There's Nothing Like A Dame

The only good thing about the developing the new website at work has been sourcing the images for it.

Our beloved President insisted that we had pictures to reflect the whole of the industry, not just the high-brow stuff. He specificially suggested that we had some pictures of a pantomime dame (he is a bit of a one himself) and one of the country's leading panto producers very kindly obliged with some great pictures.

The rest of the site is rubbish but this pictures makes me smile whenever I see it.

Talking to myself

I keep talking to myself or more accurately inanimate objects, and its getting embarrassing.

I talk to the new website at work alot, mainly asking it why it isn't working properly, but I snapped on Friday and told it, I hate it. It didn't respond immediately but since then it has been playing up even more. This morning at the pool, I told the water in the shower that it was too hot - its a poolside shower so there were other people within earshot.

Possibly worst of all, I said hello to skirt in H&M the other day. My exact words were 'Oh hello again!'. It was a skirt I had previously tried on twice a few months earlier and couldn't decide whether I like it, so when it turned up in the sale, I greeted it like an old friend.

I'm losing it.

The demise of The White Lion

We don't really have a local which is a shame because I think I would feel more settled if we did. I'm not even sure which pub is exactly the closest to us, but its between two. I have frequented one of them a couple of times - actually I had lunch in the beer garden all but one time - the first time I drank indoors there was the last time I drank there. There was a definite air of violence brewing and our faces didn't fit (we were with a male friend with long-ish hair).

The second pub was worse.

We have never been in the White Lion. My other half loves a dingy 'old man's' pub, so long as they have sport on the television, but even he wouldn't cross the threshold of The White Lion. There were usually at least two wrecked vehicles and one man urinating in what passed for the beer garden (three benches with only a falling down fence to separate it from the main road). From what we could see of the inside (the windows weren't the cleanest), there would always be about ten customers in there (all men of course), but it never looked very welcoming to outsiders.

Anyway, today I had to get off the tube at a different stop from usual so walked past The White Lion for the first time in ages and to my surprise, it isn't The White Lion anymore. Its been tarted up, a signing was boasting about its food and it has a new name. I was quite excited & told the Other Half, thinking that perhaps we could go in now, but apparently not. According to him, it now looks a bit poncey!

It was also completely empty (the pub over the road was packed) so it looks as if they've alienated the hard drinking men of west London, but failed to attract a new crowd.

First there was the dress...

Now the Celia Birtwell pants!

And they are doing cocktail making and roller skating classes (not combined) in Topshop this week. They keep coming up with ways to try to get their hands on my money.

(I haven't actually bought these. I'm not in the habit of posting pictures of my underwear on the internet.)

Muppets

(Not the web development company, although it wouldn't be inaccurate to call them that as new problems keep springing up just as they sort out one area.)

I am referring to Avenue Q which I went to see last night, actually getting a free ticket through work for something decent for once.

It was great. I'm not usually a big fan of musicals (unlike my sisters who like nothing more than a blast of Rodgers & Hammerstein) but I really enjoyed this. Evidently, not as much as the woman with the overly loud laugh behind me, who kept saying 'Oh that is just so true' every few minutes.

I was shocked at how shocked I was at the puppet sex scene, especially considering neither puppet actually had a lower body so it was hardly explicit. But I still blushed!

Since my usual choices at the theatre and cinema tend to be alot darker, it was good to leave feeling uplifted, but without feeling that it was too sickly sweet. I was still in a good mood when two drunken Australians started talking to me on the tube and I decided it would be easier to just talk to them rather than pretend to read which is my normal tactic.

Bother

Feeling slightly tired today as we decided yesterday that we would go out to watch the football, which involved a trip to a pub off Edgeware Road. The pub had imposed a one drink per half of the game minimum, so becuase we got there two hours before kick-off, my hope of limiting myself to two drinks went somewhat off course (I know I could have had soft drinks but I never do). It was made worse by them selling pints(!) of Pimms, but it was very weak and contained a good portion of fruit (thereby counting towards my 5 per day). Sensibly we did leave soon after the England game rather than staying out with the others to watch Portugal v Holland - particularly wise since the OH was writing a match report on that one.

