why do all good things come to an end....?

I'm moving my blog.  If you're looking for me, then you should now head to swisslet.com

I've had a pretty good run on here.

I started making my first tentative forays into blogging way back in March 2004.  I was only playing around, so I picked the first name that popped into my head. It wasn't an especially original name, but it was one that I'd been using on a few forums when just mucking around and not wanting to use my actual name.  I quite liked Charlie Higson's SwissToni character from the Fast Show, so I just used that.  Blogging, as the real Swiss might have said, was very much like making love to a beautiful woman... or something like that.

There was no way I could have known how much of my life was going to get sucked into blogging and, almost before I knew where I was, I was stuck with an online identity I wasn't massively fond of and I didn't really think there was anything much I could do about it.

Well, I'd like to think I've come a long way since then, both as a blogger and as a person.  I think the time has come for me to grasp the bull by the horns and just get rid of this millstone by changing my online identity.

I'm still not going for my real name, or anything silly like that.  In fact, I'm not moving very far at all.  From today, I'm shifting from "SwissToni" to "Swisslet".  It's a name that I think Lizzie first came up with a few years ago, and it's sort of stuck.  It's not very different, but at least it's all my own.

This blog will stay here, but I likely won't be updating it any more.

Instead, you can join me at Swisslet.com

I've gone and got my own domain and everything, but I've moved all the posts from here over to the new site, so really it will just be more of the same at a new address.  I've taken the opportunity to refresh my antique template too, whilst I'm at it and to generally have a play around to try to freshen things up a bit (although if anyone fancies tweaking my old blog header so that it has the new name on it, then that would be great!)

Mind you, I'll probably still sign all my comments as ST out of sheer force of habit.....

It's not a big deal, but if you could update your links and stuff, that would be lovely.

Just to show how mature the new me really is, I'll even finish with a quote from the Bible without frothing at the mouth in righteous atheist fury.....

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things"

Pfff.

bigmouth strikes again....

As we were driving to work this morning, an innocent conversation about the mist rolling off the river and the number of trees now entirely without leaves suddenly mutated into an argument:

Winter's nearly upon us, I remarked.
Well, said C, actually winter doesn't start until 21st December.
Really? Isn't that the shortest day? Wouldn't you associate that with the depths of winter?
No. It's the winter solstice and it's the official start of winter.

We carried on the debate after we reached the office, with C. sending me something from wikipedia, and me retaliating by sending something back from the met office. As these things tend to do - at least with me - what I thought of as being a trivial, light-hearted discussion seemed to quickly be descending into a surprisingly bitter argument. I'll never learn: just as my dad remains convinced that I used to do a deliberately bad job of mowing the lawn just to piss him off, C seems equally convinced that when we have a discussion like this, I am driven to not only to prove her wrong, but to make her look foolish. Perhaps that's the way it seems, but all I'm trying to do is to understand the basis of the argument. I hope I'm not too grudging when I am proved wrong, but I do like to be swayed by evidence. It's probably my historical training, but even on a subject I know nothing about, I'll never accept anything at face value; I like to be presented with at least some sort of evidence.

I'm the first to admit that this isn't always an attractive trait, and I know that it can have its dark side: I used to maintain that no one is ever more than 80% sure they're right in any particular discussion. With that in mind, I would sometimes chose to make it my position to push at the 20% that wasn't so sure of themselves. All this was originally intended to do was to explore the uncertainty and test the evidence, but in the heat of debate, this probably transformed all too often into a desire to push someone off their point. No matter that the other person may well have been originally more sure of their own argument than I was of my own position, I still found that I could push most people into questioning their own certainty, if not actually making them back down entirely.

I like to think that I've realised that's not actually a very nice way to behave, and it's something to be held back for special occasions. However, in even the most trivial discussion, I have a certain curiosity that compels me to ask questions. It often gets me into trouble at work (in spite of the fact that my analytical brain is the reason I was hired to do this job), and it also gets me into trouble at home.

Why is the shortest day the start of winter?
If it is the start of winter, does that mean that summer doesn't start until 21st June?
If that's the case, why is Midsummer's Day traditionally celebrated on 24th June? Is summer only 6 days long?
When would you say Spring starts? I suppose technically, by this logic, it would be on 21st March - the Spring Equinox. If that's the case, then why is the 1st March called the start of Spring? Is 20th June really still Spring?

....and so on.

These are the questions that I want to know the answers to, and these are the questions that I asked C..... who (perhaps not surprisingly) now thinks that I'm trying to make her look a fool. The thing is, I'm not trying to make her look a fool, and she may well be right.... it's just that I can't stop my brain asking what I see as the unanswered questions, and I then have a need to know the answers. If this is the start of winter, then why? Based on what? Does everyone agree?

Even as C. sent me the wikipedia link, I started searching for more answers.

It seems that winter is traditionally held to start in the UK on 21st December, and has apparently been so for thousands of years, based upon an observation of the stars and the length of the day. Meteorologists don't seem to have much truck with this, and the Met Office for one has the seasons neatly parcelled up: Winter - 1st December; Spring - 1st March; Summer - 1st June; Autumn - 1st September.

