Always meaning to blog

Look at this, another month has gone by. And it was an important month, it had the 28th International Tina Day in it!! I spent it in London (another birthday location chalked up). Here are the photos.

My mum got me the card on the left and baked me the buns to match the card. Winner! You'll notice she even matched up the Jelly Tots! I know, attention to detail!

We went to see The Sound of Music on my birthday night! It was fantastic! Brilliant songs and sets and costumes! I loved it!! Although, being the theatre critic I am, thought Summer Strallen was a bit giggley and, well, just not Maria enough. Liesl was v. good though.

Just before it started this guy came up to a man sitting behind me and said 'Sorry, I don't want to embarrass you but...'. I got quite excited as I thought I was about to witness a 'scene' unfolding with mixed up seats or something. I love scenes! Well, ones that don't involve me. But no, it was better than that! Kind of. 

'...could you sign this for me? Thanks, Legend!' 

There was a real live celeb behind us!! I whispered to my dad and he turned round, reasonably discreetly I might add, and got all excited. He took the programme off my knee and then asked him to sign ours too. 

I then snuck a look but he didn't look instantly recognisable to me, but thought he might be a cricketer. Once we got the programme back, it emerged that my dad did not actually know who it was either, but thought he looked like a cricketer too apparently. Looking at the signature was no help in helping us decide who it was, as he has grown up, joined up writing. Even when we got it home and got my mum on the case (she could analyse handwriting for the FBI) she could work it out. And Google and Wikipedia searches for cricketers was fruitless. But perhaps you'll know who it is. The top bit says 'Good Luck', we were able to read that much.

I want to hold on to the belief that someone famous, indeed legendary, autographed our programme rather than asking just a commoner to deface it.

The Queen was in. You'd think my dad would have combed his hair. Maybe that's why we weren't invited in.

Statue poses! This is me and Eros at Picadilly. Oh and yes, I did feel like a muppet doing this. Especially because Father couldn't work my camera and I had to do it three times before he actually took the picture. I have no shame.

So the fourth London trip in a month. But this was the best one. Why? Easy, we got there on the Sleeper.

If you have never had the joy of a Sleeper, you really should. You go to bed in one city and wake up in another! We used to get them back in the days before EasyJet and Ryanair so they hold a certain nostalgia for me. I love them! My dad laughs because when I was little, I called them 'sleeping trains'. Bless. He calls them that now, I think in homage to me (as opposed to mocking me, it's what I prefer to believe at least).

This is what you get for your money. A little room with bunk beds. Look how cozy they are! Then add in the train motion and noise to rock you off to sleep. On the way down I got the top bunk! And I was oh-so elegant climbing up!

Hot chocolate* comes in a pot on the sleeper train! Now, that's quality. (*not included in the standard fare. Just ask your father nicely and remind him that it's your birthday.)

Return journey we swapped! 

In other news it looks like my camera has decided to give up. This is more than slightly annoying because I'm going away tomorrow for Castlewellan. Which reminds me, I have a ironing pile the size of the Taj Mahal which I was supposed to do tonight. Oops.

If you can't laugh at yourself

I have been reading this blog and it never fails to make me laugh. You should read it too, if you're so inclined.

To get you started here are  ten of my favourites (in no particular order):

Worship leaders that add the word 'and' to worship songs

God: author of life, the Bible and billboards

That dude with the guitar at camp

Greeting people around you

Using God's favourite word

Riding on the cool van in youth group

Clapping our hands (a step by step guide to the death of rhythm)

The double sermon (4 warning signs)

The 'pray if you feel led' prayer

Christianizing your Facebook, a how to guide

If you only choose one though I'd go for the guitar one, or maybe the hand clapping one. I hope you laugh as much as I did!

Answers

I'm all done with marking! Yeeeeeeee haaaaaaaaaaaa! 

During the trauma that is was, there were the occassional answers that kept me going because they were so incredibly funny. Well, all things are relative. You might find some of them funny too. (Only some require prerequestite knowledge so I've linked what they were aiming for.)

Just plain wrong

Yes, look for the positive but when things are wrong, they are wrong.

'In Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court decided the outcome of the election despite Bush having 50,000 less votes that John Kerry.' 

Emm...I'm sure John Kerry would have loved for Bush have had less votes than him. Sadly the electorate thought differently.

'The Supreme Court is becoming a quasi-legal body.' 

I'm pretty sure you mean quasi-legislative, but that does put a whole new spin on it.

'George Bush introduced the 'No Child Left Alone' Act'. 

