Reasons why the seventies were crap
1. Cheesecloth shirts
2. Flares
3. Far too much facial hair
4. Prawn cocktails
5. Perms for men
6. D.I.S.C.fucking O
7.Chunky gold jewellery
8. Having to do the Hokey-Cokey at family get togethers
9. Novelty records
10.folk singers, doing bollocks like 'all round my hat'. 'All off our tits' more like.

Oh God I feel pissed off.....All week I've had various letters demanding money from me. It's very depressing. I silently raged against the ovine mother's day shopping crowds. I snarled at the cost of a card that would normally be worth less than half its cover price were it being sold at a different time of year. I despaired at the trinkets, the trash, the overpriced blooms on sale. Some bastards are making money out of this, all right. First you create a want, then people believe it's a need...........:p

Guided by Divine Light?
It seems that my life has been influenced, for better or worse, by divine light. Let me explain....
My father's name is John. My mother's is Sheena.
My first girlfriend's name was Joanna.
I was hopelessly in love with girl named Jo while I was at university.
Many women who have had a profound effect on me have been called Joanne, Joanna, Jean or Gina.
My wife's name is Nur.
What's the connection?
Well, they all mean 'divine light'.
Either it's a coincidence or God is playing silly buggers.

Right, time for a recipe. This one doesn't particularly go well with raki, or any other kind of drink, for that matter. Except possibly a can of Tennents extra strong park bench special.
My first attempt at chilli con carne.
This is a recipe from my student days, when I didn't have a clue about cooking.
You will need:
250 gr. mince beef
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
chilli powder
tomato
1 tin economy baked beans
cut everything up. throw into a battered saucepan. Heat it up. Hope for the best. Serve with lightly burnt rice. Add increasing amount of chilli powder on each subsequent day of reheating, as everyone knows that this will kill bacteria. Go to the pub and drink anything to wash the hot, burning taste out of your mouth. Enjoy!

I love thinking in the shower. It�s one of those few oases of zen-like calm where I know I�m not going to have a �Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!� or a �Paul, buraya gel� bawled into my ear every few seconds. Well, in theory at least: My son occasionally starts banging on the door. Anyway, I�ve just showered, warm spring sunlight flowing through the window as warm water dripped over me, and I was thinking, first, of thinking in a shower: The times, the different places and circumstances under which I have thought in showers and what I have thought about. I remembered wallowing in a really hot bath somewhere in North Wales, formulating theories on Brecht; A creaky, limescaled shower in Izmir on a roasting hot morning, pondering the differences between Turkish and English; A tiny shower cubicle in Istanbul, circling through my mind the enormities of fatherhood on the day my son was born; And so on, and so forth. What else was on my mind this morning? Well, I had, and still do have, that really annoying David Beddingfield track (you know, the whispery, whingy one) running through my head. A deeply irritating song. Above that, I was thinking vaguely of the Gulf War, and then notions of evil, and what it is. I reflected that evil is, like good, a relative, subjective notion. From many points of view, I can be seen as a good person, but from the perspective of a devout Christian or Muslim my lifestyle will earn me a place in Hell, and consequently I must be evil. Strange, I don�t feel particularly wicked. Then I reflected that, from the viewpoint of religion at least, being good to people will not necessarily hand you a ticket to heaven. You have to embrace the entire philosophy too. However, God doesn�t philosophise, being omniscient, humans do. Ergo, to follow a particular religious philosophy is to stray into error, human thought being erroneous. QED.
Thinking about thinking, I thought about how my intellectual curiosity has dimmed somewhat over the last couple of years. My view of the world has narrowed, which is strange. Then I thought, well, hold on, isn�t it actually a case of the more learning, the more one becomes aware of one�s limitations and ignorance? Then I replayed in my mind an argument I once had with someone concerning this subject. I returned briefly to evil as I washed my legs, thinking that I had never met anyone that I would really classify as evil. However, I corrected myself as I brought to mind the image of someone who shall remain nameless, but who I considered to be about as evil as I could imagine. Following that, I tried thinking in French, just for practice, then in Turkish, ditto. The latter was far more successful than the former. As the water splashed over me, I let my mind wander vaguely, then I wondered at my own vagueness. I slightly amused myself at the link between �wander� and vague (from Latin, I believed � vagus (wander)), then I considered how I love to distract myself from my very real problems with anything that comes to mind, which led me to think about writing down that which you have just read.

