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Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
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12:28 pm - budget museli
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I am cooking a carrot and leek soup, which is currently smelling fantastic after only 10 minutes. I've not made a soup for ages, but I seem to have a house full of veg on its last legs. While googling for something to do with the last of the aubergine I found studentrecipes.com which is a bit of an eye-opener (n.b. there's a loud advert on each recipe page, so switch your volume off.) Fried eggs in the microwave, lots of things involving beans or toast, recipes for curry which involve opening a jar of Uncle Ben's... and the absolute vile sounding nadir of Cup-a-Soup risotto, which even the author deems to be not recommended.
Some of them are quite decent ideas, like the cheats' carbonara and the winter veg stew, but do students really need a recipe for cheese on toast? I'm also particularly liking the instruction bacon (do not use if veggie) in one recipe. I don't know what I think of this - on the one hand I'm all for anything that gets people cooking, and I was being forgiving of the fact that it was aimed at young students who have just left home, but then I remembered that at 19 years old I was the head cook for a reasonably respected restaurant.
My new flatmate is a bit of a student cook though - lots of jars of bolognese or curry sauce, and he burns a pizza at least twice a week. He puts on the oven timer depending on what the packet says, rather than just, er, keeping an eye on it. I'm coming to realise that people who say/think they can't cook just don't have the concentration span to stand over something for a few minutes. Certain things you can walk off and leave, like home made soup, and some things you can't. My friend Glynis used to put rice or pasta on and then go off for a bath, and she remained baffled as to why it burnt. My friend Helen used to only trust herself to heat up a tin of soup or beans by standing the tin in boiling water. Patience, people!
I tried to watch Channel 4's 3D season the other night. Regardless of the fact that I had been drinking since 7am, it was just doomed to failure. I only use one eye at a time anyway so all I could see was blue, or if I made an effort to switch, yellow. Bums.
Anyway, as I haven't been on LJ for ages (again) and I'm rambling about food (again) you should all humour me with news of what you're having for lunch.
current mood:  hungry
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| Thursday, November 5th, 2009
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11:22 am - andre breton threw us out
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How do, Livelyjournal? Long time no write... again. I am entering the last few days of a glorious three weeks off work, of which half was spent in Cornwall, and the other half has been spent remembering what it's like to potter around the house or the shops doing not very much. Glorious.
Speaking of shops, I have properly replaced the phone I lost a month or so ago, and still am missing a lot of numbers. If you didn't remind me of your number last time I asked, please feel free to do so. My new phone is fabulous, and in spite of thinking, and even explicitly saying in the shop 'I don't really need one that plays music' I seem to have got a Nokia 5220 XpressMusic, that er, plays music. So I thought the only sensible use I could put this to would be to set up my ringtone to be Whitey's Leave Them All Behind. This makes me very happy. I am really looking forward to phone calls now. For years and years I have habitually set my phone to silent as I find having your phone ring in public to be quite embarrassing. Also as I have suffered from crap battery syndrome for the last few years I have ignored any calls knowing they'll cut the phone out, assuming they'll text or leave a message if it's that important.
Now I am going to be smiling a happy smile if and when anyone phones, even if they're ringing to tell me all my loved ones have perished in a terrible freak accident. It also has Bluetooth. What the hell is Bluetooth?* Is it now like so five years ago? Snake III is rubbish though. Snakes don't eat pears and bang their heads on dry stone walls.
In brilliant news, I had a £5 voucher for Boots No17 products which I put towards some micro-dermabrasion stuff. It promises to give 100% improvement to my ageing skin within four treatments. I took this to mean that I should soon look 100% younger, and do you know what? I do!
Please feel free to make up lots of other exciting things I have been up to and hilarious conversations I have had recently. There have been plenty, I have just neglected to write about them at the time.
*EDIT: Actually I can use this to save my phone contacts to my computer, so should I lose another one I won't need to have to ask for numbers again. Smart.
current mood:  slacking
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| Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
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3:37 pm - we tried to deliver a letter*
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Wow, LJ really is as quiet as an oiled mouse innit? Not that I'm going to help contribute much - I'm going to St Ives in the morning for a whole eight days. On an actual holiday, rather than on my week off. This is my week off, see? This is the first time I've taken off a full seven days in a row, thus giving me three weeks off work all at once, and I decided I had to go somewhere, otherwise I'd surely just spend 504 hours on the settee watching episodes of Come Dine With Me that I've seen at least three times before.
