More than just a Token Effort

Up at 1030, because of why not. I look forward to Saturdays because I have the option of hours and hours of screentime, and I was just doing that when I was forced to eat breakfast at about noon.

I have approximately 600 tokens in my coin collection and here they are in some new transparent wallet things that are nice and easy to use but actually totally pants because they don't hold the token in properly and you have to have the folder on an upward slope so they don't keep falling out. Meanwhile we listened to the Alan Parsons Project, never found out what the project was.

Then I did acting. I am doing Wind In The Willows and also Under Milk Wood, and I am going to be a comedy genius. I have some epic lines, bodacious props, and I have to be a postman who rings the doorbell, I answer the door to myself, take the letter from myself, and then pass it to myself in the house, wearing a variety of wigs and hats to change character mid-sentence. Might as well just eat the special mushrooms now, srsly, ffs.

Later, I was just playing on my tablet when Jof said it's 630, why haven't you had lunch. Bad father. Watched Kindergarten Cop which was cut, f***ing pathetic if you ask me. Jof brought home a box of random foreign or damaged coins that were in the 'Don't know what to do with it' box at her work. That's 22 new coins into my collection, hooray.

StarGarden Productions, Inc.

Happy Friday!

Gardening after-school lessons started again and MmmLucy and I were the stars of the show, unloading a massive sack of compost into the free-standing giant tub outside Reception. We put in 3 wheelbarrow-loads and it's still only 3/4 full. We have offered some seeds from a special plant that shouldn't be consumed, the teacher really wants them, but it's still a bit cold for this architecturally interesting display plant from a warmer climate to germinate.

In PE I had to plead damaged ribs. Yesterday I was attacking Bud and his defence mechanism was a torso-grip with both legs and my intercostals are feeling it today. When will I learn (rhetorical).

I have discovered that acting buddy Sydney will be going to my next school, along with about 300 other faces I know.

You won't like me when I'm Hungry

Found a £1 coin on the way home from school. I do not expect to get jailed for this, or otherwise pointlessly harassed by an already overworked Police department. Recently a lady was busted for picking up a £20 note from the floor of a shop and pocketing it. It's possible that more of a hoo-hah was made because it was a £20, people probably wouldn't care if it was one of those measly little 5ps.

Now, admittedly, most of the money I find (or is found on my behalf by family members) is off the pavement or similar and therefore un-owned, but a decent proportion has come from shops, because that is one of the places wallets and purses are accessed, and sometimes a coin will fall to the floor and go under the tinned tuna display, from which my questing fingers can rescue it, sometimes using a pen, because I make the effort.

Over the last 12 years, the sum total of monies discovered from such places exceeds £1,580. Shall I expect a call from Her Majesty's Lord High Executioner, asking me for my neck measurement?

In school we had a quiz and my team came 5th: prizes were awarded to the top 4 teams. Also it was dress-up-as-a-book-character day and I liked the boy in the dress and the mad scientist. I didn't dress up.

Anyway, Bud had a job interview today in which the Personnel lady said sorry, we've already given the job to someone else. Upon hearing this, I went 'Hah hahh' like Nelson Muntz in the Simpsons. Apparently this was the wrong response. So I beat him up on the sofa until he fed me scotch egg and ham and crisps and grapes. When's supper?

Later I generously helped hoover in return for chocolate.

Child's Destiny

Well today (at 40 minutes past midnight) I was allocated my new secondary school. It was in no way a surprise as the council told us to ask for it and we did. In the holidays we will walk there at my walking pace, to determine the best route (fairly obvious) and find out how long it takes (15 minutes?). It's a whopping 250 metres further away than my current school. Facebook was full of discussions from parents.
Anyway, Child A got a Red Card today for blarting at a teacher, where you make the big fart noise on your arm. And Child B got one for booing a fellow student and making her lose her confidence. Nobody's mentioned the Lego League yet, but we did have a press-up competition in PE where the PE teacher did 46 in 30 seconds which was way more than us kids.
At home, Grandad phoned me which makes both of us happy, and Bud put some more money in my account so I must be a millionaire by now.

Fear and Loofahs in Las Vegas

School as normal. There is a new lunch-time Karate class, but I don't want to do it. I prefer fist-to-fist combat, apparently.

Anyway, it's now 8 weeks until the dreaded SAT tests, which will determine what selection of classes I go into next year at my new school.

And it's one more day until I find out what school I'll be going to. What a whole bunch of future-related trousers-of-time decisions. Will a new universe be created every time a choice is made, or is that just something made up by cosmologists to get tenure and free lunches in the canteen?

Also, Bud may get a job with the government, but probably not Prime Minister.

Yesterday at Scouts during the 'Saluting the Flag' bit, Child A thought it would be funny to do the special salute recently made famous by a well-known German gentleman. I suppose as long as next week, we do the Black Power salute, then the Mr Spock salute, then the Double Rimmer, then a 21-gun salute....

