So Sincere

Me: Wow, I can't believe this time next week she'll be a mother! I'm so excited for her
Dr D: Yeah. Woo hoo. Excited. Yup
Me: God you're so sincere aren't you?
Dr D: Yeah. Course I am. You look nice today. See. Sincere me.

So, where'd you get those from?

Last Friday was our work Christmas party. You know that it's been one of those sorts of nights when 2 days later someone emails you from work saying "Ok, next time we all go out, we're gonna have that dance off. Get ready", and your thinking "Dance off? What dance off? Was there some sort of West Side Story moment at this party? Am I a Jet?"

I won't bore you with the details of how I went through the usual malaise of the "what the fuck am I going to wear? Why does everything I try on in the shops look like shite?", but suficite to say I knew it's bad when I get sent a care package of clothes thanks to Li, with all her lovely party frocks in it. Unfortunately for me, I don't have the breasts to carry off any of her tops (chicken fillets wouldn't have filled been enough for my puppies. In fact, whole chickens stuffed down my top would not have helped at all). Surprisingly, help came in the form of a dress that my mother had bought for me when I saw her earlier this year.

Now I love my mum, honestly I do. And her clothes are fantastic. On her. Unfortunately her dress sense, when extended to me, is not a winning combination that's going to get me in on the cover of Vogue anytime this century. So you can imagine my shock when she told me she had bought me a dress and the smile I had prepared myself to wear when she showed it to me was genuine and not a hard, plastered on grimace. It's a green patterned maxi empire cut dress, with a sort of plunging neck line, that I had planned to keep covered behind a pashmina, a bolero, and whatever pillars happened to be at the venue. 3 glasses of champagne later and that plan flew out the window. So after the whole chicken fillet/borrowed clothes debacle, I was shocked to find out that my breasts were in fact topics of conversation with my bosses wife. I practically chocked on one of my never ending glasses of champgane when she asked me where I got my cleavage from? (No, they were not a christmas present, I've had these my whole life).

So relatively sucessful Christmas party? So-so. No raging hangover the next day (thanks to The Ex-Flatmate and a friend of ours going off to Tesco's at 3am to buy pizzas (yum)). Bruises all over my legs from being flung around the dance floor (oh wait.. I remember this "Dance Off" thing now... The massive bruise on my knee is proof that I am, in fact a Jet, from my first cigarette to my last dying day), and a hole in the top of my foot where someone has decided to try to crucify one of my feet by smashing their stilleto heel into it. This is Christmas people, not Easter. And I'm not the massiah, I'm a very drunken girl. Now with added boobs.

Finland Photos

I've not had time to do a proper write up yet (Christmas, Christmas Parties, Babies, Ex-Flatmates. All taking toll on time!). check out the collection of sets here:

Finland Husky & Reindeer Riding

Ice Fishing

This is one of my favorite two pics from night sky watching.
Check out the set here: Aurora Borealis Watching.

The holiday is Finnish

I'm back.

Going on holidays is always a really weird time for me because there is always all this anticipation and excitement and brouhaha about trying to get organised and remember to book hotels and flights and pack the right number of socks, and then all of a sudden you're on holiday, and you're having a great time, it's all fun and holiday like, and then, BAM, it's over. Finished.

I have this strange sort of love/hate relationship with time. The old adage for when bad things happen of "this too shall pass" unfortunately also extends to the good times... I find the worst parts are when one minute you're on a plane, waiting to take off because it's delayed thinking "argh come one lets go, I hate these crowded seats" and then you stop and realise "in a few seconds this very moment will be over and in the past and when it's long gone and it's all just bits of electricity going on in my brain, it's this moment I'll remember" and before you know it, you're back in your bedroom, laptop on, writing about it. Fleeting, intangible moments, all in the past, all gone.... And the more you think like this, the harder and yet the easier it is to live in the moment, not wanting time to keep passing by without you at least trying to have a stab at it and wondering if you could be doing a better job of it...

Hmmm, I really know how to suck the fun out of holidays eh?

Ok enough midnight philosophising about how time seems to slip through my fingers and I can't stop it.

So how was the holiday? Bloody fantastic and bloody cold!

I will post many, many pictures soon along with highlights of:

• Dr D almost getting mauled by our over eager reindeer
• When a woman who drives huskies for a living puts a poncho on you, you do not say no
• Believing that my last moments on this mortal coil were to be spent in the dungeon of a Finnish shack in god knows where butt fuck Finland in the middle of the night
• Northern lights!!!
• I LOVE TOBOGGANING AND I DON'T CARE
• Webcams
• Tex-Mex. Why is all of Finland bloody obsessed with tex-mex?