I could have gone to explore somewhere new, but I've just missed the decent weather really, so trundling around on my own in some European city, in the cold, didn't sound that great, and I have fallen back on the option of going to my mother's. But who knows, I might sneak in another long weekend away somewhere random before the end of the year. Also, I might not. I'm just wild and unpredictable like that.
*Yes, my new bank card is lost in the Royal Mail's system, and I am going on holiday for eight days. Timing there.
current mood:  packing
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| Monday, October 12th, 2009
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2:26 pm - wedding, wedding, wedding - yes it's the new supermeme
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Why is it so hot and sunny in October? I have the door wide open and I've had to close the blinds because I'm being dazzled.
I had to get up in the dark on Saturday, for the first time since I went on holiday in January. I feel sorry for you daytime people who do this all the time. I had to get up particularly early as I'd intended to wash my hair on Friday night, and then just fell asleep in front of the tv about 8pm. But I was out nicely in time to meet up with chaps for the 9.09 wedding train, which was enlivened by Declan downing four cans in the short journey. Between the twelve of us there were four copies of the Guardian, if that says anything about us.
Then we turned the bus to Marwell into the wedding bus, and I found a little plastic penguin, which was clearly a good sign for the day. And then animals! I don't think I've been to a zoo since I was about five years old, and my vague memory of the time tells me the animals then looked a little unhappy. But these were all happy animals, with lots of space, and an attempt made to re-create their natural environment as far as possible. I found the giraffes... weird. I have obviously spent far too much time watching CGI 'monsters' as that's how they struck me - totally unreal. I would really have liked to touch one to convince myself they existed, but the little one who couldn't reach the branches and kept sticking his long tongue out was the cutest. The meerkats were totally amazing and hypnotic, and gave full-on entertainment value. But, also with the chipmunks, they were much smaller than I'd imagined. I'd thought they'd be about the size of a big cat (big domestic cat, not Big Cat) and they were tiny. Easily the size that you could stick in a big pocket and take home, and yes we were all tempted.
We found our way to the hall and took our seats for the wedding, where we were definitely the naughty kids in the back row. Lots of sniggering, and the fear that we would all continue sniggering through the ceremony. But we didn't. It was a lovely service, with the officiator adding some personalised words about marriage, rather than just reading out the words by rote. And they both looked so happy, which is good, frankly. Looking a bit miserable through your own wedding would be a bad sign.
We were then given a Winter Pimms, and thrown outside for the photos. And it was bright and sunny and glorious, what a contrast to the gloomy, wet London of the previous day. I had a pair of flat shoes shoved in a plastic bag in my pocket, but I don't think it was in view of the camera. Class. David and Katy were then driven off in the tractor train, and we had another hour to look at animals. My favourite of the day was the red footed tortoise, who'd been hiding in the corner of his tank when everyone else looked, but came out to see me. I want one!
The wedding breakfast followed, with most of us from the train/back rows being seated together. Absolutely the naughty table. We were all given a marzipan keepsake, and mine was another penguin. A really angry looking penguin. I nearly ate him yesterday during a sugar craving, but was too scared. Sated with dinner and copious amounts of wine and champagne, there were the speeches. Oh but I must mention the Toastmaster. A gentleman wearing regimental uniform complete with medals, he was a fantastic addition to the day and did a fine job. I assumed he might have been one of David's Oxford porters, but apparently he 'came with the venue.' What a job - joining in with people's weddings, all day. The speeches were all fabulous - Linzi cracked everyone up with her 'wise words,' and as everyone else has said, we all had a good cry at Katy's mum's speech.
