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.

Calv's Friday Moment of Zen: George and Alan

As it's Calv's birthday this Sunday, he's harrassed asked me to put this post up with the Volvic adverts featuring tyranasourus Alan and George the Volcano. I like these ads, but not like Calv and Li, who litterally piss themselves laughing whenever they talk about them. Which in Calv's case is quite often.

So Happy Birthday Calv. Just for you: the Volvic ad. Pity the water tastes like crap

Overheard in a music store

Why is it that people who play random instruments seem more often than not a insanely posh? I was standing in this tiny music store to return a cello case, and a woman was being served, who must have played the harp, based on how she was going on about this harp tuner and that piece of music, but I realised how unposh I am (especially in my jeans and trainers) when the shop keeper and the woman had this conversation: (now remember: You have to read this with the west london, sloaney fake Gwyneth "I'm English" accent:)


Shop keeper: "Oh I promised myself I wouldn't eat anything today but I'm getting frightfully peckish now"
Harpy Woman: "I do know what you mean! I have to go to a gastly nibbles party tonight, so I'll have to pop out and get myself a bite to eat soon. Did you know that my 9 year old son was told off in his IT class for listening to Elgar. So I thought I'd buy him some music so he can have a bash about at it!"
Shop Keeper: "That is lovely isn't it! And of course he'll be able to play some of it naturally"

Gastly? Bash About? ELGAR? Playing ELGAR at 9? I mean I like Elgar but I'm 29 and the Elgar pieces I like I can't even play it! What sort of freak at 9 is this kid? Enough to make me feel inadequate! If you'd like to see what I mean, check this out from youtube:



I can not play like this and I do not do any of these uber serious facial expressions, unless she starts to manically giggle whilst playing which I'll admit, I do do sometimes. Usually when I've just fucked something up...

Friday Moment of Zen: Tasty Tasty Tasty

We’re off to the Taste of London festival tonight for hopefully a bang up night of Michelin star food, drinks, good times and celebrity heckling. Unfortunately my old mate, that twat, Jean Christoff Novelli or his equally annoying coutnerpart Anthony I've-Kissed-A-Goat Warol Thompson will not be there (who will I try to insult to their faces now?!), but Angela Hartnett from the Connaught will be, as well as Stuart Gillies from the Boxwood Café and people from Fino (who make the yummiest Crispy Pork Belly!). The weather report has said it's going to be pissing down all day, so I'm wearing massive hiking boots, which really goes a long way to making me feel all feminine.





If you're in London this weekend, I'd say you'd best get your arse to Regents Park because this is a fantastic 4 days of foodie treats! If you're not, then this is my Friday moment of Zen: A Chocolate Bunny getting the brunt of my annoyance and anger. I hope you enjoy it more than the bunny did!

I'm a pretty vegan bunny

What's that? Can't hear you?

I can't see!

AAAHHH! YOU HEARTLESS BITCH!

Mother Plucking

I have just come home from a night out at the theatre (christ how posh do I sound??!). Despite having spent the last 1/2 hour bitterly complaining to C about how tired I was and how I wanted to go to sleep, it still has taken 30 minutes between getting in the door and collapsing under my duvet. Why? Because recently I have been reading and watching and listening to too many bloody guides that have the opposite effect of making me feel motivated for how to look good, act good, be good, eat right, drink well, blah blah blah, and instead have made me paranoid and anxious. There is this constantly and annoyingly stream of information, with advice and helpful hints for making us all be more feminine and 'beautiful', like How to Look Good Naked, Trinny and Susanna's What Not to Wear, Trinny and Susanna's What to Wear, How to Walk In High Heels, How to Look Fabulous Without Making it Look Like You're Trying to Look Fabulous Even Though It's CLEARLY Taken You 2 Hours to Get Ready To Go Out To Ensure You're Looking Fabulous. Plus hanging out with my girlfriends who are all annoyingly pretty, with their annoying ability to walk in stiletto heels, have the right hair cuts, have the perfect cool clothes and be exceptionaly well put together, that recently are making me feel downright inadequate. On top of that, if I wasn't getting enough advice on my physical appearance, I am also recently being barraged with their advice for how to "be a single girl in London": I've been put aside and told I need to 'act single and start flirting' with bartenders/waiters/any man with a pulse. The entire world seems to be conspiring against me right now, that instead of making me feel motivated, upbeat and attractive, I just feel unattractive, depressed, unhappy and all other adjectives describing 'ugly'.

So tonight, rather than just falling straight into bed and sleeping, I've stayed up extra late to pluck my mother fucking eyebrows. This, only a few weeks after having unleashed a plucking on them that skinned the poor little buggers within a inch of their lives. I have learned the ultra hard way that the difference between looking tidy and looking constantly surprised, or even worse, bald just above your eyes, really is a total of about 5 hairs.

