Chapter One
Just Before The Students Start Some Serious Exam Revision, They Reminisce and Talk About Things in the Park

On a warm spring day, Becky and several other students were chatting in the park, having a laugh reminding each other of funny things that had happened at university.

One Student, Anne, Talks About Her Memories of People She Once Knew, Whose Opinions She Decides to Seriously Criticise, For Some Reason

After a while though, the conversation began to get more serious. One of the students in the group was Anne, who'd once complained to a group of psychology students about the conversations her mum's friends liked to have, that she had had the misfortune to be around to hear.

The more serious mood was sparked off unintentionally when one of the group asked the others for fun, "Do you remember that time when Anne spent a whole hour criticising her mum's friends when a load of us were having lunch together?"

"Oy, it wasn't a whole hour!" protested Anne, grinning. "At least it wouldn't have been if you lot hadn't kept interrupting!"

A student who hadn't been there at the time asked, "What was that about?"

"You don't want to know!" said another student, screwing up his face with a pained expression as he grinned. He put on a mock pleading tone and wrung his hands in mock horror as he said, "Please, please, don't get her started!"

That only made the student who'd asked about it intrigued. So he asked Anne what on earth she'd had to say about them that had taken a whole hour.

She protested again that it hadn't really taken a whole hour, and then told part of the story again about how her mum had told her it would be good for her to socialise more when she was younger, and had often taken her to the home of a friend of hers in the summer holidays to save getting someone to look after her or leaving her on her own, where there was a group of older women who liked to chat about things Anne found depressing.

She launched into another round of criticism, saying, "I hated seeing the sunshine outside but being stuck indoors listening to these people complaining. I learned that grown-ups aren't necessarily cleverer than teenagers. One of their favourite subjects seemed to be whether the death penalty should be brought back, and how prisoners should be treated; one of them in particular would get heated and say, 'Prisoners shouldn't be allowed televisions in their rooms; they should have a toilet and a cupboard and that's it! They should be made to work all day! And not get paid like they do now!'

"I mean, that sounds like common sense on the surface, but I felt like saying to her, 'Do you know anything about the reasons why things are the way they are instead?' I mean, I don't myself, but what if one reason criminals are allowed televisions is because it's been proven to calm them down because they're more satisfied so they don't cause so many problems for the staff? There must be some reason why things are the way they are, whatever it is. And what if there are advantages that make it worthwhile? I mean, sometimes there are programmes about the effects crimes have on victims and it might make a few of them think about what they've done and want to change; or what if having nothing to do sometimes except watch it might get them interested in the educational programmes they have on sometimes and that might lead to them wanting to learn more and do something useful with their lives instead of committing crimes; or what if it distracts some mentally disturbed prisoners from their problems so they're less likely to commit suicide or do other bad things?

"I felt like asking her if she had any evidence that not allowing prisoners televisions actually does any good, like being a deterrent to committing more crimes, or if it can influence them to do other more worthwhile things instead to occupy their time like reading educational books that might motivate them to want to get rehabilitated, or anything else. I bet she didn't know; I bet she didn't have her opinion because she'd looked into it and decided the evidence was that not allowing televisions was best; she probably just had a feeling in her gut that made her think prisoners weren't being properly punished if they were allowed to watch television or something; I don't know.

"And as for being paid a little bit for working, like they are now, what if they spend that money in places like the prison canteen so it goes straight back into prison funds, or they're made to save most of it so they've got something to help them get on their feet when they get out so they're not so tempted to steal to get money to buy things they need? I don't know whether any of those things really happen or not, but really, people should try investigating the reasons why things are the way they are before getting all heated and sounding off about them! I mean, there must be reasons why things are the way they are, even if they're not good ones. And when people do express their opinions on things, they should give the reasons Why they think what they think, so they don't just sound like someone ranting away about things they haven't really thought about.

"I didn't understand why they wanted to talk about that kind of stuff so much; even if they were right, there wasn't anything they could do to change anything, so I thought, 'why bother yacking about it?' Or if there was anything they could do to change things, it would have made more sense for them to actually talk to someone who could help them do that than to some random group of people who couldn't! I used to get depressed by conversations where they did that; but They can't have been bothered by them, or they wouldn't have carried on having them. goodness knows what they got out of them! Maybe getting heated made them feel more alive because it boosted their adrenaline so they felt more energetic or something, so maybe that was why they liked to talk about that stuff; I don't know!"

Another student said, "It's surprising what people get something out of! Someone I know told me she loves going out in stormy weather when it's pouring with rain and windy; she says she finds it bracing! Well, She might call getting soaked to the skin and having the breath half knocked out of you by the wind bracing, but I certainly don't!"

The students grinned, and one joked, "Maybe you could say to the wind, 'You know, I like fresh air, and I know it's healthy, but I'd really prefer it if you didn't shove it in my face!'"

"Somehow I don't think the wind would reply!" said one student with a broad smile.

They all laughed.

Their laughter didn't last long though, as Anne said, "Funnily enough, the person who seemed to get most heated about prisoners having televisions told us one day that when she was younger, she did a bit of teaching in a secure unit or something where teenagers were locked up before they were old enough to go to prison. She said they'd committed serious crimes, but that it wasn't surprising given their backgrounds; she said one boy stabbed his mother, but it was after years of being neglected and mistreated. She seemed to feel sorry for him. I wondered if she'd want to sternly say to him, 'When you go to proper prison, you shouldn't be allowed a television in your cell, and you must be made to work all day!' - You know what I mean, I wondered if she'd feel any differently to the way she did if she started thinking about her strict ideas applying to particular individuals she knew, especially if she sympathised with them a bit.