Then the disco started - it's a wedding, it has to be called a disco - finely provided by Ally and Jo, with some help from Jasmine. There was quite a smokers contingent sitting outside, but I think everyone made it to the dancefloor for a decent amount of time. I still had one of the disposable cameras from the meal, and took some photos of the first dance, so I hope they came out. In fact I hope the camera made it to where it was supposed to be, because I just had to leave it with the barman. I'd had a terrible vision of me getting horrendously drunk, embarrassing myself, and sleeping in a zoo/station toilet, but I determined that the least I could do as a 'gift' to David and Katy would be to Not Do That, so I left at a reasonable time - well, in time for a train back to London anyway. And then at Waterloo I got the bus in the wrong direction and had to get another one all the way back, taking about an hour to do the ten minute journey home. I'll never figure out where the number 1 stops around there. That's the fourth time at least. Oh well!
current mood:  good
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| Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
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4:07 pm - why is there a picture of me? why is it moving? oh it's a webcam***
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You have no idea how bored I am. Earlier I realised that a couple of days ago was this journal's eighth anniversary and I thought, wow I don't normally stick with anything for that long, I thought I'd be on Livejournal for a week before I got bored! Eight years! But I'm not really 'on' Livejournal anymore am I? Although it's not because I'm bored of it, I'm just boring now. Boring and bored. Have we said that?
I seem to do nothing. There is nothing I'm currently passionate about, or even mildly interested in. I really need something to engage me. Something to get up for and enjoy and be enthusiastic about. And so I spent an hour before I got to sleep trying to come up with some new ideas, thinking about the things my friends love as examples and wondering what it would take for me to find something like that. I am perfectly aware at this point that I am a lonely, ageing woman and not much new is going to happen in my life, and I have calmly accepted the idea I won't be in a relationship again* so I do have to find something to keep me going. I thought hard about the things I really enjoy and all I could come up with was a. dancing to a solid four hours of electro like I did on Saturday, or b. sitting gazing at the sea, neither of which can be turned into full time 'hobbies.' The hours I work don't allow for me to do something weekly like take up lessons or join some some sort of group/club. Through the twists and turns your thought processes go through while you're actually hoping you'll fall asleep soon, my mind came up with the conclusion Get A Pet.
And then it all fell nicely into place. I need something to pay attention to, to be nice to, to think of and care for and look after. When I have been in a relationship this is the bit I have most thoroughly enjoyed - I've been 'independent' since being about five years old so I don't have any appreciation for 'me' time, or treating myself, or doing what I like, because I have spent the majority of my life doing what I like. Bored now. (Yes we made that point.)
Obviously I would love a cat, having grown up with them and it fitting with the 'bitter old hag' theme, but I have a balcony, and need a flatmate**, so that's out. Fish aren't very interactive. So I have decided I need a budgie. I really need a budgie.
Of course I may be bored of this idea by next week when I have time to go and buy one, but right now it sounds great. My other grand plan is prostitution, which solves the flatmate plan too.
*This is not self-pity. I don't fancy anyone, and the feeling's mutual. That's just the way it is.
**The next person who says 'have you tried gumtree?' is to give me the £500 a month I'm asking in rent for a year. This is legally binding.
***Discovery I made on my laptop yesterday
current mood:  complacent
current music: Autokratz - Always More
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| Thursday, September 17th, 2009
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3:22 pm - a lonely man with a roaming plan
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I have a new phone. Well not a new phone, an old phone that I am now using to replace the one I lost last week. It's a bit gutting losing a phone, especially one you've had for years. There are numbers I will never get back, and sentimental messages and odd photos and all that. The numbers thing is odd because there will be people on there that I haven't texted or seen for two years, and probably wouldn't be likely to in the near future, but it's nice to know that the option's still available. And I've also been only half-sleeping since then as my phone was my alarm clock/watch, so I've been terrified of not waking up for work (despite the fact that because of my hours, being late for work would mean I'd been asleep 15 hours.)
I feel such an idiot for losing my phone because I had just, the day before, been congratulating myself on not losing it for three years and vaguely wondering about replacing it as all the numbers had worn off. It knew, didn't it? What's possibly worse is putting the new sim into an old cheap phone I bought about three and a half years ago and finding it full of old, quite emotional, text messages. I am going to have a small nostalgic cry and plunge my head into a bucket of ice water. In the meantime...
PLEASE RE-SEND ME YOUR NUMBER AND NAME.
(Unless you never want to hear from me again, in which case, this is your big chance.)
current mood: nostalgic
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| Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
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3:40 pm - insert joke about chianti here
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So yesterday I did a Tesco online shop and I thought, I've not had liver for ages, I'll get some. I ticked the smallest price/weight, and was expecting one piece big enough for one meal, but have now been presented with 480g (£1.75, bargin) of liver that has apparently already been frozen, which I noticed just as I was about to split it up for the freezer. I did fancy liver, yes, but not masses of the stuff that all has to be eaten immediately. Anyone want some liver?
