We have a number of ways of disposing of the tat that piles up around people’s desks, in cupboards, on top of filing cabinets, and in the tat storeroom at work.
Large items go into a Large Tat Sale. The current Large Tat Sale is mostly fibre optic Christmas trees, but I think we have been hanging on to these since they came in for testing, which would have been around Easter. All the tat is listed, and then you put your name against any pieces of tat that you like the look of. Names are then drawn out of a hat, and then the winner gets to pay a fiver for whatever piece of tat it is that they have won. The fibre optic Christmas trees are a joy to behold; maybe next year I will get one.
Smaller items go into a Small Tat Sale. For this, the staff are divided into four groups. When you’re new, you go into Group Four, and move up to Group Three for the next sale, and so on. Once you’re in Group One, you’re in prime tat-grabbing position. All the tat is put on tables in a large room, and Group One is unleashed. Each member of Group One picks up three items, and then Group Two is allowed in. You see where this is going. Members of Group Four get whatever rubbish is left over. My first Small Tat Sale will be tomorrow. I wonder if the pink vibrator we were testing* a few weeks ago will still be there by the time Group Four are let in.
Absolute Tat is given away under the guise of “advent calendar presents.” Each day of advent has a number of people’s names against it. On your day, you get to pick a wrapped “present” out of a lucky dip. Today I received a very small silver-coloured nylon purse. Presumably it passed the toy safety standard and doesn’t leach lead or cadmium into the environment, so I consider myself to be a lucky woman.
*The pink vibrator was being tested for electrical hazards, not functionality. Or small parts. Stop drooling, Sevitz.

From all at Uborka Towers, we would like to apologise profusely, both to old friends and to new introducees, for our behaviour last night. Our conversational skills were wanting, and we are both very ashamed of ourselves. We’re sorry if we appeared to be rude or dismissive, but the truth is that due to a rather beverageful Friday night, the words were taking a long time to form themselves into sentences.
Said Dragon to me, “You’re more laconic than I thought you’d be.” I replied, “It’s actually just that I’m a bit poorly.” Laconic is a fabulous word.

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I went to two secondary schools.
The first one was a former girls’ grammar in Kendal, with a strict bottle-green uniform [and white knee-socks*], but I only went there for two terms.
The second school had a dress code, which meant that our school photographs looking like youth club gatherings, as we all stretched the boundaries of the code as far as we could get away with. I have a lot of long-harboured resentments about this school, but the dress code is a good demonstration of the apparently-casual student-centricity of the teaching style and the curriculum. Bear in mind that I’m talking about nearly twenty years ago [dear god], not the current txtspk era, which effectively suggests that my school was at the vanguard of modern educational technique. Hurrah. Lucky me.

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