gIzMo'S bOx ------------> (aLL ViSiToRs WelCoMe!) -----&g

[Gizmo says -]

yeahyeahyeahok I know I spelt Teesside wrong earlier ok? Its this tyoing on a laptop which is getting n nerves a lot... keep missing the keyz, man.

Anyways, as I was saying -
Date _August 14th ..Location...Teesside

It is 4-30 in the morning in the Gizmo household. Thru the curtains of the upstairs (Kidz) bedroom, a tiny shaft of light is peekin', fallin on a huddled duvet covering an even more huddled figure of 18 year old Gizz, the college freeko. None of G's body is visible in the slightest - Gee is completely covered (and good thing too there iz kids reading this forum, you know )

The bedroom is pretty tidy for a teenager and is shared by the other family child - so a double miracle there then. No pictures or posters, apart from a torn picture of Indiana Jones and a Betty Boo pin up from Smash 'its magazine (dont ask.. :? )

Without a sound, a single 'and emerges from the huddled duvet, slowly extending, fingerz searchin for something as if by primal instinct... they reach the edge of the bed and end up, almost by trial and error, at the window sill just behind the bed...
And behind the bed here lingers the last remaining remnants of yesterdays pack of Sherbet Lemonz.....:P judgin by touch alone, the hand selects the largest and tastiest one in reach, and shoots back under the bed coverz...

A few minutez afterwadz there is a soft, lightly impatient, but quite mouth-watering crunch signalling the beginning of the end for that tasty Sherbet Lemon drop.



I am awake.

The I remember its A level results day tommorrow. And I diplomatically decide to get another 'alf hour kip....

[Gizmo says -]

I am awake. :evil:

Lumme...5-30am in August . I am considering gettin outta bed, but the dread of coming A lvl results day hangs like the omnipresent cloud of ciggie smoke in an 80s sixth form common room... arrrg...it is holdin me down...luring me into not even trying to get to my feet...

I am predicted CDD at A level...hehe nice one teach...and thats if I worked really hard, according to my teacherz.... well I have worked me socks off till 2-00am at night to get some half decent grades, so hopefully I will get just that at least today...but I am shittin me pants like you would not beleive...

My best ways of getting outta bed are either slowly, very very quickly, or not at all (?? :shock: ) so I elect for jumpin outta bed today and slappin on me running shoes, going for a cool morning run to get my rebel head together....

With images of Sylvester Stallone and Rocky 2 music permeating me brain, I am outta my bedroom, down the sairs silentyl and by the time I get me shoes on I am outta the door like a flamethrower into the cool, dead world outside.

But its so cold and empty here at 5-40 in the morning......it feels like I am the last person alive in the world .....so I jump off the steps of me house and try to leave all the dread and the smoke and the doubt and the D grade bastardbloodybitch predictions far behind..... so I turn right off Guisborough Street and set off up towards out local patch o' hills behind our house..... I am burnin now ! And I feel like the first person alive in the world instead... heheh

[Gizmo says -]

its getting close to 6-00am when I get in from me morning joggin, so I quickly get down to the mornings routine.....pull in the newspapers, wash the shop floors, divide up the periodicals..... shelf them.... peice together the newspapers and shelve em.....count the till float....bring in the milk crates...just in time for 6-30 opening ! Hey can I have some appreciation pleeeze!! - it took me about two years to perfect getting this routine squezed into a twenty minute time interval! Now I am a guru at opening me dads shop i the morn....

Cascades of customers come in with their fifty pees after that.... so I deal wid em... :roll: till about 7-30 and it gets quiet.... pick out the latest issue of the New Muscial Express and start readin' about the MOck Turtles planz to conquer the US (they aint got none!he) and even a feature on REM! (Yay! my fav band!) but none of it can really take me mind of the impending A level results..... :shock: OMG!

Date - August
Location - Eston, Teesside
Am readin - the current issue of the New Musical Express ( featuring the Mock Turtles AND REM!)
Am listening to - some old geezer Derek Jameson on radio 2 - its all my dad lets us play in the shop! arrgh!
Am eatin - cola cubes purloined from our sweet shop while dad wasnt lookin' heehee!

[Gizmo says -]

.....weel to tell the truth I aint all that bothered about waiting for my A level results. I got no offers anyway except for Leicester, which is too far for me to go really.... bastard Newcastle, Sunderland and Durham Universities/Polys rejected me straight! I guess its fair enuff though if all I am predicted is an average D. What I wanna do is move outta home pretty fast onece I get the results (cos I dont fink my dad would want me after I get em hehe) and get a job down the retail fruit market in Middlesbrough)...then...hehe the world is my oyster..or at least , my pineapple lol hehehe :lol:

I mean lets have a good luck at sum the people in my year at college....

