Hello Kitty

We might be getting a kitten!

My Aunty's cats had kittens. She had two cats (sisters), who both got pregnant at the same time, and gave birth within a day of each other. So she now has 2 cats and 9 kittens.

Yeah.... came as a bit of a shock.

Especially to me. I thought the cats were both boys.

It does remind me of the whole Miss Joseph thing, but names 'Storm' and 'Sunshine' could hardly be described as being gender specific, and apparently cat's willies are hard to find even when you're looking for them (they have no idea how many girl kittens and boy kittens there are).

So anyway, now my 3 little cousins are trying to come up with 9 more weather-related names for all the kittens, like 'Foggy', and 'Misty' and 'Tornado'. I suggested 'Sunny Spells', and 'Smoggy', but they weren't too impressed. But then I came up with 'Tsunami', and went back to being their 'cool older cousin'.

I've always hated cats. Well, not always, but ever since I witnessed our beloved first pet, Stevie the Guinea Pig, being butchered by a cat in the garden back in '97 (I was too traumatised to help him out, but I still feel personally responsible, and I'm still racked with guilt) I've been convinced that cats are evil. To make matters worse, I had to go and be a bridesmaid later that day, and act happy and try not to show any of the earlier trauma in the wedding photographs.

However, watching those tiny little kittens squirming around in their big cardboard box kinda softened me a bit...

There has been a glut of new babies recently, which has made me feel a bit broody, but since my mum is too old, and I'm too young, I'm having to make do with playing with everyone elses babies when I'm around them.

So if we got a kitten....... thats kinda like a baby.......

And as I was explaining to my Dad, I think this is an important healing process for me. I may finally be able to let go of the guilt I feel about Stevie.

Because it seems to be like a circle; This is the same aunty who's wedding I was a bridesmaid at the day that Stevie was killed by a cat that looks like one of the mummy cats that has kittens who also look like that evil cat that killed Stevie.

That is too much of a coincidence for it not to be a healing process, don't you think?

The kittens aren't old enough to leave their mummies yet. They need another 8 weeks.

But maybe thats a good thing, because there's a bit of resistance towards the kitten at the moment, and I'll need some time to wear people down.

I want it (which, you'd have thought, is a big enough miracle to prove that it's meant to be...), my Dad wants it, my brother wants it.... even my Mum kinda wants it (another huge miracle - she hated them too...and one of the kittens peed on her when she was holding it), but my sister, who used to be the biggest cat lover in the family, really doesn't want us to get it.

And she's being a bit cryptic as to why she doesn't want us to get it. I think one of the reasons was that she thought Honey would hate the kitten and feel like it was replacing her, and then be heartbroken and die.

But I don't think Honey will die. She's very tolerant. We do loooads of weird stuff to her, and she doesn't care.

Like the time we put wellies on her, for example:

Does she look bothered? I think not.

Or the time we put swimming goggles on her:

She even looks like she was enjoying that.

So I'm sure that a little kitten won't bother her.

I explained that to Joy, but she's not convinced.

She woke me up this morning to tell me me that she dreamed that we got the kitten, called it Tigger (yep, I've chosen the name already. It was either that or Tequila, which my mum objected to on principle), and then it died right in front of us.

Whatever.

That won't happen. It was just a bad dream.

I want that kitten!!!!

I told them that we need it. This time next year, I'll be at university, and we'll need something to take my place.

A cat is just the kind of high-maintenance thing that would be appropriate for replacing someone like me.

Miss Great Britain 2007

I had a look at the contendors....and would advise you all not to.

It's embarrassing.

There are 50 finalists, and only 9 of them are dressed in a way that I would consider...well....consider dressed.

And this may make me sound really horrible, but there are a few who, in my opinion, aren't even that attractive.

I am cultured enough (actually I've just seen Miss Congeniality) to know that to be Miss Whoever, you have to be more than just pretty, so I clicked on their pictures to try and find out more about them.

They have to list Achievements, Talents, Interests & Hobbies, Ambitions and Experience.

Most of them have nothing under the 'Interests and Hobbies' section. The few who have filled it in, wrote things like 'Fashion' or 'Make Up'.

Under 'Achievements', the thing that comes up most often is having been in magazines. And we're not talking National Geographic or New Scientist, or even Gardener's World here... names like Zoo, Maxim, The Sun, Max Power, Nuts.... which of course mean nothing to me (*ahem*) but perhaps you know what they are...

Don't get me wrong though, they didn't only mention the magazines they've appeared in - there were other things too; one girl listed the fact that she has an A level (emphasis on 'an'), and another, perhaps my personal favourite, said, 'I was a member of the girl band 'Candy', the rivals of 'Kandifloss' (Chantelle from Celeb Big Brother's band)'. Wow. What an achievement.

Under 'Talents', one girl listed pole dancing. I hope you're all duly impressed.

The 'Ambitions' section was largely left empty...... perhaps they have none? Surely they could have thought of at least writing something like 'Becoming Miss Great Britain 2007'...?

