Weekly News Round-Up: 09/09/2018 - Stockholm Edition

Hi guys, how's it going? It's been a while since the last WNR, but heck have we got adventures to tell you about. This week Cap has been to visit Jen in Stockholm; fun and games and intense walking ensue.

Living it up on Wednesday, the duo decided a trip to IKEA was in order so off they went to one of the biggest IKEA stores in the world. Keen to tick off as many Swedish stereotypes in one go, they first went to the IKEA restaurant for meatballs, lingonberry sauce, and a few rather cold peas. After walking around the store and purchasing a rain poncho (also referred to as a Pac in a Mac by Cap), they went for dessert in the shape of a chocolate ball for Cap and an incredibly dense chocolate brownie for Jen. This was the real nail in the coffin as they both power-napped on the journey home. See below for the rain poncho.

On Thursday they went to Skansen, which is the largest open-air museum in the world, complete with Nordic animals and an aquarium featuring fish and monkeys. From her previous visit, Cap recalled meeting a gentleman who seemingly devotes his life to feeding birds and making realistic bird noises. After joking that they might see him again, they did in fact stumble upon the same bird man. This time, he'd branched out to feeding squirrels too.

When taking a break from walking, they observed a little girl with a candy floss bigger than her head. They proceeded to buy drinks, however a pesky wasp fell into Cap's cola, ruining the experience. Continuing their tour, they observed a strong warning from the crocodile enclosure, which can be seen below.

Whilst visiting the farmsteads, Cap made friends with some of the goats by bleating at them. They then observed what appeared to be a goat rap battle between two tribes in different areas.

Friday saw Cap, Jen, and CinnamonAlex (Cap's school mate) visiting the ABBA Museum. It was a truly interactive experience that got them singing, dancing, and dabbing. In the evening, despite a rather loud party taking place downstairs, Cap and Jen decided against going out and instead had a deep conversation about happiness and contentment. All in a day's work.

After around four hours of sleep, they got up to go to Uppsala on Saturday. Uppsala is less than an hour from Stockholm by train, and not just your average train, it was a double-decker.

Upon arrival at Uppsala, they went for a halloumi burger from Burger King; 10/10 would recommend (not sponsored, other burgers available). They also came across a number of other food places that had interesting names, including Bastard Burgers and Rusty Rascals. While exploring, Jen fulfilled her wish of buying a candyfloss at least as tall as her head, saw a number of political balloons floating in the air, and also observed an alternative spelling for 'tuity fruity'. All in all, it was another leg day, but still delightful.

In the evening, they were expecting another party downstairs; in anticipation, they played a rather unsuccessful drinking game of trying to bounce pennies into a mug. For some unknown reason, the party never materialised, so Cap and Jen ended up sat outdoors drinking. After worrying about needing more drinks before the shops closed, they decided to buy some cider which they didn't drink in the end - a clear overestimation of their capacity. After being inspired at the ABBA Museum, they decided to serenade other members of the Sandwich Crew through the medium of video messages. These were received with rave reviews including "Iconic" (ANT), "THIS IS PERFECT" (Sharah), and "Incredible, you should know that I sang along" (Wicks). It was a happy evening that ended with Cap falling out of bed twice (once on each side).

Happy Sunday from Cap and Jen!

Until next time :)

Notes: We are not affiliated with IKEA, Skansen, ABBA Museum, Burger King, Bastard Burgers, or Rusty Rascals.

Weekly News Round-Up #90: 29/03/2015

Hello and welcome, it's been quite a week of planning. This August, Cap, Anya Stark, Wicks and myself will be journeying to Nine Worlds! It's all very exciting, sorting accomodation, planning cosplays and playing out possible scenarios of falling asleep in bath tubs. Apart from that, it's been a relatively quiet week...

Discussion of the Week: You are entering a futuristic colloseum fight with some sort of cyborg tiger. What would be your weapon of choice? You can use anything apart from fire arms, the weapon can have added enhancements, e.g. a sword with a blade that can electrocute a target upon contact, and you will already be skilled in wielding your chosen weapon. What will you choose?

Keeping it short and sweet this week ;p

Until next time.

Weekly News Round-Up #89: 22/03/2015

Good day, my friends! This week's project has been a highly-anticipated one. As we are all mega-fans of the popular CBBC game show Raven, we thought it would be fun to create a spoof version to play ourselves. There was much planning and deciding who would be which symbol, even having to make up 3 extra symbols because we have so many players. Then came the names... Endless anagrams to choose from. Oh, and did I mention that Wicks will be playing Crow, our spin-off titular character? Afterwards we had to hand-pick the challenges that we could possibly create. Despite not having a DT and props department, there's a fair number that we can re-construct, even if they may be slightly simplified. Well, there's a summer project and a half!

During the middle of the week, Wicks managed to produce a true modern masterpiece after adorning the plastic utensils from lunch with leftover gravy, resulting in 'Gravy Fork & Gravy Knife'. Meanwhile, during a Chemistry practical, Slickens managed to singe her fringe a little with a Bunsen burner. Not to worry, thankfully very little damage was done.

In the past few weeks it has become apparent that there have been severe cuts regarding plastic cutlery at lunchtime. Wicks had quite a struggle eating her not-so-bite-size chunks of chicken without the aid of a knife. Hmm, and it's as if inflation only occurs within that canteen.

