you may be asked to leave the cinema

i saw the new simpsons movie this weekend... it's always difficult to know what to expect with a movie that has so much expectation involved... so much time invested over the last 20 years to live up - that's a big ask!

i'm happy to report it was a gag-fest, with my boyf happily chuckling away too, so if you're a simpsons fan and you want a pleasant couple of hours it's a go-see!*

what made us laugh before the film was the number of rubbish trailers - it's almost as if Hollywood is throwing away billions of dollars of really bad movies on purpose! there's just too many bad storylines to be a coincidence... maybe Hollywood has been infiltrated by some writers trying to take it down - wow - what a great conspiracy theory - an inside job! let's make a film about it! haha

there was an infomercial just before the film started to remind us that 'FACT: Recording this movie is illegal'. Followed by 'YOU MAY: be asked to leave the cinema...'
not FACT: we'll boot you out! haha which begs the question - in what circumstances having been caught red-handed secretly filming a blockbuster in my local cinema would you NOT be asked to leave? Is there a legal loophole which says if someone has paid their £6.50 they can stay the duration regardless of pirate tendancies?! haha it's almost worth having a go to see what happens! haha

that's great british manners for you, you can be caught stealing someone else's intellectual property but we won't definately ask you to leave - we wouldn't want to cause a scene now would we?!... haha

*my fave 'joke in the background' is the zephyr that passes the concert sponsored by Duff that says 'Binge Responsibly' hehe - you gotta love it!

a triumph over adversity

Now call me a sucker, but this story about Kandu the Jack Russell brought a smile to my face!

I even emailed it as a link to about 10 friends cos there's nothing like a cute-doggie-comes-through-born-with-no-legs-drama-smilin' to pick up your day!

didn't think you were a pink person

hello world, my back still hurts! bad times!

my physio bloke Graham says it'll be about 3 months of stretching before its fully recovered!

so in the meantime i'm popping painkillers like their going out of fashion!

do you think i'll get addicted to them like chandler bing from friends did?!

to be fair probly not cos they don't appear to be working!

oww!

and i know its well boring for everyone to listen to my whining but cripes it's constantly aching and i can't get past it to think about anything else!!

on the positive side people keep complimenting me today on my new skirt which is cheering me up somewhat!

: )

i know this blog is lacking but as explained i have a lot on my mind today folks...

call me what you like

i saw a billboard advertising a(nother) new property being built in the city centre this weekend on the way to the Kylie exhibition*

it was designed in the style of a singles ad and it made me laugh out loud cos it was such an unusual use of the style/product combo...

Call Me What You Like 23,000 sq ft, stunning interior, 34,

WLTM single office occupier for long term, serious relationship

brilliant!

now i know i'm a geek and i work in advertising but i had to take a picture of it and my man made fun of me! how rude! do i poke fun when he tells me about the differences in artwork in 2000AD? haha

another bit of advertising i am LOVING since we're on the subject can be seen at www.oli.co.uk look to the right hand column and watch the TV ad - genius! women don't buy clothes they buy 'looking best dressed/you had your chance/ its a mans world yeah right' i love it! and frankly i'm glad its come along, not for the obvious daytime shopping when should be working opportunities but for the meeting i have next week where i have to present my favourite ad of the moment to a bunch of creatives! hurrah! brilliant timing on their part! (and nice collection!)

*on at Manchester Art Gallery celebrating the pop princess' career - jolly good if you love Kylie like wot me and my fella do! : )

£100 and some vouchers...

i went shopping on saturday - but not after a very sobering accounts update!

if there was a Shopaholics Anonymous I'd probably have been calling myself a recovering shopping addict for a long time now, and you know just like any other addict, i just take one day at a time and i f i can walk away from just one pair of shoes marked down in the sale its another little victory for my bank balance! haha

having realised that funds were slim before i set off was an interesting starting point, but luckily for me and my pennies the mid season sales were on! so i got a big haul on relatively little spend! hurrah! my favourite thing wasn't in the sale but was only a few pounds was a Beatles teeshirt with the names of the fab four in big bold font on front... i explained later to my friend that i feel like such a cliche loving the Beatles and being from Liverpool - but i swear - i like them despite them being from Liverpool! haha

i also bought an optimistic couple of skirts - as we know July has been the rainiest on record! haha... Roll on August and that late summer! A very lovely coat, some fancypants, a dress and a couple of tops - all in budget! hurrah!

