Quote of the day!
100 word review: Wuthering Heights
5 More Minutes
“Yes Mum.”
I could hear the gentle mocking in his voice when he said that, like its some hilarious little joke that I still act like his mother. He could be 52 with four kids and a pension for all I care, I’d still tell him to do up his bloody shoes. He handed me the box and bent down to do it up. The tip of his tongue was clenched between his teeth and he carefully watched what the laces were doing. I could almost hear him saying “loop it, swoop it, pull”. He’d always been slow with learning how to do his shoelaces. We tried it all: the bunny ears, the squirrel and the tree, one of those giant cardboard shoes with laces to practice. He ended up wearing Velcro till he was 13.
He stood back up, sweeping his fringe out of his eyes. He’d always had big eyes, from the day he was born. The midwife brought him in and handed him to me and as he woke up he batted those long eyelashes at me and the blueness of his eyes took my breath away. In all his school pictures from primary school he reminded me of a caricature with his sticky out ears, big blue eyes and grin that was always missing at least two teeth. Then he went to high school and started growing his hair and forever covering his eyes with that bloody fringe. I told him countless times to cut the damn thing off but he always kissed his teeth and said “it’s fine, Mum”.
“Much better” I said, handing him back the box. He turned around to take the box out to the car, his jeans holding on to his buttocks for dear life as he walked. “Jamie, love, you need a new belt; that one you’re wearing doesn’t seem to be any good.”
Taking the hint, he steadied the box on one hand and pulled up his jeans with the other. Once he’d gone around the corner, I turned and went upstairs.
His bedroom door was wide open and the room looked neat tidy, two things it never was when he was in it. One large open box was in the middle and piled high with books and toys and little trinkets: the stuff he was leaving behind. I picked up a plastic cowboy from the top of the pile; once upon a time it had been his favourite toy. It all started when we took him to see Toy Story in the cinema and having a toy cowboy or astronaut as your best friend became ‘cool’. Before then he had never even given the thing a second glance and suddenly it had to sit with him at dinner, bathe with him and sleep with him. He had tried to write ‘Jamie’ on one of the boots but he could only fit in the ‘Ja’. The cowboy didn’t stay a favourite for long: his Dad bought him a Playstation for Christmas and so anything that wasn’t on a television screen was no longer worth playing with. I always joke that that Christmas was the day I lost my son to the Five More Minutes syndrome. He’d be playing that thing from the moment he woke up till when he went to bed that night, which he always tried to extend by turning his big brown eyes at me and whimpering, “Five more minutes?”
Bathing went out of the window: it took up too much game time. So did haircuts, fresh air, homework and friends. At mealtimes I would yell his name up the stairs, only to hear the faint response “I’m coming mum, five more minutes!” and his dinner would be stone cold by the time he came down. In a matter of days my sociable seven year old turned into an obsessive recluse. It took about 8 months for the novelty to wear off and he went back to playing football with friends and maintaining personal hygiene, but the Five More Minutes syndrome stayed. Throughout his teens those three words became an automatic response to my every command: get out of the shower, do the washing up, go to bed, tidy your room, walk the dog. It was also the excuse for anything that he didn’t want to stop doing: playstation, computer, television, girls. When he was 15 I let him bring his girlfriend round for the first time. She was a tiny blonde twig that barely came up to his shoulder, although by that time he towered well above just about everyone we knew, including me. He took her hand and led her up to his bedroom and I faced the inner struggle of not thinking about what they were doing. A few hours later I yelled up the stairs that her Dad had come to pick her up, to be met with the grunt “five more minutes, mum.” Heaven forbid I should ever know what they needed five more minutes for.
“Mum?”
Jamie was leaning in the doorway, his eyes moving from me to the cowboy in my hands in confusion. I too looked down at the cowboy in my hands. It was dirty, dusty and had a broken arm. I lifted one of the feet to see the very faint traces of “Ja”. I sighed and put it back in the box.
“I was just remembering when you used to be in love with that toy. You were about 7 and we went to see toy story, remember?”
“Oh God Mum, don’t start going down memory lane, I haven’t got all day.”
