I'm back from Edinburgh! I went to the Fringe Festival and saw stuff! We meant to go and see plays and dance and other high-minded cultural pursuits - instead, we more or less recreated London in Scotland by going to pubs with carsmilesteve, tagging along to shows with shewho, and avoiding rain by going to the cinema. But it was still good fun! Although rather expensive, ouch, and it's quite tiring thinking "I should go and see more things! I should see some student theatre! I haven't seen Nicholas Parsons yet! Hang on, I hate Nicholas Parsons!" and walking around the streets for three hours instead.

Anyway, yes, I saw lots of comedy, by famous-ish people like Daniel Kitson, Josie Long and Reginald D. Hunter, and by slightly less famous people like elethe! I saw people being offensive or charming or plain silly, but they were all funny. The show I enjoyed most of all was called Wordwatching by Alex Horne, which was about his attempts to get new words into the dictionary, and it was incredibly geeky and silly but did actually make me cry from laughing. And I went one better than hoshuteki and managed to go and see one non-comedy show - the Soweto Gospel Choir, who were so enthusiastic that even when they sang 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' I thought "The lion's asleep, that's brilliant news!".

One of the reasons we went up was to support lovely MJ Hibbett who was performing his lovely songs in a wee cellar and generally being lovely. Anyway, he got a good turnout on his first night but only four people on the second, so if you're in Edinburgh tonight or tomorrow, go and see him! (You can also watch carsmilesteve holding a pen!) With the zeal of an evangelist I attempted to go flyering for him, but bloody hell Edinburgh streets are confusing, and while trying to find passers-by who looked like they might appreciate jokes about Steve Lamacq, I got utterly lost and miserable and managed to hand out approximately five flyers in an afternoon. BAD PERSON.

But apart from that we had larks and hung out with Ewan's granny, and while nothing I saw changed my life in any way, I have returned feeling quite cheerful and resolved to be more creative and support my friends in their endeavours, and not to take up a career in handing out London Lites or what have you. No need for that just yet, as I've just told my boss I would like to accept his job offer and stay in Indiejob FOR EVER. I hope it'll be OK!

I am posting a lot this week because I'm going to be away for a while, ordering 23 Brownies about and making them peel carrots, scrub toilets and sing 'Alice the camel' until they forget they haven't been away from their parents before. We are all going to be characters from Winnie the Pooh - can you guess which one I'm going to be? And then I'm going to Edinburgh to follow MJ Hibbett around like a groupie take in The Arts, breathe some deep breaths when confronted by five times the usual number of people on the streets, and try and persuade hoshuteki that we ought to go and see Hamlet in a bath, or similar. Briefly:

- I got offered a job I don't understand today, but people were so nice about it (including the people I imagined hated me last week) that I'll probably say yes. It is not a useful job, but I have had many useful jobs and they did not work out.

- Also today, I listened to The Lurkers and The Merton Parkas and thought they still sounded quite good. Clearly, Indiejob owns my ass.

- Tell me about G.K. Chesterton!

- hoshuteki had lunch at Claridge's and brought me back a gift of Gordon Ramsay's balls in a presentation box.

- I ate some of my potatoes and they were delicious. Lo, I am self-sufficient, for three or four days of the year.

Be seeing you!

Last night we went to see King Lear at the Globe. I'm glad I've got into the habit of going to the Globe after several years of my parents chiding me to do so, although I do have to block images of Gwyneth Paltrow prancing around the stage going "LOL I’m dressed as a boy oh excuse me your Majesty I didn't see you there". But still, hooray for the Globe – their restricted view wooden benches are perfectly fine and they sell Pimms in pints!