I also have (ATTENTION NORTHERNERS) two meat and potato pies. Not Holland's, but it's a start. I shall report back. Right, I am off to look at liver recipes.
current mood: i don't even have any bacon!
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| Monday, August 31st, 2009
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4:32 pm - we're not gay, we're, er, brothers!
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I have had a fabulous weekend in Manchester, in case you were wondering. Met some lovely people, caught up with family, drank some tasty strawberry and lime cider, went on a mini tour of my childhood home and school, got arrested. Oh yes. On Friday night, and I really can't remember how this transpired, I was hauled off by a copper and questioned over the theft of a bag. After playing a sort of Generation Game of trying to remember and list all the things that were in the bag, which is not very easy after many pints, and confused by the fact it's not my usual bag, I did manage to convince the young PC that the bag was indeed my own.
Well it was an experience anyway. I don't think I'll be serving time over it.
In further security news I checked my rucksack into the left luggage at the station for the Saturday afternoon, and there is a brilliant sign on the wall:
When being asked the security questions, any reference to bombs or explosives, even in jest, will not be tolerated, and the police will be called.
However I appear to have again broken the law (well I say 'again,' but I hadn't broken it the first time...) because on returning the rucksack to me I looked at the receipt and it said that one of the forbidden items is jewellery. Well, there were two pairs of earrings in there. I humbly apologise for threatening the safety and security of everyone in Greater Manchester in such a blatant manner. Sorry everyone.
None of the funniest moments will take to being written down very well, so you'll just have to use your imagination as to how a shout of 'Alan Turing' was absolutely hilarious at the time.
current mood: knackered out
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| Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
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3:36 pm - i feel like someone's great grandmother
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Wow, boredy boredy bored. Daytime TV, Spider Solitaire, chain-smoking bored. Although this is the first time in a whole month that I have had a day free to sit around the house and do nothing, and I really ought to soak it up and enjoy it. Especially before this weekend where I am going up to Manchester and only have somewhere to stay for Friday and Sunday, not Saturday, so I will be spending Saturday night drinking in the streets and pleading for people to be my friend. Yes I know I'm actually from Manchester, but I don't necessarily want to treat my family as crash space between drinking sessions. Oh well, it will be an adventure. (Just please don't rain Manchester, look kindly on your daughter.)
I managed to excel myself on Monday in the pub by giving four young men a stern lecture about how embarrassing their fawning over one girl was. And how it was a backwards insult to myself. Well, not that I'm bothered about how they consider me, but it was all sparked off when one of them bought her a drink before she'd even turned up, and then she didn't turn up at all, and faces fell. John suggested the drink could be given to some other attractive young woman who came in the pub to which the answer was 'when is there going to be an attractive young woman in here at 7am?' John politely coughed. Everyone apologised to me. I came out with 'for god's sake, do you know what you lot look like...?' and held forth for some time. It's good to rant now and again.
I still have a fridge full of veg, and now I have had to defrost two rainbow trout because they were completely stuck together, so I will be having rainbow trout with roasted veg for tonight's dinner, tomorrow's lunch, and tomorrow's dinner. Maybe there'll be some left to take on the train on Friday.
current mood:  boredy boredy bored
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| Monday, August 24th, 2009
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11:11 pm - rain
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Oh wow, BBC are repeating the best documentary ever. If you are at home there is only 20 minutes left of Rain, but do watch it. It is followed by Snow and Wind - not as astoundingly fascinating, but in the same style. Do please watch or download Rain.
current mood: happy
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| Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
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3:17 pm - spooky pea-head
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What has happened to cartoons? Where have they gone? I was thinking the other day about the Pink Panther, which used to regularly pop up on TV, and then last night at work someone did a voice which we identified as sounding like Droopy, and we chatted a bit about Bugs Bunny before we'd reached the Droopy conclusion. But cartoons used to be on all the time - not just as part of the dedicated children's slot, they'd pop up before a film or after the football results. I know there are actual cartoon and children's channels now, but none of the 'fun' stuff is allowed to cross over into 'adult' programming any more, and that's a shame.