Until next week, have a good one :)

Weekly News Round-Up #88: 15/03/2015

Hi everyone! This week has been quite an interesting one with much progress in the development of the Shtory...

After the initial chit-chat about writing prediction fictions for the Shtory, we managed to get some more information on the premise of the Shtory from Sharah. Wicks made a start on a background story for her character, whilst Jen had some crazy ideas of some sort of business analogy for the whole system of the Shtory, but finally settled on a series of short stories regarding the history of the family her character is a member of.

During the middle of the week, Sharah, ANT and Jen recall the many memorable 'chick flicks' whilst trying to think of the names of characters, such as Regina George, Rebecca Bloomwood and Luke Brandon. Meanwhile, a combination of mentioning the guy from Princess Diaries who said "I'd gladly take a bullet for you" and Sharah's impression of the pirates in Peter Pan saying "no splash" set Jen off on a 5-minute laughing fit.

Come Friday, it was Red Noce Day, and also time to assemble. Of course, this was the opportunity we have been waiting for, so we had to come as Avengers, complete with DisneyLoverMolly as the Winter Soldier. In a rather rare moment, ArwaChihuahua and Wicks, Loki and Thor repectively, were caught on Cap. Cam getting rather close. On the other hand, Wicks/Thor got hit by her own hammer, I guess none of us saw that one coming. Throughout the day we managed to spot quite a few cool costumes, such as Wadz's Deadpool, the yellow Power Ranger, a handful of Crayola crayons, a banana, Alexis as Harry Potter, Dorothy for The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland and Batman. What a day it was!

Until next week, have a good one :D

Weekly News Round-Up #87: 08/03/2015

Hello, good day, how are you all? We've had a week of planning for various bits and bobs...

Kicking off the week, we took the 'What dragon are you quiz', which was a rather interesting experience. You can find it here: http://www.playbuzz.com/kattw10/what-type-of-dragon-are-you

In our excitement for Sharah's Shtory, we decided that we'd throw down the gauntlet and try to come up with some fan fiction before Sharah herself has written it, hence we thought we'd call them prediction fictions. This lead to quite a bit of digging around for information on the characters, some of which Sharah was a little hesitant to reveal.

Apart from that, there was plenty of prep for the long-awaited non uniform day next Friday for Comic Relief. There was a lot of persuading when it came to getting Slickens to dress up, but we'll see how it goes on the day.

Until next week, have a good one ;)

Weekly News Round-Up #86: 01/03/2015

Welcome to another edition of WNR! A much shorter edition, but still packed with mischief and fun...

At the beginning of the week, ConscienceSarah reminisces and tells all about her Excel movie that she created when she was younger; Pig Bin Baby Hotel. We expressed a great deal of interest to see this title, however it only seems to be playing in very select theatres.

Meanwhile, ANT was not impressed when the canteen decided to start grating the cheese in her favourite cheese salad sandwich, rather than slicing it. When asked why it was an issue, the reply was that grated cheese is much messier and doesn't hold in the sandwich. Fair enough ;p

Onto other movie-related topics, Wicks pitches an idea for a film... Imagine a time-traveller, who is following a trail of clues to some destination, however the clues were put there previously by someone else, who was just out to troll the time-traveller. Or the troll could even be the time-traveller's future self. #TimeTravelTroll

Anyways, that's all for now!

Until next week, have a good one :)

Weekly News Round-Up #85: 21/02/2015

Good day, how d'you do? As you may have gathered, this is quite a special edition of WNR as we will be chatting solely about Wicks' birthday tea party.

I cannot begin to tell you how delightful a gathering it truly was, everyone came in their finery, thankfully not a chimney sweep in sight. There were corsets, top hats, Sharah had a bonnet and ANT had the look of a gentleman down to a T with a walking cane and pocket watch.

After tea, cakes and sandwiches (fillings included cucumber, cream cheese and strawberry), we decided to have a few games, the first being one where everyone stands in a small circle and takes hold of someone else's hand. After wards, the aim is the untangle eachother without letting go of hands.

Next up, we a ladies vs. gents game of 'Who's in the Bag', a game much like Charades, where players must work as a team to guess as many people as possible, within a time limit, from the clues given by a member of the team. One issue that we had was that we knew very few of the people suggested on the cards, which did result in slow progress. At one point, ArwaChihuahua was flinging cards left, right and centre in a bid to find someone to describe!

To end a rather hysterical afternoon, we tried out the Laughing Game. Players must go around in a circle, each time saying either 'ha', 'ho' or 'hee'. If someone laughs or smiles, they are out of the game. Let me tell you one thing, I was completely incapable of going after ANT, in fact there was quite a bit of re-jigging of seats in order to minimise laughter. I know this game doesn't sound particularly funny on paper, but you'll understand when you try playing it.

All in all, I think it be fair to say that we all had a jolly fantastic time. Big thanks to Wicks for having us over.

Weekly News Round-Up #84:15/02/2015

Well, it's me again! Hope you've all had a week filled with wonder, we've had another quiet week, what with people going home at every given opportunity. Neverless, much fun was had by those who remained...

This week, Wicks has been revising for her lifeguard exam, which comes with a handy book providing plenty of information on the likes of first-aid training, legislation and how to effectively look around the pool. She also had a bunch of us help out with demonstrations, which must have looked like some sort of strange dance to the unwary passerby. All in all, Wicks passed the exam, so a big well done and congrats are in order!

