The day I met Ian Bell.

Oh yeah people, I have met IAN BELL, even exchanged a few words with my former Nemesis. Former Nemesis? Yes I'll explain all that soon enough... Firstly, let me explain by saying that I went to the twenty20 Warwickshire V Worcestershire (sick of seeing that team) game at Edgbaston in Birmingham. My second time at Edgbaston, not a beauitful ground, more built for purpose, however with it's 25000 seats filled there was a great atmosphere going, I believe a mexican wave went round about four times...Which was silly but quite cool. I did get a tad annoyed with the almost football like members of the crowd, after about four beers they all started chanting really pointless songs 'I'd rather be a bear than a pear...I'd rather be a bear than a pear,' I understand some of that song, the bear being a sort of mascot of Warwickshire or at least there's a bear on the club logo...Pear though? Was it just the thrill of finding a fruit that rhymed?

The game itself was pretty good, convincing enough victory, not going to write in detail about it (see a BBC match report if you want) as I'm going to write for my target audience (revising see..?) and most people who read this thing don't give a shit about the fact I reckon Jonathan Trott was very lucky to not get out after the sixth over...This opinion being backed up by a very large bald man who began chanting 'CHEAT!'

So yeah...After the game me and my brother went round to the players pavillion as the teams were sigining stuff and generally mingling with the crowd, which can I just say now I like to see at cricket matches, it doesn't happen at football games, you can't get anywhere near the players, cricket is different, long may it continue. So eventually me and Campbell spotted the short freckle coated face of Ian Bell, he was standing about 4 meters away when I saw him...I didn't know what to do, go and give the guy a sympathetic hug or throw a sturdy brick? In the end I followed Campell's lead and walked up to him, my brother simply held out a bat to which Ian (yeah I'm on first name terms) signed without comment, I didn't have my bat, I don't know why Campbell did, maybe he thought he was playing? But I did have my 2009 playfair annual, turned to the blank page at the back and just held it out to Ian...I was pretty concerned that by some miracle he reads this blog and knows how much I mock him and would consequently burn my annual in front of my face, he didn't though, using my brothers pen he signed the book in one quick movement...He then looked blankly at me and said...
'Whose pen is that, is that your's?' It sounds quite aggressive, but it wasn't,
'Yeah that's mine, thanks...' I replied quietly, Ian handed me my brother's pen and then just looked me in the eye and nodded...I don't know what that nod was all about, could be a: 'I read your blog, I'm going to kick you in the balls one day' but I prefer to think of it more as a one shit batsman recognising another type of nod, after all I nodded back....

THEN!!! Just to top everything off, I got Ashley Giles's signature, who until 2006 was England's number one spin bowler, played in 3 Ashes series and is now the Warwickshire head coach...No words or nods with him, I did notice though he had these HUGE hands...Shame he couldn't use them to catch Ponting at Adelaide....

That's Giles embarassing an Australian batsman in 2005, good times.

And of course the signatures...

BYE FOLKS!

Tom,
P.S: Oh yeah 'Former Nemesis'...Decided Ian Bell's cool, will find a new blog feature soon enough.

I should be in debt, I really should be.

No I actually should be. I bought this Family Guy does Star Wars A New Hope (which is pretty hilarious) and a Lost series 5 episode from iTunes, I have £2 in my bank account, those two items came to around £14, yet...Everything seems to be ok, I got the receipts by email and unless abbey is just ridonculously slow I haven't been charged at all. Maybe I entered the wrong card number and some poor bloke in Bristol is £14 under, damn I feel bad. Or, the guys at iTunes feel really guilty for all the torment they've put me through and decided to just give me some free stuff, like Santa but real and commercialised...So not like Santa at all, forget that simile.

Everyone is on holiday, well Emily and Simon are...Ok fine that isn't everyone, but I want to go on holiday. Instead I'm made to invent stupid combinations of tennis and volleyball in the garden with Campbell, though actually that game was pretty awesome. I was going to go to Scotland but my cousins came down here instead which is...Ok, I would have preferred to go to up north, but meh, I'll learn to fly or something. I've got time. My cousins are pretty cool, Eleanor just doesn't talk to me but James was pretty impressed with my bowling, though it's hard not to be, I am actually amazing at bowling. Soon the whole world will realise this, or my knee will give way just before the world realises, that would be typical.

