear that being horrific is a good thing in this show…

Oh well, time to go and cough somewhere else.

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