Kate Thompson = prego, good news for her (I assume!) but bad news for Fleetville. Obviously she will be off on maternity leave and won’t be coming back full time any time in the foreseeable future. I was flattered to have 4T ask if I could replace her but unless it is a 4 year pregnancy that seems less than plausible, I suppose at least I have made an impact above and beyond that of other TAs!

I started the year doing something I always vowed I would avoid like the plague: making a new year’s resolution. For me this is quite a big thing, I have never seen the point of limiting improvement to one falsely significant time of year, especially given that it is a practice knowingly perpetuated by a variety of industries to sell their products. However, this year it came at a convenient time of change and decision and seems to be paying dividends. So…what was it? Well I feel a goon expressing it but here goes – ‘to invest as much effort as is convenient in teaching‘

In all honesty I have perhaps overstepped the mark in my efforts: instead of simply investing what time I had I created more by dropping Computing but what harm came of that? Its not like I’m about to miss out on uni seeing as I’m not going and it has been time thoroughly well spent and the subject was becoming dull at very best. The fact of it is I am loving what I am doing and am looking to take on more – yes…it’s Explore time again…

Last time I was a shite candidate, don’t ask me how I made it to an interview as I don’t have a clue. I set myself up for a fall but it was one I am delighted I suffered as it was the catalyst for me to get off my arse and see what I could do. Now I am back a much stronger candidate and, seeing as things aren’t going like shit like they were last time, should be able to deal with rejection if necessary.

That touches on something interesting and quite well documented, me being a depressive cunt. Well, dare I assert that the primary ingredient in all that has been neutralised? In a word, yes. I get rid of Richard and things turn for the better almost instantly – what more evidence do I need?

And on that I must rush to Batchwood, tuttybye

It took great conscious effort to make a decision, the first step being the arduous task of ensuring it was an informed choice. This was most necessary with Kraftwerk but Blur also presented a slight challenge. After this it was a simple matter of time, conscious listening isn’t good for this so casual intake was nescisary.

So…the result! In the end the decision was just as tough as expected. I have the utmost respect for Kraftwerk and love a lot of their music. there is however a lot of crap and it is hardly every-day listening. Queen are good but produced a good deal of average music. The Kaiser Chiefs were eliminated early as were Guns N Roses. Daft Punk were tough to discount but ultimately they aren’t all that talented or pure and inhabit a world dominated by substandard offerings that make their work look good. The Smiths I like, a lot, but ultimately there are better fans out there and I am a plastic. Gorillaz fell early due to be decidedly average and Ian brown’s work pales into insignificance when you allow the words Stone or Roses to enter your mind. As for Radiohead – I am depressive but…no…simply no. As for Abba, good music but it doesn’t come in hetro.

The two serious contenders were, predictably, Blur and The Stone Roses. Two bands of immense talent whose music is a major fixture in my daily routine. Both have some immense songs and picking a favourite track is difficult enough (Made Of Stone vs Coffee & TV at present)

The Stone Roses are lyrically stunning and far more traditional in sound with a basic lineup of Vocalist, Percussionist, Bassist etc etc. Their music is undoubtedly superb. Blur, with Coxon, had a very deep varied sound as a result of Coxon’s incredible ability with a range of instruments. This is very clear in tracks such as Country House, a song with a very ‘big’ sound that is frankly overbearing. Without Coxon the music became more subdued and I feel better. Albarn saw his loss as the death of the band but I feel that Think Tank was their best album by a long way, and it had Parklife to beat! To quote Damon Albarn: “If Coxon won’t return then I’ll be playing guitar but it’ll just be fast, punk songs. Why don’t I get another guitarist? Because there’s none better than Coxon.”

As ever the music is not the only factor here. For starters I have been a fan of Blur longer than I have TSR and I am far more knowledgeable about them. Ask me to name the members of TSR and I am stuck at Reni and Ian Brown. Blur I can reel off as Damon Albarn, Dave Roantree, Graham Coxon and Alex James and I have a database of factoids about the latter.

Both are crap live, TSR due to Ian Brown’s vocal uselessness and Blur due to the fact that Blur cannot be Blur in one go – far too many members are multi-instrumental, Coxon especially. However both were originally really rather good live and have deteriorated over time. Blur’s setup, although not conducive to live performance, does facilitate the production of a great range of music and this is clear when you look at the likes of The Universal alongside Parklife and B.L.U.R.E.M.I

I own more Blur than TSR, but Blur produced 5 more albums! This is something I try not to factor in but I am very aware of how good I am as a fan, how deserving I am, whether I am good enough to be graced by such brilliance.

Ultimately, the music must decide. And, although this would be heavily disputed by many given the chance, Blur win through. The likes of Made Of Stone and Waterfall are incredible pieces of music, I would never doubt that, but Think Tank is an album that will never be surpassed. Nothing by TSR is particularly emotive or moving and the same was true of Blur until that time.

Listen to Battery In Your Leg and try telling me I am wrong

Now to the real business – that video. I have always seen fans telly in the moments before a goal and though they looked total dicks with a hint of meer-cat about them. As we all know if a normal person looks a dick doing something I am bound to take that to the extreme. A camera is on me for all of seven seconds and what do I do in that time? Fall over – classic Bratley. Thankfully I do not have that extended shot used to close the broadcast that shows the true extent of the man-loving, I can however provide the slightly shorter version used during the game – here goes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b2tzuT9DWE&feature=related – final shot of the video, for some reason I am the only person in that section of crowd wearing orange – despicable showing from my fellow fans! Note my surprising levels of agility and the man-loving between me and Jay!

