Excerpts from a 7 year old's diary

Whenever I'm at my mum's, I love raiding through old boxes of photographs, newspaper clippings and school report cards - which are peppered throughout my academic career with brilliant comments like 'still needs to concentrate more', 'easily distracted and willing to distract others' and 'Graeme would get on a lot better if he listened to instruction instead of doing his own thing'

My mammy, always one for sentimentality, has kept basically every useless piece of crap ever written about or by me, which means I often find little insights into my childhood. A few of my recent finds are collected below - if I come across any other nonsense the next time I'm wading through a dusty old box, I'll fire it up.

In Primary 7, we apparently had to write to the local bishop regarding our upcoming confirmation. Here's my correspondence with him:

My mum once started her own business, a family history research company. Whilst she worked on research for her first ever customer, I offered to get in touch with him:

Last but not least, excerpts from my Primary 4 diary, written at the age of 7:

5th September 1994
On Friday I went to the Viking Village but when I got there and it was closed. We had a look around and there was a stall where could win fish. I won a fish. It died on Saturday though. On Sunday my auntie, uncle and wee cousin and June and Eric came. There was a huge cookie for Eric.

‎19th September 1994
On Saturday I went to my Gran's for my Great Grampa's birthday party. My Uncle George came to the birthday party as well. He bought us presents as well. He gave me a computer game and Fiona Aladdin on video. My Uncle George is a great uncle. My cold is still bugging me.

‎21st September 1994
Yesterday we made up a new charity group. We named it CHA - Children Helping Animals. We voted for a committee - a president, a vice president, a secretary and a treasurer. At our first meeting our fundraisers decided on ten ways we could make money.

31st October 1994
On Thursday it will be my birthday. Thomas, Patrick, Louise, Amy, Adam, Gordon, Martyn, Mark, Fiona (and especially me) are coming to my party. And on Saturday I was playing in a football match. If we won we would get medals but we didn't win. In fact we lost 2-1. Patrick scored our goal. After the match my Dad dried my hands with a towel because it was raining and my hands were like blocks of ice. When I got home I had a nice hot bath. After that I went for Gordon. He invited me in to play his newest computer game sonic and knuckles. Half an hour later Fiona came over to tell me I had to go to the boring old shops in Irvine. We had to get a cooker ring. We took my Great Grampa with us. We met one of my neighbours. When we got back we watched The Generation Game. It was good.

‎7th November 1994
On Saturday my Mum asked me, Dad, and Fiona if we wanted to go to the fireworks display or stay and watch television. We all wanted to stay. We watched the Generation Game, Noel edmonds house party and family fortunes. On Sunday we went to the St. Enoch's Centre. I had £29.00 to spend. I bought a new computer game called Rocket knight adventures. When we got home we fed our dog and Fiona's fish then we went to the Ship Inn for our tea.

‎12th December 1994
On Sunday I went for Gordon but they were going to the glen's car park and they asked if I would like to go. I asked my mum if I would be aloud to go and Mum said "yes". After we had went invited me in to watch Turtles III. It was good fun.

‎19th December 1994
On Friday after the panto Mum thought we would be tired. So she went to the Azad video shop and hired Beethoven's 2nd. We took it back after the Christingle service on Sunday. But I saw a Power Rangers video. I've watched it already and it is very good.

9th January 1995
This year my new year resolutions will be. To play my computer for the limited time, tidy up my room and stop eating so many sweets.
NOT!!!

6th February 1995
On Friday after school I started to write an 18 chapter story. Its a bit like fantastic mr fox but there's definately more chapters. It's called a fox's hole and its about a fox's family and a farmer's family who are both enemy's. The chapter I can't wait to do are called double trouble because the farmer's cousin comes and the other one is called the warehouse and weird things happen in that one.

13th February 1995
On Sunday my Aunt Sadie and Uncle Onie came to see us. At dinner time my Uncle Onie made a one pound bet. The bet was that I couldn't eat 10 potatoes in two minutes but I did. And when my friend came I picked up that he didn't like school cause he was thinking what to call a film cause when he grows he wants to be involved in a film crew. Finally he said... the ultimate nightmare film... back to school.

