Mine

I think I may actually want to marry Charlie Brooker.

I was honestly doing my solid best to not leap headfirst into the frequently touted bandwagon of ‘I hate all students me’. Not wishing to insult any of my friends by saying that but given I know quite a few students and the ones that I actually dislike are in the minority I think it’s a fair comment. This is in spite of working at That Student Pub and coming face to face with overbloated, ‘Snakey-B’ drinking, badly-coiffed rugby players and their high heel toppling followers on a regular basis. My mind was cranked wide open.

This is until last night. Being the night after the media awards I was still hungover by 11pm, as is frequent the older I get, and I decided to go to bed. I closed my window fully expecting the Saturday night party-goers to be a ‘bit noisy’. I was first woken at about 2.30am by a gang of rowdy idiots conducting their own mini festival outside my window. That passed and I quickly returned to my slumber.

THEN it went further wrong. A bit of scene-setting: I have the downstairs front bedroom. In front of our house is some garden putting us about five yards from the street. Outside my window is a very sturdily bolted letting agent sign. I know it’s sturdy because for some time it made noises outside my window and I tried to pull it off. But I failed because it’s very sturdy. At 3.45am some clever sod decided to go into our garden and dangle himself from the sign in an attempt to pull it off. As we do not have double-glazing this naturally scared the living daylights out of me as I woke with a jolt at what sounded like someone trying to push my window pane through (which actually wouldn’t take that much pushing, I would wager).

He continued to yank at it whilst yelling something in protestful merriment to his friend. I laid in bed still recovering from the shock of being woken and scared stiff that he may actually break the window. When I had enough of the presence of mind to put on my glasses and look out the window he was making his way out of the garden in defeat. One of the few things that Charltons letting agent can do is put up sturdy signs.

I imagine the sheer audacity of this cocky shitbag is not lost on anyone. I mean, What The Fuck? Who on this earth does he think he is? Scenerio 1) I am one of the aforementioned high heel toppling rugby followers and currently have a 6’6” boyfriend built like a brick shithouse sleeping away in my bed. I can’t imagine that lad would be seeing his next birthday with both legs left.

Had I had a spare cricket bat to hand I would have gone out there full of rage and literally beaten that rotten little cock-end to pieces. Regardless of the fact I was wearing pyjama bottoms with dancing women on them. I can actually picture the entire bloody experience now but it’s not for me to repeat here.

So to conclude, I have packed my bags and am waiting at the bandwagon stop with my thumb stuck out. Hope there’s a spare seat.

We got to pretend we're posh for an evening. Click it to make it bigger.

It's been a funny few days. Since Thursday I managed to meet the super brilliant Jessica Stevenson in the mighty posh Dorchester hotel in London and not turn into a dribbling mess. The, also rather good, Martin Freeman was there too. Professional business of course. Then today I had an interview for that postgrad course I'd applied to and was told at the end that I had a place. That be the one that's apparently dead good and prestigious and whatnot. So they say, anyway. So for the next five minutes all is well in Catherine Land .....................................................................................................................
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.........................................now I have those two deadlines to get working on. Bugger.

Included in my 'you have an interview' letter for the postgrad was a leaflet about how if you're from an ethnic minority people will be falling over themselves to give you free money. These aren't unusual. The Pearson whatsidoodah from the FT also gives lots of money and work experience to people who are black or something. Well done for them, that must be very nice. I just wish someone was so keen to give me free money. My original ideas of exploiting my girlness by some form of girl-only bursary seems to have fallen flat given my lack of enthusiasm for academia and research. Well boo them.

The main thing that has prompted this train of thought is today's arrival of all this expensive computer stuff in our hallway.



Boy Housemate decided this year that he might be dyslexic and took himself off to the university to find out. Today, a mere one term from his graduation, all this stuff turned up to help him in his plight. Just about every computer gadget you could wish for. Computer, scanner, printer, flat screen monitor, fancy speakers, PDA (complete with portable keyboard), portable electronic dictionary, dictaphone, mic, Microsoft Office, brainstorming software, a stand to hold his bloody book up for him, batteries, spare print cartridges and many more. Not bad for having a bit of a dicky brain.

Now Boy Housemate is one of the most techie whizz types I know. He built his computer and built a fair bit of mine as well. He asked the bloke who brought it round not to bother setting it up as he'd rather do it himself. Then, after he left, started dancing around singing 'eBay! eBay!'. All but the PDA is going to go because he simply doesn't need them.

Fair enough, he has dyslexia. A bit of help is nice. But I can't help but feel massively hard done by for being a white girl whose brain works just fine. I'm shit with numbers, would that help? I'm also a speccy, how about free laser eye surgery as I'm sure it holds me back in some way or another? What if I go to the shops in my glasses at night and some clever sod nicks them then uses my disadvantage to steal everything else I have on my person? Maybe I'll shout 'but I have dyslexia!' and then, realising their mistake, they'll go and pick on a passing athsmatic instead.

The same goes for EMA, student loans, tuition fees, benefits and so forth. It's all well and good if you're at a disadvantage to start with. But I suppose seeing as I wasn't I'll just have to forge my own one and watch everybody else get the hand outs. I am going to wind up with a mountain of debt too, you know. And I do have things wrong with me, just the government hasn't decided to give out free stuff for them yet.

Mummy, why wasn't I born black? With one leg? With a spazzy brain? Why do you have any money?