I'm so old
I'm so old (wrinkle, dodder, &c) that my school days were pretty much over and done with before schools allowed you to do projects for exams. This was probably lucky for me, as I was utterly hopeless with anything involving manual dexterity. My attempts at woodwork were so awful that the woodwork teacher told me to expect hate mail from trees. Apparently if I got stones through my windows, that'd be it.

But once, just once, I shone. We had to do a project on Art. Now, I was so bad at art that my previous art teacher made me stop wasting paper, and drove the message home by tearing everything I ever made to shreds. Literally.

I have no art talent at all. None whatsoever. Nada. Me, a pencil and a bit of paper - nope. But this art project was different. It was an essay. Now, as you may have noticed, words are my thing. Need 2,500 words on some random topic? Stand back, while I aim my flow of words. So, I borrowed some art books from the library and set to. To my joy, I think I'd found the book that the teacher had copied his notes from. So, Windows 1.0 Write, and away we go. I copied some different bits, pasted some of my own sheerest bollocks in there, topped and tailed it with some more random gobshite, and whacked it on paper courtesy of my Dad's daisywheel printer.

One weekend's work, and in it goes. Woo, a B. Not too shabby, especially since my presence in an Art classroom made my skin crawl. Job, as the saying has it, done.

I happily told my family about it, and they nodded sagely.

Now, I have a brother. He's the kind of person that you're glad to have on your side. Top bloke. Also, possessed of a somewhat more criminal mind than mine, which was in the year below me at the time. The year comes round, and he has to do an art project. Now, give him a pencil and paper, and he can do things with it that'd make an angel weep. And then need to pop down to Casualty to have the pencil removed again. So, he's there, predicted to do A-level art, knows bucketloads of stuff, and is actually talented.

He searches our Dad's computer, finds my essay, and only bloody hands it in again. He didn't even change it, he just printed it in a different bloody font! And got an A. Gitbucket.

I learned a valuable lesson. Now, I save things on my own hard disks.
(purplegod counting down for Christmas!, Mon 17 Aug 2009, 21:59, 2 replies)

I only got as far as
hate mail from trees and I had to click.
( e.m.m.y. foxtrot uniform charlie kilo india tango, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 9:28, closed)

You're right,
you are good with words... Gitbucket. Pfft.
( gareth_alien will be human again at, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 13:08, closed)