I don't know if you can tell but I haven't been doing much revision. I've written a structured timetable for next week though, rewarding myself with smarties for every half an hour, it's a surprisingly efficient system. I love study leave, I love the lie-ins and pasties at lunch, but it just doesn't work... I go downstairs to revise, then that leads me to the fridge, which leads me to the ice cream...And I can't eat and revise so that leads me to the TV, which leads me to the remote, by this time the ice cream has melted and I have to return to the fridge...It's a vicious cycle.
I'm going to see Star Trek on Wednesday though, that should be wicked...Wicked...Does anyone use that word these days? I remember it being quite prominent when I was 7, woah maybe I could start a wicked revolution.

BYE BYE!!!

Tom,
P.S: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH5oRJKTWuc - That's pretty amusing
P.S.S: I'm seeing a twenty20 game tomorrow, WAHEY!! Though it is Worcestershire V Gloucestershire and I am getting a bit sick of seeing those teams play, why does Hampshire have to be so far away...?

WOW.

First things first, I am loving certain aspects of this whole study leave malarkey. No longer do I need to rise myself at ridonculous (must not use that word in English exam tomorrow) hours, I can eat proper food instead of ham and cucumber sandwiches. Maths exam though, shit. Numbers actually frighten me now. I think it's a universal feeling that the exam was AWFUL, so I'm just hoping that's somehow going to alter the national grade boundaries, however I did learn some interesting things about runways, can't deny that. Did waste quite a bit of time with Ollie G trying to find out the nth term for 4 8 15 16 23 42.

Which leads me nicely onto the Lost finale. I mean this when I say it, the best episode they have ever made, there was very little I found annoying about it, it was a touch predictable, but that wasn't a bad thing. At least it wasn't completely obscure like series 2 and Penelope's weird snow station, no I had a feeling that Jack was going to drop the bomb, Juliet was going to die etc...Thank God Ben didn't just turn the corner and find that Jacob was the Honey Monster or something.
Jacob was pretty awesome, I was expecting some grey bearded Gandalf figure but no he was some young bloke in his twenties with excessive stubble. Fair enough.
Even Jack was pretty cool this time, I mean his whole 'look at me I'm action man' style of wielding a 9mm was a bit shit, but it's not like I was expecting him to be any different. The Sawyer and Juliet stuff was mindblowingly sad, the whole Juliet about to fall into the pit of doom, 'I love you James,'...'Don't let go Juliet,' was pretty emotional viewing (SAWYER ACTUALLY CRIED), perhaps a little too sickly, thankfully Sawyer did come out with a 'Where do you think you're going blondie?' Kate was shocking, screwing up everything, 'Oh I can't reach,' yeah of course you can't, you just want to muck up Sawyer and Juliet you bitch, plus she stole a lunchbox in one of the flashbacks, what sort of evil person does that?

Anyway, only one more series to go and I'll know everything...I will know everything. I will.

Tom,

P.S: England won a series!?!!? Wow I hardly had a clue it was even going on.

Rain.

It's funny to think that I was so very close to staying in Portobello, where my last day of year 11 would have been lessons as usual, no dressing up, no yearbooks, no prom. Weird. Yeah reminiscing a bit here...
Today was OK, some people were friendly, others were really not and annoyed me thoroughly, however I plan to block out those people in my life upon my 'fresh start' in sixth form, can't fucking wait. Focusing on this year alone, verrry different from other years, I mean firstly there's the girlfriend (HI EMILY!!!!), I've become friends with people I either hated or spoke very little of. Most notably Brother Seb who I called a 'tree' for quite a large portion of Year 10, was quite weird how we both remember our first ever conversation though, went something like this..
Me to April in history: Who's that new guy?
April: Seb or someone
Me: Looks like a druggy
April: Right
Me (to Seb): Excuse me are you a drug addict or dealer?
Seb: Sorry, no.

