Life as she knows it

All of a Hither

2011-04-19T23:17:00.000+01:00

Over a year ago I wrote about the delightful little corner of London that I call home - Hither Green in the borough of Lewisham. It's become one of my most-read posts, with people apparently stumbling across it when researching the area as a possible place to live (not that any of my posts are massively well-read - and none are as popular as the one I wrote about the chap who wears a pyramid on his head, but I'll save that ongoing story for another time). So I thought I'd write a bit of an update to that post to share some other cool things that are popping up in the area.

Manor House Gardens. OK, not strictly speaking Hither Green, but very very close

The main news: Hither Green now has its very own supper club! I went along to the inaugural Wattleseed supper club last weekend, and can't recommend it highly enough. The food was delicious, the hosts - Freya and Trace - were so welcoming and friendly, and it was fantastic to get to know other people in the area; plenty of local tips were shared and lots of gossip about the area was exchanged. There are two more nights lined up for May and June, and I'd urge anyone to go along if they're up for a laugh (lots of laughter, in fact) and would like to meet some fellow Hither Greeners.

Sticking to the food theme, myself and friends have taken to hitting the Hither Green streets once in a while to check out some nearby eateries. So far we've been to Spice of Life on Lee High Road, and the fantastic Villa Moura on Lee Road (yes, imaginatively-named roads in these parts).

These local jaunts have helped me to discover some great new places in the area, so earlier this month I volunteered to write a blog post for the (excellent) Londonist site, who had called out for Londoners to share ten of the best places to go and things to do in their local boroughs. I quickly volunteered for Lewisham, and very much enjoyed writing about my ten favourite places which I have discovered in the two and a half years that I've lived here.

What many people rightly pointed out to me once the article went live is that there's a lot more to Lewisham than, errr, Lewisham, Lee and Hither Green. Indeed, had someone from, say, Brockley, written the piece instead and had focused on ten places in their locality I, too, would have jumped in and passionately defended my local hotspots. But what's great about the article is that there are now loads of other suggestions for places in the borough to eat, drink and be merry in the article itself and in the comments, so I think - despite my obvious bias to my immediate vicinity, it all worked out OK in the end.

I like it here.

Collecting: sussed

2011-01-10T23:42:00.000Z

Just before Christmas work was crazy. Then on one busy day I received an e-mail that was so unexpected that it pierced through the craziness like a laser and filled me with absolute joy.

The e-mail was from a Spanish gentleman and, in endearing broken English, he politely asked whether I might be kind enough to send him a pen. But not any old pen - it had to be a Guardian-branded pen. You see, this chap collects pens, but *only* if the pen is branded with some kind of publishing-related logo. You can check out his dedication for yourself on his meticulously-organised website, where he displays photos of every pen he possesses by country.

I dutifully popped a pen in the post, and forgot about it until this very day, when he e-mailed me to let me know that my pen had been received, logged, categorised, photographed and uploaded to his ever-growing 'Inglaterra' category. I felt strangely proud, and his pen-aticism got me thinking about the notion of 'collecting', and what drives people to do it.

I've never been much of a collector. The only time I can recall ever collecting anything was a couple of hundred or so badges, but that was only so I could get my collectors' badge at Brownies. I detest clutter, get a weird sense of satisfaction whenever I throw something away and I offload my unnecessary yet usable possessions to enthusiastic recipients on Freecycle as often as I can.

However, on the other HAND, I must confess a strange urge which I have so far kept at bay: to keep a log of all the hand dryers I have ever used in my life, and to create the definitive list of ALL hand dryers. You see, collecting actual hand dryers would be a bit OTT, and indeed HOTT. But over the years it has always astounded me how SO MANY brands and makes of hand dryers are out there (this Flickr group is great). So many, in fact, that I often wish that I had started to jot down the makes and models in some kind of book when the seed was first planted in my strange, warped mind. But I didn't, and now it's too late to start, surely?

Flickr image - Amy Watts

I realise this is a bit of a niche area to TAP into, but I think - when it comes to collections - the more specific the better. That's why I admire our pen-collecting friend, because it has to be a certain TYPE of pen.

If you do a Google search for 'weird collections' a lot of eerie stuff comes up, most notably the dude who has collected all of his belly button fluff and stored it in jars, by decade. But there are also some pretty neat (and by this I mean both cool AND organised) collections out there.

Isn't it just wonderful how the world seems to balance itself out in terms of those of us who hate clutter, and those of us who thrive on it, and that Freecycle allows us all to co-exist in perfect harmony....

If you're still reading, I applaud you. How about you? Do you collect anything weird, or do you know anyone that does?

Two thousand and then what?

2011-01-03T00:14:00.000Z

So that was the year that was. It ended very pleasantly indeed, with a wholesome trip to the countryside. May I heartily recommend paying a visit to Home Farm Slot Car Circuit if you're ever in or around Liphook in Hampshire. This was the most fun I've had in ages - and the perfect "sporting" pastime for a competitive soul such as myself who doesn't necessarily excel at physical activities. This is demonstrated by the fact that I came second in the individual stakes, and The Dunlop Duo came first out of the three sibling-based teams. We even got medals. Go there!

And onto the 'end of the year' bit...

Last year I discovered The Mayfly Project for the first time, which encourages people to sum up the last twelve months in a mere 24 words. So, without getting too soppy or melancholy, here are my 24 words for 2010:

Secret bathroom. Two sides of the States. Change, promotion. Splitness To The Beard, drumming down. Nice drinks and dinners. Bitter? Nah. Twitter? Too much.

Soft, strong and WRONG

2010-12-14T22:34:00.000Z

Time is turning me into a right cynical so-and-so. Case in point: I saw a news article today about the new Andrex toilet roll ad campaign, which has a CGI puppy in it instead of the real thing. My instant reaction was "oh, they're blatantly hoping that some poor sod with nothing better to do will instigate a Facebook 'bring back the real puppy' campaign in order to drum up more publicity". And, even though this may indeed be true, the fact that it entered my head before anything else makes me feel a bit sad.

Sadness aside, perhaps I'll create a 'YEAH I TOTES LOVE THE NEW CGI ANDREX PUPPY, THOUGH PERSONALLY I PREFER CHARMIN BOG ROLL' Facebook group just to prove that us consumers aren't that easily manipulated...

...Oh my God, it's worse than I thought, Andrex have actually created a Facebook page themselves. Check out the comments. And look how many fans it's got. WE ARE DOOMED (and here's a page that someone else has created).

OK, cynicism is in this case justified. Sigh.

Page against the machine

2010-11-25T23:23:00.000Z

I had a really eye-opening moment in London Bridge train station yesterday and it's been playing on my mind ever since.

As I was weaving through the crowds between the underground and the overground stations, I spotted an advert for an iPad. It's an advert which I've seen countless times before, but for some reason last night, I stopped and thought about what I was looking at for the first time.

The advert depicts someone turning a page of an eBook on an iPad. You can see the edge of the 'page' being turned in the bottom right hand corner with a swipe of a finger, a bit like this:

Flickr photo: Mike Baird

And suddenly it dawned on me: at some point, in the future, people won't turn real, paper pages anymore. OK, so this may be hundreds of years in the future, rather than in the next few decades, but ultimately pages, as we know them, will no longer exist. And this makes me sad.

On the train on the way home I looked at the passengers around me. Every single person in my immediate vicinity was preoccupied with something they were holding. Out of ten people, seven were reading newspapers or books, one was watching a video on his iPhone, another was browsing the web on his smartphone and another was reading an Amazon Kindle. How long before the technology is more prominent than physical, paper-based content? Indeed, you could almost argue that my unscientific sample is unrepresentative, and that technology is already overtaking paper.

For future generations, the act of swiping a screen with a finger is going to be more familiar than turning a real page, and there will come a time when children won't have ever touched a book or a newspaper or a magazine. Or perhaps, one day, they won't even have touched any kind of paper at all. The concept of physical pages will be totally and utterly alien to them. How terrifying is this??

They'll go round to their grandparents' houses, and giggle at the massive, dusty objects on the bookshelves, and roll their eyes at how crap the 'olden days' were when everyone had to lug around textbooks and get their fingers covered in newsprint. Parents will have to explain to their guffawing offspring that the concept of a bookmark on web browsers was named after strips of card or leather, which you actually had to PUT BETWEEN PAPER PAGES TO REMEMBER WHERE YOU WERE IN A BOOK. LOL.

But what will happen to all the books? What will happen to the libraries? Will charity shops be inundated with books when more and more people begin to replace their collections with one tiny gadget? I don't mean to lament technology, I simply find it absolutely mind-boggling - yet fascinating - how this digital revolution is happening all around us. Funnily enough, the advert which brought it home for me was what you would call a 'poster' ad, yet it was on a digital display, rather than a paper poster. This only reiterates my ultimate question: when will pages cease to exist?

On the upside, good news for trees.

Matthew Herbert: newsical genius

2010-11-21T12:54:00.001Z

Every so often something happens which makes me pinch myself, and wonder how the hell I got to where I am today. Last night was one of those occasions, as I went to one of the best musical performances I've ever seen as a result of my job.

A couple of months ago composer Matthew Herbert approached the Guardian as he wanted to create a concert inspired by a single copy of the Guardian. We agreed....as we're kinda cool like that....and the results were performed last night at the Royal Festival Hall by the London Sinfonietta as part of the London Jazz Festival.

