Friday 20^th August

I started reading Introducing Feminism from the library. A photo fell out. It’s of a man in white trousers and no shirt, stood in a living room in front of a brown sofa. There are orange curtains in the background. The photographer has accidentally cut off the man’s head. The man has a massive stiffy! You can see the outline clearly through his trousers. I’m using it as a bookmark.

Mum bought tinned corned beef and Spam home from work today but didn’t buy any sweets. This is poor household management (Jenni’s Mum Pam says household management should be taught at school). Mum denied she is making a long life food cupboard, as recommended by an unhinged guest on Richard and Judy. We already have loads of cheap slightly dented tins.

Saturday 21^st August

I suppose the photographer might have been distracted by the stiffy and so cut the head off the man in the photograph by mistake or maybe she or he only wanted to remember the stiffy. Maybe they didn’t realise the stiffy until they got the photos back from Boots or Truprint or wherever. It’s a mystery as well as a bookmark. When I take the book back I might leave it in, but then it might fall out and the librarian might think it’s mine, or maybe a feminist will borrow the book after me and think it’s a plot by anti-feminists to make feminists look at dicks.

The new Red Hot Chili Pepper’s album Californication is on the Green Man jukebox. Ella likes it. I don’t. It’s slow and bland. It sounds like trying to eat a whole loaf of white bread with no Nutella on. Ella looked different tonight. She said Craig doesn’t like her wearing loads of make-up and a Wonderbra. She is meeting him from work. Lizzie asked her tonight why she is going out with him. Ella said he’s good in bed. She wishes they didn’t work together though. When she was on her break yesterday he said she’s getting fat on pizza and they didn’t speak to each other until the end of the shift. Shot said someone she works with in Woolies asked her out but she said she had a boyfriend and since then he won’t come and help her on the till. Another man keeps making rude comments about her bum when she walks past him. She wants to tell him to fuck off but he’s one of the supervisors. It is hard for women in the workplace according to Introducing Feminism and it seems that in actual life in Reading women are being undermined in the labour force. I wish I knew what to do about this. Maybe I will by the time I’ve finished Introducing Feminism.

Ian, STR and Ryan are having band practice tomorrow. They still need a bass player.

Saturday 14^th August

On Wednesday Shot, Ella, Lizzie, STR and Dazza get their A Level results. Shot already has a job in Woolies and Ella has been working in Pizza Hut for ages so they are the least bothered. Shot has drawn anarchy signs on some of the “A”s in the “Back to School” signs in Woolies. Ella said she is getting bored of eating pizza.

I heard Terrorvision’s “Tequila” at least four times tonight. They don’t sell tequila in the Green Man, Ella asked. Mopey moaned again that they don’t sell absinthe. He claimed tonight that he is a lone wolf. I said “So you won’t be needing an address book or a phone card when you go back to uni?” and everyone laughed. Usually I think of something funny to say two days later. T-Reg said his address book is so full he’s only got spare pages for women whose names begin with O, Q, X, Y and Z. You could see him thinking about the letters of the alphabet while he was speaking.

STR is going to sing in Ian’s band. Ian only needs a bass player now. He tried to persuade me but I’m not ready.

Monday 21^st June

We did the Timewarp in the sixth form common room today. I taught Janine how to do it. She said she felt like school had become cool, like in the Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time” video. Just as I think me and Janine might have stuff in common she always says something that ruins it.

I saw Lizzie briefly just before she had an exam. I tried to help take her mind off being nervous by saying she’d have Jamie and his magic torch to look forward to after. All the year thirteens are spending loads of time bricking it about their exams.

Cleo firmly believes that Lemmy should have been in the Queen’s birthday honours list…

Sunday 13^th June

The Queen has honoured some people because it’s her birthday. She gives medals to people who’ve done useful stuff. She’s picked Trevor McDonald for reading the news and George MacDonald Fraser who writes about horrible Flashman. She has missed Lemmy out again. Barry and I had an argument but we made up. He was grumpy when I got round his house and didn’t seem very pleased to see me. I said he was acting like he’d gone off me. He said he wasn’t. We both sulked. He fell asleep for a bit and I watched his Monty Python video. He apologised when he woke up. He said he was really hungover because he was on a stag do last night.

In this entry Cleo is very much out of her comfort zone of the Green Man rock pub. I think “I nearly spat out my hooch” is a very 1990s sentence…

Saturday 12^th June

Tonight was awful. Instead of going to the Green Man we went to a foam party at RG1s. I almost wish I hadn’t got in. The bouncers said, (loud enough for us and other people to hear) “The Addams Family”, after me, Jenni and Ian walked in. I will never get the image of Ella dancing to Mark Morrison’s “Horny” with a guy she had only just met out of my mind. She was rubbing her arse on his crotch area and when she stopped he had a well obvious stiffy. I nearly spat out my Hooch. Ella is still drinking horrible bloody Marys. She said a tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable. I said tomato should have the decency to taste like a fruit if it’s going to hang around in drinks.

Lex and Mopey came. Lex said Goths like dry ice, but not foam. Ian pretended to be Father Christmas. He asked if I wanted to sit on his knee and tell him what I wanted for Christmas. Sally isn’t out tonight. She has to go for a family meal so she escaped the horrors of RG1s. Mopey is back from uni for the weekend and will soon be back for the summer. He asked Ella if she’s still the main repository for the feckless cum shedders of Berkshire. She asked him if he’s enjoyed getting turned down by a whole new set of women that are too good for him in York. You’d think Mopey could be nice just for one night, it is Ella’s birthday. Then again, she did make us go to RG1s.

We saw horrible Carina Norman who used to be our school bully but none of us spoke to her. When I was queueing for the loo she was there with a girl I don’t know. Carina said “Hi Cleo, have you come to check out some men who actually wash and shave? You must be bored of that fleapit the Green Man by now. I heard it was going to be closed down”. I said “Hi Carina, I’m here for a friend’s birthday, because I’m a good friend, next week I’ll be back in the Green Man with all the lovely hairy bikers”. Then Carina said “Who was that boy band you like? Was it Slayer? I don’t think the DJ will have them so I shouldn’t bother asking”. Then I was about to say something really cutting and clever but there was a free loo so I had a quick wee and ran back to Jenni and Ian. Calling Slayer a boy band is fighting talk but I’m a lover not a fighter.

Ian walked me home. We went on the swings in the park. Then we sat on the grass and blew dandelion clocks. You can tell the time by the number of goes it takes for all the seeds to be blown off. Or you can make a wish. We made wishes. We can’t say what they are or they won’t come true.