But it's all quibbling, isn't it? Aren't the seasons dictated by things other than by dates? The change of the season cannot be marked on a calendar and does not happen at precisely the same moment every year.... there isn't a clock that dictates when birds migrate and animals hibernate; there isn't a calendar that can tell you when the leaves will fall from the trees or when the daffodils will bud. It changes from year to year and is affected by all kinds of things, both natural and manmade...................

And so it goes. More or less every single thing that anyone ever says to me is run through this kind of an internal process, with a succession of questions popping up that can never be fully answered; even if they could be, there are more questions following them up close behind.

I'm not sure why I'm driven to ask these questions, and perhaps more pertinently, I don't know why I haven't yet learned when to stop asking them. I should probably at least be more aware, as I ask all these questions one-by-one, that increasingly the best I can hope for is that I don't lose all my friends by making them feel like they're in front of some kind of ranting inquisition 24/7.

I just can't turn off my brain. Like the scorpion in the fable, I may drown us all simply because it's my nature.

I may be dumb but I'm not a dweeb....

At last! A geek / nerd / dweeb /dork venn diagram.

This is something that has been puzzling me for some time. Over the years, people have used each of these phrases, apparently interchangeably, to describe me. Although I vaguely have an idea what they mean, I've been bothered because I haven't know exactly what they mean. They might mean similar things, but I've always been pretty sure that they don't mean the same thing. I've been called all of them, but what if not all of them applied? Perhaps none of them did? If they didn't mean exactly the same thing, then isn't there likely to be a hierarchy, where one of those words might be considered to be less - or more - insulting than another? Was I taking offence needlessly, or was I not offended enough by what people were calling me?

So: here's a chart that should provide me with some of answers I've been looking for.



From here (via @annapickard)

Hmm. Unfortunately I'm still no clearer.

Well, I say I'm no clearer, what I actually mean by that is "Dangnabbit, I think I probably qualify for all of the above and that most likely makes me a nerd".

The chart must be inaccurate, right?

and I'm living for history....

Unnoticed by everyone - including me - this blog turned 5 last week. That first, tentative entry was made on Tuesday 2nd March 2004, and far from being a stunning introduction of my explosive manifesto to the online world, it didn't even have a title. It's not a very interesting post, and I wasn't going to to write posts on an anything like regular basis for another few months yet.... but it was a momentous monent for me in the sense that it was the start of something that has subsequently seen me produce something like 1,417 posts in 1,825 days and signalled the disappearance of the first of God-knows how many hours into the blogosphere. A journey of several hundred thousand words begins with that first post.

I do claim in that first entry that blogging was something that I'd "sort of been thinking about...for ages", but I certainly can't remember now whatever it was that drove me to start or why I chose to use Blogger instead of WordPress or LiveJournal or any of the many other available alternatives. It all too clearly wasn't inspiration. In all honesty, I probably wasn't thinking much at all as I selected a username in haste that I have been stuck with ever since, chose a template that I subsequently haven't bothered to change, and began to write those trivial twitterings about doing the ironing and other nothings.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

And I wonder where my life has gone.

SwissToni: mildly embarrassed purveyor of mundanity online since March 2004.

---

Other things that happened on this momentous day in history:

> John Kerry wins the Super Tuesday primaries in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Rhode Island and caucus in Minnesota, effectively clinching the nomination.

> The Palestinian Authority's prisoners' affairs ministry states in its monthly statistical report that the number of Palestinian prisoners has risen to around 7,500. Of those 336 are children, 75 female and 943 in need of medical treatment. Of the 166 prisoners who died, 41% died as a result of medical negligence, while 18% died as a result of torture

> NASA announces that Mars rover Opportunity landed in an area where "liquid water once drenched the surface".

> Oregon prepares to begin solemnizing same-sex marriages, after its attorney issues a legal opinion deeming such marriages lawful.

> Bernard Ebbers, ex-CEO of Worldcom, is indicted on three counts of conspiracy for his alleged role in that company's $11 billion accounting scandal in 2002.

> Iraq gets a Bill of Rights, including guarantees of freedom of religion and press, in the form of the Law of Administering the Iraqi State for the Transitional Period

> The European Union imposes additional 5% tariffs on a wide range of goods imported from the United States, such as honey, paper, and nuclear reactors.

> The European Space Agency's Rosetta space probe is successfully launched aboard an Ariane 5 rocket on a mission to investigate the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

... oh, so maybe I was the big news story of the day then?

come with me friday, don't say maybe....

Not two months after writing that last little cry from the heart, life changed a little bit for the 19 year-old me. Well, it didn't really change much at all, but it felt like it had: I had a bit of a kiss and a cuddle with a friend's younger sister when she came up to visit for the weekend. It wasn't quite famine to feast, but it was a start. She was only a couple of years younger than us, and she was pretty cool (a whole lot cooler than her brother anyway), but when you're nineteen years old, two years feels like an awfully big age-gap. We got on from the very beginning, mainly by forming an alliance against her brother who (once he had taken her down the pub to meet his mates) seemed determined to play the part of the surrogate father, and frowned at every drink she had and every cigarette that she smoked. We got on like a house on fire. After closing time, we all went back to another friend's place where we all ended up crashed out. As I remember it, the kissing all happened whilst we were zonked out on the same bed as her brother. As you can imagine, nothing much happened, and I'm fairly sure that the thought of doing anything else never even crossed my mind. To be honest, I probably couldn't believe my luck. When I woke up, I remember feeling nothing so much as really elated. I had no expectations of it going anywhere, but what had happened seemed like enough.