"I mean, if someone who'd been in prison said he didn't think prisoners should have tellies because it made prison life too comfortable so it wasn't a deterrent, his opinion would count for a lot more, because he'd be speaking from experience, and he'd know a lot more about it. But other people ought to at least find out a bit about the subject before voicing an opinion, and then at least tell us what they've found out that makes them think the way they do!

"Another time, there was something in the news about people fleeing a war zone, and this person said, 'I don't think they should let them into this country! There are people in this country who need looking after!' I thought, 'Why does it have to be one thing or the other; why can't both sets of people be helped?' And I don't know why she somehow imagined that if we let any in at all, it would be bound to be a number that would take up so much of our resources that it would make it impossible for us to take care of people here, so the only two options were to let them in or not, rather than something in between those two, like letting as many in as we'd calculated we could take!

"I wondered if she'd feel differently if she actually knew any individuals from the war zone; it reminded me of that saying, 'When you hear about one person suffering, you think of it as a tragedy, but when it's thousands, you just think of them as statistics.' You know, if you hear the details of what one person was like before they died and how much their relatives are upset about losing them, you can be a bit upset, but if you hear on the news the plain fact that two thousand people have just died in an earthquake somewhere, it might not affect you much at all, unless you hear about some of the stories about some of the individuals who died.

"And I don't know why she brought up the subject, only to say she didn't think those people should be allowed into this country! It might have been a bit different if she'd come up with some good ideas about how to help them instead. But she didn't! She just sounded heartless.

"It would have been good if someone had asked her, 'If something terrible happened and this country became a war zone, and you and your family decided you just had to emigrate to survive after you'd maybe seen some of them killed, and others seriously injured who died later in agonising pain because there were so many casualties at the hospital they didn't get treated in time, or they couldn't even get to the hospital because there was fighting on the roads so they were too dangerous to travel on, and the shops had been looted so there was hardly any food to be had so the family had taken to trying to eat paper to survive, and the children especially were scared out of their minds, and you knew that at any time you and they might be killed or badly injured or abducted, would you say, "No, it wouldn't be fair for some other country to have to take us in; they've all got problems of their own. When you think about it, we're one of the richest countries in the world, so how will anyone else be able to cope if thousands of us land on their doorsteps!"

"'Would you say that, or would you be desperately hoping there were people in other countries with more compassionate attitudes than you've got to others fleeing war zones?'"

One student said, "Corr blimey this is depressing! Have you noticed all the birds have stopped singing? I bet you're depressing Them as well!"

The other students giggled. Anne apologised, but said, 'Sorry. I just think it's nice to get this stuff off my chest!

"Another thing is that there was something in the paper about our navy rescuing loads of people who'd got away from the war zone in boats and were at risk of drowning in the sea. They didn't bring them here but dropped them off in the nearest country where they'd be safe, but this person didn't even like that; she brought up the subject and straightaway said, 'How much is this costing!' as if that was the most important thing. Maybe if she's ever forced to escape something terrible and she's at risk of drowning in the sea and a navy helicopter comes to pick her up, she'll say, while gasping for breath after taking in a lungful of water, 'It's very nice of you, but don't trouble yourself on my account; after all, how much must this be costing!'

"She only saw the negatives. I mean, what if the cost was well worth it from our point of view, because it gave the navy valuable practice in rescuing people that might come in useful one day when they're rescuing some of our own people? What if it meant they got the chance to test some equipment and procedures so if they found unforeseen faults in them, they had the opportunity to get them fixed before such a time as they might need them when people Here are in an emergency situation? Or what if the fact that the navy are being used in that way's protecting them from government cutbacks - if the government doesn't think they have much use, they might not see the point in us having them, so one day if we need them, they might not be there.

"And just before the woman talking about it said she didn't think we should take any of the refugees in, she said, 'There isn't a racist bone in my body, but...', as if that was somehow going to make what she said sound allright! Stupid!"

Another student said, "Yeah, I've noticed some people say, 'I'm not racist, but ...' just before they say something that really sounds racist, as if that'll somehow make it sound better, as if they're saying, 'God forbid that you should think I'm saying this because I'm racist! No, I'm just heartless and thoughtless, that's all! I don't mind you thinking things like that about me!'"

The students sniggered.

Anne chuckled and said, "Yes, I don't know why they think being thought of as racist is so much worse than the other uncomplimentary things people are bound to think about them when they say something heartless! Really though, this woman's attitude Must have been racist; I mean, how can it Not be when you value the lives of people from your own country much more than the lives of people from another one? I mean, you must do that if you'd want them saved from danger if they were in it, but you're only bothered about how much it's costing when people from some far-away country are being rescued by this country's navy!

"It's weird, because this person just loves animals. She said she'd be a vegan if she wasn't worried about getting health problems from not having enough B vitamins. I bet if our navy had been rescuing foreign drowning dogs, she'd have been all for it!

"Mind you, she was a bit strange anyway like that. Her different attitudes to some other things didn't make sense either. I mean, she used to enjoy bawdy jokes, and liked to join in with them sometimes, but she had a dog she went everywhere with, and it had a name where if you used a pet form of it by putting a Y sound on the end, you know, like the way someone called Rose might be called Rosie, it sounded vaguely like a rude word, and she wouldn't let anyone do that! If someone called the dog by the affectionate pet name, she'd stop them quickly! And she used to swear a lot sometimes, not even being that bothered about whether children might be able to hear her, but for some reason, there was one swear word that she seemed to think was a thousand times worse than all the others, and if anyone used it, she'd seem to be all shocked and horrified and get all sanctimonious, saying how terrible it was that someone had used it! It was weird! I didn't understand it at all.

"And actually, I read that that word wasn't even a swear word in medieval times! I read that people would even give some people nicknames with it in and shout hello to them in the street using them!"

