Sunday, July 30, 2006

the independent made me cry

well it wasn't so much the independent as the story featured in it about how the israelis had bombed the red cross going into lebanon.

but how much of the press can you believe anyway. its all someone's version of events. maybe i'm a sucker for being upset and that's what 'they' want me to feel.

flippn eck i'm starting to sound like my conspiracy theory king of a boyfriend!

but back to my original point. i cried. because the world is horrible and horrible people run it and horrible people live in it.

i'm not normally allowed to read the paper for this very reason. but my man was trying to keep me occupied while he made us lunch on Friday.

then when i was at a jolly BBQ in London, well Surrey technically actually, but down there anyway, i had a chat with a bloke called Dean who'd never met me before about the fact that i'd cried because of the state of the world and how rubbish everything was and why did we feel powerless to do anything about it? i think i must have really enhanced his BBQ experience! haha

then i got pissed and forgot all about it.

just like 'they' wanted me to...

pah. damnd jaegermeister!

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

bodycombat

i went to bodycombat at my new gym last night... and i'm hurting today!

its an aerobics class that uses the moves of martial arts to hi-NRG dance music! so essentially its kung fu aerobics! haha, brilliant!

actually even tho i am aching today i did really enjoy it! it's not easy for beginners as there are a lot of moves and co-ordination to get your head round while it's all happening! but it made the hour go really quickly and it was definitely more interesting than the treadmill!

i'm trying boxing aerobics next week, and i want to try the ashtanga yoga class but its difficult times for me to make - pah!

last night tho - one of the moves was as if you were punching someone in the head! nice! and the music they played in the class had punching sound effects on it so it was like you were in the game Street Fighter of something haha, the good thing about this is it's just the moves - no actual punching! unlike when i tried Karate the other month and realised i was going to be expected to actually fight people! eek! i'm a lover not a fighter!*

i wanted to go the gym again today because i promised myself i'd go twice a week and since i'm away for the weekend from Thursday it's the only chance i'll have before next week... but i'm aching too much! slowly slowly catch a monkey!



*i watched a film at the weekend The Breakup** and a guy in it had a tee shirt that said "I'm a drinker not a fighter" - brilliant! that's up there with "I drink therefore I am"! haha

**my boyfriend teased my for many hours for crying during this movie. i'm sure had i not been so exhausted from moving house i wouldn't have blubbed. but i'm a sensitive girl!! the ending was rubbish tho! haha, definitely the result of 'test audiences' which are an evil phenomenon in modern film making!

Monday, July 24, 2006

i am officially old

i moved house this weekend. not a whole house of course, i am still one of those pauper renters.
but i had quite a few worldly possessions to move so i'm aching all over and looking fwd to having a day off lifting stuff today!

one of the great things about my new place is that it's two minutes walk from a massive entertainment complex with a cinema and a gym. where i lived before there was an off licence and a nice italian restaurant. so i feel i'm making progress somehow!

thing is my nearest supermarket is Tesco and i like Sainsbois! i don't know why! i just do. Sainsbois is like M&S but a bit cheaper. and i worked for them when i was at uni as a checkout girl. and they have that nice Jamie Oliver on their adverts. and Tesco knocked down my school to build a store many years ago in Liddypool which i think may have started the rift! haha i always thought that people always go to their nearest supermarket. but now i realise that's only true of young things with no loyalty! haha

so i went to a website called upmystreet.com and looked up supermarkets!
now i know my nearest superstore sainsbois (they sell EVERYTHING!) is onyl 2 miles down the road. well worth a trip every fortnight!

but how sad is that? i actually really like lidl too - maybe i should look them up!

i really am getting old!

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

but how many is too many?

i am moving house at the weekend so i've started packing.
which in this bizarre heatwave is a sticky job, but i'd rather spread the task over the week than have a meltdown on friday night!

i have quite a few coats it seems. and shoes. and clothes in general.

some of which i've not worn once in the last 12 months.

now some of you minimalists out there might cry - chuck em out you fool! to which i say just because its not being used right now doesn't mean i won't use it later.

later when? you might ask - you minimalists have it in for us hoarders see - to which i reply, oh y'know, later... haha

but when you move as much as i do you kinda envy those with not a lot to show for themselves. i used to dream of having a suitcase or three like Holly Golightly in the film Breakfast at Tiffany's*, but now i realise she was a high class working girl and probably didn't feel emotionally attached to anything! perhaps this is why i pack so lightly when i travel - it's the only time i'll ever get to be That Minimalist Girl! haha

from where i'm sitting (which is currently amongst a whole load of shoeboxes and coats so i may be somewhat biased!) if you don't own a lot of stuff what have you been doing all these years?