Why is it that woman feel that if they aren't making a consistent effort they are some how failing in society, destined to be alone in the world, possibly looking after hoards of cats? I have realised that being a size zero isn't the way forward (depressingly, as a size 12, I am far and away the largest girl in my team, and there are a few of us. They range from a size zero to a size 8. Then there's me. If that isn't enough of a kick to your self esteem, I don't know what is). Why do we feel the need to always be pruning, exfoliating, cleansing, toning, weazing through exercise classes, or exercise in general, epilating legs, filing nails, massaging cellulite, tinting eyelashes, dying hair, pumicing feet, watching what we eat, checking what we're wearing, and all the rest of the bloody crap that seems to be thrown at us? Why can men get away with doing frankly chuff all other than showering and possibly wearing deoderant if they remember, but if we haven't attacked ourselves with every possible beautifying device, potion, lotion, miracle cure for wrinkles, spots, and lines, known to man, we're not taking care of ourselves because "we're worth it"?

Why can't sitting on a couch, eating bags of pork scratchings and watching EastEnders be a perfectly acceptable way of life? Or is it it's not necessarily society that's to blame for women being ultra high maintenance, but ourselves? Are we our own worst enemy? Ugh.

Randomness of London

What I love about the randomness is Lonon is that you'll never know who you'll see on an average night out. Take last week for example. A friend and I went out for a few drinks and a meal at a cool Japanese restaurant called Tokyo Diner in Chinatownlast week. Deciding we wanted some ice-cream, we went to Leicester Sq around the corner, and right into the barriers for the Fantastic 4 world premier. So we ended up waiting for an hour, chomping down our Ben and Jerry’s' scrunched up against a metal barrier waiting for Jessica Alba and Ioan Gurrudd (aka the mean hearted Horatio Hornblower, dashing sea faring naval officer who marries Julia Swahala out of pity and then spends all his time ignoring her.. poor dear). Whilst Ioan, clearly was embarrassed that he has any association with this film based on the fact that all the would be C list celebrities and hanger ons strolled out of the theatre, looked at the crowd, waved etc, poor Ioan came running out, dragging his wife/girlfriend behind him, eyes to the ground, not making eye contact with anyone. Jessica, who was crowned the Most Beautiful Woman of the Year, on the other hand, who I didn't think much of, actually looks annoyingly pretty in real life, plus she was annoyingly nice when she did come out, waved at the geeks waiting for her, and autographed posters held up by spotty nerds.

So here is the fruit of our 1 hour wait: a very blurry and crap picture taken on my phone (incidentally, what is the freakin point of having a camera on a phone if the pictures it takes are so rubbish? I think I'd prefer to not have a camera if I could exchange that for extra battery life, but that's a whole other rant)

More Cool Stuff From the Grand Designs Live Show

If you're vaguelly interesting keeping polar bears from losing it's natural habitat, and reducing your carbon footprint, then this device is one cool little gadget. Called Bye Bye Standby it works by 'reducing daily energy consumption on electrical devices by completely cutting power to the devices plugged into it when they're not in use thus saving the power that these devices would otherwise have consumed in Standby Mode'.

Seriously it is really, really cool. Basically, it's an adapter you plug the power board to which powers things like your telly or dvd player. You then get a remote switch which works within a 30m range of the device, so you can then just turn off all your appliances in one go. The coolest part is that you can have multiple of these devices all configured to one remote switch, so you can turn multiple electrical devices off at the same time. And this is exactly why I'm going to buy it! Yes, I am interested in reducing my carbon footprint (not so much so that I've gotten around to offsetting all the airplane trips I've taken this year yet, though I have calculated that it would cost me about £25 to offset them all. If you're interested in seeing how big your footprint sites like co2balance.com are good. To whom you should actually pay the money to I'm still unsure because I did quick check on google to find that loads of these offset companies are not necessarily the best places to give my hard earned mula to. Perhaps just donating that money to recognised charities that actually do good conservation work might be the answer.. If anyone has any ideas let me know, and yes the obvious 'just don't take planes' is good, but in reality, I'm not about to stop doing that just yet..)

I digress. I'm going to buy the Bye Bye Standby not only for it's green factor, but because it is the perfect solution to the following tricky problems:

1. How to turn on and off the tv in my bedroom without having to get out of bed now that I've lost the remote control, because I am lazy.
2. How to have multiple little lamps in my bedroom and lounge room to create little pockets of mood lighting and and be able to turn them all on and off in one go, thus avoiding having to go around the room and do them individually, without having to spend a fortune on an electrician to rewire the whole house.