Tuesday saw Cap informing Master of possibly the best Google Image search; King of Sweden wearing hats. Take a look for yourselves, some of these hats are truly works of art.

Towards the end of the week, Wicks was counting up her change to buy some Skittles, however she didn't have enough. Kindly, DisneyLoverMolly filled in the gaps and got the Skittles, hence the birth of the PovertySkittles, made to be shared around.

Shortly afterwards, we tried our hardest to grapple for details on the Shtory. It can be confirmed that there is slow but definite progress, with the first draft being re-written. There is no publishing date yet but I'm sure we'll find out in due course. I'll tell you now, it wasn't easy getting information; Slickens has a notebook that is said to contain top secret information regarding characters and plots. Wicks had to snatch it out of her hands and run off with it, however no further knowledge was acquired due to our appreciation for information privacy. We can assure you that we will be the first to report if any news surfaces.

Sharah also shared with us that, whilst looking through a thesaurus, she came across the perfect nickname for herself; Spindleshanks. Got a good ring to it ;p

Until next week, have a good one :)

Weekly News Round-Up #83: 08/02/2015

G'day all! Well it's been a week and a half, or so it feels like it! To my horror I had a full day of lessons on Monday and I have to admit it feels like we've devolved and are no longer built for full days. Brightening up the day, ANT announced that she watched 'Legally Blonde 2'. Naturally, her review of it was something along the lines of "terrible, but still enjoyed it; 7 out of 10!" And who could blame her, you gotta love rom-coms. When discussing the movie, DisneyLoverMolly realised that she didn't remember much of what happened expect for the gay dogs. The conversation took a quick turn as Wicks was reminded of a documentary she'd seen about gay penguins. I fail to remember the exact statistic in a population, but it seemed to be nature's very own birth control, as the gay penguins compensated for their more promiscuous aunts. Well look at that, we've come full circle on evolution and devolution!

In other news, Sharah tells all about the fool in King Lear, but we were all momentarily baffled due to hearing 'fall instead of 'fool'...plot twist? Hmm, I think not. Meanwhile, DLM's English teacher finally answers her email; hurrah! Also, Wicks asks if anyone still remembers the dance to the Time Warp (let's do the time warp agaaain!) since ArwaChihuahua seemed to have no recollection of its existence.

Whilst talking of summer, Sharah told us about her experiences at Gig in the Park when she was younger. The overall impression we got was that Sharah did a lot of venturing out on her own whilst others were a little tedious, for example, the grown-ups feeding the kids tales of killer bees that would sting you if you were loud...likely story. When thinking of things to do in the summer, we thought it might be fun to take a trip to the Isle of Wight inspired by the events in Badger's Day Out. Wouldn't that be delightful.

The week's biggest lunchtime discussion topic was Harry Potter. One major area that we felt Hogwarts could have done better on was protecting students against the Basilisk. Although it seems an impossibly large task, a suggestion was that they could have provided glasses. This lead to quite a funny image being painted in our imaginations; Dumbledore handing out novelty glasses, for example, the ones with a moustache attached to the bottom, perhaps Snape could've had a hot pink cat-eye shaped pair... Anyway, when going through Voldemort's timeline and that location of horcruxes, it appeared to us that Albania proved to be quite the popular tourist destination for Harry Potter characters. And one final question: does Bellatrix love Voldemort? Discuss.

Reaching the middle of the week, ArwaChihuahua and Wicks contemplated going to see Big Hero 6 (according to Wicks there's no connection with Big Hero 1 - 5). When explaining the premise of the film, it was clear that there's some sort of robot school, but not quite anything is related to robots...and enigma it is.

Thursday saw Wicks explaining to us about a rather 'mundane', as she described it, dream, where we were doing some filming in a wonderfully grand house that was situated in the middle of a theme park. Unfortunately Wicks had left some equipment behind but, when trying to re-enter the theme park, ended up having to deal with a rather difficult douchebag of a gatekeeper.

Ending the week, DLM announces that she is addicted to the mobile game Bubblemania. Meanwhile Master got her hair cut, but it took people a little while to realise, due to the deceptive nature of the shorter cut looking like just a shorter layer.

And there you have it, a whistle-stop tour of the events and happenings of the week!

Until next time, have a good one :)

Weekly News Round-Up #82: 01/02/2015

Good day to you all! I hope it's been a pleasant week; we've had a relatively quiet one, with lunchtimes often being sparsely populated. Still never mind, we had fun ;p

The two Molly's got their share of Geography and were introduced to this helpful song about hurricanes, although it is questionable how much this helped...

On the topic of educational songs, Wicks found a song about transition metals, let us point out, in her own time. Although it is a wonderful display of Auto-tune, a particular line is slightly mis-leading, see if you can spot it...

The main lunchtime discussion of the week was regarding the classic story of The Wizard of Oz. Wicks questioned whether the witches are human, Munchkins or their own race. Also, how did they get to Oz? Immigration, plain ol' magic or were they there right from the beginning?

More Chemistry news; Cap could only sigh and look disappointed at an article that announced the discovery of a new type of chemical bonding, namely vibrational bonding. Welp, something else to add to the syllabus.

Until next week, have a fun one ;p

Weekly News Round-Up #81: 25/01/2015

Welcome, one and all, to a brand new year of WNR's! I hope everyone's had a good winter holiday, we only just got back to the Academy this week, meaning we are back to our usual antics...

