Crucial Pancake Day

I watch this episode of Maid Marian and Her Merry Men every Shrove Tuesday. What an opening sequence for a show, right? :D

A Christmas Joke

In our bon bons, we, like every other user of bon bons, get bad jokes, and read them out to our families. We'd just finished reading out such delights as "Why are fish easy to weigh? Because they have their own scales!" when my brother said something about laughing at a joke about Tiger Woods the other day. My aunt asked him what it was.
And he launched right into it.

"Why is Father Christmas better than Tiger Woods? He stops at three hos"

Cue a gasp and a laugh, and my grandfather asking him to repeat it and then explain it, and my mother being horribly embarrassed. My aunt explained to him, and it went okay but my goodness I wouldn't have been brave enough to tell a dirty joke in front of my grandfather!

We had slightly upmarket bonbons, with such prizes as giant paper clips, round dice, little notebooks, tiny packs of cards, and nail clippers. And jokes on shiny paper. The other day my brother and his girlfriend had a Christmas party with their friends and had jokes like " Why are elephants not small, white and fluffy? Because then they'd be an aspirin".

One day I want to make bonbons with better jokes in them, and perhaps sell them on Etsy.

We also have a tradition where we must cross our arms to pull the bonbons. Fun times! How about you? Do you have any? What was your worst or best joke this year? Any particular traditions?

Merry Bloopy!

One of my favourite shows is Maid Marian and Her Merry Men.

It is a musical, historical, comedy/parody show that I believe is great for all ages. It has Tony Robinson who is currently doing many historical documentary shows like Time Team, but was also Baldrick in Blackadder.

MMMM is a parody of the Robin Hood legends that is saturated in historical anachronisms. Marian is the leader of the gang rather than Robin. But more about that another day.

Since it's almost Christmas I thought I'd share one of my favourite songs from it! Father Bloopy. From the episode "The Big Baby".

The Sheriff is trying to get out trouble for having a parcel stolen by the Merry Men, and so he and the two guards, Gary and Graeme, invent the holiday of 'Bloopy'- which means deliveries can't be made! They get a bit carried away with their invention of it, and invent Father Bloopy, a man who is supposed to bring presents to everyone on Bloopy. The King is outraged- why isn't HE getting any Bloopy presents?? They then invent the 'tradition' that all the villagers must give presents to Father Bloopy (the King in disguise) in order to get a present in return. So they head off to the village to convince everyone (and Robin who happens to be passing) about Father Bloopy and how great he is.

My favourite quotes "And in his stable he has got sixteen hippopotamuses, and he harnesses them to a silver sleigh, cos he doesn't like using buses!"

"He'll climb right down your chimney stack, but if you haven't got one, he'll crawl right out of a radiator valve, unless it's a very hot one, then his hippos will come and smash down your door, and if you've been good he will thrill you! To good girls and boys, he gives presents and toys... but if you've been bad, he will kill you!"

Watch it, and have a Merry Bloopy, everyone!

If you are or were a fan, make sure to join the fanforum! And if you want to watch it, it IS available on dvd! (and much better quality than this video)

Awesome Grammar Quotes

When I 'grow up' and get my own classroom, I want many of these quotes all over the walls!

From Mylifeisaverage

Today at school, I was on my way to english class when I noticed a sign taped to the door. It read: "'Let's eat grandma!' or, 'Let's eat, grandma!' Punctuation saves lives." I laughed for about 10 minutes. MLIA

What are your favourites?

Simple Cadbury Experiment

An experiment that will even get your older kids excited. It can be connected to science, or to Society and Environment, or even Design and Technology.

Materials: Get two different sorts of milk tray chocolate boxes. One has to be Cadbury (make sure you test this out first).

Come into class with the chocolate boxes and announce that we're going to have an experiment, but first... we must eat the chocolate!

Then, give each group of students two containers of warm/almost hot water, and two pieces of the plastic trays- one from each box.

Have them put the piece in the warm water and record the results.

If you have the correct Cadbury one- the Cadbury tray will dissolve and 'melt'! Have them feel the texture. The other will not.

