Vanillacide

Definition: When a fantastically original, radical idea is watered down so much by corporate suits as to become insipid. Great word.

Oh God. I have worked all weekend, and I am going back this afternoon; the vague promise of a whole lot of money is all that is keeping me going. I may only have got this months wages, but the money is already mentally spent on books, new shoes and gorgeous slouchy jumpers from Topshop.

Anyway. The holidays are going ridiculously fast, so I'm trying to write an essay on the Weimar Republic - my history homework, and memorise some french verbs. Neither, at this stage, are going particularly well. And it's results day soon...

... but I'm not actually that worried. In fact, most of my lovely friends seem to have forgotten we even took exams, which is quite nice. I think Kirstin and I are the only ones with looming exam spectres in the backs of our minds...

"Results? What results?" - Ash, eavesdropping, "Aahh, GCSES? Not that hard, are they?"

- A chorus of "Shut up!".

"Of course they are. My maths exam was like nailing jelly to a tree." - Alex, I think. But we were laughing so hard at the 'jelly/tree' analogy I couldn't be sure who said it.

The laughter ended pretty abruptly, though, when James pointed out he had seen Harris-slightly-senior just moments before:

Uma: "Oh.My.God. Where? Where?"

"Um. Getting into a really flash car."

Me: "And?"

"What?"

Honestly. If he was a girl he would have had every nuance and detail deconstructed. "What," said Uma, very slowly and patiently, as if she was talking so someone who had just emerged from a coma, "was he like? And his hair? And that."

"Ummmmmm...."

We couldn't get much more out of the simpleton, so we got some chips and went home early to watch Big Brother.