26 February 2009

25 Things

I've succumbed to the thing that's doing the rounds on Facebook at the moment, and written 25 (supposedly) interesting facts about me. It took me forever to think of 25, I'm obviously not that interesting, so I thought I'd get some additional mileage out of it by posting it on here.

1. I've kissed a total of three women in my life, just to see what it was like. It was fine, softer than a man, but didn't do a lot for me. I don't know how many men I've kissed.

2. I'm technically a cockney, but Mummy raised me to speak properly so you wouldn't know it.

3. I was mugged three times when I was growing up. I still feel afraid of people sometimes when I'm walking around, but I hide it.

4. I know how to knit and I enjoy cross-stitch.

5. I'm more interested in politics now than I ever used to be. I'm a capitalist, and I'm considering voting Conservative at the next general election. I don't like it when people use labels or hackneyed phrases during a political discussion, like 'nanny state' or 'she started a war to win an election'; I think it's lazy and shows a lack of understanding of the topic.

6. I'm quieter than I'd like to be, especially in social situations or with people I don't know. People often take this to mean I don't like them. It doesn't.

7. I hate being contradicted. I tend to think I'm right (I usually am), and don't like it when someone disagrees with me.

8. I'm petty and will bear a grudge really, really badly. If I decide I don't like someone it's unlikely I'll ever change my mind.

9. I like studying languages, especially new ones, and don't like it if someone can speak something I can't. I'll often start a language but only learn a bit before I move onto another one though. I speak French and Italian well, and have at times studied Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Swedish, German and Spanish.

10. I've never taken an illegal drug. Although I'm sometime curious, I'm too stubborn to break a vow I made never to try them when I was about 14. My opinion is they're illegal for a reason.

11. I came out to my Dad in front of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I wasn't ready, and it was one of the hardest things I've done.

12. I was quite badly bitten by a dog when I was about 5, and still don't trust dogs I don't know. Its owners gave it away before the police could destroy it.

13. One of my best friends drowned when I was 6. I sometimes wonder what his life would have been like if he'd survived.

14. I enjoy watching You've Been Framed, even though I know it's really low-brow.

15. I, rather sadly, view having a cup of tea as a bit of a treat.

16. I can be a bit smug and like to show off what I know. Number 9 is a prime example of this, I didn't need to list all those when "I like studying new languages" would have done.

17. When I was little I wanted to be a chef when I grew up. I wanted an 'A La Carte Kitchen', one of those ones you push along, but was bought the (cheaper) Magic Glow Oven instead. Now, I probably only cook dinner about 3 times a year.

18. I would like a better build, but overall I'm fairly happy with my body and how I look. I wish I had better energy levels and a stronger immune system though, as I'm often ill and sometimes feel like a burden.

19. I'm not very spontaneous and have trouble making decisions in my personal life. I over-think things and could do with loosening up more. Saying that though, my cautious attitude has served me pretty well so far.

20. I like children, but don't know if or when I'll ever have any of my own. If I can be a really good uncle to someone else's, that might be enough for me.

21. I really like to dance, even though I think it is out of character for me. I don't see the point in going to a club if you're not going to dance.

22. I'd love to write a novel, and then see it on the shelf when I go into a bookshop.

23. I feel like I have a very fortunate life and I'm grateful. There are very few things I'd want to change about where I am in life right now.

24. I sometimes worry about how much I drink, but not enough to change it.

25. I sometimes feel bad that I haven't done something more challenging for my career. This is mostly due to people asking me why I haven't done something more challenging for my career. I like my job though, I like that it doesn't stress me out and that I can leave it at the office when I go home.

25 February 2009

Twitter news. Twews?

I've been getting more into Twitter lately. I've started to follow more people and have picked up a few more followers of my own, and once you do that the whole thing starts to make more sense. I've also experienced twice in just the last couple of days something which I'd heard people talking about: being on the edge of the information curve thanks to Twitter, and finding things out well before they appear on any news website.

