Blogs and booze

Tuesday afternoon. Not much planned, so decide to head over to the Southbank for a couple of sunny drinks with work buddies, mentioning it to my mate Gary who works near there to see if he fancies it. But he has plans - he is attending the London Bloggers Summer Meet Up party.

"You blog - you should come!". So indeed I did. After hastily creating some rather crude business cards I was ready to 'network'.

It was pretty darn cool, and not only because of the free drinks generously supplied by the kind people at Stella Artois. There were a varied array of people there who blog about all sorts of things - events, travel, music...and even one guy who does rather creative things with post-it notes...

Here are some blogs of the people there:

The Londoneer * Peter * Arseniy * Julius * Lolly * Mario * Christiano * Barbara * Anthony Fresh Plastic * Andy Bargery * Willem * Chris * Sandrine * Annie Mole

A bientot!

You couldn't make(it)-up

A leading high street chemist has introduced a new range of make-up for blokes, with the launch of ‘guyliner’ and ‘manscara’. So it seems that, as long as the product name includes some kind of male-related pun, they will sell it. I have therefore come up with a range of other products they could sell:

Boysturiser
Male varnish
Blushim (instead of ‘her’, gettit?!)
Roncealer (Ron is a bloke’s name)

Err, that’s all I can think of. Feel free to suggest more and we can pitch to Dragon’s Den in the near future…

Tears before breadtime

I happened to catch the last five minutes of 'Celebrity Masterchef' the other evening. I have to say, I was utterly shocked by the extreme levels of emotion on display from the c-list cooks. Former Atomic Kitten Liz and the Liverpudlian dude from 'Holby City' literally had tears rolling down their cheeks as they were waiting to hear whether they'd made it through to the final. Thank goodness they both did (along with Andi Peters, who managed to keep the weeping in check), otherwise I think some kind of emotional massacre would have ensued.

Don't get me wrong, it's strangely reassuring that it means so much to them, but I can't help but wonder a) what kind of financial incentive is being dangled in front of their noses in order to provoke such passion and b) why the hell the Atomic Kitten was allowed to compete in the first place since she had supposedly 'never touched an oven' before the show and is therefore not a 'masterchef'. Surely by this logic I should equally be allowed on the show because I am not a celebrity?! Oh yeah, I forgot, I've been in the London Lite...

FAME AT LAST

It's been a long time coming, but I am delighted to announce that I have OFFICIALLY hit the big time. No, your eyes are not deceiving you, my aforementioned encounter with The Fonz has indeed been deemed newsworthy (ahem) enough to print in our fair capital's most respected publication, the London Lite. And you can tell it's a classy rag cos the ink don't come off on yer fingers, innit. I might as well retire now.

In awe of the opera

I saw Tosca last night - my first ever opera. It was part of the annual Opera Holland Park season, and it rocked. I mean, I was expecting it to be good, but not THAT good. I was lucky enough to have a free ticket, thanks to the ever-generous Harris family, who are heavily involved in the W11 Children's Opera. It was absolutely tipping it down during the performance, but I actually felt that the stormy conditions added to the drama and atmosphere. I wish I could give the show the review it deserves here, but since it was my first operatic experience I have nothing to compare it to. But judging by the recent write-ups in the Guardian and Independent, I appear to have done all right for my first one. Aside from the amazing performances, what really bowled me over was the quality of the portaloos. They had dado rails and moisturiser for goodness sake! I've arrived!

Message to TfL - a Northern Whine

I am considering writing a stern letter to Transport for London (TfL). As mentioned in previous ramblings, I have a tendancy to fall asleep very easily. The tube being a prime spot for a bit of shut-eye. However, unless my brain is playing ridiculous tricks on me and my ears have become immune to the dulcet tones indicating that my stop is coming up, I SWEAR the automated Northern Line woman voice which kindly reawakens me from my regular slumbers hasn't mentioned Tooting Broadway for weeks! There have consequently been a number of occasions where I have only just woken myself up in time to jump off the tube. WHY IS THIS?! Has the Tooting Broadway bit of the tape broken?! Or have the big-wigs of Colliers Wood slipped TfL some cash, hoping that more people will miss their stop and get off in Colliers Wood instead, thus making 'The Wood' appear to be more popular than it actually is?! Extremely annoying. Although I guess worse things could happen.

New nan-ism

My wonderful nan came out with another corker today. She was correcting my brother on his use of English and had obviously intended to say 'you need to get your grammar right'. However, being a very Bristolian lady, what actually came out of her mouth was 'you need to get your grammal right'. At the time I had a mouth full of nan's delicious apple crumble, and I was laughing so hard that I'm surprised it didn't start spluttering out of my nose.

In other news, I have dreamt up an exciting new web project that I am hoping to get off the ground in the very near future. All I can say for now is that I have purchased a brilliant domain. Watch this space! Literally...

Speaking from the stomach

Anyone who knows me will tell you that my tummy rules my mind. When I need food, I NEED FOOD. However, my tummy certainly does not rule my mouth, which is - I learned tonight - the basic principle behind the art of ventriloquism (which is 'belly speaker' in Latin). Tonight I was lucky enough to attend the press night of The Two And Only - a new West End show all about ventriloquism, performed by the brilliant Tony Award-winner Jay Johnson at the Arts Theatre in Soho. This dude rocks - for 90 minutes nonstop he spoke with his mouth open (about ventriloquism as an art and its history) and with his mouth shut (playing the roles of brilliant 'dummies' - many of which seem to appear from nowhere). And I never throught I'd say it - the show even brought a tear to my eye at a couple of moments. I then kind of ruined the evening by pissing off the security guard in my office because I wanted to go in and use the loo - he was not impressed. Oh dear.

Too cool for school...

...Or at least I thought The Fonz was until I saw him at the Teaching Awards today. Fonzie, aka legendary superstar actor person Henry Winkler, is apparently a spokesperson for the Dyslexia Association, hence he was there. And what a gent. After a couple of sips of wine I felt confident enough to approach, dragging my two slightly less-convinced colleagues with me, and he was happy to pose for a photograph. The most impressive thing about the rendezvous was that he REMEMBERED WHO WE WERE and even made an effort to say goodbye to us before he left. What an absolute diamond! Oh, and the awards themselves were pretty good too, thanks for the hospitality Cafe Royal!