"What Is the swear word?" asked one student.

"I can't say out here in the park where children might overhear!" said Anne.

One student grinned and said, "I suppose any kids who heard you will just look it up on the Internet then!"

Anne blushed. Then one student said, "Actually I'm pretty sure no one's listening to us ... or at least they weren't until you said you'd better not tell us in case someone overheard; if anyone heard that out of the corner of their ear, they'll probably have pricked up their ears, hoping to hear something juicy and assuming you Would say it after a bit of persuasion; so they Will be listening now! So you'd better not say it."

The students laughed.

Then one got up to go to a lecture and said with a wry smile as she turned to leave, "Thanks for all that, Anne; we'll come to you if we ever need depressing, for some reason! I was enjoying the sunshine till you started talking about all that!"

Anne blushed again and apologised, saying, "Sorry! I didn't like it when I felt depressed because of what those people used to say, but now I suppose I'm passing the depression onto other people!"

The student going to her lecture smiled and told her not to worry.

One Student Tells the Others About Some Funny Questions She's Read About Lawyers Asking Witnesses in Court, and They Tell Some Amusing Stories

As she walked off, one student said, "I don't think prisoners should have televisions in their cells, but it's true that I don't know enough about it to be qualified to have a strong opinion. Anyway, since there's nothing we can do about it either way even if we want to, let's just get back to having a laugh.

"I read some funny questions that lawyers have asked in court on the Internet. Well, I suppose they could have been made up, but it would be disappointing if they were. They were stupid questions they've supposedly asked witnesses and other people. Maybe sometimes they're so enthusiastic about putting pressure on a witness in the hope they change their story that they ask quickfire questions so quickly that their brains can't keep up, so they end up asking a really silly question. I'll tell you what some of these things were:

"The website says one lawyer asked someone, 'You say the stairs went down to the basement?' The person said yes, and the lawyer said, 'And these stairs, did they go up also?'

"And one lawyer allegedly asked someone, 'How many times have you committed suicide?' And another one allegedly asked someone, 'Did he kill you?'

"One asked a person, 'Can you describe the individual?' The person said, 'He was about medium height and had a beard.' And the lawyer asked, 'Was this a male or a female?'

"And one lawyer asked someone, 'You were there until the time you left, is that true?'

"One supposedly asked someone, 'How far apart were the vehicles at the time of the collision?' And one asked someone, 'Was it you or your younger brother who was killed in the war?'

"And one asked, 'Mr. Slattery, you went on a rather elaborate honeymoon, didn't you?' The answer came back, 'I went to Europe, Sir.' And the lawyer said, 'And you took your new wife?'"

The others laughed. But then Becky said, "Actually, I remember my grandma saying that when her parents married, her dad said he'd like to go on a honeymoon abroad, but her mum said she just wanted to stay at home, and told him that if he wanted to go on a honeymoon, he should just go himself, and he did."

The others giggled. Then one of them said, "Actually, I remember hearing a news story about a woman who decided to marry herself. And then I heard about a man who married himself. And actually, I remember hearing about another woman who married a life-size cardboard cut-out of herself."

The others chuckled. Becky said, "I wonder why a person would do that!"

The student who'd told the stories said, "I can't remember what they said now. But I think one of the women had ten bridesmaids, and got her dog to bring the wedding ring to her during the service. And there was another wedding I heard about where a woman married her mother-in-law, I think as a stand-in for the bridegroom who was away in the military at the time."

"Why didn't she wait till her fiancé got back?" asked Becky.

The student who'd told the stories replied, "Goodness knows!"

The one who'd been telling them about funny questions lawyers are alleged to have asked said, "Another of those lawyers who said funny things in court apparently asked someone, 'How was your first marriage terminated?' The person answered, 'By death.' And the lawyer asked, 'And by whose death was it terminated?'

"And apparently a lawyer once said to a doctor, 'Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?' And another one said to a doctor, 'Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?' The doctor answered, 'All my autopsies are performed on dead people.'

"And there was one lawyer who asked someone, 'Were you present when your picture was taken?' And one asked someone, 'The youngest son, the twenty-year old, how old is he?'"

The students giggled. They carried on telling funny stories and jokes for a while as they talked in the sunshine.

Chapter Two
The Students Discuss Alcohol, and Various Other Things

One day, Becky, Anne and a small group of other students, all friends, were taking a break from revision in the sunshine.

One who'd just finished an exam said, "Do you know, I've barely slept for, ... it must be, about 30 hours! I stayed up all night last night doing last-minute revision; I knew I was going to have to if I was going to have any chance of remembering enough stuff to write decent essays! Yesterday I went to the corner shop and bought a jar of coffee and about fifteen chocolate bars! The shop assistant asked if I was having a party. Sadly not. I wanted them to keep me awake last night; I ate the entire fifteen of them in one night! ... Not all at once of course! They did keep me awake though ... or something did."

Another student said, "I wish exams weren't so close together! It would be much easier to revise properly if we had more time between them!"

The others wholeheartedly agreed.

Then one said, "I've been getting fed up, because some days I don't get nearly as much done as I'd like to, for some reason, and going over some of my old notes seems boring; and at the end of the day sometimes, I get depressed about not having done as much as I'd like to have done, and I keep worrying about whether I'll get enough revision done in time to get a decent pass in the exams. Sometimes, it seems that despite all the technological advances that have been made that have meant that we can do all kinds of nice things we wouldn't have been able to do even fifty years ago, and we can have warmth and a comfortable life all year round, and the fact that living standards must have risen massively since the stone age, for some reason, life sometimes still seems to be a steaming pile of festering crud!"

A few people in the group said they'd been getting fed up too.