“Oi, cheeky, don’t talk back.” There was that smile again; Funny little old mum who can’t help but nag. “Is that everything now?”
“Dad’s just setting up the Satnav for the journey. It’ll probably take him ages, he still can’t work it.”
I nodded and smiled weakly. “How long is going to take to get there?”
“About 2 hours. The campus is in the middle of nowhere but there’ll be loads of traffic with all the people coming at the same time. The country lanes are gonna be a friggin’ nightmare.”
I nodded and tried to smile. “All ready to go then?”
He looked around his room, put his hands in his pockets and nodded.
“Think so, yeah.”
I looked at his face, happy, confident and determined: he was ready. I covered my face with my hands.
“Aww Mum, don’t cry” I felt his arms around me and wrapped mine around him, burying my face in his chest.“S’alright, you’ll see me soon.”
I sniffed, pulled away and sat on his bed. “I know, I know. It’s just not easy watching your little boy grow up and leave.”
Jamie stayed quiet for a moment, looking at me awkwardly. He’d only ever seen me cry once, when his grandma died. He came and sat on the bed next to me.
“Remember when we went to Blackpool and you lost me at the Pleasure Beach?”
I laughed and wiped my eyes.
“You ran off after the man with the balloons. We were worried sick looking for you for hours and then when we came to pick you up from the lost and found office you were sat on a chair licking a 99 with a balloon hat on your head, happy as Larry.”
“I wasn’t for long after the arse-whooping you gave me!”
“Yeah well you never ran off again, did you!”
We both sat laughing. His laugh was deep and slow but I could still hear the high –pitched giggle in there. I put my hand on his and smiled at him. He pulled me towards him and hugged me.
“I’ll miss you Mum.”
An impatient yell came up the stairs: “Jamie! I got the Satnav working, let’s get going!”
I held Jamie tighter and yelled,
“Five more minutes!”
Hmmmm...
No Title As Of Yet...
The darkness is my best friend,
For I have no compassion.
The tear stained pillow of my fears,
Has kept me strong over years.
The cards dealt by fate, I hate,
To have this yearning, burning
Sensation in my whole soul.
Who knows were the dead do go?
I was so full of hopes, dreams.
To be, be ripped at the seams
Is what we all truly fear.
I think, therefore I am not
fit to lead, let me be shot.
Cause this fate, I hate
Hates me.
4000 Characters
[A group of 10-15 1st year college students are sat on chairs, stage right. A sign is at the back of the stage “Uni Advice Day”. A teacher is stood in front of the students. On stage right are two chairs, one is empty and one has another student in it who looks deep in thought and serious. She appears to be saying something under her breath.]
Teacher: For the next hour or so we will be looking at one of the most crucial aspects of your university applications: your personal statements. First we have one of our students in the second year that recently completed her university application and is here to give you advice on writing your personal statements. Please would you all welcome, Kathy!
[The teacher goes and sits in the empty chair on stage left. Kathy, the student sitting stage left, stands and walks to centre stage, looking slightly towards the floor. Her face remains deep in thought and her mouth continues to move as if she is quietly speaking to herself. She reaches centre stage, stands completely still for a moment, mouthing. Then, suddenly, she jerks her head up and she has a wide smile.]
Kathy: [Extremely happy and excited, using big gestures and movements yet also obviously fake and forced.]
On my 7th birthday, my Dad bought me a chemistry set with 100 different experiments. It was just squeezing lemon juice into grape juice and watching the lemon juice turn red, but to me it was magic and from then on chemistry became my life!
[Kathy’s smile slowly falls and her face resumes one of grave seriousness. She speaks in a low, hushed voice, as if what she is saying is a terrible secret but her voice constantly grows in anger as she speaks until the point of shouting, when she calms herself. She faces the audience while speaking but looks straight ahead at something in the distance.]
Always start with an anecdote. It makes you seem more...friendly. Likeable. Human. Prove that your subject has been a life-long love. I much preferred the Barbie I got that day and didn’t like science till I was 15 but that’s what happens when you write these statements: truth and lies blur and entwine until you can no longer tell which is which. If you tell the complete truth, they won’t want you.