That sounds like a whole different kind of law to me.

'There are three branches of government, the legislature, judiciary and _____________.' 

I imagine some sort of blind panic took over them and they just couldn't remember the President part of US government.

'George Bush has built the country back up from a ruins through courage and unity.' 

Seriously?

Getting the name wrong
Always makes me laugh.

'Justice Feelgood was the first black justice.' 

Maybe that's what his wife called him?

'Brian de Montesquieu's idea of separation of powers...' 

I can't help but think the idea would never have caught on if he'd been called Brian. (Sorry Brian.)

Civil liberties

Oh no.

'People are tortured by submerging them in water'. 

Makes it sound like some sort of mean pool party.

'Personal freedoms has become very tight to the extent where the amount of liquids that people can carry on planes has been strictly limited to just 100ml, that's one-fifth of a can of pop!'

Yeah, because that's the sort of reduction of civil liberties we should be most annoyed about.

'Torture people all you want - what they say may not be true.' 

I suppose that's just the risk you take when you engage in illegal activities. I think caution has already been thrown to the wind.

'As soon as terrorism is mentioned the Constitution goes out the window.' 

'Out the window'? Brilliant.

'I feel people should stand trial and then be punished. Not be punished and then possibly stand trial. That's not how the law works.' 

Someone should tell those people over in Guantanamo.

'There would not be as much concern for homeland security had the USA not decided to invade countries like Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place. In this respect, the Constitution is ineffective in protecting people's civil liberties.' 

Right.

Saying it in more words than needed

And don't let punctuation confuse the matter.

'However the claim may be backed by some who believe that the more power that is given the harder it is to take back that power once it has been gotten used to in the fear that the Supreme Court may receive too much power and become a super power.' 

Huh?

Time wasting 

These were brilliant! And so quick to put zero on!

'On the second day I met a super man so I named it super Tuesday. It was a super day because I had lots of super fun doing absolutely nothing. I wasn't even writing.' 

Your gain is the writing world's loss. 0.

'There are 228 tables and chairs in this room.' 

Bless them, they even showed their working. 0.

'How powerful is this madness? This is stupid. In a strange way. I'm actually being paid to take this. 20 minutes left. Invigilator just chill.'

And I'm getting paid to mark it! Everyone's a winner! 0.

'How about train of thought. How interesting. This table, the grain, my grandma, her house, jaffa cakes and lemonade, cardboard, small TV. See how strange it is, it's hard to keep up.'

Yes, please stop now. 0.

'I have an offer for university and however it does not require Politics and I do not enjoy Politics. After my offer I wanted to withdraw, yet this was not possible, I was too late.'

Well that's a relief for me. 0.

This was one of my favourites. And by far the most courteous. It even shows an interest in politics.

But no more marks.

Easily distracted? Moi!

Things I've done this past week instead of mark:

-spin on my chair
-pluck my eyebrows
-pick spots
-check my email (at least every other question.)
-visit Facebook (I even try using this as a goal, 'mark 10 essays and then you can sign in'. Yeah, doesn't work.)
-cut my toenails
-brush my hair
-put my hair up
-take my hair down
-measure the length of my hair (just over 30cm.)
-switch on the TV (Wimbledon cost me a lot of time)
-read about tennis players on Wikipedia (name them, I'll have looked them up.)
-check things that people have written in their answers (this usually ends up with me on Wikipedia. Again.)
-read all of Rafa Nadal's blog on TimesOnline (watching him win on Sunday was definitely not time wasted.)
-go to the BBC News website
-go to the BBC Sport website
-read backdated stories on BBC Magazine
-nap
-contemplate writing a blog (you'll notice this rarely came to pass.)
-work out, again, how many essays I should mark a day
-go downstairs for a drink/something to eat/use the bathroom/ask the parents something...anything
-chew gum (I am the marking equivalent of Alex Ferguson, except with less trophies.)

Right better get back to it. It's been at least 10 minutes since I signed in to Facebook.

Severe, intense, relentless...all good words

I know, just when you think I'm back blogging regularly I stop again. But I have been working. All. The. Time. Some time back I thought it would be a good idea to do some external exam marking. Ha. Good one Tina.

It's quite fancy, all the papers have been scanned in and are online. Now, I can doss on tinternet with the best of them, but reading something that matters, that's different. I have a set of deadlines which are keeping me on my toes but with some concerted effort they have been met. That was until yesterday.