And so begins the downsizing of my life - given i don't lead a very expensive lifestyle its quite difficult for me to cut those costs but there's nowt like an annual accounts update to make you find a few quid from somewhere!

I'll keep you posted!

don't stop me now

i heard the aforementioned queen song on the radio this morning.

and while it is forever burned into my brain as the killer tune from the hit rom-zom-com Shaun of the Dead it was a remarkably good 'morning' tune. it kind of got me into the spirit of being awake. i thought to myself 'that freddie mercury sure was an upbeat guy!' haha

my friend yesterday said his personal anthem was his new ringtone - Spanish Flea - he said everyone should have a personal anthem that they hear whenever they walk down the street - i remember an episode of Ally McBeal covered this exact topic in a very amusing manner- i'm not suggesting my friend watched it - actually he namechecked family guy as a source of personal anthem so it must be one of those things people like the idea of, but he said that he doesn't know why Spanish Flea is funny - it just is - and it makes us both smile when he gets a call - that's the sign of a good ringtone - when you just don't want to pick up! haha

hey this is interactive times my friends! add YOUR favourite tune to my comments for this blog!

employers are like boyfriends. discuss.

an old employer called me last week to ask if i wanted to go back and work for them...
and it occured to me that employers are a bit like boyfriends...

in so far as if an exboyfriend called you to get back together you couldn't help but feel smug about it! especially if when you broke up you felt they didn't appreciate you! haha

its made me think about the emotional relationships you have at work... you spend most of your time with people at work (unless you work in a solo environ ofcourse) which means you better like 'em or get out cos life's too short to hang out with fools innit?!

and yet i don't reckon 'i didn't get along with people' is probably low on the list of reasons people leave their jobs... maybe its there but only on a subconcious level... i was bullied once by my boss - back in 1999 i worked for some Italian bird on the reception at some office in the city*. the commute was harsh and sometimes i would be late because of public transport despite setting off 2 hours before work... she didn't understand and i would have panic attacks on the tube worrying about what she would say to me when i arrived late... the clincher was when i returned from my lunch break one day to find my screen saver had been changed from ' a life lived in fear is a life half lived'** to 'a life lived in fear is a life half lived - fear this - you're fired' !!

seriously! i feel sick just telling you that story - it was truly a horrible time and i would cry in the toilets to my then boyfriend at least once a week - why on earth i stayed 8 months i have no clue - well it was my first office job out of uni and i didn't realise this wasn't normal boss-behaviour! she denied doing it to the big boss who i went to in tears but we both knew she did it... i just hope she gets a cold serving of karma in this life...

i guess i learned a very valuable lesson that day! haha don't put up with rubbish bosses! for the record i like my current boss very much, probably the best boss ever! haha, he doesn't read this by the way! haha i wouldn't want him getting a big head! but NOW i know how important it is so i figured its worth mentioning... haha

i guess the ultimate is to be your own boss, then apart from a normal weekly dose of self-loathing you're bound to get on with your boss! haha 'i think i deserve a payrise' - 'why thankme!' hehe

this is getting silly now...