To kick off the week, ANT found out that she had a surprise 3-day Art mock exam starting from Monday. Of course, she sat through it, only asking for a Polo to 'keep her going' in these difficult times.

During lunchtime, ConscienceSarah tried to prove the point that not everything in the world can be solved using maths. She presented a scenario to Master, with the challenge being to solve the problem with only mathematical methods. Here is a summary of said scenario: you are in an enclosed box with only a rapidly flooding toilet. How does one save oneself from drowning? Dwell on that and comment with any solutions.

Tuesday saw the Chemistry crew getting their mock results back. Everyone did well, but the emphasis was on not peaking too early. Naturally, this lead to us coming up with a string of metaphors for not peaking too early, with Wicks even suggesting, at one point, that if there existed a qualification in the use of metaphors we'd all pass with flying colours, but of course, we can't peak too early on that one either.

As the conversation shifted, Sharah informed us that she watches so much TV that she knows the words to quite a few adverts, including this one for Colman's Shepherd's Pie.

In the middle of the week, Cap and Master had planned to go into town to get Wicks' birthday card, however ended up with a slight problem when Wicks was also on her way to town. They ended up having to leave the birthday girl in the book store with the promise of picking her up when they were done. Whilst browsing the card stores, Cap and Master somehow couldn't resist chuckling at all the 'son' cards; a particular favourite was one that said 'Son, you made it'. They contemplated getting this for Wicks but reasoned that no one else would get the joke. After much consideration and exposure to some of the crazy cards on the market (particularly one with a power pack that had a singing hamster when you opened it up), they settled on a reasonable choice.

On their way back to the Academy, the trio dropped into the local 99p Store, where they found these biscuits. They decided to bring some back for everyone to try.

We loved how the picture of the biscuits is animated.

We were all rather excited when Friday rolled around as that was the party day that we all agreed on. It did however prove to be quite a challenge for all of us to sign the card without Wicks seeing it, but we managed in the end. Come lunchtime we had the present-opening ceremony, which Cap and Master took turns filming (henceforth the creation of CapCam and JenCam). We all contributed towards a group present, which was the 'Thor: The Dark World - Art of the Movie' hardcover book (which we all got a whiff of), Ruby also made a beautiful dragon picture and Cap baked this delicious cake.

Every detail was thought of, including the rolling pin-bashed choc chips in the filling!

To end a fantastic week, even though no one can seem to recall how this conversation started, we had a chat about Voldemort's tendency to honk and also if the actor's family looked at him any differently after the movies. Perhaps people who knew him were unafraid of his character; maybe the kids thought 'Oh, it's just Uncle Ralph' when they saw him as Voldemort.

Anyway, we hope Wicks had a fantastic birthday and wish her another year filled with joy.

Until next week, have a good one ;)

Note: We are not affiliated with Colman's, the 99p Store, Gullón, Marvel or the Harry Potter franchise.

Weekly News Round-Up #80: 21/12/2014

Happy Yule, everyone! It's been such an exciting week for us, you just gotta ove this time of year.

At the beginning of the week, pretty much all of us went into town to get Christmas presents for eachother. Splitting up into pairs, we managed to get te majority of things that we wanted. I'd call that a good day's work.

What was also tremendously exciting was that Arcadia arrived in the post. Of course, we carried on reading and also contemplated perhaps learning it and making a production out of it for next summer. We'll see whether or not we go ahead with that plan.

Come Friday, it was time to exchange and open our presents from eachother. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for my wonderful gifts, it is very kind of y'all.

The year is incomplete unless we have our traditional game of Squares. As usual, ANT and Master were required to concentrate fully on the task at hand. It came down to a pretty close call where there was a particular chain that could make it or break it for both sides. In the end, Master won 57-33. The level of game play was truly astounding, well done to the both of them.

Promptly afterwards, we were ushered down to the astro turf, where the Academy had planned an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the most Christmas crackers pulled at the same time. It took a little bit of setting up, what with trying to get so many people coordinated. In the end, there wasn't much of a countdown and the drone plane cameras managed an appearance before, when we were getting ready, but not when the crackers were pulled. It was a good attempt, but never mind.

After a busy week, we were all invited over to Wicks' for a Yule dinner. We all contributed in some shape or form; Master made a shawarma starter, Wicks, Ruby and Cap prepared the apple and pumpkin curry, Sharah made yellow snow cupcakes (as pictured below) and ShoeLobber brought the sweets.

Santa's making a snow angel to the left

Post-dinner activities included a card game using two decks of cards and plenty of presents wrapped up. Both decks would be shuffled (quite unsuccessfully in or case) and one deck would be dished out to the players.The remaining deck would be given to the Game Master, Wicks, who would take a card from the deck, say the card and whoever has the same card would put down their card and take a present (hearing the name of the card correctly provd to be quite a task for Master). However when all the presents have been taken from the middle of the table, players can take from eachother. This continues until all the cards have been called out. One particular present that we all seemed to be fixated on was an oddly shaped item, at one point described as the 'one present to rule them all, [the] one present to bind them'. In the end, ANT got it and, when unwrapped, she was delighted to find that it was a fridge magnet snow dome featuring a dolphin, which she named Sid (as picture below). For the rest of the evening, ANT seemed totally contented, her and Sid were inseparable.