It's a fantastic find!!

Things I will start to do

1. Pay less attention to some of the rubbish people talk at me
2. Start eating more fruit
3. Try to post more regularly
4. Go to bed before 2am so I can stop waking up at 8.35 which just happens to be the exact same time I am supposed to be at the train station, on my way to work. Yes, 8.35 is not the time I should be jolting myself awake thinking "hmm, my spidey senses are telling me something isn't right in the world...", finding not only have I slept through both my alarms, but I have also managed to get up, get the alarm clock, bring it back to bed and put it under my pillow to muffle the sound in case it, you know, wakes me up, as is it's very raison d'être. All without me even remembering I've done it.

Right. As it's 1.34AM I think I'll post this, and go to bed. Ahh, 1.34. Nice early night for once.

Design Show Madness

Li and I went to the Grand Designs Live show on Sunday. Not only is she fantastic, she has some fantastic friends, one of whom is dating a guy who works as an event co-ordinator for large shows. One of which just happened to be the GDL. He recommended that we go on the last day of the show, because most of the stall holders all want to off load tons of stuff on the cheap rather than having to lug it back (a fact I had never considered). He then offered to bag us some free VIP tickets for free, show us around, and introduce us to the owners of these fantastic shops to see if we could get discounts! It was fantastic!

We started the day with him taking us to a stall where there were loads of lovely furniture, one of which was a £300 glass console table. When Li asked the owner how much for it, he looked at our new best friend, said "is she a good friend of yours?" and when he found out she was, he told her "if you can take it away with you today, you can have it". I.e. For Free. Gawd Damn! In the end, Li had to physically force £50 in to the stall owners hand, and we lugged her table back to the car. I have to admit I was pea green with envy! There was loads of nice stuff at this stall, but the last thing you want to do is be the hanging on friend who tries to then get stuff for free as well, because then it just puts the stal holder and our organiser friend in an awkward position. Damn I wish I had no scrupples!!


So we pretty much tried to spend the day as we started it. So everywhere we went, and whenever we saw something we liked, we'd ask if they wanted to sell their display items for a discount (well, honestly I say 'we', but Li has much more decorum than I do, and I became a bit unhealthily obsessed with trying to get something beautiful on the cheap). However, that tactic did help me obtain this lovely mirror and glass bathroom cabinet, with an even lovelier £80 discount. Whilst not free, a massive discount, and it not being from Ikea means that I was pretty chuffed with myself let me tell you. That was of course until our organiser friend said "why didn't you call me? I could have got you that for like £50!"


Highlight of the day:

1. Getting suckered into a £5 plastic broom, which everyone at the show seemed to have and feeling like we were in some super cool, super elite broom carrying club. Sadly it was the fact it had a squeegy attachment to it that made Li and I decide we couldn't live without it. I have swept my house dead clean now and used it to clean my windows, so perhaps survival would not have been possible without my rubber broom. Not witch like in the slightest by the way.
   
   
2. Finding out I can get new floors for £11.50 a meter so that my bedroom can look like this:
   
   
   
3. Find these ultra cool lights, which I loved but not £190 worth:
4. Seeing this MASSIVE angelpoise light at the SAAB stall. This thing is way taller than me, and I so want one in my house. Except that it wouldn't fit even in my ultra high ceiling:
5. Stalking Kevin McCloud! The Grand Designs man! We kept seeing him (it's a bit hard not to see him if you follow him around like a puppy), and when we mentioned to Li's friend how I thought he was uber cool, he suggested we come back to the media centre and we could probably have a cup of coffee with him if we like. This was something I don't think I could have faced....
6. Walking right past Mr Kevin, with Li saying "oh my god, you completely ignored him! He was right next to you!!" then embarrasingly asking him for a photo, and making it sound like we were only asking it for the Ex Flatmate who loves the show... He looked so drunk he really didn't even know what was going on... or he was really bored and he didn't care... either way, I had Keving McCloud put his arm around me, and I have photographic evidence! (Looking at this pic, he definitely looks smashed...)

Great day all in all...

I'm not dead

Just insanely busy. It's been an insane almost 2 weeks of my stupid day job, (we're trying to work to the release of our software), out of work busy-ness, having a cold for almost a week, and being away.

So to update, cliff notes style I've:

1) This has been so long ago, but our little concert evening went really well! I won't bore you with the details but yes, air bowing did take place. No, I didn't fuck up so badly I thought "I'm never doing this again". Anyway, no one was really watching me, what with the other 4 fabulous cellists playing with me. Plus at the end of the night we had a giant "jam" session where we tried to sight read things like The Can Can (and then play it over and over again, each time twice as fast as the previous, until my arms felt like they were going to drop off!). I have come to the conclusion having watched some of the acts that there are some wacky, wacky people out there though.