I wonder with all the vast amounts of choice whether today's children will have any shared TV memories when they reach adulthood. We all know who Bagpuss is because we all had to watch the same thing, but other than CBeebies for the tinies, today's kids have a whole different range of channels, not all of them available to everyone depending on which cable or satellite package you have, so that shared recollection will be lost.
And during school holidays we used to get all sorts of stuff thrown at us. My summer TV memories are things like the Beverley Hillbillies and Bewitched, which I doubt are being repeated anywhere these days. And dubbed versions of European programmes like Heidi, The White Horses, and The Flashing Blade, which was later spoofed on On The Waterfront - yes I had to look that up, I just knew a spoof existed. Speaking of which, Saturday morning kids' TV has gone too hasn't it? I'm quite happy to watch two hours of Saturday Kitchen, but something like Going Live was as much hangover TV as it was children's entertainment so must have raked in the ratings.
More kids TV for adults please.
Anyway, how do people cope who have a _ in their usernames? I find it the most awkward key to type.
current mood:  nelly
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| Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
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2:07 pm - who puts chocolate digestives in the fridge?
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On tourists. Does anyone else experience a strange mania on returning home from a holiday? I don't mean returning to your house, but the bit where you get back to your home town or city and then have to get home. It involves a feeling of being desperate to prove you are not a tourist, because everyone hates tourists, and yet you have spent the last few days or weeks being one, when it was perfectly fine. In my case it involves marching about purposefully, ostentatiously brandishing my Oyster card, sighing and tutting at people using ticket machines, or muttering oh for fuck's sake at people blocking walkways to look at their map. Making it very clear that just because I have a suitcase it doesn't mean I am a bloody tourist, it means I am an international traveller, even if I may have only been to an 80s weekend at Skegness Butlins.
And yet conversely, of course, when I'm the one trying to figure out how the ticket machines work or checking my map, I am silently wishing the person behind me would please stop tutting because it's not helping, and I can't be expected to instantly know these things. And on returning I have about two days of tourist sympathy, where I am patient with people taking photographs and suddenly stopping walking in the middle of the pavement. Only two days, mind.
On old people. I am having to rethink my idea of age. There were a group of women chatting outside earlier. They had white hair in tight perms and wore nylon pinnys and skirts, and socks with slippers, and elastic knee bandages. Now about five years ago if asked to roughly describe them I would have said 'in their sixties...' and yet, my mother and her contemporaries are now over 60 and they look nothing like this. They are smartly dressed, active women who I consider to be in their prime. I am looking forward to it. Were the women outside really a decade or generation older, or are they just a completely different type of 'pensioner'?
On Twitter. I'm sorry, but I've been on there for two years, three months, and one week and I'm still not finding any affinity with it. What's the deal? Maybe I just don't like the one-liner aspect of it, but I do use Facebook (admittedly not that much though.) Perhaps I'm just too careful with my words and don't like to waste them on brief statements - I have to think every time whether I really want to write this or not - but ironically my job actually comprises taking large amounts of information and compressing it into one or two smart, snappy sentences. Maybe that's it - it's just like work only for no financial gain.
current mood: calm
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| Monday, August 17th, 2009
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1:50 pm - rhoda bracewell, she runs a race well
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Umf, I should say something about Edinburgh shouldn't I? One day Livejournal will allow me to think my journal entries onto it but, as I'm sure I've said before, that would quite often be a Bad thing. Now I'm currently tormented as to whether I can remember my time in Edinburgh in exact order, or would it be better to bullet point random memories as they occur? And what tense should I use? These things may chop and change as I see fit.
As I arrived it was raining, so I trundled up (the suitcase being the main trundler here) to the Pleasance courtyard to sit under an umbrella and await people with knowledge of where my flat was and how to get into it. They arrived just after I had started my second pint, by which time I had been given 20 flyers for different shows. As Dan had to get back to the flat (to hand over to me and leave) he encouraged me to take my pint with me for the short walk down the hill. This turned out to be a good thing as it left me with a pint glass to drink water with.
- Edinburgh tap water is vile, really*
Isabelle then took us to the Comedy 4 Kids, and then we wandered up to the Tron to see... no I have already forgotten what we saw, but we did run into Miriam, whose show had been cancelled due to a power failure. From this point I was left to my own devices, with an armload of programmes and maps and barely saw anyone I knew for days, which was fine.