But then Becky lightened the mood a bit when she said, "Imagine if you decided to read an article in one of the most respectable science journals, and to your surprise, it started by saying, 'Scientists at Cambridge University have set out to investigate why it is that despite all the technological advances that have been made that have meant that we can do all kinds of nice things we wouldn't have been able to do even fifty years ago, and we can have warmth and a comfortable life all year round, and the fact that living standards must have risen massively since the stone age, for some reason, life sometimes still seems to be a steaming pile of festering crud!'"

The others giggled.

Anne Tells the Others About When She Used to Drink to Dull Her Mind to Help Her Tolerate a Very Boring Class, and How She Managed to Give Up the Habit

Then one of the group said, "I'm having problems as well. I know I need to revise a lot, but the sun's so nice, I really don't feel as if I can be bothered to go in and get on with it! Or even do any out here! It feels like such a slog! Hey Anne! I remember when you first came here, you used to have a few drinks before going to a class you hated. Did it help?"

Becky felt concerned that he seemed to be thinking of drinking before an exam, but then she started finding the thought amusing and said with a grin, "You'd better not drink while you're revising! Just imagine if you misread your notes and got convinced they said something they didn't, and wrote it in an exam! I mean, imagine if you read, say, that scientists are looking into whether there are genes that make people more likely to get depression, and you somehow thought it said scientists are trying to find out whether Their own genes make them do things that make it more likely that other people will get depression, and you wrote that in your exam. Wouldn't you be embarrassed if you realised what you'd done afterwards!"

The students laughed.

The one who'd asked Anne whether drinking had helped her said with a chuckle, "Come on, I'm not that daft!" He was still curious, so he asked Anne, 'Did drinking help you though Anne?"

Anne said, "It seemed to help the first couple of times, but not really after that, and I soon gave it up anyway, after something embarrassing happened!

"One day the class finished, and then I had another drink to console myself for having had to sit through it. I think it was probably a silly thing to do now, but anyway, then I thought I'd better get down to writing an essay that was due in soon. So I started typing it on the computer, but my mind was wandering because I was a bit bored. Drinking certainly wasn't helping me concentrate!"

"I'd recently joined an Internet forum where they talked about psychology and other things. Some of the discussions were interesting, but there was this annoying man who kept hassling me. I don't know why he'd joined the forum, because he didn't seem to want to talk about psychology, or much else! I get the impression he somehow imagined it was a dating site, for some strange reason! Anyway, he'd started writing me private messages saying he fancied me and asking me what my waist size was and worse things, like what my breast size and inside leg measurement were and stuff like that. And one day he'd talk about how beautiful his girlfriend was, and the next day he'd tell me he was attracted to me and wished we could get together; it was creepy. I thought he was horrible! He probably thought it was fun, but I didn't!

"Anyway, I got really irritated with him after a while, and that day I suddenly decided that the next time I was at the forum, I'd tell him just what I thought of him and to get lost. I decided to write the message I'd like to send him in Notepad, so it would be already there when I went to the forum and wanted it, since I felt like getting what I thought off my chest right there and then. So I wrote a message saying,

"'Stop hassling me you pervert! I think you're just a creep. I'd be happy if you died. I came here to learn things, but all you want to do is get dirty you shallow-minded twit. If you don't leave me alone, I might report you, and I hope you get banned from here!'

"When I'd written the message, I copied it to the computer's clipboard so it would be all ready when I wanted it. Then I felt a bit more cheerful and managed to get on with my essay better for a little while.

"As I was going along, I was putting the names of the books I was getting information from at the end of my essay where you have to say what books you've used. I decided to copy and paste the long name of one psychology book at the end of it so I wouldn't have to type it. I found the title on Amazon. I thought I'd copied it, and went and pasted what was in my clipboard into my essay. I don't know why, but somehow I didn't manage to copy the name of the psychology book, but I didn't realise. I think I was a bit fed up again by then and wasn't really paying much attention to what I was doing. I think being a bit drunk stopped me caring so much. So what I pasted into my essay was the message I'd written to the annoying man on the forum! I don't know why, but somehow I didn't notice what I'd done and just went back and carried on writing and writing. I didn't look at the end of the essay again because I'd put in the names of the other books I'd used already. When I finished the essay, I handed it in to the tutor.

"He asked to see me a few days later. He asked me why I'd said such a thing in my essay. He thought I might have been saying it to Him and wondered why I'd accused him of things like that. He seemed a bit upset. I had to explain what must have really happened. It was so, so embarrassing! Anyway, after that, I thought I'd better not risk drinking again for a long time. So I suppose it was good for my health really.

"And there was another time, when I was going out of my room when I met someone I shared my hall of residence with, and a friend of hers had come to visit her for the afternoon. We said hello. A few moments later she dropped something and swore. She apologised, saying she wouldn't normally swear but she was feeling a bit irritable. I wondered if I'd read anything in a psychology textbook that could help, so I asked her why. She said she didn't know. If I'd been stone cold sober, I wouldn't have dreamed of saying what I said next, but I was still trying to be helpful and I said, 'Could it be PMT?' She blushed and said she didn't think so.

"A few days later, her friend told me she'd commented later that she thought I was a bit rude and nosy!

"So I decided to be a bit more careful about drinking.

"Also I realised drinking didn't help me as much as I'd thought it would, so I realised there was less point doing it than I'd thought; I mean, I'd been hoping it would stop me feeling stressed about not learning anything worthwhile and getting bored; but actually, I still ended up feeling frustrated and annoyed with the teaching, even when I'd been drinking. It reminded me of a quote I once found on the Internet: 'Don't drink to drown your sorrows; sorrows know how to swim.'"

One student said with a grin, "That's a good one. Hey maybe you could have found a whole load of funny quotes or jokes about drinking or other things on the Internet, and taken them into the class and read them when you got especially bored."