[Suddenly turns and points accusingly at the students]
Tell all lies and you’ll get caught! The boy who cried I read it! is the most common Uni fable to date.
[Walks towards the students, looking each of them in the eye. Stops right in front of them.]
Find the right mix of look-at-me lies and touching truths and you’ve got yourself a place. So what exactly is it that you need to deceive them of?
[Pauses for a few seconds]
Would you call yourself a well-rounded individual?
[Kathy turns her head sharply towards the students. She waits a moment, as the students look at each other, unsure of whether to answer. Kathy roars in frustration.]
Do you play an instrument? A sport? Do you volunteer?
[Still the students don’t answer, just look at her worried]
Show these universities that you are a human being worthy of their time. You can’t be a teenager that does nothing but drink with friends. You must be a talented musician and athlete that can contribute to Uni life. You must be interested in issues around you. You may be terrible at the violin, attend one football training match and not give a toss about the environment, but that doesn’t matter. Who you are is of no importance. It is who you are willing to be.
[Kathy pauses for a moment and then begins pacing in front of them.]
You question me.
[Mimicks the students voices]
Don’t they want to see who we really are? They’ll see through it if you’re fake! PAH! You want to be honest? Go ahead. Say you like the look of the course, you hear the night life is great, you want to get the hell away from your parents, you love that there are no examinations in the first year, you are a nice person and usually on time and please won’t they just give you a place? Thousands of other fools will do the same and you’ll all be lost in the stormy seas of rejection, begging for the power of Clearing to throw you a rope.
[Pauses for a few seconds and then turns away again and walks back to centre stage and talking in the direction of the audience.]
4000 characters, including spaces and full stops. That’s all you have. Those 4000 characters will become an inescapable nightmare for every one of you. Time after time you’ll type page upon page into your UCAS, press submit, cross your fingers and pray to the heavens, only to read that it is 354 characters too long. People try to gain a character here and there by ‘accidentally’ forgetting to put a space or a full stop but it doesn’t work.
[Again she turns towards the students, holding up a finger and walks slowly to stand in front of one particular student, who looks at her terrified.]
One single grammatical or spelling error and BAM...there goes your statement in the bin.
[She stands back to address the entire group.]
Check. Double-check. Triple-check. You can check it a hundred times and still a mistake can trickle through. You lie in bed thinking, do I spell necessary with two C’s or two S’s? Is it affect or effect? It doesn’t end when you fall asleep: your dreams are filled with professors laughing at your stupidity, throwing hours of your life into the shredder and you see your parents disappointed faces when you get rejected by each one. Then you wake up and see your statement lying on the desk, 354 characters too long, mocking you.
[Kathy shakes her head, stepping back into centre stage, mouthing something.]
You can’t imagine. Soon, you will know. The mind-numbing math swallows our thoughts and we find ourselves perpetually adding up. I knew a boy who studied Government & Politics, Philosophy, English language & literature and Business studies. He said each subject twice. That’s 712 characters squandered. I went on a Young Scientists Introduction to Chemistry in Higher Education Programme. I said it 4 times and lost 284 characters.
[Kathy wrings her hands, as if pleading with desperation and, still stood in front of the students, turns towards the audience.]
I did everything I could to cut it down. I didn’t mention it was for young sciences, I left out that it was just an introduction, but it was no use. I had no choice but to sacrifice 156 characters.
[Kathy walks back to centre stage, looking out into the audience. She takes long pauses between each sentence, mouthing something. She no longer looks angry, but upset, lost, desperate and exhausted]
It can be done. It must be. Stay up till the early hours scribbling out sentences and replacing it with ones four characters shorter. Count and contrast the characters of adjectives. Spend so much time counting it becomes second nature and everything you do fits into 4000 characters. Just like this speech.
[Kathy stands in silence. The students and teacher all watch her, awe-struck, confused and unsure of what to make of what just happened. After about 30 seconds, she turns around and walks off stage.]
New Books!
Happy Boxing Day!!!!
They don't do boxing day glitter graphics, so we'll just wish you a Merry Christmas again!
Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You
Robyn and Symone's favourite Christmas song...and one of the sexiest men on the planet...