*i won't name her even tho her name is burned into my scarred heart!!!! haha

** a quote from a very good film called Strictly Ballroom directed by one Baz Lurhmann!

not enough hours in the day

I watched a DVD whilst laid up with my poorly back yesterday afternoon... I love watching movies me, and listening to music and reading books and going to gigs and meeting friends for cocktails and meeting new people and visiting new places... the list goes on and its a very important list cos its what makes up your life ain't it?

but oh how do i fit it all in? there ain't enough hours in the day/ days in the week/ weeks in the year! but i guess you can just keep trying...

i was sposed to be in the big London town this weekend but i ain't on account of my dicky back, Graham my new physiotherapist says i'll be okay in a week or so, so phew! but man it hurts! i think a bit of the black stuff as self medication will be happening on Saturday for sure!

i'm going to the Edinburgh fringe next month for a week of stand up comedy, then in september i'm going to Brighton for the World Beard and Moustache Championships (seriously!) and the off to Germany in October so it's all fun fun fun for me this year i tells ya, now about that bank balance... haha

i remember when it dawned on me that as a working person your life is not your own... a brutal moment let me assure you... but it drives it home that if you can find a job you enjoy you better stick to it cos you'll be spending most of your week doing it over anything else in your life (though when i graduated i did try to match work for beer hour for hour! haha, them were the days! like i said it was a brutal realisation - i had to deal with it somehow!) currently i work for a company that gives the bare legal minimum of days off - 20 days plus bank holidays... i'm looking fwd to the government upping that to 25 cos frankly i have more to do in my life than will fit into 20 days!!!

what about that road trip around the UK i always wanted to do? what about that trip to graceland on the list of things to do before i die?! what about the week trying to write a screenplay i wanted to take? what about all the stuff i wanna do?!! haha

i must be getting old if i'm feeling like i'm running out of time... haha, must be the bad back messing with my mind (or the painkillers! haha)

to be sure to be sure

my mum took me to Kinsale weekend just gone, a lovely town on the South coast of Ireland...

we went fully kitted with raincoats and stiff upper lip only to be greeted by warm sunshine for the main duration our stay!

having been brought up in Liverpool, a town so steeped in Irish culture it's locally known as the capital of Ireland, I have a fondness for all things Irish... so it's surprising I've not been more often and to more places over there, but I guess it's just what happens when somewhere is on your doorstep, you take it for granted and never get to enjoy it...

Having visited both big cities Dublin and Belfast I thought it would be nice to see somewhere smaller, more traditional, and mum found Kinsale had a good reputation and booked the tickets!

So we were pleasantly surprised by quite a cosmopolitan little town! In the beginning of Arts Week no less! haha, and to think my mum said there'd be cobbled streets and no high heels!

We saw live music Friday and Saturday night and even a couple of marching bands on Sunday afternoon, drank the creamiest pint of Guinness ever in the Tap Tavern and even hiked* the 2km to a nearby Fort!

We met some really lovely people too, everyone was so friendly, though very intrested in Gordon Brown and what we thought of him strangley... we even met a lovely couple from New Zealand, Hilary and Graham who maybe we'll go see one day down under!

Mum had such a great time she said we're going off on a little adventure every year now! haha We met some Polish dudes who were friends with a Jazz troupe we went to see called Poles Apart and they said Krakow was a good place to visit and i happen to KNOW their Bison grass Vodka tastes real good so... haha

here's to weekend adventures: may all your weekends have little surprise in them!

it will make the world a better place for a few hours at least!

*i know some of you will find this hard to believe as i am quite the citygirl, but yes, i did walk 2km - twice! with only a couple of short sit down breaks to enjoy the view! haha

Hmm, blogger title thing won't work...


i have a bad back. i think i strained it while being over-ambitious at the gym* so today after week of pretending it would go away i went to see an acupuncturist.

talk about weirdville! the nice lady put the pins in my back and the back of my knees and said don't move for 20 minutes... a stiff arm and a quick nap later she took them out again and gave me a quite surprisingly vigorous massage... then she stuck a herbal smelling patch on my back and i went back to the office £28 lighter...

now at first i couldn't feel any pain in my back - hurrah! but about an hour passed and the stiffness came back - does this mean that it is a muscular pain and will go eventually? answers on a postcard to... haha
i called my gym and they said 'we don't have anyone here qualified to advise you on your back pain' helpful! not!!! it's a good job i'm not litigious!

so i'll keep y'all posted but in the meantime please send me sympathetic thoughts!