Another student giggled and said, "Yeah, maybe you could have printed out a load of lecturer jokes, or just teacher jokes. Then if your teacher asked you what you were reading and what was so funny, you could have just tried to persuade him you were really enjoying his class and you were just looking over some notes you'd made on it."

One student laughed and said, "Yeah, and if he wondered what on earth he'd said that was so funny and looked at what you'd written to find out, he might have read things like this joke I read:

"'"Now I want all the idiots in the room - and you know who you are - to stand up!" said the sarcastic tutor. After a long pause, one student stood up. "Now then mister, why do you think you're an idiot?" asked the tutor with a sneer. "Well, actually I don't," said the student, "but I hate to see you standing up there all by yourself."'

"I don't think he'd be very happy!"

The students giggled.

Anne laughed. But then she carried on, "That would have been funny! It might have got me kicked off the course though!

"Anyway, I decided I needed to have a good think about what else I could do to help me get through the mind-numbing class. I came up with a few ideas:

"I started chewing chewing gum all the way through it. That helped a bit. And it's nice that they do sugar-free chewing gum now so we don't need to worry about whether it's bad for our teeth, apart from, I suppose, there might be some varieties with acid in that might corrode them over time or something. I think I'll look on the Internet to find out which flavours are best for the teeth. But anyway, it was nice to have. At school we would have been told off for eating chewing gum in class and made to throw it away, but thankfully they don't do that here. I could still talk when I needed to, without sounding too much as if I had my mouth full; so it was allright. And I think it's great stuff; I think it's just as pleasurable to chew as eating about forty chocolates in a row, only without all the calories!

"Before I started doing that, I tried eating toffees in class. I started feeling self-conscious about doing that though, because the tutor and some of the students looked at me disapprovingly; I think they thought I was being greedy or not concentrating, or I think some were jealous and thought I was being selfish not offering them any. But I don't know what the tutor would have thought if I'd suddenly interrupted his lesson to hand out toffees!

"Anyway, then I tried eating a few chocolate bars before the class for consolation for having to go to it; but as soon as I stopped each time, I got what I thought was a sugar craving, and it lasted for a good few minutes after the class started, so I felt even worse about it than I had before.

"But after a few weeks, I realised it was really just a sweetness craving, not a sugar craving, when I started trying to stop it by chewing sugar-free chewing gum, and as soon as I put it in my mouth, the craving went away. Actually, I also found out that I could eat things that weren't sweet at all like a few nuts or a raw carrot, and the craving went away too, and when it did it didn't come back like it did if I ate something sugary. If I ate a bit of chocolate or something to get rid of my sugar craving, I'd often do that only to get it back just as badly a few seconds later! But it was as if things that weren't sweet damped down the sweetness craving or something, so even though you might have thought they wouldn't work, they turned out to be satisfying for much longer.

"Still, I might have got told off for munching raw carrots in class! Mind you, I could have eaten something quiet like a big bowl of pasta. ... Actually, that would have looked a bit odd, wouldn't it."

Anne grinned. Then she carried on, "But they didn't mind me chewing gum. Or at least, they didn't Say they minded.

"There were still times when I felt as if chewing gum just wouldn't be enough of a comfort food and I needed chocolate, and at first I ended up eating a few chocolate bars at once after the class; but then I found a way not to, because it made me feel like a pig: After I ate the first one, I always fancied another one. But I started telling myself that I'd wait five minutes, and if I still fancied one after that, I'd have one. Then I'd get on with something else, and I often found that within that five minutes, I just stopped thinking about chocolate so I didn't feel as if I wanted another one any more. I think it was partly to do with being distracted from the craving, and maybe even partly to do with some of the feel-good chemicals from the chocolate not hitting the spot in my brain where they made the difference for a few minutes after I'd eaten it, but then starting to work, so after about five or ten minutes, I felt better than I'd thought I would when I first finished it. I don't know about that one though.

"Anyway, apart from those things, I decided that I'd always treat myself to something nice after the class. I started always planning to buy myself a pie and chips afterwards, and it was surprising how much the anticipation of that lifted my spirits, so I was in a much better mood when I went to the class, so I put up with it more easily.

"Having a nice big hot meal just before the class lifted my spirits too; but I did eat a lot on the days when I did both!

"And also, instead of trying to dull my senses with booze, I decided to use some of them to note down everything I didn't like about the class as it was going along. So whenever I realised there was another reason I didn't like it, I noted it down. And when I had quite a few notes, I one day went to the tutor and told him just how I thought his classes could be improved. I don't think he liked me so much after that! But thankfully I didn't have to do his classes after the first year.

"And another thing I did was realised that instead of dulling my senses, I could use them more, since I thought what they might really be crying out for was to be given a nice challenge so it would get a bit of adrenaline flowing and I could feel as if I'd accomplished something. So from then on, for about an hour before I went to that class, in the time I used to spend going to lunch, I would find someone on the forum to argue with. Well, I didn't start the arguments, but there were always some going on there, so it was never long before I came across something that annoyed me so it got my adrenaline going and made me want to respond. I started enjoying it because it helped relieve the tension and frustration I felt about having to go to that class.

"But then I realised I was going over the top when one day I read through a conversation I'd had a couple of weeks before and realised my reactions seemed to be more extreme than they should have been, probably because I'd felt under provocation at the time so I was writing in anger: I mean, I had every right to be offended by what the man I was arguing with said, and he didn't seem to be a nice person at all; but calling him a 'cretinous vomit-making bug-brained festering sludge mound of disease-ridden heaving wreaking maggoty meat' was perhaps a bit more than he deserved. Mind you, I think a few people on the forum might have said it was tame!