Right now I'm off to bedfordshire, as we got in at 2.30 am this morning, and I've had a grand total of 4 hours sleep. And when you've used to afternoon naps on holiday, a whole full day of work seems too bloody long.

The night before is always the worst.

We've just spent the night in our favorite East End Boozer, having amazing food, good booze and great conversation.

Though honestly, you know you might have had a bit too much to drink when your facial toner smells like whisky.

Argh.

Finland, Finland, Finland, The Country Where I Want To Be

In the next installment of random, random holiday destinations that I am going to this year, tomorrow we're (Dr D, Calv, Magic, C, (drum roll please) The Ex-Flatmate and myself) are all off to Lapland in Finland to visit Santa, watch the northern lights, get eaten by huskies, and listen to Heavy Metal Music.

Right now, to get ready for the fact that it seems the only thing they listen to in Finland is heavy metal (see Lordi) Dr D and I have spent much of the week listening to 90's band Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name Of". Ahhh, the memories of my very non rebellious teenage years are coming flooding back, when we'd listen to this in the summer, not getting tattoos, not being drunk, not doing drugs or generally not doing anything else exciting. Unfortunately for RATM, their version of angry hard metal is not making me think "YEAH bring on the policical activisim and hate for the corporate man controlling our lives", but just makes me giggle... not what they were aiming for I guess.

I'm very excited about going on holiday again, and Dr D has spent much of this week looking up the aurora borealis activity in Rovaniemi (where we are spending 6 days). We're also taking over night sleeper trains to and from Lapland (which I have booked and fucked up so many times that now Finnish Rail has 900 of my euros and they are not giving them back until sometime mid December 2045. My helpful hint is to not stress out about things and then fuck up the booking. As The Magic (or his dad I suppose) always says "Measure Twice, Cut Once" (ok so it's more of a building saying)

So the itinerary for the next 9 days:

• Husky Sleigh (without the superman technique fondly loved by Dr D or the boffin falling over technique fondly loved by The Magic)
• Ice Fishing - to freaze our bollocks off with. Why we want to catch Ice I have no idea.
• Night time Snowmobile sleding with Night Sky Watching - We're paying money to go look at the night sky. Is nothign free in Finland?
• Saunas - Scandanavian countries speciality
• Heavy Metal Head Banging - Finnish Speciality

This is the country where Lordi comes from after all. And in honour of the band that dressed up like Klingons and won Eurovision, there is actually a square in Rovaniemi named after the band. This is where we choose to holiday. We ROCK! (or We WILL ROCK!)

So I may or may not bring my laptop with me tomorrow, but in all likely hood I will be back until the first week of December. Unless I get mauled by Santa's reindeer...

A-voting, a-voting, a-voting we will go

C and I are off to Australia House, the Australian High Commission in London, to vote in Australia's general election, held back home this Saturday.

As opposed to Britain, voting in Australia is compulsory, and to be honest I believe it should be. Everyone should have their say in how their country is run, even if it is misinformed, self-helping, or wrong, rather than the slack arse apathetic way that causes only 32% of Londoners to have voted in the last local elections.

So why are we going? 3 reasons:

1) I truly believe that everyone should vote. Don't get me started, I've had many a screaming, stand up, finger in face pointing argument about this point. I don't care. It's my point, so just deal with it.

2) To vote against Little Johnny Brown Nose, and get his team of cronies out of office. Voted into everlasting power in 1996, Australia has been in the grip of a coalition government for the last 11 sodding years. Holy Sweet Baby Jesus I don't think I can articulate just how much I hate him.
It's John Howards racist, lap dog following, lack of spine, knee jerk reactions and frankly childish attitude that have caused me many an embarrassing and angry moment. The most memorable no doubted being when Australia lost to England in the 2003 Rugby World Cup, and Little Johnny Brown Nose had to hand the English team the trophy. Now don't get me wrong I was pretty annoyed when England won, but honest to god if I was the Prime Minister, I would NOT have had a face like a smacked arse whilst handing the winning team their trophy. I mean he's the Prime Sodding Minister. He's supposed to be representing our nation on the world stage. How did he act? Like a spoilt 5 year old that was ready to throw his toys out of the pram, fall on his face, start screaming, kicking and punching the ground. It was his frankly embarrassing and pathetic behaviour which was the direct cause for me screaming at the tele "JOHN HOWARD YOU'RE A FUCKING C*NT" at the exact same moment The Ex-Flatmate came up the stairs whilst on the phone with his Dad, who said "umm.. yes, John Howard is quite bad isn't he".

