Pencil Anecdote of the Day

Today, Gmail's usually-rubbish little targeted links thingy, in a sudden stroke of genius, directed me to this fantastic story in the Orlando Sentinel about the Cumberland Pencil Museum. As well as brightening my day and leading to a new resolution to visit said Pencil Museum when we go to the Lake District this summer, this provided me with a really groovy Pencil Anecdote to share with my beloved readers of my slightly-less-beloved blog! (Is there no end to the joy this little escapade provides?) Anyway, I suppose I should get on to the Pencil Anecdote - because let's face it, if I didn't you'd only skip ahead anyway, what with Pencil Anecdotes being so irresistably exciting and all. (I'm choosing to ignore the fact that most people will probably have read it already, as I so conveniently provided a link. Silly me.)

Pencils with a Point*

"During World War II, a small group of Cumberland pencil factory employees were enlisted to work on a top-secret project: They made special pencils to be delivered to Allied prisoners of war in Nazi POW camps.

Hidden under the ferrule -- the crimped metal tube that holds the eraser -- was a tiny but functional compass. Rolled tightly inside the pencil was a tissue-paper map to aid any prisoners able to escape.

Oh, and you could also write with it. It was a pencil, after all."

* Please note I accept no responsibility for that awful, awful pun. It was the subheading on the article in question, and any complaints about the quality of the pun should be directed to Mr John Kelly of the Washington Post, whoever he may be.

Nuns Are Our Friends

The three best nun-related websites on the internet (or at least, that small corner of it that Kate and I managed to scour in our quest for information about the oozing properties of nuns. I'm coming to realise that late-night conversations with Kate are severely detrimental to my sanity.) Let nobody say my blog doesn't provide a useful service...

1. Papal Bowling - The best game on the web?
2. Frightfully Decent Nuns - "This is a little offering showing some of the great times to be had if you keep a nun handy." Far less dodgy than I've just realised that sounds.
3. Rapping Nuns - No, really. They're real. Really.

Ah, memories...

So, I was reading through some old diaries this evening (see how productively I use my study leave?) and I came across the entry for the Day of Farce with the comedy bus driver. And it occurred to me that I'd meant to put it up on my blog but just never got round to it, so now it's just an entry in the list of Things I Would Have Blogged About If I Wasn't So Busy And Lazy, and frankly it deserves better. So I decided there was no harm in it going up retrospectively and giving me a nice bit of reminiscence into the bargain. I can't be bothered to re-tell it, so I'm just going to type up my entire entry for that day, because it was quite a comical day, in many ways. (Having typed it all out, it's got quite ridiculously long, so if anyone does manage to stay awake till the end, please do comment so I know it wasn't all in vain.)

Wednesday 9th March 2005

The events of this morning have led me to conclude that my life is a comedy farce existing solely for the enjoyment of some Beings in some parallel universe or something (like the Trumann Show, which I've never actually seen). It all started this morning when I got on a private-bus-company bus, even though it meant paying and I have a bus pass, because I thought I was going to be late for school. The bus driver, seemingly from some Eastern European country (possibly Poland) didn't understand much of what I said, but eventually sold me a ticket to Kings' Heath for 50p.

So far, so good. But at Acocks Green, he stopped the bus and started rambling at me at great length in his native language and gesticulating oddly. When I told him I didn't understand, he offered "No speak English". Fucking hell. This isn't real!

We eventually established that the bus was terminating and I had to get off. Whereupon I got a bit annoyed. I calmly pointed out that I'd paid for a ticket to Kings' Heath, which he had happily sold me, neglecting to mention that his stupid bus was not, in fact, going to Kings' Heath. I further noted that the sign on the front of his bloody bus said "Perry Barr", which is miles past Acocks Green. He looked puzzled, said "Perry Barr?" in a comedy dimwit sort of a way, and opened up the little sign compartment thingy to prove me wrong. On realising I was right, he threw up his hands and cried "Oi-yoi-yoi!", much in the manner of the bumblebee man from The Simpsons. At this point I knew he must be a joke bus driver, so I gave up and got off the bus. At least I got my 50p back.

I started walking back to the bus stop (he didn't even have the decency to drop me at a sodding bus stop, just in the middle of the road) and of course, as I was walking the bus came up the road towards me. I started running comically, whereupon the bottom dropped out of my bag, depositing my lunch on the pavement. I missed the bus.

Amusing Incident of the Day Involving No Farcical Inconvenience to Me happened in History and went something like this:
Mrs Mann [with trepidation]: So, what have you been doing in the lessons I've been away?
Me: Well, on Wednesday, we had a discussion about lemmings, and on Monday, we read out the sources on that sheet you left us in various humorous accents.
Mrs Mann: Oh God, it's worse than I thought.

Well, I suppose when you've been driven insane by Imbecile Polish Bus Drivers, anything amuses you. Anyway, at lunchtime there were no forks in the canteen, so I was forced to eat my lunch with a spoon. I mention this only because forks then miraculously appeared, so I decided to eat my yoghurt with one, just to give the Beings in the parallel universe something suitably ridiculous to watch.

I think I may, in fact, be going crazy.

Back in business

Hurrah, it worked! Thanks go to Mark "I love it when my plans actually work" Taylor for suggesting republishing and thereby rescuing my blog from eternal (or perhaps temporary, who knows) obscurity, so that it can continue to be read and enjoyed by absolutely nobody.