- My first major discovery was that SCOTTISH CHIPPIES DO GRAVY. What a birthday present. Sausage, chips and gravy! I also went back at one point for chips and curry sauce (which I had been advised to call curry chips.)
- My diet was dreadful, mostly chippies, pies, pasties and fry ups. And beer, wine and vodka. On Friday afternoon I realised I was having my first cup of tea for a week, thanks to the milk having been off before I left home.
- I saw some comedy, unsurprisingly. Some good, some not so good, some great. I followed friends' recs for a few shows, but also took a chance on some things in the programmes, and on the free stuff available if I had an hour to kill.
- I also missed some things I would have liked to see thanks to bad timing/tickets selling out/clashes/getting lost.
- I got lost a few times. It's not that hard to find your way around, but I had a mental block around the location of the Gilded Balloon, and also took a while to realise that North Bridge was actually, erm, a bridge, that went above the street I thought it was taking me back too.
- I got talking to a New Yorker who I accidentally offended by suggesting his name, Anwar, was Asian. To him, Asian was Chinese, Japanese... No I said, that's Oriental. Asian is Indian, Pakistani... No he said, that's Middle Eastern. No I said, that's Iraqi, Saudi... This went on until he offered to take me into the bushes and show me what a Man he was. Erm.
- I got talking to a couple of ex cons, who were great blokes, and also turned out to be Christians. I'd initially thought the younger, very drunk, one to be the thickie, but he was surprisingly profound and interesting, when he could string a sentence together. We had a really good, thought-provoking and interesting chat.
- It was 5am and they were rolling very large joints. This may not be pertinent.
- There is a street called Cowgate. With a cow on it. And also the Udderbelly. Great stuff, but I forgot to buy a commemorative Highland Moo.
- I did get picked on by acts a few times, as in asked something in an audience participation way, not bullied. See title for example. But if you want to put off a comedian, tell them your job is 'press cuttings editor.' They will have no idea, and shut up.
- The title was from King of Comedy, in which I baffled Johnny and Michael by waiting outside for them and going with them for a pint. I was actually waiting for Miriam who was doing their teching, but they hadn't realised I knew her until that point.
- King of Comedy, Two Episodes of Mash, Andrew O'Neill and Hugh Hughes are all highly recommended. Hugh is fabulous and stands at the door at the end thanking everyone for coming and giving out badges.
- It rained. A lot. Relentless, driving rain. Free fun could be had by sitting in the courtyard or the Udderbelly and watching the (flat-topped) table umbrellas inevitably pay off their load onto someone's head.
- Other things I have forgotten.
- I am already looking forward to next year.
Anyways, sorry Stef for not making it out yesterday. I pretty much needed a day off traipsing about and socialising, so instead I spent the afternoon in the cinema with my friend Steve-from-work to see an old B&W, which is a mutual interest of ours. Who knew I lived 5 minutes walk from an art-house cinema? Well Steve did, as he invited me, but I would never have spotted it. I had a very civilised lunch and (one) pint in the sun and then came home to doze off, like a proper Sunday.
Tonight, back to work, and for once I really feel like I have had a proper week off and done something good with it. But I am very unimpressed with Tesco, who will not deliver me a hairdryer along with my shopping. Oh, they will deliver me a hairdryer, but for an extra charge at an unspecified time. I should have bought one in Edinburgh.
*It appears that if I try to start bullet pointing from this point, it does the entire text from the beginning, so the - will have to surfice for a bullet point randomly remembered entry.
current mood: should have a nap
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| Sunday, August 16th, 2009
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9:38 am - scotland the brave
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I am back from Edinburgh. I am not going to spend hours writing up my 'experience' just yet, other than to say I am already considering going up for much longer and with more of a plan next year. Yes, it was good. However I have just noticed how much my legs ache. Due to a combination of the hills and a few bouts of walking completely in the wrong direction, my legs ACHE, man.
Also I am bloody starving and have no food in and I'm really unconvinced that the little corner shop will accept my Scottish £20 notes. Pretty silly to come back with three of them aye, but probably not as bad as coming back from a trip with €60.
current mood: great!