To make my tiredness worse, I came to a nightmare at work. We are in the process of having a new website set up, which has been my project, but the development company have been dreadful. They are running two months behind schedule, the system has been full of bugs and I've not had a proper demonstration of how it works - I've just been left to learn how to use it myself, which I wouldn't mind if it actually worked properly. Anyway, we were working towards today as being a deadline to get the content ready, but at the end of Friday, there were still full systems that weren't working. So I come in this morning and they've only gone live with the site without asking our approval. There are loads of things that need to be corrected and confidential information showing on the public site. They have changed the IP back but I'm still seeing the new site and so presumably are other people. My boss obviously isn't best pleased and rang them to shout - they don't seem to understand why it is a problem & didn't think that we might want to give our approval first. They haven't responded to my long list of issues that need to be resolved yet either.

Too Much Caffeine in your Bloodstream and a Lack of Real Spice in Your Life

I'm bored. I'm having a boring weekend. Sometimes I really appreciate not having much to do but this weekend, I'm feeling frustrated by it.

Friday night, I fell asleep ridiculously early even by my standards and still managed to wake up after 9 o'clock, which made it too late to go to pool before the hoards arrive. I went to the Gallery, got quite a bit of work done there but nothing interesting happened.

Last night, we watched football (same as we do every night) and then the Mark Steel Lectures. It was the one about Byron which I had seen before, but enjoyed watching it again - him being accompanied everywhere by a bear particularly tickled me. I have a bit of thing for Byron and Shelley anyway - 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' I always thought Byron was my type (i.e. hugely unsuitable as a boyfriend) and I quite fancied Shelley - I had a picture of him on my wall at uni - I think it was the shirts which were quite Bernard Butler-esque. Here's a gratutious pic of PBS.

Today, I was up early enough to go swimming. On the way back, a drunk said good morning to me and told me I was beautiful. I was going to tell him he was drunk, but didn't bother as he probably knew that anyway and these days, I've got take any compliments I can get.

I've read the newspaper already, listening to Jimmy Carr on the radio and am on my second cup of coffee, wondering how soon I can have another one just for something to do. I'm even thinking about cleaning the hob. Still only 4 hours until the football.

Today's Burning Issue: Milk

We seem to have stopped getting semi-skimmed milk at work and now have a choice of full fat or skimmed. If I mix the two together, is this the same as semi-skimmed?

Is there a word for...

...the addiction to buying dresses?


Yes, I've bought another one (and I bought one last week).

It really must stop - damn Topshop.

I've changed my mind about the yellow shoes though.

Top 5

Shamelessly stolen from the lovely Lucy on her blog (although I've omitted one section that she has because it was too difficult).

Top 5 favourite albums:

Primal Scream – Screamdelica
The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses
Beth Orton – Trailer Park
The Chemical Brothers – Surrender
Death in Vegas – Contino Sessions

Top 5 favourite recording artists:

Primal Scream
The Smiths
Velvet Underground
The Chemical Brothers
The Stone Roses


Top 5 songs that make me jump around my bedroom:

The Delays- Long Time Coming
Talking Heads – Psycho Killer (not actually jumping but swaying my hips in a very New York way)
Big Star – Get What You Deserve
Happy Mondays – WFL
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Bang

Top 5 songs that make me go 'fuck yeah!'

Rage Against the Machine – Killing in the Name
Primal Scream – Loaded
The Ramones – Chinese Rock
LCD Soundsystem – Jump into the Fire
Flowered Up - Weekender

Top 5 songs to cry to:

Neil Diamond – Songs of Life
Johnny Cash - Hurt
The Charlatans – Telling Stories
Glen Campbell – Wichita Lineman
Lamb - Goreki


(I appear to be stuck in a bit of musical rut - not much from this century here)

Yellow Shoes?

I'm hankering after a pair of yellow shoes. I've seen these in Office that I quite like.
But do I really need a pair of yellow shoes? Not 'need' as really we only need two pairs of shoes (its very bad to wear the same pair all of time), but would I wear them enough to justify it?

I'm going to continue to ponder this as it is much less stressful than other things I could be thinking about instead.