"But I realised arguing like that was bringing out a side of me I didn't like, and it was just possibly unfair to the people I was arguing with. So I decided to stop. But I really missed it. And that made me look forward to the class even less than I had before, because I was in a worse mood.

"Then I found that listening to sad songs helped soothe me. So I often did that before the class after that. I don't know why they helped - maybe it was something to do with being consoled that at least I wasn't alone feeling down, or maybe it was the style of the music that was calming, or maybe some of my emotion was kind of siphoned off by feeling for the people in the songs - I don't really know. It might have been that the thought of other people feeling unhappy made me take my mind off feeling sorry for myself, so I started feeling better because I wasn't thinking about how I felt so much, although the songs weren't so sad they depressed me. But whatever the reason was, I'm glad the songs did help.

"And then sometimes I did some exercise, and I found that put me in a better mood for a while too. Mind you, if the lesson was annoying, I quickly went back to being in a bad mood again, so combining that with something else was better."

Two Students Tell Strange Little True Stories

Anne paused for breath, and then had to wait to finish - not that she minded - because one of the group said, "My gran did something weird not long ago. She lives really near us so she can see who comes to our front door. My parents had just been shopping one day and they'd left the front door open just while they brought the shopping in. My gran just barged in and said she'd come for a chat, and sat down and watched us while we put the shopping away, till we got some beer out of one of the bags. Then she stood up and said, 'Shall we have one?' We said we didn't fancy one right then. Then she asked if she could take a couple away with her. She said, 'I don't drink, but I've got a man in my bedroom and I'd like to give him a beer. I thought you might have some when I saw you bring shopping in, so I came in to ask if you had any.'

"Well we knew she was lying about not drinking because we've seen her drink lots of times. It seems she forgot that, unless she's just recently stopped drinking because she's been put on medication that you can't drink alcohol while you're taking or something. I suppose it could have been that. But why she said bedroom instead of just house, I don't know! It made her sound as if she's got a secret toy boy, but I'm pretty sure she hasn't! And if she has, it was uncharacteristically bad-mannered of her to just leave him and come and plonk herself down in someone else's house till such a time as she spotted some beer that she could take back for him.

"But she contradicted herself within the space of a few minutes, first saying she'd just come for a chat, and then telling us she'd come to see if we'd bought any beer she could have, and first asking us if we'd like to drink a beer With her, and then telling us she just wanted one to take away for someone else.

"I don't know why she seems to have lied to cover up wanting a beer so much; it seems she preferred that we thought she's got a secret toy boy she thoughtlessly abandoned till she could get him a beer or just so she could have a chat with us than that she's a bit boozy!"

"Yeah, and why didn't her toy boy come With her?" asked another student rhetorically with a grin. "Perhaps she'd tied him Up in the bedroom!"

All the students in the group giggled.

Then the one who'd told the story said, "Yeah, but she might be a Bit old for that kind of thing! It did make me wonder though whether she might be developing a drink problem, or whether she's starting off getting some kind of dementia and losing her inhibitions a bit. I mean, it's not like her to just barge into our house without even knocking and ask for a beer!"

One student said, "I've heard that people who drink quite a bit are more likely to get dementia, or that it gets worse more quickly in people who do, or something like that."

"Watch it Anne!" joked another student.

Anne said, "Oy! I'm hoping it'll be another 50 years or so before anything like that sets in! Ideally quite a few more! Anyway, haven't I just been saying I Stopped drinking before the classes I didn't like?"

One student said with a grin, "Someone told me she had an aunt who used to be very prim and proper and she'd always tell them off for even saying something just mildly rude; but she got dementia and had to go into a home, and it must have destroyed the part of her brain that made her care about that kind of thing, because she started using really insulting words to talk about the people around her, bawling about the nurses being bitches, swearing like a trooper, and saying offensive things to everyone who came near her."

The students giggled. One said, "Wow, I wonder if she'd like to have done things like that all along, but she'd always been taught she really mustn't; so she thought if she couldn't get away with it, she wasn't going to let anyone else get away with it either or it wouldn't be fair."

They all giggled again.

One said, "Do you think she might have just been pretending to have dementia so she'd have an excuse to have a good go at enjoying talking like that to people before she died? ... No, probably not!"

The Students Discuss Some Effects of Alcohol

Then one of the group called Heather turned the conversation serious by saying, "I've got a relative who had an alcoholic lodger for a while. He didn't drink all that often, and she said he was nice when he was sober, but it seemed that whenever he had one drink, he started craving more, so he'd have more, and more and more, till he was raving drunk. Then he'd do things like wobble back to their house from the pub and into their garden and then fall in a flowerbed, or come in and go upstairs to his room, sometimes collapsing on the way, and leaving the front door open, so it was a security risk, and there were kids in the house that she'd rather didn't see him like that. And once he was sick on the floor and wiped it up with her face flannel!

"Apparently he used to be in a band that had quite a bit of chart success, ages and ages ago, but he hardly had any money left by the time he started staying with her, for whatever reason. Hopefully he hadn't spent it all on booze!

"But anyway, he told them at first that he just wanted to stay a month or two. But he didn't show any signs of leaving at the end of that. They wondered if he'd never intended to leave right from the start, and had just lied to make it more likely he'd be accepted as a lodger. They wanted him to leave after a while because they wanted to go on holiday, and they didn't want him to be alone in their house while they were gone, with him doing things sometimes like leaving the front door open! He promised not to touch a drop of drink while they were away, but they wouldn't believe him, and they insisted he had to go no matter what. So he went to stay with one of his relatives in the end, even though his relative wasn't keen on the idea, probably because they were fed up of him behaving like that themselves when he'd been drinking.