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| Tuesday, August 11th, 2009
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4:32 pm - two wise men if you count little norm
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I have decided that I really cannot be bothered to traipse out to the shops and buy a new hairdryer and a smaller suitcase. Both will have to be purchased eventually but for now I will cope with the curly hair and the week-sized case when I'm only going away for three nights. My hair does seem to have got less wild as I've got older - the tight corkscrew curls seem to have settled more into waves, but I don't know if that's just a natural progression or whether all the years of straightening have acted on it like some sort of memory plastic. Anyway, I was going to go to The Big Tesco and see if they could provide me with hairdryer and case, but I am not in the mood for The Big Tesco. Also I seem to have somehow got it into my head that bringing home a suitcase will be hard work, whereas in fact it is a suitcase, and is deliberately designed for being carried about.
Now that's decided, more of an immediate quandary is whether or not to buy some milk, seeing as mine has yet again turned into cottage cheese despite being four days inside the sell by date. But I am certainly not going out right now as I have just found the Beiderbecke Connection on ITV3. And then I am going to eat.
In the interest of using up some stuff before I go away I shall be having an omelette filled with courgettes, peppers and bacon, and some chips with Nando's Peri-Peri chip sprinkle.
What are you having tonight?
current mood:  need to pack, shower, cook, clean, etc
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| Monday, August 10th, 2009
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11:05 pm - wing mirror damaged
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Well it was funny really... I don't expect a big 'birthday' thing - I don't get presents any more, nothing special happens, but I put the word round that it was my birthday this week and I'd be going for a drink. Well of course I would, I always go to the pub on a Monday morning. Even when me and Jeremy stopped drinking for 11 weeks for a bet I still went to the pub on a Monday.
So today there was a slightly larger than usual pub contingent, but not because they wanted to celebrate my birthday, no. The one they all fancy was there. Which was very entertaining. She nipped to the toilet on arrival and there was mass fighting at the bar over who was to buy her a white wine. Or should they get red? 'She likes red,' I said, 'really, we were discussing this two hours ago. Red.' Phew, tragedy averted, imagine the disaster if one of the young suitors had bought the wrong colour wine!
I sound quite bitter, but I'm genuinely quite entertained. And there's only one solution. I'll have to have her myself.
current mood: blase
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| Saturday, August 8th, 2009
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4:52 pm - did you come in via the seventies?
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After possibly an entire year of letting my paid account lapse, I have finally got frustrated enough with the lack of icons to stump up. I at first opted for the advertising account, but it hadn't reinstated most of my icons, so then I thought it's three bloody quid, surely I can afford that? So now I must ramble about stuff to maximise my investment mustn't I?
Erm... what to say? Well I went to the pub yesterday for what turned out to be an unexpected sesh with work. First Steve and I had decided to go for a quick one, and Harry was to be joining us later. Then Dan turned up having decided to stop off for a quiet pint on his own. Then Jude and Milton turned up, so any idea of it being a swift pint and home by 9am for bed soon deteriorated into rounds, and extended into lunchtime, with a mass critical appraisal of Milton's really quite horrendous shirt.
And that's all I've done of note this week other than work, sleep or eat. Not that I'm getting much work done now that Harry has been moved to our team and is sitting next to me. Harry and I have a long standing competition of trying to outdo each other by emailing the most crass newspaper articles we can find - Littlejohn, Piers Morgan, Amanda Platell, Neil Hamilton, you get the idea - and the game seems to have stepped up while we're actually sitting next to each other, leading to much groaning and sniggering. In a highly amusing twist it has been suggested by one person that our relationship goes further than a working one, but If I get emailed one more picture of a naked Piers Morgan, he's dumped.
current mood: work, sleep, eat
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| Wednesday, August 5th, 2009
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3:48 pm - rooney is being haunted by a vacuum cleaner
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I was half-way through typing up a fascinating anecdote about how I thought my flatmate had broken something of mine and not bothered to tell me or apologise, and I hadn't thought he was that sort of person, but when I went to double-check the cupboard, there it was at the back, and he isn't that sort of person after all. So that was that then.
I have been emailed by the treasurer of Baghdad (1817-1829.) Well at least I have been emailed something with the subject header test from a David Sassoon, so I googled him to see who he is. Not that I really expect everyone who emails me to be famous, I was just wondering if he/it was a known scammer. I have moved it to junk without looking at it, but if there is a David Sassoon I should know about, who would be emailing me about a test, speak up.
