Christmas, hair, and internet telepathy

I'm starting really to look forward to Christmas this year now, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Christmas would appear to be in full swing already in all the shops and on the TV, so I feel like I may as well start to get into it. I flicked onto 4Music the other day and they were already playing Christmas hits on loop, and it's not even the end of November! I think I'm going to get quite tired of hearing Mistletoe and Wine and that stupid Slade song they play ad infinitum every year by the time we actually get to Christmas.

My second reason is that I'll be doing something a bit different this year, and spending Christmas day with Chris for the first time. For the last few years I've stayed over at his Mum's house on Christmas Eve, had presents with him and his family first thing in the morning, and then gone back to my own parents' for the rest of the day. That was fine, I quite like it because I've always spent Christmas day with them, but Mum doesn't really like Christmas that much and gets very worn out with it quite quickly. Last year we ended up sitting with the lights off (because of her eyes) and no music on (because of the noise), and I felt like sticking a fork in my neck just to make sure I hadn't suffered brain death without noticing.

This year Mum has already announced she doesn't want to do Christmas, or at least she wants to do a very reduced version. There will be no decorations, no tree, we will not be having a roast turkey dinner, and we will be getting one present each only up to the value of £20. She's hoping this will mean she'll still be feeling well enough by Boxing Day to do lunch with my horrible grandad, as she missed it last year and doesn't want to miss another. I'm always very supportive, and said yes of course that's fine with me.

Then Chris and I discussed what we want to do over Christmas, particularly as this is our first year as a married couple, and decided maybe it would be nice to spend it together at his Mum's house. I was a bit unsure how Mum would react to that, so had to gear myself up to asking if that would be OK with her. Chris did his usual thing of placing me firmly between the two of them, by saying "don't ask her if it's OK, tell her it's what you want to do", so once again I had to do my balancing act of trying to keep both of them happy. In the end though, it went surprisingly smoothly, as when I spoke to Mum about it she said "oh well I was going to ask you if you wanted to do that anyway, I know you must get bored here, and as we're not doing Christmas properly anyway...". So I was really surprised! But pleased, and now Chris and I can have a nice day together and I'll see Mum and Dad on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day instead. Hooray!

This post is quite long already, so I won't dwell too much on the other (hopefully intriguing) parts of the subject line. The first is the fact that I have new hair. I'm still not quite sure about it, I've had quite a few nice comments, but sometimes I think it looks a bit odd. Chris cut it for me (he did very well actually), based on a picture I found on the internet and some 'how to cut hair' videos I watched on Expert Village. This is what I was going for:


And this is what it now looks like:


My eyes are doing that weird thing where one is bigger than the other in the picture, don't look at that bit. I think it looks a bit better in real life than it does in the picture too. It's not too far off, I think considering it was cut at home it's come out quite well. And it means I get to have spikey hair while still disguising my huge forehead a bit. It's a shame my hair isn't really long enough in some places yet. God I do have the most humongous forehead actually, it's about three times the size of his. I should install solar panels on it.

Anyway, also I have become rather addicted to Twittervision UK. It's a combination of Twitter and Google Maps, and it lets you watch what people are twittering all over the UK. I find it really compulsive to watch, it's just little snatches of conversations and people's idle musings, and it feels a bit like you're reading their thoughts. It's quite voyeuristic. There's a worldwide version too, but I found that less interesting because it kept jumping to tweets in Japanese and Portuguese that I couldn't read. So anyway, between Facebook, writing this post, and Twittervision, I have to say my productivity really has taken a tumble this morning. I suppose I better take a look at my emails...

Creamy Fingers second outing

We went to Creamy Fingers again last week. It was the second time they've run it after a bit of a gap since its launch. I think it's meant to run fortnightly now, so I'm not sure why they had the launch, then a gap, then the second one, but anyway.

It was.... OK. Quite good in some ways, very boogalooy, and Dolly Rocket seems to be doing it now too so it's even more boogalooy than when they had Le Gateau Chocolat. The music was really good, the DJ put on some really good stuff from quite early on.