The first was yesterday and was fairly banal. I heard that Gmail was down, it stayed down for a couple of hours, and then I knew within minutes of it being back up again, without needing to try to log in once.

The second, today, was a bit more consequential. A 'breaking news' line came up on the BBC News website saying a plane had crashed in Amsterdam. Their breaking news thing can be quite annoying because it's just a single line, and it'll sometimes take them ages to replace the 'more soon' with an actual article. Twitter, on the other hand, was immediately awash with information. Someone was tweeting right from the scene (thanks @nipp), and I was able to read his eye witness reports of what had happened, and even see photos of the site. The news corporations got wise to this pretty soon, and I gather he was overwhelmed with agencies like CNN and the BBC calling him for information they could report, while their own correspondents were stuck on trains trying to get there. He was also incidentally a bit disturbed at how easily they got hold of his phone number.

I'd say I knew what was happening there at least half an hour before the BBC were able to put any proper details on their website. Some of the information like confirmed casualty numbers took longer to come through, but that was because no-one knew those things until the rescue services had done most of their work.

It was really fascinating, and made me wonder what else I might hear about first on Twitter. In some ways it's more interesting than Facebook; you find out things you didn't already know, rather than hearing what your friends have been up to that day. I like them both, but they're really different. And Twitter only starts functioning properly after you've been using it a while.

(Days healthy - 6)

24 February 2009

Grey trackies

I like grey trackie bottoms.

You can see EVERYTHING.

That is all.

Heroes

The second half of the third season of Heroes has finally started on the BBC, a few weeks after it started airing in America. I watched the first two last night.

I assumed, how naive of me, that they would do a good long 'Previously on Heroes' at the start of the first episode, but there was nothing! It just leapt straight in, and I didn't have a clue what was going on for ages. I ended up trying to recap on the last few episodes on Wikipedia with one eye, while keeping up with the TV with the other.

So anyway, I think I know what is going on now, and what happened with Arthur (worst master villain ever), and Peter's powers, and Hiro's powers, etc etc...

The first episode was good, and had quite a cool ending. The second episode though was AWFUL! It was such a waste of time! They just kept escaping, getting captured, escaping, getting captured, Noah saved Claire, Noah saved Claire again. They could have accomplished it all in 10 minutes instead of 45.

And why is Sylar STILL the main villain? It's been three bloody series now and he's still swanning around holding people still with his telekinesis and having overly bushy eyebrows. It just lazy writing, write someone new (and better than Arthur, who had no presence) for God's sake.

So yes: first episode good, second episode bad. I hope the pace picks up again next week. And that they explain what's going on with Usutu.

22 February 2009

Livid and a bit ashamed

Days healthy - 3

OK so last night I was all comfortable and asleep, cosily wrapped up in my duvet, when I was awoken at 3.30am by the sound of voices outside the window. One of the student girls who live next door had come home with some guy and was standing outside having a cigarette and chatting before they went in. OK, a bit annoying I thought, as they're right underneath our bedroom window, but whatever, they'll probably be quiet in a minute.

Shortly afterwards they come in, slamming the communal door to our flats and tromping up the stairs, just as I'm starting to drop back off to sleep.

BANG BANG BANG. Suddenly I'm jerked fully awake by the noise of someone knocking loudly on our door. Our front door, which is inside the block of flats (i.e. only people who live here can get to it), and which is about 2m from my head. And then I hear the noise of the girl and guy going into her flat almost immediately afterwards, talking. Fucking hell, I think, was that some sort of "ho ho ho, this'll be funny" drunken joke? Obviously, I didn't answer it, not that it would have made a difference because they'd gone already anyway. Some I'm annoyed and awake now, but try to go back to sleep.

About 40 minutes later, the guy comes out of the flat again and has a conversation on his mobile right outside our door about going to meet someone. SHUT THE FUCK UP, I think. He finishes his phone call.

BANG BANG BANG BANG on the door again, footsteps going down the stairs, he goes out.