My my, it was an absolute hoot. As the audience arrived to take their seats, we were all handed copies of the Guardian from Saturday 25 September 2010, which was the edition he had used to draw inspiration from. As the performance got underway with a piece based around the sounds of the Guardian printing presses, we were told which sections of the paper had influenced which compositions.

What lay at every audience member's feet at the end of the night

When I initially heard about the project I had presumed that he would be using some of the big news stories to provoke his pieces, but instead he tended to focus on little random stories in the various sections, which made it even more quirky.

One piece was prompted by a small, wry article in the business section about a forthcoming auction for a Lehman Brothers sign. Herbert had bid for the item online hoping that the Sinfonietta's percussionest would then be able to 'play' the sign as part of the performance, but this hope was dashed when it sold for a whopping £23,000! Instead, a piece of music was created around the sound of the auction itself which Herbert had recorded, with the audience being instructed by the conductor to rub two credit cards together at certain points. A fantastic composition critiquing money and consumerism was the result.

Another section of the concert was based around the paper's various articles and features about food. There was even a chef on the stage cooking the recipes which had appeared in the Weekend mag that day, with the smells wafting across the audience throughout the entire evening. As a foley artist created the sounds of mould growing (to match a video being shown which had been mentioned in the paper, of-course), we were told to make paper aeroplanes out of the recipe pages to represent food airmiles. The sight of hundreds of paper aeroplanes whizzing around the RFH was magical.

The most poignant piece was prompted by a poem which had been printed in the Review section about a dying mother. Herbert set the poem to music, which was sung by Eska. It was simply beautiful.

Less beautiful, but more fun, was a composition based solely on footage from a football match that took place that day - Oxford United v Crewe Alexandra to be precise. Herbert cleverly selected a section in the match which contained very little football and lots of schoolboy altercations, with the orchestra providing the sound effects for every shove, whistle and bounce of the ball.

Wow, I could go on and on about this but I'm aware I've already written too much. Other highlights included a cover version of a Status Quo song, volunteers rhythmically building a house on stage with bricks to reflect the property articles (during which the audience jangled their house keys) and a pianist whose birthday was mentioned in the paper that day playing the intro to one of the songs. We were also encouraged to try and complete the cryptic crossword during the course of the evening, with the first to do so winning a bottle of wine.

However, I think my favourite piece in terms of the actual music was one based around a recording of an interview between Ed Pilkington and Jonathan Frantzen (the resulting feature appeared in the paper on the 25 September). Herbert spliced and remixed their conversation live on stage while the orchestra 'played' copies of Frantzen's latest book, which he was promoting in the interview. It sounded bloody awesome and deliciously trippy.

The climax of the concert was a mass audience participation piece, where each section of the audience had to use their copy of the Guardian to make various sounds, through rolling it up and tapping, ripping the pages or even blowing through it. Very enjoyable, though it meant that the venue looked like absolute carnage afterwards, with torn up Guardians cluttering every aisle.

I cannot express enough how much I enjoyed the entire concert - it was performed with such humour and intelligence, even including when the performers bowed at the very end to reveal Rupert Murdoch's face adorning the top of everyone's heads. But I'll let you all make your own minds up about what Herbert was trying to imply with this...

The extra hour that never was

2010-10-31T23:09:00.000Z

Twice a year I am baffled by the sheer volume of intelligent people who are totally and utterly fazed by the clocks changing. In the UK, the vast majority of the population have coped with this time-related quirk twice a year for their entire lives, so you'd think we'd all be used to it by now.

However, people appear to be becoming increasingly undone by the ritual of putting the clocks back or forward by an hour. I blame one thing for this proliferation of confusion: technology.

Ten years ago we would have traipsed around our abodes, obediently winding each clock backwards or manually altering our mobile phones before bedtime. Nowadays, mobile phones and clocks - even the ticking variety - cleverly adjust themselves overnight. That's all well and good, but the trouble with this automatic update is that when we wake up the next morning, we have no real clue as to whether the clocks actually *have* adjusted themselves, since we no longer possess the useful recollection of having done it ourselves. This invariably results in people tweeting or updating their Facebook status with the ludicrous - yet necessary - question 'WHAT IS THE TIME?'.

Now I'm a bit of a traditionalist, and have an old-fashioned style watch that I have to wind back myself, which I diligently did last night before bed. However, come 1am I was still awake, and I noticed that my iPhone hadn't altered the time, so I put the clock back an hour myself. I should have realised when various apps started having hissy fits that something wasn't right, but I was too sleepy to care.

So this morning I wake up with the headache from hell. Check iPhone - not even 7am yet. Bliss, I can sleep for another 2 hours at least. WRONG! Turns out my iPhone did indeed adjust itself automatically at some random point in the middle of the night, so the extra hour I thought I had didn't actually exist, as confirmed by a glance at my watch which I *knew* was correct as I had changed it myself. To say I wasn't happy would be an understatement; I felt like time and technology had cheated me out of the extra hour that everyone else in the country was somehow savouring in another dimension. Of-course that's a load of crap, but it was extremely frustrating.

I really don't know how this problem can be solved. Unfortunately, as technology develops and becomes more sophisticated, this issue can only be confounded. Someone I follow on Twitter sensibly suggested that devices should have some kind of polite pop-up message when the clock has changed. Sounds like a good solution to me, although does that carry with it the risk of someone changing all of our timepieces to some kind of ridiculous o'clock as a cruel joke / to bring down the economy???? OK, I'm thinking about this too much now. Time for bed. Or is it....?

Live life the Hollo-way

2010-10-23T13:14:00.002+01:00

My hero is Ian Holloway. Ex-Bristol Rovers player/manager who is now enjoying Premiership manager success up at Blackpool. It couldn't happen to a nicer club (Blackpool fans are awesome), or a nicer man.

I used to live down the road from 'Ollie' as a teenager, and whenever I saw him walking his dog he always said hello. These were the days when I was ever-so-slightly obsessed with football, in particular Bristol Rovers. At the time, Holloway was our player/manager. There aren't enough player/managers these days. I always think that a manager bringing himself on as a sub must be a bit of a blow for the player being replaced.

Anyway, I was reminded of my respect for the man this week because of this video in which he rants about the ridiculous Wayne Rooney situation:

Everything about this video I adore: the passion behind his words, his increasing rage, his turns of phrase ("SORT YER LIFE OUT!"), his self-deprecation, how he appears to scratch his arse at the 3 minute point, his fabulous Bristolian accent (which hasn't softened at all over the years), his cheesy joke at the end of the BBC video linked to above, and his cheeky grin. What. A. Fella.

However, the one thing I don't necessarily agree with is what he's actually saying. Now I'm not going to pretend to be some kind of expert on the Bosman ruling and football transfers, and I completely agree that the fact a footballer can threaten to leave a club, then be rewarded with a massive salary hike in order to get him to stay is ludicrous and shameful. But the way Holloway describes Rooney as an entity - like a car or a house - is pretty depressing.

*cue over-simplified argument*

If anyone else wants to change jobs and join another company, then they are perfectly within their rights to do so. But footballers are bought and sold like commodities, and are treated like possessions, not individuals. Holloway's rant is perfectly valid within the system that currently exists, but basically I believe the entire football transfer system is wrong (I told you this was going to be an over-simplified argument).

Do I have any sensible solutions for how this system can change? No, of-course I bloody don't. Do I think that Rooney honestly wanted to leave Manchester United? No, of-course I bloody don't; he (or, more likely, his agent) wanted more money, and it's worked out very nicely indeed for both of them. You could also argue that this entire situation hasn't done any harm to Ferguson's reputation either, but I'm going to leave that particular conspiracy theory dangling mid-air...(though check out the labels I've tagged this post with).

But, yes. Ian Holloway. True legend, and a top bloke.

A tale of two tunnels

2010-10-20T23:27:00.001+01:00

One of the things that fascinates me most about London is its tunnels. I've previously written about my adventures in Tunnel 228 and the Kingsway Tram Tunnel, and I'm pleased to report that the last few weeks have provided me with two more opportunities to explore the city's secret labyrinths.

First up was a tour of the abandoned Aldwych tube station on the Strand. You may have heard about this as it got a lot of news coverage when the tour opened, and I felt lucky to get my hands on a pair of highly sought-after tickets from the London Transport Museum, which organised the event.

Aldwych station closed in 1994, but during the London Blitz 70 years ago, thousands of Londoners sheltered there to escape the bombings from the German Luftwaffe. The aim of these particular tours was to give visitors an idea of what it was like to take refuge in a tube tunnel while the bombs rained down from the skies.

Walking down the emergency staircase to reach the platform (the lifts no longer work, obviously) genuinely gave me goosebumps as I imagined what it must have been like back in 1940, leaving your home and possessions behind and spending the night with hundreds of strangers. But sadly I wasn't overly impressed with the tour; there simply wasn't enough information given to us about the history of the tube station itself, and it relied too much on special effects and the cockney role-playing enthusiasm of a few actors.

Don't get me wrong, the tour was impeccably organised and it was entertaining - especially for the kids who were there with their parents - but I wasn't looking for theatrics, I was thirsty for information. It was great that there was an old tube train that we could explore, but surely if they wanted to give us a true indication of what sheltering in the tunnel was like during the Blitz then there shouldn't have been a train on the tracks or fancy lighting and sound effects? I simply wanted to be shown around and told about what people had to go through, but instead I learned more from health and safety talk which was given in the ticket hall before the formal tour began.