Yesterday was a 'long' essay day. Progress is slow on those days. I reach lunchtime contemplating my wisdom in signing up for said marking. By the time dinner comes around I am genuinely questioning whether I should sign my life over to some sort of legal representative as I clearly I should not be making decisions for myself. By suppertime only the fact that my brain is beginning to ooze out of my ear stops me becoming danger to myself.

By 5.30pm yesterday I had only marked 22 essays. But that was ok I told myself, the afternoon is not my most productive times, (much like when studying for exams funnily enough) I still had the evening.

That was until the super people at BT got involved and tinternet died. [Isn't funny how when you forgot your mobile or you don't have internet you feel like your right hand has been cut off?]

Two hours I spent on the phone with them. Two hours! They failed to understand that despite all the lights being on the router there was something wrong with their side of things. They also failed to realise that it was nothing to do with any settings on my computer because it affected all our computers which are all on different operating systems and different browsers. At one point she had me so far into the settings of the computer with no clear purpose I thought she was going to suggest that I poke my fingers into the DVD drive to see if that made any difference.

As time went on it emerged that other people in the 'head were having similar problems. (I resisted calling them back with a big 'sooooo yooooooo!') Eventually this morning someone at BT (with a bit of sense) agreed that there was a problem. But worse, that it had been 'escalating' from about Sunday, and that he didn't know when it would be fixed.

It was clear that sitting here and waiting for a BT engineer wasn't going to do me or my deadline any good.

But with so many losers in the situation, there had to be winners! Step up Nicky and Heidi! They got the pleasure of my presence in their home all day while I caught up and tried to make the deadline. You'll note the careful use of 'presence'. I only really came out of the room for meals and bathroom breaks. But the deadline was met and our tinternet is up and running again.

Fingers crossed it stays that way, tomorrow is long essay day again. Oh die.

London Baby!

In the space of 12 days I was in London three times. I am so cosmopolitan!

Here are the highlights of the visits (in approximate order of occurance):

-Going to the National Gallery and Tate Modern and pretending to be all artsy. We did see some famous pieces but I think the whole thing was summed up by my quote 'oh look, there's that one there', recognising it but not knowing who it was by or what it was called.

-BBC tour. I heart the BBC so doing a tour of Television Centre was uberexciting. As we stood in that roundabout bit, my mind kept flashing back to the good old days of 'Going Live' when they used to stand out there doing bits. We were in an empty TV studio, played with the weather map, watched the News Centre and then got to 'make' a TV show. Plus we got a free pen!

Coldplay were standing right here just days earlier.

-Wimbledon.

Who knew that Wimbledon Common had a windmill?! This is me being a windmill, not practicing semaphore. 

We queued ridiculously early but were rewarded with tickets to Court 2! Standing in line for over 3 hours passed remarkably quickly. I think it was the freebies that helped (chewing gum, water, Robinsons juice, strawberries, sunscreen...).

I love copying statue poses. Fred Perry was a little man it seems, much like King Billy.

Next time I go, I'm going to be sure to carry my tennis racquets around to see if anyone asks for my autograph. This could be an actual player, but if you ask me, he's a commoner. Look at the shorts. Doesn't he know the All England only allow white on court? School boy error.

Court 2 Order of Play. We saw Anne Keothavong, the Brit girl win, Davydenko, a top seed lose, Lindsay Davenport play her only match this Wimbledon and James Blake...win.

This is one of the score boards at Court 2, called the crow's nest because it's so high up. I decided that the woman in the sunglasses looked a bit like Pam Shriver. I was further encouraged when I saw from her microphone she was working for ESPN.

This started what affectionately became known as PamWatch.

You thought I was joking...Pam from the back!

Pam, bless her, signed my programme and stood for a photo. I think it was more out of shock, she probably hasn't been asked for an autograph since 1989. Don't worry Pam, I know who you are! You were one of my favourite pundits on 'Today at Wimbledon'!

Another photo with a 'star', ok fair enough Richard Williams didn't know I was taking our photo! He was waiting to get on Court 3 to watch his daughters play doubles.

A bit later on, we were hanging around the Broadcast Centre and a couple of women were looking up at a studio. I asked who they were looking at and they said 'Martina is up there!'. And sure enough, I looked up and saw Martina Navratilova (doubles partner of Pam don't you know!) getting her hair sprayed and combed, presumably during a break. Anyway we stood and watched for a minute and while the women were not looking she turned round. Seeing as now I was the only one looking up, I kind of waved. And she waved back! That's right, Martina and I waved at each other!

-The Cabinet War Rooms. I went there when I was about 16 but since then they have opened the Churchill Museum, so I wanted to go back.