WHAT??? AGAIN? What kind of sick joke is this? It's the middle of the night! What have we done to deserve this treatment? Do they really think it's FUNNY? He doesn't even fucking live here! What is he, a boyfriend or something? He's never even met us!

So now it's 4.30am or so, and I'm FURIOUS and wide awake, and resolve that it if happens again I'm going to try to jump up quickly and answer the door and say WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING? Even if it is a boy and he might punch me or something, fuck it, I'm livid and it's late and I'm so tired I don't much care.

5.10am, someone comes home, slam goes the communal door, tromp tromp tromp up the stairs. I brace myself, but no knocking comes, and they go straight into the flat. SLAM goes their door.

About 5.30 I manage to get back to sleep, and wake up at 10 feeling tired and cross and with a headache.

Obviously they've disturbed Chris as well, and he's cross too come the morning, although he succeeded better than me in ignoring the intrusion at the time.

Right, we think, we can't let this pass without doing something. We'll spend the whole day feeling annoyed and maltreated, and who's to say they won't do it again another night if they think it's so fucking funny?

So at 11 we go to complain. I can tell Chris has got his Teacher face on and is going to demolish them, he's even more riled up than me now. Riiiiiiing, he goes, on the doorbell. No response. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing.

They do their best to ignore us, although I know they haven't gone out yet, and occasionally we can hear noise from inside. I would have given up at some point, but Chris is even more livid that they think they can just hide indoors. So he rings the doorbell constantly for like a minute. Then stops. Then another minute. Then another.

At the 10th ring a slight bedraggled-looking girl in her nightwear answers the door, obviously already knowing what it is that we're ringing about.

Chris starts to launch in, at which point she says "it wasn't us". What? This makes him even more cross, that she'd deny they even did it. She goes on, "It was one of your friends, some gay guy. We met him in a bar, he said he knew you, and came back here for a drink. His name was Alex or something, Alex Cair."

"We don't know any Alex" we say, "you shouldn't just let random people in to bang on our door". But at the same time we're thinking shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. There's this one Alex, a complete twat, we hardly know him and haven't seen him for a good two or three years, and he never knew me really, only Chris, but he's always off his face on something and I wouldn't put it past him. And his surname is a bit like Cair...

So we change tack slightly, and say "ok well, it wasn't your fault, but we'd be grateful not to be disturbed like that again", and scarper back inside.

And now we feel really bad! It was clearly this Alex guy, and so it wasn't her fault, and we rang the doorbell for like 10 minutes and she must have been really scared that we were so angry! But what the fuck?? We don't even know him! And what are the chances we'd be up at 4am and would just say "oh hi, come in, do you want a drink?" It's just ridiculous!

So now I feel a bit bad... We weren't mean at the end, we left it alright with her, and it's still slightly her fault for letting some random guy in and letting him bang right on our door. He could've been a stalker or a nutter or anything for all she knew. Wouldn't you say "don't knock, ring their mobile and see if they're up, I have to live next door to them you know"? Wouldn't you??

So anyway, I'm no longer livid, and even though I do feel a bit bad, I'm glad we went round to complain, because based on the information we had available we'd been completely walked all over. And at least now they might think twice before making any noise in the middle of the night! Still feel bad though.

20 February 2009

Two things that are a bit annoying

1) Mothers who can talk about nothing but their child(ren). For some reason, some mothers upon giving birth to their first child completely lose the ability to talk about or be aware of anything but him/her/it. This is completely to the detriment of anything else in their life, and assumes that everyone else in the world is only interested in hearing about it. It's all "today my baby did this, yesterday he drank a whole bottle of orange juice, he's almost able to do this now, he's pooing a lot more than usual now" (they also become obsessed with talking about their bowel movements). I mean, yes it's nice that they've had a baby, and yes it's nice that they love it and are very interested in it, but what happened to the whole human being with thoughts and opinions that they once used to be? And why do they think everyone else would only want to talk about that ALL the fucking time? So they end up only talking to other mothers, as they can then squawk on happily about their babies, presumably without listening to a word the other one is saying.