You could then test a few pieces of the cadbury one and different temperatures of water!

Cadbury has made their milk trays biodegradable. You can then discuss with the children why Cadbury might have chosen to do that, and what it would mean for rubbish dumps. What else is biodegradable?

Two Funny Conversations With Kids

There is one boy in my class who is older than the others, and likes pretending he is my peer. And in some cases, 12 year olds *can* be like my peer, depending on the situation. But other times, it's obvious just how innocent (thank goodness! I get worried about these kids) and also unthinking in a childish way he is.

Him: So, Miss [Name] do you have a husband?
Me: Nope, I don't. (thinking "hello, my name is "Miss"!")
Girl 2 years younger than him: Do you have any kids?
Me: No kids, no!
Him: Of *course* she doesn't have kids, girl! She just said she wasn't married!
Me: ... ermm... that doesn't necessarily mean I don't have kids, but I don't have any, no.
*girl gives me this total 'what the hell's up with him look'*


This kid would certainly know unmarried mothers. He'd also know many divorced mothers (therefore, no husband). Yet obviously hasn't connected his thoughts up in his questioning process! Education from Life still needs the comprehension skills I think!


I was in the computing room watching a class while their teacher was out (my mentor was supervising both classes at the same time, and the other student teacher was in our actual class. So no duty of care issues, just in case you were concerned).

I went up to one boy who was playing games and asked

Me: Why aren't you doing your powerpoint presentation?
Him: I don't have one.
Me (conversationally) : Oh? Why's that?
Him: I'm just here on transition.
Me: You came here from another school?
Him: Yeah, [mumbles something that was the name of a school]. It's for kids who're being Extended.
Me:... Extended? What do you mean?
Him: You know, extended!
Me: No, I don't know...
Him: You know, the other type of suspended! One is suspended, the other is extended!
Me: Oh! You mean excluded??


Of course the word I didn't hear was the name of the local school for kids that no other schools will take anymore due to lots and lots of exclusions (being expelled) from schools. They have smaller classes and more security, and try desperately to get them back on track if not just contained.

I still thought that his "starts with an ex, is related to suspended, must be extended" logic was pretty funny.

Sixth Happiest Nation!

Australia is apparently the 6th happiest nation out of 104 nations!

It came in after Finland, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Not bad, since everyone always talks about how great those countries are in terms of economics, democracy, education, health, safety, security, personal freedom, governance and social capital, all things that we apparently came into the top 10 for, and are also indicators of happiness according to the study. We 'lost out' on entrepreneurship and innovation, which the US and UK did best in. But still, pretty good, and we were at 15th place! The survey was apparently done by Legatum Institute, in London.

Canada was 7th, then Holland, USA and New Zealand. It was measured with 79 variables including quality of life.

What do you think about this?

And what's the relevance of the dog? He's a happy Australian Shepherd.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/littlekoshka/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

Hotness of Australian Guys

Are all the guys as hot as Keith Uban? hee, hee
By Ceejay60.

I had to google to see who Keith Urban is. :P Oh yeah, that guy! The one who for some reason looks like Tim Minchin without makeup and shorter hair! (I don't know why I make that connection)

Like all (most? Debate it!) places in the world, there are certainly quite a few hot guys around the place. :P However, most are 'average' looking. But in a good way.
It's weird, but I *have* noticed a slightly different facial structure/attitude/expression on Australian faces vs 'foreign' faces (like the British or Americans). I can often pick out Americans from a group without ever hearing their voice. I can also pick out people from Polish ancestry. Apparently our mixes of races mixed in a different way, and our expressions are somehow different too!
Australia is not a place of hot people, just like any other country, with the possible exception of Sweden. :P (Kidding...) It's an ordinary place.

Has anyone else been able to 'pick' Australians (or other nationalities that are supposed to be from similar stock, such as Americans) from a crowd without hearing them speak?

Have you been to Australia and found a disproportionate percentage of the opposite sex 'hot'?

