You're Friday Moment of Zen: Not More Than Meets The Eye

We're off to see the new Transformer's film tonight at Leicester Square. Why? Well, we have a bit of an affinity with Transformers thanks to our jobs (if only our jobs were in robotic programming or something cool like that rather than just dull, run of the mill programming of software used by organisations that can best be described as Satan's underlings - albeit lowly ones that fetch Satan's smokes from the corner shop or maybe drive him around in his Volvo to score girls, rather than do any thing really bad like arms trading or mass genocide. Hey - we're not completely evil.). Plus (thankfully!) we are all old enough to actually remember watching the show on tv and own the original toys (though I never owned any myself, but I was more of you playmobil girl... )

If you're seeing the film sometime, drop me a line and let me know what you think... I've decided to sneak in some snack food from China town, rather than pay exorbitant prices for some peanut M&M's (which I am currently using to perfect a magic tricks on Calv's desk. Along the line of "Here's the promise: a blue M&M and nothing else in my hand. Here's the turn: " (and it vanishes into my mouth). "And the prestige? Well, I'm still working on bringing it back... " if I was bulimic that'd be a whole lot easier I suspect...


Anyway, in preparations for tonight's big film, here are a couple of quite funny auditions for the new film. I particularly like Sgt Power. Enjoy!

20 20 Vision

Song to be sung to the tune of the "Lets all do the conga!, Let's all do the conga!"

"I have perfect vision!
I have perfect vision!
20 20 vision!
Don't need silly glasses!"


Once, about a decade ago, I went to an optomotrist who told me that whilst I almost had 20 20 vision, why not get glasses anyway? Getting talked into them, I got some really hidious tutle shell, round glasses (hey, it was the mid 90s. Turtle shell was hot back then). I tried them for about 2 weeks, during which my eyes started to hurt like crazy and them more I wore them and I worse my eyesite got. That was when I decided that it wasn't just vanity that would force me to stop using them, but a desire to not have headaches from those two pieces of glass.

Over the last few years I've been kindof worrying if I needed to go back to an optomotrist. Not because my vision was bad, but I was worried it wasn't staying good. Tuesday things on my screen seemed to be slightly blurry so off I took myself to the optomotortist for the dreaded test. (Btw, to all the optomotrists out there: before I ever go to another eye test again which involves you getting right up close to my face, I promise to use mints if you do too). Blurry vision due to worsening eyesight? Nope, nada, pas de tout. Apparently the fact that I'm a freak who doesn't blink enought is why I can't see. That's it. Dry eyes. Nearly kissed the slightly smelly optomotrist when he said I had perfect vision, bought myself some eye drops and danced the conga all the way to back to the office where I sung my little song to ol' four eyes Dr D (who is getting a fierceful pounding on my site these days!).

Hurrah! Ol two eyes is back, and I'm stayin' baby!

Off To France

We're off to Montepellier tomorrow for 4 days of lazing in the sun, drinking, eating, Tour de France watching in the Pyrenees and 1 night of camping!

See you on Tuesday!

What not to do when someone is really hungry and tired

Me: “When you get to Benugo’s can you buy me and eggs florentine?”

Dr D: “If they don’t have that?”
Me: “If they don’t have that, then an eggs benugo, or the other one with the salmon. In fact, buy me anything to eat, I’m really exhausted and really hungry.”
Dr D: “So basically, we could just get you some roadkill, wrap it up, add some sauce, and you’d eat that you’re so not fussy today.”
Me: “Don’t be mean. I’m very tired”
Dr D: “ You know, I have half a mind to not buy you anything at all, even if they do have what you want, just to see you sit there and cry.”
Me: “hmm.”

Don’t be mean to the girl with the blog, and the finickiness to blog you being mean.

Tower Depresssing

After coming home tonight from another shopping trip of house stuff (how much more stuff we can get in here?), C & I found a documentary called "The Tower, a Tale of Two Cities" on BBC1. This is based on an ex-council high rise tower, situated right on the river overlooking Canary Wharf, bought off Lewisham Council and has been refurbished and is now being flogged off as luxury apartments to wealthy city types. The whole idea of selling these apartements off is part of Lewisham Council's hope to regenerate the area, by brining in wealty people, which I guess means to just force poor people out. The documentary shows the juxtaposition of this brand "new" tower to it's sister tower, still a council estate, and still full of poor tenants, and the juxtaposition of these people's lives. Where one group argue about where to put their high def TVs, the other group battle with losing their businesses, dead beat fathers of their children, poverty and drug abuse. Showing these two completely different worlds, one ultra rich, and one ultra poor, living right next to each other, in identical towers, albeit for a splash of paint, is amazing, but also incredibly harrowing and depressing. It is especially interesting to me because the ex-flatmate and I used to live about 1 mile from these two apartments, and we watched them rip the guts out of the old council block, and refurbish it. So whilst there is an element of watching all these poor people's lives as they are being forced out of the area, and watching all the rich people as they come in, total naive of the area they are about to become a part of, I have to confess there is also an element of "oh look that's the pub across the road from the Asian supermarket" and "I wonder if you can see us speeding past in our car, doors locked, windows up so we don't get robbed?".

Tenants from the sister tower

The 'new' tower.

If you want to watch it, check it out on BBC1 at 11pm. I can't stress how good this documentary is. Well, by good I mean 'interesting, saddening, non life reaffirming'...

