I am three-quarters of the way through writing my final assignment for my Open University degree (this, of course, assumes I pass my final exam, later in October). I have already had my last tutorial - and with the submission of this essay and the aforementioned exam that will be it. Six years after starting - I will at last have my degree - a BA (Hons) in Social Sciences with Social Policy.

I was working in central government when I started down the road to gain this qualification. I was coaxed into doing it by my then manager, a wonderful man, who was ill-suited to his seconded role of management, but who was the most wonderful man - and brilliant thinker. He persuaded four of us to start our degrees. Of the group, to my knowledge, two of us will graduate at the end of this year - the other in Geography if my memory serves me correctly.

I would imagine that to do a degree at any point is hard. If you go at 18, you have the strain of it being the first time away from home, coupled with the money worries that all students seem to moan about. However, doing it later, and keeping your job and your home in-tact - as well as attempting to have a social life - has been hard, just in different ways. If I added up all the time I have spent pouring over books and writing assignments, I’d probably shudder. However, being in the middle of it, I’ve hardly noticed the time tick by - or the money it has cost me.

Obviously, some years have been harder than others. This year’s course hasn’t inspired me as I hoped it would. However, it’s not as bad as the year I studied “Crime and Criminology” with the Nazi tutor, who wouldn’t mark assignments if they didn’t reach her house on the cut-off day. No excuses! The nights I spent driving back and fore there at gone 10 o’clock, to make sure I hit the deadling, racked up as the course went on. It was an interesting course - and I did learn a lot - but the tutor made the whole thing a nightmare.

So, my constant “I’m writing an essay” excuses for not blogging, will soon be replaced by “I’m revising” excuses - and after the 22nd October (and the hangover) you will find the “I can’t be arsed” excuses predominate. I was actually thinking of creating a little space with all my essays on the site - for OU students to pour over (ahem!) and as a little reminder to myself of all the work I’ve done (somewhere around 50 essays in total). However, I’ll have to speak nicely to the “man who can” to see if this is possible..

So, I’ve been outed - I am now officially a short-arse!

(See September 24)

Ah, well, back to put my feet in the manure..

Laugh, I nearly wet myself!

Christmas around the TV will never be quite the same again…

Again, with thanks to Andrew, the extended Kill Bill trailer, whose sexiness I cannot even begin to go into, for fear of making Adrian fret!

Needless to say - book your tickets for the 17th October (UK release date, apparently) NOW!

I know it’s cheating, but I got this earlier today and it made me laugh so hard - and after the morning I’d had, what with the children and the clogged roads and such, that the laughter was like a miracle, breaking over me - I felt I had to share it.

Things I hate about everybody according to Billy….

1. People who point at their wrist while asking for the time….I know where my watch is pal, where the f*ck is yours? Do I point at my crotch when I ask where the toilet is?

2. People who are willing to get off their arse to search the entire room for the TV remote because they refuse to walk to the TV and change the channel manually.

3. When people say “Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too”. F*cking right! What good is a cake if you can’t eat it?

4. When people say “it’s always the last place you look”. Of course it is. Why the f*ck would you keep looking after you’ve found it? Do people do this? Who and where are they?

5. When people say while watching a film “did you see that?”. No tosser, I paid 10 quid to come to the cinema and stare at the f*cking floor.

6. People who ask “Can I ask you a question?”. Didn’t really give me a choice there, did you?

7. When something is ‘new and improved!’. Which is it? If it’s new, then there has never been anything before it. If it’s an improvement, then there must have been something before it.

8. When people say “life is short”. What the f*ck?? Life is the longest damn thing anyone ever f*cking does!! What can you do that’s longer?

9. When you are waiting for the bus and someone asks, “Has the bus come yet?”. If the bus came would I be standing here?

10. People who say things like ‘My eyes aren’t what they used to be’. So what did they used to be? ears, Wellington boots?

