Thursday 17th August 2006.. the day that my A-Level results come out.. so of course the first thing I did in the morning was go and get a whole lot of my hair chopped off, I mean what else does a boy do. I thought that I would treat you readers with the results of this hair surgery. It is a bit shorter than I had been expecting if I am honest but nevertheless I do like it.

After the hair cut I made my way to the school to pick up my results at about 11. At this point I was still not even nervous about it. I went in and picked up my envelope but I refused to open it until someone else I knew got there. Soon enough Matt Tate and Dave came in. We all opened together and BAM!! i had completely messed up, I got a B in politics when I had almost certified an A after 4 modules. I got a C in history which I was expecting really and finally an E in Physics after I had effectively failed the whole second year. But still I was upbeat. Tate was the only one of my mates who appeared to have done at least as well as he was hoping, unfortunately he was pretty much the only one who knew he wasnt going to university this year. All feeling a little bad we left for home quite quickly, most to try and get a universtiy place through the clearing system.

Walking around Wimbledon with Blondie and Matt Bond I was still relatively happy, it wasnt until I had to endure my own company that it really kicked in quite what had happened and how I didnt really know what I would be doing with myself. I got home, told my mum and thus got a bit of a speach of it might not be what you wanted but it is still quite good, well not in physics (little joke to lighten the somber mood). At this point I was quite miserable. As I didnt want to tell anyone mum got the delightful job of ringing round the good news.

My godmother who most of you now will know is the MP gave me a little motivational speech too, but this one wasnt sympathetic. The jist of it was basically you have to get off your arse and start thinking about what you are going to do. She told me to phone up the universities to make sure I couldnt get in and then if I didnt I should start looking for a job straight away even if not a permanent one. Of course after this I went straight back to sitting on the sofa and doing fuck all - excuse my language. But then soon she phoned back and gave me a number that I had to call for Essex and she said that she asked them and that they would let me in with the grades I got. So I called them not really expecting anything.

I talked to a man on the other end, an American, he asked me what I wanted to know and I explained that I hadnt done as well as I had hoped and I was wondering if I could still get a place. Now my biggest surprise came with his reply. "It says down here that you have been given unconditional offers by both Essex and Surrey (my insurance choice). My reaction was.. "really?" and he just replied yes. It was very confusing. After the phone call I went up to the computer and checked the UCAS website and it gave the same information as he did. I had been given unconditional offers.. I had been accepted.

 Unfortunately I havnt just accepted that and gone along with it. I still want my gap year, so I have to make my final decision on what I am doing in the next week or so.

The night that followed was not as big as we had been planning. No big dancy thing in Oceana but a little excursion down to Lloyds in Wimbledon. It was a nice way to end the day I thought. Most of my friends have got into a University through clearing if that is what they wanted and so we all celebrated with a few drinks. From what I saw no one got particularly drunk and we all went home at 12:30ish when it closed. THE END

The next blog will be a tearful and heartfelt goodbye to Ross who is leaving to spend a year in America tomorrow. Although sad it will include the partying before his departure which if I have not told you about already is something quite impressive!!

Not technically my car but it sounded good so i wrote it, ok? Anyway, today I had my first driving lesson and what a jolly occasion it was and the news that you all wanted here.. I didn't crash so everything is good.

At first i was a bit aprehensive of the starting time being 10:30, but its not too early really and to my delight quite a good time to drive as there arent that many cars on the road. I must admit I was a tad nervous at the start but it was ok because i was completely petrified within 10 mins because this is about when i was to get in the drivers seat. Before that he showed me a very nice booklet of how i should be doing things. I was half paying attention, half worrying about crashing.