Yeah, so not exactly a conversation I suppose. Anyway, he's now turned out to be a ridonculosly good friend. Then there's Ollie G, my Lost buddy, not in the sense that he's lost, that we discuss Lost quite a lot. Of course I can't go without mentioning my tutor buddy for five whole years!!! Virtually every single morning I've spent sitting next to you Simone, you get to know a guy pretty well that way and seeing as we both agreed to continue the tutor buddy thing going into 6th form I'm gonna have to book me some more therapy sessions.

Right, I've mentioned Emily, some new chums, hmmm...Acting now, I hate Drama in so many different ways, the stupid warm up exercises I'm made to endure, for God's sake the bunny game, how fucking pointless. Buuuuut, it's changed me quite a bit, sure I'm still essentially a quiet fairly reserved person, but I've found something I really enjoy...well kind of and as a bonus it's made me much more confident just about stuff. Seriously, after having to engage in a mock wife beating fight in front of a large dollop of parents and a moderator you kinda feel like you can do pretty much anything.

Course been some lows, my Grandad, the loss of all my work, generally failing. That's to be expected though I suppose, everything perfect would be far too weird. My career choice has changed quite frequently this year as well, now I'm just going to be some sort of writer/actor/MP/journalist all rolled into one horrible mess. Then again I'd be fairly pleased with just an office job, not for ever, just for like a year or so, my own little office, that'd be sweet.

Right...I don't know what else to write about, oh the bus stop crew! Me, Campbell, Ewan and if he catches the bus on time Mike. Wow, going to weirdly miss you lot loads, been an honour serving as your elected leader, not sure who's going to replace me now that it's just Ewan and Cam standing there...They'll figure something out, probably through means of that weird sticky plant.

FSDFHSUIDFHSDUIFHSDUIFHSDFUIDHSFUISDFHSDF. Headache.

Tom,
P.S: Accidently read a Lost spoiler, oh God... JACOB FLASHBACKS!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? FUUUUUUUCK.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Angry!!!!!! OK not angry, disappointed. No angry, definitely angry. Endured this gruesome 3 hour trial for the Northleach first team yesterday evening, I have been the second team's best bowler for a while now and a pretty useful batsman. After bowling at large macho people who were half the time trying to kill me, I moved on to various fielding drills...Which were alright, then some batting, I was told to expect a call if I was in for Sunday's game. I did not get that call, this was fine, but LUKE did!?!?!?!? WHAT THE FUCKING HELL???? Of course he took great delight in telling me all about it, literally every word in the phone call was delivered to me with arrogant and pathetic glee. Fine, I admit it I'm jealous, so what?

On the plus, had my last ever Science lesson today and recorded Porn Box, wahey! For any of you who don't know what Porn Box is...erm...Keep it that way. It's not a porno, no it really isn't. Going back down from the high of Porn Box recording, everyone seemed to be rather upset at lunch which in turn made me quite sad/frustrated, I really hope the last day will be a happy day, a sunny one as well would be a bonus. Bad weather conditions could cause some problems in my tug of war team (not mine...the tutor's), will have to talk to my turf analysis expert about this. I might bring in a camera on the last day, suppose that'd be nice, but might be quite annoying, I remember getting really pissed off with cameras when I was leaving St Andrew's.

Going to Cheltenham now, can't quite remember why...

Tom,

P.S: YOU HAVE MY VOTE JAMES!!!!!!!!!
P.S.S: I do remember now, I'm getting a tuxedo, hoorah!

I found myself a Geo-Political Simulator

Yep I have, Commander in Chief 2009, I couldn't really resist buying it yesterday in Game upon reading the caption on the front of the box: 'What would you do if you were Prime Minister?' Unfortunately the game is VERY realistic and VERY annoying, for some bizarre reason Commons had a problem with me invading Portugal and the press tore me apart when they found out I had been making secret deals with some Russian terrorist group, to which I simply responded with a whimpering 'It wasn't me sir, it was Jerry' pointing to my senior advisor who I aptly fired. Yeah, being a good 'give the country free school meals' type of leader is pretty dull to be honest, for a game anyway, thankfully I did find some cheats which allowed me to essentially become a dictator, currently in a bitter war with South Africa, why South Africa? Simply because Europe looked far toooo scary.

