Heimcomputer

Commodore 64 startup screen

Back in April I mentioned that back in 1998 (this sounds recursive) I had stumbled on some VBScript examples on my old Aptiva. In much the same way any opportunity to learn French in school was quashed by the limited scope of phrasebook teaching and the absence of anyone to actually speak to in the language, my exposure to VBScript yielded nothing more than the usual surface familiarity. When the PlaySation 2 launched Sony tried to pass it off as a computer by bundling YABASIC and thereby secure certain tax advantages. I recall the official magazine had a programming column for a short time, but copying the text via controller was as tedious as filling out a form for tax relief. I only bothered trying it once with a program called RAINDROP - still on my memory card, 66KB last edited 13:57 April 7th 2002 - which rendered an effect that looked like raindrops in a puddle. A fairly underwhelming reward for the effort.

Into The Nineties and Beyond

Around this time eight years ago I was sitting my Higher English exam (first of two tries). For the writing segment you're given a booklet with roughly a dozen topic sentences to pick from. I can't remember what topic led me to write an embarrassing China Syndrome knock-off - in fact I'd like to forget it entirely. I disliked it enough that I put an apology at the end. However, in the preliminary exam a few months before, I wrote an A+ story I really wish I had gotten photocopied - it was probably one of the best things I had then written. The topic I chose in that exam was "Write about a time you went to hospital". When I saw it I immediately thought of the time I broke my arm in primary school, but I realised that the topic did not necessarily mean 'write about a time you were admitted to hospital' allowing me some room for genuine on-the-spot creative writing. Soon after I intended to rewrite it from memory (it was a single page at most) for my old website, but I never got round to it and the following is therefore an extremely loose reconstruction. I also can't remember how it ends.

Ask (GA-Slag FAQ)

Two years ago in the GA-Slag Retrospective I wrote about the genesis and development of said site. In this second background feature I've collected some questions about the GA-Slag, addressed some issues, and provided a little background to events depicted in prominent editions.

In One Ear

Don't stop....no pares....., spanishgirl_in_oxford, 2006

The Spelling Bee is a curious Anglophone phenomenon. The idea of spelling out words as an academic competition is unheard of in countries that lack byzantine orthographies. I'm a long time proponent of spelling reform in English and also a long time hater of people who cannot or will not spell correctly. If I have to go back to the start and reread your sentence because you're not bothered about spelling, then I'm not going to read whatever you had to say no matter how interesting or profound it was since you obviously don't care enough to effectively communicate it. Perhaps a reform will come if we embrace the yoof's demotic - a silent letter cull at the expense of some 'sk8r boi' monstrosities and grammatical malformations.

I'll Bet You Five You're Not Alive If You Don't Know His Name (GA-Slag -1)

Seven and a half years ago I had written a satire of the school's Remembrance Day service and constructed a website for it on my NTL webspace. In the retrospective I quoted the original creators (Martin and Stephen) who were originally going to write The GA-Slag about individuals they wanted to have a go at. They abandoned the idea out of fear before I picked it up in November 2002. I can't remember how I got hold of the concept, but I do remember talking to Stephen about covering the service as a piece for his site. We were pissed off about having to attend, so why not entertain ourselves? The original idea was obviously a legal minefield best avoided, or navigated with pseudonyms at least. As I said in the retrospective, slagging people off would have just segregated things even more in fifth and sixth year. By that point most of the really irritating types (the neds) had already left during fourth year.

It occurred to me that there was one character ripe and deserving of abuse I had neglected to write about. One person we could all agree on...

Golden Brown (GA-Slag 0)

It's nearly ten years ago that GA received a very special visitor. Chris Eubank came to the school for all of 15 minutes. To this day I wonder if I was daydreaming in English. It was totally surreal. You think he's eccentric on the tv? Try seeing him on stage.

We were all called into the assembly for a special talk about drugs, m'kay? Chris was promoting a hip new website called Dare to be Different or D2BD as per all the promotional material. The excitement builds as he arrives with his entourage and runs up on stage. Imagine if Dali had been recruited to write a public service announcement.

Ectal 5: Sowing The Seeds of Love

At the start of second year (1999) a new guy, Lee, joined the class from down the coast. The clamour to impress him was embarrassing. I had a good time in 2nd year French with him, but if you want a story that shows how rabid it all was, here's one from Home Ec[onomics].

Ectal 2: Clarissa Explains It All

Being the eldest to my 4 years younger brother, I've always wondered what a big sister would be like - mostly because fictional televisual families have at least a sister if not an elder one.

From the forgotten realms of my memory I remembered a girl 4 or 5 years older than me when I was halfway through primary school. She must have been a monitor (that is, a final year pupil who watches over a class during an indoor break because it's raining). For a year or s0 she looked after me until she moved to secondary school. I only saw her twice afterwards.

Early on in her first year she visited the playground during lunch. A seeming tradition since both schools are only a few minutes walk from each other, and I as well as others have done the same. The final time I saw her I was making my way back at the end of lunch, she said hi but I didn't recognise her. What really irritates me is that I can't remember her name, though I'm sure it started with L. Thank you L.

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Fuck You, I Won't Do What You Tell Me

Such a big event I forgot to write this for the 4th of December.

When a candle burns that bright, it goes out not long after it's lit. Beginning 5 years ago, but active for just 18 months, it was the site that stormed the snack bar and crossed Checkpoint Charlie.

The GA-Slag was not my idea. Nor was my idea the GA-Slag:

I Was Your Fortress You Had To Burn

Picasso, self-portrait (Picasso With Cloak), 1901

As I wrote last July, a lot of my dreams are set in places I haven't been for a long time: primary school, secondary school, and my old house. There may be a subconscious reason for that.

I lived in that fairly-large house from 1991 to July 2000: that's from the age of 5 to 14. Physiologically, that a lot of growing-up. But also consider how a person's personality can change. By the time I had moved into the house I currently reside, I was two weeks into third year.

In plain terms, I was never particularly happy in primary school. From Primary 5 onwards I had a good run of teachers - Mrs Cameron, Ms MacKenzie (maiden name for first few months, although I can't remember what it changed to), and Mrs Fortune - and through those improved last three years I started to become less introverted.

Why Do You Say No? (I Refuse)

I fail to see why I should write at length about something I have verbally demonstrated that I know, and that everyone knows I know - just because the SQA is an inhuman statistical analysis machine, stratifying adolescents into the dysfunctional society their predecessors created. If that doesn't demonstrate education isn't about learning, you really haven't learnt anything.

So I'm supposed to bite my tongue, pass all the subject outcomes, go through uni... and then I can go down the different avenues of thought posed by the regimen topics of formal education.

I just failed Intermediate 2 Modern Studies, but they let me do Higher Modern Studies. I almost passed NC Social Sciences, but they let me do HNC Social Sciences. The teachers at school and the lecturers at college actually know me and my intelligence. The SQA, however, knows me as a 9 digit number with letters assigned by the percentage of correct answers from exams. ie, it does not know me.

"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." – Albert Einstein

Based on a drafts written 20/10/05 and 09/02/06
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