Sid, the dolphin

Meanwhile, ConscienceSarah wound up with both of the meh presents; some tissues and sponges, which she named Spongebob and Derek. Here they are:

Spongebob and Derek

ArwaChihuahua also got a pretty sweet deal with a children's toy cutlass, which turned out to be multi-purpose as it could also hold a lollipop!

Throughout the evening, we decided to use the cake tin lids to reflect light onto Sharah, creating something along the lines of a spotlight effect. The rest of the time we spent reading Arcadia and listening to pan pipes music. It must be said that we all fell in love with the pan pipes. Some tunes that were particularly enjoyed were a Christmas medley and a wonderfully emotional rendition of 'You Raise Me Up'. The ones that we've linked were particularly appreciated because of the musicians' apparent love for what they do. On a side note, Wicks did experience a jolt back whilst listening, which sent Ruby and Master into fits of laughter.

All in all, a smashing time was had by all. Thank you to Wicks for being a fantastic host and everyone for making it so much fun.

We won't be having a WNR for a few weeks now, but hopefully we'll resume our usual antics on Sunday 25th January. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and wish you all the best in the new year.

Until next year, have a good one :D

Weekly News Round-Up #79: 14/12/2014

Hey y'all, how's it going? Well we've had one hell of a fun week, so let me tell you about it...

Monday saw us hanging out in the library, however we were quite surprised to find that there were quite a few 'real' diamonds just sitting on the table. And we're sure that they're 'real' because they make such a convincing plastic sound when hitting the table.

When we got talking, ConscienceSarah explained to us all that she has a very particular specification when choosing somewhere to live. One aspect was that certain places have what she likes to call 'fluffy bird air', which makes her feel choked up. I'm pretty sure that it is just a psychological thing.... "It's all in you head, Slickens."

Onto other strange conversations, Wicks and Sharah had quite a lengthy discussion about whether the former is the heir of Slytherin. Wicks claimed that she has always been the rightful heir and attempted to prove it by explaining to us how her basilisk watched over her when she was born and Sharah was her sworn enemy. In the end, there were a few minor plot holes, leading us to believe that Wicks is not the heir...or is she?

Following on from that conversation, ArwaChihuahua and Wicks showed us the play script that they found in their maths classroom. I think it must be noted that the first line of the photocopy was most capable of grabbing a reader's attention. It was Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. We were quite intrigued and decided to conduct a table read, casting most, if not all, of us as various characters. After being so utterly impressed by what we'd read we decided to continue reading, so Wicks speedily bought a copy online. We'll keep you updated when it arrives.

In the middle of the week, Sharah conducted a study on highlighters and how different people would order them. It proved to be highly interesting, with a large variety of results. This study will be published on this blog hopefully on Christmas Day. You won't want to miss it.

This week has also proved to be quite revolutionary for Master, in terms of style choices. She rocked up one day in a rather chunky scarf that dropped hairs everywhere and was initially uncomfortable with how exactly to wear it. Thankfully, the discovery phase was over and lead into the Tumnus phase. The Tumnus look is, of course, heavily inspired by the Narnia character of the same name; you literally take one end of the scarf and throw the other end around your shoulder, making sure not to scarf slap someone in the throwing process. There you have it. Simple, classic, statement.

As the weekend rolled around, we all went to ANT's for a screening of Elf, which was preceeded by some good ol' Mario Kart. Let me tell you now, Master was utterly terrible because she'd never played Mario Kart on the Wii. Thankfully, ConscienceSarah took her under her wing and guided her throughout the trials. Boy does Sharah have a competitive streak when it comes to Mario Kart, wow.

When we finally tore ourselves away from Mario Kart, we watched Elf. It was agreed pretty early on that any plot holes in the movie, such as the CGI, the Clausometer, etc. can be fully justified simply by the sheer amount of Christmas spirit. What a heart-warming tale it is.

To top it all off, we had plenty of pizza and ANT's fantastic reindeer cake pops, as pictured below. Delightful!

ANT's fantastic reindeer cake pops!

Until next week, have a good one :)

Note: We are not affiliated with Hogwarts, Tom Stoppard, Narnia, Nintendo, or the creators of Elf.

Weekly News Round-Up #78: 07/12/2014

Hi guys, hope you're all well! We've had quite an average week just going abouts our business, but here are a few highlights.

To start off the week, we had a jolly good game of 'Heads Up' at breaktime. It proved that our knowledge of American celebrities isn't actually as good as we believed it to be.

Later on, we got onto the conversation topic of toilets and Cap explained to us that, at her old school, they used to lock the toilets. After contemplating the possible issues with this plan, for example, if someone was to be sick, this was a natural cue for that line '...and they were running and vomiting'. That old chestnut.

It seems that Academy just loves Christmas. They managed to get a massive tree which took an afternoon for the caretakers to put up. Of course, they had to cut bits off and flatten the bottom of the trunk, but what did they do with the all the extras? Well, they just stuck them behind pillars and in the old fire place. Beautiful. One of the caretakers also made a joke about putting your login details on the slice of the log they'd cut. Whatta joker. Afterwards, we questioned whether it would be such a good idea to put it up so early, not to mention in the hottest room in the House. The next morning, when we came in, the room was all decorated, with beads and lights on the tree and stars around the room, even though some were placed upside down...questionable.

In the middle of the week, DisneyLoverMolly and Master set out to conduct an interview about the Academy's Wi-Fi. We contemplated acting as if we were internet noobs and using archaic language, but ultimately opted against it. When writing it up, it because clear that what we'd originally labelled as an informative piece had become somewhat more of the comedy genre. Never mind, I'm sure people have a good sense of humour.

