We are leaving tonight to spend the weekend at Dr B.'s parents in rural Staffordshire. His mother is going for a hot air balloon birthday present flight tomorrow (weather permitting) and we thought we'd go and watch her take off. It will also be nice to go away for a couple of days: I need all the rest I can get before a job interview for a new position within the team I currently work in as a contractor.
It is so refreshing to pack for a couple of days of countryside seclusion: I just threw into a bag two changes of underwear, a toothbrush, my contact lenses case and solution, and We Need To Talk About Kevin (which against all predictions I cannot put down, in some sort of car crash rubbernecking kind of way) – which took all of forty seconds. This sartorial minimalism means that no matter how near we will be, we shall not be going to Alton Towers GaydarDays this weekend.
There was some space left in my backpack, so I walked around the flat and jammed it with:
Not entirely sure why I bother, since my usual 'six hours of sleep and I'm fine' pattern has lately morphed into 'ten hours and could I take a nap too please?'
I suspect Dr B. has started pumping sleep gas in the flat so he can have a good night's sleep without me pottering around from 5.30am.
'My legs my legs – my lovely looking legs, check it out!'
Oh don't get me started on my legs: I don't think I was ever happy with them, and I have wasted so much time making lists of all that is wrong with them, list starting something like (but not necessarily limited to) this:
… and also stop. I do have legs, and there are two of them, and they are a matching set and take me everywhere I want to go – very very fast, most of the time.
Even the knee dodginess could be looked at by a doctor, if I could drag myself to the GP (step one, overdue by four and a half months but performed last week, was registering with my local surgery).
So now I'm going to go out to eat my sandwich on a bench and put my feet up. I want my legs to help me kick about for a long time, and they deserve some rest.
Our lovely friend E. treated Dr B. and I to the opening night of the Ballet Boyz' 'Encore' at Sadler's Wells theatre last night.
I was thrilled to go, albeit slightly apprehensive about Dr B.'s reaction. He loved the Trocks, but would he dig Michael Nunn and William Trevitt's classically-infused flavour of contemporary dance?
He did. Sort of, but especially the last piece (flashing lights = happy Dr B.), and the encore (I won't spoil the surprise if you go, but it's quite unexpected, and very tongue-in-cheek and funny).
And now he wants to go and see Momix in Lunar Sea at the Peacock Theatre in November. I told him I had seen them in the late 80s. Old old old, I know.
T'internet says:
So after failing to go during the weekend, in the end last night after work I managed to check out the thousands of Barbie dolls that are going on auction at Christie's today.
There were dozens of lots and it was overwhelming. A whole childhood lusting over my cousin's dolls, and yesterday I was walking through roomfull after roomfull of them. Many were from the 60s and 70s, with accessories and carrying cases and furnitures that looked very much like my cousin's, whose father was often travelling abroad on business and would always come back with something Barbie-related for her.
Many lots had dolls from the 80s, when I had started buying them myself with pocket money (but could only play behind closed doors as nobody was meant to know). I am particularly fond of them because they represent my emancipation, my growing up into my own person and finally tentatively allowing myself to be what I wanted to be, Barbies and all. You may stop sniggering now, by the way.
Christies, however, is not the mythical crystal-chandeliered luxury venue I had pictured it to be. At least not the South Kensington branch, and at least not the viewing rooms I visited, frankly rather bare and tatty, with ordinary presentation cabinets and tables where the goods are laid out for anyone to inspect. You'd expect Audrey Hepburn's Givenchy dress (the black sleeveless number with a slit that she wore in Breakfast at Tiffany's) would be properly protected? Nah, I could have slashed it with a knife or splattered it with bleach if I had wanted to. No bag search, and only one very sleepy-looking security guard to stop me from doing it.
I suppose they have to let bidders inspect the goods – just as well, considering the cheapest lot in the Barbie auction (the saucily-named Bendable Leg Brad) has an estimated starting price of 80 to 100 pounds.
T'internet says:
I need to improve my time management technique big time. Freelance work commitments (a very welcome addition to my main 9 to 5 job) meant that I did not find time to go over to Kensington's Christie's branch to preview the huge Barbie doll collection that goes on auction tomorrow.
There was no time on Saturday, and no time on Sunday either. Or was there?