i guess i'm particularly guilty of collecting things because i'm sentimental at heart. this is a killer for storage. old momentos of places, beer mats, promo tshirts, postcards etc which i genuinely feel 'remind me of the time...' so am loathe to chuck them out!

i am getting better tho. i am chucking out bad photos and putting the good ones in photo albums. i am throwing away bad CDs i got for free once in 1995. but when it comes to shoes its a different story.

a good pair of shoes is a piece of art. it can be so telling of the era. so telling of the point in my life. i have a pair of silver glittery platforms. no, really. my friend kate o'meara calls them the beasts! they could only have been bought in the late 90s when i was at uni, young and single and loving it! they really do belong on a shelf... maybe even under a spotlight! haha

well i better get back to sorting thru the cr*p that is my worldly possessions!

but just one last word to the minimalists - don't get angry with us hoarders, pity us! we have to move this stuff on Saturday! haha


*this was my favourite film for a very long time. it's got that classic thing going on. but it got kinda hijacked by every girl in the world which has made it less special really. so i think it may be pulp fiction now. a classic itself. and so enjoyable every time you see it!
who's motorcycle is this? it's a chopper baby. who's chopper is this? zed's. who's zed? zed's dead baby, zeds dead.
lovely stuff!

Saturday, July 15, 2006

old friends, good times

i saw an old buddy of mine, jonny, today in liverpool.

i don't see him very often but its always so nice to see him when i do.

he used to live in london until recently and i asked him about how he was finding re-adjusting to life in the northwest, something i still feel i'm doing myself even tho i've been here for over 2 years now.

life is different down south. and i'm not even articulate enough to explain why. i spent 10 years dotted about the south east and as a result all of my friends since university are based there. so i miss them!

of course i have made new friends - i'm not a social retard! but while i'm glad to make new friends i feel like if i don't move back soon my friendships down south will suffer indefinitely. which makes me sad.

and yet i'm a northerner!

feeling homesick for the south?! how does that work?

what if i never move back? and all the while i never feel at home up north cos i'm waiting to move back down south! haha

'the littlest hobo' that's me

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

girl talk

my friend Ruth came round tonight for a Sex And The City triple-bill*!

there is something so wonderful about girl talk. about how intimate it can be and how beautifully they capture it on SATC.

there's a scene in an episode called 'Easy come easy go" where Carrie is relating the story of a drunken Big telling her he's getting out of his marriage and 'if you know anyone who's interested...'
OH MY GOD! shriek the audience at home
OH MY GOD! shriek her onscreen galpals.
exquisite moments with your girlfriends have never been so better captured on tv before or since!

and as for Samantha's one liners. who did Kim Catrall pay to get the best lines?! in the same series Sam meets a guy with funky tasting sp*nk. so she doesn't want to go down on him anymore but he complains and says it's just up and down, up and down and then it's over, to which she explains there's suction, jaw control, gag reflex, moaning and breathing thru your nose to contend with and finally majestically retorts 'honey, they don't call it a job for nothing'

brilliant!

when i visited New York earlier this year i went to the bar that Chris Noth (Big) part owns with a friend called Steve Walter**. It was a really cool place and has a cool vibe. It was weird tho cos there was this huge picture of Noth on the wall and a little one of Steve underneath... Is it okay to have huge pictures of yourself on the wall of your bar? i guess it's your bar... and he is real handsome n all... haha

i also went on the SATC TV tour and drank a Cosmopolitan at the bar that they used as Aiden's bar Scout.

i really loved that show! haha

sometimes, like when it comes to tall tales about men, shoes with heels you'll never be able to walk in and drinking cocktails so sweet you can't taste the vodka in them, it's great being a girl!