It's a mini-adventure!

Are you sure, sir? It does mean changing the bulb...

Okay, this post is a Red Alert. We are on Red Alert because Blogger seems to have decided my blog no longer exists. While I'm sure this won't be a great loss to anybody, it does make me rather distressed considering all the time and energy I've put into pointlessly rambling on here. Strangely enough, Blogger Help doesn't have an FAQ that says "My blog has fallen into a rip in the space-time continuum. What should I do?", so I'm hoping that posting this carefully-crafted little bit of rubbish and republishing will bring it back.

Well, here goes nothing...

Psychology Joke of the Day

(This posted in celebration/mourning - I still can't quite decide which - of the fact that I never have another Psychology lesson again, ever!)

Q: When is a family tree not a family tree?
A: When it's a crowd analysis model!

(On reflection, even I don't find it funny. Possibly Chantal does. Who can say?)

Of innocence and experience

Since acquiring the very funky Innocent Little Book of Drinks, I've been making a point of making smoothies as often as I can. The other day, I made an important discovery. If you use manky brown fruit, you will get manky brown smoothies. I feel this is a valuable lesson learned on my road to smoothie-making expertise (or so I'm telling myself to minimise the disappointment of a manky brown smoothie). You learn by experience, etcetera, etcetera.

In itself, this isn't a particularly interesting or pointful story (I suppose I could argue that I'm warning others away from making the same mistake I did, but to be honest it's fairly obvious and I was pretty thick to make the mistake in the first place), but I'm putting it on my blog because it gives me an excuse to big up Innocent smoothies, which it seems a startling number of people have yet to experience. Innocent smoothies are the best thing since sliced bread. (Actually, they're not, because sliced bread is pretty rubbish and Innocent smoothies are absolutely fab.) They're fruity and tasty and healthy and the bottles have cute pictures and amusing ramblings on them. Really, you'd be selling yourself short if you didn't go here, here and here to find out more about them (and play lots of fun games and things too).

Isn't democracy great?

I voted today! At my old primary school, no less. It was highly exciting. Although the guy who gave me my ballot paper was the ticket man at my local train station, so unless he's just really unobservant it looks like my days of paying child-fare are over. Ah well, it was good while it lasted.

Anyway, I could go on a big political rant here, but it's 12.30am and I'm really just whiling away time while the results come through and Peter Snow wets himself over his latest swingometer. And I'm not very good at multitasking, so if I try and say anything meaningful or interesting on my blog whilst simultaneously doing various other things, my brain might explode. And there's not much point having a blog if you don't have a functioning brain. (I could get in a joke there about stupid ignorant people, or maybe even Tory-boys, but it'd be mean and I'm not awake enough to come up with anything.)

Anyway, having marked the historic occasion of my first largely pointless vote (just so you know, if I'd gone on a rant, the subject of it would probably have been how we should have proportional representation), I'm going to get back to waiting for Boris Johnson to reappear on my screen (or rather, the funky little BBC online election coverage window).

Up the Lib Dems!

Blimey, it's been a while!

So, Blogger tells me that the last time I posted was at the end of February, which is frankly disgraceful. So much has happened! The gigs! The birthdays! The imbecile Polish bus drivers! It saddens me that these escapades have not been recorded for posterity on That Internet, so to make myself feel better about it I am going to provide a summary of Things I Probably Would Have Blogged About Over The Past Few Months If I Hadn't Been So Busy And Lazy. (Could that be the least catchy title for a list ever?)

Anyway. Since last updating, I have (in roughly chronological order):
- Sung with CBYV in Buckingham Palace
- Read the jokes off Penguin wrappers in Buckingham Palace
- Been served chipolatas roasted in honey by impossibly posh butlery people in Buckingham Palace
- Chatted to Prince Philip in Buckingham Palace
- Been blanked by the Queen in Buckingham Palace
- Helped make one of the tenors look ridiculously camp using a leather jacket and a pink scarf in Buckingham Palace
- Had a farcical bus journey with an imbecile Polish bus driver who didn't speak English and said "Oi-yoi-yoi!" like the bumble-bee man from the Simpsons
- Been forced to eat lasagne with a spoon and yoghurt with a fork due to the canteen's ridiculous lack of cutlery
- Concluded that my life was a farce being played out for the enjoyment of somebody somewhere
- Watched the Truman Show
- Become convinced my life was the Truman Show
- Become unconvinced my life was the Truman Show
- Acquired a deeply wonderful boyfriend
- Discovered that Digbeth coach station is, in fact, a shithole
- Discovered the coolest dog ever (it is made from mop-heads and I want one)
- Discovered the coolest word ever ('flub': to botch or bungle)
- Applied in writing to play the grand piano in Borders in Leeds
- Played the grand piano in Borders in Leeds
- Been thrown out of Borders in Leeds by a pleasant Australian security guard
- Stayed up all night for the Wake Up To Trade Justice protest in London
- Blown out candles at the midnight candlelit vigil at said protest because it was my birthday
- Turned 18
- Been to see the rather wonderful Willy Mason at the Academy (photos here)
- Discovered the genius that is Kid Carpet

Well, that's all I have time for just now, but I'm sure I'll remember a whole bunch of other stuff that I really should have included but forgot about. Still, this post is quite long enough as it is, so away with my tedious ramblings! Goodnight!