I like driving in my car, almost as much as I like tor-char.

Some of you may know that I am learning to drive. Others of you will have known this sometime in the distant past, forgotten it and re-learned it. It is taking me a long time. I am not the world's most confident driver. People think this is insane, since I've been cycling on the roads for 20 years now. That's roads including BIRMINGHAM. But bizarrely, I feel safer perched precariously atop a scarcely-visible piece of lightweight metal than strapped in behind the wheel of a two ton box. My sense of unease has not been helped by the fact that I've had FOUR instructors. So far. In a year and a half. The roll of honour..........

1) Julie.
Her driving school was called 'corse 'u' kan' or some similar abomination against the English language. Her tan made Dale Winton look like an albino and her voice was akin to the sound of screeching brakes. After a few weeks with me, she told me that she had a rare blood disorder and was going on long term sick leave. My piano teacher had said a similar thing to me when I was ten, and it was a lie. She'd continued to teach all her other pupils. As did Julie.

2) Adam.
Repelled by the rank amateurism of 'Kors' u!cann', I went to BSM. They dumped me with Adam, a 15 year old (or thereabouts) boy who kept banging his head off the glove compartment, edging towards the passenger door and once told me that my shitness in gear changing was due to my not having the correct brand of hideously expensive sports shoes. He also managed to convince me I had some kind of co-ordination problem. As had, I might add, my piano teacher when I was ten.

3) Paul.
I phoned BSM to tell them I was going to give up and sell myself and my malformed limbs to a travelling circus. Or something. They suggested I try another instructor. Perhaps one who was qualified! Paul was qualified. He was also very, very nice, reassured me that if I wrote off his car he would get another one from BSM and claimed to be 28 years old when he looked older than my Dad (but with peroxided hair) Then he fucked off to Leeds for a better job.

4) John.
Tonight I had my first lesson with John. Within ten minutes I cried on him. Possibly not a good sign, but he didn't say anything about blood disorders or dyspraxia, so who knows. He says he'll come back again next week. Maybe I will be able to drive soon!

Which is ironic, as the job I'm just about to start involves dissuading people from driving their kids to school and promoting cycling. As usual, my timing is impeccable!

Jokes

Q) Does a knife chop off your hands or your legs?
A) Your head!

Knock Knock.

Who's there?

Fish.

Fish who?

A fish, silly.


Thanks to Pooky for those.

Titles found on Amazon that I wish I'd thought of first: #1 in an occasional series.

JINGLES AND JOLLITY: A JOLLY BOOK FOR LITTLE PEOPLE.

Strangely, the author is anonymous.

Found in the library staff meeting minutes today.

Marion would like everyone to look out for a non-weird picture book
about the seaside for a storytime later 24th May. No witches/deaths
please.

Thank Heavens for Diarrhoea

As some of you may know, I am currently embroiled in a bizarre tug-of- redeployment at work, and it aint fun. I've been dead stressed and making mistakes along the lines of booking up a storyteller on a day I won't be there to look after her and distributing 50 odd posters for her with the wrong day on. Also I have to mark 40 SATS papers a night which is only marginally less boring than being in Year 9 and having to write one.

Today Puggle came to my rescue. How did she do this? She acquired raging diarrhoea. The nursery won't take kids who even look a bit tired or ugly, so there was no chance of her going in. Or me.

I'm a conscientious soul and I hate missing work, but today the sun is shining and Puggy is sat on my knee muttering in a charmingly incoherent fashion of babies, hats and doggies. Later we will go out in the garden and I will push her on a swing for what seems like hours.

Funnily enough, my week-long headache seems to have gone.

KS3 English National Curriculum Tests 2006.

Snoooooooooooooooore.
Whatever we were being paid for the SATS training day today, it wasn't enough. Sensing the collective apathy of all those teachers desperate enough for cash to take the devil's shilling and mark these bastard tests, the 'presenter' remarked,

"I found myself scribbling all this down when I did my training"

Got to get your thrills somehow, I thought, and began scribbling. There follows a random selection of my notes. I hope they convey some impression of how much I enjoyed the day.

"Can I suggest that you go back to example six later?"
"As long as I can suggest you get knotted"

In the future this stuff will be marked by machine.

I am cold.

How much $ do we get for this?

"Remember this is national training"
Woohoo, and there's me thinking we were in Barbados.

Are paragraphs useful or random?

Yawn.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah (hummed to tune of Imperial March)

What is 20km?

How much $ do they get for reading out powerpoints? Badly?

It pains me to write notes.
I feel conscientious
I am not being paid enough to be able to spell conscientious

Evil looking deformed animals.

Thanks f0r sharing my pain.

From the Guardiano

My favourite newspaper caption of the week:

" A little girl falls asleep while being paraded around Cheung Chau Island's bun festival, held to appease the ghosts of pirates."

Can I get (rid of) a Witness?

It is Friday tomorrow.
It is not likely to be pelting down with hailstones.
They will be here - it is my mission to ensure that my vulnerable little offspring are not.

Oh ok, I'm talking about the Jehovah's Witnesses, those fairweather evangelisers, those well-fed, glassy-eyed, smug, thinly-smiling old bags who turn up on my doorstep once a fortnight (except if it's raining) to foist some crap tracts with the production values of a chip cone onto me.

Why do I not tell them to fuck off and burn in some fiery lake of their own lurid imagining?
Well they've got me there. They have somehow sensed that I am a vaguely nice person and will not swear in front of the kids. I don't even want to ridicule other people's beliefs in front of them, 'cause ridiculous as those beliefs undoubtedly are, we know where that kind of education leads.

Pooky rushes to the door every time the bell rings, and as he does with every caller, has told the JWs his name, age and practically his entire life story. All I can do every time they catch us in (and it's not often - I even frequent weekend dad paradise The Wacky Warehouse to avoid them) is pretend that Puggle has just shat herself and I need to change her nappy as a matter of urgency.

Once when I was very pissed off with them (I think they'd aired a Bible in my presence or something) I told Pooky that the ladies had special educational needs and we had to be nice to such people, but no, I wouldn't read their magazines to him and would he like The Very Hungry Caterpillar instead?

HOW do I get rid of the Witnesses?
I'd be very grateful for any suggestions that don't involve a machete, as I can't be pestered washing the blood off the step.

Amazing what they teach 'em at nursery these days.

Pooky came home today with an array of new facts about human biology that he was eager to share with us.

1) Your heart makes blood go around your body.

Impressive.

2) It stops you dying if you get chopped up.

I think Pooky's mind may have wandered into the Star Wars zone at this point. But who am I to say? I only did modular science.