A couple of days later, I wrote down how I was feeling.... and here it is, fifteen years later in all its horrible, inarticulate clumsiness.

---
Tuesday 30th November 1993

c.12:00am

"On the day that your mentality tries to catch up with your biology"

Strange weekend, what do you make of it? Who can you tell here? No one. Drop hints like you want to - but that would be no use - especially living with someone like Roger and the perhaps dubious circumstances in which it took place. It raises the question though: am I living a lie? all this 'no experience' thing that dominates all my conversations and reaction against this last week shagging fest. Yes and no. Yes in that I haven't actually done it yet, but, well, let's just say I have finally had a first taste in a drunken fumble.

How do I feel? Well a little unsure of what actually happened and how she feels about it (if she can remember). What do I do when I next see her? Well, I know what I will do: either I will be all brash and confident, or all coy (depends on the situation).

Not exactly perfect, I suppose. In a way, it doesn't really matter. Nice now that it's happened. Just a harmless snog after all, but hey, can't even brag about it or face up to it like everyone else has to do.

On a physical level, full marks, I think. [I'm sorry about this, but this is actually what I've written here, and I'm not editing....] Wow - schwing - but did you take a child and make her old? [*cringe*. Step away from the Morrissey... he's done you enough damage already, I think] Don't think so and don't even say so... not as bad as perhaps it seems. Power trip? big bad student / man of the world [!!]. Well, she knew my history and perhaps that was kind of endearing. (He says).

I really feel like shouting it out, but although it doesn't feel sordid, in a way it does. Dirty old man takes advantage shocker. How the fuck would I tell HIM [meaning my friend and her elder brother] ? No way - anyone else and it would be all "nudge-nudge, wink-wink. Well-done-mate-better-late-than-never-it-means-nothing". But HER? Uh-oh. Different story altogether - perhaps she'll tell him, but perhaps not judging by the whole extra parent vibe and 'hoho mum, she was in a trolley" thang. Too heavy.

On the bright side though, that she really enjoyed it and wants to come back might tell me something. Maybe she knows!

Well, one for the record books anyway. I loosened up sufficiently for it to happen and that bodes well for the future - I mean, I'm getting on really well with Nicky and I didn't think that would ever really happen again after last year. God, what happened then? [answer: nothing much] At least I must have relaxed since then - something university has done for me!

Thought I'd write this all down for future reference - or perhaps for discovery! Unlike the last piece, less likely to show it to Leon though! Free love sex machine shocker!!

---

Behind that garbled outpouring, I can still detect some relief and some genuine optimism for the future.... It might not have been much in the grand scheme of things.... but I felt as though I had finally crossed a little mental rubicon. I'd proved something to myself. Perhaps I wasn't really a complete freak after all. I took a little more time and a lot of luck before I got any further than this, but one step at a time, eh?

Although, goodness me, I was still clearly very much in need of a slap and someone telling me to get over myself.

Her brother actually didn't find out about this little tryst until after we had both finished our finals, some 18 months later. It was a complete surprise to him, but he bluffed that he knew all about it... until he realised it was me that we were talking about and not someone else he knew called Tim.

Anyway.

I'm a whole lot wiser and articulate about these things nowadays. Obviously.

*cough*.

Let's hope there are no more manuscripts out there waiting to be discovered, eh? There's only so much of my teenage self quoting Morrissey that I can ask anyone to bear....

unpacking books from boxes...

Whilst sorting through some boxes of my stuff that were turfed out of the roof in my parents' house move, I found a couple of bits of writing from my late-teenage years. They're both about girls, and they're both a little bit embarrassing, but as a historian and as a shameless blogger, I'm going to put them both up here, one today and one tomorrow. Besides, I've had a couple of super-strength homemade mojitos now, so what the hell? Finding this stuff was a bit like opening a window straight back into my past. I certainly remember feeling like this, but I don't remember writing it all down.

Dear oh dear.

Anyway, here we go. Please forgive my teenage self.

---

Notes on Being Single. 10th October 1993. [which makes me 19 and just starting my second year at University, I think. Bear with me. I was a slow starter.]

Is it just me and Morrissey, or is that when you're single the whole world seems to be a couple who are both laughing at you? It doesn't matter if almost everyone I know is either totally single or in a massively disfunctional relationship, I am still the only really, irreversibly single person that I know. Let me explain. I seem to be incapable of making any kind of sexual manoeuvre aimed at anyone - I deeply believed at school that when the girls arrived in the sixth form and we treated either like crap or like sex-objects or both that it should be different. Call me a fool, but I felt that first what you did was to befriend somebody and then things would lead on from there. The first problem that I encountered was that once a friend, I didn't feel it was worth risking the friendship. It might just be a chronic fear of rejection, but I think I really have something that blocks off such actions. I've even got to the stage where I surprise friends by even passing a compliment about such and such a girl who just walked past - of course I know what is pretty, what is ugly and what is fat etc., but I find it very hard to apply to the vast mass of people who fall into the middle category. I simply become indifferent and non-judgmental (another glitch in an otherwise massively judgmental personality.)

