A Day In The Life

So this week was my first two days back at college. It would have been more enjoyable if I had had money to garnish the wearisome experience of icebreakers and writing in too-small boxes, incredibly concise answers to questions on the importance of the checks and balances on the US bicameralised federal system or something WHATEVER!

My world consists of thus: catch bus, find seat among elderly persons. Try not to get run over crossing A6, try not to be late to class. Explain to teacher why I'm late to class, find seat amongst young people. Take equipment out of bag, explain to teacher why I don't have the nessecary equipment. Explain to teacher why I haven't done the homework. Escape glares and feeble sarcasmic quips as break comes; navigate way through painfully eager lower-sixth students; most of whom look like they were dragged at breakneck speed through Topman. Fall through door into form too early - it's still a films studies class. Apologise, wait for tutor to come - he forgets and I give up. Walk in canteen; walk out in shame when I find nobody in the canteen. Avoid creepy maths-metalheads (the ultimate recluse's combination), claim a table with friends. Scurry off to class, repeat previous example. Laugh nervously at new teachers awful jokes. Politics is the one subject that shouldn't ever be funny unless the opposition just got ceremoniously executed and you voted for the government. Wait around for twenty minutes for girlfriend; set up camp on a table close to the water fountain in canteen. Say goodbye - promise to text/call/(insert communication preference here) later. Keep head low while walking past Funky Monkey's - with my current cash flow I wouldn't be welcome in there. Asking to open a tab not wise. Wait at bus stop a comfortable distance from phlegm-spewing ruffians. Get on bus, make best efforts to appear unwelcoming so nobody sits next to me. Leap off bus, walk home in rain. Fin.

Now there may be some inaccuracies there; I always do my homework. But the rest of it is true. And the first-years are all taller than me, so I feel like the newcomer. My bus stop is now populated by a group of lads who all look like the proud owners of an ASBO and are well on their way to buying a Renault Clio simply to wrap it around a tree a week later. The old people smell worse than last year, and the Stagecoach drivers have redoubled their contemptual "scum-stare" now I've got a Unirider and therefore don't need cash. "You bastard, how dare you not pay!" their eyes say.

Moving on from the hordes of teenagers who have both stolen my college and are better-looking than me, I was watching the X Factor before, and thinking. Now I always thought that a). It's a crock of shit and b). It's beneath me - but with the addition of the live audience, the auditions are no longer funny unless you're a loyalist. Before, you could hear the ultrastardom-hopefuls' hearts audibly breaking when Simon Cowell told them to commit suicide before he did it for them. Before, Cheryl Cole didn't have to go and touch the plebeian bawlers - now her PR man texts her under the table to go and give the cute ones a hug. The judges used to really let loose on them - no-holds barred insults. But with a cacophany of musically-challenged devotees behind them, as well as the contestants familes waiting in the wings to accost Cowell when he brings their daughter to the point of nervous breakdown ("But it's MY DREAM" weeps Chantelle, 16 from Essex), the judges are pre-empted or shouted down.

The additional fact that the X Factor never had any, or produced any talent whatsoever, that the judges and fans never seem to notice that the winners stay in the charts for a week leading up to christmas and then go back to working in the laundrette - is a given. Reality TV's time in the spotlight is waning. The whole thing has turned from being a bluntly obvious scheme for ITV to monopolise the music world with Mariah Carey lookalikes, to being one massive popularity festival for Kylie's sister, a footballer's wife, and two ageing music producers. Louis' achingly vomit-inducing niceguy act is particularily desperate.

It's all like that scene from Gladiator where Proximo examines his new "stock". Cowell's eyes gleam and his ears pick out some glimmer of a tuneful note. Yes, she has potential. Get me Heat magzine.