I hate the way that staring at a computer all day makes my brain feel as soft as if I’ve been drinking in the sun. It’s just as well that King Lear starts with the most famous scene, as at that point it might just as well have been in French for all I could pick up of the plot. Who was the Duke of Gloucester? Why is there always a Duke of Gloucester? Was that bloke meant to be in disguise or was he playing another character? Why had the most sympathetic daughter disappeared for most of the play? Leek had to explain a lot using opera plot theory (“If you make up what’s going on, you’re probably right anyway.”) Then suddenly they hit a thunderstorm, people were running around the stage half-naked and covered in blood, the king started losing grip, his friends were terrified, his daughters turned out to be nasty pieces of work and BAM it suddenly turned bleak and brilliant. It appeared to be taking place in the end times, where people think little of carrying out quite horrific violence on each other, everything is completely hopeless and only fools, madmen and people with sturdy waterproof hats can survive. There was a terrific fist fight near the end, and I quite enjoyed watching people’s reactions to the moment of gore earlier on, only to have a dreadful nightmare afterwards – serves me right. King Lear’s realisation that he was going mad and being afraid of it was really quite affecting though, and made me think of my grandpa, who is always giving everyone a hard time because he has mild dementia and can’t stand being unable to remember things or do the things he used to any more.

Anyway, I wish Ian McKellen had been in it but I still recommend it, along with the cheese and pickle sandwiches they serve at the bar. Now I shall dig out my Complete Works of Shakespeare (only 99 kroner for a book too heavy to read!) and see if I can figure out what the short bloke with the hat was meant to be doing...

Oho, I have new LJ friends! So it's time for a proper post rather than little filtered mopes. Well, it isn't actually time, there's still two hours till the end of work. Perhaps you can help me - what can you tell me about the band Dangerous Bananas? Who was in the 1981 line-up of Freeez, and how many spin-off bands did they form? On which date was 'G Beat' by Johnny G released? There, you go off and research that and I'll have a bit of extra time for typing.

I had some adventures at the weekend! I sneaked out of work early and tried to take a short cut to the bus stop, but didn't realise my mistake till I found I was in a gated community and the gate had shut behind me. "Never mind, I can climb over the fence!" I thought. But no, my captors had prepared for this eventuality by daubing the fence in anti-climb paint. I had always thought that anti-climb paint was something imaginary made up to ward off teenage ruffians, until I got a HUGE amount of oily black paint all over my hands. Fortunately, someone opened the gate to drive in at that point, so I scurried out and wiped my hands on every passing leaf and newspaper I could find until I just looked like a grimy orphan rather than a criminal. Thanks, posh people of Wandsworth! After that I ran away to sea, looked at the sea, got mugged by a seagull claiming that one third of all doughnuts sold on Brighton pier were rightfully his, and was back home in time for bed.

On Saturday we went on a Tube Walk around the nice bit of Dagenham, where I saw a lapwing, and then to demiabeille's birthday party, where we were obliged to dress as characters from computer games. Excellent results included demiabeille looking suitably sparkly, pink and fabulous as Princess Peach, and her friend Jason wearing a huge paper Pacman costume and gamely attempting to do Wiii sports in it. I dressed as Luigi and wondered why I only ever get compliments on my appearance when I'm wearing a moustache. Later, my Luigi hat found a good home with the Nintendo-obsessed child I work with - he was so happy with it that I forgave him for pouring strawberry milkshake into Regent's Canal.

Anyway, I have regained my cheer at work*, which is just as well as I'm going to see King Lear this evening and apparently it may contain scenes of people being unhappy. I have a very limited tolerance for unhappiness in art - a mere two episodes of House at the weekend made me ponder mortality so much that I had to have cake for breakfast. Oh well! It will all be fine! It's the school holidays! I'm going on holiday in Croydon with 23 Brownies next week, and I'm in charge of first aid! What can I possibly have to worry about?

(*I even managed to listen to George Lamb without exploding with rage - he played the Contortions and MJ Hibbett, neither of whom I've ever heard on the radio before! For some reason the latter had dreadful rude words like 'pillocks' and 'berk' bleeped out of his song. Blimey - Mr Too Pure just called me an indie purist! Little does he know I've been listening to Status Quo on my headphones this afternoon...</indie>)

This morning on the way to work I saw a steam train! It travelled alongside my train for a couple of minutes and we all looked through the windows at the old folks on board, tucking into their champagne and muffins (and oi, person having a crafty fag through the toilet window, we saw you too!), and they waved merrily at us. Then when I got off at Wandsworth Town there was a little group of old men at the edge of the platform all waiting to take photos of the train. It was all very sweet.