If only I had not watched the X Factor on Saturday night (boring). Or finished watching Extras on Sunday morning (meh, apart from a cameo by David Bowie). Or clipped the Scissor Sisters specials I recorded during the week just so that they started and ended right on the very first and last frame (anal). Or played Bejewelled for the best part of the one-hour allowance that comes with the free download (addictive), I could have put together enough minutes to go view the little plastic women being sold off.
I can almost hear the muffled disappointment of my thirty or so Barbies, squeezed tight into a travel bag within a suitcase at the back of the wardrobe for months now. I'll try and go today after work, girls.
It's now official: Madonna's Confessions tour is the highest-grossing live show by a female artist ever. And if you think that the previous record holder, Cher's 'Farewell' tour, ran between 2002 and 2005, Our-Lady-of-the-Ker-ching's latest achievement in a matter of mere months is even more impressive.
Brugo has got a few audio files from Madonna's Phoenix gig available for download, and also lists several links to related videos on YouTube.
Not entirely satisfied with making $193.7m (£102.3m) out of the tour alone, it now looks like Madonna is releasing a Confessions tour double DVD out in time for the holiday season.
Well, wouldn't you?
The world needs to be alerted at once about the pure brilliance that is Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I watched it last night and I am very much looking forward to next week's episode. It airs on NBC on Mondays (10 ET/PT). The pilot was repeated on Bravo last night, and then again next Sunday night.
I predict Studio 60 will be extremely successful because there is something in it for everyone. Friends fans? You've got Matthew Perry in the leading role. Dirty voyeurs? Amanda Peet is a joy to look at. Desperate Housewives lovers? Felicity Huffman guest stars in episode one. West Wing addicts? This has got the same production team. Lost viewers? Well there are a few unexplained unrealistic mysteries here too, like for example how can pretty Jordan be a network president and look like an extremely hot 21 year old?
Matthew Perry surprised and impressed me very positively. Not once – alright, perhaps once, when he did his trademark startled look – did I think of (or worse still, wish for) Chandler Bing. Absolutely worth watching, if only for the brief moment where Matt hugs Danny when he is about to receive an important media award, and a big man's vulnerability pours out with three simple words – and no, they are not 'I love you'.
Oh, poo: another series I risk finding myself hooked to. As I apply the same principle to my TV watching as I do to my wardrobe (for each purchased new item, an equivalent old item has to be taken to a charity shop), I will have to give Little Miss Jocelyn the axe: I'm afraid sketch shows may rely on catchphrases only up to episode three.
T'internet says:
Research carried out by the NHS Smoking Helpline found that 'Smokers spend �676 a year on their habit, before the cost of cigarettes is even taken into account.'
This means that I thought I had saved 9,138 pounds since I quit smoking over three and a half years ago, but the actual total over the same period is instead 11,544 pounds.
On top of the price of thirty cigarettes per day, this updated figure also includes:
Now, if only I could remember where I put the 2,406 extra pounds I've saved…
I did not watch any of lonelygirl15's video blog entries on YouTube when she was all the rage. Neither did I deem her worthy of my online time when t'internet was blazing with suspicion that she was the scripted product of Big Movie Moguls.
Now that the creators have revealed that she is in fact an actress hired to act out some scriptwriter's project (indeed, from the scriptwriter's very own bedroom, it appears), I did watch some ot Bree's videos and noticed that:
I so wish I had watched this from the beginning – now I'll never know whether I could have been fooled or not.
But enough of lonelygirl15. The real question now is 'Is geriatric1927 for real?'
Last week I have become the proud yet puzzled owner of 500 grams of quinoa.
I know that it's good for you, and that it's packed full of Omega-somethings, and the pack claims it is a healthy and nutricious replacement for pasta (which, despite my Italian origins, I cannot digest – euphemism for 'pasta gives me the shits'), but… what the heck do you do with quinoa? Is it actually eaten outside Gillian McKeith's Scottish fief?
Given its size, I'm opting for some sort of cous-coussy usage. No?
T'internet says:
But somehow I found it hard to find any recipes with quinoa that are not vegan, and I can't help thinking that if you have to name a recipe 'Quinoa Fun Fruit Dessert' and insert it in a book entitled 'God's Banquet Table', it is bound to taste and feel like cardboard.