2) Gay men who say they've "had enough of Brighton" or "need to get out of Brighton". I've heard it a dozen times, and it is always related in some way to Brighton "doing their head in". Well actually no, I don't think Brighton is the problem - the problem is that you've slept with everyone on the gay scene, so now can't go out without seeing someone you were hoping to avoid, and you're still single because you've no idea what to do after you've slept with someone once or twice so end up dumping them (or getting dumped). How is that Brighton's fault? And why would going somewhere else make it better? You'll only go somewhere else and start the whole cycle again, except in most other places there aren't as many gay people, so then you'll complain you're lonely and can't meet a man. It's really infuriating! Gay men seem to get really fucked up about relationships, but they do it to themselves because they think sex and a relationship are the same thing.

So anyway, those are two things I find annoying. I can assure anyone reading this that these examples probably don't apply to you, as the people I'm thinking of don't read this blog. And if you feel it does apply to you, well.... now you know, so try not to do it.

Not feeling ill? Start the clock!

I'm back at work now, and am no longer ill, hooray! Of course, it is only a matter of time before I get some other virus, so I had better enjoy it while it lasts. Maybe I should start a counter, and keep a running total of how many days I succeed in staying healthy. It'll be like Bridget Jones's "Cigarettes: 4; Alcohol units: 8" at the start of each entry.

So here we go:
Days Healthy - 1

On the downside, Chris has caught what I had now, so is at home with a raging sore throat during his half term, and probably feeling a bit hard done-by. He normally fends off my illnesses with his superior immune system, but not this time. I hope he gets better soon, I quite want to go dancing at the weekend.

I've just been reading a recent blog post by Jay Brannan where he talks about not liking being labelled as a gay artist. I do agree with him, particularly where he talks about gay people who live in a ghetto-ised environment where being gay seems to be the most important part of their personality. They only read gay books, the only have gay friends, it's all so insular. I met quite a few people like that at university, and I don't think it's healthy.

And how do you manage only to have gay friends anyway? Most people are straight, surely your group of friends would have to comprise a few?? And lots of gay men are really quite unpleasant...

Some people have commented in full agreement with him, and have voiced the sentiment I share that if all we focus on is our differences, how will we ever get passed them? Celebrating your differences is fine, but making everything in your life be about them seems wrong to me.

Other people however have really laid into him about it, which I think is mean. If he doesn't want to be pigeonholed and have his music shoved into the gay section of a shop, I think that's up to him.

Anyway, enough semi-ranting now, I'm off to have my lunch and hopefully not contract any diseases.

14 February 2009

Sunny Saturday morning

My stupid sore throat still hasn't gone away, it was really painful again this morning. The mornings seem to be the worst time for it, as I've not had any medication or anything to eat or drink for hours, which are the things that seem to soothe it. Actually I think I had a bit too much medication yesterday, maybe I used Marianne's benzocaine cherry-flavoured spray too often or something, because I started to feel a bit hot and dizzy. So I might go a bit easier on it today, and rely more on paracetamol and tea. I really thought it would be on its way out by now though! I don't think it's tonsillitis, because I've checked the symptoms and they don't look that bad when I peer at them in the mirror. So it's probably just a sore throat, hopefully it will go away soon. I really need to go to work on Monday - why does everyone wait until I'm off sick and then send me loads of things to do? It's very annoying! More fool me for checking my emails I suppose...

Anyway, it's a sunny Saturday morning here. I woke up about an hour ago and my throat was hurting too much for me to go back to sleep, so I got up. Chris is still in bed as he went out last night. He wasn't planning on going clubbing initially, but he didn't get home until 4 so I suspect he must have, and I'm not sure what time he'll surface this morning. I hope he does the diplomatic thing and says "oh yes, it was only OK, bit rubbish really" when he gets up. I don't want to hear that he had the time of his life while I was sat at home being ill yet again.

Oo it's Valentine's Day as well. Wonder what we'll do for it? Probably not very much, we already said we weren't doing cards, as we've just spent all our money on the massive telly. So I've carefully made him a (rather crappy) card just now out of a piece of paper, using a blue biro. I'm sure he'll appreciate it and find it sweet. He better.