So when I got behind the wheel, I strapped up, looked in my mirrors, adjusted the seat (which was pointless as the car is too small for me). But then i was off. I dont think i looked to make sure nothing was coming but ah well shit happens. I was driving woooo and apart reving stupidly high at points it was going good. Left turns, Right turns, gear changes ahh life was just peachy. The bit I disliked the most was the roundabout, it tricks the mind that does having to indicate, turn - hold it down, then indicate the other way then turn the other way, madness. I realise all you who read my blog and have passed my test will be laughing at me but I am sure you didnt like it at first its scary computer games dont tend to have roundabouts so my experience was zero. ANYWAY that was the worst bit, I did quite succesfully manage a 3-point-turn which for some reason he made me do before i'd even learnt how to reverse, but I took to it well.

Then I had to go onto the main road to get home, that was at first a bit scary but it turned out to be no worse than any other bit apart from having to wait longer before i could do things. Then I got onto my road, did a nice bit of parking with reversing - not paralel but still harder than the just pulling in i had done previously. I now have a lesson tomorrow, next tuesday and next friday all to look forward to.

 Things to improve:

I only stalled twice in 2 hours which wasnt too bad but still work on that

Breaking more gently although that was coming along by the end

remembering to change gear whilst stopping before a corner

until the next one tarrah

Yes, I move in high circles and so I get to go to a number of great occasions such as this the bi-yearly party of Lord Wahid Ali (the man who created big breakfast and is thus a millionaire). With the title of Lord though you might think that he would be a boring old snob but no he is a fun loving type and thus throws one hell of a party.

The day starts with an annoyingly long 2 and a half hour long coach trip down to the massive house in hastings or at least somewhere near there. This was ok though due to having lovely music playing in my ear the whole time.

We got there a bit early really, nothing had started so the first half hour or so entailed me searching around the massive grounds of the estate, I could tell you what I saw at this point but I want to leave it for a surprise later. Anyway by the time I got back to where I started from the food was beginning to be served and what a selection there was. Either the hot dog/burger option or the posh looking salads and stuff of course being me i had one helping of each before moving onto the legendary chocolate fountain. This is a fountain which flows running ,elted chocolate which you can dip marshmallows and other such treats into, its amazing over the course of the night I visited its bounty a good three or four times.

Now onto the main event of the evening.. the fair ground rides. Yes he rents fair ground rides for his party, there are bumper cars, a merry-go-round, a big wheel, a helter skelter and a big inflatable slide. Me being such a big man I of course went straight for the bumber cars, of couse these rides are all free to go on and have small queues. I must add here that I had already by this point had 2 bottles of lager and so was on the limit of drink driving which in bumper cars is great fun but not to be recommended with real cars. I did over the course of the night sample all of the rides apart from the giant inflatable slide which got punctured quite early and so died.

Then I went back to the first field, got a few more drinks and then started dancing to the live music which happened to be a band called 'simply 80s' and so unsurprisingly they sang a load of 80s covers which was quite fun but could have been better cos i mean if its all 80s where is the macarena..? its non existent and thus its hardly a party.

Throughout tje evening this was the pattern, moving from long stints on the bumper cars, where I steadily became more violent as more alcohol got into my body and unfortunately I am paying for that today due to the huge bruises all over my body and pain in my neck but it was worth it, and then back to the dance floor over the other side. Occasionally stopping off and talking to people. I had a long conversation with a guy called paul who I havnt seen in years and we exchanged drink stories and him having had a year at uni already beat me easily, there were some really quite impressive stories but most too grotesque to put on here.

Now the toilets, you wouldnt think would be one of the highlights but they were amazing. They were hired toilets, portaloos if you will, but no ordinary ones, they were luxury. They had lovely carpets, wallpaper, pictures on the wall, flushing toilets, air freshener it was easily better then most pub toilets ive been in, more like a house toilet, very impressive it was. There I shall end the night because there wasnt much else.

We got back on the coach at about 1:30-2 and proceeded to have a drunk sing a long session for an hour, it was beautiful. All the classics merged into one drunken mush. Despite it all being good, if I were to pick out a few highlights they must be kharma chameleon which was very fast and descended into anarchy and ofcourse bohemian rhapsody with its high notes and complicated rythms it was a complete shambles and hence hilarious. We got home withing 2 hours due to there being no traffic on the roads at such an ungodly hour and went straight to bed.

END