I was still glad that I got the opportunity to explore Aldwych station, but I'm not convinced it was worth £8.50.

My second tunnel adventure took place last weekend at the Old Vic Tunnels underneath Waterloo station. Indeed, these are the same tunnels that were used by Punchdrunk for their Tunnel 228 project I went to last year. This time the exhibition was called Hell's Half Acre, and consisted of a series of installation artworks by various artists, inspired by Dante's Inferno and curated by the Lazarides Gallery.

I must say I was utterly blown away by this exhibition. As usual, I couldn't tell you what it all meant, and having never read 'Inferno' I couldn't place the works within any kind of context whatsoever, but I can honestly say that around every corner there was an installation that made me gasp, coo with awe or grimace with a strange sense of admiring unease.

Humans in cling-film cocoons, a ball of pigeons, magnified maggots, a hypnotic perpetually-changing projection reflected in a pool of water, random etchings on layered plates of glass that formed a perfect image if you stood in the right place....I could go on.

Unfortunately the exhibition - which was free though you had to pre-book - is finished now, but I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for more Lazarides / Old Vic Tunnels projects.

Speaking of keeping an eye out for things, I must give a shout out to the IanVisits blog, as this is without doubt the best source of information for tunnel-related events in London.

All conked out

2010-10-03T11:15:00.007+01:00

So autumn is well and truly upon us, and nothing could have demonstrated this more acutely than what I got up to yesterday: I played conkers. But not for fun, no. I took part in a proper conkers tournament in a drizzly beer garden upon a mushy carpet of fallen leaves and twigs. I'm not sure you can get more autumnal than that.

Despite going on conker collecting sprees as a child (I recall my entrepreneurial brother planting them in pots and selling them to his friends - to be fair, one such conker is now an impressive tree in my Grampy's garden), I can't remember having played conkers before. However, the prospect of going to a pub in Dulwich, drinking hot chocolate, raising cash for charity and potentially winning a trophy wasn't too hard for me to resist.

The tournament in question is called D.I.C.K; a childishly amusing acronym which stands for the Dulwich International Conkers Knockout. It turns out that conkers is an extremely fun game to play, and to watch, especially when it's a simple knockout process. Sadly the knockout nature of the competition meant that my professional conkering career was extremely short-lived. It's fair to say that my hand-eye coordination isn't the best in the world (with the odd exception of drumming) so I wasn't holding out much hope for victory, despite my ever-present conkpetitive spirit. So it was no surprise when I got knocked out in the first round. Though, to be fair, my opponent was a previous 'conkerer' from a couple of years ago, and his aim and power were undeniably good.

The rules for the tournament were nice and simple; each player has three attempts at striking their opponent's conker, and they each take it in turns. If both conkers are still on the string after four minutes of this it goes to sudden death, where each conkpetitor has nine attempts to simply make contact with - and not necessarily destroy - their challenger's conker as many times as possible. Whoever makes the most contacts wins, so it's about accuracy rather than power. The one exception to these simple rules is the 'snag clause', which was apparently introduced for the first time last year. This basically means that if you 'snag' your conker with your rival's (i.e. your conker gets all tangled up with theirs when you're attempting to hit it) three times in one match, you're out.

People were knocked out of the tournament in all manner of fashions; mine was a traditional exit in that my conker was swiftly destroyed as a result of my opponent's brilliance (he's laughing because I was so rubbish); other people were disqualified via the snag clause; others accidentally destroyed their own conkers by making an unfortunate contact with their adversary's target. One chap even appeared to conkpromise his horse chestnut's durability by wearing a shinpad on his forearm; a good way to protect your limb from bruising as a result of the speedy follow-though action, but it undoubtedly weakened his conker since it was constantly being buffeted by the hard protective surface.

The trophy for the winner was impressive:

I will most definitely be going back next year for another chance to claim it as my own. Let's be honest, though, that's never going to happen.

Scrapblogging: USA holiday

2010-08-01T12:15:00.000+01:00

As I bit into the gigantic whoopie pie, the sweet, creamy frosting oozing out between the two slabs of rich chocolate cake, I finally accepted that, yes, I was on holiday in the United States of America. The United Cakes of America, more like. And if you can't scoff whoopie pies on holiday, when can you? Unless you live in the States, of course, and presumably you eat nothing else but whoopie pie given that it is probably the yummiest foodstuff ever to grace the face of the earth.

To clarify, I recently returned from a fabulous fortnight in the USA, where I spent a week in the state of Massachusetts, and another week in Ohio. This was no ordinary holiday, as I was accompanying a friend of mine as she embarked on a fact-finding mission about her incredible and dramatic family tree (but that's her story to tell). As a result of this adventure we didn't stay in hotels, but instead resided in two extremely welcoming all-American households, both connected to my friend's family history.

Although we were close to Boston during the first week, and not too far from the city of Cleveland in the second (I'll write a bit about Cleveland in a separate post), we were keen to explore as many non-touristy areas as possible...and to see whether our accents would cause any kind of stir in smalltown America (spoiler: they didn't).

The Charles River in Boston

Sure, we did some normal sightseeing stuff like the Boston Duck Tour, Plymouth Rock, MIT & Harvard, a trip to Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the city's fantastic Museum of Art, but for the most part we explored the suburbs, hunted out independent diners and rummaged in secret shops. Since the pastime of scrapbooking is so popular in the USA, I thought I'd create a virtual version here as a memento of my favourite places that I visited. So here are some recommendations of places to go and things to see if you ever happen to find yourself in MA or OH:

The best bagels in the world? Nomably

Cape Cod Bagel Company, Falmouth, MA
Where I acquired the whoopie pie referred to above. However, as the name suggests, their main area of expertise is in the realm of bagels. They freshly bake every kind of bagel imaginable, and it's a great local spot for brekkie or lunch. No website but here are the details.

Kimball Farm

Kimball Farm, MA
Back in 1939 the Kimball farming family had a lightbulb moment and decided to turn their woodshed into an ice cream parlour. Over the years word spread about Kimball's until they eventually stopped farming altogether to focus on the ice cream. It turned out to be a good decision, and today you could quite easily spend a whole day at Kimball Farm playing crazy golf, pitching and putting, shopping in their cute country store and filling your bellies at the seafood shack. But a visit wouldn't be complete without sampling the ice cream. A word of warning: the portions are HUGE. A 'small' tub consisted of three massive scoops and, much like everything in the States, the 'kiddies' size was more than sufficient.

Outside Tiny's

Tiny's Restaurant, Ayer, MA
Tiny's is perfect and embodied everything that I wanted to experience on this trip. It's a roadside restaurant which is well off the beaten track tourist-wise but really well known in the community. I inhaled a delicious bowl of clam chowder followed by a tasty lobster roll. You can't get more Massachusetts than that.

Goodwill, Shaker Square, OH
A very stylish colleague of mine asked me upon my return to work whether I'd managed to shop in a Goodwill store, and unbelievably (and quite accidentally) I had! We stumbled across this gem of a place in Shaker Square; a lovely area of Cleveland packed with cafes, galleries and a gorgeous cinema. Goodwill's is basically a charity shop, but on a much larger scale. They sell an endless array of things, including some high-end clothing labels if you're prepared to rummage (which we very most certainly were); my friend bought three things for a mere $12, and I picked up a top for $2.

Tommy's in Coventry

Tommy's Restaurant, Coventry, OH
Coventry is a quirky "village" just outside Cleveland, which is where all the hippies used to hang out back in the 60s and 70s (and we should know since we were staying with two of them!). Coventry is very proud of its liberal heritage, as demonstrated by the psychedelic street signs and street benches depicting various peace/love-related symbols. The heart and soul of Coventry is Tommy's, a permanently-packed restaurant which arguably serves the best milkshakes in the world. Their chocolate peanut butter malt blew my mind despite the fact that I'm not even that keen on peanut butter. Seriously, it has to be tried to be believed.

Munching corn at Taste of Tremont

Taste of Tremont street festival, OH
We were lucky enough to be in the environs of Cleveland to coincide with the annual Taste of Tremont festival. Tremont is an arty little neighbourhood renowned for its restaurants, and every year in July all of the local eateries set up stalls on the streets and sell their delicious nosh at knock-down prices. It was loads of fun. I ate too much. I also shopped in a great Tremont boutique called Banyan Tree.

How 'diner' can you get?

Silver Spartan Diner, University Circle, Cleveland, OH
This was probably the most 'dinery' of diners we found on our travels. Located in Cleveland's university and cultural district, Silver Spartan is so retro and American that it's almost a parody of itself (check out this video for evidence). The food was classic diner fare but sadly we didn't get to sample the shakes, which are meant to be pretty good (though surely not as good as Tommy's).

A decent job's worth waiting (and working) for

2010-07-09T15:29:00.003+01:00

"70 GRADUATE APPLICANTS FOR EVERY JOB" screamed the headlines this week. "The only way to get a job is through unpaid work" bemoaned one recent graduate, who is currently working for free in PR. But not everyone is lucky enough to be able to live rent-free for months on end whilst getting a foot in the door (the ethics of whether businesses should 'employ' someone on no salary is another issue altogether, which has been debated in great depth this week due to one particularly cheeky internship advert). I'm afraid that I completely disagree with the assertion that working for free is the ONLY way for graduates to end up with a decent job. What about good, old-fashioned perseverance, patience and determination?