Virtual Zombies

Woke up as usual, was nearly ready to go when Jof noticed I was walking like a zombie, lights on but nobody home. She let me go back to bed, which I did. Then she told me to take my school uniform off and I did that too.

That gave me a good extra hour's sleep and that made all the difference. I was in work by 10 something, early enough to get maths and half an hour on the Virtual Reality machines (a box with an iPad stuck in it). The teacher could see where our eyes were looking on her screen so she took us round all manner of historical scenes and we went in a volcano and all the other stuff that you do in VR when you don't have access to special films.

Our parents have decided to re-invent Wednesday Park as 'Monday Park' with a twist - we do it ourselves. So, Ben came home with me to get changed and we met someone in the park so it took us 40 minutes to get home and then it took us 40 minutes to get changed because of loitering and not getting off our botties so by the time we got to the park, poor old Robert had given up and gone home.

This rolled on with consequences for BensMum and I'd forgotten to take the keys so we all stood outside in the cold waiting for Bud to come home, hoping that Robert would forgive us one day.

We'll do better next time. Still, we did have time for X-Boxing while the parents did the Park autopsy.

In Scouts we were told about the next Survival Camp in Africa, or was it the Jamboree. Anyway, you need £4,500 so I'm going to have to sell a lot of cakes.

FIRST® LEGO® League UK and Ireland Final 2016-17

I woke up of my own accord and got dressed at 0531 just as Jof was coming up the stairs to get me up. It was a strangely energizing experience, much like getting up in the middle of the night to go on holiday.

Even though we left the house at 0600, we still had to wait to cross the road, but then the streets were empty. I joined the crowd outside school reception and we waited ages for Lucy and then got in our hired minivans and joined the empty motorway.

In 2 or so hours we got to Bristol, having seen the sun rise and the roadside verges full of magpies, obviously out there getting the worms. I read my book for most of the 120 mile journey.

The conference facilities at UWE (University of Western England) are huge and the carpark was already full when we arrived. We found our little allocated area and got changed into our team shirts and hats, which we get to keep.

There were 48 teams so we sat in the audience seating area for the opening ceremony at 0900. 2 comedy presenters cajoled us into cheering and shouting and passing inflatable plastic animals back and forth and Jof wanted to steal the giraffe.

Then a lady presenter came on and explained the fire alarm procedures and it all kicked off! There were 8 tables arranged in pairs and as 48 teams had to have 3 rounds, it was pretty busy with teams setting up and getting their countdowns and getting sent away again.

We started our session at 1015 and you get a couple of minutes to set up your robots after the Referees had reset the board to ground zero. Then you get 2 1/2 minutes to complete as many missions as you can: some teams were very hot on change-overs with little frantic fingers working away.

It is not all about robots, we had to do our presentations and demonstrate teamwork and innovation and learning and we all swapped freebies with the other teams to fill our goody-bags.

In our first round we forgot to put on the main attachment and then possibly pressed the wrong buttons a bit and it didn't really work at all so we got 9 points, while the top team got 231.

After lunch it was Round 2 and our drunken robot fell over and trashed some obstacles and maybe the attachment arm was upside down a bit but we got 63 points, a vast improvement. We actually got 3 points but where the other team in the table-pair had turned the rotating device, both teams get the 60 extra points for the rotation mission, and we'll take them because this put us in 27th place. Your points don't add up over the rounds, you just get 3 chances to score your highest score.

Gradually as other teams did their runs, we dropped to 31st place: 'Feathered Fulshaw' had a naughty robot that couldn't be bothered but at least they got off 0 points, there were no Norwegian scores left at the end.

By Round 3 we were worried that we'd been cursed with malfunctions. Because we'd won the regional finals in order to be here, and against a load of teenagers too, we knew we were fully capable. But it wasn't working for us today and when they said volunteers please, who's doing Round 3, we all tried to hide behind each other and become invisible. Ben drew the short straw and we scored 30 which was not enough to get us into the knockout round.

Our robot went mad, did a little tits-up dance we hadn't programmed it to do and decapitated a reindeer while falling over again. 8 teams went through to the knockout round but we didn't so we put our bags in the van and watched the balloon challenge which was to dress up as an animal of your choice using those long sausage balloons as props. The emu won the prize (which was the inflatable giraffe that Jof coveted), but I reckon the horse was better. I handed out the cakes that Jof made and they went down very well indeed.

In the end, 'B6 Berellium' won it but 'Tech HEDs' will be going to the USA too. Note, both teams clearly shaved and drove themselves here today, being at least 19. On the way home I got severe leg cramps and we all got back to school at the same time and Jof made us some very welcome supper and she accidentally told me that the head-teacher doesn't mind if we go in 2 hours late tomorrow so you can be very sure I'll be doing that. It was a bizarre and very long day.

So, we might not have won any prizes or set the world aflame with our incandescent performance but we all joined in totally and had a really good time team-working and it was one of those experiences where you're super-glad to have a free T-shirt and some goody-bags and memories and 119 pictures and videos and the only non-staff/governor parents to bother to turn up and support you.