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
12 Days of Christmas
This is my favourite Christmas song... many memories of bellowing "five GOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD rings" in primary school on the last day of school. Not sure about the cheesy background music in this video though.
Mean Girls - Jingle Bell Rock
Great film and hilarious clip! (Keep an eye on any guys watching this video)
100 word review: The Five People You Meet In Heaven
You have to look at this!
100 word review: The Bell Jar
4000 Characters
[Spoken by a girl of 17-18 in a t-shirt and jeans.]
Extremely happy and excited, using big gestures and movements
For my 7th birthday, my father bought me a chemistry set with 100 different experiments. That’s what it said on the box: learn to make colourful crystals, find out how rockets burn with colour, separate and analyse substances! Really it was just squeezing lemon juice into grape juice and watching the lemon juice turn red, but to the 7 year old me it was magic and from then on science became my life.
Body language completely changes to one of seriousness, bottled anger and frustration. Voice has a dark, cynical tone. Voice constantly builds to a point of shouting, but then returns to calm as she controls herself.
The teachers tell you to start with an anecdote. It makes you seem more...friendly. Likeable. Human. But all I can think is that anecdote cost me 406 characters. 406 characters lost trying to prove that chemistry has been a love for all of my life when really I much preferred the Barbie I got for my birthday and hardly touched the chemistry set. But that is just what happens when you write these statements: truth and lies blur and entwine until you can no longer remember which is which. If you tell the truth they won’t want you. In truth very few people have always loved and always wanted to study that course. Most just stumble across it when deciding what to do with the rest of their lives. But if you tell all lies, you’ll get caught. The boy who cried “I read it!” is the most common University fable to date. What you have to do is find the right mix of look-at-me lies and touching truths and you’ve got yourself a place.
You have 4000 characters for this cunning persuasion. That includes spaces and full stops. They charge you for wanting the admissions department to take breaths when they read. Some people try to gain a character here and there by ‘accidentally’ forgetting to put a space or missing out a full stop but it doesn’t work. One single grammatical or spelling error and BAM...there goes your statement in the bin. Those 4000 characters become the haunting, taunting, oh-so-daunting nightmare of every student. I know a girl who wants to do Scandinavian studies and English Literature. She had to write it six times. That’s 258 characters gone. Sure you can pick up little tricks like using an ampersand instead of writing ‘and’ or saying ‘this course’ instead of the full course name but it isn’t enough. I know a boy who studied Government and Politics, Philosophy, English language and literature and Business studies. He had to say each subject twice. That’s 712 characters squandered. And he wanted to study Business Studies and Marketing, the poor sod. After the anecdote, course name and his A level subjects, he had 200 characters left. No-where near enough space to show what a well-rounded individual he was. That’s the other thing they tell you to do: prove that you are more than just grades with all of your extra-curricular activities. Here’s where more deception comes into play. People pick up sports and instruments and volunteering becomes their life. They pretend to care about old people, children, the disabled, the environment and charities but really they resent using their Saturdays and while they shovel mud and pick up rubbish and change a child or old woman’s nappy, they pray to God that this gets them a place and all becomes worth it.
My Mum couldn’t believe it when I told her. Mimicks her mothers voice and shocked body posture “All these lies, surely University’s will see through it all and only want the truthful people?” Bless her. She didn’t go to University. Maybe my Mum is right, they do see through it and take you anyway for your admirable attempt at ambidexterity (learning fancy words is another must), who knows. The student certainly doesn’t, and that’s the whole point. We know absolutely NOTHING about what they want, except that what they want is not what we have to offer. I could use my 4000 characters to be honest and say that I really want to do this course and I know it would be perfect for me and I hear the night life is fantastic at your University and I just want to get the hell away from my parents and I work pretty hard and am mainly punctual and a nice person and will be a great student and please-oh-please won’t you give me a place? But 10 zillion other applicants will say the same and you become lost in the messy mass of rejection, begging to be saved by the power of Clearing. It’s all about standing out from the crowd. In a way personal statements are the best preparation for life: you learn that no-one will want you just the way you are; you need to persuade them that you are what they need. Bosses, our husbands and wives, our children, our friends will all need persuading. Contorting the truth is the shotgun you need for survival in the Jungle of your future and the 4000 characters are your bullets. Use them wisely.