*being overambitious is a little bit of a bad habit of mine, it leads me to be continually frustrated with myself and my abilities (or lack thereof!)

we are all tiny dancers

oh my god. i went out last night for the first time since the smoking ban and it was amazing!!!

i didn't stink when i got home! unbelievable! i didn't have sore eyes half way thru the night! welcome to the 21st century!!

the only place i've been before with a smoking ban is New York and i remember it being a stressfree night out, i'm so glad they finally brought it in over here - live entertainment is so much better without the stinky extras!

i went to see The beautiful Thrills perform an upclose and coast to coast gig at night and day cafe promoting their new album Teenager out later this month... i love The Thrills and have bought every record so far so if you haven't indulged yet, go ahead - you'll like them! They played a mix of old songs and new (though Conor nearly lost it with a guy who kept shouting 'Corey Haim' out - he said ' stop shouting it out - we'll get to it!') and seeing them in such an initmate venue was really special...

supporting them were a band who sounded like i'd heard their name before but hadn't quite filtered thru to knowing who they were yet - the Tiny Dancers. they're from Sheffield i hear, and they're quite fabulous! so much so that on the way i purchased their album Free School Milk - i recommend! they've got a a really upbeat sound!

hearing all this good music live has certainly has put a smile on my face, which is great cos tmro i go to Kinsale in Ireland with my mum for a weekend of guinness! i might have to take the Tiny Dancers with me on the old ipodus!

precipitation in july

its enough to make you wanna leave the country!

i complain about the weather far more than is healthy my friends... but what gets me down is it isn't even notoriously unpredictable British weather - it's just depressingly predictable Mancunian weather!

i also have a leak in my room - which my landlord promises me is being sorted asap now he's found the hole... i know i've mentioned it already but it's still not sorted! in the meantime i have leaky guttering that keeps me awake at night with its night time pourings and a very unattractive brown water mark on my ceiling! i'm only glad it's in the corner by the window and nowhere near my bed!

if i lived in a part of the country that didn't have quite so much rain none of this would be happening to me!!! manchester has a lot to answer for! i checked the online weather report - Brighton is warm and sunny as you'd expect... Dear Brighton, any writers needed down there? haha

july should be a warm sunny time - a time for cocktails and summer dresses - not winter coats and damp ankles! boo to Manchester weather! at least we haven't been flooded out like nearby Sheffield...

like my grandad used to say, it's good weather for ducks...

i don't wanna go to school...

don't wanna be nobody's fool/i wanna be free/ i wanna be me...

this is my recollection of Toyah lyrics...

i owned a couple of Toyah 7" singles when i was a lass and thought her crazy hairdo quite the thing in 1982... i'm guessing the year cos i was little... my mum took me to see her live at the Liverpool Royal Court and i remember being a bit scared of all the noisy youths rocking it out! haha

it irks me to know that if you were born in the 80s you missed out on all of this and worse are still in your 20s! haha i'm swift becoming the next generation, soon i will stop shopping at topshop and head for marks and spencers! no!!!!!

in 1982 i also enjoyed Adam and the Ants down the local disco 'Prince Charming' - it seems such a shame that anyone should miss out on these fabulous bits of pop culture as they happened... a retro look at anything is always rosetinted you only ever experience something properly if you live in the same moment it was created... i love The Beatles for example but i have no clue how exiting it was to hear that kind of music for the first time - that memory belongs only to the kids of the 1960s...

i'm having trouble writing another song on my guitar, after the flush of first song success i'm seriously struggling with my lyrics... probably concentrating too hard, that always ruins everything! but it only makes me respect the songwriters i love even more...

i think being unemployed is a key element to any good songwriter... that is you need lots of spare time!

best start getting in late to work... haha