Pal (genuine good bloke..iz going off to do Chem Eng at Manchester Polytechnic). Very very tall and hes just started going out with this new girlfriend....apparently she iz well fit AND has a killer top personality.

'Higgsy' :mrgreen: ok,this guy thinks he is a joker but he iz as thik as shit man.... he got three Es last year and is resitting for the umpteenth time.... I dont like him and I aint the only one....and yey in cas you are wondering, his mum is Marietta Higgins, the Child Abuse Scam Social Worker.....yrrkk guess with those genes u is set up to be a loser in life, aintcha?

Leon : Leon is my best mate at college. He is hopin to go to Liverpool to do medicine. He is predicted three Bs hope he gets 'em. He iz getting a private tutor to help him get thru'.

Darryl :| Darryl is a gimp, man, I am sorri to say it but it is true. Apparently he comes from a real gimpy school where he got 5 As at GCSE (). But I just dont like him, man. All he ever does is study, visit his private tutor for help and talk posh all day. He iz a rite teachers pet, man!
Apparently his Dad got him to transfer to our college to improve his chances of getting into Oxford - hehe cos apparently everyon gets at least ABB in his old posh school and so they are on a quota over there.....over he he gets a betta chance of gettin picked!
Anywayz - I dont like him - 'nuff said!

GIZ (thats me!) :shock: I am a me! I dont talk much apparently! hehe but I think a lot


ok thats enuff about my mates, inmates and UNmates, back to the land of Gizz!

[Gizmo says -]

hmmm didnt mention the Chix, did I?

ok, heres s few -

Sally my ex-. She is fit but a bit posh so I hadda dump her......she was cramping my street style man...hehe!!... and besides I found out she is a transfer from Teesside High, the poshest school in Teeside...yrrk she is almost a female Daryl !! lol! But she is a lot nicer than that - v.v. decent girl thru and thru, despite her upbringing.

Jackie :? Jackie is one of the nicest people you could ever meet at South Park College. She is going out with one of my mates from Chemistry who looks like a roadie from Black Sabbath but iz a real cool guy.

And then....the mysterious gorgeous blonde gal -she wuz in this years play 'The Forsythe Saga' and she is fit beyond belief! She always smiles and never says nothing ever! Why?? maybe her voice iz really squeaky and embarrasing...lol!?. Anywayz I still aint got the guts to ask her name yet...even thought she is in my morning tutor group foe the past two whole yearz!! :roll:

Sam - the only girl in our Chemistry class. Whyy??? Anyways she is going to University apparently to do Biology.

[Gizmo says -]

yey South Park Sixth Form College is the real name of my college, and yep it iz August 1991....

Date - August - A level Results Day!!!
Location - just outsie South Park COllege in Normanby, County Teeside (or Cleveland, as it iz known back then hence why I am a Cleveland 'arrier in my running career so far, see? 8) )


And little Giz (thats me ) is strollin towards South Park College with a swift turn of foot and his 'ead generally lookin straight downwards at the pavement, plotting inside his head exactly where he is gonna bugger off to when his dad findz out his A level results...with Aunty Shuggie from Sedgefield? nnooo too far away to travel to.... With Uncle Freds from Stockton? naaa hes far too uglee, man...hmmm I'll probably plump for Dazzer and his Dad up in Norton, even though he is a abject ginge....hehe
take the 316 to Middlesbrough and then up the bus to Stockton and walk from there to his house...perfik plan...yey.


Daryl the Spanner is already outside wth his fish face girlfriend...... and its not long before he ensures I find out (from Fishface) that he got AAB and iz going to Oxford to do engineering!! Well done... Gimp!! 'what about you?' he asks... 'hehe I aint checked yet but maybe I'll get some Cs if I am lucky' is what I wanna say....but instead I confess 'Daryl I aint got no offers to go ti University, so it dont matta really (ya gimp)'

Yay! Good news for Jackie and Pal, who both got their BC and got into Manchester and Sunderland.... hey even better Leon got his BBB to get into Liverpool for medicine!! I am first to go see Leon and congrats him he is gonna make a fine doctor.

it feels kinda fussy in the air, ya know, like, I dont feel well, like nothgin matters once I open that envelope I picked up at reception....yet it dont matta wat I get, doesit?I am outta here no matta what the result cos I aint going to Durham or Newcastle or Sunderland now anyways...feel a bit sicky still...gonna have to open this envelope at soooome point anyway...