V. worried about the Turkish incursion into N. Iraq, ostensibly to deal with *refugees* and *terrorism*. The paranoia of the Turkish military and political leaders. They're scared shitless of a putative Kurdistan on their border. Nearly had a huge argument with my wife, who is Turkish, about it, but bit my tongue.

huh?
*Here's something I can write about. I've been watching the war coverage as much as possible... so ambivalent about how I feel... watching the bombing of Baghdad so eerie - looks too much like *my* city, *my* trees, *my* buildings... then seeing the Iraqi people greeting the Marines with joy and smiles, tearing down pictures of Hussein, carrying food and furniture from government buildings back to their families... *
I just found this on this site.........Is this what people in the U.S. are watching on TV? If so, we haven't on this side of the pond.

The position of President of the United States of America is, or should be, an honourable post. How can one honour it when a monkey is in charge?

Rant
Enough mental doodling. I feel utterly angry at this war. Yes, yes, so far few casualties. Whoopy-do. What angers me most is that utter bastard Bush. This mewling, puking, snail-horned worm doesn�t even have the courage to stay where a leader should stay � in his capital. The cur has shimmied off to Camp David for a long weekend, just as he ordered the mass bombing of Baghdad, just as surely as he went off to his ranch after signing a death warrant while he was governor of Texas. According to some reports, just prior to his speech announcing the beginning of hostilities, he was seen waving his fist in the air, whooping, then saying, �Yeah! This feels good!� This disgusting little man (and I don�t care if he is over six feet � his actions make him a dwarf) has no right to call himself a leader. He�s happy to consign others to death, including his own troops, as long as it doesn�t disturb his nap breaks and weekends. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about the need for a leader to have courage. Strength of arms does not confer bravery. True courage is a matter of the heart and mind. This man has neither.

INTERNATIONAL RIOTING - LATEST RESULTS
America - 56 Rest of the world - 0
San Francisco Police - 1,000 Peace protesters - 0
St. Buggery's School for boys, Bristol - 62,000 (pounds damage) Bristol constabulary - a fiver and a ham sandwich

Harold Pinter published a new poem in the Guardian today. I wish they'd stop humouring the old man. He's a fine playwright, but his poetry is bollocks. It only gets published because of who he is.

Watched the start of the war this morning. On the *addressing the citizens of my country* stakes, I felt Saddam won by a nose. As for Dubya - eeeeeeeewwwwwww.:p Was it just me, or was he really clearly excited by the prospect of killing people in a war all of his lickle own? He looked like a chimp with a boner......

I've just changed the name of this blogsite to the joy of raki.
Raki is good.
Raki is great.
Raki is the answer.
I've forgotten the question.

Sirkeci, Cankurtaran, Kumkapi, Yenikapi, K.M.Pasha, Yedikule, Kazlicesme, Zeytinburnu, Yenimahalle, Bakirkoy.
Vinegar seller, Lifesaver, Sandgate, Newgate, Big General Mustapha, Seven towers, Goosefountain, Olive point, Newtown, Copperley.
(a list of train stops in Istanbul, with a translation into English)

oops. I think something just went wrong....