What if someone makes a move on me or if I hear of an interested party? Well, obviously, after the initial flattery I'll become deeply scared and avoid confrontation entirely until that particular feeling has died away. What to do? Even worse, many people say that I'm of serious marriage possibilities. As one friend said, I'll marry the first girl who gives me a blow-job [ha! wrong!] Well thank you, but no. The thought of being perpetually single without a single experience at University is deeply worrying, but so too is the thought of instant puppy-dog devotion and marriage.

Is it this deep contradiction that throws me into depression and bad moods? Certainly at such times, I tend to lash out at people who may most likely be my friends and will feel disgusted when a close friend has pulled / been pulled and feel that the whole thing is temporary and sordid. Even now I'm still a bit revolted by the behaviour of my male friends of 19/20 who are in relationships of more than six months and appear to want them to end for no especially good reason - are they simply bored of the sex and the commitment that surely goes with it? Do they think that they will instantly find someone else who will gratify their urges and want very little in return? What time is right to feel secure? What ask me for advice as (a) I'm on the girl's side and (b) what experience have I got?

At the end of the day am I just wallowing in self-pity? Am I just a sad bastard who should get off my arse and do something about it? Well, easily said, but I'm sure that I'm not asexual and whether I'm a subconscious devotee of celibacy, I can't tell. I've now put down pretty much everything that has been praying on my mind - why can't I communicate normally with most women? Can it be only a result of experience at public school? Surely not. Well, I'm sure I'll be pissed off, rude and grumpy for a few more days at least, so I guess I'll make the most of it before you show me yours and you laugh at mine [oh, God...]! I guess I'd just like to be understood.

----

So, there you go. Me as a 19 year-old in all of its unedited glory. What a strange, serious boy who has listened to far too much Morrissey and has some very strange ideas about girls and relationships..... so not much has really changed in the last 15 years then.

Dear oh dear. If only I could go back in time and give myself a good slap.

More tomorrow.

dream on...

I've had a number of things chewing over in my mind recently, and maybe as a direct result of this, I woke up at about 4am this morning having had an extremely vivid dream:

It is late at night and I am in the living room at my parents' house. Everyone else has long since gone to bed. The phone rings (only it isn't a phone, it is coming from my laptop). I answer and there is a moment of silence at the other end before a slightly reluctant voice speaks. I recognise the voice at once, even though I haven't heard it now for something like 5 years. It is my friend Justin. He wants something but he doesn't want to tell me what it is and asks me to go and get my older brother. I go upstairs to the room where my brother is sleeping and try to wake him up but he's soundly asleep and he barely stirs. I go back downstairs to discover that Justin is now quite agitated and can no longer wait for my brother to get up and talk to him. He has something he needs to say and it now looks like he will have to say it to me. He tells me that he needs someone to look after his parents' luggage. They are in the airport and about to go to Eygpt, but for some reason they have to leave their bags behind and need someone to look after them. As we speak, Justin tells me that he has already sent them to my mum and dad's house and wanted to make sure that they would be taken care of.

...but my mum and dad have just moved, I tell him. The bags will be going to the old house, and there will be noone there to receive them.

And then I woke up.

What does it mean?

Answers on a postcard please.

I was just guessing at numbers and figures...

I reckon that most people have an instinctive feel for numbers or an instinctive feel for words; that you either see the world in terms of 1s and 0s or in terms of a-e-i-o-u. That's not to say that the one view excludes the other, just that I reckon that most people have a preference.

I'm a words man.

Always have been.

As long as I can remember, I've had a facility for and an enjoyment of words, and it's a standing joke in our family that I never travel anywhere without a book. It's also something of a running joke in my family that I'm hopeless at maths.

To be fair, this jibe has some foundation in the fact that for many years I really, really struggled with mathematics at school. As is the tradition for the brighter students at an English Prep School, at the age of thirteen, I was sent off to sit a number of exams to see if I would be considered for a scholarship to attend Public School. I was duly awarded a scholarship, and proudly took my place the next term with my fellow high achievers in the tops sets of almost every subject...... every subject except maths, that was. In maths, I was put into set five. Out of six. All of my colleagues from the top form were in the top set. On the plus side, this meant that to have been awarded a scholarship at all, I must had done extraordinarily well in my stronger subjects, but it was a bit unusual. I was never exactly embarrassed by this, as I was also convinced that I was a no-hoper in the subject, but it wasn't really very much fun.

As it happened, I came top of the set by absolutely miles. As maths became less sums and became more about simultaneous equations, trigonometry, matrices and the like, I found it got easier. I didn't work well with numbers, but now I had a calculator to deal with that and could focus on things that now required the manipulation of formulae and not simply the ability to work with numbers. I found it much, much easier, as if it now used a different part of the brain. In the summer exams that year, I finished the exam with more than half of the allotted time still to go. As he had nothing better to do, my teacher started marking the papers of those who had finished in the hour or so still to go. After a while, he turned round to the blackboard and started putting up the scores so far:

Thompson: 46%
SwissToni: 98%

I got one question wrong. I think the score rather demoralised those yet to finish.