3) I'm hoping they'll be dishing out free lamingtons in the voting queue.

In other news: The Ex-Flatmate is coming back to London tomorrow morning!! I have to get up at 5.30 am to get him from the airport. No he's not had enough of Australia, he's just here for a holiday. More to follow...

When you need to find a new sushi place

Whilst at the register at Yo Sushi! paying for the bill:

Waitress: "That'll be £30."
Me: "Ok"
Waitress: "Excuse me, but do you work for Shell?"
Me: "Um.. no?"
Waitress: "Oh ok. But you do live around here don't you?"
Me: "Um.. no?"
Waitress: "Oh ok. (Pause) So why have I seen you so many times in here?"
Me: "Um... I like sushi? (mumbles) I'll probably be back here next Tuesday..."

So is it time to find a new Yo Sushi!? Or is it cool that my sushi restaurant is becoming like Cheers, where they all know my name and my order of Hairy Prawns and Ikura Gunkan? I'm not sure yet...

Your Friday Moment of Zen: Where the Wings Have No Shame

This is so random. Why? Why is there the need to have a dish that holds wings? Why? I love wings as much as the next girl (well, only if the next girl is possibly Colonel Sanders daughter, then it's possible I love wings more than the next girl) but I have no shame in putting them on a plate.

get your own SnacDaddy right here:

Drugging children. But how else are they gonna get their rocks off?

Oh dear god. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever go back, especially when this is the level of absolute fuck up occurs back in Oz.. I shake my head in dispair.

News just in from Australia. Bindeez, 2007 Toy of the Year, has just been recalled after it was found out that beads that come with the toy, when swallowed, contain a chemical that converts into the drug GHB.

A kids toy. When INGESTED turns into Gammahydroxybutrate. Liquid Ecstasy. GBH, Fantasy. Where do we get our drug free, dirty, little mits on these??!! I want one for Christmas!!

On a more serious note, it turns out they only found out when a bunch of kids swallowed these beads and ended up in critical condition. The company is set to lose millions in refunds and recalls because as Toy of the Year, it was apparently very popular.

Here's the rub: I honestly don't know which is more incredulous: The fact that a kids toy turns out to be covered with the drug of choice on the gay clubbing scene, or the fact that THIS is seriously the Toy of the Year? TOY OF THE YEAR???! This is what it takes to be toy of the year?? A plastic mat which you stick beads onto with water? Beads? Toy of the YEAR? No bloody wonder they had to cover it in Liquid Ecstasy.

The kids on the box look so bloody happy probably because they've already popped a load of the beads and are high of their nuts. You'd have to be to enjoy this toy..

On the way to and from work

This is why I love cycling to work.


On the way to work in the morning:

and back again at night:

Lovely

Remember, remember the fifth of November

"Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder, treason and plot"

I think that when Guy Fawkes and his mates from the Gunpowder Plot went to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605, they could have only dreamed of having a fire as big as the bonfire a mate of ours had in his backyard.


Yes, that's a house next to the fire.

And this was Sandra, our Guy Fawkes doll.. and her nike gear melting..

To see more pyromaniac pics of our bonfire night (complete with margaritas!) check it out here.

This fire was so hot, that it melted glass, it melted metal. It melted the dehumidifier that got thrown on there... ah so environmentally friendly.

How Many Spots Do You See On The Jumper? I Count 13

Unfortunately I can't get blogger to post this picture in the right size, so you will need to open it in a new window: right click on pic, then select "Open Link in New Window", so that the pic opens in, yup you guessed it, a new window. I know, I know, it's crap but it's blogger. In it's normal size, it does make counting the dots easier though.

Happy Hallowe'en

A pack of dolphins

I truly love the randomness that is London.

Last Friday night a few of us started the evening at the Victoria and Albert (V&A) museum for a hollowween inspired night of gouls, ghost stories and exhibitions. The big draw card was the ghost tour and the booze. Unfortunately, tickets for all the good things disapeared in like 2 minutes flat, and we never made it to the bar.. That's how we started the night.