Afterwards though, I was so fucking depressed, that I honestly couldn't sleep, so to perk myself up, I had to watch some light, no brain content fluff, with lots of pretty people being upset about stupid things, rather than anything really life threatening like say, making sure that their daughters don't get raped on their way to school. Naturally that meant digging out an episode of "Sex and The City". Of course, being me, that completely back fired because in my attempt to make myself feel better, I ended up watching the episode where Samantha gets breast cancer. Just fucking great.

Friday Moment of Zen: Tell them this

There are WAY too many things happening in London this weekend:

1) Le Tour de France is starting it's Grand Depart in London for the first time in it's century history, making it the 3rd time ever that this cycle race has crossed the English Channel (ou la manche si vous préfèrez). On the Sunday the race starts, and they are cycling right past our house (well, techinally, about 2 mins walk from our front door, but when it is travelling all around France, I categorise 'down the end of the street' as past my front door), so we'll go out and cheer those crazy cyclists on. I do find it really amusant that Le Tour de France is starting from Trafalgar Square, the very square dedicated to the battle where the British kicked those frenchies butts in 1805. I wonder who thought that was a good idea. The British really never let things die! The time trial is on Saturday to work out who will start the race wearing the yellow jersey, and is going all London, taking in some of it's best sights, and should be a fantastic thing to watch! I, however will not be there on Saturday because Dr D and myself will be going:

2) To LiveEarth at Wembley! I've had a look at the line ups at the other Live Earth concerts, and I reckon the London one is the best! American girl turned Fox Hunting, Pint-Swilling, Fake Accent totting Madonna is playing, but so is Snow Patrol, Beastie Boys, Red Hot Chilli Peppers (and Genisis??). But I am really, really, really excited because I am finally going to get to see the FOO FIGHTERS LIVE!! AAHH!!! You'll see me right there, up in the nose bleeder seats, so far away from Dave Grohl I'd be able to see him better if I was in space, singing my guts out, and using my telephoto lens to try and get a good look at him! (God, I can heard Dr D from here moan already). Ahh. Everlong live. That's going to be FANTASTIC. And I reckon when all the acts we don't want to see are playing, like Keanne, we can just go to one of the many bars and help pay for Wembleys debts by paying for beer.

So, if you are in London, or in Britain at all this week and going to any thing good, let me know. And in exchange I will give you the power to be able to tell people silently what you think of them. In British Sign Language. This cracks me up because it's not every day you get to hear in a perfectly inanciated, posh, upper class english accent the words "fat cow".

Enjoy!


VideoJug: How To Insult Someone Using British Sign Language

British Summer = Cricket + Rain

We went to Lords on Tuesday to watch a 20 20 match with Middlesex vs Surrey. As a non-cricket watcher, I really only go for 3 things:

1. Lounging in the hot summer sun, drinking beer/wine/champagne
   
2. Picnic food
   
3. The party atmosphere
   

However, thanks to the stupid, crappy, flood enducing, cold, wet, horrid english 'summer' (and I use 'summer' in the loosest possible terms), we've spent the last month with barely any summer sun, and NO chance of floaty dresses, strappy tops, sandals/thongs (aka FLIP FLOPS if you're giggling to yourself).

Instead of hot summer cricket at Lords we were subjected to this:


with somtimes TEASING sun like:



I WANT THE CANCER INDUCING SUN BACK! I am CRAVING the possiblity of getting sunburnt. I am vitamin D deficient!!! On top of that, I keep listening to the soundtrack to the Ex-Flatmate's and my holiday to St Maarten last year, all the songs from Radio Calypso that they kept playing whilst we were hooning around going from sundrenched beach to sundrenched beach, and this has made me even more desperate for some hot weather, so much so that I am seriously thinking of going on a holiday, even if no one wants to come with me! So this is a shout out, an open invitation, a plea to the universe: if YOU are thinking of going somewhere where we can take our pasty bodies out on a beach, in swimsuits that no one wants to see us in, drink cocktails with little umbrellas in them, and eat bbq's every day, let me know, because I am sick of this crappy weather:

Some Good News At Last

I have finally worked out why I am so happy that Alan Johnston was released by his kidnappers in the Gaza Strip. After all the crap news we're getting at the moment like:

• cars in London being filled with nails, gas canisters and the such, and left to explode in the middle of the west end.
  
• 2 guys setting fire to their car, and driving it into Glasgow airport
  
• all those doctors in the NHS being arrested for possibly trying to kill people
  
• that kid Madeleine still being missing after 60 days now, probably by some pedophile ring
  

it is so good to actually hear some fucking good news for a change!

To be perfectly honest, after 114 days, I really did give up hope that he'd be released. If you don't know who he is, Alan Johnston is a BBC reporter who was kidnapped whilst out on assignment at the Gaza Strip on the 12th of March. I was surprised when he wasn't killed after his first month of capture, but when they released a video of him strapped to the eyeballs with explosives recently, I figured that was it, game over. So good work to everyone who worked so hard to get him freed, because we get so little good news these days, it's just nice to know that someone who looked like a dead cert, pardon the pun, for things going pear shaped for him, maybe not everything always turn out badly, and perhaps there is still hope that despite all the death threats, bombings, and red-alert-we're-all-going-to-die security levels we're living through at the moment, maybe it'll be alright for us too.