It encountered a tiny problem though in that no-one seemed to come. I think they probably had about... 20 people? 30 tops, including those that only came for a drink then went away. And three of those were us! So it was a bit sad really, I'm really worried about it.

We had a bit of a dance and a few drinks (it's always very cheap in there), and then Stu did one of his 'intimate' cabarets, where he knows that basically there's not enough people there. Chris semi-nobly took part in the cabaret, in that Jamie shoved him towards the stage so he didn't have much choice, and also he probably wanted to be a bit generous to Stu. He came to regret it a bit though, because the cabaret game was based on answering questions and eating a cream cake if you get it right and two cakes if you get it wrong (or maybe the other way round) until one of you has cleared a massive tray of cakes and is declared the winner. The cakes were quite nice, but you can't really eat eight of them in quick succession while drunk, so I had to help him out a bit by scoffing a couple. He still lost though, to some girl who was more popular with the crowd (presumably because she had more than two friends), but we did win a box of maltesers. He then threw up in the toilet, nice.

But considering that was only the second Creamy Fingers and it didn't attract very many people at all, I think it is a bit of a worry. I just don't get what the problem is, Boogaloo used to be so popular and had a very loyal following. I suppose the loyal following has grown up and can't go clubbing on a weekday so much now (apart from us as we don't mind going in hungover). They need to attract a new student crowd who think it's cool, some of the kooky gay kids who aren't into the mainstream tight t-shirts and doosh doosh doosh music of Revenge. But how? I could post an advert for them on the university social network, I don't think I'd get into trouble for that, and at least if that got them to join the Facebook group it might widen the audience a bit. Boogaloo Stu should really sell it at Super Boogaloo this Saturday too, that's the right kind of crowd and it's always full on a Saturday.

Chris thinks it's a problem with clubbing in general, rather than Creamy Fingers itself, particularly mid-week clubbing. Everywhere seems pretty quiet, people just aren't going dancing any more. Maybe it's to do with 24-hour licensing, as people don't need to go on to a club in order to carry on their evening, they can just stay in the pub? But then again even the gay bars have been pretty quiet. Do people just not like going out any more?? When did everyone get so old?

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Silly white boys

I'm fed up with seeing that stupid picture of a hippo at the top of my blog now, so I'll have to write something else on here to push it down.

I am amused lately by silly white boys who think they are black. There's a boy who gets my bus home, I think he works on the building site on campus or something (if he doesn't he really needs to rethink those paint-spattered jogging bottoms), and he invariably makes me snigger when he rolls up to the bus stop. He does this weird bowl walk where his right hip kind of swings down with every step of that foot, in a cross between a swagger and a limp. He wears a silly sock hat, and has the music up too loud on his MP3 player. It's some sort of rap music (is it still called rap these days? or is it urban or break beats or something? oh whatever), and as he bowls along he likes to make odd hand gestures with one hand, kind of in a pointing gun sort of shape, that he jabs down towards the ground presumably in time with the lyrics.

Does he not realise people can see him doing all this? He looks like such a twat! You're not black you silly white boy, you're very very white and also quite pikey.

In other news, the girl who steals my seat on the bus was there again today. She needs a name actually, um... she shall henceforth be called the Seat Snaffler. So anyway, today the Seat Snaffler was tap tap tapping on her bloody laptop in my seat instead of just reading journal articles. Stop trying to look bloody intellectual! It's not Starbucks you know, it's not an appropriate place for you to be working on your screenplay, particularly when it meant I had to sit next to a pikey schoolgirl who smelled a bit funny.

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Fussy hippo

This is so sweet! This fussy pygmy hippo called Chico won't eat anything unless it is fed to it by this glove puppet. Surely it doesn't think the glove puppet is an ACTUAL hippo???



Awful teeth though, it's got worse teeth than Dean Gaffney.