Thank you for all your folk music suggestions! I now realise that demanding "Tell me about folk!" is like saying "Tell me about pop music!" but OH WELL. I will check everything out gradually over the summer, so's not to get overwhelmed with too much new music at once. This week, however, I'm mostly listening to Whitney Houston and Stereolab. (Any chance of either at Poptimism??) hoshuteki came round yesterday to witness my miserable attempts to poach eggs, and in an effort to distract him I put on the Stereolab DVD I got from work featuring their promo videos and dalliances with Jools Holland. What a revelation it was! I'd always imagined that in their free time, Stereolab sit around discussing French philosophy and bicycles, but they were playing blow football and looking for aliens and doing little dances, and one of them even smiled at one point! We also played "Name the best albums of the 1990s according to you", which is a good game if you'd like to try it. Ewan chose the wrong Pavement album but I forgave him. </indie>

Today I am cataloguing old cassette singles and wondering if anyone gets nostalgic for them. Great things about cassette singles:
1. They had the same songs on both sides, so if you had a Walkman with auto-reverse you could listen to 'Tell me when' by The Human League on an infinite loop all the way to school!
2. My cousin once bought a Pet Shop Boys cassette single and due to a pressing error, the songs were backwards! Which sounded pretty cool.
3. They were so cheap that even the lo-fiest of lo-fi bands could release their own cassette singles, which would then get crushed in the post on their way to their three lo-fi mates.
4. There was nothing else good about cassette singles.

ION I'm having a clear-out of some drawers. Would anyone like some expired batteries, some Christmas cards from 2002, a guide to sports facilities in Newham from the same year, some hairbands with something sticky on them or a bit of metal I found in the street? Or should I go straight to eBay?

It is, of course, entirely petty of me to whinge about working all the time when:

a. I've been looking for steady work since 2002 and at last I have some and thus am the happiest I've been in six years, and

b. In the last couple of days, my assorted jobs have involved researching different lineups of The Fall, chasing flocks of crows on Hampstead Heath, and pretending to be a ship going through a big cardboard model of Tower Bridge.

But after working two weekends in a row, I really really wanted a day off, so much that I accidentally blubbed on the beautifully typewritten Beggars Banquet archive the other day (whoops! No harm done, I think). I didn't mean to wish so hard that an unfortunate child got chicken pox, but that is what happened yesterday and my wish came true! I spent the whole day at home and it was lovely! I dug around in the mud in my garden and painted flowerpots because I'm secretly a dirty great hippy, and I stole a neighbour's recycling box* only to find slugs the exact size and colour of gherkins. YEESH. And when I'd recovered from that, I got on my bike and went to investigate the London Fields Lido.



Blimey, it's great, and I don't even like swimming. There were lots of people there, but it's such a wide pool that there was still space for everyone in the slow lane to overtake me, and look how pretty it is! You could look up at the sky and the plane trees, and the poolside was very clean with lockers in jaunty colours all around the edge, and people were even sitting around sunbathing. Having not taken any exercise for at least a year, I had to leave fairly soon in search of biscuits, but I will return - it seems as good as swimming pools in Germany, and that's high praise indeed.

So I am all rejuvenated and far too cheerful for Livejournal again, and I am going to do really a lot of work any minute now! But anyway, tell me about folk music. What's good? What's to be avoided? I know about 'Liege and Lief' by Fairport Convention, but what else should I listen to?

*They had three and they don't even use any of them! We have one for four households because nobody else in my building can be arsed to order one! I have had to stop blogging about bins in Hackney because I still get very very worked up on the subject...

Everyone at werk has disappeared to watch Radiohead and I am going to go and get some free records!

Nice man in the warehouse: "To be honest with you, I don't really like Radiohead either. I saw them supporting the Sultans Of Ping once. The Sultans of Ping were better."

Also, last week a bright-eyed young band of indie hopefuls were being ushered through the office and found the production team singing 'It must have been love' by Roxette.