I foresee for my new packet of quinoa a very long and happy future at the back of the kitchen cupboard – till best-by date do us part.
I like lists. I have many lists. One of them lists all the books I would like to read in the immediate future.
I try and be realistic and keep the items on this reading list to under a dozen. Rather than go out and buy them all straight away (what, impulse buying? Me? You must be joking – or I must be drunk), I enjoy holding on to the list until the most convenient opportunity arises to purchase or borrow them – or until there is nothing left in the house to read, whichever comes first.
These days it pays to be patient: three of the books on my reading list are now part of the current 'Buy 3, pay for 2' offer at Books Etc.. And so I parted with a very reasonable 15 pounds 98 pence and I came home with:
Given my present reading speed, I think I've now got enough bedside table material to last me well into 2011.
Rather than facing The Pile Of Laundry That Would Not Fold Itself, yesterday morning I grabbed a shirt I found on the back of the couch and the only pair of jeans that have not been washed and therefore did not risk cutting into my flesh until the freshly-shrunk material relaxed back into a more confortable fit.
The jeans had artfully distressed holes at the knees. The shirt was striped. With a floral print. And wrinkles all over from being dried in a knot. Add to this the fact that I have not clipped my beard down to an acceptably groomed appearance for over a week, and needless to say, I looked like a tramp.
The Victoria Line train was packed, so I had to stand very near a man who was reading 'The Lord Has Put Words Into My Mouth'. Something ponged, and I very much wished that The Lord Had Put Soap Into His Shower instead.
I changed onto the Central Line and sat sandwiched between two fairly large women and their skinny lattes. And that smell again. I rejoiced in the fact that winter is upon us, with its twofold purifing effect of less heat = less sweat and more cold = more clothes between rank bodies and sensitive nostrils.
Once at work, I went into the kitchen to put my lunch away, and as I bent down and opened the fridge door, I was hit with the same unwashed smell. And then I was hit again, this time with the realisation that it came from my clothes.
Trust me never to miss an opportunity to accessorise: not only did I look like a tramp – I smelled like one too.
I have just figured out that given a conservatively-estimated sixty-five years life span, we all end up spending a long time taking care of our teeth. A ridiculously long time.
We spend 99 days of our lifetime brushing our teeth (the recommended two minutes, three times a day).
And yet that is not enough, and we need to sit in a dentist's chair for two whole days and a half having our gnashers examined and our gums prodded – or even longer, if any kind of work needs to be undertaken (average of two check-ups a year).
Then, after the discomfort, there's the humiliation of having to spend another two whole days and a half sitting in a hygienist's chair, being told off for not spending another couple of days flossing, and having grimy deposits scraped off. Oh, you need to make that five days if, like me, you need to go every three months instead of the recommended six, to avoid permanent gum damage.
It's like the human being is this amazingly complex machinery, all state-of-the-art silicon chips and sophisticated circuitry – with this one rusty medieval cog smack in the middle.
You might not be aware of it, gentle American reader with your perfect set of pearly whites, but come take a look here in Old Blighty where yes, we almost all have Austin Powers' teeth.
I have just bumped into a tree on my way to work.
It's not what you think: I had plenty of sleep last night, I ate a bowl of porridge for breakfast this morning, and I was looking forward to going to work (yes, unlikely as it may sound, I love my job).
But I have a bad cold. It's already on the mend, so it's not so bad that I have to stay in, but I do have to blow my nose every few minutes. It's now got to the point when I have to use two tissues every time, as one is not enough. I should probably switch to man-size tissues. Ever wondered about man-size tissues? Are they larger because men have a bigger nose? Or is it because they are used to wipe off something else from somewhere else instead?
But I digress.
So this morning on my way to work I blew my nose with manly vigour, and my ears popped, and no matter how hard I tried to walk in a straight line, my body took a left and met a tree. For a few minutes afterwards, the only way to reach the underground station was to consciouly walk a bit too much to the right, to compensate for a suicidal messed-up balance system that wanted me to step onto the busy road on my left.
I never felt I fitted in more with the 8AM Vauxhall mixed crowd of sleepy office workers and shattered clubbers on their way to a chill-out.