The sad truth is that there just aren't enough graduate jobs out there for everyone to land their ideal position straight away. But what is a 'graduate' job? The Association of Graduate Recruiters survey, which has led to the '70 applicants for every job' furore, "is based on responses provided by 199 AGR members in May 2010." These members include big companies like Cadbury, Marks & Spencer, JP Morgan and Vodafone, so presumably the survey is only talking about graduate 'schemes', rather than job vacancies as a whole. The competition for such schemes has always been fierce, and the evidence is there that it is now even more difficult to snare such a coveted and relatively well-paid position straight out of uni, but what about all the other jobs out there?

This is my experience. I graduated at 21 with a 2:1 degree in journalism. I'd considered doing a post-graduate journalism qualification but the bottom line was that I couldn't afford it, so I ruled that out. I happily moved down to Hampshire that summer to be with my then-boyfriend. I knew no one, I had no job and had no idea where life would take me. It was exciting, but within a few days that excitement turned to fear when our letting agents started pressuring me to get a job once we'd signed the lease on our little house. Of course, they were right; I needed to be able to pay the rent, after all. So I started job hunting.

This was 2003, and even then finding a job was a lot harder than I thought it would be. But I got myself a full-time admin position in a sales office. Not the most interesting job in the world and certainly not well-paid, but I earned just about enough and I used my holiday allowance to do a couple of work experience stints at local radio stations. The fact that it was a six-month maternity cover contract gave me something to aim for and plenty of time to look around for other opportunities.

That opportunity arose at a local newspaper, which was advertising a receptionist vacancy. Again, a maternity cover role, so I went for the job with the naive notion that perhaps I could get into journalism that way instead. To an extent the plan worked; I was interviewed for a trainee reporter role after a few months on reception, but the editor (correctly) sensed that I wasn't cut out for the death knock, and although I did some freelance bits and bobs (I got to interview NOEL from HEARSAY!!!), I quickly cottoned on to the fact that a career in journalism wasn't for me. Gah - what now?

PR seemed like the natural next step, so over the next three years I worked in two further education colleges doing in-house PR thanks to the contacts I had made at the local newspaper. Then life changed a bit and London beckoned. And after 18-months doing more in-house education PR for a small organisation in the West End, I found myself at the Guardian, doing a job I'm good at within an industry that fascinates me and for my favourite newspaper.

Who knows, maybe I was just lucky. I certainly consider myself fortunate now to be doing a job I love and without major financial worries. But getting here wasn't easy; nothing was ever handed to me on a plate and I never got a job because I 'knew someone' who could help me get a foot in the door. But I also know that I wouldn't have the job I've got today without a degree, and without giving up my holiday allowance in the early days to get some unpaid experience to pad out my CV. So although my degree may not have provided me with opportunities straight away, ultimately my three years at uni paid off.

I rarely write such personal / preachy blog posts, and I don't want to underplay how difficult it is for anyone - not just graduates - to find a job in the current climate, but my annoyance is summed up neatly by the aforementioned PR intern, who justifies her decision to work for nothing as follows:

"I've signed up for lots of websites and recruitment agencies, but there's nothing that fits what I want to do – just administrative jobs and call centres."

I'm sorry, but get real! It goes without saying that my experience is entirely irrelevant to many students who are looking for a different kind of job, but my advice to media / creative graduates would be to think about your career in the long-term. Don't expect to get your dream role instantly, or to even find any kind of job in your industry of choice, as it took me six years to get to where I am today, and without my so-called "administrative jobs" I may well be still clinging to dreams of a career that ultimately I wasn't suited to.

Life is tough in all respects, and one's professional life is no exception, but plug away, work hard and stay positive because - quite a lot of the time, and in my experience - things tend to fall into place in the end.

Snap happy

2010-07-07T22:52:00.001+01:00

A couple of weeks ago I tweeted about the fact that I was on the lookout for a new camera, and asked if anyone had any advice. I was overwhelmed by the response, and as a direct result I am now the proud owner of a dinky Canon Ixus 100 IS. I'm going on holiday to the USA on Saturday and this tiny piece of kit will be great to take around with me on my travels.

However, I also got a lot of recommendations for what could only be described as more 'serious' cameras, with Tom from Computeractive and Rich from Best Buy UK giving me some handy tips, so when I get back to the UK I reckon I'll be tempted to invest in a more substantial camera.

Rich from Best Buy UK also provided me with the perfect opportunity to test out my new camera by offering me tickets to an exclusive Ellie Goulding gig at the indigO2 this week. Now I'm so out of touch with 'modern' music that I'd never heard any of her tracks before, but she was a great performer and it was a fun evening. I'm by no means a natural photographer, but here are some of the shots I snapped at the gig...

The tracks of my beards

2010-06-05T18:38:00.002+01:00

So the long-awaited East London Line is now officially up and running, meaning that the trendy streets of east London are now much more accessible to us SE London residents. Hmmm, why does this not excite me very much? Oh yeah, because in and around places like 'Hoxton' and 'Shoreditch' I stick out like a sore, unfashionable thumb. Everyone's just so bloody stylish and hip. And tall. How *do* they fit into those jeans?

So when I discovered that Kev - the guitarist in my band Witness To The Beard - had booked us in to a recording studio just off Brick Lane for a day I was excited that I now had a genuine reason to hop on a shiny ELL train for my short journey north. The train was indeed very shiny, and I loved the fact that you can see from one end of the train to the other because of the lack of divisions between the carriages. I arrived at Shoreditch High Station in no time.

The studio we'd booked was the Soup Studio on Hanbury Street, which is underneath the Duke of Uke shop. We'd booked the studio out for the whole day for a bargainous £150, which included a sound engineer. The engineer in question was a lovely chap called Giles, and he was an absolute star. Between the three of us in the band we had very little recording experience, and Giles put us all at ease straight away, and was very patient when we cocked up. He was also extremely diplomatic with his comments and advice, when he could have simply said 'nah, that sounded crap'.

We recorded our tracks live for the most part, with Giles doing a few clever tweaks and edits before the final mix. We somehow managed to record nine tracks in one day and you can listen to the results here if you're of a rough-and-ready rock disposition (to hear how it's done properly you can listen to Giles's band Tiger Cats here, which was recorded in the same studio).

It was such a fun day, and I'm really chuffed that I've now got something to show from 'the days when I was vaguely cool and in a band'. I'd massively recommend Soup Studio to anyone looking for somewhere affordable to record some tracks; they do analogue and digital recording and are really flexible and helpful. It's not the biggest studio in the world, but for us it was perfect. Oh, and I am now the proud owner of a ukulele which I purchased from the shop upstairs. I have named it 'Uku-Hayley'...

Cache me if you can

2010-05-31T22:44:00.003+01:00

I discovered something new today: GEOCACHING. The official blurb says:

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online.

In even simpler terms, geeks around the globe have stashed little boxes (perhaps tupperware, perhaps a tiny film container) all over the world, and there's a nifty iPhone app giving you clues to their locations. You find the box, you add your name to the list of paper within it, you tick it off on your app, then move on to the next one.

Oh my God, it's addictive, especially for a shameless dweeb like me who loves mysteries and scrambling around in the great outdoors. We only found two today around Richmond Park (and I have the nettle stings to prove it), but I am now determined to find more.

I've always loved a good treasure hunt.

*cue Dunlop anecdote*

My favourite treasure hunt memory takes me back to when I was maybe 10 or 11. Us Dunlops were partaking in a treasure hunt organised as a social event by my dad's work colleagues. It was a car-based treasure hunt and the clues were quite tricky, but we were a competitive bunch and we thought we'd done pretty well. The final challenge was to draw a logo which was on the side of a building that we had been directed to.

"I think we should colour it in, Dad," either me or my little brother said from the back seat of the car, excited that we'd solved the final clue.

"No, no, no," Dad insisted, "It'll be fine as it is."

When the results were read out at the subsequent barbecue that evening we were delighted to discover that we had come joint first. "Sadly we only have one prize," said the judge, "so we've had to decide a final winner according to the accuracy of their responses.....and because they coloured in their logo we are awarding the prize to....." Well, it wasn't us, obviously.

"Daaaaad!" we exclaimed.

I am aware that I've been taking the mick out of my dear Dad rather a lot on this blog recently. But, for the record, he's a bloody top bloke :)

The hole shebang

2010-05-29T21:05:00.003+01:00

Ok, here's an amusing anecdote from the Dunlop archive at the end of a very long week....

As we wandered through the dark Spanish residential streets on our way to the local restaurant, we spotted a conspicuous-looking black patch in the middle of the pavement. Taking a closer look, we realised that it was in fact a hazardous hole, about a foot square in size and a couple of feet or so deep.

"Well, that's rather dangerous," my dad said, shaking his head. "Someone could step into that and hurt themselves, there are no warning signs up or anything."

Indeed, indeed, murmured my mum and I, as we continued our eatery-bound amble. Following dinner, we deliberately walked on the other side of the road in order to avoid 'the hole'. "We'll just have to remember it's there," I said, putting it to the back of my mind.

