In all my short life I have never realised how completely politically uncorect Enid Blyton's books are. I read them as a child, probably all of them twice over, yet my little innocent self was not aware that Dame Spankalot was any other than a women the charcters of the story had befriended during another magically adventure at the top of The Faraway Tree. Why would I question PC Goons motives when i am satisfied with an outdoor land where the sun never goes down and there is an eternal pinic blanket layed with cheese, ham, boiled eggs, cake, sandwiches and lappings of ginger beer? Books entitled, The Three Golliwogs, and Happy Hours Story Book mean totally different things to me now, than when I was a gullible 7 year old willing to believe in Wishing-Chairs.

Out of many books i read as a child, the one i can remember reading over and over again and never getting bored of, was A Book Of Brownies by Enid Blyton - a story based on three naughty brownies (brownies are sort of a cross between pixies and elves) named Hop, Skip, and Jump who play naughty tricks on their fellow neigbours, which leads them to the sanction of being forgoten purposely when the King has a party and invites the whole village. Hop, Skip, and Jumps whole lives are then transformed as they disguise themselves as magicians so they can go to the party, and consequently, they end up disappearing the Kings daughter permently, and are forced to leave the village and never come back until they have returned her. It's a good book, i liked it, anyway. However, now looking back through it, the characters and chapter names are a little odd. For example, chapter five: Their adventure in the Land of Clever people. Chapter 9 is about The Saucepan Man - a half deaf man wearing lots of saucepans, who is accused more than once of being saucy. The book ends on page 185 with a poem:

GOODBYE!

And now the three brownies are happy once more,
And the princess is smiling and gay;
She often comes knocking at their cottage door
(Usually about quarter-past four),
And asks them to come out and play.

But first they have tea, and they eat jammy bread,
While they talk just as fast as they can
of the Vanishing Door and the Hob-Goblin red,
Of the Very Wise man with his very big head,
And, of course, of the old saucepan man.

And Hop laughs to think of the worm they once met,
Who was in such a terrible hurry;
And Skip says he really will never forget
The time when the Green Railway Train was upset
And put everyone in a flurry!

So they chatter and laugh while they finish their tea,
Then they think they will go out to play;
And off they all clatter, as merry can be,
To take the old Dragon-Bird out for a spree
away in the air, hip hurray!

They have a fine time in the sunny blue sky,
And then come to earth with a bump.
And after that Peronel calls out "Goodbye!
Goodbye, dear old Dragon-Bird; thanks for the fly,
And goodbye to you, Hop, Skip and Jump!"

Enough said!

This is the next installment of the story that is written by many people.

Verity: The day after his dream, Patrick set about applying for an astology course. He'd never been fussed about it before, apart from reading the predictions for his starsign, Gemini Cosgrove, in Robots Healthly Monthly. At the counter, he handed his application form to a bored looking female robot. She looked newly made, with smoothly soldered joins and solidified bubbles on her face, like zits on a human child. She had an organic hand, which was the norm for robots whose systems had partially failed. Even so, Patrick stared at it in facination. He handed over his metal chip to be scanned and debited for his course.
"Where'd you get your hand?" He asked, partly awestruck, partly disgusted.
"Down the med-centre", drawled the girl, picking at a metal zit, "You want one? Only fifteen hudred credits, plus money back and a free replacment if the first one is faulty",
"Thanks for the info. but i think i will pass." Patrick took his chip back and made his way over to a male robot with flared legs and a piston balanced on the top of his head. Patrick collected some brochers from the robot on planetary movement and star formations, and sally forthed to find some accomodation.

Today is my 16th birthday. It started by watching last nights 'Live at Abbey Road', which was good, becasue it had James Morrison, the man i am going to marry in future days to come. No idea who the other American Matthews guy was though. I opened presents from family and friends, and very nice they were too, and then headed off out to Essentials to have all my hair cut off and blonded. I am v. pleased with it - a number of people have commented on how much i look like my mums twin sister though! Not sure if thats good or bad! We then headed of to Victoria Station and went to see Billy Eliot, the musical, which i have to say, was pretty amazing, it almost beats The Lion King. Actually, it would beat the Lion King if it wasn't for the uncomfortable language used when your 9 year old brother is sitting next to you. The language in general, was not pleasant, it was worse than the film. But anyway, the acting was good, and it seemed to make a strong inpact on the stranger sitting next to me - he did cry in two parts. But, i cant really talk because my eyes filled up, and my brother looked like some one had just died, he was sobbing so hard. But surely that is the sign of a really good show?

