A Scientific Study into Baboons and Teenage Boys

I'm not exactly sure why I have chosen this as today's blog topic, but I'm going to go for it anyway.

Every single day during the school week, I get the bus. The school bus. It caters for my school (an all girls) and a nearby all lads school. The thing that I find funny about all blokes schools is the fact that there is even the audacity to call them schools sometimes. Sure, there's the odd exception, but judging by observation (as that is the most scientific way to do things) most of the guys who go to that school are just baboons in uniforms.

I make my case thus:
Although baboons are mostly vegetarian, they are very opportunistic eaters. They'll eat anything from leaves to insects to fish to small mammals. This is highly comparable with the lads who get my bus. If you handed one of the 'boys' at the back a handful of rat droppings on the premise of 'hey, they could be raisins, and I'll give you a couple of quid' odds are that they'll knock those babies back without a second thought. Teenage boys will eat anything, I have observed this in my own home by watching my older brother graze solidly on the contents of the cupboard in which we keep cake decorations, chopped nuts and spices.

Baboons live in hierarchical groups. It won't come as a surprise when I say that this also applies to the blokes on this school bus.


There's lead idiot- he's the tall one who looks like he spends longer than I do on my hair, yet if at any point anyone questioned his sexuality he'd say something rude and laugh.










Then there's his second in command idiot- this is usually the most idiotic idiot of the idiots. He looks like someone's taken a spade to his face and in the process has caused some serious brain damage.









Then there's the lower idiots, the omega idiots, they basically just laugh along with whatever the others do and make generally sexist comments.





Perhaps the main similarity would be the following information I found on a wildlife website. It states that baboons use vocal expressions extensively. They make grunts, barks and screams- and obviously these are not intelligible to us, which is appropriate as sometimes I wonder if the boys on my bus are even capable of speaking English themselves. I think the only time I've understood them was when they were either a) threatening the younger idiots at the front of the bus with physical violence, or b) discussing sexual positions. I have wondered though, what they mean, and so have imagined a short transcription:

Lead Idiot: Urghha ka! Oocha, oocha, oocha screep! Garumph urk urk ooo!(Look everyone! I can fit my whole foot in my mouth! Are you not impressed seeing as I seem to be talentless in every other field excluding sports, but exceptionally with women?)
Second in Command Idiot: Corugh oocha oocha wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! (That's an amazing feat you're performing there!)
Omega Idiots: Powapowapowa wayyyyyyyy ha ha ha ha urghhh! (We agree, though only because we want to stay friends with you and are scared of being called losers!)


That's just a quick 101 for those who are not yet familiar with teenage boy bus conduct. Moving on, during my study, I came across one difference: baboons reach sexual maturity at 5 to 8 years- it's going to take a hell of a lot longer for the boys on my bus.

Kindly remember that this is all meant jokingly. Of course the lads on my bus aren't really like baboons.

Oh no, they're much worse.

Today's song!

Make A Stranger Smile

Sometimes I find the best way to make yourself smile is to make a stranger smile.
It is for this reason that today's blog contains sugar sachets, an envelope and a sunshine.

I was inspired today by the wonderful Keri Smith (http://www.kerismith.com/) to be a bit creative. So I went to an art gallery, and thought about what I could do to make a stranger smile. Strangers are just ordinary people, like you or I, but there is one thing that separates us- we haven't spoken. We haven't made human contact or interaction. Isn't it a shame that there are so many brilliant people in the world with so many stories to tell and personal quirks that we just let pass us by?

So I was in the cafe, and I had armed myself with several printed pieces of paper- each sporting a cheerful message that looked like this:

(So kind of like cute Ransom Notes?)

And because on some days all it takes to cheer someone up (aka make a stranger smile) is some kind words printed on a little slip of paper that they can keep, or leave or throw away in anger.

I've decided to post them around places, leave them for people to find and just generally try to spread a little cheer. (Of course some of them depend on the reader actually wearing a hat- I'm sort of taking it as a given that they're wearing shoes).

I started with the sugar sachets in the art gallery:

in the hope that someone would look outside and agree.











I like doing little creative things like this. I've got a sketchbook which has pages which look like this:

<An envelope for 'found things'







and...

<I must have doodled this sun about twenty times on a scrap piece of paper before finally deciding to paint it- I'm not sure if I was practising or procrastinating.















In the spirit of the warm fuzzy feeling inside, today's song is:

The OAP Maroon 5 Appreciation Society

Today's blog takes place in a supermarket! And not in a kind of Romantic Comedy, bumping of the trolleys and picking up the same box of shredded wheat type way.