I was duly moved up to set three, and finished top of that set too... eventually getting an "A" at GCSE and idly contemplating doing the A-Level (until I came to my senses).

I'm still a lot more comfortable with words though, and I love the sound of the English language (sadly only English... I'm not very good at other languages).

So I find it incredibly frustrating that I'm not very good at Scrabble. Or cryptic crosswords. Or the Countdown Conundrum. They're about words, aren't they? I should find these a breeze, shouldn't I? Other people expect me to be good at them too. So why can't I do them?

I reckon it's because anagrams and crosswords and scrabble are all tied up with numbers. I think there is something very numerical about looking at a mix of letters and calculating the words that you can create from them. Hell, Scrabble even assigns every letter a number....

I do have tremendous admiration for people who are good at these things, but the plain fact is that I would like to be good at these things and I'm not.

I'm such an egotist.

And for the record... that's not the reason I have no intention of ever joining Facebook.

and it was all yellow...

I got Simpsonized. (thanks Mark)

It's quite good fun. Just ignore the Burger Overlord advertising, and you too can make your partner howl with laughter at your Springfield alter-ego.

And yes, I did choose the "geek" option for clothes. What's your point?

"I'm just a boy with a new haircut"

"Baldness" - taken at Glastonbury and courtesy of Statue John

I know this is a statement of the bleeding obvious, but I'm bald. Well, balding anyway.

A fellow slaphead at work was telling me the other day how he forgot to take a hat with him to the Cambridge Folk Festival and as a result had burned the top of his head. I sympathised with him. I've been there. Although I might like to think that my baldness is restricted to a forehead that's getting ever bigger, the truth is that my once luxuriant and shaggy mane of curls is getting decidedly thin on top too. Luckily I've worn my hair short for years, so it's not much bother keeping it clippered and thus avoid any unfortunate stacking of thicker hair against thinner hair. In the last ten years I've moved from a grade four to a grade three to a grade two. Nowadays I ask the barber for a one-and-a-half on top and a one around the edges. I'm under no illusions that this progression is going to inevitably lead me at some point to a completely shaved head.

You know what? It really doesn't bother me.

Someone first pointed out to me that I might be losing my hair back in 1994. I was in the middle of my term in Venice, and instead of going out and looking for a hairdresser, I let my friend Mark cut my hair. He introduced me to Scott Walker, so when he offered, how could I not entrust him with my hair? When he had finished, I looked in the mirror and it seemed as though I had a little bald patch on either side at the front of my head. I accused him of botching the job. He accused me of going bald. We laughed. I forgot about it. I was twenty years old and I had no idea that it was going to be all downhill from there.

Has it affected my life? Who knows, but I shouldn't think it's made much of a difference except that I now own a lot of hats. At twenty and long out of school, I was old enough not to be teased by anyone about my hair-loss. I got my first serious girlfriend shortly afterwards, so I've never associated lack of hair with a lack of success with women (just my general ineptitude).... so apart from not getting through very much shampoo and no longer owning a hairbrush, it doesn't really worry me. In fact, I find the whole process fascinating, as I do watching the hair that remains turn grey....

What can you do? And no, I'm not interested in taking any drugs to make my hair grow back, thanks very much (and especially not when one of the side-effects can be a loss of libido. What kind of a trade-off is that? Hair for sex? No thanks.). Nor am I interested in dyeing my hair. I don't judge those who do, but I've simply never felt the need.

Still, at least I now definitively know the answer to a question that has been vaguely troubling me for the best part of the last twenty-five years: when I was seven years old, I had a great big mop of hair, and I used to damp it down in the morning with cold water before brushing it and heading off to breakfast. I was warned that if I continued to do this, I was certain to go bald. Clearly this was nonsense. Even at that tender age I had a working grasp of simple genetics: my dad and both of my grandfathers had full heads of hair, so how likely was it really that I would go bald, eh? I laughed in the face of my potential baldness and continued damping down my hair every morning, shrugging my shoulders and saying that if and when I did go bald, I'd simply have to put it down to the damping.... but not before.

Well, now we know.

Don't do it kids.

don't know much about a science book...

I was a bit of a geek at school.

Actually, I think my over-developed sense of responsibility probably peaked when I was twelve years old and Head of School. I was a shockingly upright citizen, and thankfully it's all been downhill from there.

When I was clearing out the stuff my mum and dad have been storing for me, I came across a stack of my old school reports. The earliest dates from Christmas 1985. I was 11 years old and had just completed my first term in the sixth form. I was considered a good candidate to sit a scholarship exam in the summer of 1987 and so had been pushed up through the years and was now effectively a year ahead of myself - I was now studying with people who were almost a year older than me and would be leaving that summer, whereas I would be staying on another year.

Not that I'm intellectually vain or anything...

Anyway. Here it is:

---

Name: SwissToni
Age at beginning of term: 11.6
Average age of form: 12.3

Mathematics Set B
Term's Work Position: 3rd/3
Exam Position: 3rd/3 (paper 1 - 42%, paper 2 - 34%)

I have been delighted with ST's progress this term - not only in terms of improved examination scores but also in terms of his self-confidence. Although many gaps still remain to be filled, there is definite light at the end of the tunnel.