A New Enemy

I've watched the West Wing, the Daily Show and Michael Moore's films, but I really don't follow American politics that closely. So last night's Newsnight was the first time I'd come across Ann Coulter. She has written another best-selling book criticising liberal America for being godless. She is apparently adored by Conservatives in America but to me (and Paxman) she just seemed like a hate-filled idiot. She wasn't able to answer any of his questions properly - her typical response would be 'I'm bored with being asked that' or 'Yes I do believe that - its in the book', so I really don't understand why she is so admired as she didn't really offer any decent arguments - she just came across as a bigot and reactionary. She had none of the wit of P J O'Rourke either.

Multi-Tasking for England

I opted to stay in and watch the football on my own rather than go the pub. I've interspersed watching the match with figuring out how to edit our new work website (which had annoyed me in the office but seems simpler from home) and painting my toenails. Multi-tasking for England.

I am also drinking a can of red wine! Yes, a can of red wine - it doesn't get much classier than that. Its left over from the Shakespeare picnic the other week - I do normally buy bottles.

So far the worst bit of commentary has been:

"Theo Wallcott - he's got a provisional driving licence"

Tales from the World Cup

I must admit I'm actually quite enjoying the World Cup. Not for England's games, but seeing other teams who can actually pass the football, and the crazy stories connected to the tournament.

So far, these have included the obligatory story about monks wanting to watch the game, questions about the sexuality of the mascot Goalio the lion and the Croatian team going to watch Deep Purple in concert to relax them.

But my favourite was a story from Bulgaria where prisoners serving life sentences have sewn their mouths up in protest at not being allowed to watch the World Cup. What makes this story even better though as that Bulgaria aren't even in the competition and that they have left a small gap at the side of their mouths so they can still smoke! A well-thought out plan obviously.

Hopes dashed

On Tuesday afternoon, I had a message from the organisation I had recently applied to for a job. I wasn't able to call them back until Wednesday morning because a) reception on my phone is very bad in the office and b) there is nowhere private that I can make a call from. So I rang first thing in the morning and got no reply. I tried again in the afternoon and the following day and the day after, but still couldn't get through to the right person. This morning, I received an email from him saying he got my message, but the position has now been filled!!! They will get back to me if it doesn't work out with the person they offered it to.

OH thinks that I had a narrow escape if this is how they behave, but I'm finding it hard to look at it that way as I really can't stand my work much longer.

Calmer

No real progress on the Gran front, but my mum sounds ok. The NHS is being rubbish as usual - no test results until Monday because its the weekend. But I'm not going to rant about that because I'm going out soon and once I start on that I'll be here all day. Anyway, I'm feeling calmer - tiredness from Birmingham was probably making me feel worse yesterday.


I'm off out to Jane's 30th Birthday party soon. I'm going straight from the Gallery (where I am now) so have brought an outfit to change into. I'm wearing my new green dress (yes, another dress) with footless tights. I'm slightly aprehensive about this as it is the first time I've worn footless tights (rather behind the times) and I've a feeling the OH won't like them, but because I'm meeting him there he won't have a chance to say anything negative until its too late for me change.


I'm quite looking forward to the party now, as the OH has dug out some ridiculous old indie songs to play as these people are terrified of anything remotely dancey. He has even got some Inspiral Carpets!!! 'She Comes in the Fall' which was my suggestion (I haven't heard it for about 15 years) and 'This is How it Feels to be Lonely' his selection, despite me pointing out that it was hardly a party tune.

Bad Stuff

My gran has had a stroke. Harsh as it might sound, I'm not close to her so am not that upset about it for her sake (see here), but am very worried about how it will affect my mum and my Auntie C. Auntie C has been very ill with ulcertative colitius and has to go back in for another operation in a couple of weeks time. To make matters worse, she broke her foot last week by falling over on a dodgy paving stone. My mum was obviously already very worried about her and now this has happened as well. She was struggling to cope with looking after her as she was (unable to walk properly) but now she has lost the use of one arm too, it will be too much for my mum.

Before I found this out yesterday, I was feeling pretty happy - I was feeling enthused about work again and everything seemed good for once and then this happened. I have that old feeling that somehow it is my fault for allowing myself to be happy. I know it is stupid and irritional but it always seems like there is something bad waiting to happen.