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Stupid bloody work- and delivery-men

I HATE fucking workmen and fucking delivery men. Why can they never do as they say they're going to do? Why? Why must they do this? So many times now I have waited in ALL day for some sort of delivery or engineer, only for them not only not to come on time, but not even to come at all! And even worse, sometimes they say they DID come, but that you must have been out! Why would they even say that? When you've been sat there all day, not really doing anything, waiting, wasting your life for them, in order for them to do some tiny thing that'll probably only take half an hour. How many human hours must have been wasted in this way, with people all over the globe sat in their houses, looking out the window occasionally, wondering why "between 9 and 12" always seems to mean "maybe by 5 if you're lucky, if at all, if we feel like it".

And of course you can't ring them up and ask where they are, because if you ring too early they'll just say "well they can come any time up until [insert made up and unlikely time here]". So you have to wait, and wait, and wait, until it's 5pm and you KNOW they're not coming, and then you ring them (or wait until the next day because unfortunately our office is now closed, office hours are BLAH to FUCK) and they say "oh yes, they didn't come. Can you be in next Tuesday between 6am and 11.33pm?" DON'T THEY REALISE PEOPLE HAVE THINGS TO DO IN THE DAY?????????????? ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGH!

Death to all workmen, death to all delivery men, death to anyone who comes anywhere near me and my crimson glare of death in the next half hour.

I know I'm a bit weird, but...

I could probably start lots of posts like that actually. I am a bit weird, I have lots of funny things I do, most of which (I hope) no-one knows about.

Anyway, I know I'm a bit weird, but there is a particular seat on the bus that I always like to sit in. I have tried out sitting in various positions, and I have chosen it as being the best in terms of ease of alighting, view, being away from screaming babies, not being too near the back where the school children who might harass you sit, and various other factors. So whenever I get on the bus, that's where I head for.

And recently some stupid girl who gets the same bus to work as me has obviously adopted it as her favourite seat too. She must get on somewhere before me, because almost every morning now there she is, smugly ensconced in my seat reading her stupid photocopied journal articles and trying to look intellectual. And it's really annoying! That's my seat! But aside from getting up early in order to catch a different bus, or catching a bus in the other direction first so I can then get on somewhere before she does and stick my tongue out at her when she gets on at the next stop (a bit extreme maybe), there's nothing I can do about it.

Is it weird of me to have a favourite seat? It is a little. But anyway, I learnt to embrace my odd quite a while ago.

Further update to the homosexual dilemma

I think my decision is made now regarding Dave's wedding. I've booked a hotel for the night for the both of us (me and Chris, not me and Dave, I imagine he'll be sharing a room with his new wife), but Chris is only going to come to the evening. So I'll do my ushering or whatever Dave wants during the day, sit with whoever they put me with for dinner (please not Grandad, please not Grandad), and then Chris can arrive discreetly with the other evening guests. I'm not sure how late my Grandad will stay, he'll probably want to be heading home by 8 or 9 hopefully.

It's a bit of a shame for me to be playing this stupid game still at 27, but I think it's for the best, there's no real benefit to me coming out to everyone on that side of the family at this stage. I did mention to Dave that I didn't want Grandad to cause a scene at the wedding and that that was one of my primary concerns, and he said "oh we want him to cause a scene; he's going to hit the roof when he hears Janine isn't taking our name". Which was nice I suppose, but I still don't believe he actually wants his wedding spoilt by an opinionated unpleasant old man.

Is it wrong that I'm still holding out hope he won't still be with us by May? Probably a little. Fuck it, he should have tried being a bit nicer shouldn't he?

Stupid Rainbowfish Boy

We saw Rainbowfish Boy again the other day, walking along with his stupid new stubble and some "friend". I haven't mentioned him much since I wrote this original post in which I established the Pyramid of Hate. We have seen him a couple of times though, out at the Ghetto and in the street. Not as much as we used to, which is a plus, but he's obviously still around.

Chris has moved beyond trying to be polite, or even ignoring him, and instead sneered at him the last time we walked past him. I don't know if he noticed or not, but it was satisfying nonetheless.