The following day, as I read a book on the roof terrace, my dad decided to go out on one of his 'walks' (what is it with dads and their 'walks' when on holiday??). As he put on his baseball cap, fastened the Velcro straps on his sandals and strolled purposefully away from the villa whilst clutching his map, my mum jokingly shouted "don't forget that hole!"

*90 minutes or so later*

My sunshine-induced snooze was rudely interrupted by a never-ending surge of my mum's distinctive laughter, quickly followed by equally uncontrollable cackling from my dad. Now, we're quite a giggly family, but this was a whole new level of hysteria. So I descended from my sun trap to see what all the fuss was about.

Like a kid who'd fallen over in the playground, my dad had blood trickling down his knee. "What happened to your knee, Dad?" I asked, genuinely concerned. "Take one guess," said my mum, in between the fits of chortling. I looked at her laughter tear-stained face, then to my dad's rather bashful expression, and it all slotted into place.

"YOU FELL IN THE HOLE!"

Hysteria ensued for the next 5 minutes or so, until my dad could sufficiently collect himself to tell the story.

"There's not much to say, really, except one second I was walking along, and the next my leg disappeared from beneath me and I was knee deep in the pavement!"

The funniest thing about the situation was that it was probably the only hole on the face of the entire planet that he had known to be in existence. He had known precisely where it was and had even commented on its threat to pedestrians. Yet he STILL fell in it. He STILL put his foot in precisely the wrong spot on the pavement. "If I had put my foot anywhere else at that moment it wouldn't have gone in the hole," he spluttered between chuckles. "But it was the exact size of my foot, and in it went."

Classic.

Run a-mock

2010-05-16T00:06:00.000+01:00

I don't quite know how it's happened, but I appear to have signed up to do a charity run in July with work. Yes, me, volunteering to run a distance which is longer than that between the Northern line and platform 4 at London Bridge station; a stretch I regularly find myself sprinting along for dear life.

To be fair, it's not a marathon distance or anything near it - a "mere" 5.6km through Battersea Park - but I have never done anything like this in my life. Yeah, I know I could walk it if I wanted to, but that would be a bit of a cop out in my opinion. I have no idea what kind of time to aim for, but having crowdsourced a rough estimate I've decided to go for sub 45 minutes. So let the training commence! Maybe I should ask Eddie Izzard for some tips...apparently Calippos might do the trick?

Gastronoweek

2010-04-11T16:56:00.001+01:00

Food rocks, doesn't it? I love eating and trying new things but, that said, I'd never describe myself as a 'foodie', mainly because I'm not big on cooking. It's not that I can't cook, it's just that there are other things I would rather be doing than spending my time slaving away in the kitchen, especially when you're cooking for one (get the violins out!). Basically, I'm lazy.

However, my attitude towards grub may be about to change after the week I've just had, during which fantastic food was the common thread which tied it all together in one big, tasty, blogworthy package.

First up on Tuesday night was one of the best events I've ever been to. The wonderful people over at Qype* organised a secret supper club, where a bunch of forty or so lucky Qypers got to meet the legendary Jim Haynes from that After Eight advert (yes, he's real, and every word he says is true!).

Jim has been hosting epic dinner parties at his Paris apartment for decades and reckons that, all in all, he's had around 130,000 round to his place for dinner. Now that's a lot of washing up! Meeting Jim was brilliant; he was a total charmer and he kissed my hand like a proper gent, but what was possibly even more special about the evening was the stuff we got to put in our bellies.

You see, this was no ordinary evening. To celebrate the presence of the undisputed King of supper clubs, it appropriately took place at the wonderful underground restaurant Fernandez & Leluu. And when I say restaurant, what I actually mean is this lovely couple's living room! Unlike Jim's decades of experience, Simon (Fernandez) and Uyen (Leluu) have only been hosting their supper club in their Hackney abode since last autumn, yet their culinary skills and hospitality has so far generated high praise indeed and now I can't wait to go along to one of their regular sit-down dinners.

I won't even try and describe the brilliance of the food because I'm not a food blogger and I could never do it justice. But I will say that it was all exquisite, including a platter of starters (with the yummiest prawn cocktail dip I've ever tasted), the most tender slices of beef carpaccio, and a sinful pot of posh bread and butter pudding made with criossants. The food is described in delicious detail at Feast on Scraps with some wonderful images on the LondonEater blog. The cocktails were shaken and stirred to boozy perfection, and are summarised with applaudable precision over at Billy's Booze Blog. There are some more great write-ups at One Million Gold Stars, Domestic Sluttery and, of-course, Qype. Yes the bloggers really were out in force at this one! High praise indeed must be given to the clever After Eight PR people, Sian and all the others at Qype, Simon and Uyen and, of-course, Sir Jim, for putting on such a wonderful evening of food, hospitality and good company. And, to top off my Qype love, they even made me Qyper of the Week - chuffed!

My week of gastrono-joy was completed yesterday, when I slipped into a summery dress and headed to the swanky Sanderson hotel for a girly afternoon with a crazy twist; a Mad Hatter's Afternoon Tea! Although the hotel resembles a concrete lump from the outside, inside it's sleek and stylish and we were seated in the hotel's pretty courtyard garden. I'd never 'done' afternoon tea in my life, so had no idea what to expect, but when the waiter brought out our individual vintage cake stands stacked with multicoloured sandwiches, scones, cakes and lollipops, I couldn't help but squeal with childish joy.

There was no requirement for an 'eat me' label, as I tucked in straight away. The sandwiches were delicate, yet packed with flavour. The scones were light and seductively crumbly (although sadly we missed out on the clotted cream as they'd temporarily run out, and the butter substitute was too firm for the delicate scones). The cakes were really exciting to eat, with pink foam oozing from the 'Queen of Hearts' teacake, and crackle crystals making us giggle on the chocolate and raspberry cupcake. We finished our sugar fest with, errr, more sugar, this time in the form of a pineapple candy (it claimed to turn your mouth from hot to cold but I didn't experience this) and, finally, a chocolate a peppermint lolly which burst in your mouth (some great photos here). All this, with an unlimited supply of tea, for twenty quid!

The hotel had only intended to run the Mad Hatter's Afternoon Tea for a month or so to capitalise on the hype surrounding Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland film, but the popularity of it (it was full when we left) means that it is remaining a permanent fixture at the Sanderson. In which case, I can definitely see myself going back.

*If you've never heard of Qype I'd urge you to check it out. Not only does the site give you access to squillions of user-generated (and very well written) reviews so you can see what other people think of local restaurants, bars and shops, but they also organise loads of cool events for regular reviewers to go along to. So it's like a review website and a social network all rolled into one.

Blue moon

2010-04-10T23:21:00.002+01:00

Strolling with a cheerful purpose up Tottenham Court Road I was slowed by a trio of boisterous, err, chavs, for want of a better word. The vocal threesome were laughing loudly - and obviously - at the girl in front of them, deeming her legs to be 'too large' for her jeggings. As I overtook them I cast them a derogatory glance for their cruelty. At the same time, I selfishly felt relieved that at least I wasn't wearing anything vaguely controversial that they could use to make fun of me. Then I remembered. Yes, I remembered that for the first time I had been brave enough to wear my rather garish bright blue tights today. Five seconds after I overtook them the inevitable happened, and they started a tuneful rendition of 'Blue Moon'. I had to laugh.

Narrative displeasure: Cracks and Creeks

2010-04-05T16:39:00.002+01:00

I've been extremely busy with work this Easter weekend with one thing and another. This meant that I missed the first Matt Smith / Steven Moffat episode of Doctor Who at its (rather early?) 6.20pm slot on Saturday night, although I did manage to catch it on iPlayer later that evening.

First things first: I thought Smith was excellent as the Doctor. I also thought Karen Gillan did a good job as his assistant, and I felt the opening scenes of him with the young Amelia were really well done. Although the giant eyeball-cum-spaceship looked a bit flimsy, I felt the overall production values of the show had been turned up a notch. I loved the stop motion scene when we were seeing the village green through the Doctor's eyes shot by shot; it almost felt like I was watching a film in the cinema rather that a Saturday night show on the BBC. Yes, the theme music is different and seems to be missing a rather key note in the eerie whistle-y melody whilst also featuring a big brass band. However, this isn't really a big deal in the great scheme of things, and I was more upset when the Neighbours theme tune changed from keyboard to saxophone.

I've written previously about how I've really enjoyed Moffat's episodes in past series. I think Moffat's real strengths lie in creating tension, creepy narrative hooks ("don't blink" or, on Saturday, "the corner of your eye"), strong female characters and absorbing stand-alone stories. My fear is whether he'll be able to offer us engrossing ongoing storylines (like Russell T Davies' 'Bad Wolf' mystery), scary aliens (his most successful episodes have featured creepy 'things' rather than gooey monsters) and, most importantly, the long-term characterisation of the Doctor himself (don't forget that Moffat's most heralded episode - Blink - barely even featured David Tennant, and was driven by the one-off character of Sally Sparrow, played by the now Bafta-winning actress, Carey Mulligan).

Although I think Saturday's episode got off to a great start with a strong story, I think the story could have been told a lot better. The concept was brilliantly creepy; a little girl has a crack in her bedroom wall, through which a shape-shifting prisoner from another world has escaped and has been hiding in a secret room in her house for over a decade. This part of the story was told really well. But then the second spooky aspect - the fact that this escaped alien prisoner can take the form of human beings by latching on to, and becoming a visual representation of, their dreams - was lost in all of the running around in the second half of the episode. Coma patients are the best victims for this because they are permanently asleep, but it was only when the alien targeted Amy's unconscious after she collapsed in the hospital ward - and significantly changed into the young Amelia with the 'raggedy Doctor' because that's what she dreams about - that this part of the story really became clear (to me, at least).