[ST's note: God, but I was shit at Maths]

English
Term's Work Position: 7=
Exam Position: paper I - 1st/5 (71%), paper II 5/5 (30/50)

ST has not found sixth form work particularly easy and is still finding his feet but he's a naturally hard worker and I feel sure he will come through strongly next term. He wrote an excellent paper I in the examination.

French (Set B)
Term's Work Position: 5/5
Exam Position: 5th/5 (27/50), 5th/5 (51%)

After a somewhat unhurried start to the term, ST began to pick up speed and eventually rounded off his performance in top gear. Now, he is beginning to master his weakness in the subject and he has become more confident in his own abilities to succeed. Let this continue please!

[ST's note - how did I get a French girlfriend again?]

History
Term's Work Position: 5=
Exam Position: 2/5 (56%)

ST has taken trouble and worked hard for much of the term. He wrote a good essay in the exam.

Geography
Term's Work Position: 5=/9
Exam Position: 2/5 (66%)

ST still lacks confidence in himself but he is improving all the time and his exam result shows that he is well on course for next year.

Science
Term's Work Position: 4th/9
Exam Position: 4th=/5 (53%)

ST has made a good effort in the subject this term, doing well to end high up in the form. His slightly disappointing exam performance revealed several areas in which he remains weak.

Divinity
Term's Work Position: n/a
Exam Position: 1=/5 (80% - What can I say? me and God, we're close)

ST has worked thoughtfully and effectively. He wrote a very good exam.

Latin
Term's Work Position: 5/5
Exam Position: 2=/4 (57%)

Although he still thinks that Latin is too difficult, ST has made great advances and has time for even further progress.

Greek
Term's Work Position: Set B 5/5
Exam Position: Set B 4/4

Although at the bottom of the sixth form Greek sets, ST has had a much better term and he has produced some good pieces of work. He must not be deterred by his undistinguished exam performance!

Art

ST has found the exhibition projects hard work this term but has successfully completed the course. Art is a subject ST finds rather difficult due primarily to a lack of confidence. However, he should be proud of the work he has completed this term and the new techniques he has mastered. Very well done.

Trumpet
Grade achieved: approaching grade III

ST is a keen student. He has a good ear and his tone is round and firm. He needs to pay some attention to phrasing. He should be ready for Grade III early next year if he sustains his efforts.

Formteacher's Report

ST has worked steadily and conscientiously and is an asset to the form. As he matures he should find himself capable of achieving his ambition.

Housemaster's Report

Behaviour: C
Humour: C
Personal Hygiene: C
Self-Organisation: D

(A=excellent, B=good, C=satisfactory, D=Poor, E=very poor)

Overall contribution to community life: ST has had a happy term
Health report: There have been less complaints than usual from ST this term!
General Comments: ST has had a good term on the whole. He is however somewhat disorganised.

Headmaster's Report

A very encouraging set of reports. ST has come on well and has shown much promise for the future. He has been a member of the school's general knowledge team and has been helpful as a librarian, chorister and lesson reader. He is a keen scout and enjoys judo and table-tennis. A good start to his VI form career.

---

I suppose this provides an interesting window onto the life of an 11 year old boarding school pupil, but I find reading it a somewhat chastening experience. In my head, I was always a brilliant student. I got that scholarship. I did well in all my public exams. I got a decent degree. I did a masters degree. I'm bloody good at pub quizzes. My intellectual arrogance has clearly swollen in the last 20 years. I know I wasn't very good at subjects like Maths and French and I know I was competing here against people who were older than me.... but it's still quite humbling to read all these people saying that I was doing okay but had a long way to go.

Perhaps I should read them more often.

(It got worse before it got better - by Easter 1986, my Greek teacher was reporting that "ST has made little progress this term and his exam performance was again very poor. I fear that we have reached a psychological stalemate which I can only resolve by taking him off Greek next term. I do so reluctantly!" I remember it and it was a mercy killing. I just couldn't get the hang of a language that had a different alphabet.)

oh, the shark has pretty teeth dear....

I went to the dentist today.

My teeth have been worrying me for the last week or so, and I decided it was better to be safe than sorry. Who wants to be caught with toothache in South America?

Is it secret? Is it safe?

So I went to the dentist. After about 5 minutes in the waiting room, I was summoned upstairs to the chair. I sat down and waited as the dentist pottered about and asked me a few questions. After a moment or so, I tuned into the fact that there was music in the room. That's not so remarkable in itself: there's often music in the room and it's usually Heart FM or something like that. It was The Strokes, but I didn't really think too much more about it. It would probably be something unspeakable next. It wasn't. It was The Editors. I looked over to the source of the music and saw an iPod Nano perched on a set of Altec Lansing speakers (similar to the ones I have in the kitchen at home).

I looked at the dentist again. He was actually pretty young.

"I think this is the first time I've been to the dentist when they've had an iPod"
"Yeah, I have a playlist of about 1000 songs that I reckon are suitable for patients"
I imagine that some of the old ladies really dig The Editors. I looked over at the nurse.
"Do you get a say in the playlist?"
She shook her head and shot me a long-suffering look. "Nope"
"Are you at least allowed to skip the odd song on?"
She smiled at me. "I've pretty much learned to tune it out"
At this, the dentist grinned at me. Nice.