So far, so busy. I'm just preparing myself for my afternoon class, and wondering what the Hell I'm going to teach tomorrow. Everyone in college seems rather tense- the expectation of war. We all know it's going to happen, and we're all frustrated about it. Not a single person I know supports the war completely, yet they also concede that something must be done about Saddam. There is, of course, one benchmark to consider. Who, or what, is likely to kill more - Saddam or thousands upon thousands of pounds of munition? In his bloody career, Hussein has been responsible for something like a million and a half deaths through war. It is estimated that western sanctions against Iraq since 1991 have been responsible for nearly a million deaths, mainly of children, the elderly and infirm. It is hard, to put it mildly, to say which is the *correct* side. This is a war where the leaders were wading in blood before the first bombs started dropping. When will enough blood have been spilled to sate their thirst? By, the way, I also include the French and Russian governments in the list of aggressors. Their *no war* stance is deeply hypocritical. Both countries have been major arms contributors to the Iraqi regime, and their current stance is simply an attempt to protect their commercial interests with the Baathist regime.

Well, it's been quite a good day, teaching-wise. None of my students turned up! Result!

If the French are cheese-eating surrender monkeys, then exactly what kind of simian is George dubya?

Drove up to the delightful village of Quainton today to see my Chum, Martin. Found him lurking outside his cottage and spent a v.pleasant afternoon there. The journey there and back somewhat nerve-wracking: The Aylesbury traffic system, quite frankly, sucks!

Just an addendum to the previous blog.....a good religious leader is one who plays loosely and cleverly with concepts of leadership!

Thinking more about the whole Iraq thing, it occurred to me that any person who seeks to become a leader should automatically be barred from doing so if they hold any kind of deep-rooted belief about anything, especially of the religious nature. Politics, by its own definition, is the art of equivocation and compromise: Any person who holds strong beliefs is unlikely to be successful in this and be a good leader at the same time. If you look at the most successful (political) leaders of all time, you notice that they are generally people who play loosely with concepts of morality. Augustus Caesar was not a particularly pious man(except on his deathbed); The great Kanuni Suleyman, while being a good Muslim, was not so pious that he turned his face against Jews and Christians, but rather welcomed them into his empire, to its benefit; Nelson Mandela, while president, could have spurned the white politicians, policemen and soldiers of South Africa, and not many would have blamed him, yet he took his erstwhile enemies into his embrace, to his eternal credit. Bear with me people, I feel that I'll be developing this idea...

I am getting increasingly depressed about the imminence of war. have no doubt, it will happen. George and Tony have marched quarter of a million men to the top of the hill, and they sure as hell aren't going to march them back down again without having trodden on a dictator or two. The real piss-off is that there is absolutely NOTHING, short of assassination, that anyone can do. This war is so much more dangerous than anyone suspects: It could well mean the end of NATO, the EU and more importantly, the UN. That means back we go, back to the time of an unregulated, more brutal world: back to the world of imperial powers. Or rather, power. How long will it be before America declares imperium?

Hurrah! Friday Afternoon!

Just as an addendum to the last message. I once had a student named Mustafa Sit. The 'S' here is pronounced 'Sh'. I Sincerely hope that he never comes to England.....

In these dark and troubled times, one needs to find something to laugh about, if only to ignore the dull and dreary shittiness of our leaders taking us all to hell in a handcart. Come with me, if you will, back to the late 1940's, to Germany, post second world war. New embassies have been built, and the ambassadors from various countries arrive to take up their onerous posts. Among them is the Ambassador to Turkey. This man has the extraordinary ability to put an involuntary smile on everyone's lips, even bring them to outright laughter, no matter how bad they might have been feeling one minute before meeting him. What was his strange skill? Was he a gifted comedian? An entertainer? A delightful raconteur? Did he have a ridiculous manner of walking? None of these. It was the mere mention of his name that had whole ambassadorial balls quaking with mirth. This upright, conscientious, dedicated man's name was........
Mustafa Kunt
I kid you not.