I think I'm better at working with children than working with indie, but it is nice here...

In a further instance of my life being very much like 1992 at the moment, last Friday I went to see My Bloody Valentine, along with most of the office and half the internet. Though I loved them intensely when I was 15 (just before my Morrissey phase), I wasn't expecting them to be much cop after having done nothing for 14 years, and skulked at the back, trading My Bloody Valentine jokes with carsmilesteve and wondering why the sound seemed a bit muffled by the big pieces of sponge in my ears... However, it was in fact GREAT and for the last 15 minutes they managed to make the sound of a plane taking off, and I shouldn't be so bloody sceptical about everything. I shall now go and read all the proper reviews of the gig on the internet, erm I mean DO SOME WORK, so in the meantime, here's a lengthy poll (sorry if some of the questions don't make much sense):

Poll #1210097 The poll of everything in my head.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

For some reason I have a Gibraltar pound coin. Can I spend it in London?

How will I know when my beetroots are ready?* Also my potatoes.

What's a good remedy for indigestion?

What's the secret of barbecueing? Specifically, is there a way not to poison your neighbours with plumes of grey smoke?

What was your favourite band when you were 15?

If you were going to do a degree now (pretend you have enough money and that coursework isn't stressful), what subject would you choose?

My local post office has closed down!

Children in pubs...

Name a wonderful disco song

NB Disco question because at the playground on Saturday, I was looking after a boy who kept putting on tapes of Odyssey, Luther Vandross and the like, and dancing and pretending to play the trumpet. It was terrific.

*Oh, I love that song - wasn't it by Whitney Houston? I had a lovely dream where the beetroots just popped out of the ground when they were ready, but in reality I think it's a bit more complex than that.

Musical highlights of the weekend:

1. Watching people jumping up and down on their own behind the DJ decks at Poptimism with enthusiasm for the songs they'd picked. I know I bang on every month about how much I love Poptimism, but the opportunity to do bad dancing to pop music with people I really like brings me a huge amount of joy, and this month's event with 15 DJs was perfect for my attention span - I was so exhausted at the end that I barely made it to the bus stop! And 'Thunderbirds are go' by Busted was scientifically proven to be the best song ever recorded, or something. My own micro-set would have been better if my CD burner had been working, but still, I got to play my second-favourite Aqua song, my second-favourite Betty Boo song and my very favourite Ant and Dec song. Not many people seemed keen on the early works of Ricky Martin, but that is because they were not foreign exchange students in the late 90s. Ah, exchange student discos! Staying out till 6 dancing to novelty Europop! My music taste has never recovered!

2. Driving through Clapton in a minibus full of teenagers with learning disabilities who were bellowing along to 'Bleeding love' by Leona Lewis, as loudly and tunelessly as they could manage.

Recently I've been admiring the creative swearing of the kids I look after. The teenagers at the playground are very fond of "fishface" as an insult, and have also discovered the joys of not quite swearing ("Shut the front door!"), while the younger kids prefer "You jackass!". The nine-year-old I look after is a keen user of the word "drat!", bless him. The Hackney yout' I worked with last year had to struggle manfully with the swearing ban at their play centre ("I can't help it!") but made noble efforts to say "What the flip?" when aggrieved. It's all very endearing. I didn't start swearing properly till I was about 25 and fell in with people from Essex (and there's still one word I can't say - even if I try, it gets stuck in my throat!). Before that I used Smash Hits exclamations ("jings!") and bad Danish words that I'd learned from the retired dockers I worked with as a care assistant. I kind of miss the more imaginative insults, so please tell me your favourites and maybe I shall start muttering them under my breath on my next commute.

Poll #1202681 Pisselort!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Please tell me your favourite insult or form of swearing

Bonus questions:

1. I have two tomato plants which I bought on the same day, have fed and watered the same amount and am keeping next to each other in the garden. Why is one as happy as Larry and the other one nearly dead? Is it a parable?

2. Is there a worse name for a band than Foot Village?

Edit - Oh, and good swearwords in foreign are also requested, please!