We talked a bit about iPods in general and about the speakers in particular (he thought they were okay, but found them a bit trebly, especially on Beatles tracks. He wanted some Bose speakers. I thought they were fine for what they were and suggested that if he was after better sound quality, he should try running his iPod through a proper stereo system). We both agreed that I should definitely try to take mine to Ecuador.

As visits to the dentist go, it was a pretty good one. I just can't shake the feeling that it's wrong that I can have this conversation with my dentist. Since I was five years old and Mr. Kingham used to look after my teeth at Earls Barton, my dentist has always been a middle-aged guy. Wherever I have been, and whoever I have been seeing, they have always been middle-aged.

This guy was young. He might well have been younger than me.

I'm not sure I'm ready for dentists to be young. I'm certainly not ready for the thought that dentists have actually stayed the same age and it's just me that got middle-aged.

My teeth are fine, incidentally.

memory brushes the same years...

It's funny how it's sometimes the littlest things that remind me.

I've just been watching "Heroes". Apparently it's the biggest show on TV; it's the TV show that has been trouncing "24" in the US ratings. It's a programme that has the distinctly "X-Men" premise that ordinary people with extra-ordinary powers are walking amongst us. On the evidence of the first episode, it seems to be pretty good. I like the characters: the invulnerable Texan cheerleader, the guy who can fly, the woman with the seemingly independent reflection, the junkie artist who can see the future.... but my favourite so far is the distinctly geeky Japanese guy who can bend time.

There was one moment though that stands apart for me: Milo Ventimiglia's character -- Peter Petrelli -- is standing on the edge of a 15 storey building, and at first all we can see of him are the edges of his sneakers hanging over the ledge as the camera pans up the side of the building. At that very moment I was reminded of my friend Justin. He used to wear trainers like that. We once got turned away from Rock City on a Saturday night because he was wearing trainers like that. He was outraged. Apparently you could get into anywhere in London with trainers like that. Justin looks a bit like Milo Ventimiglia too. It's the hair and that sulky pout. I've known Justin since I was 7 years old: we went to school together. For a brief fraction of a second, my mind flickered over fond memories of this old friend of mine. And then I remembered that Justin dropped me at the end of 2002. He severed all links with me in a single email and I've not heard from him since.

That was more than four years ago.

It still hurts.

It's just funny how sometimes it's the littlest things that remind me.

I hope he's well and that he's happy.

but February made me shiver....

I've just had a Square Pie for my tea.

It was a proper bona fide Square Pie too: steak and guinness flavour, to be exact. C. was in London this weekend, and she brought back a raw pie from Selfridges for me to bake at my leisure. She's away again for the first half of this week, and I found it extremely comforting to have pie, mash and kale for my tea, along with a nice glass of red wine (especially as I'd just woken up from a nap).

Now, at this time of the year, that's proper comfort food. Well, any time of the year really. I'll certainly be having one in June at the Glastonbury Festival(assuming I get a ticket).

Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Pie.

here in my car I feel safest of all....

I put my car in for its MOT this morning. Given that I will be part exchanging at the end of March when I pick up my new car, I was naturally quite keen to avoid any unnecessary expenditure. The guy I rang a few weeks ago to make the appointment seemed mildly surprised that I was only wanting to book in for an MOT and not an MOT plus an annual service, but why would I want to pay £200 instead of £50?

I dropped my car off at 8am and drove to work in the little Ka they lent me. The garage then rang me a little after 10am.

“You car has failed its MOT on one tyre and another tyre is borderline. We can replace the tyres for you no problem. What do you want us to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, what kind of tyres do you want?”
“I’m part exchanging my car at the end of the month so I want the cheapest tyres you’ve got”
“Oh, right. Well the cheapest we have is £55. Do you want us to change both tyres?”
“Do I need to change both tyres to pass the MOT?”
“No. Only one was a definite fail. The other was borderline. It’s down to 3mm and the tracking is off. I couldn’t say how long it will last.”

I thought about this for a moment. For some reason, my instinct was to change. But what would be the point? Looking at last year’s MOT certificate, I could see that I have done the grand total of 3000 miles in the last 12 months – bugger all. Every time we travel any distance, we use C’s company car. I’m picking up my new car in four week’s time – and for three of those weeks I am going to be in Ecuador. I made up my mind.

”No. Just change the one tyre.”
The guy at the garage changed tack and revealed his hand: “If you buy both tyres, I can knock a fiver off them both”.
Right, so that means instead of paying £55 for the tyre I needed, I could pay £100. It suddenly became crystal clear to me exactly why garages are opposed to the Government’s proposal to make MOTs mandatory every two years (currently, all cars over three years old need to have the test every year).
“No thanks. Just change the tyre I need to pass the test.”
“OK”. He sounded slightly crestfallen.
“Is there anything else that needed doing?”
“No, that was it as far as I know.” He now sounded a bit grumpy.
“Excellent. See you later then.”

I hung up. £55 for a tyre. £50 for the MOT test. I suppose it could have been worse. I made a mental note to borrow C's car for my trip down to Feltham tomorrow.

Roll on the new car.

I check out passport photos...

and.... breathe.