....can quite clearly smell the petrol from the cars parked outside...odd...
....HIggsy is tryin to flash about his EED results ....wat a fool
..Sally caught me eye for a second...I can tell in an instant she made her offer to Warwick.... kinda makes me feel happy and even more ill too at the same time!....
....arrgh....wat the ****! 'ere goes.....!



........RRIIIPPPP!!!! :evil: grrrrRRR!

[Gizmo says -]

Look at Giz here in 2003!
He iz standin in a queue in Sainsbury's in Surbiton, grinning. What he's smilin' at none can really know, though it iz higly likely the irony of his present situation mite have somefing to do with it. He looks not so different from the younger version of himself - he aint aged much at all, and he still dosnt bother wit shavin on weekends does he? but the hair is now longer and hes betta groomed than the tracksuit wearing Gizsta.
The person in front of Giz in the queue is recognisable as a doctor workin at the local hospital medical school - he's Asian, usually smilin' and well mannered, short n bald. Also clearly a little bit impatient... he's not happy about having to wait for tings to happen here.... his smile iz startin to disintegrate a liddle now as that wave of discontent erupts at havin to wait for sooo long now.
Giz grins on.... a memory from yearz ago feedin the smile behind the smile.... :lol:

'Do you want cashback with that?'

[Gizmo says -]

Eston, in Cleveland (or Teeside again! hehe confusin, eh?)

Some of you may or may not know this, but UCAS is the b****** child of two bodies who amalgamated in 1995-ish. What you may know iz that there existed both universities and polytechnics unitl that date, when all the polys became unis...
So back then you had seperate forms for both unis and polys, called UCCA and PCAS forms.


So it wuz common bitch talk before this amalgamation to slag peope off by saying '..... so r you going to uuuuniiii then.... r we not good enuff for ya, huh?' at our college. It would result in the recipient cringing in terror at the sound of the collective resentment floodin' towards that university applicant (poor guyz.... ).
Of course if you applied to 'polys' then you were just goign away to seek ya fortunes in anohter city, werent you? Although to be frank, some felt that anyone going anywhere to study in any capacity wuz to be kept at arms length...and I am talking about arms as long as Lennox Lewis's when I say this. Go away, you freakboy :shock: . The local name for people who moved out of the region was Scabz - people who left you behind and left a sore mark and then never came back and were only interested in themselves.....

I for one wuz smart enuff to keep my application under wraps..and I wuz astute enuff to apply to only local unis and polys....anywat it always puzzled me why our local uni (Durham) should have anything to do with this image...after all it wuz our local, not some too bit stuck posh up one that never accepted Teesiders ..... Durham wuz a city that I visited every month in my youf and it wuz soooooo lovely in my eyes.... wat was the point of going anywhere else that wuz further from Kielder and the Lake District as well?

Of course, being rejected by a uni does change your outlook of that institution somewat :evil: and having got my grades but no place at a local uni, I wuz now in two minds about reapplying. Suddenly University seemed doubly a bad option.

I guess the best thing I could do was get a job and reapply for next year, and see how things went from there.... little did I suspect of what was lying just ahead of me on the horizon..... :shock:

[Gizmo says -]

Standin up on top of the Eston hills lookin out across the Tees Valley is an immensely calming, sweeping sight. There is an amazing sense of peace in just looking at it all, you know? U can see the way all the little towns of Lazenby and Redcar and Normanby and Grangetown...an even Stockton and a bit of Hartlepool over the river....( on a clear day I wonder how far you could see,hmm?)....all of it joined by stretched spiderwebz of roads. As the sun goes down behind the Norff Sea you could even watch the towerz of ICI Wilton burst off waste gases and send blue fire spiralling heavenwards...apparently it inspired Ridly Scott in the making of the movie Bladerunner, you know?

Normally the whole thing is enuff to giv me a sense of wellbeing, but not tonite. It is gonna take more than electric sheep to send me to sleep hehe....

[Gizmo says -]

November 2003. Post bonfire nite!

my God, sometimes I do scare meself.... :shock: (no suprise there, mind).

Am lookin at me battle notes in preparation for getting into med skool....omg...Waterloo never even looked dis bad (and thats including Napoleon's versionz hehe ). 80 hour weeks in medicine...? I fink I've already started them...... :? Its utta madness... putting in all dis work for the promise of more work....In this existence, underlined by our earthly ambitionz and punctuated by last nites unused firecrackers, what r we really aimin for, man?

I mean, like, what givs, busta?

how far will I push myself for the sake of a meazly place on a trumped up course for a smelly career somewhere in England? Cripes.
We lot are all loopy, I reckon. Yey and that includez u, Fluff and Joy-macca ( yea i know ya readin dis, man ... I can see u.... :wink: )


Anyway, I hadda post just to get one post further up than Fluff-macca. G'nite guyz.