So, in my opinion, the episode was by no means perfect, but overall a fantastic start to a new era of Dr Who, and I can't wait to see what Moffat comes up with next.

And now I move from a good story which could have been told better, to a rubbish story which was told even more terribly than the story itself. Yes, that's right, it's time for me to ramble once more about THE SHITNESS OF JONATHAN CREEK.

Paul McGann, who was the eighth Doctor and also starred in the Easter special of Jonathan Creek. What a link!

I don't know why I bother these days. The one-off special in January 2009 pushed the boundaries of the ridiculous too far, but this year's episode didn't even bother with the boundaries in the first place. Call me a 21st century media consumer with no attention span whatsoever, but are we really meant to remember who Sheridan Smith's character is and how she knows Creek after she made her debut over a year ago in a one-off episode? Is Creek *really* the kind of man to chat up a bird at a bus stop and take her home for some spur-of-the-moment hanky panky? HOW DID THEY ESCAPE FROM THE BASEMENT?

I'm sorry to those who have no idea what I'm banging on about, but these are just a few of my gripes. The strengths of Jonathan Creek in its glory days were always the writing and Creek's gentle, self-deprecating humour. Now, it seems that the writers are grasping at straws trying to throw in a few illusion-related mysteries for the sake of it, with a bunch of dislikable characters who all roam around their country mansions whilst plotting ridiculously-complicated crimes that the audience has no chance of guessing whatsoever. Then, when Creek figures it all out - HE LETS THEM GET AWAY WITH IT! No narrative closure and a pointless waste of time for all involved. A bit like this blog post, then.

Chris Gay-ling-gate: A brief thought

2010-04-05T15:04:00.001+01:00

Some interesting debates going on today about the Chris Grayling B&B story. As reported in The Observer yesterday, the shadow Home Secretary was secretly recorded saying he believed that people who run B&Bs should have the right to turn away homosexual couples. The fact is that it's against the law for ANY business to discriminate. If the Tories want this law to change then they should come out (for want of a better phrase) publicly and say so. But Cameron has stayed very quiet since the recording was made public. What that means I don't know, but the issue has definitely touched a nerve with absolutely everyone, one way or the other, so the Conservative Party should make their stance official.

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

A Dodgy moment

2010-03-28T18:24:00.003+01:00

The summer of 1996 was a good one. At the height of my interest in football, England hosted the European Championships, and the country was alive with the vibe of Cool Britannia. I seem to remember it was a particularly sunny summer and, despite a random ankle injury I had to hobble around with (I liked to compare my injury with that sustained by Jamie Redknapp in Euro 96) it was one of the happiest summers of my youth.

It was also quite a notable year for me in terms of my musical tastes, as this was the summer that I abandoned boyband pop in favour of indie rock, most notably in the form of Ash and Dodgy. Indeed, you could even argue that Dodgy's gloriously-titled 1996 album 'Free Peace Sweet' was what sparked my interest in puns.

In the decade and a half since that summer I've been to tons of Ash gigs. But I've only ever seen Dodgy play once, at Shepherd's Bush Empire a couple of years ago, and I was gutted that I had to miss them play the Avalon stage at last year's Glastonbury.

So imagine my joy a few weeks ago when a lovely little e-mail landed in my inbox from the rather awesome website Songkick, telling me that Dodgy were playing at my LOCAL PUB at the end of the month! This nifty site allows you to 'track' bands you're interested in and alert you when they announce gigs, no matter how big or small. I don't know too much about how Songkick works - Illandancient will be able to tell you more - but I think it's updated by the fans and bands themselves, so you get to hear about gigs that wouldn't necessarily be flagged up on the bigger music websites.

I promptly purchased tickets, and last night I wandered down the road to relive the soundtrack to that magical summer. It turned out to be a more meaningful evening than I had envisaged. We arrived at about 8.30pm and the venue - Dirty South - was pretty buzzing. There were eight bands performing, and we had no idea what time Dodgy (or - more accurately - Nigel Clark and Andy Miller) would be playing.

My friend and I were quite happy chatting and drinking the night away, but at 11pm I was starting to get a bit concerned that we'd somehow managed to miss Dodgy's set, and perhaps they'd already performed without playing any of their well-known hits. At 11.30pm we wandered over to the stage area and watched the VERY cool band Little Imp. They had a pretty big following and played a great rocky set, and I'd definitely like to see them again. Dodgy were up next. Weirdly the crowd thinned, and at one stage I was seriously concerned that it would just be the two of us watching them, but as they started playing 'In a Room' the area got a busier again.

The set was great - they played lots of old stuff, but with the absence of a drummer their songs took on a more melancholy tone. As they played the opening chords of one of my favourite Dodgy tracks - 'If You're Thinking Of Me' - and I looked around the room at the audience of 40 or so fans (all grinning ear-to-ear), it struck me that the summer of 1996 really was a lifetime ago.

It was a strange moment for me - and I'm sure all the wine helped - but I suddenly realised that my youth is well and truly over, and for a split second I felt uncharacteristically overwhelmed. I know that may sound strange coming from a 28-year-old, as factually speaking my youth has probably been officially over for the best part of a decade, but so much has changed. There's now a complete lack of political optimism which - even as a 14-year-old - I was aware of in the run up to the 1997 election. Summers never seem so sunny anymore. And now Nigel and Andy from Dodgy are now just two chaps with guitars who are still happy to play a set in Lewisham at 1am (which became 2am what with the clocks going forward) on a Saturday night. And although I'm very glad they did, it did made me sad that it isn't 1996 anymore.

Drink before you speak

2010-03-17T23:21:00.003Z

USA, JULY 2003, DUNLOP FAMILY HOLIDAY

Location: Burger King, Manhattan, NYC

Dad: "Hello, I'd like an Orange Fanta, please."

American BK employee: "An orange WHAT?!"

Dad, pronouncing words very carefully, highlighting English accent even more so long queue of impatient New Yorkers behind him becomes silent: "Umm, an ORANGE FANTA...?"

BK: "WHAT????!!"

Dad, very self-consciously: "Ok, a, ummm, 'fizzy' orange? Orange 'pop'? Orange-coloured lemonade?"

BK: "WHAT YOU TALKING ABOUT??!!"

Random New Yorker in queue behind Dad: "I think he means an orange soda."

Dad: "Um, yes. An 'orange' 'soda' please."

ONE WEEK LATER

Location: Dunkin' Donuts, Boston (yep, us Dunlops go to some classy establishments!)

Dad: "I'd like a hot chocolate, please."

American DD employee: "What?"

Dad, now fully confident in his ability to explain every single drink in plain English following NYC Burger King humiliation: "It's a hot milk-based drink, flavoured with chocolate!"

DD: "Yeah, I know what a hot chocolate is, I asked 'what size?' "

Dad, bowing head in English shame: "Large, please."

Running a marathon Izz-ard? Not for our Eddie

2010-03-13T23:23:00.000Z

Last autumn I had the privilege to meet Eddie Izzard at the Labour Party Conference. I normally get really shy around celebrities, but I got chatting to his assistant at a party and plucked up the courage to ask her for an introduction. I didn't speak to him for long as I was a bit starstruck, plus he had squillions of other people clamouring all over him, but I did manage to give him a big handshake to congratulate him on managing to run a mind-blowing 43 marathons in just 51 days to raise money for Sport Relief that summer.

He was extremely modest about his accomplishment, but having now watched two episodes of Marathon Man, which documents Eddie's mammoth challenge, I must admit I am completely blown away by his stamina, grit and determination. I'm by no means an athlete so I can't speak from experience (although I did manage a TWELVE MINUTE run recently), but from those crazy individuals I know who have run marathons, the last thing they'd want to do is to run another one the day after that, and the day after, and the day after. And so on.

But Eddie manages to keep going. And the weird thing is, that he NEVER seems to be out of breath. After my 12-minute run I was (shamefully) gasping and could barely speak, yet Eddie seems to finish each of his marathons with no panting and can quite easily manage a conversation, seemingly without any need for recovery time. Fair enough if you're a professional athlete, but the whole premise of this challenge is that Eddie had never run more than 5 miles before.

It seems to me that, although Eddie is certainly not a natural athlete, he appears to possess a sort of super-human natural fitness that some professional sports competitors could only fantasise about. In the most recent episode (2 of 3), Eddie's support crew got a bit concerned about his diet as he didn't seem to be eating the right sort of food for the amount of calories he was burning off. A dietitian was drafted in, who convinced Eddie to consume a mountain of potatoes each night. But this regime only lasted one day before he was back on the ice creams, Calippos, coffee, pints and vodka shots along the way.

The programme is really inspiring, and I think my favourite parts of the documentary are when local people run or cycle alongside Eddie to encourage him to keep going. In Merseyside two young lads cycled the furthest they'd ever been, and one of the boys described it as the best day of his life (the crew called their mums to get their permission, then responsibly bought them cycle helmets and high visibility vests, which got my seal of approval. I trust they gave them a lift back home, too....).

