"...[crouching possessively over desk and assorted stationery]... it's mine! All mine! Muahahaha!"

Got a tonne of stationery and office equipment yesterday and spent a happy day nesting, putting my hole punch and stapler into their positions and obsessive/compulsively arranging all my pens and paperclips. I'm currently getting toasted by my new desk lamp which is amusingly similar to the Pixar lamp. It doesn't hop about or do anything... animated though in quiet moments I find myself gazing into the slightly too bright bulb wishing that it would twitch or do something.

In other news, this was absolutely fucking amazing. I sat open-mouthed and stunned throughout with Boatie Flatmate pulling pretty much the same face sat next to me. It was breath-taking - very moving and with some extraordinary moments where traditional screeching, clanging and clashing Peking Opera was mixed with the gentler sound of a westernised score and of course, the simulated mah jong sequence was both amusing and beautiful to watch, the tragic ending was tragic and upsetting and far more stark and representational than the previous scenes and more chilling for that and though we entertained thoughts of stealing one of the many glowing red lanterns lighting up the front of the theatre, we didn't after we saw what trouble that kind of light fixture leads to... Stumbled home with Boatie Flatmate both feeling as if we had witnessed something really very special and wolfed down an almost indecently huge Chinese takeaway, just to finish off our Oriental evening.

In other news... not much news - am currently too poor to generate any but once I've got a few more pennies in the bank and therefore a greater range of ways to entertain myself (and eventually you dear reader), I will be out and about and there'll be no stopping me. Until then... it's Eastenders and doing the washing up and going to bed early. :: sigh ::

"Oooh, it's so much better than the last place I worked..."

...which shouldn't be such a goddamn surprise as regular readers of the Avenue will know. Still, the new job is turning out to be really quite good; it is

1) very relaxed
2) friendly and supportive
3) to the point of being almost holistic - there is a weekly office pilates class where the central board table gets moved to one side and the pilates teacher pops up for an hour's intense stretching etc.
4) I'm working very near my bro who I can tap for lunch every time I'm hungover and/or broke (see you nearly everyday then, k?)
5) the office - which has the never-experienced before luxury of windows and my own desk, woo! - is only half an hour away from home and
6) I'm back in the world of live arts and back in touch with all the people and companies and organisations I used to know before I defected to new media (boo hiss etc)

Yep, all things considered, it's looking good.

In other news, am seeing this tonight which is terribly exciting and hopefully this sometime next week.

I am so cultured (and ethnic to boot) , it sometimes makes me want to cry.

How are you?

"Yes, but is it art ?"

Well, not in the strictest sense - it's the Turner Prize, which I saw on Sunday and was quite impressed by the maturity and substance involved this time round. Grayson Perry's pottery required some actual skill, Anya Gallacio's natural and not-natural sculptures instantly captured all our senses and made us walk around the room sniffing the smell of dying, rotting apples as we watched them decay in front of our eyes and the Chapman Brothers... well, they were just doing what they always do and making us laugh out loud. I recommend a peep if you're in that part of town - there's some kind of emphasis on craft as well as substance this year and that is a rare thing (consider last year's winner with the lights flipping on and off... yawn).

Also recommended, while I'm rattling on about visual arts, see the display on Trafalgar Square and some Heroes and Villains in the same venue. Good stuff - go see!

In other news... not much news. I'm enjoying a week off before going back into full-time work and avoiding any firework displays this evening, I've had my haircut, I've finally taken some clothes to be dry-cleaned which I've avoided for longer than I care to discuss here, I think I'm taking some relatives on a tour of Oxford tomorrow which I know will be agonising and fun in alternating amounts, dance classes have started again and we're learning some very nice sequences where we're doing some steps off-balance and lots of floorwork and I made a paper boat complete with rowers, a cox and very accurately proportioned and positioned blades for Boatie Flatmate as luck for a race last week with much-appreciated input from Taxloss who knows everything about everything. And I've got The Ambassador's Reception to look forward to this weekend. Raaah and gold-foil wrapped chocolates all round. Ole!