TECHNOGAFFES

Because of the literal and figurative upstairs/downstairs layout of our office, and because using phones is just so last decade, we use Instant Messenger a lot to communicate. It’s fast and informal and doesn’t precipitate the formalities of picking up the phone, dedicating your attention to the one conversation, remembering to say hello and goodbye in a nice way, having to spell names or enunciate numbers and so on. However, it is not without the gaffes and pitfalls of speech, as I’ve just found out: somehow, in a fairly serious and urgent exchange with the CEO, I managed to stick my tongue out at her. She promptly gave me a frowning face (in lieu of a “sticking two fingers up at you” emoticon?”) at which I was obliged to apologise. With a little smiley face. Hmm. Office chortles in cyber space, its something to get used to. ;-p

WIDDLE FLUFFY BUNNY WABBITS

...because every Wednesday morning needs them. Now, to go back to my desk and ponder the metaphysiological quandary of "Hutches: Pro or Con?"

WOW AND MORE WOW

Okay, this being such a busy and squishy Monday afternoon and all that, I completely didn't notice that it is a busy and squishy Monday 28th October . Which means that on this day, I will finally be able to purchase and read a copy of The Little Friend. I have been waiting 7 years for this book - 7 years since I read The Secret History and fell totally and utterly in love with it, to the point of seriously considering taking up Greek and Latin for my A levels and at university, and taking off into the frosty wild plains of an insular and snobby place of education where I could reinvent myself Talented Mr Ripley style and pass myself off as an aesthete, an artist, an exclusive and elitist eccentric throwing "ironic" cigars and port parties in my college room late at night, chipping my front tooth on a sink whilst being pyrotechnically sick after being pyrotechnically sick all over a grandiose courtyard, going to lectures on crutches because of drunken and eventually very painful boxing lessons the night before, never doing any work then doing it all in one nightmarish 72 hour period, eating nothing but cheese and marshmallow teacakes and going blind with malnutrition when the bank won't give me any more money, climbing in through windows and climbing out of them, saving hedgehogs and stealing 9 foot tall hollyhocks, swanning around in a self-absorbed fog of black clothes, Marlboro Lights, hangovers, theatrics, hysterics and hilarious drunken accidents...

I was so impressed with snooty little snowy Hampden College and its range of fucked up poor little rich girls/boys, I went to Cambridge. My parents blame my innate ability for timewasting and petty melodrama for this particular career path but I blame Donna Tartt. She put me where I am today.

7 years ago I was about to sit my GCSEs. I had seen my first operas and traditional ballets at the Opera House, I had chosen, booked and attended my first play without parents or teachers interference (it had a lot of naked gay men and the box office staff had to consult senior management before they would take payment from me), I was trying to choose an A level college and A level subjects and doing a lot of visual art, cutting and pasting made and specially prepared images in a primitive Photoshop kinda way. I wore an odd combination of Doc Martens, chinos, tiny t-shirts and a suit jacket or fifties style pedal pushers and floaty scarves, I read a lot of good novels and bad poetry, I wrote introvertive poems and funny dialogues based on what I heard amongst my classmates in maths...it was a funny old time.

What were YOU doing when you were 15?

I MUST have that book.And to make it a double wow day, Tori Amos' new album is released today! Woo-HOO! More red-headed wailing and piano thumping. And aha! more money spent that I as yet don't really have...

SQUISHY

Woke up this morning and swung my legs over the side of the bed, groaning that special Monday morning groan and stood up on my carpet that squelched alarmingly underfoot. It appears that my radiator had leaked slowly but surely over the night. Oh dear.

I’M NOT SAYING ANYTHING

Whatever happened last week to Blogger has happened, can’t be undone, seems to have resolved itself and since I was sound asleep for most of the situation (in fact most of the weekend), it will not be discussed here. However, one question needs to be asked: dude, why?

BTW, it wasn’t a relapse, it was just a peculiarly melodramatic combination of a) and b). And a quick trip to Garlic and Shots that evening for some medicinal vodkas and genial company seemed to kill off all threats of a return of the lurgie. Which was nice. I also managed to acquire info that allows me to get in touch with the Daleks should I need their assistance: just dial 020 8433 1244 - do it now! (Thanks Prandial for recommending them: I’m sure one day I’ll need to conquer some very level, even ground, in which case, a set of creaky, squawking dustbins on wobbly wheels with what looks like a case of robotic thalidomide arms will certainly come in handy.)