I was just thinking about that blasted song, 'The year 3000'. The chorus goes, 'I've been to the year 3000/Not much has changed 'cept they live under water/ And your great great great grandaughter is pretty fine'. Hold on a mo......Considering that the average generation is 25 years, let's say, my great great great granddaughter would be born around the year 2125. This would make her around 875 years old in the year 3000. Now, unless there have been amazing advances in a) genetics and b) cosmetic surgery, I suspect that my great great great granddaughter would be, at the very least, pretty manky, if not seriously decomposed....

Yesterday I finally got a copy of the film I 'starred' in, an HND Moving Images short shot by a kid called Mikhail. Spent several weeks making the thing between lessons. Well, it's clear he's sweated blood to create it, but Oooooooh Dear. I showed all the emotional expression of a brick. Painful and comic to watch. I guess I won't be appearing on Eastenders any time soon...

The ten worst toilets I have ever had ado with:
1) Upstairs kludgee, Quartz Bar, Bornova, Izmir - smell the rancid meat!
2) The Bog Under The Stairs, the Fish Bar, Bakirkoy, Istanbul - complete with cockroaches, blood and fish heads
3) The Hole in the Floor machine, Corfu - Greece ferry - awash with all sorts
4) Men's jakes, the Old Bloke's Pub, Bakirkoy, Istanbul - no running water apart from piss
5) The amazing walking convenience, the Old Purple Turtle, Reading UK - So rank that it developed an independent life of its own
6) The Vile Maw of Micturation, the Eski Kemanci, Beyoglu, Istanbul - a pisser in a rock bar of legendary vileness
7) Men's bogs, UCNW students union, Bangor, Wales - sail across the lake of piss!
8) Slough
9) C Floor slasher, Reading College - caked and freezing
10) Hole in the Floor machine, fourth floor, Konak Merkez Ishani, Konak, Izmir, Turkey - a scarey first encounter with a squat bog

Here's another great complement to raki.
White Cheese and melon or grapes
Buy a good quality, full fat feta cheese or white sheep's cheese. put on a plate. Add slices of ice cold watermelon or honeydew melon or canteloupe or really good white grapes. Take a slug of raki, swirl around the mouth and swallow. Take a piece of cheese and melon. Eat, savouring the suddenly intensified flavours. Repeat until thoroughly drunk. Now that's what I call an easy recipe!

Aaaaaghhhh.....I'm 35.............in 25 years time, I'll be 60........This cannot be a good thing.....

Re Dubya's little live press briefing yesterday: Ooooooohh Dear. Chock full of empty rhetoric and phrases designed to inflame the mind. He was virtually wetting himself with excitement.....

Oh, I forgot to mention - the numbers in the text refer to various songs - out now on CD!

A little taste of the kind of weird things that occur in the life of an average EFL teacher in Istanbul......
A COMPOSITE DAY OF ATAKOY 9

