Noses to the Grindstone

"Whaddaya mean I'm fat? I go to the gym five times a week."

"Look, Bernie. That doesn't count if you only go into the snack bar, you know."

- Si, ever the diplomat, on James' questionable eating habits.

Ben could quite possibly be in what I like to call a huff. With me, of course. I'm not entirely sure my forthright attitude is suitable when tackling his over-sensitivity to criticism. The problem I have is this: he loves praise; he adores having the teachers say how "breathtakingly outstanding" he is and then recounting this all to us (receiving little more than a raised eyebrow from Kirstin and I, the models of restraint(!)). Yet the moment he's given a critique, some constructive criticism, it's "judgemental"...

... And this has the power to piss me off in a big way. When Mr Keep, eyes narrowed, told me I was falling victim to complacency, I merely bit my lip. Yes, OK, I did a bit of glaring, maybe confided in Kat a bit (who doesn't?), but then I snapped back into my usual sod-the-world mode. After all, a comment from someone else is hardly the definition of you, is it?

No.

But I'll get over it. And maybe he will too. We'll see.

. . . . .

"What exactly have Will and Phil done to your brother? Because they're terrified."

Ha! I thought, whilst Sophie screeched accusingly at Luke "They've cracked his fingers!" as if to say "And it's all your fault, you bastard!". So they should be.

Tan rang last night to invite us to dinner, and was outraged when told the news of the injury to the infamous Judge's youngest offspring:

"Get Rory to go to the next net session! Make 'em feel inadequate, with him being a bronzed Aussie God and all that."

Rory. Yum. ;)

The actual proposed scenario is the introduction of the legend that is Josh Davey to the fold. As captain of the good ship U-16, and Matt's mentor, he should cause a suitable stir in his gorgeous St. Joe's trackie. Sort of an upmarket chav, with a fair-to-middling haircut. But, in all fairness to Tan, Rory is indeed a God. As are all the other lovely young (well, a lot of them are getting on a bit, I suppose.) men at ICC. All perfectly willing to share sensible, mature advice about rising above it all:

"Hit them over the head with your Woodworm! Or a shovel."

Hmmm, Roger. That might be how they solve things in South Africa, but here in England...

... Actually, that's exactly what we do.

The ASboys and Tuesday Cricket...

"What's the cricket score, then?"

I fear my brother has become an ASBO boy, conducting our mobile phone conversations whilst wrestling Prykey on the school bus and calling everyone in sight a retard, much, in fact, in the manner of Will. His fingers may be crushed, but his spirits are most certainly not.

"I'm not going to tell you unless you stop shouting."

"I'm not shouting."

At which point there is furious yelping in the background; either someone is kicking a puppy, kicking Prykey's bad knee or trying to strangle the newly-appointed bus prefect. All three options equally valid and likely.

"What are you doing, Idioteque?"

Ah, pet names. The ultimate in affection for one's siblings.

"Aw, for God's sake! Did anyone get a century? You're such a bi-atchhhhhhh!"

And so I hung up on him, without telling him the finer points of Collingwood's 71 not out. Little cricketing yob. Matt, I mean, not Colly. I thought it was supposed to be a gentlemanly (is that a word? Yes? No?) sport. Though, from a spectator perspective, dancing up and down the pitch in the manner is far from gentlemanly (again, note the use of the dubious word), nor is KP's rendezvous with Caprice. Or the aforementioned Mr. Pietersen's diabolical hairdo. Far more Beckham than is natural, I think.

Anyway.

This Gifted Linguists project is becoming a thing of work. One needs a degree in rocket science merely to get through the e-mails and the process of joining the bloody board. My computer fails to comprehend that my application was accepted. Therefore I remain stranded, a linguist but not one gifted enough to master the finer points of technology.

Phil isn't even looking at me. This could be for one of two reasons: either he feels guilty (so he bloody should. But he proabably doesn't), or he thinks I'm a fully-fledged lunatic - ("Yeah. He thinks you're mad"). The latter of which is entirely more likely. That isn't unfortunate, though, because talking to him does, on occasion, make my skin crawl. He really goes out of his way to be unlikeable. As does Annie, whose anti-English rants on her Personal Statement lit a fuse with us all - those "narrow-minded English" will be the ones accepting her applications, after all. And anyway, on a more generalised note, England is the best! From, of course, the perspective of an English girl.

Dad's home from Germany this week; it'll be strange having him back. And I'm not entirely convinced his "lovely little gift" will be quite as successful as he'd like:

"It's a dress!"

"Are you joking? Please say you're joking? I can't tell..."

And a brief note to Ben, should he be reading this: get your own blog! How can you possibly say that crazy life of yours isn't interesting enough to write about? You live with Si, for God's sake...

The Attack of the Flying Monkeys

"Oh look, it's the child abuser!"

My army was out in force today, all for my dear brother, who had his fingers broken in a partcularly violent cricket net session. By none other than the Antichrist himself, Will, and his flying monkeys. Actually, after yelling at Phil down the phone ("Shut up! I'm talking!"), I have it on good authoirty that Bernie started the whole thing. That, though, is beside the point. Matt is eleven, and two of his fingers are broken. And open war has been declared on both sides:

"Don't pre-judge me!" Phil protested, doing the walk of the guilty up the corridor as Sophie gave him her deathly glare.

"What? Pre-judge? You've already done it, it's post-judgement!"

At which he looked at us as if we were the flying monkeys.

All this is really beside the point, as my mocks start next week; everything is in a state of unconcievable chaos. I cannot for the life of me understand anything to do with higher Maths, and I think I'm supposed to have opinions on Henry Ford. I don't of course, but I'm really quite renowned for my blagging ability when it comes to things like that. And then there's my French oral exam, which I genuinely have revised for. Really! I like my accent, so it makes the entire process of listening to it for hour upon hour less painful.

The Third Test starts tomorrow, it's all very exciting. Or, at least, it is for Si and I, but everyone else can at least put up with it. Tan keeps banging on about Ramps being the best cricketer he's ever seen (clearly hasn't seen that many, then), but I'm sure it's loyalty - Nads is Ramps' old Surrey buddy, after all.

Anyway. More ramblings tomorrow, perhaps.

The beginning of things...

Here are the humble beginnings of my blog...
...maybe one day it will rival Will's.
But it probably won't.

And, as the Terminator once said, I'll be back. Later.