it's all greek to me!

apparently in Greece they say 'it's all chinese to me!'

i discovered this on my internet trawl for useful greek phrases for my forthcoming trip to Crete tomorrow

'milate anglika?' is a good one i think...

tho i was rather surprised to find a site that told me how to say fookoff in greek - hopefully won't need that one!

i love going on beach holidays - they are good for the soul.. beautiful weather, beautiful scenery, usually good company, there's nothing not to like!

which is what i keep telling my boyfriend who is determined not to even attempt a beach holiday - at least not in this lifetime. which is so infuriating because i wouldn't mind if he'd been there, done that, got ripped off buying the tee-shirt in euros haha, but he hasn't!

you cannot dislike what you haven't tried!!

and i will not rest in my quest to get him beach bound at least once!! haha

so i'm going with a galpal and we'll gossip, put the world to rights, work on turning our so very English fair skin a shade of pinky beige, drink some birra and then head back to reality in 7 nights time...

'kalinhita'

; )

comfort food

what is it about being ill that makes you reach for the bad foods?!

in the last few days i've had:
chocolate buttons
pizzahut*
ben & jerry's frozen yoghurt**
lots of yummy pasta
and now i've just been to sainsbois for battenburg!

what's worst about this is the battenburg is directly related to an ad i saw for cahoot which said the only better deal you'd get for a loan was from your nan (cue: batenburg pic). genius!
except now i have battenburg in my cupboard and i'm on a beach in three days! haha

i'm such a sucker.

i've had a cold for three days now and it's not possible to eat sensibly when you feel this rubbish! sure the tomato and basil soup really works for me but it's accompanied by a slice of manor house cake** hmmm...



*this is really naughty but my man was a co-conspirator, in fact i'd go as far as to say he instigated it! haha, anyway it was nasty cos my tummy wasn't used to all that grease and salt so i won't be giving in to that again soon!

**i was at least trying to be low fat!! haha

so naughty

i am in the post-coital-esque throes of a bit of shopping therapy...

i went to meet a friend for a hot chocolate in town cos i'd not seen her in a while and she FORCED me to meet her in Topshop. and i'd not been in since it had opened its new store and oh boy, its good!

pink suede and straw platforms uptohere!

i managed to escape credit card intact only to be seduced by the shoe shop next door, Aldo, where i indulged in a dirty pair of black platform stilettos...

my man doesn't like it when i wear high heels when we go out, because as all girls know, some shoes are too bad to be on your feet in for more than an hour before it's just too painful for words!
so he says things like "i don't know why you wear heels, you can't walk in them"
him up there with his 6'
well i happen to like seeing what its like being tall!

when i was at uni and the height of Girl Power, i bought a pair of Spice-esque Buffalo platform trainers. i could see on top of the cooker! it was truly eye-opening. tall people have a totally different perspective!

and if i get dropped at the bar, sit down, then get a cab home my big shoes aren't a problem... until i've drunk too many vodka cocktails and then i just topple off them... a lot. haha

but some pain is worth it and a beautiful pair of shoes is just too irresistible. they're a work of art darling!

infamy! infamy! they've all got it in-fa-me!

since i started working in the so called 'creative' industries i have been the least creative in my life. nice that!

once i was just the cheerful and enthusiastic girl who worked at the call centre/ shop/ bar who wanted to work in the creative industries since that was where all your creative juices got utilised proper like.

my blog is the most creative thing i've produced in 3 months.

i rest my case m'lud.

does the fact that it becomes 'corporate creativity' ruin the whole experience?

one of my favourite quotes ever ever ever is Oscar Wilde's "Find a job you love and you'll never work another day in your life" because i really believe it's true! i honestly have never been one of those people who think that 'not working' is something to aspire to. work makes people sane, human beans can't cope with too much time on their hands - it makes 'em crazy!

but oh what to do, what to do! (imagine, if you will, a woeful damsel in a merchant ivory production, heavy brow and heaving bosom haha)

i really fear i am at the end of my tether with this advertising malarky! it's so soul destroying it's almost causing me to fall of the wagon* which is just not cricket!

haha, Oscar Wilde? What to do? Cricket?! what is it about feeling like you're getting a raw deal in life that makes One get terribly English about it!! probably something to do with how we don't like to complain so One should at least be eloquent about it! haha

it's usual to end a blog having satisfactorily ended the story told... but this has been more of a very polite rant so i can't sum up or give the solution... sufficient to say i am not having a great week!