*series 3 is the ultimate drama packed series for me

**www.thecuttingroomnyc.com it's such a cool bar with the best jukebox i ever heard! ever!

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

i couldn't resist i tells ya

i got a big cream cake last night at sainsburys.
it was reduced to 60p i couldn't resist!
and i've almost eaten all the evidence too.
there's just something so naughty about cream cakes isn't there?
i guess its cos they're so sweet so you know you're being bad! haha
just writing about it makes my mouth water and think about greedily gobbling up the last chunk!
it's nothing remarkable. just a plain old victorian sponge with cream and jam fill with icing sugar sprinkled on top.
maybe too plain for those fancy chef types - but just tasty goodness to me!

i also made jelly this week, so that's got to be eaten too.
its years since i made jelly.
i must be having an attack of the sweet tooth this week me thinks.
i'm usually a savoury snack kinda girl.
humous and pitta. marmite on toast. pretzels etc.
do you remember those chocolate covered pretzels?! they were ace.
but they discontinued them - in the UK at least - cos people couldn't get their head around the whole sweet/savoury fusion! haha

can you tell i'm on a diet?
i fell off the wagon a few weeks ago for my birthday - a very good reason to fall off any wagon!
but i'm struggling to get back on track because of all the sugar my body's become used to.
dam those refined sugars and addictive sweeties!

now maybe i'll just go and finish off that yummy cream cake...

; )

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Superman returns indeed!

i was fortunate enough to catch a preview of the new superman movie today.

wowee! that Brandon Routh looks mighty like Christopher Reeve*. excellent casting. Spacey is a formidable Lex Luther. Posey a superb ditzy sidekick. even Bosworth cuts is as Lois Lane.

i've been thinking about it all day! it's made a lasting impression! haha just like the original trilogy did when i was a kiddie watching with my mum in Liverpool's now defunct ABC cinema** - i say trilogy cos let's face it - who wants to remember superman 4? nuclear man? politics and superheroes? hmm. therein trouble lies!

i say that but my fella is very convinced superman's return is due to the state of world politics, and i can see his point. it wasn't so long ago that you felt western civilisation was the 'know-it-all' and everything was going to plan. then we got into a messy war about oil and it's all too reminiscent of the late 70s again. which was when superman came along in the first place! so he has a point my man does.

but back to Brandon. it was seriously spooky watching this young dude being superman. he had some really Reeve moves going on. Clark Kent's nose wrinkle of old. just amazing. my mum will love it! haha i think Christopher Reeve would have been seriously impressed with the new pretender. i certainly am.


*i met Christopher Reeve very briefly in 1990 in Liverpool. me and a whole bunch of teenage girls and boys were hanging outside the hotel all the big stars were staying at for the Lennon Memorial gig they held that year. He got off a coach and i nearly actually swooned. this man wasn't an actor. this was superman. he shook my hand. it was very exciting!

**great art deco building in central Liverpool that has been empty and disused since it closed down in the late eighties/early nineties, such a shame. it was a wicked cinea and i saw all my favourite childhood movies there. Ghostbusters. Superman. bring it back i tells ya!

Saturday, July 08, 2006

The Life Pursuit

I was given The Life Pursuit by Belle & Sebastian this week as a belated birthday gift* by my friend Annabelle.

It's really good and I played it in the car on the way back from work with a smile on my face.

When was the last time an album made you smile? It's pretty rare isn't it? There are such killer pop tunes on it. Pop in the summer sun can't be beat. I know they're not your typical Top Of The Pops** fodder but they do good radio hits these Glasweigans! haha

I just joined iPod Revolution and i'm still figuring out how playlists work but i'm really looking forward to a playlist called songs to make me smile! brilliant! i was watching some music telly the other day (well y'know it was on while i was reading the paper or something) and there was a show called So Bad But We Still Love Them Top 40 or something like that with Tiffany and Vanilla Ice etc on it. But some of those tunes won't fail to bring a smile to a 30-something girl's face! haha

Music is brilliant. Whenever i thought about what i'd take to a desert island (not recently you understand - when i was a bored teenager wondering about such important instances)i always thought i'd take a solar powered (there's no foxing me!)radio cos i hate no having any music on. how they don't go mad in the BB house without music everyday i have no idea. hang on. no they are quite mad. and they sing a lot. i love the idea of having a soundtrack to my life. that a song can evoke memories. good or bad from the time when it was released. Barbie Girl by Aqua reminds me of being at university. As does fatboyslim's RightAboutNow. The Thrills first album reminds me of a few summers ago. It's forever a summer album. it wouldn't sound right in the winter! haha Snow Patrol Final Straw reminds me of another summer. it's all good stuff!