I forgot to write on here the other day that the Curse of my Parents reared its head yet again in the week. What form did it take this time? Mum's hairdrying burst into flames in her hand while she was using it. She wasn't burnt, fortunately, although it could easily have burned her hand or set her hair on fire. She just shrieked and threw it on the floor apparently, and then unplugged it and the flames went out. But still, it's not a very common occurance is it?

Oh yes, and I'm considering doing a creative writing course with a view to one day writing a novel. I've always wanted to write a novel but don't know if I could or what I'd write, so I thought this might be a good way to find out if it's even worth me trying. I've found a course you can do with the Open University which looks quite good and starts in May. It's only 12 weeks but it might give me an idea of whether writing is for me. I'll have to see, and save up the fee for it. Might register next month if I decide to go for it.

13 February 2009

Feeling ill and general rubbishness

Yes I'm ill again, only a couple of months after I was ill the last time. This time it's a horrible sore throat that I've had since Tuesday evening. I was off work yesterday with it and am off again today, even though I hoped it would probably be on its way out by now. It's probably the worst sore throat I've had, normally I just get colds and feel bunged up and feverish. It feels like I've been eating razorblades, and sometimes it's really hard to swallow. Oddly, it feels better when I'm eating (although not chocolate, ouch).

I went to Boots just now and experienced my first of two examples of really rubbish customer service. I thought I'd go to an actual pharmacy so I could get something for my throat that's a bit stronger than an off-the-shelf thing like Strepsils which don't seem to be doing anything. So I went in and asked if they had anything for sore throats, to which a bored looking woman called Marianne gestured vaguely at the shelf behind her and said "we've got these, some are sprays and some are lozenges".

"Oh right...", I said. "Are any better than others, or for different types of sore throat?"

"These ones are sprays, throat sprays, and these ones are lozenges that you suck", replied Marianne.

Well thank you for that Marianne, I'm not sure I'd have known what to do with a lozenge if you hadn't explained it to me. So I had to just say "well that one's cherry flavoured, I'll have that one" and leave feeling rather dissatisfied. Normally I've found pharmacy assistants really helpful and they've said which brand they think is best, or asked some questions about your symptoms. Apparently Marianne attended the Halfarsed School of Pharmacy though and doesn't go in for all that.

My second example of rubbish customer service is courtesy of Orange, to whom I've been complaining regarding my Mum's email. Basically (I won't bore with details), sometimes she can send mail and sometimes she can't because the SMTP server refuses the connection or is down, and it can last more than a day before it comes back up again.

I've complained to them before about this, and generally they fob you off with a copy-pasted answer on checking your Outlook settings, and then eventually they say there's been a local issue which has now been resolved.

So anyway, I sent them an email on Wednesday saying the problem still hadn't gone away, explaining what the symptoms were, and saying nothing has changed on my system (I was pretending to be Mum) since it was working fine, so I don't believe it can be the settings.

A while later they replied with.... yes, a copy-pasted set of instructions about checking your settings, and a couple of questions tacked on the end asking if I can send email via their webmail (I can) and if I'm connecting to the internet using them as the ISP (I am). So I sigh, and reply.

Then yesterday someone else replied again with a different-but-not-that-different set of instructions on checking settings, and some more questions, including "can you send email from our webmail" and "are you using Orange as your ISP". YES YOU BLOODY IDIOTS, do you not even bother to read the emails sent to you?? So I've sent them quite a rude reply back saying I don't appreciate being asked the same question over and over again, and can they actually read my email this time and do something about it. And now it's all gone quiet for the last 24 hours. Maybe I've offended them...

Anyway, Kristian Digby has just come on the telly so I'm off to drool over him now. He's got tight jeans on today, he always wears nice clothes. Oh, and my cherry spray has sort of helped but not as much as I was hoping when I read that it contains the grand-sounding "benzocaine". I was hoping that would be a novocaine-strength product, but apparently it isn't.