On the Road

From time to time, I have to travel as part of my job. Tomorrow is one such time - I get to go to Birmingham. I'm not looking forward to it, but when I first accepted the job I really did think that it would be a nice perk to travel about a bit. It never is though as it usually involves cheap hotels, lots of rushing about and rarely seeing mcuh of the place.

In a previous job, I once spent a week doing a series of events around the country and each time we stayed in a Post House hotel, which were pretty much identical. It was awful. By the end of the week, I could hardly remember which town I was in, like some aging rock star on a stadium tour.

The same 'tour' was very high security as we were working for a defence company, who were expected to be a target for protesters. (This never sat easily with my conscience and I always expected to fail the security clearance as I had once been to a Socialist Working Party meeting.) We had to be accompanied by a security expert, who had a suitably mysterious background that invovled work in the military that he couldn't talk about. He was a small man, but made it clear that he would be ready for whatever situation arose. In the end, nothing happened at all and he was visibly crestfallen at the end of the week.

Immaturity

I want to go to a festival or a club soon before it is too late forever. Unfortunately all of my friends seem to have grown up and are only interested in careers and having babies (except my OH who is only interested in sport and poker).

The prospect of a 30th birthday party on Saturday where my OH is DJ-ing in a bar that looks like a library (see picture) is not cutting it for me.

First Big Weekend of the Summer

I had a great weekend, although it bore no resemblance to the weekend described in the song with the above title. As well as the glorious sunshine, I enjoyed it because I had plenty of time to myself, which is very rare since I took on the responsibility of the gallery - I had forgotten how much I like wandering around London, going to galleries and parks and not having to rush about.

As well as going swimming twice and doing plenty of walking, I did go to the V&A as I said I would. The Sixties Fashion exhibition was quite good (I loved the paper dresses), but I found the Sixties Graphics much more interesting, especially the stuff about the influence of Aubrey Beardsley. I felt quite pleased with myself that I knew about him already (I did a university course in The Decadents) and it made me feel half way intelligent for once which was much needed after Saturday's lowest common denominator television.

However, I had hoped to be able to buy postcards or prints of some of the things in the graphics exhibition, but they only had two images on postcards in the giftshop and they weren't the better ones. The real things are out of my price range - the poster here costs £650. I could quite happily cover my walls in images by Hapshash and the Coloured Coat and posters for UFO, although it might be a step too far combined with my growing collection of retro style dresses.

The World Cup - Some Thoughts

On my way to the pool this morning, a 'patriot' with flag on their car drove past me and I thought that after yesterday's lack lustre performance, I wouldn't be so keen to wave the flag this morning. As my friend Colin would say 'The result is everything' but really I didn't see anything to be proud of in yesterday's match. Whereas, supporters of Trinidad & Tobago and the Ivory Coast can hold their heads up higher today because even though neither team actually won, they played their hearts out.

We also had the misfortune to watch 'Rio's World Cup Wind-Ups'. I just wanted to see a bit of it, to see how bad it was, but ended up watching it all to see if any of them actually worked. Rio is no Jeremey Beadle - most of his 'victims' seemed pretty unfazed by the stunts - either too stupid to understand what was going on or so arrogant/rich that not much actually matters to them. Peter Crouch was a genius though - his overly complicated set-up (clearly an idea Rio had for a film) involved a dwarf, mafia and a phallic-shaped property development - but Crouch took his in his considerable stride and when things got heavy, he simply said 'I'm just here to look at a penis shaped apartment. The only person who came out of his looking bad was Rio. His catchphrase of "You've been merked" didn't help - I've no idea if I've spelt this right as I'd never heard this word before last night. If anyone knows, please let me know.

I'm wondering if I can uninstall ITV from our television in case we are ever tempted to watch anything on there again. I'm certain it killed more brain cells than any years of substance abuse could.

If we shadows have offended

Back from the Open Air Theatre. Quite surprised at how much of Midsummer Night's Dream, I remember. We did a production of it at school when I was 15 which was more than half my lifetime ago!!!!! I was also shocked by how good this version was - the man playing Bottom was excellent and really lifted the whole thing. Much better than the last person I saw in the role, admittedly this was a chunky 15 year old with a bad perm called Susie (it was a girls only school).

I enjoyed being outside - it added to the ambience, being quite fitting for this play with its woodland setting, although we were a bit freaked out when a giant black butterly (maybe a moth?) was sat on the shoulder of the man in front of us for about 10 minutes without him knowing.