Pint of No Return

At 0600 I woke up knowing I was in the Lego League National Finals. So I leapt out of bed and banged a sleeping Bud on the bum and said hadn't we better get moving, it's 0606 and we're supposed to be at the school at 0615. That's tomorrow you Norbert, he said, crapsticks I said and slunk off to bed again.

So it was tough to wake me up at 0830 and he took me to acting for a 9am start.

Planned parts of the day:

Play rehearsals

'Film and TV acting' extra class at 10am

Swift lunch and Flip-out with the PuddleBoys

Quiet afternoon in preparation for tomorrow.

Bud absolved himself of responsibilities by going to yet another beer festival in Gosport and Jof did the shopping at Giant Tesco.

At the theatre I learned about Film and TV with the runner and the gaffer and the rest of the film crew. Gunwharf was set on fire and the road in front of us was full of emergency vehicles. In Flip-out we attacked generally and all fell down in the section with the suspended punchbag.

Calm before the Storm

Friday. For many, this means cathartic release from the stresses of the week for those with Friday on their minds, a half-day, a half-arsed day, a reason to thank a god of your choice, or a chance to wake up at 2am on the sofa with a second bottle of whisky still open on the table and white noise on BBC2.

But for Jof and I it was a time for quiet contemplation, gentle laundry, comfortable sofas and the last registered day of half-term. OK, so we went out into the briskly breezy outside world and visited the park.  

Storm Doris had ruffled the still-hibernating trees and dislodged the last of the dead branches. Thus, the ground was covered in the redacted dry twigs of last years' growth, amongst the brave new shoots of the new spring bulbs, a Crocus contradiction and Daffodil doublethink.

Ah, we thought. The Scout Group is doing a skills-demo and camping sleepover soon so they'll need tinder (not the online discovery tool for like-minded bearers of red-hot desire, but stick-thin young scions capable of red-hot fire) so we got a free plastic bag off some woman using the bottlebank and brought home a sheaf of firestarters, because the Group Quartermaster needs all the help he can get.

You know the way models in adverts have to look overjoyed to be holding the Yogurt or toothbrush or garden tool that is paying their fees? Well, I tried. But ground-breaking magazine 'Bingo Life' just made me think of dentures, colic and flatulence.

Apparently I have some kind of Lego-related national competition coming up. So, in honour thereof, Jof baked cakes and created other chocolatey culinary delights and I helped decorate them. So here we have Marzipan Lego blocks (6, 8, and 12 nobbers) and some cupcakes with Lego motif and some shortbread fingers with chocolate dip and some marzipan fingers with chocolate drips and brewer's droop.

For Film Night we saw 'Gremlins', a 1984 Spielberg kiddie-oriented spookathon that freaked me out for the first section and then made us all laugh. The gunseller from T1, 2 guys from Beverly Hills Cop and numerous others from the 80s graced its frames and it was good to point them out.

So if that's the calm before the storm, can't wait to see the eye ...

Underage Welsh Bird (5) ............. Mynah

Despite the fact that it's half term and Jof is on holiday to look after me, I spent another 7 hours in theatrical childcare, along with 99 others (the fabled 99 problems).

Actually, I don't mind as it's my chosen profession and ultimate destiny. And by the age of 11, I'm sure that everyone who has already chosen a profession will indeed go on to make a successful career in that field.

So, Jof took me in and we did a proper hour of warm-up with songs and dances and warbling and ululation. Our singing tutor was there and she is very into wide mouths so we had to stick 3 fingers in our mouths and do the woomba woomba song from the Lion King and my jaw cracked like a gunshot and I was worried that I'd broken a tooth but it was just my flip-top head activating and now I can sing with 4 fingers shoved in my gob, eat your heart out Y2.KY Jelly (the lubricant that allows you to insert 4 digits instead of the usual 2).

Child B was even naughtier than before and very gobby and he is now on 2/3 of his 3 strikes-and-you're-out so let's hope he is out sooner rather than later.

2 days ago another wartime bomb was discovered just around the corner from the theatre which caused evacuation (of both houses and bowels) and traffic issues. Today we had extra weather from Storm Boris-and-Doris which brought woo-ooo noises and rattling windows during our lunch break: our own dedicated weatherbomb combo. By the afternoon it had passed.

And we made up dance moves based on swimming warm-up actions and attacked each other with imaginary Tasers and sang songs and it was another long hard day.

So here is a picture of my Airfix Warplane (sitting on a first World War 6-pounder shell casing) that I painted for Scouts half-term homework. It is a resilient crate that has completed millions of missions and been sold down the line through various air forces and is now in camouflage mode with an extra bomb on the top.

This breakthrough in cloaking-technology-enabled aggressive aircraft design is for when the enemy gravity well is above you, or you're hiding your last bomb and then you turn upside down to release it!

Incidentally, I am also a successful Lego designer and will be competing in the National League Finals on Sunday. Watch me romp home here, on Youtube.