In other news, we have a new boiler. It almost cost us our lives, as myself, Flatmate A and Flatmate B were out for dinner in a distant but extremely beautiful part of London the night before the plumber was due and had to be put up by our lovely hosts in their really rather fabulous guest cabin at the end of the garden because the nearest train station was on fire and we couldn’t get home. That meant that in the morning, when the first ghastly streak of crisp autumn light came crashing in upon us and the train station was still having pyrotechnical problems, we had to jump out of our wine-induced stupor and sprint back across town, lurching through the Tube system seeking “alternative routes” like a small scale re-enactment of Night of the Living Dead (and yes, Big Brother, we kept the integrity of your favourite film as we were making the appropriate zombie noise and were the appropriate shade of green) to let the plumber in. We made it just in time, and now have a sparkling new boiler that has made our little flat really rather warm. ::sits back in bikini, running an ice cold g’n’t across forehead:: Phew.

Oh yeah, thank you (you know who you are) for the ::winks:: special stuff – it’s just fried chicken, right? And aren’t you having any yourself? ::mops up nosebleed::

RELAPSE

After an evening of feeling slightly better, having steamed my head like a pudding and going to bed early, I now feel absolutely awful again. I’m shaky, hot and my eyes are sore, my head doesn’t feel as stuffy but I’m definitely light-headed and even a bit faint. Either this is a mother of all relapses or: a) the effect of too much celebratory “hey, I can taste things again! Gimme a cup of that fantastic freshly brewed Colombian stuff that seems to go around on the hour, every hour” coffee, b) not eating because I have no appetite at the moment c) I’ve damaged something in my over-forceful nose-blowing and I’ve just started a chain-reaction of nerve damage and organ failure.

If it is a), the solution is simple: stop drinking the coffee. If it is b) I should eat something. If it is c) I’m really screwed and I might as well go shopping. If I’m going to have major organ failure, I want to be wearing really nice shoes and some well-fitting, flattering trousers when it happens.

SPEAK UP...

...I can't hear you, because my ears have decided to go the way the rest of my head has gone and have filled themselves up somehow with unwanted fluids. Oh, dear friends, the pressure is so strong in my poor little stuffy head that I think if it was to increase, my dear little shoes would indeed be blown off in a catastrophic example of What Happens When Your Body Decides to Make More Mucus Than It Knows What to do With: It Explodes.

Would it be unwise to have a cigarette to soothe my jangling, frayed nerves, pushed as I am to the end of my patience as I sit here watching the clock, waiting to go home? I know it will only make things worse but I need to smoke... ::mopes::

Would it be very unwise to take a vacuum cleaner to my nose to undo the blockage that is threatening to suffocate me? It's tempting, I must say, especially as the office cleaner has just come by with a very snazzy looking new Hoover...

TO THE RESCUE!

Well, I’ve been wandering all over the internet this morning in the name of market research and discovered that there’s fanfiction… then there’s
THE UNFORGIVEABLE ABUSE OF BOOKS THAT SHOULD BE LEFT ALONE. Pheh.

That little trip down the bile ducts of the Amazon has made me so angry, I can feel my magic powers surging up inside me and any moment now, I am going to become a Superhero and avenge all the works of literature that have been harmed in the name of “loose adaptations” “based on” and “an interpretation of…”

I just have to think of a suitable Superhero name for myself. All suggestions welcome, though currently I am going under the guise of Festering Disease Riddled Snotty Tissues Woman and her amazing Coughing and Hacking Sonic Ear-Blaster and Ah-Choo long distance death ray – she can shatter windows with just one sneeze! Blagh.

WRONG AND UNNATURAL

This is possibly the first time I have ever seen 7.15am on a Saturday morning getting out of bed to go to work rather than sitting on a hill and wondering just how I got there from a party that started on Thursday evening on the other side of town. It feels odd, my friends, odd, wrong and unnatural. I want to be in bed, drinking fruit juice and being cared for as I sink luxuriously inot full blown stay at home flu. ::sighs piteously:: Oh, I'm so tired...