Here is how we ended the night aka my tale of how we met some NFL football players from the Miami Dolphins. In London. In a Hard Rock Cafe. No where near the V&A:

Calv, C and I decided that we would walk to Green Park tube station about 10 minutes from Kensington.. Meandering along, yabbering to ourselves we passed the Intercontinental and a massive tour bus chuckablock full of Americans, all with Miami Dolphin tags on their necks... Calv is a massive NFL fan, and a Dolphins fan to boot. And that's when we noticed the 5 massive blokes who got off the bus and were walking the same direction we were headed. So doing what all good, law abiding, live and let live people like us do, naturally we followed them. Right into a Hard Rock Cafe..

Calv, C and I went to the bar and scoped out what the 6 foot whatever, really broad shouldered footballers were doing. Drinking down some dutch courage, Calv and I got up the nerve to go speak to them. Ok so when I say speak, what I really mean is I said nothing other than "hi how are you doing?", whilst Calv swaggered over to them like a man, and then gushed at them like a schoolgirl. We introduced ourselves. Calv told them he was seeing them on Sunday, that they were his favorite team, and he was so excited about seeing them, and did he mention they were his favorite team? And he was really excited? Did he? Uh-huh? Then one of the guys, (Michael Lehan according to the Miami website) introduced himself to me. That is a perfect oppurtunity to show how cool you can be, and let me tell you, I really did fail 100%. I couldn't do the chit chat. I couldn't do the witty banter. I couldn't even do the awe struck fan (ok that's cause I'm not one). All I could do was say "I'm great thanks, how are you?". No witty repartee. No "wow, so how are you enjoying London?" or "Are you excited about playing here?" or "what the fuck are you guys doing in a Hard Rock Cafe?" or "so.. groupies eh?".

Anyway, to prove to all and sundry that this event took place, here is the pic I took of them...


You know what impressed me the most? Professional atheletes, top of their game, have a big match in less than 48 hours. How were they preparing? By scoffing as many nachos and ribs in as they could possibly fit into their mouths. Classic.

Self Induced Strangilation

Ah, late night, 1am postings after drinking rosé all night and chatting about the various pubs nearby that are infamous because East End gansters like the Krays* murdered members of other gangs. Gotta love it (obviously the drinking and chatting and posting, rather than the murder. Which is not nice and shouldn’t be loved.)

Anyhoo. The problem with late night, drunk postings is that you don’t really recollect what you wrote… When I checked my post today, I was flabbergasted as to why the hell did I feel the need at 1 am to type out most of the lyrics of a Queen song?

I woke up this morning with the inevitable hangover, sprawled on the bed, my headphones still in my ears, and the cable wrapped round and round my neck, half strangling me. That’s when I had a flashback of me listening to my ipod, in my pj’s, dancing around the room, hairbrush in hand, silently singing to “Under Pressure”…

I am such a classy bird.

* Ok this is completely unrelated BUT I just realised that Ronnie and Roxie Mitchell from “East Enders” are based on Ronnie and Reggie Kray! It makes sense now. Plus they all have Peggy Mitchell (Barbra Windsor) in common. (She's plays the girls aunt in East Enders, and she used to be a girlfriend of one of the Kray brothers.. If you go to the Blind Beggar, there are loads of pics of her and gangsters all over the walls...)

seriously. I love this song

yes. I have had a few.

"it's the teror of knowing what this world is about
its watching some good friend sccream let me out
pray that tomorrow get me higher
pressure on the people
people on the streets"..

and further on..



" Turned away from it all
Like a blind man
Sat on a fence but it don't work
Keep coming up with love
But it's so slashed and torn
Why why why?

love love love love love love love love
Insantiy laughs under pressure we crack
Why give ourselves one more chance
why can't we give love that one more chance?
Why can't we give love, give love, give love,?
Give love, give love, give love, give love, give love, give love?
Cause love's such an old fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way
Of caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
this is ourselves

Under Pressure
Under Pressure
Pressure"

- Queen & David Bowe

If you haven't listened to it in years, get it, get a pair of headphones, sit on a chair, have a few, and love this song again.

Want all the words? Look here

I have had a few. So yes, I am on my bed, headphones on, ipod on, pyjamas on, loving this song. Ok, it's by Keane (who I normally hate) but wow, what a great song. Listen to it. Love it. LOVE it. Yes I've had a few.

Never say "and get yourself something nice" to me

Last week Dr D asked me to get him his lunch, and with his best "East End" geezer, I'm a cockney lad I am, voice, the threw me a tenner and said "er' you go luv treat yourself to something nice".

So I did. I bought myself some £99.50 per kilo, still on the bone, hand carved in front of me, Jamon. Aka ultra expensive, cured, beautiful, would eat this every day if I could afford it, ham from Brindisa.