"But I don't blame my relative for insisting he had to leave. Apart from the fact that she suspected he didn't always tell the truth about things, and he'd told her once he was giving up drink after the doctor warned him it was beginning to damage his liver, but then he couldn't resist drinking again sometimes, so it proves that even health scares weren't enough to stop him, them not being there would have made it even more tempting. Even if you really mean something at the time you say it, it doesn't guarantee you won't change your mind, does it, especially if you get a craving for it.

"I know it is possible to say you're going to give up drinking and really mean it at the time; but it doesn't mean you'll still want to give it up when you stop feeling like it, just like you can say in, say, mid-January, that you won't touch any of the chocolates you got for Christmas again till Easter because you want to lose weight and they're just making you put it on instead, really meaning it at the time, but when you next feel down and feel like eating something nice for comfort, or you feel sleepy and really want a quick energy boost, or your brain doesn't seem to be working very fast and you want to try to speed it up a bit, or you feel left out and tempted because someone on Facebook puts up a status about really enjoying some chocolate, or you smell chocolate and it gives you a craving for some, or you feel a bit bored and get the urge to do something that'll quickly make you feel livened up, or something happens that you want to celebrate and you want something to celebrate it with, or when something else happens that makes you start craving or feeling like eating chocolate, chances are you'll give in to the temptation."

Anne said with a wry smile, "That was a long list! Are you speaking with the voice of experience? It sounds like it!"

Heather said, "Yes I am! I get really tempted to eat chocolate sometimes. But the thing is, what I was thinking was that if things like that can easily happen to people who aren't addicted to anything, it must be a lot harder for people who are addicted to things to resist the urge to give in to temptation. I think it's easy for anyone to make promises when they're not being tempted at the time; but when feelings come on that give them temptations, giving in can be a lot harder to resist.

"But obviously the consequences are more serious with alcohol. I use a bit sometimes when I'm trying to get down to work because it makes me feel less restless and more decisive somehow, so I don't feel like procrastinating so much. But I wonder if some people feel that effect and then don't realise alcohol's doing different things to them the more they drink."

One of the group said, "I doubt it. The last bit anyway. I think anyone who drinks and drives would probably think it was OK to do that all along, or their morals would still stop them. At least, that's the way it seems to me.

"Not long after I first came here, I got drunk one night, and I accidentally damaged something of mine when I got back. I've got this little portable CD player, and because there isn't all that much room in my room, I keep it down by the side of my bed at night, and keep it on my bed during the day so I can easily reach it when I want to use it. Anyway, one night I was drunk, and I got in and put it down by the side of my bed, but I think that when people are drunk, they must lose awareness of how much force they're using, because I banged it down hard instead of putting it down gently like I normally would, and something in it must have broken, because since then, it's always sounded a bit shaky when I've played anything on it."

One of the students, rather than feeling sad for the one with the damaged CD player, grinned despite himself and joked, "Perhaps it's really half alive, and it sounds shaky because it's always scared you'll bang it down on the floor again like you did before."

The students giggled, and the one who'd told the story said, "It would be a shock if it turned out to be alive so it could do that! But what I was going to say is that ever since then, even when I've been drunk, I've always remembered to put it down gently. So I think that anyone who starts drinking feeling sure they wouldn't want to drink and drive won't decide they will after all, no matter how many drinks they've had. ... Mind you, come to think of it, you didn't say that someone who was completely against drinking and driving might decide they'll do it after all after a few drinks, did you. Whoops!

"But anyway, it's only my opinion, obviously, but I think the kind of person who might decide to drink and drive when they've had a few drinks when they weren't intending too at first is probably the kind of person who isn't really all that opposed to drinking and driving, but wouldn't do it sober ... I mean wouldn't think it would be a good thing to do if they were sober ... well, you know what I mean, they're probably the kind of people who aren't really opposed to doing it in principle, but maybe they only wouldn't do it because they'd be a bit concerned about what people would think of them. But then when people have had a few drinks, I think they stop caring much about what other people think, so those people probably think, 'What the heck! I'm going to do it!' Or something like that.

"That's what I reckon anyway. I mean, if you were really opposed to doing something because you thought it was a bad thing to do, don't you think you'd be against the idea of doing it no matter what? Maybe some people only start thinking drunk driving's wrong after they have an accident, or nearly do."

One of the others said, "If that's true, then it's a pity they haven't got the imagination to just imagine what an accident would be like before they get to have one!

"But I think it's probably true about people who do harmful things when they're drunk being the kinds of people who haven't got much of a problem with the idea of doing them anyway. I read that it's been estimated that about forty per cent of offenders in prisons committed their crimes under the influence of alcohol; and I read that quite a high percentage of violent crime is committed by people who've been drinking.

"But I don't think that means drinking itself puts people at risk of committing crimes. I think it just accentuates people's personalities and moods, so someone with a lot of anger inside or who just thinks it would be fun to hit someone who gets on their nerves when they start drinking might actually end up being violent; but someone who'd never want to do a thing like that probably wouldn't, no matter how much they drank, although I suppose it partly depends on whether they were being provoked. I mean, if someone's normally non-violent when they're drunk, but then one day someone threatens them when they've had a few, maybe some would be more likely to fight them if they were drunk than they would if they were sober.

"But I doubt that someone who had a strong belief that it's wrong to vandalise things or steal from people or start fights would suddenly decide things like that would be fun things to do once they got drunk.

"I reckon that a lot of the kinds of people who do that kind of thing when they're drunk might be people who'd secretly like to do those things sober, but don't dare; or else they're people whose feelings of anger or longing to get to be well-off or whatever get stronger when they've been drinking, and then especially if they're egged on by other people, they can make impulsive decisions under the influence of the booze to actually rob people or commit other crimes, because the part of the brain that would normally be telling them it's a bad idea has been shut down a bit by the booze. Maybe there are other reasons why they might be more likely to commit crime while they're drunk too.

