Wednesday, April 25, 2007

jus' get me a bottle o' nyquil

Sleep deprivation.

Friends in blogdom, i am suffering. Due to overindulgence in the big city and a boyfriend on an alternative bodyclock i am severely grumpy! haha

**so grumpy in fact that if orgot all about this post and left it to gather dust in 'draft' form haha**

i am not so grumpy now so maybe i shouldn't continue it until i am grumpy... but who wants to be grumpy?!

"sleep is the best beauty remedy" once said a gorgeous Kylie Minogue

Monday, April 23, 2007

it's only rock n roll but i like it



i am never drinking again!!!

this is a lie of course and when i'm at a wedding this weekend you're likely to find me nursing a glass of white wine but right now people i could happily tell you or anyone else that asked that booze is bad! very very bad!
ah but what a fun weekend! very rock n roll with a trip to hammersmith apollo to see my old buddy roly, a quick taste of mexico and some serious voddie action down smollensky's (now try saying that after a few jars!) chil'ren - never mix your drinks - no good can come of it!! and who on earth introduced shots into the equation?!! bad bad badness...

saturday suffered from this friday night indulgence but i managed to make it to my pals party which rocked it! a live band and spring rolls on the buffet! brilliant! travelling home again sunday was pretty hardcore and i was sufficiently punished for my indulgences with a FOUR HOUR train ride! (Dear Mr Branson...) and a crazy train driver making not-quite-in-English announcements REALLY LOUDLY the whole trip complete with a full volume BINGBONG before each one! argh! my head!

i shall now lie down and recover just in time for another boozy weekend...


Thursday, April 19, 2007

clogs

well i don't know about you but when your boyfriend goes to Amsterdam on a stag weekend you can't help but feel a little nervous!

boys will be boys you hear in that inner monologue! haha i just hope he enjoys himself and doesn't bring me back anything!

i am going to That London to a 50th birthday party for my friend Keith* but in the meantime i'm seeing all my other friends in the big smoke (well lots of them not all that would be quite a feat getting them all together across one weekend...) and i'm feeling al giddy at the prospect of such sociableness**

a friend of mine lamented that if i'm going to a 50th birthday party we must be getting old - au contraire! i will be the youngest there! haha, it's a ploy to make myself feel better! working alongside nubile 25 year olds is getting to me! haha, actually i like to think it shows how versatile my crowd of friends is!

i'm going to be 32 this summer and it's funny this getting older thing, i definitely wouldn't want the angst of my 20s but the energy might be nice! haha maybe i'll write a song about it haha

*who is the cooolest man in London Town actually, he runs a rare records shop - real records n everything! and he has the graveliest (is that even a word?) voice in the whole world - very cool!!

**now i'm sure that isn't a word...

Monday, April 16, 2007

it's a small world after all

on Friday i went to see Chris Isaak* play live at Manchester Academy.

I had a drink with one of the guys from the band before the show and he's this very cool, very rock n roll dude who i've been friends with now for over 15 years! haha, well more like penpals him living in the states n all, but we've kept in touch after all this time - impressive huh?!

but what i became instantly aware of was how English i was. my turn of phrase, my accent, my taste in music, all English thru and thru! it was as if everything was suddenly amplified... tres bizarre.

and then, like my friday wasn't exciting enough seeing an old friend i hadn't seen for 8 years, a really strange coincidence occurred. i was sat outside a bar having a beer with my friend when a guy gets out of a white van with a band and starts unloading all their instruments etc who looks like a guy i went to uni with 10years ago. i think to myself that's too weird and unlikely. so i did the name shout test "Mark!" and he looks around but presumably thinks i mean another Mark and carries on with his unpacking. But then he keeps tramping back and forth with bulky equipment and i'm really convinced now so I stop him:

"Excuse me, is your name Mark"
"Yes"
"I went to university with you"
Pause for penny to drop
"Oh my god!"
there were a couple sat nearby who watched the whole thing who laughed at us as we confirmed we knew each other with a big hug. so it turns out Marc is in a band called The Pony Collaboration and he still lives in Cambridge where we were at uni. I was going to the Isaak gig so i wasn't sure i'd manage to catch them but they started 20 mins after Isaak finished so i managed two gigs Friday night. they're wicked, very Belle & Sebastian if you like that sort of thing, which i do! so brilliant news.

well i'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that when i got home at about 1am i was quite exhausted from all this excitment in one night!