i'm such a soppy girl sometimes me. haha

*belated birthday gifts are great aren't they - cos it's not your birthday anymore and yet you're still getting presents! haha, excellent!
**RIP TOTP : (

70mph

i'm a relatively new driver.
i passed my test in april 05 and got a car in june 05 which i drove to sainsburys once a week for about two months before i had to use it to get to work and back just 4 miles down the road.
so far, so inexperienced!
then i changed jobs and had to get the bus to work cos parking in the city centre was well expensive. so i went back to my sainsburys once a week driver status.
but this week i started a new job and it is all the way in stockport - a massive 6 junctions on the M60 from where i live.
so all week i been going 70mph! wowee!
it's been quite surreal.
and not really at all as stressful as i thought it would be.
i even had to drive to warrington and back on the M62 which is like almost an hour away!
i would like to get on the road more. so this is good news.
except i'm moving nearer to my new job in two weeks which will mean i'm not on the road more at all! haha
but i'd like to drive to see my friends down south.
trains are so expensive and takes ages and make you change three times on a sunday*
and i don't even DO coaches. they are ridiculous. it can take 7 hours to do a 2 hour journey. and they're not even cheap anymore! outrageous!
but my man doesn't like me driving long distances. he says it ain't safe.
and there are some nutters on the road.
as a new driver you are incredulous of how these people got licences (if they bothered to at all!).
but why have a car if you ain't going anywhere in it?! answer me that?!
nonsense.
i'm looking forward to my first motorway services experience!
especially if it's that really nice posh one off the M6 Toll! haha


*i have a rule about public transport that is you can only be philosphical when it comes to using it to get anywhere. it's no good getting your blood up about a driver who hasn't shown up or a leaf on the track that refuses to budge.
and if anyone asks you when you'll be arriving you simply answer 'i'll get there when i get there' : )

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

A,D & E

thems the chords you need to play mull o' kintyre dontcha know!

thats it!

brilliant!

i'm a rockNroller now me, haha

i got some guitar books for my birthday to help me get out of my 7 chord rut. don't get me wrong*. 7 chords is whole lot more than i knew a year ago, but i needed a place to go with those chords and some more direction besides! so hopefully the macca folky classic is only the beginning of my songbook! haha

my man used to be in a band (us rockNrollers stick together y'know!) when he was a young lad, so he shows me the beginnings of lots of songs but can't remember the rest. which is such a tease! cos they sound brilliant. but you only know the first three or four strums haha.

and when i listen to Planet Rock** i try and emulate the great bass riffs. yeah -- 'try' being the really important word in that last statement! haha

i really love learning to play the guitar me. i don't even mind not having any fingernails very much. except for when i need them for those fiddly things like opening stuff, getting sweetcorn*** out me teeth, those sort of things. but y'know, its a sacrifice i'm willing to make! hehe

i saw this comedy sketch recently about a guitar instruction video where the dude had really 70s togs on and they kept cutting away to his hands on the guitar where it showed him holding down chords with really abnormally long fingers. which is really funny cos it really can seem impossible to hold some chords, but its just practice innit... ah. one day i'll be able to make it look easy too!


*top Pretenders tune! haha, do you ever say something and it matches a song in the jukebox in your head so you have to sing it out loud - you just can't help it?! that happens to me a lot - and it used to happen to a girl i worked with, Angela, and she called it 'singing-itis'!

**Planet Rock on your DAB radio folks! tune in for non-stop-rock!

***corn on the cob is sooo damnd tasty and yet so fiddly to get in your gob! - hey that rhymes! brilliant! but then i guess it's nice to have a sense of achievement after your dinner! haha

Monday, July 03, 2006

the gogglebox

ah tellyvision...

they don't make it like they used'te...

and nor could they. British culture being as it is n all, always changing, looking for the next thing to get excited about.

i've been indulging in retro telly series on that blessed invention - DVD.