2) Been to Brighton for 2 weekends straight, both to see my friend Li. First weekend to go see the Brighton Open Artists Festival where, as it says on the tin, artists open their houses to the public so you can look at their art. Or, as we were there really to do, take a sticky beak around their abodes. In both cases, their art work and their houses made both my art work and my house feel inferior. That and Li's damned house is so bloody nice that even things like her walls make me think "god her house is lovely. She's even picked really nice paint in every room. And wow, look how well it's plastered. Damn I wish my house looked like this". Last weekend was her birthday party, where she had a live band come and play. A live band! In her backyard.

2) C, a friend Pop and I went to the Mind, Body & Spirit Festival. (Dr D and The Magic - shurrup). All in all it was interesting I suppose. About 1/3 of the vendors there did massage, 1/3 sold books, jewellery, and other paraphernalia. And 1/3 where there to tell you your fortune and perform exorcism. Surprisingly, very few had the hag like gypsy qualities I always used to associate fortune telling with, but heck this was my first foray into this domain. Yes, in case you're wondering I did go to a clairvoyant, who said she could see me working in the health industry (programming and nursing not the same thing really) and that she could see a little girl in my future. So to all my female friends out there, this is a shout out that I am expecting, no demanding, that one of you to have a little girl that I can babysit, perhaps being the cool, slightly wacky 'aunt' figure in her life, who she goes to for sneaky glasses of kahlua when she's underage cause her own mom isn't nearly as much fun, cause dammit, I am not sprouting kids anytime soon.

The one thing she clearly said was that I was going to Vegas. And packing lightly. Jeez, I hope she wasn't meaning feet first.....

Pre Concert Nerves

Yes, I am still hacking away at the cello. For the past 8 months now, C, The Magic and I have been going to ELLSO (East London Late Starters Orchestra) to learn our respective instruments (2 cellos and a violin. We could almost make a band with that!), and even though our very kind teacher says that we're coming along really well, I still can't help thinking I sound like I'm taking a cat, stretching it out, and making it screech. Though I guess with a cello, that's more of a cow like screeching noise.. either way, it's not the beautiful, deep, non-scratchy tones of a cello that I fell in love with. In fact, sometimes when I play I feel like I'm actually offending the very instrument I'm trying to learn.

ARGH.

I've been told continuously that whilst it's not best to blame your instrument, the one I've hired from Guiviers is in fact, how do you put it, shite. As a beginners cello from a place that holds such prestige, I definitely wasn't expecting it to be the best one in our class, but I certainly wasn't expecting to be told it's the worst one in the class either. My cello teacher has finally realised his pleas for me to spend around £1000 on an instrument was falling on very deaf (and very mortgage laden) ears, so a few weeks ago he brought in a very inexpensive cello for me to try, and see if I wanted to buy. It's weird, because there's something about it that has me intrigued, as I keep finding myself smelling it. In orchestra rehearsal I find my nose pressed against it, taking deep breaths. It's got this really strange, sweet smell to it. I tend to do this mostly whilst being bored listening to first violins being told again and again how to play (as an aside: why not just play the way the conductor tells you? I don't get it? Why do they constantly need to be told two, three, four THOUSAND times what to do? Just do it. Please. The rest of us are ageing here). The thing is whilst I will probably buy it, I'm a bit disappointed that I haven't fallen in love with this new cello like I was expecting to. I'm wondering if it's because my teacher borrowed it to use in orchestra to show us how to play this really strange piece where we have to hit our instruments, play past the bridge, use the back of the bows to make noises. He then kept saying things like "hmm, this really is a terrible cello! I'm sure all of yours sound better than this! Wow, this bow is rubbish as well! I'm glad I'm using my worst instrument to show you how to play this piece. Now if any of you have better instruments, do not, I repeat, do NOT do this" - then he'd go ahead and smashes the bow against the bridge. Yeah that feeling of deflation that kicks in after your teacher, who is selling you the instrument, tells 30 odd people that it's crap is something that people should not have to go through. Consumer confidence is not riding high with this girl.