And it was dead tasty. I love how it says on the label "Eat Within 3 days". I scoffed my 5 paper thin slices within 3 minutes. Flat.

Proof I eat things other than nutella and white bread!

32.5

Dr D and I went to the Magic's house to watch movies and eat pizza on his ma-hussive hi def projector on Friday night. Magic and I went to shops so I could get some coke, and other high calorie food, like Strawberry Cheesecake hagen daaz ice cream, 3 packs of chips, and 5 cans of assorted pop. The man at the cash register gave us this look of "this is what you're eating?", so I felt the need to tell him "oh don't worry, this isn't the only thing we're having for dinner tonight. We're having a salad as well". (By salad I obviously mean thin crust pepperoni pizzas..)

After we'd scoffed our "salad", drinks and crisps, I went to the bathroom (not to throw up) and was riveted by a weird looking set of scales. Now, The Magic is a man of many gadgets, and when it comes to bathroom scales, it is no different. When I questioned the weirdness of his bathroom paraphernalia, Magic told me they calculated a persons body fat percentage. So naturally being geeks, we all bundled in the loo, socks off, to see how fat we were.

Holy sweet baby jesus, these scales are harsh. Their ratings go underweight, normal weight, over fat, and obese. That's it. You're either normal or fat. And the difference between normal and obese minuscule. So when Dr D and the Mag found out their percentage was their 20s, it came as a bit of a shock to all concernted that this translates to "obese". When I got on the scales, I thought "well, it'll be high, but hopefully, maybe...". I nearly fell off when it said 32.5%!

Naturally being the sensitive and caring creatures we are, we're all now taking the piss out of each other, with comments like:

"Is that a chocolate spread sandwich you're eating?"
"No. It's marmite"
"Really? "
"Yes"
"Marmite?"
"Yes"
"Notice how I've said marmite with my tone going up? Much like that 32.5%..."
"Shurrup"

It's nasty but I love it

On Monday, a very stressful day forced me to go the local shops near work so I could get my chocolate fix. In the store, whilst meandering around, trying to take as long as I possibly could, I noticed the holy grail of sugar fixes: a jar of nutella. Oh god how I love nutella. But it's the sort of thing I try to steer well away from, because it's a dirty, bad, nasty, in motel rooms kind of love, not a wholesome, meet your parents, sing you sonnets from afar sort of affair. Unfortunately, this day was bad, and like a junkie I found myself unable to walk away. I threw my £1.98 on the counter, before scurrying quickly away back.

Now, a jar of nutella at my work would not go down so well.. Why? Because everyone at work eats responsibly like an adult. I'm the one who owns the Kellogs Crunchy Nut. Everyone else has organic muesli, shredded wheat, cardboard cut into little squares with added fiber. It's all salads and bags of fruit, wholemeal, locally sourced, organic, with added nuts, ultra low fat. Naughty things like nutella have no right to an existent in our work kitchen.

Worse still, I only like my nutella, thickly spread, to the very edges, and folded in half, on nutrionally neglibable white bread. Oh yes - no wholemeal, whole wheat, whole boring brown bread with my ultra high in sugar, low in anything else, nutella. Like a criminal I have to sneak off to the kitchen, get my jar of sugar and cocoa out from the back of the top shelf of the cabinet (where I've hidden it behind all the jars of green tea that no one drinks), sneak my white bread out of the fridge (out from behind the salads and couscous). And I'm off: quickly and silently make myself up a sandwich that only 5 years old these days are eating. Once it's all put together, I only have to try to avoid any disaproving stares, appologise for the lack of fibre in the bread, and pass it off as an ultra thickly spread, zero fat marmite. Hurah! Am practically a resistence fighter. Though resistence to responsible eating doesn't quite have the same tone as covertly fighting an invading regime from taking over your country...

And you know what: my dirty, nasty love is even tastier knowing that everyone would shun me like a scarlet woman and disapprove.

Bag Envy

I have bag envy. It's not very often that it happens, and I'm not really a big "clutch" handbag girl. But I lurve this one.


It's not Dior or Chanel or Prada. It's not Louis Vitton or even Hermès.

It's The Gap. Yup. I have bag envy from that mass produced, made practically by slave trade, every 3rd person in the world can buy it, Gap. Though I feel slight shame in wanting something from The Gap so badly, I do hope it comes to London... cause I really want it. And I don't even often want girly girl things either.