Thursday 13th December 1984

I thought today was going to be boring. How wrong can I get?

-------

I went into school and told Huw about the writing on the desk. He denied having written "Rach loves Huw". I'm not sure whether I believe him.

Along come Bev, Alison, Helen and Rachel. Rachel tells Huw about the writing on the desk and accuses him of writing it. Turns out Helen wrote the "No she doesn't". I side with Huw and this causes Rachel to turn on me saying "Shut up Robert!" *

Then we all go into the main hall for our English Lit exam. Barnaby tells me I came top in German (a "B" apparently)

Then Mulrooney appears at my desk and tells me that the computers competition** is this lunchtime at ten to 12. This causes much groaning from me cos I didn't know about it *** 

So I did my English Lit exam. I expect I failed because I was under so much pressure and dying for a piss.

When the exam was over at 20 to 12 I rush to the bogs and appear a few moments later very relieved. At this point Mary is giving out Christmas cards and she gives me one from Debbie. This sends me into chaos because I wasn't expecting it. ****

I wait in the lunch hall for Mulrooney to turn up to provide food and carriage to wherever the competition is being held. As I'm about to end the queue for food (10p buys a bread roll) she appears and tells me to go to the Ladies Staffroom where Sean Wallis and a Fourth Former (the others in the Stanwell team) are waiting and eating. I am given two cheese rolls and eat one. 

We all get in her Mini Metro and trundle off towards Cardiff. We pass Cardiff and go onto Newport Road and turn up at a teacher training college ***** We are up against an all girl team from Heathfield House, a Catholic school. Their teacher has a strange purple mark on her cheek. Weird.

We thrash Heathfield 42-20. Simple, it was.

We all go back to school and I go round to Sean's to play games he's written (clever chap!) ******

That took 20 minutes to write. 

Oh I forgot! The competition was only the first round. Second round tomorrow, same time same place.

----------

Brud is acting strangely recently with the video recorder. On Monday I came downstairs to watch TV while I had breakfast and the video was set up to record something on S4C. I look at the set recording times and check in the TV Times and what had been recorded was the "Just Sex" programme and it's on Brud's tape! "Ho ho I wonder what he's up to" I think to myself. So in the afternoon when I had no exams I go to watch the video cos Brud was out, and he had taken the tape to school! *******

So I came down to watch TOTP just now and he's set it up to record. So unless he's in love with a member of the Star Trek cast, he's hoping to record the Madonna video. That was the only reason I was going to watch it anyway!

------

The video wasn't on anyway. Ha ha ha!

------

Footnotes

* Oddly enough I can remember this quite clearly now I think about it. 

** Remember the quiz we won at the start of Book 13? This was us defending our title for a new year.

*** I was going home for lunch and staying home so I didn't have any food on me. 

**** Even though I'd mentioned it in the previous weeks I didn't believe it would really happen.

***** Actually we went to UWIST on Eastern Avenue, it's now Cardiff Metropolitan University. 

****** Sean Wallis was in the year above me, so at this point the Lower Sixth form, alongside my brother. Sean's father Max was a well known Communist which had filtered to his son, and my brother and Sean had frequent political arguments - at this point my brother was a full on Thatcherite with all that implies in the mid 80s. Sean had a Tandy TRS80 and programmed his own games for it, alongside his older brother Steve. They created some well known software for home computers in the mid 80s. Sean is now Principal Research Fellow at University College London specialising in artificial intelligence. Like I said, clever chap. Kind of shows up where Andy and I ended up. Sigh. 

******* According to the Television And Radio Database "Just Sex" was broadcast on Channel 4 on Friday 7th December. But we didn't get C4, we had S4C who obviously showed it a few days later. According to the website of the show's producer it was a six part documentary on sex and sexual mores in Britain. Hmm.