Not like this weekend has been all fun and explosions though, no my fuhrer of a mother has regulated the times the Internet is allowed to be on (this being a 2 hour free zone) claiming that it is too much of a distraction for me. I sort of see her point, I start some revision then before long I've bought a classic 50's Morris Minor from eBay and am on a two week cruise to Brazil. However, I think I might just know everything there is to know about module 5, I can quite easily vomit area formula with little effort, even I find that a little scary.

Where are all the people???? Nobody is online and I've spent more than seven hours this weekend in the solitary company of my cat, I think he might evict me from my own room pretty soon. Neeeeeext week might be a little CRAZY (yeah that needed the bold treatment damn it), I suppose it's my last time to tell my teachers I've actually just been nodding my head blankly for more than half a year and have no idea what the hell to revise, seriously I realised yesterday that I had completely cocked up a Drama essay. On Friday I was scribbling away blissfully unaware that I was writing the wrong thing. This coming Friday might be entertaining though, I'm the Head Coach/Motivator of my tutor's tug of war squad, already brainstorming effective ways of pulling rope.
Gosh! I've heard nothing but praise about this Star Trek film, after reading James's blog I was amazed to hear that the audience actually applauded the whole thing when the credits started, WOW! I used to watch Star Trek when I was a wee lad, well my mother did and I remember watching it alongside her questioning nearly everything, then Star Wars came along and sort of destroyed Trek, sorry but lightsabers are just cool.

Anyway I'm going to go enjoy some of this lovely weather,

Tom,
P.S: Ian Bell's back in the team!!!!
P.S.S: Woah...

Annoyed.

Ok after yesterdays emotion I've gone back to ranting, I have had a quite frustrating day.
FSUDGFSDUIGFSDFI...Yeah that's how fucking annoyed I am, firstly and probably least importantly, England - 182-4, am I suprised? No, I'm bloody not. Onions over Harmison, Swann over MONTY, Bersnan over...Well ok seeing as Flintoff's injured that's fine, everything is just going to be downhill with these obscene selections in an Ashes calender year, ASHES, A S H E S.

Moving on, 4 people really badly annoyed me today, one person was deliberately trying to mess up my perfectly functioning head, the other decided to break my computer in ICT, not exactly what I needed.

Yeah...That's it, I'm going to go listen to some happy music now.

Tom,
TOMFACT: I like hula hoops.
P.S: Ok on reflection that seems quite an angry entry, I'm not that bad, just probably exaggerating everything.

Doesn't apple crumble taste great?

I barely have the energy to write this. I've just experienced the usual hell of a first proper net of the new season for Northleach, apart from quite a few people trying to get me out by knocking my ankle out of place it went...Fairly well.

Though this is probably some sort of sign I'm over clingy (I know you don't exactly look kindly on that) but thank you Emily, if my admittedly poor memory and this very blog serves me correctly we did get together on November 5th, which would make today...6 months, so yeah, don't want to go over soppy, but thanks firstly for putting up with me this long, I don't know how you do it, but I really really appreciate it... I should probably be doing this in person shouldn't I?...I failed. I was going to mention it earlier but you were down after Spanish and I didn't think having an emotional fit all over you was such a good plan, sorry, though it might of cheered you up...Failed again I know. I'm probably going to be going mental (more so) for a while (blame the exams), but I'm really looking forward to going to the prom with you and all the time we'll have together after June, I must show you my AMAZING SANDWICH. Ok, going to shut up now, sorry if you found reading all that was a bit cringe worthy...Please don't hate me.

I tried changing the template around on this site yesterday, they all look crap, a request to blogger.com to make better templates please or at least give us the option to make our own. I have now finished all my ICT coursework, well virtually finished, need to polish off a few things like my SODDING ASSETS TABLE. Was really disappointed when I found out that Mr Kempson is leaving at the end of this year, by far the best ICT teacher I've ever had, even if that is mainly just because we spend half the lesson discussing cricket.