It�s a Tuesday morning sometime in early 96. Graham�s in the bathroom, laughing like a pissed gorilla �cos he�s got in there first. Martin�s in his bedroom, fighting through the weary tangles of sleep and old underwear, while voices echo and bounce round the foetid shaft known laughingly as an airwell outside his window. Paul�s in the kitchen, cursing everything and everyone around him - a way to get rid of the nighttime creeps. Talking of nighttime creeps, something slides off the Gimp and pulls of a manky yellow blanket, revealing Big Sweetie Petie, starting his manic monstrous giggle. It�s a grey morning - not the best in the world (1). Aircraft stagger and veer through the sky lowly: Pissed- up Aeroflot pilots, flying on one eye, a bottle of vodka and aiming at one of the airports they can see. Paul finds a vaguely clean plate and cup, and makes a vague breakfast of half-toast and tea. People drift into the living room in various states of dress, undress, shavenness, unshavenness, hangover, pillover, lifeover, amusement, anger, dread, joy. It�s time to go. The boys fall out the front door, pile into the lift. Graham farts, Paul snarls �That�s the most coherent thing anyone�s gonna fuckin� say today� and they get out of the apartment, weaving through the neat rows of blocks of Atakoy, Anywhereville. They force themselves onto the crowded Dolmus, next to the coiffed and perfumed women who whine when a window is opened even a crack, pass their money up to the driver who reminds Peter of a brutal, flatnosed pig and off the ramshackle piece of shit, coloured pus yellow, fucks. Ten minutes later they�re at Dilko, where Necdet wags his munchkin head at them, and Yeliz flashes off her tits, although they all wish Sinem would do the same. Jean greets them with a �Hehh!� and in the staffroom talk is about the upcoming holiday, and where everyone wants to go (2). John�s ranting, trembling and burbling in the corner, hands like aspens. Mel and Tabby are whining loudly, Clare seems to have eaten a bucket of lemons, Antonia�s quietly boning up, and it�s off to classes. Graham�s giving it the full noisy, happy treatment on the ground floor. Next up, Paul�s doing an exam, giving him the chance to catch up on some reading and look down on the world below, the life of the ordinary Turk wandering round the streets (3). He walks briefly out into the corridor and looks across at the main building, where he sees Martin sitting on a desk, the girls in his class making sheep�s eyes at him. Why don�t I get any decent biff in my class, he wonders idly, not aware of what�s about to happen in his own life. He looks down from Martin�s class, and sees Big Pete cajoling his students by hitting them on elbow and shoulder, causing them to rock visibly. Lunchtime comes swiftly, but with it no money: �In an hour or maybe this evening�, Necdet smirks. �Wankers� Mutter most, as they head towards the nearest Lokanta. Paul, Graham, Martin and Drysdale enter the Koyum, where the moustachioed boss, the moustachioed chef and the moustachioed donerci greet them warmly, then provide plates of hot delicious rice and dead bits, followed by a glasses of sweet tea and cheap Turkish fags that spill flakes of tobacco across the table. Drysdale, over tea, talks guns, describing in minute detail a scene from a film and how the actors used their weaponry wrongly. After lunch, Paul and Graham both have lessons, the �afternoon specials� with housewives with too much time and money and not a clue how to spend either (4). This goes on until 5, when there�s a two hour wait until the evening classes and all hands on deck. Necdet�s handing out the money, calling each person into the office individually and handing over an envelope stuffed with rapidly-devaluing Turkish Liras, a great whopping fistsized wad of money that looks like it�ll last forever until you get to the end of the week. Some people complain that they�ve been done out of money - the usual suspects. � Razzle time tonight - let�s get tooled up on raki and gin� grins Martin. Two hours to go before they can get out of this place. The teachers teach impatiently, furiously, wanting all to be over so they can get where they really belong - the bars and pubs. Finally, it�s 8.50, and everyone rushes for the exits, and bounds to the Fish Bar, where their miserable host, Toad Mehmet, awaits with cynical eyes, dangling cigarette and constipated body. Tables are drawn up, beer served, fags lit. The fags are imperative to keep the stench of the place out of the nostrils. Teachers from other schools join them, and debates ensue (5). Kevin from Antik turns up - he�s off his tits and yelling some folk music at equally drunk Irish Jimmy, who falls off a barstool the minute he sits down. �Blackadder� Martin, a Martin not previously mentioned, starts whining on about his girlfriend. Tamer strides up the stairs into the noisy melee and gropes the first mentioned Martin, While Big Sweetie Meatie Petie is telling anyone who can be arsed to listen how he quite likes his nightmares, Clare is wrinkling her face at everyone, and how everything�s disgoosting, Michelle from Antik is rapping away in idiomatic Turkish and Irish Neil, not Queer Neil, is practising his taxi driver speak and Mad Mark Petrovich is growling about how damn fuckin� good he is at languages, and how much dope he�s gonna fuckin� score tonite. Mel is doing her paranoid London twat bit, when the call �To Taksim!