However, I must admit I didn't find it as rip-roaringly funny as some other people did. It is definitely my favourite Shakespeare Comedy, but still I was just smirking rather than wetting myself in glee. I much prefer the tragedies, especially King Lear were there is hardly anyone left standing at the end.

Shandy, Sangria, Festivals

These are the things that my mind tends to wander to whenever the sun comes out.

Ordinarily, this isn't a much of a problem, but I'm trying to curb my alchohol intake and even worse, for the second year running it doesn't look as if I'll be going to any festivals . This is after having been to at least one every year for the 10 years before that - not always the full festival (I'm not a natural born camper), but always to something involving music outdoors.

Two years ago, we went to Glastonbury. I loved every minute of it, even though it poured with rain on the Saturday, turning the whole place to mush and I got a bit emotional watching Billy Bragg and had a sneaky cry (left-wing politics, talk of unions and the working man always does this to me - I blame my grandad who was a big union man). There were so many highlights (Orbital for the last time, Arthur Lee, hysterics at James Brown, Edie T-M playing 'Engerland' and the final night party with Arthur Baker, Bez and the Loose Canons).

Last year, we couldn't get tickets, so returned to our previous tactic of watching it on television while getting as hammered as if we had actually been there - 'Indoor Glastonbury' as we always refer to it. But even that pleasure has been taken away this year as it isn't happening at all. I did try to get some people to go to Spain for Benicassim but I think I'd left it 5 years too late with most of our friends.

I'm hoping that I might still persuade the usual suspects to go to Cross Central, (which admittedly hasn't got a great line-up, but its not far to travel & isn't affected much by bad weather) or D-Percussion in Manchester (which may not even be happening).

Good Day, Sunshine

I'm in an unfeasibly good mood today. I was woken up at 5.30am by the sunshine coming through our curtains (we really need to get some blackout curtains), but rather than being annoyed by it, I decided to get up early & make the most of the day. I travelled into work with the Present Incumbent, I got off at TCR & walked the rest of the way and arrived at work very early. And my good mood hasn't faded yet.

I did consider going swimming at 6.30 but decided that would be too much as I will need to stay up quite late tonight (by my standards) as I'm going to see Midsummer Night's Dream at the Open Air Theatre. I'm really looking forward to this as I've never been there before, but it is nearly three hours long so it will be quite a late night for theatre.

We are having a liquid picnic beforehand (actually it might be this bit I'm looking forward to the most) so I'm going to buy a couple of mini bottles of wine, which the Present Incumbent referred to as 'being for ponces', although he conceded it was quite practical in this case. And I've packed a pair of trousers and a cardigan in case it gets cold (plus a brolly - ever the pessimist that I am)

Dark Horse

I have drawn the Czech Republic in the office World Cup sweepstake. This apparently isn't so bad, according to the Present Incumbent, as they are the dark horse of the tournament. The Accounts Department have Brazil and Argentina between them which seems a bit unfair.

Shallow?

When I first started this blog, I imagined I would write about art, literature and politics. Instead what seems to have happened is that I have talked about clothes, famous men I find attractive and and how unhappy I am at work.

So I thought I should write about something a bit more cultural today.

The V&A currently has two exhibitions that I want to see, Sixties Fashion and Sixties Graphics (there is also the Che Guevara exhibition, but we saw that in New York!). As luck would have it, this coming weekend I don't have to go to 'my' gallery. So I'm determined to get out of the house on Sunday and down to South Kensington.

Now I just have to decide what to wear!

'The King' is dead

We were supposed to be going to the cinema tonight to see The King, but they have replaced it with another film, so we aren't going now and it isn't on anywhere else in London.

I'm very disappointed as I was really looking to it. Not just because it stars the lovely Gael Garcia Bernal (he might be very short in real life, but he is perfect on the big screen), but because I really love going to the cinema. I get a little shiver of excitement as the lights go down and the trailers start. If the Pearl & Dean music comes on that's even better.

So to console myself, I've found a picture of Gael. I felt quite faint looking at all the wonderful pictures of him.