One trend that Wicks and Master have taken to recently is speaking in a Northern accent, in particular Doncasterish, which Master has deemed incredibly infectious. It seems that she is now trying to get out of the habit of using this accent, however it may be questioned how successful her attempts will be.

Towards the end of the week, Wicks had an idea for a new year's resolution; we could become ninjas. No joke, we could work on strength, stealth and endurance to become warriors of a sort. We'll keep you posted on whether or not this goes ahead.

Until next week, have a good one ;p

Note: We are not affiliated with the mobile application Heads Up.

Weekly News Round-Up #77: 30/11/2014

Good day to you all, how are you? Well what a week it's been for us all over here, I'll cut the intro short and just jump right into it.

Kicking off the week, we started on quite a quirky note; I can't be sure how we got onto this topic, but somewhere along the way Wicks came up with the idea of a children's book titled 'The Rude Mug', which would tell of the trials and tribulations of the mug owner and possibly how the mug might spit in your tea... Welp, moving along.

Wednesday saw ConscienceSarah thinking that she could possibly encounter a middle age crisis in the future. She predicted that, with her current 'a chocolate brownie a day' mentality, she could end up putting on a considerable amount of weight. This lead to an in-depth discussion about muffins, Sharah possibly waking up one morning, realising she had put on weight over night, and also how weight gain doesn't quite happen over such a short space of time. Wicks eventually suggested that if Sharah became a famous author and put on a few pounds, she would most likely hear about it from the tabloids first, perhaps DLM's future newspaper?

On that same day, Master also shared her Tumblr philosophy, stating "if I see a post, then it was meant to be, there's a reason why I saw it." To settle the confusion, I'll explain; because of the sheer volume of posts on Master's news feed, she thinks that there must be some sort of universal reason for her to see the posts that she sees. It can be terrifyingly unpredictable when Master thinks too hard.

Towards the end of the week, Wicks brought in a bumper box of Family Circle biscuits that she'd bought at a bargain price of £2. It was also revealed that ANT is probably the only person ever to have a particular liking for plain shortbread biscuits. We also noticed that there was some false advertising on the packaging as a particular shortbread round appeared on the box, but was not included in the selection. Adding to the current number of biscuits, Cap brought in her home made Smarties biscuits, which tasted fantastic! In other biscuit-related news, Wicks told us about her favourite 'Malted Milk' cow biscuits, which we had all forgotten about until that conversation. To round off this biscuit business, Cap and Sharah talked about fun family circle activities, such as writing down facts about ourselves, mixing them up and seeing if we can guess who wrote the fact.We'll see if we ever get round to trying it out ;p

Winding down on the working week, Master went into town to get some cookies and also a pack of Frazzles for ANT. When ANT got round to paying Master, they ended up fighting over who kept the 5 pence change (incoveniently made up of a 1p coin and two tuppence pieces) as none of them wanted the extra change. Master attempted to convince ANT that it was Black Friday, meaning that ANT should take the money, but ultimately it came down to a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, where Master triumphed and ANT had to keep the change.

The main event of the week was ConscienceSarah's dance show, which we went to see on Saturday. It was a sequel to Alice in Wonderland, titled 'Malice in Wonderland', which we all enjoyed very much, and perhaps even more so, in the second half, after consuming the mega marshmallows during the interval. Preceeding its straight-to-DVD release, we have an exclusive excerpt from a review by Localville's very own entertainment magazine, Total Bilm:

"Malice in Wonderland was a tremendously exciting production. We were particularly impressed with the diversity of cast members, from the young ones to the Dance Nans, who all performed exceptionally whilst having to cope with a rather slippy floor. Over-looking the odd slip, trip and the kid facing the wrong way, it was outstanding, even though we did spot a member of the principal cast chatting away in a particular scene.

Apart from the fantastic plot and routines, we also loved the costumes, even if they always wanted to become detached (looking at you, glitter hats and the rabbit tail). There were some very interesting pieces that the talking flowers got to wear, the lily and the poppy were particularly memorable. Also, props to the guys doing ballet, although next time he could have a longer gown to wear over his tights?

The main aspect of the production that let it down was the use of technology; there were often very long pauses when the tech team were preparing for scenes, the microphones could still be heard even when they were not supposed to be and I should hope that there was a warning of intense sustained periods of flashing lights for anyone with epilepsy. Anyway, we should still applaud the Dance Dads, who were unapologetically undisguised and in charge of clearing the stage and setting things up.

All in all, a good time was had by all. A particular highlight was Colin Slickens' performance as the Red Queen. I'm positive that he will be a strong contender for this year's 'Best Performance' and 'Skiver' award. In the end, we couldn't help but clap along the 'Shake It Off' and 'On Top of the World' as the performers took their final bow. A massive well done goes out to everyone."

What a great night, even though there's always one that cries at the end and doesn't want to go back on stage. On the way back home, our very own harsh reviewer ANTdeemed it worthy of 12 out of 10 stars. I think that speaks for itself.

Until next week, have a good one :D

NOTE: We are not affiliated with the following brands and people: Tumblr, Family Circle, Smarties, Malted Milk Biscuits, Frazzles, Taylor Swift, Imagine Dragons.