I bet we end up stuck in a lift with him one day, or introduced to him as someone's new boyfriend, and then there'll be an awkward silence where we have to decide if we ask him why he's such a twat or not. That reminds me, I must buy a new can of Mace..

Poor politicians

I'm feeling quite sorry for politicians today. Usually of course they get very little sympathy from me, especially the ones I dislike or don't agree with. But I've noticed several things in the last few days that politicians aren't allowed to say/do, whereas in any other job they'd be perfectly permissible.

• Agreeing with someone not in your own party and/or having the same idea as them, or accepting their idea is a good one. This is instantly labelled as 'jumping on the bandwagon' and used to criticise the relevant person. What's wrong with saying "why yes you're right, we should do that"? They should be pleased that the country is being run the way they want it to, not say the government is bandwagonning (not a word, I know). Isn't it in the nation's best interests for the best ideas to be adopted, regardless of their party of origin? Or are ideas only correct when they're contrary to what the opposing party wants?
  
• Changing your mind. This is always called "making a u-turn" and is usually the subject of stupid headlines on stupid newspapers, and articles about government climb-downs or cavings in. Don't we all change our mind sometimes? And if a convincing argument is presented against what you've decided, surely it's right that you accept it, not soldier on regardless, letting a wrong decision become further and further entrenched.
• Saying you don't know. I'm not sure when we started presuming omniscience in our politicians, but they don't seem to be allowed to say "I don't know" or (better) "I don't know, but I'll happily find out". Instead they have to guff their way out of it, or make something up, or dodge the question.

So anyway, I'd quite like to see a politician who listened to alternative ideas, adopted them when they are convincingly argued as being superior to their own, isn't afraid to change their mind if new evidence comes to light, and isn't afraid to admit they don't know everything.

I'd vote for them. They sound far more rational than most politicians.

This is getting silly now

OK, I don't want it to seem like all I write about on here is X Factor, but once again I find myself going WHAT???? after the most recent episode. It's just SO ridiculous! Even Simon Cowell knew it was just getting stupid this week, as for some bizarre reason they had Laura and Ruth in the bottom two. OK so Laura's wasn't her best, which I blame on her choosing to play the piano as well as sing. Why over-complicate it for yourself? Her singing clearly got better once she got up from the piano and could focus on it. But anyway, that's not the point, the point is we still have Eoghuoounn there, based solely on the fact that he's a stupid child, and we still have Daniel, based solely on the fact that his wife died and he then devoured her corpse and turned into a massive Jabba The Hutt in a suit. I can't believe it! Laura was a really good singer, and neither of those two chumps can actually sing! And still they don't even end up in the bottom two!

I did like very much though the way she and Ruth just ignored Dermot's attempts to host when he announced who was going, and carried on hugging and consoling each other despite his calls for Ruth to bugger off so he could examine Laura's best bits.

So anyway, the whole programme has just turned into a farce. Amusingly, loads of people had immediate Facebook statuses expressing their disgust, and when I searched TweetScan for 'x factor' lots of people had written various angry comments on Twitter, mostly calling for Fat Daniel to be executed as soon as possible. I just don't get it, I really don't. You may as well roll a die and get rid of one of them that way, and save us all three hours - it's that random.

Popstarz after all after all

Actually I did end up going to popstarz because I had quite a lot of wine at home on my own and then went and joined the others regardless. It was only ok though, music was alright but Chris had managed to fall out with someone and then they all peaked much earlier than me. And then he tried to fall out with me on the way home for some reason, but I think he's just being an angry drunk. But anyway, I don't feel like the lame one for once, yay! Makes a change.