11 February 2009

Latest effort from Sony

This is hilarious, I'm ordering mine now!

(earphones are advised if you're watching this at work)



If embedded version doesn't work, watch it on The Onion.

10 February 2009

It's not news

Watching the news last night, I was surprised to find that the second story, the one immediately after 170 people being killed in two days in bush fires in Australia, was that somebody called Scolari has been sacked as the manager of Chelsea football club.

Really? The second most important event of the day, in the whole world?? No! I'm sorry, but that is not news, it shouldn't even be on a news programme at all. It doesn't matter that Mr Scolari is no longer the manager of Chelsea, it doesn't affect anything important. It would only really matter to Chelsea fans, and maybe some other football enthusiasts, but that is hardly sufficient. I'm sure it would matter to readers of Knitting Monthly magazine if the editor were found in bed with an aardvark, but that's no reason to subject the rest of the nation to it.

I object actually to sport being included in any news programme. Sports are games, they're not news. They should at least call the programmes 'News and sport' to make the distinction, or better yet they should put sport in a separate programme altogether, ideally on a channel I don't subscribe to. If something major happens like Monica Selles getting stabbed on centre court at Wimbledon, OK that's news, but otherwise I don't want it cluttering up my televisual experience, and I certainly don't want it getting in the way when I'm waiting for cute Matt Taylor to tell me the weather forecast.

09 February 2009

A good if expensive weekend

I had a nice weekend, although my wallet appears to be several hundred pounds lighter because of it. On Friday night we went to the theatre to see Blues Brothers Party - a musical show composed of songs from the Blues Brothers film (don't worry, that didn't cost several hundred pounds). It was quite good, lots of Motown-type songs and a couple of Country and Western ones, performed by two hyperactive men in Blues Brothers outfits and four excellent girls called the Sisters Of Soul whom I actually enjoyed a lot more than the the boys. It was entertaining enough to watch, but as it was just song after song for two hours with no story or plot or anything, I was left feeling that it was good but... what was the point? It probably didn't help that I've never seen the Blues Brothers film - I imagine if you have and if you're a fan then it would make more sense as a show. But anyway, it was fun and it was something different to do.

Our plan for Saturday morning was to nip up to Majestic to refill our wine rack, and then go on to the supermarket to do our shopping, then come home in time for lunch. That all went fine until we walked into Sainsbury's and the first thing we saw was their special offer, bargain price 32" flat screen TV with glass TV stand and home theatre system (i.e. speakers and an amp thing). Now we had sort of wanted a bigger telly ever since we bought a new one last year, got it home, and found that it was actually quite a bit smaller than it had looked in the shop. And this package was a very, very good price, and it was a nice colour (black and silver). So we decided to go round the supermarket and think about it on the way. Unfortunately my notorious inability to make decisions wasn't satisfied with that, so after we had done all our shopping we then had to sit in the car for half an hour going "do we want it? yes we do, but do we need it? well no, but when do you actually need anything. and it is a good price. but will it fit in the living room? and aren't we trying to save up to buy a house? how are you ever going to buy a house if you can't decide to buy a telly? there are frozen things in the back of the car you know. yes I know, I'm terribly indecisive aren't I..."

So anyway, this went on for quite a while, until we resolved not to buy it, then felt disappointed, then went and bought it. The shop assistant girl was lovely, and helped us successfully cram it all into our very small car alongside four bags of shopping and half a dozen bottles of wine.

And then Saturday afternoon was a labour-intensive exercise in lugging heavy things up stairs, unpacking, disconnecting, assembling, reconnecting, furniture rearranging, and hoovering in order to be ready in time for our friend coming round at 7 for drinks and clubbing. I was so exhausted by the evening!

Anyway, the TV looks very nice, it's about twice the size of the old one, and I suspect the speakers would go up loud enough to burst your ear drums if I ever dared push them above 15% of their capacity.

Then we went clubbing on Saturday night, which was fun, and I was careful not to overdo it for once, and Sunday was spent watching our massive new TV and playing Playstation on it.