DISCLAIMER: Total Bilm is a fictional magazine created solely for the purpose of entertainment and comedy.

Weekly News Round-Up #76: 23/11/2014

Hello, one and all! I hope your week has been a jolly good one, it's been quite hectic for us but here's a little summary of events...

The main event this week was the Academy's history production, which Cap, Wicks, DisneyLoverMolly, Sharah and Master were involved in. Before the performance on the opening night, the crew had a considerable amount of time to kill, so they agreed on a game of Hide & Seek. Master decided to be the seeker, but it was even more difficult than she had previously anticipated. Master only found DLM by accident when she walked out of a room. From then on, the duo had much trouble trying to track down Wicks and Cap. In the end, Wicks revealed that she had been behind the door to the main room all along, whilst Cap settled for a toilet cubicle.

By the time they had all revelaed themselves from their hide-outs, they were all pretty hungry. After the events of the previous week, when they got pizza, a team had offered to go and get them from town. This did take a little longer than expected, with everyone tucking in the second they arrived. Cap and Wicks particularly enjoyed their 'Meateor', which they claimed was well worth the wait.

In other news, Cap shared with us a dream that she had, which included us all getting jobs as the people who dress up as characters in Disneyland. This prompted a conversation further exploring the possible benefits and drawback to the job, but overall the conclusion was that it would be pretty awesome to work there, maybe not for too long though.

Until next week, have a good one ;p

Weekly News Round-Up #75: 16/11/2014

Hello, one and all! I hope you've had a good week; it's been a slightly hectic one for us, but nevertheless fun. Got a few stories to share, let's jump to it!

From her trip to Paris, Cap very kindly brought back some lollipops for us all! But, of course, you'd be a fool to think they were just your ordinary 'pops, there were a variety of flavours, such as banana (why aren't more things banana flavoured?), cherry and candy floss (sugar-flavoured sugar...makes sense). A big thanks to Cap for thinking of us! Here's a pick of my banana lollipop:

Paris 'pops from Cap. :)

In the middle of the week, we made paper planes out of a pile of papers on the lunch table. Naturally, this turned into a battle of sorts, no teams, just every man for themself. Then came the plot twist, when Master decided to make a boat, that was quickly transformed into a Peter Pan hat, or the typical air stewardess hat, when worn at the correct angle.

Thursday saw ArwaChihuahua and Wicks in the library, where they found a rather interesting book that explained the history behind English surnames. It was most interesting and we just couldn't resist looking up the meanings behind everyone's names. Guess who we found...

On the same day, Master was most surprised to find that the local comic book shop actually had the most recent stock! This called for a quick buy, not taking any chances because some titles seem to fly off the shelves. As always, they were still missing the ones that were supposed to come over a month ago, but never mind. Onwards and upwards...

With the history production coming up next week, Thursday evening called for another rehearsal, followed by a performance at an assembly. Wicks and ConscienceSarah were both obliged to stay, as they were, respectively, the lead singer and part of the band. The turn-out for backing singers was borderline poor, with only Oski Bear and Master staying. To keep spirits up, they ordered a pizza, an altogether new phone call experience for all. Master was nominated to be the phone spokesperson and was even provided with a loose script of what to say. It took slightly longer than expected to arrive, along with a few complications of trying to explain the address. As a consequence, Wicks, Oski Bear and Master ended up waiting outside for what felt like a very long time, trying to spot potential cars. All's well that ends well, the guy finally rocked up and we got our meal!

By the time we had to perform, we'd all tried to stop drinking Coca-Cola. Overall, it went really well; Oski Bear did start one chorus too early, but by the time Master joined it seemed like we meant for it to be in canon. Well done to all, and remember, canon is the way to go ;p

Until next week, have a good one ;)

Weekly News Round-Up #74: 26/10/2014

Good day, everyone! I hope you've all had a smashing week, I can safely say that it's been a fantastic one for all of us over here ;p

As you may already know, this week's main event was the Sandwich Crew away day on Friday, which consisted of a LARP (Live Action Role-Play) team building exercise, hosted by the one and only Simon Wicks.

Of course, the first challenge of putting on such an event is finding a suitable location. Fortunately we are situated near a park, which just happens to be the perfect setting. As Master seems to like ringing people up on the ol' 'tele-mobile', Wicks tasked her with contacting the park 'Rangers', as they so like to call themselves. I think it's safe to say that the call didn't necessarily go well the first time, when they happened to be absent. The second time, someone picked up, but were quick to inform Master that they were new to the office and couldn't provide much information, instead opting to take Master's name, with much difficulty, and call her back later. As they say, third time lucky; they managed to call back before the end of lunchtime and it was confirmed that we didn't have to book the area to use it. What a hassle for nothing!

As Friday rolled around, we were all rather excited however it was a shame that DisneyLoverMolly had to drop out due to family commitments. I must mention that the weather was most kind to us; having been forecasted as heavy rain for the duration of the event, we were instead treated to a fair amount of cloud, which gave the perfect atmosphere for the setting. It was only when we were on our way home that it got drizzly.

Through the whirlwind of events, there were some stand-out moments, such as ArwaChihuahua accidentally stepping on her bag and bursting the bag of crisps that she had inside, Sharah's character attempting to revive Wicks' character, a rather peculiar ritual, and somehow Cap and Master always ended up playing dead on the ground. Along the way, we managed to spot a large group of Nordic hikers roaming through the park, and also confused the heck out of some locals who were having lunch at the café during a 'zombie chase/attack'.