It turns out that the dash down to Peterborough to get a new passport wasn't all that stressful at all. I'd spent much of Friday worrying about whether I had all the relevant bits and pieces. I couldn't imagine anything worse than driving down to Peterborough and being turned away without my passport. I discovered to my horror that in the photos I was planning to use, the ones I had taken for my Glastonbury pre-registration thing the other day, I was wearing a hoodie. I ummed and ahhed for a bit, and then had some more taken. It wasn't just that I was worried that they would reject the photos because the hood was partially obscuring my neck or something... did I really want that as the photo that will follow me around for the next ten years? Probably not.... Also to be on the safe side, I got that upstanding pillar of the local community, Lord Bargain, to witness that it was indeed me in the photos. You only have to do this if you have significantly changed from the photo in your current passport... but I've lost a lot of weight and a fair bit of hair in the last ten years, so I thought it was probably better to be safe than sorry.

My appointment was at ten and I arrived early enough to scout out the Passport Agency and to head back into the market to buy a paper and to have a breakfast baguette and an expresso from the greasy spoon. It was delicious too - all greasy and smothered in brown sauce. I gobbled it down and headed over to the big glass-fronted building over the road from the market. As you might expect, there are quite a lot of quietly desperate looking people hanging around at the Passport Office on a Saturday morning. The first thing that you have to do is to join the queue to be processed by reception, where they check that you have an appointment and they make sure that your passport photos are of the required standard. The guy just in front of me walked up to the desk and handed over four pictures of his kid. The receptionist put them into some sort of "ready reckoner" type affair and looked back up at the guy:

"The eyes aren't in the band"
"What do you mean?"
"I can't accept these photos as the child is sitting too low and the eyes aren't in the middle of the picture. You'll need to get some more photos done."
"But I've driven down from Burton"
"Have you not brought your child with you?"
"No, I brought the photos. Are they definitely not good enough?"
"No. We can't accept them. Were you wanting the passport today?"
"Yes. We're leaving tomorrow."
"If you want the passport today, it needs to be processed before 11am."

Burton is at least an hour away from Peterborough. There was no way this guy was going to be able to do it, and he walked away a defeated man to see if he could work miracles with his phone. Before you feel too sorry for him though, apparently the reason he was in Peterborough today was that he had tried to get the passport done at the London office on Friday and had been rejected because his photos weren't right. Nothing like learning from your mistakes, eh?

Ten minutes later, I had been processed and was just queuing up at the cashier's desk to pay. There were two guys just in front of me and we were on the home straight now. The first guy turns back and says to us:
"Until I have that thing in my hand, I'm not going to believe that everything has worked out"
I smiled, but the other guy shrugged. "You've done the difficult bit. The only way I won't be walking out of here with my passport is if a bomb goes off or something".
At this point he was called up to the cashier and he swaggered over to the counter.
"Can I pay by cheque?"
"Yes. Have you got your cheque guarantee card?"
"Do I need it.....?"

It's not really a happy place, and the air is permeated by the faintest smell of desperation. Mind you, it turns out that the other bloke in the cashier's queue was there for the same reason as me - his passport expires in less than six months and he's travelling on Thursday. I told him that I had found myself in the same boat.
"Oh yes? Are you going anywhere nice?"
"Ecuador"
"Oh really? My wife is from Ecuador!"
We then had a quick conversation about what a lovely country it is and how I really needed to do this and to do that and to eat this and to drink that.... small world, eh? (he was also from Nottingham).

I had been completely processed by 10:15 and set out into the town to kill the four hours before my passport was ready to be picked up. I wandered around browsing camping shops and looking at rucksacks and gaiters and the like, as well as discovering that the local MINI garage had a display model in the shopping centre that I killed 15 minutes having a little play around in before wandering up to have a look at the cathedral. I don't really know why, but I'd never really thought of Peterborough as being the kind of town to have a cathedral at all. Well, they do, and it's a really nice one.

It can date its foundation back as far as 655 AD, is probably the finest Norman cathedral in Britain and can boast things as splendid as a painted wooden ceiling in the nave that dates back to 1230, a thirteenth century west front that has been described as "The most magnificent portico in Europe" and also houses the tomb of Catherine of Aragon and the original resting place of Mary Queen of Scots.

It was quietly and modestly very impressive indeed, and I was reminded all over again how calming I find monumental architecture like this (Nottingham has none). I was in the cathedral when I received the call to go and pick up my passport. I actually stayed on for another 15 minutes just enjoying my surroundings before heading off to collect my passport.

When I picked up my new passport, I saw it had this symbol on the front



It's a biometric passport - it has a little RFID chip in it, and as I discovered from the little machine you can have a play with in the Passport Agency, when it is scanned, it calls up my photo and details from some kind of central database. I understand that when I pass through the USA on my way to Ecuador in March, I will have my fingerprints taken and my retina scanned. I can only assume that this information will probably be added to my database entry, and *pop*, there go my civil liberties.

I don't remember being asked about this.

Anyway. At least I had my passport. I got back to the car, let out a big sigh of relief and started the engine. As I looked into the rearview mirror before reversing, I noticed that my face was covered in odd blotches. I had a closer look.

Ah. Dried brown sauce.

I'm so smooth.