If you haven't watched the programme I'd really urge you to do so. The first two episodes are on iPlayer, David Tennant is the narrator, and the final one is broadcast this Thursday at 10.30pm on BBC3 (bad scheduling in my opinion). Oh, and you can donate to Sport Relief here.

Image from Sport Relief.

In a non-league of their own

2010-02-21T15:35:00.002Z

The woman sat in front of me trained her digital SLR camera on the number 10 player. Every few seconds she would take a shot, hoping to capture him doing some fancy footballing move. It's a shame she didn't happen to take a photo of (presumably) her son dramatically diving following a legitimate tackle from an opposing player, prompting the ref to mistakenly show a second yellow card to the Tooting & Mitcham tackler. When her boy was substituted shortly afterwards the home crowd booed and hollered. Unsurprisingly his mum didn't take a photo of this moment either. But she was obviously still proud of her son as she resolutely applauded, and this was nice to behold.

Dramatic skies over Imperial Fields (good old iPhone)

It was a freezing cold day yesterday, but that didn't stop me from going along to watch Tooting & Mitcham United versus Sutton United at T&M's smart little ground, Imperial Fields. The two teams play in the Ryman Football League Premier Division. I went to the match with legendary Two Footed Tackle podcasters Gary Andrews and Chris Nee, Gary's friend Rob and a chap off Twitter who turned out to be a fellow Gashead! It was a tenner to get in, which I thought was a little steep until I realised we had access to a stand with seats, and very nice seats they were too.

It was an enjoyable match for a neutral such as myself, although I was perhaps slightly biased towards Tooting since I used to live there. The quality of the football (and refereeing) certainly wasn't the best I've seen, and there were a number of amusing moments, including the strangest corner I've ever witnessed (I'm sure the odd move probably worked in training). Tooting went 1-0 up in the first half, undeservedly in my humble view, but Sutton pulled one back after the break. Tooting did well to hold on playing with only 10 men in the second half, and overall I think the draw was a fair result.

One of the things I like most about going to football matches - especially the lower league ones - is the characters on the terraces. It took me quite a way into the second half to realise that the home and away fans behind each goal had swapped ends during half time to cheer on their teams from behind the appropriate goal mouths. There were quite a lot of Sutton fans mingled in with us in the stand with us as well, something you simply don't see in the football league.

One Sutton fan in front of me was a very vocal gentleman, who seemed preoccupied with hollering at Tooting's manager rather than focusing on the actual football. At one point someone (who I later discovered to be Tooting's captain who wasn't playing yesterday) turned around and shouted to him "you should be locked up in a cage!" Another Sutton fan sat behind us was probably the least knowledgeable football fan ever, but still insisted on imparting his incredibly biased take on the game at every given opportunity, and VERY LOUDLY.

After the match I travelled on the London Tramlink for the first time. This, combined with a Bovril AND a hot chocolate at the ground, nearly pushed me over the edge with excitement (you think I jest, but just ask Gary).

Try hard with a cringe-ance

2010-02-20T00:03:00.005Z

I'm no stranger to embarrassment. In fact, so many embarrassing things have happened to me that I think I'm almost immune to the familiar feeling of self-conscious shame. My blush-inducing repertoire goes right back to my childhood, but one of my most cringeworthy public shamings was in my awkward teenage years.

Every year my secondary school would have a PE awards ceremony, with an entire double period dedicated to recognising the sporting achievements of each year group. The fastest sprinters, the highest jumpers and the top goal scorers were all presented with shiny statuettes which they proudly paraded at school for the rest of the day and took home that evening where it undoubtedly took pride of place on the family mantelpiece for the next 12 months.

But there was one award that nobody wanted. The Effort Award. I can see what my school was trying to do with this particular accolade; to recognise the consistent endeavours of a pupil who tried hard, in order to send out the message to everyone else that winning isn't everything:

"Look, kids! You can still be a winner even if you don't cross the finish line first! All you have to do in life is try your hardest!!!"

It goes without saying that, sadly, the award definitely did not carry with it this well-meaning sentiment. The 'winner' of this award was labelled a clumsy loser, who - despite unashamedly trying hard - was basically rubbish at sport.

I think you know where this story is going but I shall persist with my tale, as my trying spirit is obviously still intact.

I remember the day vividly. Year 9. I was 14. Walking to the school hall with my gaggle of girly friends, sniggering about who was going to be the unlucky beneficiary of the Effort Award this year. Feeling a bit excited because this year the Year 10s were in the same ceremony and we'd be able to nose at how the older girls had done their hair and try and catch the eyes of the older boys.

The Effort Award was always the last award to be presented. The teachers seemed to somehow think it was a special award that deserved a big build up. For some reason as the moment approached I got a sick feeling in my stomach, as if I knew what was to come. You see, I really enjoyed PE. I was a competitive soul in team and individual activities, and no matter how much I hated running long distances I always had a sprint finish in me. But I never came first, always second or third, much to my annoyance.

My PE teacher started to explain why this yet-to-be-named Year 9 had been selected for this year's honour. The word 'she' prompted all the Year 9 boys to breathe a sigh of relief. I could feel the tension building and, gradually, as the kind words continued to be spoken people slowly turned to look at me. They knew. I sodding knew.

"And this year, I am delighted to announce that the PE Effort Award goes to HAYLEY DUNLOP!"

Oh. My God. Please swallow me now, I pleaded with the ground. I somehow made my way up on to the stage (yes, a blimin' STAGE!), grabbed the statuette from the hands of my beaming PE teacher and ran back to my seat as quickly as possible. I had never been so embarrassed and I had never been so red in the face. AND ALL IN FRONT OF THE YEAR 10s!

When I got home that night the trophy didn't go on the mantelpiece because I was too ashamed of it. It stayed in the cupboard in the study for the next year until I had to take it back into school ready for the next unlucky recipient.

But, looking back, I now realise that I should have been proud of winning that award. I can't remember specifically what the teacher said before she announced my name because the noise of the blood rushing to my face seemed to drown lots of it out, but I can remember that she said that the winner was a team player with a strong competitive spirit. In hindsight I think my teacher felt I deserved to win something because of the, well, effort I put into everything. I won that award for all the right reasons, but I couldn't see that at the time. I'm not sure many 14-year-olds could. But now I feel I should finally embrace my Effort Accolade, so thank you, Teacher, for that award. The embarrassment gave me a realistic taste of what life would throw at me and helped to thicken my skin. And thank goodness for thick skin.

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

The Brizzle Language School

2010-02-16T23:40:00.002Z

via beast-clothing.com

This is funny too (it makes I laaff)..

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

Ark at ee!!

2010-02-16T23:36:00.002Z

via beast-clothing.com

I've been in Bristol the last few days and today I stumbled across this legendary clothing stall in St Nicholas Market in the city centre. To someone who's never been to Bristol before the catchphrases emblazoned on the clothing probably mean absolutely nothing, but to me - who grew up in Bristol - I can't get enough of them. Hover over some of the images to hear some classic Bristolian phrases. I loves it, I do.

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

This is not the Facebook login page either

2010-02-11T23:21:00.002Z

Today was supposed to be really fun. I was meant to be taking part in a TV show called 'Restaurant in our Living Room' where me and some friends were going to be dinner guests in a celebrity's home (we didn't ever find out who). But I've had such a busy week at work that when the call came through from the producers yesterday to presumably offer us our dining places I was in a meeting. And I didn't leave my voicemail on. So the opportunity sadly passed us by.

Despite this letdown, a couple of things have made me laugh A LOT today.

Firstly, this:

Top tip: It's annoying when you have to pay for condiments when you go to the chippy or eat out. I carry a pencil case stuffed with sachets of sauce, salt, pepper and vinegar, so I'm never without my extras.

This kind of behaviour definitely isn't normal, right?! I mean, surely the whole point of a takeaway is that you take it home, where hopefully you have a nice array of condiments in your kitchen cupboard. And personally I can't remember the last time I ate in a restaurant where they charged me extra for a dollop of Ketchup. But also, where on earth can you actually buy these small sachets? Unless you happen to regularly visit the cash and carry, I think they're probably quite difficult to get hold of. In which case, this 'top tip' is advocating theft!

Or so I thought until this very evening, as I was ascending the escalator at Leicester Square tube station. You see, as I was moving upwards, a dapper-looking gentleman was travelling in the opposite direction on the corresponding escalator. As he passed one of these 'stand on the right' ridges between the two escalators I noticed he picked something up that had been resting on the side of the sign that had been facing him. A sachet of tomato sauce! He looked at his new possession, nodded at it approvingly and placed it in his coat pocket with a very satisfied look on his face. As I passed this ridge I looked back, and lo and behold there was also a barbecue sauce tub resting there as well! So obviously *that's* how you acquire these mini saucy treats. Vigilance, people, vigilance!

Despite the TV show disappointment I met up with my friends who I had been due to go on the show with for a lovely dinner anyway. Then I got home to discover this. Now I don't normally write about online / social media stuff as there are loads of other bloggers who do this much better than me, but I must say that this is one of the funniest things I've seen online for a while. Basically the well-known tech blog ReadWriteWeb posted a news item about Facebook, and the post's headline happened to include the words 'Facebook' and 'login'. Now, it turns out that lots of less tech-savvy Facebook users sign in to the site by Googling 'Facebook Login' and clicking on a search result. So when this blog post came up as a result, a fair few number of people clicked on it thinking that they were on the new-look Facebook page.