SICK

Waah! It feels as if I've been swallowing sawdust and razorblades and had a beating with a big stick - I think I have finally succumbed to the office lurgie. Somehow, I don't think crossing my fingers and running away across the playground shouting "Vainies! Vainies!" is going to keep this dreaded thing away. What a shame that the old methods of protecting my health and safety don't seem to be very efficient in the era of antibiotics.

And I can't even lounge in bed tomorrow and get over this feckin' itchy eyes, sore throat, aching limbs, fuzzy head and running nose because I have to come in and work. Oh boo and indeed, hoo.

Some painters have just wandered in and marked my door for painting: great, perhaps the smell of the donated toxic paint so evil and noxious that it probably walked off the back of a lorry on its own initiative will clear my impending cold. Or maybe not. Bah. And sniffle.

WORD UP

Oh no! ::slaps self across forehead:: I completely forgot it was time for Brave New Word! I promise I will be there for the next one though none of my writing is ready to be performed: I am still coming up with the hand actions for my sing-along version of The Wasteland.

UNDERGROUND PARTIES

::giggles:: Check out my new links on the right. Oh, and if anyone has any ideas of what to wear to a Tube-themed party, do drop me a line... Going as Victoria or Angel is thankfully banned as they are almost the default stations people will go as. I considered going as Barking but would anybody be able to tell I'm in costume?

NOW BOOKING

Okay, this is the current wishlist of Things to See and Do…

Theatre: Peepshow by the amazing Frantic Assembly at the Lyric Hammersmith

Crazyblackmuthafuckin'self at the Royal Court

Film: Twins at the ICA

Mulholland Drive at the ICA

Talks:Stuart Hall and George Lamming at the ICA...hell, I wanna go to everything at the ICA...

Fucking enormous flowers:Blimey, this thing is unbelievably huge, and I just have to see it with my own eyes.
And just to balance all this high culture, I might go and see Lilo and Stitch cos I'm a sucker for bright and happy cartoons. And I'm still on a high from seeing My Fair Lady with Mama on Saturday, which was...brilliant. I struggle against admitting I loved a musical so much, being so high brow and all that, but by god, I had a good time. And while I'm slumming it in the world of arts and culture, I might try and catch another episode of Celebrity Fit Club. Is that a misspelling? Shouldn't it be Celebrity Fat Lardarse Crikey You're the Size of a Whale and You Sweat When You Chew You Disgusting Tubby C-list Talentless Timewasting Scum Club? Hmm?

LOOSE INTERPRETATIONS, INCREASINGLY TIGHT TROUSERS

This had me giggling all morning.Check out the Star Wars hand puppet film and the Lord of the Rings. As good as the Lego Lord of the Rings, but not as great as the re-enactments with childhood toys they used to do on the Adam and Joe show.

Can’t wait for November and December when I am allowed to become a raving HP/Ring-obsessed loon again. And there’ll be more Very Secret Diaries! More marvelling over how much the actors in HP have grown (and wondering just how long it is until they are legal…) more unlikely but nonetheless compelling slash pairings across both! More! More! More!

Went to the most amazing restaurant last night – the newly opened Sofra in Pimlico. Beautiful, elegant, tasteful surroundings, great staff, gorgeous (but tiny) bar area, excellent, excellent food – try the rose ice cream: fragrant and delicate. I could have happily tried everything on the menu but there’s only so far that stretch trousers can stretch.

Ahh… when will it ever be lunch?

CHILDREN CROSSING - DO NOT BRAKE

Another moment of unnecessary but delightful
invective against the world and all its inanities, which in its own inanity, just adds to the madness out there. And in here. And in the undefinable thereabouts of hyperspace.

COURTING

Had an exciting day of marketing strategy brainstorming yesterday and sat in meetings agonising over names for projects - Progression? Ultimate Image? Turntable Ninja Warrior Saturday School? Mrs Miggins' Monday Night Music Shoppe for Motivated Young Moppets? I Don't Know What I'm Doing Here But At Least I'm Not Taking Drugs? And then went schmoozing at the Royal Court, mingling in the bar with people I used to work with, then more mingling in a nearby bar with people I used to write with. Went home exhausted but fully networked. And am suffering from text thumb and over-emailing eye strain. It was that kind of day.

