Up with the lark

Joe Orton - better than Black Beauty

I was up at 4am. I had considered getting up at 3am, but that would have been silly. Couldn't sleep at all last night - combination of mind spinning at 300mph, bad dreams about my teeth falling out - and waking up to the reality that they actually are. I'm now so self aware of grinding my teeth in my sleep that I seem to be preventing myself from drifting off in the first place.

As a result - I had read all the papers in detail by 5am - which would have been OK if they were more interesting - mostly it's just a rehash of yesterdays news. Lots of coverage on Wayne Rooney having a big, girly hissy fit and off to pastures new. Why anyone is interested in the odious, potato faced little shit, I don't know. He's a pointless little fuckwit with no real value to society apart from potential biofuel.

As if to torture myself I watched random bits of X factor last night. Is it just me.... they are all shit - none of them can sing live - that freakish middle aged man is a complete travesty - I seriously wonder why all these people vote for him, would you allow him to babysit for you?

"Here - whatever your name is - spend the evening with my two pre-teen daughters, a bottle of brandy and some crisps - there are knives and parcel tape in the kitchen draw and if they start screaming - turn the stereo up to drown the noise"

Downton Abbey is just shit - there is no other word for it. In 2 years it will be repeated at breakfast time on ITV3 along with heartbeat and The Grand. Totally unrealistic, 2 dimensional and frankly offensive cutouts or character and cliche's. Dreary and silly scripts and self important performances. It would be slightly more realistic if they substituted the cast with the one from Acorn Antiques. Someone referred to it as Dawson Manor by accident last week -It made more sense - the concept of Les Dawson heading the household was much more appealing.

I watched the first half of 'Prick Up Your Ears' last night - I'd forgotten what a bloody good film it was. I bought the Orton Diaries from a stand at Euston Station when I was 15 on a school trip - and never looked back. It was quite a leap from Black Beauty or whatever shite I was reading at the time - I had to keep it hidden. Actually - now I think about it - we had to read a 'modern' novel called 'Red Shift' that was - if I remember, about a young couple repeating events in two time periods - one contemporary - on a few hundred years ago - Red Shift is the optical effect you get when something is traveling away from you at speed - it's the way the spectrum works - a receding object appears to be red in colour - because that's the light at the back end. Our teacher - Mr Sparks ( twat of the first order - I understand he still lives with his mum ) asked us what we thought it meant - a boy called Adrian Prince had a dad who was a scientist - and he explained it clearly and on the correct context. Mr Sparks said that was utter rubbish and it was about menstral blood. What hope did we have if a teacher was so fucking stupid. I think he was just trying to pick up girls, he was the only English teacher who wasn't sleeping with a student.

On another occasion - we had a teacher called McCormack who always started the year off by asking the new class -

"if it's raining at a constant rate - do you get wetter if you walk or run a set distance" 

he would always insist that the answer was

'it makes no difference - the amount of rain is the same because it is falling at a constant rate' 

of course, it was pretty fucking obvious to everyone that he's forgotten to factor in the time saved by running - and was just plain WRONG. Silly old fool, he was so smug.

We had an R.E. teacher who was a rabid catholic ( it was that type of school ) - she was a tiny, bird like woman and really quite sweet - but constantly pregnancy, each subsequent pregnancy really took t out on her - one of the mums knew her and told her son that she had been warned not to have any more children - but she kept getting pregnant. I saw her husband once and he looked really 'not nice'. On one occasion when she was clearly in a pretty poor emotional and physical state, struggling under the weight of her bloated abdomen, she was trying to teach abstinence ( oh, for fuck's sake ) and came out with the classic -


"girls, keep away from men - once you have kissed them, they can't help themselves, they are animals - it's not their fault, they can't control themselves" 

and then burst into tears - I can't remember seeing her again.

Is it just me - or does the BBC World Service always seem so 'other worldly' - I normally only listen to it when I'm ill or depressed - takes the edge off things.