All in all, a jolly good time was had by everyone. To read the full synopsis of events, check out the official LARP report.

Aside from Friday, we experienced a few changes to the lunch hall this week, such as the table arrangement seeming to be rotated by 90°. Also, a few of us reported a strange food option that was offered, consisting of a sausage just sitting on top of a slice of pizza. How usual...

Anyway, until next week, have a good one ;)

Weekly News Round-Up #73: 19/10/2014

Hello, one and all! I hope your week has been delightful as always, we've got a few anecdotes to share, so we'll just jump right into it...

To kick off the week, we were considering the use of currency symbols in the names of hister businesses. Master took a particular liking to J€N CORP (J€NT€RPRI$€$ just seems over the top).

Tuesday saw the group discussing a rather unusual news story. ArwaChihuahua brought up the case of the dolphin that fell in love with a woman. I think it's fair to say that after that little chat we were all in a silent agreement to quit talking about dolphins for a while.

Alongside the dolphin discussion, ConscienceSarah was having a rather nice time looking through the [Insert paint brand] wall paint colour charts. She finds that the names of the colours are quite unique and often make a wonderful description for certain features of characters in the Shtory, which is currently still in the development process. Bear with us, it will be completed.

During the middle of the week, Sharah had a most remarkable packed lunch, which was fittingly named 'Harry Pita'. Take a look for yourself...

Harry Pita...the bread who lived...

Thursday afternoon was also quite interesting, if I do say so myself.

Sharah proved to be a little jittery and ended up jumping a mile high when the Head of Upper Academy came over and talked to us. According to Sharah, he 'just popped out of nowhere.'

Afterwards, we had an impromptu 'show and tell' session', where Anya Stark showed us some of her gymnastics skills, inadvertently risking her life in a stunt, whilst Sharah did some tap dance. Both were very impressive!

Until next week, have a good one! ;)

Weekly News Round-Up #72: 12/10/2014

Hello and good day to y'all! I hope you've all had a smashing week because I know it's been a good one for all of us :D

As you may be aware, it was Cap's birthday on Thursday! It was a jolly good day and it seems that everyone had fun. Here's a pic of Master's gift to Cap:

Cap's birthday cake!

Thursday also proved to be a day of discussions...

In the morning, ArwaChihuahua and Wicks were sat in the library with a textbook which, oddly enough, had buttons printed on paper that, obviously, could only be access via the virtual edition. It did seem rather curious why they weren't removed from the print edition. This only left Wicks and Aswa poking the page in an attempt to activate the 'hint' buttons. Naturally, this led to a discussion on the next generation of e-books. Wicks suggested that it would be most delightful if you could have moving diagrams on paper, much like a gif. on paper.

Onto another topic, Cap and Wicks had a chat about the evolution of the trouser. Do you think there's a future for trousers, or perhaps, as Cap and Wicks reviewed, nudist beaches will expand and become a global thing? I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

As ConscienceSarah and Master prepared for an interview, we considered some abstract questions that they could ask. Favourites included 'if you could be a fruit, what fruit would you be?' and the same but substituting 'fruit' for 'shape'. A possible answer could be something like 'a tomato, because I'm controversial'. When asked Sharah's reply appeared to be very well thought out. She answered "I'd be a raspberry, because sometimes I'm sweet, sometimes I can be sour, and also I can be annoying, like when you get raspberry seends in your teeth. Also Wicks doesn't like raspberries."

So, as always, we like to keep you updated on our progress with the comic book shop each week. This week, Master decided that she wouldn't bother going into the shop to see if they had WicDiv. Instead she found their telephone number on the line and called in. Of course, it was the usual guy, ensuring a slightly awkward conversation, especially when they still didn't have it in stock. *sigh* Better luck next week.

As Friday rolled around, Cap managed to come up with some 'ship' names for Wicks and Sharah/Slickens - Wickens - and herself and Slickens - Slap. Currently I'm unsure if anyone's shipping any of these, but you never know.

Lunchtime turned out to be a counselling session for Master. After reading the Internet hoax about 'The Expressionless', Master was rather disturbed, but after re-telling the story to everyone, and having a good laugh about it all, she felt much better about the whole thing. Unfortunately, Sharah was feeling a little queasy and went for a walk outside, which initially confused us all. Once again, Master would like to express her thanks for the support :)

Saturday evening brought us to Cap's birthday bash, which was held at a pizzeria. Arguably the most hilarious thing that happened was that we had the opportunity to witness ConscienceSarah cut up her pizza and roll it up! In the end, she was the last one to finish. The combination of events did little to help, with her pizza having the largest diameter and being cooked in the batch after everyone else's, plus the fact that Sharah is the slowest eater out of all of us.

On the other hand, Master was given the job of calling waitresses to get water refills and, at the end, asking for the bill. After calculating the exact amount that everyone was to contribute, we ended up with a pile of money, which Master, also the in-house accountant, counted up. Overall, the bill platter looked a little like this:

So much munneez!

The waitress looked more than pleased to count it all up, which did take a little while. Finally, she returned with a tuppence change on the platter, which we added to the tip pile, and can be seen poking in on the right side of the above photo.

Overall, I think I speak on behalf of everyone when I say that we had a fantastic time. A huge thank you to Cap for inviting us!

Until next week, have a good one ;D