Currently reading: The Tiger in the Well by Philip Pullman, Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timothy Findley, Christie Malry’s Own Double Entry by BS Johnson – read the book, see the film and take up your very own brand of accountancy. I couldn’t recommend these more; I’ve tried to but ended up choking on my own enthusiasm.
Currently listening to: the sound of my CD player’s awful whirring, clunking and clicking death rattle.
Currently watching: the leaves falling off trees in a melancholy, consumptive Russian playwright way, and longing for a Moscow Mule… I used to really enjoy those.

But due to the inevitable callousness of a materialist, petty bourgeois society, and the very turning of the world which persecutes my happiness, hounding it into horror as this globe swoops me relentlessly from day to night to day again, I have never regained my beloved, my sweet, clear and ginger-ly refreshing alcoholic pre-mixed drink in it’s cunning little copper-coloured bottle, that saw me through a year of my hedonistic youth. I haven’t seen it anywhere. It’s the bitter tonic of adulthood from now on, my friends; I must progress in to the shadowy future accompanied only by the medicinal reek of gin and the occasional glass of wine with meals. Oh, to be young again, oh, to sip the delights of a bottled alcopop as innocent and unashamed as a naked Eve bringing the apple to her lips…

I wish I was 18 again.

AN EVENING WITH THE PRETTY BOYS

::sighs:: I've exhausted myself with swooning. I almost went to Paris this afternoon - Flatmates pounced on me completely unexpectedly (come on, Saturday afternoon and someone's got a plan? It doesn't happen in our house...) and told me that they were just about to book Eurostar tickets to Paris on some kind of super cheap deal and would be leaving in an hour's time, if I wanted to come. I didn't. I had just got back in from grocery shopping for the week and was not prepared to go back out into the ninth circle of hell that our area becomes every weekend. And the deal stipulated a very VERY early return tomorrow morning, and Flatmates weren't booking any accomodation either and were planning to just keep going until dawn and since I've just very grudgingly paid my rent and have yet to be paid, and can't afford even this trip whcih seems to consist of little more than a few hours of fun and then sitting freezing on a park bench until sun-up... it just didn't appeal.

So what did I do? I rented The Talented Mr Ripley, bought myself the most orgasmically rich and deep Chilean red wine I have tasted since one memorable Valentine's day in Cambridge, sat back and just wallowed. Before I flicked on the video, I got distracted by Plunkett and McLeane and watched that - a very good-looking film if a bit flippant. It's clever but only in the way modern Shakespeare is: innovative, refreshing, original while simultaneously butt-clenchingly embarassing and tawdry. Pretty boys though. And nice costumes. But too many wigs.

And in Talented Mr Ripley - god, I want to go to Italy. It was like one long moving postcard, with "Wish you were here...?" scribbled all over it. And of course, Jude Law and Matt Damon are quite attractive too. Who would like to join me in playing with them?

Oh, after this evening's viewing, how will I ever get to sleep?

IN LEAGUE WITH THE GENTLEMEN

I want to move to Royston Vasey: oh Pauline...oh, Mickey luv...

BETWEEN A PIECE OF GUM AND A SMOKY PLACE
I am currently torn between buying cigarettes or nicotine gum. I am on a knife edge here...

I have also decided that I really, really, really, REALLY hate wearing glasses. They never sit on my face properly (nothing ever does...;->)I'm getting a constant headache from them and probably need a new prescription, so might as well go for contact lenses. Which I would find much more comfortable if I gave up smoking, therefore not getting smoke in my eyes.

Oh, now you see: it's all coming together. In a horribly healthy, new look, new me kind of way. ::shudder::

LOBSTERS LIVE FROM THE SMOKING WOK

Had to stay at my parents last night because of the BASTARD TUBE STRIKE and managed to make it into work at a decent time. We had lobster - am still picking fragments of shell from my fingernails. I don't particularly miss home (probably because I'm there so often...) but I do miss dad buying live lobsters and crabs from Chinatown and dumping them all in the sink. I miss poking at them with a chopstick and shrieking when they retaliate. I miss crowding into the kitchen to watch dad crouch on the floor over his chopping board, positioning the lobster or crab carefully upon it and then smashing his cleaver through the shell. Lobsters have the best reaction: their bodies arch and their tails fan out then spasm.

It shouldn't do, but the thought of all this makes me hungry.

In other news: I am very much looking forward to this. You should be too. Ooh, they are such pretty young Toms...