We had chips at the station, and i managed to keep up with thw record of how fast i can spend my birthday money after i get it. Although, it could of been worse - i bought two books, that i will look forward to reading but will not read yet, cause i am in the middle of another one. We then had Chinese later this evening - crispy duck pancakes are my favourate!

Anyway, i must go, becasue i am the only one not asleep in the house, and my leg has gone dead from sitting on it!

This is a story, in which each paragraph is written by different people. It's quite dodgy in areas, but i will not apologise for it, because i only wrote a paragraph.

Beth (me): Once upon a time, there lived a man named Englebert, whos unfortunate name cost him his first girlfriend, and in the future, his first wife. The metallic bonding of his head was soon to be melted by the robot squad - they had a tendency to be slightly evil. Being a robot had unfortunate disadvantages. Englebert was never considered a real man, and therefore, never got to perform his duties in the Food Discussion group. Eating was his life long ambition, however, he often suffered from bad bouts of constipation combined with insomnia - both of these together took there toll on Englebert, and he resorted to living in the carribean. He wanted to meet more girls in more bikinis.

Mark: After eight children and endless amounts of lovers, and still lonely, Englebert decided to strive for a more fulfilling lifestyle. He moved from the Carribean, dropped his raster tendencies and sold his home grown (finest) dope. He thought that to suceed he must become a citizen that respected law and order. He changed his name to Patrick and set up a business in Bracknell. All was not as it first appeared however, certain underground 'set-ups' soon led poor Patrick astray in endulgences such as prostitution, and illegal kite-flying left him bankrupt with his business in tatters. His house (which he built illegally in a park) soon got knocked down and having to resort to eating from bins, Patrick decided again to change some things about his miserable life which he was now, quite unfortunately, leading.

Elly: After a year of all this hoopla, one of his many children (called Engleburt 2nd) turned up on his non-existant door step and asked if he had a cup of sugar. The newly named Patrick refused to give his son any sugar on acount of the fact that he didn't have any. He offered to rummage through one of Bracknell's finest litter bins in the most prestigeous park in the whole of the estate but his son said that it really was ok, and started on a journey of 150 miles back to his home country of Wallop Gallop.

Steph: The journey took seven days a nights as he trekked with a limp in both hand a foot. The dusty, bleak road made him hunger for a bushel of apples and thirst for anything but camomile tea, for that was a flavour he promised his body he would never swallow again. Sometimes, in the dead of night, he would hear the fleeting coo of his long lost love, Dorris, begging him to return to her. He could still see her loving face, her smile lit up by the deep orange of her cigarrete: still smell her perfect aroma of smoke and Eau D'avion. Alas, he knew it was mere exhaustion and dehydration. He simply wished his sleep would grant him sweet surrender from reality. And so he slept.

Lucy: Meanwhile, in a bed now far far away, Patrick was a-sleeping next to a dead-to-the-world (sleepy) prostitute. And so it came to him a dream - far stranger than before - a dream to change his ways. And this was no drug-induced hallucination! The creature of Ohm came to him in the form of a tortoise, thirsty for the belief of the masses. And he said unto Patrick:
"Alo thar. Ah can see that you've not gawt much ta dew - so i thawt ah'd teach you aboot stars. Stay away from the black holes or you'll be spaghettifeyed. And studeh the stars - they'll tell ya awl ya need for yer life ahood."
And then in an instant, her was gone.

To be continued...

Okay, lets look at some rather grainy videos, from the vastness of Youtube:




Russians by Sting has allways been a favourate song of mine, but i was recently looking into it a bit more, after having just finnished the study of the Cold War (which, by the way, i have enjoyed A LOT) . I have also just started my GCSE art exam, and the theme of it it 'Time' - i researched the doomsday clock a little, and found it at the beggining and the end of this video. Its amazing how close to nuclear war we actually were - the Doomsday clock was set to something stupid like 3 minutes to midnight. It's quite scary when you think about it really, people thought that this would destroy the earth!

Anyway, it's an alright video. I have to say that the floating heads are slightly sereal.