Going back to the matter in hand, the overbearing cuntishness of Liverpool FC, a great deal of my time today has been spent venting my frustrations over what is becoming a major issue. It is heartening to see the support that we as a club are receiving, although it is not exactly directed at us, more at all small clubs in financial difficulty. In a similar vein it is hilarious to see Chelsea being presented as the good guys for once having once donated approximately £35k to a lower-league opponent’s youth setup. I’ve never particularly liked Chelsea – okay I bloody hate them – but I have the utmost respect for them for that gesture. Liverpool could be experiencing that right now but instead opted to infuriate a sizeable number of people and mildly irritate a whole lot more.

I ask once more, what is a 6 figure sum to a Champion’s League side earning 8, maybe 9 figures a year from TV revenue compared to the  £400,000 earned by us League 1 clubs? If the lower leagues are allowed to crumble then it will directly affect the Premiership and this process begins with clubs being allowed to go out of business. We are lucky that it is not something we have seen in the football league in recent years, but below the radar clubs are dropping like flies. Every club that goes out of business will put around 30 players out of work as well as admin staff, match-day staff and coaching staff. At Luton Blackwell has been donating his wages to those players in the earlier stages of their careers who still need a regular income whilst the likes of Gerrard and Torres could retire now and live the millionaire lifestyle for 30 years or more

The Premiership needs some perspective, so we are going out there tomorrow to give them it the only way they understand – with a ball at our feet

If you honestly believe that when I say about being superior to all creation I wholeheartedly mean it then you serve only to prove to me that natural selection needs my assistance in the form of my foot up your arse. The strange thing is that I am actually, properly annoyed due to the simple fact that I would expect those in question to understand this by now. It is a self-evident truth that becomes clear by knowing me for more than three days. For starters I am the most negative person you could ever have the misfortune of meeting when it comes to myself, the major feedback that came from my interview at Explore was that I am incredibly harsh on myself and that was just from an hour of knowing me. Granted it was an hour of talking about myself, but my point still stands

Second of all I am beginning to think that my brain came from a woman as every month, regular as clockwork, I go into a phase of abject depression within which I do nothing but beat myself up over every small detail of my life. In this time it is very clear to see just how my mind works and exactly how I view myself. This is probably the only time I will not hyperbolise every single thing I say, this tendency being another contributory factor to the misinterpretation in question here despite my forewarning. The crux of all this is that the whole superiority thing is essentially a front, a poor one at that, hiding what I really see myself as – I will spare you these details

Right, second of all I do not see how liking Kate Nash makes me an insult to the gene pool – that comes down to other things. I am a hotbed of musical opinion so don’t ever challenge me on the subject as I will shoot you down mercilessly

Third of all Liverpool FC are an insult to football. We ask them to donate their gate receipts to us, a club who will be out of business if we don’t have a buyer by 5PM on Monday, and they fucking refuse. What does £200K mean to them: a club with billionaire owners, a 45,000 seater stadium and a squad worth over 100 million? That is a quarter of the value of our squad! Blackwell recently donated all his Christmas wages to give the squad what he could in return for our recent upturn in form, a squad the normal weekly wages of which amount to about the same as that of Stephen Gerrard alone.

I realise we cannot simply expect big clubs to support us constantly and we don’t, not at all. But when they travel to us for a game they are bound to cruise the least they can do is let us make something out of it. Last time we were just pleased to see them, this time its fucking personal.

Finish A-Levels, sadly needs doing

Find employment as a Teaching Assistant, most likely using contacts at Fleetville. Stay in this profession for as long as I like

Take 2 year foundation course in Learning Support, top this up with the third year of some BEd course or other

From there get my school, or if need be another, to put me through GTP

Finally become and NQT and mould small children in my image

Given a few CVs to local primaries should any TA positions come up, also went along to a few talks on job application, behavioural management etc. The latter was one of the best speeches I have ever heard in terms of the total disregard for political correctness

Apologies for the low quality of this post, in a rush to get it all down before I forget what on Earth my plan is

I have come to realise that the idea of blogging on myspace has one major flaw – myspace, or to be more precise myspace’s inferiority to facebook. My myspace blog was a thing of beauty, however it was at times tainted by some low grade twaddle that was not fully representative of my superiority over much of society. If only I were joking eh?

So, henceforth the balance of genius to ill-formed bullshit shall be favourable at worst, even I cannot hope to hit the mark 100% of the time, especially schould I get onto the subject of the boil upon the breast of humanity that is Oasis

Now for a brief notice:

First of all I love hyperbole, can’t get enough of it. As a result most opinions will be overblown with the aid of a series of sweeping analogies often involving seemingly random subject matter. Please do not assume that when I say I would happily take my own life to end the days of Chris Martin that I would actually do it. Okay, bad example – I would.

Second of all I love to hate, I hate fervently and passionately on a range of subjects. I once made a Room 101 style list and ended up with almost 160 ideas, now narrowed down to 12 by some miracle of decision making and an abundance of ‘free’ time. A few regular subjects: Oasis, Kanye West, Coldplay, America, Richard Allen, Scuderia Ferrari, Watford, Lee Evans, Music Downloading, The North, the Intellectually Inferior and Religion.

Thirdly, as a result of the aforementioned when I like something I tend to go mad for it. The hyperbole kicks in and as a result I contradict myself a great deal, it is a large part of my charm. For example if you ask me what my all-time favourite song is five tiems you will get six answers (Common People, Love Will Tear Us Apart, Mr Blue Sky, The Boy With The Arab Strap, Trouble In The Message Center and Corpses In Their Mouths) Here are a few more regular objects of my adulation: Teaching, Luton Town FC, Ian Brown, Blur, Joy Division, Kraftwerk, Daft Punk, The MP4-22 (an F1 car to you), Minardi, Fun House, Danny Boyle, Trainspotting, My Own Brilliance and my 4-year-old cousin

This is all