So I'm now marginally worse off financially, but I do like the telly, and fingers crossed it is all working properly so far. We're not generally that lucky with electicals, everything seems to break and has to go back to the shop within a month, and it takes at least one returning of it before we get a properly functioning one. I hoping this won't be the case this time - it's rather too big and annoying to take back anywhere.

And now it's Monday, back to work, and no snow for a temporary reprieve this week. Ah well. At least now I can watch Masterchef tonight and enjoy John Torode's fat flabby face being a full 40cm wide.

03 February 2009

Snow day no more

We are back at work today, more's the pity. Chris, however, has had another day off as his school decided it would be too dangerous still for the children and staff to travel in. So unfair! The university just said "come in, as long as you can do so safely", which basically meant come in, as I knew the buses had started running up here again.

So anyway, I've been back at work and it has been very dull. Half the staff didn't come in still for one reason or another, so it has been very quiet, and I haven't really done much work because I'm resentful that I’m not at home in my pyjamas like Chris.

When writing about the weekend, I forgot to say that we have now officially chosen our Eurovision song and singer. The singer is a girl called Jade who is from Plaistow I think, near where I grew up in London. She's quite good, a bit of a dull choice in some ways because she’s not that different to Alexandra who just won X-Factor – a pretty, young, black girl from London with a BeyoncĂ©-esque voice. She can sing really well though, and can obviously dance and perform quite well too, so she was quite a worthy winner.

The song however is a bit of a disappointment. It's been written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and while yes that will give it some international recognition, it sounds like it's been written by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It is the kind of song you'd expect to hear as part of a musical, not really on Eurovision. It's called My Time, and it would perfectly fit a character who's trying to make her way in showbiz and is just about to get her big break. There is also no scope for a dance routine, or even for a very exciting costume for it (or better yet, a costume change). So I'm not sure how well we'll do now. I think the Euro Juries will like it maybe, but the voting public won't remember it among the 30-odd other songs. I guess we shall have to see!

02 February 2009

Snow day!


We've had six inches of snow and the entire country has been brought to a complete standstill! So I've got the day off, wooooo!!! Yes as usual we can't cope with even a bit of snow - there are no buses, no trains, and loads of runways are closed. Even the gritters couldn't go out last night as apparently the conditions were too bad. I thought they were designed for driving in snow!

So anyway, this morning we have been out for a walk along the beach which was lovely and white and pretty, and then we made a (quite small) snowman. Everyone outside is walking around with big smiles on their faces, the snow turns everyone into children! And if you hear anyone on their mobile they're saying "yeah I'm not coming in, it's too snowy". It's been great so far. We might go out for some lunch later as well.

So that has been a very nice start to the week. We had a good weekend too, as we went to Strictly Super Dynamite Boogaloo. Obviously that was Boogaloo, but with a Strictly Come Dancing theme. So we got dressed up in sort of ballroomy shirts and waistcoats and things, and I bought some one-day fake tan. "Washes off easily and will never look orange" it said on the tube. Ha! They obviously hadn't banked on us putting three coats on, because orange was what we wanted to be! I looked like an oompah loompah going to a job interview.

Boogaloo was good, the music was good (from what I remember), although I did drink a bit too much and felt quite sick by the time we got home. I had a rather unusual experience too, because there was this guy there in a wheelchair, and he was FIT. I really liked him, and so did Chris, and I was quite surprised because I would normally have thought in a prejudicial sort of way that the wheelchair would have put me off. I've never fancied a guy in a chair before, but apparently that's just because they weren't good looking. This guy had nice hair, nice clothes, and he was actually a really good dancer. So anyway, I found myself staring at him a bit, and then thought "shit I hope he doesn't think I'm staring because he's in a wheelchair. It's not, it's because you're cute!" So anyway, that was a nice experience for me.

Right, it's STILL snowing, so I'm going to make a hot drink and then watch people out the window for a bit and see if anyone slips over and hurts themselves.