Inothernews I have gone mad and agreed to work every day for the rest of the month except this Saturday, so please forgive me if I miss anything important/am utterly grumpy in your presence. Oh dear!

Jersey Boys was great! I am now very well-informed about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Among other things, I have learned that 'December 1963 (Oh What A Night)' really is complete filth. There was a bit of a plot about how they escaped from a Life Of Crime (or did they?!), one very good joke and numerous rubbish ones, and they didn't sing 'The Night' because they are fools. However! It was really exciting! Largely because a lot of the plot went "And then we wrote this song and it was amazing - here it is! And straight after that we had another hit - here it is!". And somehow two bruisers, a little bloke with a spooky high voice and a man who looked like Niles Crane, standing about ten feet in front of us and belting out all these songs with barely disguised glee, was so thrilling that pink_weasel and I were quite lost for words afterwards. I thoroughly recommend it. We hope someone makes a musical based on the lives of The Shadows next.

I should go to the theatre more often! Does anyone want to come and see King Lear at the Globe with me? Apparently it's fantastically bleak! There are some dates here - the last week in June or the third week in July would be best for me. Shout today and I'll book tickets.

When I got home, the snails weren't in the flowerpots at all, just hanging out on my doormat and mooching around like teenage hoodies with nowhere to go. Perhaps I have judged them too harshly, I thought, as I accidentally stepped on one and crushed it.

Music industry insight of the day - Guided By Voices have released far too many records. Normally I would be happy enough to sit here and count them, but all I can think of is that while I'm out, the snail army in my garden are mounting an attack on my strawberry and tomato plants and I can do nothing to stop them. Yesterday I bought a lovely shiny trowel for the purposes of snail-flinging and before work I caught the enemy scouts approaching my flowerpots and dispatched them to a clump of weeds. But that was hours ago and they've probably made it back by now! As someone whose approach to gardening is to dig a hole, throw stuff in it and hope for the best, I am very excited that three strawberries are growing outside. But I'm going to lose them all to things that walk around on their stomachs! Must retire to bunker and prepare strategy...

Inothernews I have been investigating fake stuff. Kaliber fake beer = quite nice if you don't drink much of it; Sam Smith's fake Coke = highly unpleasant, much like a melted cola ice lolly; Waitrose non-alcoholic wine = deeply suspicious and I left it on the shelf. But a surprise triumph is the Quorn Scotch egg! I've missed Scotch eggs a lot in my four years of veggieness, but sevenwindmills brought some back from an expedition to the shopping centre and... they're great! They're only little, but the flavour and texture is just like the real thing - Quorn in tasty food shocker! And tonight I am going to see the fake Frankie Valli in Jersey Boys. Hoorah! (Though he'd better sing 'The Night', or I'll be cross.)

It turns out that Tuesday night is cheap night at the NFT, so we went to see Some Came Running last night and it was so good that I didn't even notice how long it was (high praise in my book). Though I identified with Shirley Maclaine a little too much, blub... It made us want to drink martinis from glasses the size of a vase and get trapped into loveless marriages straight away. Ah, the 1950s, happy times!

Everyone hates my bike!* A few weeks ago the silly man at the bike shop told me to throw it away, and now I've discovered that burglars have been through my garden twice and didn't even touch it! If I had the time to actually go cycling, I ought to try leaving it unlocked in front of shops and railway stations and see if it stays put. It's not that bad!

Ewan and I are contemplating going to the End Of The Road Festival in Dorset in September, because The Mountain Goats are playing and we'll do anything they tell us. Come with us! However, we have the FEAR as it involves actual camping and we're not very good at it. Can anyone with experience of this kind of thing give us advice on how to survive a weekend in a tent with 5000 people? Eek. (I did once go camping by myself for a week in Denmark, but my tent was so tiny that I lay awake till late worrying that the wind would pick the whole thing up and carry it off, then woke up at 5am when the sun started pouring in. On the first day I tried to make a cup of coffee on my camping stove, but gave up when it hadn't boiled after 20 minutes. Yes I am a Brownie leader, but we are special non-camping Brownies...)