a bit of Dallas came my way this birthday via Amsterdam (ta kc) and boy oh boy it's a joy to watch. i was too young to catch the earlier series when it was on in the eighties, but i distinctly remember pretending that i couldn't sleep one night when my mum was engrossed in another explosive episode, so i got to 'sleep' on her knee and peeked out of the corner of my eye and all the goings on! haha

one thing that does flumex me tho is how i could have a crush on J.R. all those years ago when he was clearly a b*stard! Bobby was a bit of a girlie bloke i suppose and well, they were the Ewing boys, who in their right mind would want a Barnes or a lowly ranch hand like Ray? haha, well actually, now you come to mention it, there's something fetching about those chaps! hehe
i did think Larry Hagman was the cutest thing in I Dream of Jeannie but i didn't see that til much later (well i think that's the case - my childhood memory is patchy! too much vodders since then lurve...)
anyhoo, i am so loving finally understanding the Bobby/ J.R. feud. there was J.R. running the show when all of sudden playboy bro Bob turns up with a pushy Mrs and demands to run half the business! haha
anyway i'll just have to put my sadistic childhood crushes down to being brought up in the 80s and move on.

another fab bit of tv fodder i been enjoying again is This Life. Much nearer to home and a must during my uni years. Adored Anna of course, as any young lady of my go-get-that-man generation will agree, the soundtrack was legend (courtesy of one Ricky Gervais apparently) and cut down in its prime like all great tv shows are (my so-called life anyone?!)
rumour has it there's to be a one off feature length This Life reunion episode. now this is either completely fictional but trying to gauge the great British public's response to such a suggestion before writing somet (see recent Take That renuion) or in fact true true true and coming just in time! (after the 10 year anniversary dvd release) i wonder if Gervais would do the music again - that would be wicked! haha

there's a lemonheads song called 'the outdoor type' and in it Evan Dando* sings the line 'what if somethings on tv and it's never shown again?' as a reason for not doing anything remotely outdoorsy with his life. haha that makes me giggle everytime. yes i am easily pleased but surely everyone has at least once in their lives indulged in tv when they should be doing something less boring instead?** it's such a guilty pleasure! which of course i am all for in this life...

talking of addictive trash tv let's have a minutes silence for the late great Aaron Spelling. I know all the words to the theme from the Love Boat! Charlie's Angels was proper girlpower and Starsky & Hutch were the coolest cops ever (tho i remember i enjoyed Chips too...haha)

i know there's plenty of bad things to say about the gogglebox but c'mon - there's some really good stuff too right?!


*i met him once after a gig in cambridge. i wrote my number down and stuck it in one of those little spare button bags with a loveheart sweet that said 'find me' on it (how cute am i?! haha) and very cooly slipped it to a guy from the support band i got chatting to and said 'give that to Evan'. thinking there's no way he'll call, but at least i tried!
but then he did. and i nearly died. but of course i was cool.
bbring bbring. hello? hi, is jodie there? yeah speaking, hi this is Evan, (pause for momentary disbelief) oh, hi...
girls you would be sooo proud of my breeziness with the indie s*xgod haha.
so i went over to his hotel for a drink. and it was a strong one as i was shaking with nerves haha.
but he was SUCH A DISAPPOINTMENT!
i can't stress enough how it put me off meeting any of my idols ever again. he was a spotty stoner. boring. ugly. no charisma whatsoever. so i pulled his mate instead. haha, rockNroll!
i was the talk of the student union bar that week i can tell you!

**didn't you love why don't you?! : )

Sunday, July 02, 2006

'the sadness'

well it had to happen.

had a week off 'the sadness' last week which was bound to mean extra helpings this week you see.

'the sadness' is a product of my trans-pennine love and is a feeling of woe that creeps up on me and my man on a sunday afternoon shortly before we have to part ways for another week. sometimes you're not even sure it is 'the sadness'. sometimes you think it might be a hangover from that cheeky bottle of red wine or just a general grumpiness on account of it being the end of the weekend. but with a little investigating - yep, it's usually 'the sadness'.

so i'm feeling quite glum to say the least. and the weather has almost become an ally as it's started raining heavily (with a hearty helping of thunder and lightening to add to the drama) out of nowhere. it's been hot and sunny all weekend and now that i'm miserable the heavens have opened! haha

everywhere you go, always take the weather with you indeed!

sometimes it's nice to have some chocolate cake or other naughtiness to kill off the sadness but i've just had a red berry solero ( only 99 calories - back on the diet kids!) and i'm still feeling a bit rotten.

there should be something i can do to take my mind of it all - i start my new job tomorrow and i don't what i'm wearing so i could go check out my options... nah... i could watch some larry david on dvd... mmm.... i could start clearing thru my junk, have a clear out before i move later this month... see plenty of things to do but instead here i am, sitting - nay, dwelling - in my own misery.

my face literally looks like this : (

now that's just gonna give me wrinkles!

ruined.