*holiday diet - 8 days til bikini time! argh!

here comes the rain again

Manchester is the rainiest place in Britain.

even pop tarts The Beautiful South have even written about it in their latest pop offering, so i'm not the only person who thinks so!

it's raining today and it rained yesterday and it rained Saturday.

there were a few days of sunshine last week and everyone got very excited about it and wore suitable* attire. but it's no good hoping 'that's it - summer's here!' cos in Manchester it rains all the time!!!

i'm from Liverpool. and i've lived in various cities across the south east of england. and i've lived in Sheffield. so i know about the weather baby! when i was a young 'un, how we laughed because it 'always rains in Manchester' - what a hoot! such northern city rivalry was perfectly normal and i thought nothing of whether it was true or not. but they got the last laugh now i have to live here in this perpetual wet.

IT'S NOT NORMAL!

don't get me wrong, as a city Manchester has everything you need. Great choice in art, cinema, comedy, bars and restaurants, public transport*** but the weather is beyond a joke! i know it's the Pennines' fault and that Glasgow has the same problem but now i understand why Mancs can seem quite depressed to the rest of the country, it's the lack of sunshine! they're all suffering from S.A.D. all year long!

what irks** me so much is that there are people here - lets call them Mancs - who have never lived anywhere else think this is British weather! they've never sunbathed topless on Brighton beach, never felt the sun on their face in Hampshire, never enjoyed a glass of beer in a pair of shorts down by the Thames. there should be a national campaign to enlighten these people! 'It doesn't have to be this way!' with buses parked waiting to take them down the M6 to the sunshine! haha

i think i have to move soon...



*well... most people managed it with dignity. one young lady who i don't care to know made the very wrong choice of see-thru tight white knee-length trousers with no knickers! nice.

**i love that word! it's sooo Oscar Wilde! "Sir, I am irked"

***don't get me started on how rubbish the trams are!

now that's what i call entertainment!

Now this game Hoff Invaders on Transbuddha is truly genius!

there's another Hoff related link on my side bar (see right) but this is far superior, being a proper game with baddies to bust etc!

i have loved David Hasselhoff since i tuned in to Knight Rider every week as a young girl. a guy dressed in leather with a talking car seemed so very rock'n'roll in Toxteth in 1986 (or whatever year it was, i think The A-Team* and Terrorhawks** were also a favourite around this time). i recenly have been enjoying the Hoff's resurgence in popularity. i even have a picture of him on my desk at work! (don't worry NM, you're there too hehe). how my friend KC laughed when three year ago i got her The Best of David Hasselhoff for xmas. now she understands that i was merely ahead of the crowd.

the problem is that all this renewed interest in the Hoff has gone to his head! he's getting divorced, wearing tee-shirts saying Don't Hassle the Hoff! he's ruining it!!! i love David of the 80s not the botoxed-within-an-inch-of-that-famous-smile David of today... Oh David, why?! (heavy sigh)

but don't let this put you off the game - it's brilliant!!


*i really loved The A-Team and couldn't decide who i liked best - Hannibal***, Face or Murdoch.. Hannibal probably cos i lacked a father figure and he always had a plan that came together, Face cos he was just so pretty, and Murdoch cos he was so silly! But curiously never B.A., even tho now there's the fabulous B.A. Game! But that's another blog entry altogether...

**the terrorhawks really scared me! i think i watched it cos it was just on, y'know, saturday mornings n all that, but those little creatures were gruesome! haha, i was such a wuss!

***incidentally played by the late great George Peppard who is in my favourite ever film 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' with Audrey Hepburn, how different their careers turned out! I wonder if he ever sat on the set of The A-Team and thought 'it could have all been so different' looking wistfully at a picture of Audrey on the cover of TIME magazine or something! hehe

join us

i am going to a Lib Dems meeting thing on Sunday.

wanted to see what local politics was all about cos i am living with a heavy social conscience this year*

so will i rid my commute of pot holes? will i get better recycling services for my community? or will i just go to meetings with a bunch of social misfits?! i mean come on - the harsh reality is that it's not very cool to care is it?! but i don't give hooping funt** about being cool or not. i do care about who i spend my free time with tho... so here's to Sunday and finding out whether i will be continuing this flirtation with 'my community' haha

only last time (the first time i met them infact) they whipped out their membership forms and held pen a quiver! woah there horsey! it's only our first date! needless to say it made me a little nervous about meeting up again! another branch of the party also wanted me to help out the other week pre-election, handing out leaflets or something dogsbodylike but i had to blow them out cos i was seeing sexy rockers Snow Patrol at the Ritz in Manchester***. they've not rang me since. talk about shallow!

maybe i should stick to shoes.




*i'm hoping this is just a phase! maybe next year i'll be back into vacuous passions like shoes...

**'i don't give a hooping funt' was uttered by the character 'Blossom', from the kid's sitcom of the same name, used instead of you-know-what.. me and my friend KC thought this a most-excellent expression and it has lived on since!