In boring news, I am off the sauce for a month. So don't give me any sauce, please! This isn't going to be particularly easy, but my poor organs and emo brain need a break. Last time I attempted it I gave up in despair after two weeks of Kaliber. We'll see what happens - I promise not to bang on about it in a self-righteous manner, though I may drink aggressive amounts of caffeine and become quite shouty instead.

Also! There is a Tube Walk on Saturday! Unfortunately it is in Croxley and involves a rail replacement bus, but at least I'll be well out of the way of Eurovision spoilers for the day. Damn the semi-finals and Youtube for making it much easier to find out what the entries are like - I want Eurovision with the surprise intact! Says the person who reads Sight And Sound in order to find out the endings of films...

Anyway, I must get back to putting Yo La Tengo in my database. Oh how hard my life is...

*Except marnameow.

I'm back from ATP! I'm completely exhausted and I hate all music! For the rest of the week I intend to listen to nothing but spoken word and the humming of my fridge. And I had a brilliant time. Hooray!

( Highlights )

PS I came back to find a new shop at the end of my street called Hop, with pages of the Beano pasted up over the windows! Good Lord, my neighbourhood has gone twee!

Gosh, that being-nice-about-people meme was exhausting! Never again! But I have learned several things from it:

1. I really like people quite a lot. Even the people I don't like have aspects of greatness about them. (Not you! Other people!)

2. I have more friends than I think I have.

3. Staying up till 2.30 on a work night to try and finish a meme is a dreadful idea, as the subsequent exhaustion meant that I felt wretched about everything and sevenwindmills felt compelled to buy me chips. (Reason #105 why sevenwindmills is the best line manager ever.) Then we went back to the office and our silly colleague made us listen to 'White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)' by Duran Duran. It hasn't aged well. Perhaps unsurprisingly.

Anyway! Working every Sunday is irritating, but when said work obliges you to go to Regent's Park and Hampstead Heath, it's really very hard to complain. On Saturday, shewho and I rolled down a hill in Greenwich, and modesty does not forbid me from saying that I was considerably better at it than she was. I then came out in a rash - beware the toxic grass of Greenwich Park! And the petrified squirrels' heads! Yikes.

This week is either going to be excellent or terrifying. I shall be chaperoning mrs_leroy_brown at a Raconteurs gig where she may actually explode from squeeing at some of her favourite sideburned gentlemen, and then I'm going to ATP with some of the New Zealand kids, braisedbywolves and shewho, the latter two of whom thought it was wise to dispense with sleep for the entire weekend last time round. Still, what could possibly go wrong? Gulp. Anyway, who shall I go and see? I have been so busy studying poptimism of late that I have no idea what most of these bands sound like! Please advise...

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY land_girl!!!

( Oh go on, let me do a meme too, I've been efficient all morning... )

Edit - Dear me, this is proving way too distracting! Though it's not helping matters that I'm back in old office today and they have decided to play The Prodigy at top volume and flash disco lights around the room... I will do the rest this evening or tomorrow so do keep commenting - I'll happily big up my entire friends list if need be! (Er, as long as I actually know who you are, like.) Though I'm a little perturbed that I keep writing "My favourite memory of you is when we went to the pub!". Do I really do nothing but go to the pub?!

Bank holiday weekend! I wore my summer coat for the first time this year! And, not being used to the pockets, managed to lose both my phone and my Oyster card within the space of one day. Some day I would like to be a grown up who lives life sensibly rather than crashing from one piece of idiocy to the next, and gosh I hope it's soon.

Also, the coffee from Camden Food Company tastes like Bovril.

Edit - Hooray, my phone was sitting waiting for me at home all along! My plan to fake my own death and run away to Mexico will have to be put on hold for now...