"And you might get people who'd, say, feel tempted to cheat on their partners when they're sober, but their conscience makes them think, 'No! This would be a bad idea! My partner would be upset if they found out! And I might have to lie about where I've been, and that would be a real pain!' But when they're drunk, those thoughts might still come into their minds, but because the part of their brain that helps them resist temptation has been shut down a bit, their feelings easily over-ride it, so they get more impulsive and think, 'No, sod it; I'm going to do it anyway!' Or something like that.

"I once heard someone say that it's worth getting to know what someone's like when they're drunk before getting into a relationship with them, because the kinds of things drunk people do and say will often be the things that are going on just in their minds when they're sober; so you can get a better impression of what kind of person they really are when they're drunk. I reckon that's probably true."

One of the others said, "Well, it might be; but I think it would be best to get to know people you're interested in sober first, so if you get an idea that there might be problems, you don't even go near them when they're drunk, for your own safety!"

The one who'd brought up the subject said, "Yeah, that's probably a good idea."

One of the group said, "I heard someone say they'd read that some people who've worked with domestic violence victims found that a lot of wife beaters would plan to beat their wives up, and then go out drinking before they did, so later they could apologise and convince their wives they only did it because they were under the influence of the drink.

"And I heard that some people doing research on rape said some rapists deliberately drink a bit before they attack their victims, picking on very drunk ones, in the hope that the next day, people - including their victims - will think that it just happened because they were both too drunk to really make a good judgment about what they were doing. Or if it goes to court, their lawyers will probably try to discredit their victims by suggesting that they might have brought the case to court because they consented to doing something when they were drunk and feeling a bit reckless because of that that they regretted doing the next morning, and then they unfairly blamed the man for it, as if they think he should have had the hind-sight to know they'd regret it the next day."

One student said with a hint of a wry smile, "This conversation's depressing! ... What if all this talk about alcohol and crimes and things drives us all to drink?"

A gloomy mood came over the students for a while, and one said, "I've got a cousin who got married about a year ago, for some reason. I suppose she must have thought she'd like it. ... Actually I think she still does. But anyway, at her wedding reception, her sister got really drunk. She was wearing high heels, but she was dancing, kicking her legs up high in front of her, as if she was imagining she was doing some kind of can-can dance or something. I was at the wedding reception, but I wasn't watching at the time. My cousin told me what she'd been doing afterwards. She lost her balance and fell over and broke her ankle! It took months before she totally recovered and stopped feeling any pain! Her brother had been dancing right opposite her sister who was dancing like that, and if he hadn't been so drunk himself, he might have thought to warn her that it might be dangerous to do a dance where you really need to have good balance in narrow high heels! But he was just enjoying himself.

"But it just shows you how alcohol can impair people's judgments if you drink enough of it! ... I mean, it's actually possible that she would have done something like it if she was sober; she can be a bit daft. ... Well, maybe not that daft.

"I once heard her brother mocking someone who said they were teetotal. But a teetotal person would probably have thought to warn his sister that it would be better not to kick up her heels the way she was in case she lost her balance, or advised her to change her shoes if she wanted to dance like that!

"Mind you, breaking her ankle didn't put her off drinking! She still likes to drink as much as she did before!"

The others sniggered at the last comment.

Then one of the group said, "So many people seem to feel the need for alcohol! I remember hearing part of a programme on the radio once where the presenter was asking whether the brain was really adapted well for our environment, or whether it would be much better adapted if we all had some kind of in-built endorphin dispenser that was working all the time, or the brain often released a chemical like alcohol or drugs into the system all by itself, so we could all be happier, and miserable less often. You know, you'd wake up in the morning, and immediately you'd be on a high!

"Mind you, I suppose it wouldn't really be appropriate if someone came and told you their dog had just died or something, and you were really cheerful about it. ... Mind you, maybe they'd be cheerful about it too. That would be a weird world, wouldn't it! ... Mind you, I suppose it would just seem normal if you were used to it. Mind you, wouldn't it be weird if you wanted to be a bit sad so you could sympathise with someone who'd just hurt themselves or something, but you couldn't help being cheerful!"

One of the others said seriously, "You know, when I've had a drink, and then I've felt like having another one, I think it's because when I have the first drink, I can feel better than I did before, and I want the feeling to carry on, or to get stronger. I sometimes wonder if it'll just fade away soon if I don't have another drink. But then when I do, the feeling changes to one that isn't as nice. So maybe I'd be better off just having one drink. But somehow, I never seem to learn that lesson, no matter how many times it happens! Maybe it's because the feeling changing to one that isn't as good seems better than it fading away altogether.

"But maybe it's the same with enjoyment, and with that thing about the first drink people have maybe sometimes helping people think a bit more quickly and be a bit more decisive and more motivated to bother getting up and getting around to doing things they're not really keen on doing - maybe sometimes people drink more and more because they feel better after the first drink and just want the feeling to continue, so they drink some more, but instead of just prolonging the feeling, that changes it and makes people more stupid."

Another one of the group said, "Maybe. It's a shame if people are just drinking to try to get to think more clearly or to help them be bothered to get up and do something they don't really want to do or something. And it probably doesn't always even work, even just after the first drink! And there are other things that might help even more. The other day I was feeling a bit down, and as if I couldn't be bothered to do anything much, but then I remembered that something nice was going to happen later that day, and I started looking forward to it, and I started feeling a lot more cheerful, and I felt as if I had more get-up-and-go. So maybe one trick is to give yourself something to look forward to later in the day as often as you can think of things that might be nice to do."