The Adventures of Dysfunctional Dan

The Millennium Dome, London. A great piece of architecture built to celebrate the coming of the year 2000 sat on a bend in the river Thames. I can distinctly remember visiting the dome back in 2000. To my eight-year old eyes it was a mind-blowing. There was a giant human body which you walk inside and had a giant beating heart that for some reason was absolutely terrifying. There was a spaceship which you could sit inside and an alien would give you a tour of the Earth, complete with effects like wind blowing at you water squirting. There was a giant screen where the characters in the short film appeared in the room, a beach inside which had something inexplicably to do with pencils made from recycled materials and there was a chance to have your photo taken with E.T. It was probably one of the most memorable days from my childhood. The O2, a.k.a the Millennium Dome Last week, I returned. In the 14 years that have passed since my visit the dome has become a huge concert venue ...

Today’s blog post is something of an experiment. I was sat here scratching my head, trying to pluck out an idea for a blog post. I had lots of bits of ideas but nothing that would fill a whole post. And then I thought, why don’t I write all the things! Last week I went to see Marvel’s latest blockbuster,  Guardians of the Galaxy . I love the current comics run but I was a little sceptical that it would work well as film. Fortunately, it did and was properly good fun. Any film that make a CGI talking racoon a proper character knows what it is doing.  Guardians  must have been about the seventh film I have seen at the cinema this year and all but one of those were by myself. There’s something of a social stigma to going alone to the cinema but it doesn’t make much sense. Going to the cinema is an activity where you sit down next to the people you are going with and then don’t talk to them for a few hours. I may as well not to talk to them without them there. Usual...

Tomorrow is a big day for teenager across the UK, the day they find out their A-level results and for many of them whether they are good enough to get into their preferred university. This seemed a good time to look back on my experience of results days. *Imagine flashback harp noise here* It was a Thursday morning and the moment had finally arrived. Would I go to university, would I get the necessary grades of two Cs and a B in order to begin a long and successful career in teaching? After a seemingly eternal queue I picked up the envelope and disappeared into a corner to open it. I ripped open the seal and then had to spend a few minutes interpreting all the numbers and letters on the pieces of paper within. The quickened beating of my heart made the simple process of reading almost impossible. Eventually some distant part of the brain which was actually functioning properly worked out the grades. A ‘B’ for History. How on Earth did that happen? I realised I must have written ...

Previously on Dan 2.0: After months of hunting and hurting, I finally found a job. I decided this was only the beginning on the quest to improve myself. It is quite late at night when I am typing this out and that is never a good idea. Things always seem much worse late at night than they do in the daylight. Or at least less bearable. I felt it was time for another ‘life update’ post, the first post-job-search-post and despite the late hour, here it comes. I had the unenviable task of filling out all the paperwork for my new job at the weekend. Because I will be employed by a local authority this requires a lot of work. Mine was perhaps more difficult than most. Firstly, they wanted my Doctor’s details and I then realised I was still registered to a Doctor’s at my university town. This meant I had to go into my local Doctors to re-register. I naively thought this would be an easy task. After all, they had been my local surgery for all but my time at university, 18 years of my life...