Looks like a toilet. That's where you'd be wrong! That's what it's supposed to look like, but behind this door was the phone where Churchill spoke to Roosevelt on the secret transatlantic phone. It's like a little office, the only thing that looks like a bathroom is the door, Churchill did not speak to Roosevelt on the bowl obviously.

-Wimbledon again. A free evening and what better way to spend it than back at SW19. This time I was in Court 1 and watched Marat Safin. 

Me and the court.

Being on a big court was quite exciting because of the challenges to calls. 

I didn't participate in the 'oooooooooooh' for fear that would be all you'd hear!

At the end, I saw them film 'Today at Wimbledon' with John McEnroe! And of course John Inverdale!

A quick scurry back to NI brought me back in time to share in Owen and Dyanne's wedding party. Dyanne looked a-maz-ing! And I single handingly managed to insult Owen twice in about two minutes. Sorry. But congratulations to you both!

So that's June then

Already July. This passing of time gets me everytime. Here we are in July I have have still to mention all the excitements of June. We'll start with Mellissa and Sarah coming to visit me.

I love having friends all over the world, it's all the more exciting when they come to visit you! You'll of course remember Mellissa and Sarah as part of the Greenville crowd. Mellissa is the one that looks like me (except that she doesn't!) and Sarah, well Sarah is a Southern Belle.

They were doing a tour of the UK stopped across. I made another attempt at directing myself down south to pick them up from the boat in Dun Laoghaire. My word, all that EU money and not a penny spent on a road signs. There would be a road sign, yes one, singular sign and then nothing. NOTHING. So I was left with nothing but my own internal sat nav; head for the sea, keep it on the left and keep driving til you see a big boat. Thankfully it worked. And I was only half an hour late for them.

We drove North fairly swiftish. First stop was the Belfast Tour Bus.

Right after the tour, they both needed to go to the bathroom and suggested, as you would McDonalds. Except that here McDonalds really aren't the public convenience of choice like they are in America. I made them walk all the way down to the Welcome Centre only to discover they were closed so instead had to go back to McDonalds. This did bring about the funniest sight of the day though, Sarah flushing the toilet with her foot.

Anyone done the Belfast tour? This was my first time and I can't say I would be rushing back. The bus was jam packed with tourists from all over, but the tour guide kept on making in jokes. For instance, passing the Grand Opera House he talked about the acoustics and asked what they were. This American lady started to answer, as you would expect talking about sound waves. He cut her off and said 'no, it's what a Ballymena man prods a cow with'. Ho ho. I'm fairly sure nobody else got it except me but don't worry I didn't laugh.

The other thing about it was that he would only tell us two things about things we passed, how much they cost or when they were blown up. It didn't matter what it was, the Odyssey, Victoria Square, the railings outside the Royal Victoria Hospital, he'd tell us. Or make some ill-advised joke about the troubles. Oh move on already.

That said, I did learn some interesting facts about Belfast. Such as the tunnel they are building on the Westlink at Boucher Road is technically not a tunnel. It is 11 feet too short so it's an underpass. I feel enlightened. 

We also went to the dome of Victoria Square, the Belfast wheel and ate in Crown. Us? Tourists? Non!

The next day we headed where all good NI tourists go, the North Coast. We managed to stay away from the rain which was a triumph seeing as we were outside most of the day at the Rope Bridge and the Giant's Causeway.

.

It was a mite windy.

Mellissa was much more impressed by the Rope Bridge. I know! Thousands of basalt hexagonal column rocks just didn't do it for her. And so, she is no longer welcome our fine country. Actually much like me really, not fussed either really.

Looking out over the grand vista.

We had a good chuckle at the woman clambering over the rocks in these babies though.

I know this looks like tarmac and it is, but she was down on the rocks too in them. Last reports indicated she made it without breaking her neck.

We made a quick stop in Carrick Castle before heading out that night. We got there just before they closed so the woman didn't make us pay.

The next day the girls were heading back so rather than take my life in my hands again and drive down south, we took the train. We had an alright day in Dublin. I have decided that I think it's overrated, overcrowded and dirty. But I did learn another interesting fact. The lion that roars on the MGM ident was born in Dublin Zoo. Who knew?!

We were there the day of the Lisbon vote (now there's a puzzler, what will they do next?). If I hadn't cut the top of the billboard off, the lamp post wasn't there and it had been a brighter day this surely would have been on the front cover of the Independent or something.

So that's that. Still to come are London trips 1, 2, and 3.