Going to have a nice hot bath...
TOMFACT: A car traveling 100 mph would take more than 29 million years to reach the nearest star.

Tom,
P.S: And yes Simon I am still laughing.
P.S.S: I know my title has no relevance to any of this post.

Wow.

I never realised how crappy some of the Corrs stuff actually is. SOME stuff is fine, some stuff makes me want to vomit everywhere, I'm not going to by the way, that's a little bit of an overreaction. At the moment I'm hating 'All the love in the world', I don't have anything against love songs, that's fine, I mean quite a large number of songs have some element of love intertwined, but this is just sickening.

On a more positive note I made the most AMAAAAZING sandwich earlier, really was quite damn great. Erm...What else can I report?? Saw H earlier, bit of a pain as he took over my English revision slot forcing me to move it forward to 8 o'clock. However we did watch a Band of Brothers episode which I suppose is History revision...Kind of...I mean I revised that the Germans were cunning little buggers. GOD ALMIGHTY, far tooooo many of my recent posts contain the word 'revision' what the hell is happening to the world?? I'm completely neglecting my social life, well not neglect, it's turned into more of an unplanned sacrifice, can you ever overdo revision? I wouldn't want stuff like how to walk being pushed out my brain by C4, that would pose a problem.

I watched a scary documentary yesterday, well bits of it, 'Genius kids' or something similar to that title. There was this one 13 year old with an IQ of 170, that's better than Einstein, I really hope those kids go on to cure something or just do something worthwhile with their freakish lives, they better had anyway. If I was in charge, (of the country presumably) I'd lock them all up in a laboratory and simply state to them that they weren't allowed out unless they cured some world disease...Then again they'd probably just combine their geniusness to escape from my poorly built prison. Damn.

WHAT THE HELL AM I WRITING ABOUT?????????????????????????

Tom,
TOMFACT: Did you know that there is a place called Rome on every continent? Well you do know.

P.S: If anyone wants every audio CD for the Narnia series in a nice little wardrobe style case at a modest price, please let me know. Please. It's just sitting there unloved, come on...Someone, if you want to buy it from my ebay account rest assured that it'll get to you 'nicely packaged'.

My favourite character died in Lost's 100th episode.

I hate that show. RIP Daniel Faraday, RIP my theory that it's just a coincidence that all my favourite characters end up getting killed. I knew the Lost writers had a dark evil conspiracy against me.

Tom,

It occurred to me...

During reading Matthew Hoggard's recently published autobiography that something very, very bad has happened. Very bad. Very. Verrrrrrry. VERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRY. Yes...Firstly let me say that Hoggard's autobiography is one of the best cricket books I've ever read, mainly because it's just so damn hillarious, literally a laugh a page and it's not even cricket jokes he just strolls off on random tangents every now and again, for example there was a section of his book lasting 4 pages where he scripted a conversation between his 2 dogs about what they might say about him if they could talk, CRAZY!?!?! Plus he just makes up random words every now and again (like that Inversnaid chap, see I have been revising), I'm not sure if it's just loads of typos, but I'm loving the word: ridonculous.

Anyway, about this verrrry bad thing, this Hoggard bloke was a mighty fine swing bowler, something like 70 games, 340 wickets and at one point he was ranked number four in the world, NUMBER 4!!!! Since when has an ENGLISH bowler been that good??? He was a regular member of the England bowling attack, a key figure in the Ashes 2005 victory. Come the first game in New Zealand, Hoggard was feeling a bit down, his wife was suffering from postnatal depression or something equally depressing, therefore his mind was a bit off, he was bowling a bit wide etc..Well FAIR ENOUGH I say, the woman you love has just given birth and is now feeling shit, you're hardly going to be thinking 'Ah Yes McCullum's batting, must bowl around off stump, he's very strong through the leg side' well I doubt I would be and Hoggard certainly wasn't. It was this point in the book where all the laughter stopped, he described how he felt like crying whenever he bowled but kept it together for the team. Due to his below standard performance in this one game he was dropped for the remaining series, told to go home and spend some time with his wife, Hoggard of course accepted this. His wife Sarah soon turned out to be ok and Hoggard was raring to get back into international cricket, during his absence James Anderson and in particular Stuart Broad took over his place and did a decent job. Hoggard hasn't played since that New Zealand game two years ago.