*** see previous entry titled 'snow patrol are a proper bunch of sexy rock'n'rollers!'

take that hangover

"overdoing it on the seratonin on a saturday night seeing Take That live can seriously darken your outlook on life for the next few days"

that's what it should say on the ticket! i've been depressed ever since the four lads rocked manchester! actually i'm really depressed cos i miss my man who had to go back to Sheffield yesterday. and it's raining. and frankly it would be easier to be cheery if the sun came out. (heavy sigh).

the concert on saturday was brilliant! i never saw Take That do a proper stadium tour when i was younger cos i couldn't afford the ticket, so i'm glad i managed to beg for some this time round because they really did a good show. and i even kissed Howard* as they ran thru the crowd mid-way thru the concert, which was very exciting and only a little bit startling. and i ran to the front at the very end - stealthily avoiding pesky security people and got on the big screen when the cameras panned round to look at the crowd! yay! a girl from work saw me too! double yay! cos up til she told me this morning i was the only person who knew i'd been on the big screen! haha, and what's the use in that?!

i was very giddy for the whole evening**.

which is nice. i don't get very giddy very often which means i appreciate it more than, say, someone who is in a constant state of giddiness.

giddy. that's a good word. that's officially my word of the day. you watch how i spectacularly squeeze it into conversation when you're least expecting it!

i even bought a pink TT hat! i wanted a pair of pants that said 'how deep is your love' but they didn't have my size. and i wanted a 'lipstick mark on my coffee cup' mug but i forgot to go back to the merchandise stall once the whole thing was over... ruined.

a few people have turned their noses up at the idea of my going to a Take That concert. but theyre only jealous. there's nothing wrong with a trip down memory lane for women over a certain age! hehe


*Howard. Seemed like a nice chap in the reunion doc on telly last year but when i was 15 had a terrible rep for being quite the sexual deviant! Anyway i was always a Robbie girl. I must try and go to see him live...

**my boyfriend can vouch for this. and he looked bewildered by the whole evening. hehe

you can tell a lot from a ring tone

is it just me or do the mobile ringtones some people choose really surprise you?

a chap in the office today had a startlingly Techno ringtone. i almost threw my hands in that air like i just didn't care! (how cute am i? do you see what i did there?! haha) but you just wouldn't think 'raver' to look at him at all!

which got me to thinking, how much can you tell about someone about their mobile ringtone?

my man has a Superman theme tone right now accompanied with a Yoda text alert which never fails to bring a smile. does this mean he's a sci-fi nerd who lives in an unreality? or does it just mean we like the same movies?! hehe

i bought The Sugarbabes' Push the Button ringtone a few months back*. does this mean i'm a vacuos pop guzzling fool? or merely that i enjoy a good pop tune on a sunny day?!

now i have a new mobile phone and you can't transfer bought in applications i'm using one of the standard rings, but it's no ordinary ring. it's the jazz ring baby! it even has a little vinyl crackle at the beginning which i LOVE!! haha i'm so easily amused...

so does this jazzy ditty mean people will think i'm tres avant garde? am i in fact tres avant garde in my musical tastes? i rather think so.

and if, after all, your mobile ringtone is only a side of you that you wish complete strangers on the bus/tram/train/sainsbury's supermarket aisle to see, then what of it?!
it's only a ringtone.
or is it?!




*only to get months of billing from the ringtone company i entrusted my details to. what was i thinking you ask. hey it was a funky ringtone!

snow patrol are a proper sexy bunch of rock'n'rollers!

well now Gary Lighbody. if i were 5 year younger i most definitely would. but the way he bounds around stage i reckon i'd have trouble keeping up with the young fella!

ahem. pop lusting over, the gig was really good too! never been to the Ritz in Manchester before and it's a proper old school club venue, not tiny, but quite intimate for a band of Snow Patrol's recent success. The crowd (and me) sang along to all the big tunes from Final Straw and some of the more die hards sang along to the new stuff (show offs!). Gary split his trousers early on but this wardrobe malfunction is unlikely to make Heat's front cover...

missed out on Lost being back on the telly for season 2 - but while i was right peeved when i heard of the impending clash, i'm kind of relieved cos last season was a pain the ass to be home every week for and missing out did your head in... and it's only telly!! would much rather be out enjoying the efforts of hot young rock things!

my boyfriend says 'oh they're rubbish' which ofcourse they're not. Final Straw was my favourite record in the summer of 2004! he says his mate says they're a Coldplay ripoff. since when did his mate know anything about good music? it's so easy to slag off a band just cos they've done well. ah such cliches boys. such cliches.

well i'm off to have rock'n'roll dreams about irish boys playing guitars, bon nuit.