*who, can i just say, was wicked - top night! They played my faves Super Magic 2000 and Baby did a bad bad thing! Woohoo!

a recipe for success

i had a very productive sunday... this is quite unusual as i usually lay around in bed but i had a guest and she needed to set off early so i was up making tea and toasted bagels like a proper hostess!

once she'd set off i did some chores and then went for a swim across the road at my gym where i watched as a couple took their baby into the water for the first time, too cute! they were videoing it and taking pictures underwater, as i was leaving the pool i asked if they'd like me to take their picture all together and i got a really nice shot of them all in the pool together... i almost wanted a copy! haha

when i got home i heard from my housemate, she was in the park enjoying the sunshine with her friend, why didn't i come along? so off i went, forgetting to take my washing out of the washing machine - and on such a sunny day! ruined! haha after a nice sit down we took a stroll and we saw lots of people having picnics, walking dogs, generally there were very good vibes in the park!

about an hour later i was getting hungry so i made my way home, past more picnics and dog walkers, everyone smiling, the sunshine is such good therapy for the soul...

i made an apple and plum crumble after lunch, i'm so surprised at how therapeutic i find baking cakes - i don't find making big meals nearly as satisfying! haha my housemates rather like it too... haha

then with time on my hands i decided to try and do something i've wanted to do for about a year, if not longer. i picked up my guitar and wrote my first song. now it's no masterpiece. it's seriously just fluff. 4 chords with room for another perhaps. but i tried to do something and i did it! a little achievement for the week to feel good about. god bless tony robbins! haha, my man thinks i need to Unleash the Power Within and maybe he's right. i can't listen to that dude without laughing out loud at his cheesiness but if he spurred me to be less talk and more action this weekend then so be it! haha*

but all of this activity made me think what a lot you can fit in if you just concentrate. i always joke that all my school reports said "great potential, lacks concentration!" it really is the story of my life. but not this week baby! i'm a lean mean creative machine and i will get what i want! haha


*i'll never hear the end of this admission from my man who is currently trying to Get the Edge...

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

the rain in spain



see them clouds?! they tried to ruin my long weekend in Alicante! how rude!

Spain of course, famous for their total hours of sunshine, has had really bad spell of wet weather of late and while me and my pal Vicky were there it was changeable to say the least...

but being English n all it was gonna take a little bit more than a bit of rain to stop us having a good time! haha

we did suffer a bit regards the religious holiday but as a payoff we got to see some crazy ass processions! with the lord in various state of crucifix positions, you know, before, during and after! the most disturbing thing about this was that the procession featured lots of people dressed up in seriously dark outfits reminiscent of the K K K - so i'm guessing they must have originated in Spain cos they looked quite retro, but still - well scary given modern day connotations! they even had fireworks! they really love religion in Spain!

on the way over we sat next to an old dude called Ian who was a regular Spanish visitor. he told us the most important thing we needed to know. how to order to draught beers in Spanish. Dos Kanye. well i'm guessing that's how it's spelled, i just kept thinking of the singer Kanye West in order to remember it! haha

we found a great american/german bar and grill called Tribeca - they had the best artwork ever all over the walls and ceiling, real tattoo parlour stuff, loads of character, we found a really cool cafe bar called Cafe Albans which served loads of fruit teas so we hung out there a lot, and we had a great chinese on Friday night during a thunder storm, my friend said the fresh Seabass was well tasty, but they had rather disturbingly given it cherries for eyes and it kept looking at me... we stayed at Melia Alicante on the marina which was a short walk to everywhere, altogether apart from a bit of a cloudy spell it was all pretty top banana!

so if anyone ever asks you about Alicante now you can tell them i said it's great!