� goes up, and our motley heroes arise ready to hit town with their great clumps of Billy pictures. They get as far as the door before they�re told to pay the frigging bill, which always seems to be for far more beers than they could have possibly drunk, but is probably far closer to the truth than they could estimate. Chrissake, they�re fucking English teachers, not Maths teachers, aren�t they? Finally they slide through the streets to the road past the bus station (6) and into the waiting yellow dolmuses that will take them to the many pleasures of Istiklal Caddesi, Taksim, Beyoglu. The driver grins wickedly, stabs up the music, which is about as close to real Turkish Music they�ll get all night(7). The dolmus rocks and trundles up the Cevre Yolu, music blaring, our boys shouting, weaving through the mad traffic in its mad weave that all drivers in Istanbul adopt for the sake of survival and the fathering of children. Graham says something like �Istanbul�s a really boring place, when you think about it�, which leads to an argument with Paul, who automatically takes the opposite view whenever there�s an interesting argument in view, simply for the joy of arguing. Everyone else thinks he�s a bit of a wanker for this. The argument subsides as the Dolmus pulls into the back street that serves as the entrance to the entrancements of Pera. �Where now?� �The usual�. And so Martin, Graham, Paul, Peter, Andy Drysdale, Tamer, Carol, Michelle, Neil, Irish and Queer, One of the other Martins, Johnno, Andy Tingler, and others too innumerable to count because they�re all drunk, descend upon the Eski Kemanci. The beer�s cheap, the music loud, the insides suppurating and writhing with Western rock, rap, grunge and everything in between (8). A Turkish Rock Chick, Ozlem Tekin, whose single and video was released a couple of weeks before is propping up the bar, tanked up on pride, recognition and vanity, and vampirically attaching herself to any interesting male she can find. Johnno homes in and in a mix of broken Turkish and English, gets himself laughed at. Martin manages to grab the bog, and never has a toilet deserved this name as the toilets in the eski kemanci as these do, and micturates down the its throat, its gaping black stinking bloody maw. �Jesus�, he thinks, what are we doing here?� Others are beginning to think the same, which leads to a tactical retreat to the Yeni Kemanci, where the bogs are at least a bit more amenable to being pissed on, and there is dance floor for moshing on. Drysdale gets in first, thrashing his beardy head around and bouncing off anyone foolish enough to get in his way. The music is all grunge and Britpop/rock (9), everything with a happy chillin� feeling. Everyone crowds round the bar, or plays billiards. Big Sweetie has disappeared with some wench - he�s last seen wandering hand in hand with her in the backstreets, the rutlands, the fuckalleys. the shagpits of beyoglu. Our noble heroes, however are getting peckish, so they slip out of the yeni kemanci into the happy arms of the nearest chicken kebab vendor, when Martin says �Casino, anyone?� to general groans then �Yeah!�, so off they bugger once more in the same yellow dolmus which brought them to this vale of sorrows, Turkish music mocking them (10), Paul, Graham, Martin, Andy Drysdale, bickering and laughing. Christ they�re wankered, but still hungry, hungry for food and booze and living and laughing and trying to fill their boots full of wonderful glorious dancing wild life and joy before they become mortal and frail. Magically, they become suited, booted and passported by dint of authorial privilege and the driver, with his wicked Black Sea smile, drives them to the entrance of the Crowne Plaza Casino and wishes them �Bol Sans� . They all fucking hope so, but the main target is the breakfast bar, the cigars and the booze. Martingo and Drysdale, bluff and grim as his name, quickly take up seats by the bar, while Grimbo wanders from machine to machine, winning at first, the losing everything. Paul just loses, and kicks the poker machines. They all gather round the wonderful electronic geegee thingy, and provide commentary (11). They all end up down on the evening, and decide to head back to the flat, starting to feel like buggery, like tramps who rut on some manky bit of cardboard (12). They find an amenable driver and end up in the flat fairly rapidly, where Paul breaks out the wine and Graham breaks out the blackgammon, saying �You can�t beat me you wankers! Wa-hey!!� Paul and Martin indulge in stupid face competitions to the backing music(13), whilst dangling a rabbit mask by a piece of string from the window and gobbing onto the cars below. The mood starts to calm a little. Martingo collapses on the sofa, and is promptly covered in shaving foam and compromising vegetables and photographed for posterity and blackmail. Talk turns to love , joy and mistakes (14) and who our roaring boys would like to shag from the current crop of female teachers, students and secretaries. The booze is beginning to run out by now, everyone is knackered, even The Incredible Howling Upstairs Neighbour, who has serenaded them accompanied by Mick Jackson�s �Thriller� for the space of the last year, has gone quiet. Someone puts on the Divine Frank (15) , which they listen to while spilling wine and vodka over the carpet, which is still covered with little mounds of salt from the previous day. Said are Paul�s attempts to mop up the wine. They�re bloody everywhere. Graham and Martin idly, sleepily, toss their dice and somnolently flick their pieces round the backgammon board. Drysdale starts doing his big bear yawns, then promptly goes to the Gimp�s bedroom, where he chucks his hearty load. He asks to stay over, so it�s time to wake up the Gimp (16), the resident manky, miry, piss-reeking, vomited-upon and above all pink mattress that is reserved for the lads� most esteemed guests. Paul and Graham manhandle it into position - namely on top of Drysdale, while making high-pitched giggling noises. Time for sleep now: The booze is all run out, dawn will soon struggle through Istanbul�s evil clouds. Martin makes it to his room, falls over and asleep. Graham hunkers down in the sofa bed in his room, under as many blankets as he can find. Paul strips, puts on the radio in his room, music first soft, then strident and proud (17/18), gently playing. He looks out the window, his brain fuddles through the day and he wonders once more why he�s there, what he�s doing, why he�s so utterly lonely. He looks out onto a world where every window with everyone looking out is a mirror to his mired and drunken thoughts. After all, he thinks finally, we�ve all got to be somewhere, so why not here, why not now? and his eyes close into the stranger darkness.
11.11.01