Robyn
100 word review: Saturday Night Peter
100 word review: Un Lun Dun
Got a letter...
Siegfried Sassoon's return to Cambridge
Collecting Alice and other pointless things
100 word review: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
I didn't finish this book. I gave up after about three volumes (there are nine). Tristram isn't born for over 150 pages because of the narration. He digresses to the point where you have completely forgotten the plot of the novel. When his father and uncle are having a conversation, before telling you the conversation, the narrator tells you about his father’s philosophy of children's names and his uncles groin injury caused in war. It’s meant to be funny and isn't, mainly because of the 300 year difference between when the book was written and when I am reading it.
Robyn
New Books!
OMG!!!!
100 word review: All My Sons
My Kent Visist Day
100 word review: The Waves
Really really old book on display in Scotland
100 word review: The Golden Notebook
100 word review: Little Women
Politics Essay: Political Parties
To what extent are parties effective in promoting political participation?
Political parties depend on political participation as they need good political participation to ensure a good turnout at elections. As political parties are brought to government power by the electorate, they need the electorate to have political participation. Political participation, therefore, is one of the functions of a political party.
The first activity that political parties have for participation is the opportunity for people to become members of the political party. By being a member, people can help to shape party policy by submitting their ideas. However the membership of parties in the UK has fallen and so less political participation is made this way. Also, political parties do not make much effort to make the public members of their party and only really try to elicit support at the time of the general election. Also, while some members are very active in supporting the party, the majority are very passive and so do not have any political participation anyway.
Political parties also help to educate and mobilize the electorate. They do this through a range of activities such as meetings, canvassing and advertising. The majority of these activities are done only around the time of the general election ad also all the activities are designed to elicit support for that party and its policy and ideological agendas. This means that the electorate are only actually educated during certain periods of time and all the education is very biased. This means that the electorate are only party educated, not politically educated.
Political parties have not succeeded in their aims to mobilize the electorate, as shown by the decrease in turnout for the general election. This means that their campaign activities and opportunities for people to become members haven’t filled the function of increasing political participation.
Robyn
100 word review: The Portrait Of A Lady
Politics Essay: Pressure Groups
What are two differences between insider and outsider groups?
One of the differences between insider and outsider groups is that insider groups have access to policy-makers and outsider groups have limited or no access. This means that insider groups can have a much bigger impact and can do so much easier than outsider groups who have to make large efforts to be heard. This fact links to the second difference. Because insider groups don’t have to work hard to affect policy, they are often little heard of by the public. Outsider groups, on the other hand, use the public and their support to be heard and try to achieve their aims.
GOT AN OFFER!!!!
100 word review: A Doll's House
Politics Essay: Conservatism
How have conservatives justified private property?
Like liberals, conservatives support the ability to accumulate wealth as an important economic incentive but conservatives also see property as having a range of psychological and social advantages.
The first advantage is that it provides security. Property ownership provides a sense of confidence and assurance as they have something to fall back on. It also provides individuals with a source of protection. This is why, for conservatives, thrift is in itself a virtue and they encourage private savings and investment in property.
Secondly, by possessing property people are more likely to respect the property of others. They are made aware that property must be safeguarded from disorder and lawlessness. Property ownership gives people a stake in society and thereby gives them an intent in maintaining law and order.
Lastly, private property is seen as an extension of the individuals personality as people realise themselves in what they own. A home is the most personal and intimate of possessions and often reflects the owners personality. This gives the individual a sense of history, roots and belonging in their own home which are values encouraged by conservatives.
However, unlike liberals, conservatives don’t believe that individuals have a right to property. Although libertarian conservatives support a liberal view of property, traditional conservatives believe that all rights, including property, entail obligations. Property is an issue for society, not just the individual as property is not just the creation of the present generation. The present generation are the custodians of the wealth of the nation and so have a duty to preserve and protect it for future generations. This stands by the conservative belief in tradition and preservation, with private property acting as a link between the past, present and future generations.