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

opinionated? moi?

i read an article about blogs last night and it said there where millions abandoned in cyberspace after the initial blogging fever has died down.. i certainly fell foul of this a couple of years ago when i started a blog - but it didn't have a purpose or direction and fell by the wayside after just one entry! haha

this blog however, while not having a purpose or direction as such, certainly has been fun to write over the last year, and as a professional copywriter, writing for myself is a luxury that i am glad i've indulged in.. another thing the article said was that so long as you stayed passionate about the subject of your blog (er, my life?) that you would probably continue it.. i've certainly enjoyed the ability to rant without boring my friends with my idiosyncracies! (we all just want to be liked huh?!)

i've even made a friend along the way! thru blog world i've 'met' a nice cabbie in nyc called gene! i've read madonna's personal blog! and i've found out much more about my boyfriend's life than i could ever have hoped to gauge from speaking to him! haha

a dude i met in Brighton recently, Stephen Grant, said my blog was more of an online diary than a forum for discussion, and i don't think he thought this was a good thing, so when he asked me to read his blog i didn't bother since he'd insulted mine! haha, i'm a senstive girl me!

there is a lot of snobbery surrounding blogs and i don't know why that is.

why is it such a big deal to some people what joe public writes on the world wide web anyway? my boyf says criticism often says more about the critic than their victim, perhaps those who criticise are afraid of blogs and what their impact might be in the future.. i don't understand how anyone could put down another persons creative efforts without an ulterior motive.. fear self loathing etc etc..

my man read that an editor of a national newspaper wouldn't hire someone who didn't blog. now that's progress!

Sunday, April 01, 2007

blue hotel


Chris Isaak is on tour!
how exciting!
he is playing the 'dam on the 10th (yes you kc) and then hitting Manchester on the 13th - i'm going for a full on nostalgia fest with a girlfriend who admitted to loving Michael Bolton recently so its a proper guilty-pleasures kinda thing!
all of us have skeletons in our record collection that only a 15 year old girl can explain! haha
it's difficult to describe the fun to be had from a sentimental journey and on Friday 13th April i will be in 1991 all over again! haha
he doesn't seem to be doing any publicity for the tour which is strange, even i found out about it thru my dad! and i'm a fan! haha well, i used to be...
i'll never forget bagging the giant Isaak head from the window of Our Price in Liverpool* and taking it to be signed at the Royal Court stage door... they didn't let me in they just took the head in to be signed for me... then i had to take it home on the bus! haha me and isaak taking up a double seat! haha
he did a tv show in the US for the Showtime channel but they never showed it here - well not on any channel i could get or at a time i could watch - it was a weird monkees-style thing where he played himself but got into lots of japes and sang songs as a kind of narrative... sounds kooky and i saw one episode that was just that! i think him and his band got stuck down a bunker and had to wait til someone rescued them! mental!
i had loads of Isaak MTV interviews on tape when i was younger and he was really funny, i wonder where those tapes are now.... ah nostolgia fest! hehe
*these were hard to secure you had to get your name down first and hope no-one at the store wanted it!



i got tickets!


woohoo!


i got glasto tickets! mental!


right, i'm off to buy some wellies!

i know what you're thinking...

first you hear i've got blog block then it all goes quiet for a week!

but let me assure you reader i have been battling a very dirty cold bug and you don't even wanna hear about the stuff that's been coming out of my nose! haha

at first i thought it was just a hangover from my man's very drunken birthday party last saturday, but by monday i couldn't breathe through my nose and i knew something was up.

a week later and i'm still feeling a bit germriddled but you'll be glad to hear i'm definitely on the mend - and with a lovely 3-day week ahead i'm not too worried about work this week, i'm going to Spain for the easter weekend, so maybe a bit of vitamin D will see this bug off once and for all!

i seem to have had a bad year for picking up bugs - my boyfriend thinks its stress which i suppose is possible but there's nothing you can do about it is there? and whats really annoying is people start mentioning it, oh you've had a bad year haven't you? like i've been ill every week since january 1st?! they're not even being sympathetic! they're just pointing out how weak you are! haha

illness is weakness mark*

a couple of guys in the office have now decided i'm ill because i'm a vegetarian. how convenient. every one else in the office has been ill this year but with me its cos i don't graze on cattle! rudeness! and i wouldn't mind but one of the accusers was ill himself really recently and he's a frickn carnivore - seriously, meat only! haha

as a result of my illness i've not been feeling very inspired to write but hopefully i'll feel the urge more this week coming...



*peep show reference - looking forward to series 4 on screen soon!