The people who wrote something mostly just said that they wanted 'to have a happy life'. One girl wrote, 'to be able to say I've achieved everything I wanted to achieve', except she spelt it 'echieve' instead. And perhaps it would have been more constructive to give us a flavour of what those things actually are.

Some people filled in their whole profiles using no capital letters or punctuation of any kind. I'm pleased to report that most of the spelling appeared to be at least phonetically correct though. =)

Having said all this, there's one girl who seems really nice, and I really hope she wins. She's very pretty, and is actually wearing clothes in her picture. Her first listed achievement is 'having two beautiful children', and the second is 'graduating from college'.

Good luck to her!

Argh. Am I really horrible for slagging them off like this?

I'm in the middle of AS exams. It's been raining all day. I had a really hard Physics practical exam and didn't get home til almost 5:30. I'm tired.

Does the fact that I don't consider pole dancing much of a talent, or that I don't consider passing 1 A level a particularly great achievement make me a snob?!

Apparently they are looking for the 2008 Miss Great Britain, and anyone can apply.

I'll be 18 by then... what do you think....?! ;-)

'I blame the Ethnics'

My brother just asked me whether it's politically correct to refer to people as 'ethnics'.

Apparently some of the boys in his class had been blaming 'the ethnics' for world poverty and global warming.

I told him that it is gramatically incorrect to refer to people as 'ethnics', which probably means that it's not politically incorrect, just stupid.

I looked it up to be sure, and the word 'ethnic' means 'referring to people grouped according to a common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin'.

So unless you state their common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin at the time of calling them 'an ethnic' it is basically meaningless. We are all 'ethnics'.


These are the same boys who, after being inspired by the school's Enterprise Day, made a catalogue of weapons, and are planning to import them from the USA and sell them to their class mates.

Evidently they are a group of boys who are a few standard deviations short of the mean, if you catch my drift.... ;-)

And don't worry about the blackmarket weapons dealing - apparently they are a bit stuck, because all the American websites that sell weapons need a Visa card, which none of them have.

One boy's older brother has got one, but the last I heard, he was worried about going to jail, and so is not letting them use it.

Ross Copperman

Here's a little heads up for all my friends and e-friends - if you haven't already, check out Ross Copperman!

He's well worth a listen!

I especially like the song 'All She Wrote'.



So.....see you at his next gig?!

Bank Holiday

In my experience, Bank Holidays are usually spent going to some big commercial place that the rest of the world has also decided to go to.

Today was no exception. We went to PC world. It took us 40 mins to get out of the car park. It reminded me of a game my sister has that has loads of plastic cars and trucks on a grid, and you have to slide them around until you get the little red car out. I can't remember what the game is called.
I always used to cheat by making the cars to 3 point turns in impossibly small spaces.
According to the rules, you're only meant to make them go backwards and forewards, but that's not very lifelike, is it?!

Anyway, PC World.

I'm planning to get a laptop. A Notebook actually. I haven't yet worked out the difference yet (I phoned Mike, who helpfully said that he thought notebooks might be slightly smaller), but I prefer the name 'Notebook'. It sounds a lot more personal. But then people like my mother think I'm talking about a few hundred spiral bound lined A5 pages. So it's probably better to stick to the word 'laptop'.

There are millions of computers in PC World. I was a slightly frustrating person to be finding a computer for, because when I was asked what I wanted it to do, I kept saying things like 'play music' and 'watch DVDs' and 'word process' (hey...may as well...on the off chance that I actually decide to do some work on it).
Apparently all computers do those things.
So, instinctively, the next thing I'd look at is the colour, but I couldn't exactly say that, could I?! It would have made me look shallow, which we all know I'm not...

Anyway. After getting out of the car park and getting home, I did some research, and I've found out that there are some computers that will play music and DVDs without you having to turn them on completely. So they act like a CD player without you having to wait for all the other computery stuff to load up.

Cool, huh?

I am coming up with slightly more specific criteria. Progress.


I don't know whether I should actually admit to something like this, but this afternoon, I actually spent more time researching laptop bags than the actual laptops.
To be honest though, it's easier to see a difference between the bags than between the laptops.


But looking back on today, I think it might have been more worthwhile going to Ikea. I mean, it's impossible to leave Ikea without buying anything (even if the things are a cactus and a hotdog) so at least we wouldn't have come home empty handed.

Dude looks like a Lady

A while ago my brother got the game 'Harvest Moon', and has been playing it non-stop ever since.


It's like The Sims, but you have a farm instead of people...

You have to look after your animals and keep them alive and water your crops and everything and if you're good someone gives you some more animals. Or maybe you have to buy them...? Not sure....

Anyway, Josh got a new goat, and whenever you get a new animal, you have to name it. He decided to call it 'Joseph'.

Later that day, my sister asked why he had called the goat Joseph when it had udders.

....Josh thought that both male and female goats had udders.


And you can't change the animals' names after you choose them. So there is now a lady goat called Joseph. She will probably die of an identity crisis, and then he won't be able to sell her milk to buy corn, and then he'll be sorry.


Funny how it didn't strike him as weird to be milking a 'male' goat.



I guess thats what comes of being brought up in suburbia.