So no Popstarz after all then

I had thought maybe we'd go to Popstarz tonight, as we haven't been there for a little while. But as usual events have conspired against me, and now I'm at home on my own. I was quite tired after work (despite having done very little), and then after dinner Chris fell asleep on the sofa. I pottered around quietly for half an hour until I got bored, and then went and laid on the bed and fell asleep myself. An hour later he wakes me up to say he's had a text and is going to the pub and do I want to come, and no I don't really because it's pouring with rain outside and I'm half asleep. So off he's gone "just for a bit", which usually means he'll find he's having a good time and not be home until 3am. And although I always have the option of joining him later, I know I'll never actually do that because I'll be way behind on the drinking and won't be able to get back into it.

So I guess it'll just be a night in on my own again. I'm buggered if I'll be watching Gordon Ramsay's Wankalong Live though, I'm not that bloody desperate.

They had to go and spoil it

I was so excited to see that America doesn't always just pick the safe choice, and isn't always going to be governed by old white men, and that young people can be active in politics and make difference. But then today I find that, while some things change, some also remain the same.

Having drawn a line under its segregationist history by electing a black president, some Americans have shown that they are still more than happy to oppress a minority for no particular reason other than they are different to them. Proposition 8 has been passed in California with 52% of the vote, amending the state's constitution so that now only marriage between a man and a woman is considered 'valid'. It's such a shame that the country can seem so modern and free, but at the same time it regularly reminds us that is also hugely conservative and dominated by religion.

I don't really understand the argument that gay marriage being called marriage somehow undermines the value of marriage in general. Although the advocates of Proposition 8 state that they are not making an attack on gay couples, as they can still form legal domestic partnerships in California, if you probe their argument more deeply you can clearly see it is homophobic and discriminatory:

Marriage is an important and valuable institution -> Gay people getting married reduces the value of marriage -> If the legal part of being married is the same in both circumstances, the key difference must be the gay part -> To say gay marriage has a negative effect on the institution of marriage is therefore to say being gay is negative and somehow 'less' than being straight.

So how can they say it is not an attack on gay couples? And I'm sure lots of people who voted yes on Prop. 8 do believe being gay is wrong, and that was the reason they voted yes, not because of some principled stand on the value of marriage.

And saying "well they can form a domestic partnership, it gives the same rights, so they have no need to call it marriage" merely establishes a parallel, but separate system. Hmm, where have we heard 'separate but equal' before, now let me thing.... oh yes, segregation. I thought we'd accepted that was wrong?

So, although they've made a big step forward this week, they've also made a step back and there is still lots of work to be done.

Morning after

Quite sleepy today but pleased that Obama won. My alarm woke me rather harshly at 5.30am and I put the TV back on to find that McCain had already conceded and Obama had given his victory speech. Despite the fact that lots of the results are still forecasts, it seems pretty clear cut and everyone has accepted Obama won.

So then I went back to sleep until 7, and now the news is just cycling around and around announcing his victory again and again. I'm glad I stayed up for Ohio, they always say you can't win the White House without winning Ohio, so once he had that one it was fairly clear he was safe.

I feel an unusual urge to go back to America now. I really enjoyed our trip there, and there are so many different places to see. Maybe we'll go back, it's a shame it's so far and expensive. I might wait until we're getting a few more dollars to the pound at least.

I just hope Obama doesn't get himself shot by white power extremists now, but I suppose getting shot at by someone is a hazard of the job for any president.

So sleepy, clearly not doing any work today.

(Updated a bit later on)

It's quite astonishing actually, I've just been through the list of key states I printed off yesterday, where the BBC said "Obama really needs to win this one", or "a victory for McCain here will keep him in the race", and for basically every single one Obama won. He didn't even need to win all of them, but he has, and sometimes by quite big margins. They include Indiana, Virginia, Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Colorado, New Mexico, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Nevada. Poor old John McCain only seems to have won the safest Republican states, and it just wasn't enough.

Clearly the mobilisation of the black and youth vote really made a difference for Obama. I wonder what the overall turnout was? Might look that up.

Election Night Fever

23.20 - Right, it's twenty past 11, I'm esconced on the sofa in dressing gown and duvet, and the BBC coverage is just starting. Come on Jeremy Vine, wow me with your graphics... I'm going to set my alarm for 3am in case I drop off, and then if it's all over sooner or it's looking like a landslide I'll just go to sleep.