I (who was once told never to begin paragraphs with the word I, look how well I'm doing,) am going to Edinburgh next week, on my birthday. So if you're still worried about that birthday present, you have a few extra days to sort it out out. More likely you can relax and think, oh good, at least I'm not going to be expected to do anything for Rhoda's bloody birthday, she's had loads of the things! The other week I had just randomly thought I was going to take off somewhere for my birthday week, and then the same day Isabelle mentioned there was a room going for a few days so I thought, I'll have a bit of that.
I (yes, me again) am a bit trepidacious now. Because I'm going up with all the Edinburgh veterans I'm going to feel very much the greenhorn and have no idea what to do with myself, and I'll be just hanging around getting in the way and not knowing the drill. I'll be the person at all the comedy performances who sits at the front with their arms folded and says 'say something funny then' to all the acts.
Does anyone have any reassuring words or tips prior to my first (adult) visit to Edinburgh? Other than the fact that there are 'loads of great charity/vintage clothes shops' because I have been told this enough now for it to have sunk in. And I've already bought clothes this year.
current mood: bonzer
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| Sunday, August 2nd, 2009
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5:46 pm - no, he *literally* wrote the book on suede
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I seem to be a complete failure in my remit to write more. But I should just quickly note that last night was brilliant and I had a super time. I had the optimum amount of booze to leave me slightly cheered but capable and with memories intact - just five drinks, although admittedly one was a jug of cocktail (which was delicious! Why haven't I had that before) but a few people nicked some of that, so it wasn't an entire jug, honest guv.
Great people, good chats, plenty of catching up, a bit of dancing, smooth and swift journey home... perfect. I'm very aware that some people didn't have the best of nights, which saddens me obviously, but all in all it was a fine send off to a club that's had a massive impact on a lot of our lives; goodbye Stay Beautiful and thanks.
I have slept all day. Not in a hungover way, but as preparation for a night shift. By tomorrow morning I will have done 39 hours overtime in ten days. It's a good job there are nice intermissions in my life like last night to keep me sane.
current mood: STARVING. Hurry up dinner!
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| Sunday, July 26th, 2009
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4:02 pm - the frou-frou ra-ra policemen
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Who was it the other day who was slating BBC News? I concur - as a so-called rolling 24 hour news channel it's quite irritating to switch it on and have to sit through a an hour long interview with Oleg Deriwhatsit before there are any headlines (and now Robert Peston is expatiating on the subject of, well probably Robert Peston.) WHERE AM THE NEWS?
I realise I have not updated LJ for three weeks. There is no particular reason for this. You could suggest that I am one of the many who have ported to Facebook and Twitter and am therefore bored of the format of LJ, but I believe it's actually more the case that Facebook and Twitter have made me bored of the internet. I am suddenly so sick of the forced insistence that one should tell the world what one is feeling or doing at any given moment, or rather I was a few days ago - I must have been in a bad mood - and so I am waiting until it's been long enough for my Facebook status to disappear before I resume Rhoda is picking at a scab type of services. And the transience annoys me too. What is the point of 'recording' something if it's not actually kept for later reference? I might as well go and shout status updates out of the window. And so this leads me back to the long Livejournal absence. It was very frustrating the other night to see two old episodes of Doctor Who and wonder why I had missed them in the first place. Nothing is recorded. I know vast swathes of 2005 weekends went unrecorded, and I know why they went unrecorded, but still I now want to know what exactly I was doing on those particular days. It must have been something good, even a hint would be nice. For example today's subject header is a handy reminder of the fun I had last weekend, that's all I need.
See, it's easy this writing thing. I always put it off on the basis that I don't have the time to write lots and yet the attempt to write one simple paragraph saying that I plan to write more has just rambled on, and on, and on... Having said that I will either be at work or away for most of the next five weeks so I'm not promising anything.
I have received a newsletter from the Tenants and Residents Association for my estate, apologising for the delay in newsletters. It's all a bit chummy and 'as you probably know...' which I don't, because I haven't seen one before. We are having two trips to Southend and a Fun Day. And we have a Facebook group.
current mood: going to do a Tesco shop (she says in the style of Facebook)
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