6 reasons why we should all go live in caves...

6. Supermarkets: It takes forever to park and even when you find a space you end up next to the inevitable car park moron who likes parking diagonally, the trolleys want to go in the opposite direction to you, wherever you go - you could offer then a million pounds and a luxury holiday in the Carribean and they still wouldn't budge. It's physically impossible to successfully navigate your way around a Morrison's these days as some idiot decided it would be a clever idea to stick baskets full of knock off crap in the middle of each aisle so nobody can actually get down the aisle. Yeah, clever, it only causes mile long queues and brings out the inner div in each of us when we have to stop straight in front of someone as we didn't anticipate there to be obstacles during our seemingly innocent weekly shop. When you've managed to shove your way to the checkouts you're still not free from harrassment. Lovely as they are, the checkout ladies never seem to understand you when you say ''No, I don't want cashback'' or ''No, I don't want to buy another Bag for Life, I'm fine thank you'' - and you normally leave having spent tons more than ever predicted. I'll stick with online shopping, thanks.

5. Buses, or more specifically, chavs on buses: We all know the moment, that moment when the doors open and a dirty looking, yawning yob carelessly saunters onto the bus, demands a 'day rider innnnnit' and parades up and down the bus until he finds a suitable throne. He is, typically, wearing his trousers (sorry, trackies) round his knees, teaming them perfectly with a scuffed pair of Nike Air trainers with a minute hole on the end where Gav (or Daz...Jay...Gazza, make your own chav name up if you like, it's fun) chucked his cig on him last Friday outside t'local pub. Also typically, he pulls out the latest Sony Ericsson Fone4Divs 5000 and, so to speak, bangs art the tunes merrrrrt. We cannot escape the tinny crap that these monsters produce, so why can't we just ban Sony from ever making another phone again? Sounds like a good plan to me...

4. Restaurants: Admittedly, these are seemingly innocent public places compared to supermarkets or buses, however in the right circumstances can be equally as annoying. For a start, these places seem to have a mental block preventing them from employing anyone with a brain. Take Pizza Hut for example. One of the chefs there actually managed to forget that two (yes, two) of the pizzas me and my friend had ordered were in the oven, and so they got burnt. In total, we had to wait around 3 hours for that meal. A less common problem, but still a very irritating one, is the issue of the small green 'V' appearing on a menu (I should explain, I'm a vegetarian myself). My family and I went into a restaurant, we got seated, given menus etc etc, I read the menu to find only one vegetarian main meal dish, 'Goat's Cheese and Pesto Lasagne'. This may just be my taste, but surely there would be more popular suggestions than a goat's cheese and pesto lasagne? The food is often cold when finally delivered, the tables aren't big enough for two people - let alone the suggested four, and the spoons are often sharper than the knives. Sort it out! Oh, and while you're at it, I once found a paintbrush hair in my drink in a restaurant. I can't go into more depth, but it was weird to find.

3. Swine flu: Arghhhhh noooooooo! Don't even consider leaving your house, if you so much as breathe in the outside air you will catch this demon and DIE. We must close all the schools in the country to prevent the spread of this already worldwide disease, quick, somebody do it now! Parents, keep your children locked up, do not, whatever you do, let them mix with others, keep them off school...don't send them to nursery...quit your jobs to be there for them. Dear God, no. WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIIIIE.

2. Weather: Oh it's bright and sunny, I'll leave the house today wearing this summer dress, and I won't bother with an umbrella 'cause the weather said it's not likely to rain. Darling, leave the bedroom window open, get a bit of air in for when we get back - we all know that situation, right? You come home soaked literally to the skin, shivering, smelling like wet undergrowth, and more importantly, there's a small puddle of wet on the bedroom floor that you just can't figure out. Oh wait, the window's open here. Darling, I told you to shut this window you blithering idiot! What are we going to do about the floor now, eh?

1. Other people: God they're idiots. My local shopping centre on a Monday morning usually looks like a typical A&E on a Friday night. Hideous. Yes, I know it takes all sorts of people to make up a world and all that, but seriously citizens of the world, sort yourselves out. Let's start off with stopping buying socks and underwear from the Poundshop, it's just plain wrong. We can follow that action up by taking a trip to the dentist and replacing the teeth that have been missing for several decades. Next up, we can make sure our clothes don't have red stains all down the front (yes children, I'm talking to you too...) and that we've remembered to pick the spinach from our teeth. It's almost acceptable to buy ALL our clothes from Prim(arni)ark, but only if we remember to fully do our trousers back up afterwards and button all the buttons on our top. Avoid the cheap shops selling neon legwarmers please, we're not in the eighties anymore, oh, and you don't need to go into The Leather Shop and try on a knock off cheetah print fake leather jacket - you've already got four. Stop buying your breakfast from Greggs and leisurely scattering it all over the floor of each shop you pass in, I don't want bits of squashed sausage roll sticking to my shoe when I leave the place. Let's also burn EVERYTHING Nike, Adidas, Burberry, Bench, Bank, River Island or Kappa that you own. Go and buy yourself some make up wipes and take off the layer or orange cack clogging up your face, remove the stripes of eyeliner from your eyelid and get rid of the bright pink lipstick that you missed your lip with, and drew on your chin with instead. Feel free to get the bus home, but don't then proceed to drive everyone else mad with your 'tuneage' and hang about in the stop once you've got off. Oh, and throw the energy drink away, it's got Aspartame in it...and you don't want formaldehyde forming in your stomach - not that you'd know what that is...

Rachel (Webmistress)

Will we ever get a voice?

I'd like to start off by asking a question, when will teenagers ever get a voice? Obviously I don't mean literally a voice, I mean a say in things - particularly in matters that concern them. Today's latest is that schools will possibly close in the autumn due to swine flu. This is ridiculous. I'm not going to give up however many months of valuable learning time because the government are scared for what is effectively just a bad cold. Having read several articles on the issue online, I can conclude that nobody has considered the opinions of those that will actually be affected - which is what angers me so much.

On a smaller scale, equality in school manages to anger me just as much. The school council at our school is run purely if the school can be bothered and no matter how many issues you bring up with the members - nothing ever gets done. We're told they're all ''approachable'' and will try to resolve our issues - yet after three years I'm still waiting for soap in the girls toilets. I myself have been nominated as a school council respresentative for my form several times - however each time have lost out simply because the other candidates had more 'friends' than I did. Does the government operate in this way? I'd hope not...

And then there's 'teenagers in society'. It seems we can't even walk down the street without random strangers giving us a wide berth and funny looks. In the media, we're portrayed as drug-taking, streets-invading, soon-to-be-alcoholic yobs and it's really not fair. Yes, I'll admit that a majority of teenagers are like this, but another majority definitely are not. And for those that are, does anyone ever bother thinking about why they might have turned to drugs and drink?

Being a teenager is hard enough without being slagged off in the media and avoided in the street. You lose your friends, you suddenly experience emotions you previously didn't know existed and the pressures from school are often too much to bear.And for those 'model student's within schools, they never get any praise, no one ever recognises what they do - only what those that misbehave do. We're doing our best in this mixed up world, so why don't you do us a favour - and give us a break.

Rachel (Webmistress)