Like quite a few people out there, Hoggard's absence went unnoticed to me, it was only upon getting his autobiography for my birthday did I think 'O yeah, Hoggy, he was quite good, where'd he go?' The simple fact of the matter is that England dumped him, the ECB described his 'unstable attitude' (and yes that is how they put it) to be an unnecessary work ethic. Never fucking mind this guy was 4TH IN THE WORLD.
Hoggard is still bowling over after over for Yorkshire, still trying to get back into the England team he so badly deserves to be in. The world can be a cruel place.

Yeah...I haven't done a cricket post for a while now, so that was it. IN OTHER NEWS: I wrote a poetry essay today, read a couple of chapters from a different book, stared out my window and condensed my poetry notes, that is actually all I've done today...This summer had better be good to make up for this gurge (that was another made up Hoggard word), I started drafting some bizarre ideas with ANNOYING PERSON on the Drama trip the other day. All we really came up with was making some films, randomly taking a train down to London with a few others and just staying there for no obvious reason for a couple of nights...erm......O yes, that idea except without London and just camping in a randomly selected field, I wasn't too keen on that one but it might be amusing. I have after all got...what 3 months of NOTHINGNESS, I doubt there will be many times in my life where I'll have 3 months of NOTHINGNESS (probably for the best), I plan to make the most of it. Of course if I get ridonculosly bored and everyone ends up hating me for one reason or another (probably due to me telling them repeatedly 'I'm bored') I'll simply conduct my own 'BRING HOGGARD BACK' march...In Northleach.

Tom,
Today's TOMFACT: I don't know if this TOMFACT feature will be permanent, depends if anyone likes the idea of random nuggets of useless probably Lost related information?..........That was a fact. Clearly was.
P.S: BRING BACK THIS ELEPHANT RIDING BOWLER

Where were you when everything was falling apart?

Lyric taken from the Fray's lead single (You Found Me) from their latest album uniquely titled 'The Fray'. I have just recently purchased it, is indeed rather good, at the moment a shade better than their first album, also a bit happier...A bit.
Anywaaaay, I was SUPPOSED to be going to the Cotswold Farm Park today but the person I was going to go with decided to cancel because seeing his girlfriend all weekend for the 9th time in a row is more important, well FINE. So it looks like I'm just going to have to release frustration by spending today bowling cricket balls at people's faces, then revising something presumably important. Admittedly the latter isn't exactly a frustration relieving technique, it is though unfortunately necessary to my Saturday schedule.

Yeah... HINGFY is getting a bit...crapy, it's a shame, but Paul especially seems to be trying far too hard, I know this series is two episodes old but I think I laughed only twice during it's half an hour slot, depressing. Reggie Perrin on the other hand was a minor improvement, I still think Martin Clunes doesn't suit the role all that well, but there were entertaining moments, 'Sorry dear, I ran into an angry farmer who was complaining about me throwing my GPS at his cows.'

Along with the Fray I also bought the Best of The Corrs album, don't really see the logic behind that as I already have most of the Corrs songs, but there you go... Listening to them has its advantages and disadvantages, most of their songs are fairly jubilant which is good, it puts me in a good mood. However, I sometimes like to sing along to happy songs, I can't do this with the Corrs without feeling a bit...weird, here being an example...
It reaches through my skin
And moving from within
It clutches at my breast
Yeah... Sticking on the music front, me and the ANNOYING PERSON I mentioned earlier have planned sometime after the exams to film a music video!!! We both think 'You're beautiful' is a tad shocking, but we've decided to use it as it provides maximum comic effect, not wanting to reveal too much but the woman in the song is so far going to be replaced by a large pie with a felt tip face.

Finally, I'm going to buy a lottery ticket later, 4 8 15 16 23 42 all the way. TOMFACT: Did you know that the closest those numbers have come in a real lottery is: 4 8 15 16 23 24 in the National Irish Lottery two years ago? - Source Wikipedia - Source unreliable.

Tom,