20 Ways Ordinary People Can Change The World Via The Internet

20 Ways Ordinary People Can Change the World Through the Internet

I was thinking the other day that ordinary people can do so much to change the world without even getting off their computer. So I wrote a list of ways.



1. Create a website that you think needs to be made, or help on someone else’s website.

2. Use websites such as freerice.org and raise money for charity while you play or view. Use bookcrossing.com and share the joy of seeing a book travel around the world. Search for other websites like that. Basically, have interesting and useful fun online.

3. Buy online from people who hand craft items if you can’t shop locally- support local/independent workers rather than corporations or factory machines. Etsy is good for this, but there are others. You’re paying for ethically made items, and for artisan made (often custom made!) items that take hours. You’re getting a bargain. Similarly, buy second hand online, or swap.

4. Link to great sites where you can. You’ll change the owner’s world, and if they really are great, you'll change the life of whoever now has a chance of seeing the link.

5. Comment on or talk about things that are important to you. There’s a lot of chatter on the internet, but the chatter could represent you and your opinions. One drop of water raises the sea. Don’t leave everything to other people and assume someone else will say it, if it really matters.

6. Protest.

7. If you like something you read on a website or a forum, tell them. Compliments can make people happy. There’s real people on the other end of the ‘series of tubes’ that make up the internet. People seem to only take the time to complain.

8. Make someone’s day.

9. Share your CPU cycles to cure diseases, study global warming or explore space. You’re not using your computer all the time, you might as well be part of a super computer system doing research.

10. Give advice. The internet is full of people needing help and advice or a shoulder to lean on temporarily. Or mentor someone.

11. Age does not matter on the internet- use that to your advantage.

12. Reach out to a friend or family member. So, it’s better to call or visit. But where that’s not possible, taking two minutes to send a message online is a very good alternative.

13. Write something profound- a blog entry, article, fanfiction, forum post, it doesn’t matter.

14. Interact with other cultures or thoughts or types of people. Both sides will learn something.

15. Add to the positivity in the world.

16. Find new friends, and then meet in real life with them if possible.

17. Use the internet to find ‘real life’ causes to help.

18. Study. You’ve got a wealth of information at your fingertips.

19. Research or learn better ways of living. If you change, the world changes slightly.

20. Think of other ways to add to this list, then do them.

Digg This List

Image from Flickr.

Adelaide Zoo Orangutan

No one can deny that this Adelaide, South Australia, orangutan is smart. She managed to deliberately short circuit an electric fence with a stick, and was building a mound out of grass and sticks in the ditch in order to get to the second electric fence.

She has been previously known (I saw it) to get into electrified areas of her enclosure (they were being protected to let plants grow) by a complex plan of jumping from trees and down support wires.

This recent escape attempt resulted in the evacuation of the Zoo on Mother's Day.

Ah, I love the Adelaide Zoo!

"This animal has a history of trying to outsmart and be a little bit smarter, and she's an animal which has caused lots of keepers a lot of late hours," he said.

Australia's Prosperity

Prosperity Chart.
ohhh yeah. :D Not entirely unsurprising! I knew we rocked! (as did my friend...)

A Reason To Love Adelaide -Flashmobs

I think I'll post up reasons to love Adelaide every now and then.

Adelaide is a city in South Australia. And it's the only one of any size there. It's also rather isolated. It has over a million people but somehow it does still feel like a small town. And as a result, young people either bitch that it's a boring place, or, they make their own fun. My friend and I are in the 'make your own fun' category.

One of the things that some Adelaideians have come up with, is Flashmob. It's not as if we invented it, but they go and do it every month or so. I've not yet been, it's always been a day that I've had something else on. It's a group of people who are given instructions to do something. And it entertains or confuses people who watch. Yesterday they did something. The instructions I was given was "Meet in Hindmarsh Square, and bring bubble blowing equipment".

I'm not quite sure what they did. But I suppose photos will be up soon.

Other times they've dressed as ninjas and run through Rundle Mall, other times they've made a fake queue outside a shop pretending to wait for an author's signing or a release or something, not quite sure. They've done lots of other things too.