I was in TESCOs yesterday with my Dad and we were playing the 'browse the selection of rubbish CDs and make jokes about how we were definitely going to buy the Jedward album' game. This was going heartily, my dad had just pointed out One Direction's wonderful selection of tracks (coughsarcasmcough) and I was groaning for my entire generation, when suddenly, up waddles this old woman.

Now, a lot of people think I'm exaggerating when I say old. They think I mean old like my parents kind of old. The old that you use on 40th birthdays as a sort of dry joke about reaching the era that is being middle-aged. But I don't. I mean old. She had her glasses on a chain, she had a hunch- a hunch. Her hands shook when she removed them from her trolley.

I now require you to use your imagination for this situation, and whatever is typed, I may ask you to picture the voices of the certain people involved. And just for added fun, I've laid it out in script format, should any TV executives wish to make a dramatised version of this mind-boggling spectacle.

Old Woman: (elderly, shaky voice, typical of Downton Abbey') Excuse me, love (she puts her hand Dad's arm in a grandmotherly fashion) Do you know who the song 'Looks Like Jagger' is by?

Dad looks momentarily taken aback, but expertly hides a smirk and gathers himself. 


Dad: (English, middle-aged cool-Dad type voice) I think you mean 'Moves Like Jagger'?

Old Woman: Oh yes, who sings that?

I bite my lip and stare at a packet of apples in our trolley, trying not to show any emotion. Dad and I exchange looks. 


Dad: (grinning) That's by Maroon 5. (He searches the CDs, picks one out, hands it to her and points to the song on the track listing) Yes, here it is, Moves Like Jagger. (Pause) Can I ask, is it for you, or for someone else?

Old Woman: (Cool as a cucumber) Yes it's for me.  I want to Move Like Jagger. It's for my (voice lowers to a whisper, leans in to my Dad) Zumba class.

Both me and my Dad are at this point seriously trying not to laugh. 


Dad: Well I hope you enjoy it!

Old Woman: Thank you, you're a gem. I'll be flying down these aisles in no time!

Old Woman waddles off at true pensioner speed. We both watch eagerly as she turns the corner and then we burst out laughing. 


Dad: That was brilliant!

Don't you just love people? They are so fantastically barmy that you wonder how the world manages not fall into chaos. Now whether we were set up on some hidden camera show, or whether there is genuinely an OAP Maroon 5 Zumba appreciation society I'll never know. But it made me smile.

So today's song obviously is....

(and you better be picturing elderly women busting moves to it)

Here's to Noah (thanks for the shirt)

Today's blog begins, as they all should, in a second hand vintage store that somewhat resembled a dodgy warehouse converted into a nightclub that I saw in a film/TV show the name of which escapes me.

We're off to a good start.

Have you ever experienced that feeling, when you see something and you think, 'I've just got to have that, and I don't know why'? It could be something completely ludicrous and is often something you don't need, but suddenly your brain goes, 'I don't care how little money you'll have left, or where you're going to keep this, or how you're going to use it, but I'm getting it.'

And so that's how I ended up with a genuine shirt from the uniform of the boy scouts of America.
It has a pocket which looks like this:

And a badge on the sleeve which looks like this:

And a label which looks like this:

And it all got me thinking: who owned this shirt before me? Some all-American, bright faced, 'gee whizz' type kid you see in all the old Boy Scouts posters? Something that I found really interesting was the fact that the shirt didn't have any badges on it. And this made me think that maybe it's never been worn- but then I looked more closely, and just above the right pocket, there is a circle of small dots with loose thread and a darker imprint- clearly where a badge once sat.

I know it's silly, but I like to imagine the previous owner of this shirt as some kind of maverick boy scout. You can get badges for literally anything in the boy scouts of america- my favourites being 'Crime Prevention' (upon looking it up I discovered it encourages the lads to visit a jail or a court hearing), 'fingerprinting', 'nuclear science', 'truck transportation' and 'rifle shooting.' Maybe my boy scout, let's call him Noah (as it is the 23rd most popular name in the US, according to the internet) was kicked out of the patrol? Maybe he was stripped of his badge- I think it would have been something like  'Law' or 'Journalism'  because Noah's just that kind of guy- and sent packing, his shirt somehow reaching me in England?

Maybe he's still out there, putting jam in the other boys' shoes or something.

Here's to Noah! (thanks for the shirt)

Today's song of the day is: