How Things Make You Feel

sorry about the advertising, but I just have to say that LSS just got his new First Direct Visa Gold card and it is so cool! It is all in matt black with gold lettering and for some reason they have decided to use his rapper name, and leave his surname off the card entirely.

Mo said to me yesterday, "Do some clothes make you feel different?"

"What do you mean?" says I.

"Well, this jacket makes me feel like a mum waiting to pick up her kids at school." (It is a navy blue puffa jacket).

They have a new set of Poems on the Underground this week:

"Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar."

Cultural Pursuits

Just got back from listening to Emma Kirkby singing lots of mediaeval songs at our local church, accompanied by some Swedish bloke playing a 500-year-old lute! You can't do that in KL! It was really such civilised music, it was hard to believe it was first written and performed during a period of European history when, if you'd wanted to hear it, well, first of all, you couldn't, because only the big knobs down at the king's court were invited, and secondly, you'd have to wade through a sea of blood and ordure to get there.

I am currently making my way through series 1 of the Wire and have the serious hots for Dominic West. As somebody said on Never Mind the Buzzcocks last night - about someone else, but it was apposite - he's so goodlooking and English you just want to punch him. Well, it was a bloke who said that. A woman would want to do something else.

7 Things that I Approve of Today

Gosh it would be so much easier to come up with 7 things that bug my ass! Well, let's see:

1. The language of the King James Bible
2. Kindness
3. Gladiators (2 and 3 are mutually exclusive)
4. Condensed milk
5. The cafe at the Malaysian High Commission London
6. Anyone who makes me laugh
7. People who know when to talk and people who know when to shut the f**k up

Oh the Glamour

Went to the Old Vic tonight to be briefed for the workshop thing I volunteered for. Passed Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum on the stairs! This would have been a lot more exciting if I had actually noticed them, instead of having my head up my arse as usual. One of the other girls in our group was staring fixedly at Jeff Goldblum. She explained upstairs that she had been thinking, Gosh, that man looks familiar, and was on the verge of asking him whether he didn't work in Card Services on level 17 of our building.

Went to Box Hill last weekend for a Jane Austen experience. It was lovely. Huge slippery muddy hill to climb up followed by great toboggan-run slope back down. Very indifferent lunch at a pub in Mickleham(?). I really must get an up-to-date copy of the Which Guide to Country Pubs. This is going to be difficult as I think they have discontinued it.

Breath of Eastern Bloc Mountain Air

Slovenian Mountain Woman was with us this week, on a flying trip to get her UK driving licence. She received much ribbing for her hair, which was cut in the latest of Budapestian Eastern European Chic style, but which, in combination with her chunky lavender polo neck jumper made her look a little bit like someone lecturing about maths on the Open University at 4am in 1972. No, actually it looked very nice, and considerably less shot with grey than mine or LSS', it's just we were used to her old dynamic short HK I'm too busy to think about hair style.

Yesterday Little Sister and Longtime Fiance kindly babysat while we went to see Lust Caution at the Clapham Picture House. Really enjoyed it - it was a good old-fashioned 1940s melodrama, very much like the movies it was referencing - Intermezzo, Suspicion etc - only with lots of explicit shagging.

Hey Ho Hey Ho

Back at work - groan, groan. Went to see Nutcracker on New Year's Day at the ROH - the most Christmassy spectacle imaginable. Otherwise, back to the same old grind. I've started doing little timesheets for myself - it helps to convince me that I am actually doing some work, as otherwise I get to the end of the day and think what the hell did I do today? It also helps to force me to work as otherwise there are painful lacunae during the day, recording the periods that I spent trying to organise next summer's holiday online.

Today we are going to the Nat Gal to see the Siena exhibition before it closes.

I foolishly signed up for one of our Huge Sinister Bank Community projects - this is to help out with some Old Vic show some time this year. This is the cool thing about being in London - when you volunteer to do community theatre, it's not in some crummy village hall - it's at the Old Vic!