English Rose

Today I'm wearing one of my recently purchased dresses and four people have complimented me on it. Nobody has recoiled in horror at my pale legs either. I'm resisting society's pressure to be tanned and trying to comfort myself with being 'an English Rose'. I do actually tan a bit but after a scare with a mole (not of the short-sighted creature variety) I have been very cautious and I don't really have any time to sit in the sun these days anyway. I have dallied with fake tan but as I keep promising to go swimming there really isn't much point and besides which I think it would look a bit odd to come in bronzed one day when I was milky the day before.

Besides the complexion and dress, I'm quite far removed from an English Rose. I don't think my choice of the MC5 and Primal Scream that I listened to on my way to work quite fitted with my dress, but I liked the contrast.

Salad Days

I'm trying to lose weight. Not in any scientific, sticking to a proper diet kind of way - mainly by eating salad for lunch instead of my customary Pret sandwich (often accompanies by a bag of crisps). Also I don't actually own a set of scales so I'm going to be going on the fit of my clothes.

The slight problem I have (apart from the lack of scales) is that I don't really feel I can tell anyone else that I'm on this mission because they are bound to tell me that I don't need to lose any weight. Whilst I'm certainly a long way off obesity (I'm a UK size 10), I don't feel that good about my body of the moment. Some items of clothing are fitting a little too snugly, my upper arms have lost their shape and my thighs are awful.

Ironically, the time I was happiest with my body was probably at the time I was unhappiest with my life, which was about five years ago - I even bought and wore a pair of hot pants (just on holiday not in this country). A combination of an awful job with the constant threat of redundancy and a huge crisis in confidence was great for my figure. Despite my issues with my current workplace, it, unfortunately, hasn't as yet triggered any weight-loss.

I realise that exercise is the best way to resolve this, but I don't really have the time or the energy at the moment (this last week I've return to my old habit of dozing off at around 9pm), so for now I'm sticking with the salad.

Musical Interlude 2

Today I had to venture to the local 99p shop - I need to buy some paper plates for an art activity at the Gallery. The shop is located in the local Dirt Mall (as they would describe it in Mall Rats) and it was awful - dusty, hot & full of people in tracksuits.

But over the PA, they were playing 'Morning Rain' by I Am Kloot. I love this band and this song is one of my favourites of theirs. Since it was very sunny it was hardly very appropriate but still it made me smile.

I couldn't think why they would be playing it (unless they have become famous without me knowing) so I figure that someone in there must have pretty good music taste - what a pity they have to work there.

Before the Blog...

...there was the diary. (Actually quite a long time before as it had stopped by the time I reached 19)

I had the idea the other day that I would dig out my old diary and could perhaps post bits of it on here if there were entries on that particular date by the teenage me. I dug out the diary this morning and suffice to say there won't be any extracts posted here anytime soon. If you think this tends towards rambling and navel-gazing, you should see the diary.

I only had a quick read of a couple of entries, which were consumed by the stresses of a school play, exams, cider-drinking and of course, heavy doses of unrequited love. At the end of one particularly long entry, there was a list of songs that apparently reminded me of some boy. Well, they don't remind me of him that much as it took me about half an hour to even remember who he was and the songs didn't help.

Thankfully I seem to have lost my book of teenage poetry and writings.

Oh, I didn't realise that you wrote poetry

I didn't realise you wrote such bloody awful poetry

Has it come to this?

Yesterday, we spent most of the afternoon at work discussing whether or not it was a good idea for the delegates at our upcoming seminar to be given a fake dog turd on arrival. The reasons for it are far too tenuous and dull to go into here, but needless to say, I was in the 'No' camp on this issue. Thankfully , the idea was poo-pooed (excuse the shamelessly rubbish pun) by someone more senior. But the PM, of course, hadn't seen anything wrong in this himself before we pointed out that it wasn't really the image we wanted to portray.

I have long been aware how unglamourous my job is, but that was perhaps the final straw. I need to get out of here!

Jealousy

My mum, sister and dog all got to meet Alan Alda yesterday as he was appearing on the same edition of the Paul O'Grady show as Ellie. I'm incredibly jealous of this as I really love Alan Alda. Obviously, I am thinking of him more 'back in the day' during MASH and in The California Suite, rather than as he is now (playing a Republican!!!) but he would definitely be in my Top Ten.