It’s been a while. As in 4 months. 4 months since I wrote about how I don’t like French bread. Still don’t.
I get too het up over coffee. I failed General Studies at A-Level by treating the examiner to a page long explanation outlining very clearly the differences between Lattes and Cappuccinos. I didn’t really go into that exam with the right mindset though if I’m being honest. Having a go at he exam board responsible for writing and marking the paper you’re sitting isn’t the best way to go about getting a good mark. I was annoyed because OCR had put both the final Physics and Maths exams the next day so instead of being able to spend time at home revising for them, I had to sit down for two hours and smash out a General Studies exam.
I remember one of the questions was centred around a cartoon about newspapers. In the cartoon, there was a newspaper editor saying something like “let’s not print interesting, relevant and worthwhile stories. Let’s print whatever we can to sell the highest number of copies we possibly can”. We then had to comment on what we thought this picture meant. I can just remember sitting there thinking “hang on a minute OCR, let’s not have a go at newspapers for making money for just printing out paper – over the course of sixth form I’ve spent over £200 on resits and as far as I can make out, that’s all you do for that money!”. Thinking that, fine. Writing it in the OCR exam though… less so.
Some people came out of that exam quite happy with themselves having sneaked in a quote from a film or song. As with all my exams, I like to go the extra mile. To be fair to myself, the whole Latte/Cappuccino bit was at least related to the question. It was about the NHS after all. I think I went from NHS being funded by taxes to tax evaders to Starbucks to.. you get the picture. The paper was titled ‘Making Connections’ though I guess.. Hard to see why I only got 14/100 on that one to be honest.
The only other thing that I’ve been thinking about (hopefully not the only thing.. I am trying to a do a Maths degree right now) these past few months has been the way I still only look about 14. If you worked in a supermarket and asked me for ID when trying to buy a 15 film, you wouldn’t be the first. Or at a cinema in fact. I went to see ‘The World’s End’ the other day (shows how long ago I started writing this – I was in French country at the time) and after selling me an adults ticket at full price, the guy then checked to see if I was more than 3 years younger than I actually am. The best bit about all this for me was that after I handed him my full driving license, he sat for a minute or so trying to work out the date on it.. I’m 14 and I’ve passed my test. Good work mate.
I’ve always looked younger. I used to do shows at the Nuffield theatre (childrens’ chorus in ‘The Wind in the Willows’ and ‘Alice in Wonderland’ – I hit the big time quite young..) until inventing reality TV shows for my Media GCSE had to come first. The way the shows worked was that there were 3 teams of 10 kids; numbered 1-10 in height order. The adult actors would rehearse with a different team at any one team and the team members in the other 2 teams would all have to watch what their opposite number did, take notes and act the same when it was their turn. The ages accepted were 8-14. I was a late bloomer, I joined when I was 14. In The Wind in the Willows, I was the oldest. Older than all of the other 29 kids that did the show. And the number 7 in my team. Basically then, that meant that there were 10 kids taller than I was; all of the 8s, 9s and 10s and then to cap it all, one of the other number 7s..
When Alice in Wonderland rolled around in Easter, I was promoted to a 9. Out of 12. Still a slight promotion though right? There were only 2 teams this time and I was taller than the other number 9, Joel (he was year 6 back then) so there were only 6 taller than me this time. Further still, I was only the second oldest out of everyone. Things were looking up. Still had the usual shocks from the other guys doing the show when it came to the awkward moment of telling them my age. The worst time was when I talking to one of the girls backstage (I think she was still at primary school – it was a while ago though) and she said ‘It’s funny because you’re the same height as Joel but he’s year 6 and you’re year 7!’ I was year 10 at the time.
I guess though, the absence of blogs shows I’m probably getting less annoyed at stuff. I haven’t complained about iPhones in a while or the way companies plague you to death with adverts. I haven’t even had a go at Facebook for some time. Maybe I’m getting better. Although, nothing irritates me more than when someone says to me “you’re too young to drink coffee”..
BenMorgan1995 
How ’bout a short list of what you do like. 🙂