23.30 - First polls are due to close in half an hour, so exciting! There are a couple of key ones as well - Indiana and Virginia. Not feeling too tired yet.

00.15 - First couple of poll predictions are in, one state to McCain and one to Obama, 8:3 on the electoral college votes. No surprises so far though. Starting to get a bit tired, not sure how likely 3am is looking... Need some more states to come in to keep me awake!

00.55 - God this is taking forever! Only one more state called, also for McCain but predicted to be so anyway. I thought it was quite amusing the David Dimbleby talked about North Hampshire, bless. He should really have learnt the names of the states before the show. Quite a few states haven't been called yet despite them being usual Republican strongholds. That seems to indicate the race is closer there than expected, so this might take a while. Maybe I should go to sleep for a bit if that's the case?

01.00 - Oo, bit of excitement, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire have been called for Obama. These were quite key for McCain to capture if he was going to sneak in and win. And Illinois and DC and Massachusetts and Delaware too now! That gives Obama 67 votes, McCain 16. And a few more, can't type this fast enough to keep up. It seems to have settled on 84:27 for the moment. It's a shame they are only network projections though, don't want to get too excited based on that, but the pundit guys are saying that's a few good ticks in the Obama column that he needed if he's going to win.

01.40 - Hmm, lots of states still haven't been called despite having closed a while ago. I think I may as well stay up until after 2 now, when lots more close in a block, and then see how the land lies. I might have to have a sleep after that and maybe wake up at... 5.30? They should have some definite results coming in by then.

02.00 - Two key phrases uttered on the BBC - death blow to the McCain campaign, and turning point of the evening, as Ohio is called for Obama by Fox. It's only one network, so the BBC is remaining aloof, but if he does win Ohio that would take him up to about 200 votes now, with California's 55 likely-Democratic votes to come, and loads of other states still in play. Might turn the computer off for a while now so I can doze in front of the mute TV for a while. I'll try to wake up at 5.30 to see if any of these results have been confirmed.

Not as good as Eurovision, but fun nonetheless

It's making your mind up day for America and I'm soooooooo excited. I'm already well into it, and most of the polling stations aren't even open yet. I'm planning on staying up late to watch - or maybe getting up early to watch. It's been such a dilemma deciding which way to jump, stupid time difference! If it's going to be close, I'll be better off getting up early as they won't know for ages who's won. If it's not going to be close though they'll know earlier and I could just stay up late. Hmmm.... I'll probably do the latter.

I'm currently monitoring the BBC News Live Text updater which gives you a few lines of update every couple of minutes. Apparently there are problems with the electronic voting machines and some places are having to resort to paper ballots, which is slowing voting down and could spell controversy later. We'll have to see how widespread the problems are.

Also, it took Barack Obama 16 minutes to cast his vote in the booth. What was he doing in there?? Getting confused trying to find your own name on a bit of paper is something I'd expect of George Bush not Barack Obama... Unless he suddenly thought "shit, do I really want to be president?" and couldn't decide whether or not to vote for McCain.

I can see it's going to be a long and unproductive afternoon at this rate!

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FA-SCI-NA-TION!

We went to see Alphabeat perform last night at the Concorde and it was great! It was a bit last minute as our friend managed to get tickets on eBay on Friday from some girl in Worthing who got ditched by her friends and didn't want to go on her own, and then he asked us if we'd like to go with him. I wasn't even aware they were playing in Brighton, but they were really good and I had so much fun!

They were supported by some group whose name I didn't catch (sorry first group) and by Das Pop, a Belgian trio who lots of people seemed to have heard of. We didn't see much of the first group but we saw Das Pop and really enjoyed it, and the lead singer did very well at getting the crowd all fired up. It was a shame that it then took about 20 minutes for the crew to reset the stage for Alphabeat, so it lost its momentum a bit, but you can't have everything.

