"Aw... shucks..."

3 rice cakes with the last scrapings of red pepper houmous and mixed olive houmous
Two cups of coffee, banana
2 slices organic rye bread with mature cheddar, cucumber slices and cherry tomatoes
organic red apple, raw nuts and pumpkin seeds, two biscuits
3 oysters
roast lamb with pork, lemon and thyme stuffing, roast potatoes, organic rocket
two glasses Chilean red wine
Strawberries dipped in chocolate
5 cigarettes (total)

Now boys and girls, do you see the almost comic slide from austere new healthy eating for improved mind, body and soul into the wildly and unexpectedly luxurious indulgent feasting for dinner that we enjoyed. Taxloss completely wowed me by feeding me oysters before rolling out the main course (god bless posh shellfish counter at Sainsburys!) and even shucked the lot of them himself, like the brave boy he is: we don't have proper oyster knives - yet - so it was a case of attacking them with a tea towel and small paring knife...

I'm a hopeless, shameless gormand glutton. I actually fantasise about being covered up to my neck in a rich red wine, balsamic vinegar and organic shallot gravy then scattered with a thyme and curly-leaf parsley polenta crumbs.

Is that wrong?

But more importantly... Who fancies meeting up for dinner soon?

"...chokes..."

Okay...Good Omens slash fiction was the inevitable next step after finding the quiz below and HOLY CRAPOLA am I ashamed of myself. Aziraphale and Crowley are sexy individually (in a bumbling, cynical and unwitting British way) and like all good double acts, have an aura of sparks around them that suggest a chemistry beyond the chummy, "two straight guys in an adventure novel" norm, and let's not forget that one is a devil and the other an angel but... all these stories where they actually get down to the business of using their mortal guises for rumpy-pumpy rather than haplessly averting apocalypse is just WRONG.

wrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrong

*whacks head against keyboard*

I'm moving on to Little Women femmeslash. Bwah.

"Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide."

I kind of wanted to be Crowley or even Anathema but 1) I couldn't do the whole snake skin thing and 2)I could never become a vegetarian. So Aziraphale it is - and it is accurate up to a certain point: I too like books, I too like bookshops and yes, I too like sex with boys. (Boys in general, not as in more than one boy at a time.) For all of you haven't read Good Omens - well, it's about time you bloody well did, hmmm?


Aziraphale


What Character from "Good Omens" are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

"

Try to learn more than Blackadder, who never learned more than three phrases in Swahili and one of those was 'do you do it doggy-doggy?' "

First of all CONGRATULATIONS to Boatie Flatmate who has a shiny new exciting job and a marvellous future ahead of him: well done, old chap! I shall be providing him with a monocle, dry martini and small, undeveloped Polynesian island with a population of 19 that has a chief export of extremely sharp mangoes and comedy palm-wine-containers-shaped-like-donkeys made from coconut shells. Huzzah!

Second of all congratulations on a lesser scale to Team Laser Explosion (Sundried, Fizzwhizz, Taxloss and me) for unexpectedly winning the pub quiz we unexpectedly entered on Wednesday night. We were hanging around on the pavement outside a crowded Soho pub, enjoying the evening sunshine laced with intense London air pollution, killing time before the film and when offered a multiple choice questionnaire and the chance to enter the pub quiz, we all thought "…yeah, why not?" Our name was the Weebl inspired Team Laser Explosion and we went romping home, winning the coveted "prize picked from an Everything for One Pound shop in Dalston." The tabletop adjustable mini-electric fan is now cooling the folk in a certain office block along the river Thames… Go Team Laser Explosion!

It is the end of May and almost beginning of June. We have had a few days of beguilingly nice weather. I think it is time for a barbecue. Barbecue suggestions to the usual place please – best ideas win an undercooked e-coli special sausage!

"My fish has stuck to the bottom of my glass…"

Not much happened during the day on Saturday – it was hot and I felt lazy and I didn’t manage much more than poking around in some vintage clothes shops and eating ice cream on the patio. But the evening got a bit more interesting, what with drinks in an achingly hip bar and a stroll through Covent Garden to find one more drink. Then when the place had been drained dry, we got into a string of taxis and fled home for curious cocktails involving Pimms and lime cordial and then we moved onto card games and the sticky bottle of absinthe I’d almost forgotten existed…

And that was how Saturday night ended, the five of us rolling around on the living room carpet, watching Boatie Flatmate mix glasses of absinthe for us all, burning fizzy fish-shaped sweets instead of sugar cubes, dropping the flaming bon-bons onto the soft furnishings instead of into the appropriate drinks… a few uproarious rounds of the Slappy Game (cards, shouting, slamming hands down on the pile to win / lose – it’s fun, trust me) and a lot of love going around the flat then we collectively passed out murmuring "Happy Birthday" to the boy as our eyelids fluttered shut.