23rd February 1995
On Tuesday Mrs McGough came round to discuss Children's Liturgy Group buisness. Martyn had come to cause there was nobody to look after him. He came round for 5 hours. We played the computer, we drew, we played hide the lion and we played football and tennis. Then I had my dinner then went over for Gordon.

13th March 1995
On Saturday my Uncle George came down. Fiona and I made up our own Radio station. We done it on Fionas Ghetto-blaster because you can record your voice on it if you have a spare tape and you are at least 50cm away from it. Out Radio Station is called GFTV news instead of GMTV and we have Mr Motormouth instead of Mr Motivator. Mr Motormouth is always bragging about his fishing trips. We pretended we were at Silverstone but we were really in my room and playing my Skielekstracks (and we were doing a bit of commentating) then we were at Rugby Park and the match was Kilmarnock vs Aberdeen but we were really in my bedroom playing Subuteo. The Final score was 5-5. After that we done an interview but it was only me putting on voices. We even recorded adverts off the tele.

‎20th March 1995
On Saturday I came out with rashe's all over my arms, back, chest and my legs were covered in rashe's. Fiona and I made up a puppet show with our puppets. All the money raised we are going to send to SCIAF. On Sunday Martyn and I went out on our bikes. Then we had a game of football against his big brother Mark. The teams were me and Martyn vs Mark. He was on his own cause he is 12 years old and me and Martyn are only 8. The final score was 18-13 to me and Martyn. It was a good game.

15th May 1995
On Friday my dad came home from work and said "My friend gave me a tape" his friend had said that it was suitable for us to watch. Later, I snaked into his room and to see what it was. it was The Mask. We watched it and thought it was good. We let Gran and Grampa have a lone of it.

Notes: This is just a selection of the more "interesting" entries, believe it or not. I skipped the ones about my infected elbow, the day my football coach Mr Finnegan told me I was "getting better", my Gran's new extension, and my new slippers. Anne Frank got nothin' on me. Also - I'd love to know what 'Hide the Lion' entailed, and apologies to Roald Dahl for clearly ripping him off.

Page 3 philosophies

So, yeah, it's been a while. Hi.

Thought I'd start back with a wee moan about how every day, the news and media seems to be getting more and more ridiculous, like 'The Day Today' come true. This was Sky News, recently:



A worrying sign of the times when the news makes me laugh! You can just picture Chris Morris now: "Those are the headlines. God, I wish they weren't."

The Sun, never famed for being the most impartial, level-headed or mature newspaper, has recently tried to add a subtle touch of class with a daily philosophical musing; apparently from the mouth of the day's Page 3 babe!



Ridiculous.

I'm sure that's exactly what Sam (25, Manchester) said, somewhere been stripping off and having her nipples tweaked.

This is now a daily feature, so even more so than before, The Sun is worth buying for Page 3 alone. After a quick swatch at the boobs on offer, it's guaranteed to give you a laugh.

This next one was from the Sunday Mail, the day after Kilmarnock had been horsed 3-6 by Inverness Caley Thistle. I was down in England and had (thankfully) missed the game, so wanted to catch up on what I'd missed.

Their Man of the Match choice was interesting to say the least:



A "Great bit of chat" this most certainly is not, but it gave us a good chuckle on the drive home.

This last one isn't an article, but an advert for one of the many PPI companies that hound our every waking moment, insisting that we've been mis-sold payment protection that we didn't want, need or even know about.

Now, as far as celebrity endorsement of a product like this is concerned, I'd think you would want someone famous for managing money - Martin Lewis, the 'money-saving expert' perhaps? Or someone who has done well for themselves - a Duncan Bannatyne, or one of the UK's other famous entrepreneurs?

This company decided the obvious choice was Catchphrase's Roy Walker.



It's good, but it's not right.

I hear Mr. Chips is a debt consolidation expert, mind.

Last but not least, I have to mention the most ridiculous headline of recent times, from that bastion of impartial, top-notch journalism, the Daily Mail. I don't have a screenshot, but I see they've ran with more or less the same headline on their website.

"It's OK to call Susan Boyle a mong"

Fantastic.

"If you've got a history book at home, take it out, throw it in the bin..."