Month: January 2003

here’s a bit of netlore

here’s a bit of netlore for ya ! Apparently this is a genuine univeristy application…..some say Southampton Uni, others say New York uni….does it matter !!! njoy !

What follows is a real, honest-to-god application from a student received by a colleague at Southampton Uni. The really cool thing is, they gave him a place on the course.

3A. ESSAY: In order for the admissions staff of our university to get to know you, the applicant, better, we ask that you answer the following question:

Q: Are there any significant experiences you have had, or accomplishments you have realised, that have helped to define you as a person ?

I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Kenyan refugees, I write award-winning operas, and manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.

I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I had trials with Manchester United, I am the subject of numerous documentaries.

When I’m bored, I build large suspension bridges in my garden. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don’t perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have appeared on Through the Keyhole and won the gold plaque.

Last summer I toured Eastern Europe with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I run the 100m in 9.65 secs. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles.

Children trust me.

I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening.

I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.

I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid.

On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only some vegetables and a Breville Toaster. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in Madrid, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and chess competitions at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis. But I have not yet gone to this University.

OK, here a little newspaper

OK, here a little newspaper clipping I dug up in Melbourne, Australia. The clipping is from a South Melbourne paper and probably dates from the 1880s:

“A veterinary Surgeon who happened to be a member of the School Board, examined a class the other day. The professional man gave the scholars a competitive essay to write. Subject ?The Horse?, ?Prize ? ?A ?tanner??.

The boy who won the sixpence penned out as follows:

?The ors is the noblet of annimales; he knows ow meny beanse make five. Tho he never smok terbakker, he drink beer sometimes, wich show he hav sence. He also make good glue and soup when biled down proper. His leg is four, and one is plast in each korner. When he is stone ded his saddle and bridal is layed on the shelf. If you wants more inflamashun, rite it yerself?.

The headmaster tanned the boy that took the ?tanner? after the examiner had left”.

‘nother cold day, & jeez

‘nother cold day, & jeez is it freezin ! Frost out there, never above zero all day either…..bbrrrrrrrrr

i’ve had the blue danube by Strauss, going through my head all day, not sure why – but it’s kinda nice ! (think of those spaceships floating around at the beginning of 2001 A Space Odyssey !)

lots of bleak predictions about

lots of bleak predictions about the year ahead…. will house prices crash, will there be a war, will the economy nosedive, will there be another terror attack, will it ever stop raining, will oil prices go up, will the stock market crash (again !), will taxes go up, will we enter the euro…etc etc ! One thing is certain – uncertainty…… We just don’t know what lies ahead…which kinda makes it interesting and a bit scary !!!

New Year Capers

oh yes, it’s been both a good and a bad new year’s celebration….the good bit first:

went over to a friend’s house for a dinner do…..good company, good food, good conversation, good wine….a good place to see in the new year. We were out in the garden at midnight sipping champagne and watching the fireworks ! Very nice. I departed at 1.30ish to navigate the night bus system back to tooting where my bro had generously allowed me to kip at his flat while he was away…. Got back around 3ish and crashed out, as you do !

Woke for a leisurely brekky on new year’s morning, picked up a paper, and took it easy with coffee and choc croisants….. Anyway, at 3.00pm I decided to head off and catch my train. I had borrowed a key from my bro which I dutifully laid on the kitchen table before pulling the inner door to his flat closed behind me. When I reached the front door and tried to open it I discovered to my horror that the neighbour in the flat above had double locked the front door and I had no key….doh ! It took a few seconds to dawn on me that I was imprisoned, without a key, in the hallway – stuck between 2 locked doors… Furious hammering on the neighbour’s door produced no response…she was out, away for the rest of the week for all I knew ! I had no key, no means to even try and pick either lock and to cap it all the hall light was on a 60 second timer….so I had to keep hitting the button every minute or so to prevent near darkness…. Jesus was I pissed ! It was so stoopid, unnecessary and ANNOYING ! F*ucking furious – hangover, bit of a cold and now this to cap it all…. What a way to start the year !

Needless to say i rang my bro and explained the situation….”Where are you?”, hoping the answer would be “close by”. He had gone to Oxford with his fiancee for the new year ! We laughed at my incarceration and he said they were on the motorway near High Wycombe and should be there in an hour and half or so…. I had to wait, there was nothing else for me to do !!!! I hunted around looking for something to pick the lock with – you don’t tend to pack locksmith gear, or even a paperclip, in a small overnight bag !!! So I sat and stewed….. The neighbour didn’t show and my bro pulled up just over an hour later to find me sitting in the near darkness in the hall way (I had given up punching the light switch every minute!)…. Fuck that !!!!!

Anyway, we laughed, I swore and we exchanged our new year’s pleasantries, before I set off to the station to catch the train….feeling foolish and telling myself that I will see the funny side….which I have now…. *laughs*

I started reading Michael Moore’s Stupid White Men on the train – so far he has recounted (no pun intended) how George W Bush and the Republicans stole the 2000 Presidential Election from the rightful winner Al Gore….according to Moore they used everything from ballot rigging, fraud and blatant corruption. It all goes back to those dodgy recounts in Florida….where Bush’s brother Jeb is Governor (hmmmm). Moore’s argument is basically that conservative big business took over America with Bush’s election so they could make more money, screw the rest of us and line their own pockets. Even if half of what Moore writes is true then it’s a fuckin shocker. The only thing I would say is Michael Moore doesn’t use footnotes – in other words we don’t know where he got his information and statistics from….I’m inclined to believe his main arguments tho…it’s a good book with a message that is not widely publicised…. I shall read on with interest and no doubt voice my astonishment on these pages !!