Sunday – well, Sunday has already been commented on by my good friend Taxloss and described as a perfect day which I agree with – hungover, we walked through the sunny park past the ducks and the pelicans and the children playing and made it to the ICA to see our film, Videodrome… topical and terrifying but he’s already spoken about it so check it out: follow the link! Bumped into a colleague I used to work with at the Office of Doom and while Taxloss sat quietly, going through a few shades of green as the absinthe worked it’s hangover magic on him, us two girlies chatted and drank coffee, me valiantly hiding my own thumping discomfort.

She left with hugs and kisses and Taxloss and I had a late lunch which did us both the world of good and we felt able to do some reading by the duck pond, him and me, though he did more reading than I did as I was entranced by the ducks and we strolled back, sated and content. A little lie-down turned into an extended nap and then we took off to do some writing together in the quiet pub nearby while Boatie Flatmate entertained friends on the patio with impressive meal of an enormous fish. A real one. Not made of sugar and set on fire and dissolved into a glass of green evil. Oogh.

A marvellous time.

Currently listening to: some sort of band / live art rehearsal at the other end of the courtyard where some quite impressive sound sequences are being played and drifting through our open windows. Apparently, the complex I work in shelters a touring opera company every summer and what with the glass blower, specialist paper manufacturer, dance companies and endless advertising / PR agencies crammed into the building, it’s a pretty interesting place to work.

Currently reading: Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake, Smoke and Mirrors (Short Stories) by Neil Gaiman, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy by Tim Burton, Viz, the last third of The Colour Purple, Empire magazine and entrails of small birds I catch on the way to work, to see if today is the day I shall find the pretty amethyst heart the Queen of Feathers stole from me when I was a child of the snow, the dazzling pretty amethyst heart that I need to get back to the Kingdom of Knifepoints where I am Empress of Needles rather than a receptionist for an advertising agency in Soho…

* Ahem * Perhaps it is time for me to move onto a different literary genre. Any suggestions?

"I'll be back"

Apparently.


Which Survivor of the Impending Nuclear Apocalypse Are You?
A Rum and Monkey joint.

Courtesy of almost everyone on my links list to the right, who have all taken this test, laughed amongst themselves then grinned smugly as they watched me struggle to catch up and take the quiz myself.

Had sushi with Taxloss on Saturday. We planned a makeshift sidings for the conveyor belt that would direct all sushi directly to my gaping mouth. Didn't carry it out as there was a distinct lack of sashimi throughout our visit and we preferred watching the plates pass by in a slack-jawed hypnotic way...Then Taxloss bought a new computer. And I finally met up with Baddtaz and had coffee with him for the first time in a long time.

Ah... Arnie. I knew he was Jesus all this time. Gah.

"Soooo... how old are you now?"

The Birthday: a very nice time, with cocktails, gin and tonics, my sister, Devukha, Taxloss, Former Flatmate B and a variety of post-grad buddies and an enormous contingent of post-grad family friends taking up the reserved “joint birthday and also leaving party” area… I was surprisingly sober by the end of the evening – possibly because I fell into conversation with a gang of rather good-looking blokes who sheepishly told me they were students, then looked even more sheepish when I asked what university they went to and they had to admit they were sitting GCSEs.

GCSEs! ! ! ! *facepalm* I went home after that and had a good rampage through the flat with Taxloss as we had the place to ourselves and we could do whatever we wanted. Which we do anyway when Boatie Flatmate is around – it was just the spirit of the thing, y’know.

Sunday was a quiet day and Monday was a day of endless food, starting with dim sum then cake and crisps then roast beef and all the trimmings which made me feel rather faint by the time I heaved myself grinning and groaning into bed.

And I was up on Tuesday feeling considerably bulky after my gluttonous birthday feasting and had to haul myself into the countryside for the hilarious staff and board of directors retreat. More on that in another post as it still feels too close to the time to discuss it… let’s just say, it was alternately brilliant and horrible, just like the weather.