Other people have already written of the excellence of Saturday's Tube Walk, but so shall I as it had all the markers of a classic. Surprising sights! (A sandy beach where those less cackhanded than me skipped stones across the Thames, and a tower that looked like a lighthouse in the middle of an overgrown wasteground.) Farmyard animals! (The park by Mudchute farm has sheep and cows just wandering around, with Canary Wharf in the background.) barrysarll climbing up things which weren't really meant to be climbed! And pub! There was even an extra adventure at the end where those of us left in the pub went to Island Gardens and RAN through the Greenwich foot tunnel! (Though admittedly, some of us didn't run very far.) I recommend the Isle of Dogs as a place filled with adventure and enchantment, srsly like.


Other cheering things:

- I like Indiejob again this week as I've remembered it's pretty jolly as office jobs go. Thanks to the people who gave me good advice about this - I seem to have had a little trouble adjusting to office world, and hadn't figured out that actually it's a lot like school. And that if you're working in media rather than a college or a play centre, you're not obliged to be nice to people. Anyway, all is well, and whoever would have thought that I'd be saying things like "I'll just put that on the FTP for you and then I'll export the spreadsheet"? I have no idea what that means.

- Hooray for the one good week of spring in between the cold weather and the hayfever season! Though I'm still wearing my winter coat and a scarf... London is suddenly full of impossibly attractive and well-dressed people! I drifted around Kensington on Saturday morning and felt like I was on a foreign holiday! My garden is suddenly full of bright blue flowering weeds! Each one with a tiny baby snail family underneath. Aargh.

- On the train home from work on Sunday there were about six very loud teenage girls who were having a very excitable conversation about what a hernia was. "I think I had one! When I was six, and I had to go to Middlesex Hospital! The nurse said I could have an ice lolly and then she never brought me one!" They ended up hooting with laughter for two or three stops. It was great.

- I don't like to compliment hoshuteki in public for fear of giving him a swollen head, but I think he may have become the best karaoke singer I know - and I know a lot of excellent karaoke singers. I've already told the story of how a few years ago I used to think he was a very serious young man who only liked mopey alt-country, and then I invited him to karaoke, whereupon he launched into 'The Sign' by Ace Of Base. Anyway, his ability to carry off all manner of unlikely songs ('Dragostea din tei'! 'Ignition (Remix)' by R Kelly! Er, 'Cornflake Girl' by Tori Amos!) is a joy to behold. Which is the point of karaoke, I think.
(Sorry I couldn't invite everyone to karaoke! I hate organising things! There'll be more this year though!)

- I cooked Ewan paella while making him listen to 'Paella' by Cliff Richard, where Sir Cliff explains how paella was invented and gives recipe advice ("With love he spiced it and added devotion"). He did not appreciate the song properly, so I take back everything nice I said about him. Oh look, here it is on Youtube, from the film Finders Keepers, which is my favourite Cliff film as it has absolutely no plot so he and the Shadows can just lark about in Spain and hide in baskets. Whoops, my boss just saw me looking at Cliff Richard videos and didn't tell me off. That's how important my work is...

- That's enough to be going on with, I think.

My friend pink_weasel has embarked on an exciting fruit experiment! Namely, eating fruit which isn't out of a tin and deciding whether she likes it. (I say fruit which is in a tin is ming, but that's not the issue here.) So far she has deemed pears good and strawberries not so, and because I demanded a poll, you can help her decide what to try next! (I haven't included apples, bananas and so forth for they are too obvious.) Vote vote vote!


Poll #1172588
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Which fruit should pink_weasel try next? Pick up to three!

I've run out of space. What else is a good fruit?

What is a bad fruit that pink_weasel should steer well clear of? Feel free to expand on your answer.

ION, Albert Hammond Jr out of The Strokes just tripped over my chair and apologised! Nobody in the office has ever apologised for tripping over me before! The Strokes have suddenly gone up a lot in my estimation.

My parents went to a local theatre in Surrey the other day.

Dad: We went to see Copacabana. It wasn't about Brazil at all.
Me: Was it an entire play about the Barry Manilow song?
Dad: Yes!
Mum: All the music was by Barry Manilow. That was the only recognisable melody though. But they sang with great gusto.
Dad: Lola was wearing a most extraordinary wig. The tap-dancing was...
Mum: ...loud.