I thought I only knew a couple of Alphabeat songs, but in the end there were at least four I recognised, and even the other ones had a good beat so I was happy enough to bob up and down to them. The male singer guy was really REALLY hyperactive, making me suspect he was on something, but the girl singer was remarkably composed in comparison and looked fab in her fifties shiney blue dress. I might buy their album know, they're really good, and it's only a fiver on Amazon.

I did video their encore, which was Fascination, but the sound quality is a bit crappy (phone recording). I quite like that you can hear the crowd screaming along with them, everyone was really into it. There's a long intro so the song doesn't get going until about 30 seconds in:

Halloween, brought to you in spoooooooookyvision

Hmpf, well I've calmed down a bit since my 2am rage, but I'm still not happy about it. Daniel and Eoghuoauon got more votes than both Austin and Rachel? Really? Really?? What's wrong with the British voting public? This is surely a serious argument against universal suffrage; if people vote like this on the X-Factor, can they be trusted to vote for a government? Maybe you should have to sit a sanity exam before you can register to vote, I might run for parliament and suggest it.

Anyway, I had a marvellous end of week and Halloween weekend. I was off work Wednesday - Friday (two day weeks rule), and we had some friends down for the first couple of days so we went and did lots of nice things like eating out, shopping, going for drinkies, letching shamelessly at hot bar staff, and flashing CCTV cameras in bar toilets.

Then Friday was the first part of our Halloween Extravaganza - Halloween Super Dynamite Boogaloo. We made loads of effort with our outfits this year, and I'm really glad we did because lots of people had really really dressed up! Chris was the Joker, very topical this year, and had excellent make-up, and as an accessory to that I went as Robin. Robin is not the sexiest of outfits (I was a traditional Robin rather than a Chris O'Donnell one), and I did verge on the Rodney Trotter Robin, but I think the outfit was still a triumph, especially as it was all homemade. Several people said to me "wow where did you buy your outfit?", which is surely a ringing endorsement.


Halloween Boogaloo was good, especially as so many people had made the effort to dress up. I have to say it was freeeeeezing weather for hotpants and a t-shirt though, and I was particularly annoyed to arrive at the club after 11 (supposed to open at 10.30) only to find they had not even opened the doors yet and we had to stand outside for 10 minutes while my legs went slowly numb.

Then on Saturday we went to a friend's Halloween House Party, where we bobbed for apples (much harder than it looks) and played slightly disturbing Halloween Twister. We re-used the same outfits of course, it's not every day you get to wear a metre of yellow satin, and a Catwoman turned up at the party so we had a bit of a theme going. I think girls can be a bit lazy when they dress up actually, they're always witches, cats, naughty devils, or occasionally bunnies. Where's the imagination ladies??

And Sunday was my and Chris' 10 year anniversary, bless. I don't know where the time has gone. Actually I do know, it's gone on a year of A Levels, a four-year degree, and five years of young professionalism, but it still feels like it's whizzed by. I'm just glad we both managed to remember the anniversary this year, one of us has forgotten for the last three (me twice, Chris once) and I was determined not to let it happen for such a big one as the tenth.

And now it's back to work and it's all rather dreary. On the upside, we are unexpectedly going to see Alphabeat tonight, which should be fantastic, and tomorrow is the US election about which I am soooooooo excited. I may get up at 4am to start watching the results come in. I'm not sure why I care this much, it's not like I live there, but it is important and having read about it constantly in my Economist for the last year I feel pretty invested in it. Go Obama! You're a bit of an unknown quantity, but what the hell, let's spin the wheel for a change.

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Oh. Holy. Jesus.

Just got in late from halloween party (blog to follow) and like an IDIOT I looked up who went off X Factor. What the fuck?? My poor Austin is no more?! Well now what am I supposed to do? There's no one hot left in the competition! I can't believe Daniel is still in. I now hate X Factor. I will begrudgingly back Alexandra but I'm not happy about it. I don't even want to watch my tape of tonight's episode any more, it's too distressing.