11. When you’re eating something and someone asks ‘Is that nice?’ No it’s really revolting - I always eat stuff I hate.

12. People who announce they are going to the toilet. Thanks that’s an image I really didn’t need.

13. McDonalds staff who pretend they don’t understand you unless you insert the ‘Mc’ before the item you are ordering…..It has to be a McChicken Burger, just a Chicken Burger get blank looks. Well I’ll have a McStraw and jam it in your McEyes you f*cking McTosser.

14. When you’re involved in a accident and someone asks ‘are you alright?’ Yes fine thanks, I’ll just pick up my limbs and be off.

All that swearing somehow made me feel so much better!

Yeah, another five footer has emerged on Gert’s poll - Robyn.

I feel somewhat better now it’s not just me propping up all those lanky 6 foot plus people!

So, when I got up this morning, I was all ready to have a rant about Microsoft shutting its chatrooms. This rant was not because I use chatrooms, but I object to the fact that because parents are too moronic to take responsibility for their own children, others have to suffer. There have always been “bad” things in the world, but this cotton wool approach to children is bound to have a detrimental effect in the long run. If you are a neurotic parent, who is convinced that paedophiles are lurking around each and every corner, then by all means, wrap your own child up, never let them leave the house - even though, statistically, its more likely that your child will be abused by someone known to them - and you!

Childhood is a time when you learn about life, whether good or bad. It’s a time when you begin to fathom out who to trust, when to cross the road, how to conduct yourself in public and when you have to pee. However, today’s children are not being given the chance to experience the bad things in life. They are never allowed to cross a road by themselves - and their idiotic parents, when dropping them to school, open the car (or, lets be fair, people-mover) door into the road, allowing little Johnny to jump out into on-coming traffic, they are allowed to behave like little Hitler’s, wherever they are - and I’m pretty sure that Huggies are presently looking to invent pants that register when you have wet them, by paging your mother to come and wipe your arse.

As you can see, then, I was all prepared to rant about Microsoft and the way children are dominating our society. Then I drove to work. Now I want to rant about speed limits - and why on the A-road that used to be 60 miles and hour, I’m suddenly being told to only go at 50! This is causing longer and longer queues every morning. I even tried an alternative route this morning - adding 20 minutes to my drive, becuase I wasn’t the first to think of it! Gave me chance to realise how to end this rant though:

I suggest we start a campaign to reclaim society from the evil dictators of modern life, whether these evil dictators are governments, councils, employers or children. I don’t want other people telling me how to live my life, I’ll make my own decisions.

I am in such a bad mood now - and I haven’t even finished my second coffee of the day!

According to the comments on Gert’s blog, I am fast becoming the shortest blogger! I never thought 5 foot was that short, until now! All these 6 foot 7 inch bloggers, where do they come from? Is the water different over the border? Or were they all just stood in manure as children?

Anyway, if you blog and are under 5 foot, please comment. I’m not sure I want that sort of fame!

The BBC News website is currently looking for the worst ever film. I’m not the greatest film buff in the world - however, even I have a couple of real film raspberries, that left me cold..

Groundhog Day - I started to count the ceiling tiles in the cinema as the Other Half and his Media Mate sat either side of me roaring with laughter. What was I missing?

Star Trek - Nemesis - I fell asleep - I don’t think I need to add anything else!

Wolf - Jack Nicholson werewolf film. I don’t think I was meant to be roaring with laughter - well the looks I was getting sort of suggested I shouldn’t be!

Robin Hood - Men in Tights - Awful, awful, awful….!

These were just the worst films I could be bothered to go to the cinema to see. In the house, a film gets 10 minutes and are switched off if I’m not hooked. I also watch films in stages - the end, middle, then the start, which annoys the Other Half intensely, but works for me.

So - your views welcome - but don’t get me started on the “new” Star Wars films!!

Funny article on the BBC News website today - “Skippy to the Rescue”. The farmers had adopted the kangaroo because it’s mother had been killed, it was blind in one eye and, I kid you not, she thought she was a dog (or so they said on Radio 5 as I was driving to work this morning)!!

How did they know what the kangaroo thought? Was she under a kanga-psychiatrist? Or, was it just the way he sniffed crotches and ate bones?