Time for another great raki recipe....
Haydari
you will need:
Greek or Turkish style strained yoghurt
Garlic
Dill
Crush garlic. Chop Dill. Mix with yoghurt (should have a thick, pasty consistency). Drink Raki. Enjoy!

Did you hear the one about the Chinese student who had real difficulties in learning English?
He couldn't tell his else from his arbow.

God I hate marking exams!!!!!!

___ ___
' o I I o '
I I
I_______I

Today's philosophical question:
How many chucks can a woodchucker chuck if a woodchucker can chuck wood?
I'm interested to hear from marxists, platonists, deconstructionists, kantians, hegelians et al. Best answer wins a prize!

Hey, ho, just another day in bloggerland. I was back at college today, away from the strictures of family life and into the ever eager arms of my classes. First up: A group of pre-intermediate students of a large variety of nationalities. Started on a new book, and cajoled them into taking exams in June. Made one girl, Rikke, cry, albeit inadvertently. She�s dyslexic, which is hard enough doing it in one language, let alone learn another. I was going through her exam results, and discussing her difficulties, when she burst out crying. It�s difficult to know what to do. Sad to say, but I don�t think there�s any kind of language learning support for dyslexics to be found unless you�re loaded. The afternoon bought the Foundation programme class, all desperately hoping to get into a good University. Conjured a lesson out of nothing: presentation skills. Now I have a shedload of marking to do. Oh Joy���..

Hello, all you weekend bloggers out there....have had a shitty worthless day today. I feel the constant need to do something, yet once again I've failed......curses!

how do I put pictures on this bloody thing? tell me

Here's a question:
If God necessarily exists, why is it then necessary to believe in Him/Her/It? After all, I don't believe in my arse.......

ahh.....i'm drunk.....
There once was a bohemian monk
who wen to sleep on a bunk.
He dreamt that Venus
was sucking his elbow
And woke up covered in perspiration.