Tomorrow night we're playing at a pub in Greenwich. Our entire orchestra have split up into little performance groups to basically show off to each other, since in an orchestra only the selected soloists really get to stand out from the rest of the punters. So 5 of us in stage 1 cello (that's like the toddler school of the orchestra) are playing 2 pieces (well, playing could be a bit of an exaggeration. Hacking is another synonym. Crimes against music could be another), tomorrow night. When I practice alone, I think it sounds terrible, but there must be something about constantly being hungover at orchestra on Saturday mornings that makes me think as a collective, we could actually sound ok. Am I kidding myself? I guess we'll see tomorrow, when at the end of our two pieces people either give us a standing ovation as cello prodigies, or clap quietly and politely in that very British manner... C & I are also playing 2 other pieces, both composed by people from ELLSO. I am secretly chuffed we're allowed to play, since some of the people who are with us have been playing for years and years, and we've only been at it for 8 months. Plus, no one in the audience will really know which notes we don't actually know how to play yet, and that all my back extensions are just completely made up. 2 words for tomorrow night: Air bowing. Much like air guitar, in that no noise is made, but with an actual instrument between your legs. Oooh sounds a bit rude eh?

So wish me luck. I'm sure it will be fine. Besides, everyone there will be performing, so there is no real audience as such, so no one is really going to care what a bunch of first year cello students sound like. I might be a bit jaded but I don't really think anyone is going to care what anyone else sounds like, as long as they themselves don't hideously fuck up. Here's hoping I don't either!

Your Friday Moment of Zen: Let them drive cake

I saw this ad last night on the tv and it is fantastic!! Not just because it's cake, but because I have always had a bit of thing for the "Sound of Music".. (I defy you to find anyone my age from Sydney who didn't love the Sound of Music.. or maybe that was just something wierd with the all girls school I went to. I think I could recite the entire movie, sing all the songs, and possibly do the dancing bits too. Captain Von Trappe. Grrr).

I can't find the youtube link so I'm afraid you'll have to actually go to here to watch it from the Skoda site. It's a brilliant ad, and since all I feel like I've done for ages now is eat cake, this is a perfect, Friday afternoon zen like piece. Feel like eating a bit of tyre now.

Ahh! I'm so excited! Designers! Designers! Designers!

C was looking for things to do in London tonight and she's found the Grand Designs Live Show on during the 8th-10th of June!! I'm so excited! I am definitely going to go, and I'm definitely going to try and book some time with the BIDA interior designers one-on-one appointments. I am SO excited!

Grand Designs is a show on Channel 4 and More 4 showcasing some amazing houses, and their owners, whose houses are from an architectual and design point of view, pretty amazing. One house, for example, was build one a corner, built with not a single window facing out the street,. However, on the inside, the house was designed around a giant chestnut tree, so one entire wall was a giant curve, using the tree as it's mid point. This section was made entirely of glass walls/doors that could be slid, so as to pretty much open the entire ground floor. And because the outside walls were completely secure, the house, despite being half built with glass, was completely private. My description does not do it justice, so here is the link. This has to have been one of my favorite houses from all of the series. Even if the owners were a bit mad...

I am constantly in awe of the people on these shows, and their guts and bollocks to be able to make such bold and beautiful statements with their houses. And since I've just moved into my first flat (which btw looks heaps nicer now than it did a few weeks ago when I posted my distress at living in a newly moved in tip), I now want to have the bollocks myself to be able to make bold design gestures, rather than just playing it safe.

Anyway, so I am uber excited about being able to go to this show. It also means another night of wanting to go to bed early has gone completely down the pan, as I have now spent the last hour looking up design blogs and websites. Some of note, that are either my favorites, that I visit daily, or ones that I am sure I will start going to are:

• http://www.designsponge.blogspot.com fantastic site! I find so many cool things I can not afford here, but annoyingly most of the things are from the US so are harder to get here in ol' blighty
  
• apartmenttherapy.com - I have loved their smallest, coolest apartement competition. Loved with a capital L. So many cool places, and I've discovered my secret superhero power: to be able to spot Ikea furniture from thousands of miles away! Not as useful as being able to fly but still, I'm proud.
  
• decor8.blogspot.com Just found this a few days ago. The stationary competition has definitely caught my eye, since I am a big fan of paper and all it's parephenalia... Once on a road trip through North France, my friends were less than impressed when I wanted to take a detour to go to the Paper Museum. Why anyone wouldn't want to go to a museum dedicated to the art of making paper I simply cannot understand, but in the end, we didn't go because shouting won the day. And I wasn't loud enough.
  
• livingetc.com YAY! Finally a house/design magazine based in the UK I can look at on the web! There are loads of really good american ones, but again, nice to look at, can't buy anything though...
  
• designersguild.com/ I love their wallpaper!! AND their from the UK! Hurrah!

So that's my list of design sites I'm currently obsessed with. If only I could get enough time during my working day to look at them more often, rather than having to wait until 1am to do so, that'd be perfect.