When trying to work out how to sign in to the new red-themed design, the only place they could find to enter their details was at the foot of the article to leave a comment using their Facebook profile. It's well worth reading this comment thread to witness the sheer confusion of some people who can't understand the 'new Facebook'. Here are just some of the comments (some of which are probably jokes):

Ok If I have to I will comment,I love facebook so right now just want to log in if thats ok with you..lol Keep up the good work...

I WANT THE OLD FAFEBOOK BACK THIS SHIT IS WACK!!!!!

All I want to do is log in, this sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

OK can I long in now

I am going to delete my account (IF I CAN EVER LOG IN) as this SUCKS BIG TIME ! If this does not get back to NORMAL you are going to lose a lot of folks who hate this and as you can see from all the comments they think it sucks too !!! facebook was great for connecting with old friends ...now, NOT SO MUCH. SO HOW DO I LOG IN ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

The people at RWW cottoned on to what was going on, and posted a helpful paragraph in the middle of the article to point out that "this site is not Facebook".

I know it's easy to say "oh my God some people are so stupid' but the truth is that there must be so many web users who only use the internet for Facebook and other similar sites. So if they'd heard rumours about the new design from their Facebook friends then tried to access the login page in the usual way via Google then you can sort of understand their confusion. But still extremely funny for us lot.

Sauce photo from Dan (aka firrs)'s Flickr Photostream.

Jackpot

2010-02-06T20:59:00.003Z

E-mail from the National Lottery: "We have some exciting news about the ticket that you bought for the Friday 05 February draw. Please click here and and enter your username and password to view the details online now."

I hovered my finger over the word 'here' on my shiny new iPhone. But suddenly I stopped myself from tapping the tempting hyperlink. I was on a train. What if I'd won the ACTUAL £113 million Euromillions jackpot?? I simply wouldn't be able to contain my hysteria if I'd won squillions of quid. So I didn't tap the hyperlink. I put my iPhone away and got lost in my thoughts for the remainder of the journey.

I could pay off my mortgage, I thought to myself. I could pay for all of my cousins to go through university. I could buy my parents the country home of their dreams, and a funky pad in London so they could come and hang out with me whenever they wanted. I could BUY BRISTOL ROVERS!! I could give loads away to charity. I could buy a loft apartment in New York and a place big enough in London to house a drum kit. And a recording studio! I could get Teletext up and running again for my Grampy, even if it was only in his home. I could give life-changing amounts of money to all of my family and closest friends.

I walked home from the train station a little faster than normal, my keys poised in my hands a long time before I got to my front door. Switched on laptop. Logged into Lottery account.

"Congratulations - you've won £19.50!"

And you know what? I felt strangely relieved.

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

Crazy golf update

2010-01-30T22:27:00.000Z

I went on a wander after my guitar lesson in Hither Green today to seek out the crazy golf place. I can confirm that it is open, and it's situated on the Meridian South complex near to the Tesco Metro.

Here it is in all its glory:

18 holes! It's £5 for adults and £3 for kids, and from what I remember it's open from 1pm - 9pm on weekdays, and 11am - 9pm on weekends.

Please do correct me if I'm wrong!

Come hither

2010-01-28T23:18:00.001Z

Call me oversensitive, but after spotting a couple of negative tweets about Hither Green recently I feel compelled to defend the little corner of London that I call home.

When I tell people where I live (to clarify: I don't run up to strangers and tell them where I live, I mean when I'm answering a question), most have never heard of it. Well, for those of you who have never heard of it, Hither Green is a little suburb in south east London which nestles cosily between Blackheath and Lewisham in Zone 3.

I moved here just over a year ago because house prices here are bloody reasonable and the transport links are, for the most part, ace. Despite the lack of tube, there are trains to central London every ten minutes or so; more frequently during rush hour. The trains even run later than a tube would anyway, with the last train from London Bridge departing just before 1am. Sure, during the recent snowy conditions the trains buckled somewhat, but Lewisham DLR station is a only 15 minute walk away, and the DLR is ALWAYS running.

It's by no means the most exciting place in the world to live, but it's got a lot going for it, such as:

Crazy golf. Yes, you heard me right. Rumour has it that Hither Green is to become the London's crazy golf hotspot, with an indoor course taking shape as I type. My dream of becoming crazy golf world champion lives on!
Manor House Gardens. One of the prettiest little parks I've ever come across in London, and I'm lucky enough to have it on my doorstep. There's a lake with a fountain, a 'beetle loggery', tennis courts, a cute cafe, and there's a farmers' market the first Saturday of every month (pictured above - Flickr photo from basswulf). There are lots of other parks within walking distance too.
The best library ever. Ok, maybe not the best, but it's a beautiful building (I've blogged about the library before, here)
A fab curry house. I'd very much recommend Bengal Brasserie's banquet deal on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Shops: Hither Green itself isn't exactly brimming with retail outlets, although the lovely independent furniture shop on Hither Green Lane is great (I bought my coffee table and living room mirror there) and an amazing interiors shop on Lee Road called Objet D'Art. For groceries there's a big Sainsbury's. But Blackheath is so close for a bigger selection of boutique-y type places, and don't dismiss Lewisham either - it's even got an H&M!!!!...
A creative vibe: The Old Firemaster Building is now rented out room by room to creative types, such as artists, singers and musicians, and a gym may be opening there soon. Witness To The Beard (my band) have practised there a few times, and it's also where I have my guitar lessons.
Live music: The Station Pub runs an acoustic music night every Thursday evening called The Icarus Club.
Cute cafe: Just outside the train station there's a coffee shop / bakery / florist / gift shop called You Don't Bring Me Flowers. It's a little gem of a place, with kitsch decor, shabby chic charm and a secret room upstairs where you can nibble on cakes and drink tea from fab mis-matched china.

Ok, and here's some more negative points for the sake of transparency:

Hither Green is sadly most famous for a nasty train crash which happened here in the 1967. Lots of people died.
Although transport links to central London are great, transport links to anywhere else are pretty poor, and it's often just easier to walk to places like Blackheath or Greenwich. But it is a lovely walk, and the view from the Greenwich Observatory is worth it (about a 40 minute walk from my flat).
Lack of watering holes. Hither Green was originally based around the Corbett Estate, which was built by the Scottish Presbyterian Archibald Corbett. Pubs weren't allowed back then, and sadly that theme lives on. There's really only one pub in Hither Green, and that's The Station.

Useful websites about the area:

The Original Hither Green Website

Message-board based site which is useful if you're new to the area or looking for general information.

Max Calò's blog

Lib Dem candidate for the council election for Lewisham Central, who's got his finger firmly on the Hither Green pulse.

Walking Hither Green

Hasn't been updated for a while, but still gives you a good feel for the place.

Wikipedia

Some more historical info, including rumours that Jude Law apparently grew up here.
The Blackheath Bugle
Blackheath's only up the road...
Greenwich.co.uk
And Greenwich is only a bit further...

Here's what Time Out and the Guardian have got to say about Hither Green.

This blog post has taken me a lot longer to write than I thought it would, which is testament to all the great stuff there is here, and proves how much I like living in the area. It's not - and never will be - the most happening spot in London, but after a hard day in the office, it's just so nice to be able to hop on a train to this quiet and safe area where I can relax and get an undisturbed night's sleep, yet only ever be 30 minutes away from the bright lights of the West End.

Strum and strummer

2010-01-24T01:33:00.001Z

Carrying my brother's guitar on my back this morning in its protective case-stroke-backpack I felt stupidly cool walking through Hither Green on my way to my first guitar lesson. I'm certain that I didn't look it, since the guitar added a few inches to my overall height and width, meaning that I kept getting caught in branches and doors that I normally never notice due to my relatively small stature. Clumsiness aside, I made it to the lesson venue in no time for the group session.

It's a class for 'complete or near beginners', and the majority of us were just that. When asked what we knew already, I proudly proclaimed "E Minor!", whilst one chap said "errr, well I know this is called a guitar..." which made me laugh. But despite the supposed novice status of the wannabe guitarists, everyone picked up the initial chords and C-Major scale quickly and easily....with the exception of me, that is. While everyone else's strumming sounded clear and had a nice ringing quality, my attempts at chords and notes all sounded distinctly clunky.

I could blame it on the fact that I forgot to cut my fingernails, or on the fact that my hands are pretty tiny. Or perhaps because the guitar I'm learning to play on has evil metal? steel? well, painful strings rather than nylon ones, but basically I really don't think my mind is attuned (ha!) to melodic instruments.

The room in which we had the lesson was kitted out with lots of guitars and music-related equipment and technology, but I couldn't help but gaze at the electronic drumkit in the corner. I know I'm not an amazing drummer and I never will be, but I know that if I was to sit down at a kit with a pair of drumsticks I could bash out a decent rhythm without even having to think about it. Whereas learning the guitar from scratch and developing the dexterity and coordination to move between different chords really quickly - and efficiently - feels incredibly daunting. And it hurts! But I'm a trier if nothing else, and I will continue with my weekly lessons until the tips of my fingers on my left hand are as hard and as numb as MDF. The teaching is good, so hopefully I'll be playing bar chords in no time at all...

Photo from Ru Tover's Flickr

Toad in the coal

2010-01-09T16:14:00.001Z

Just got back to Bristol to hear a very amusing telly-related tale from the rest of the Dunlop clan. As a family, we are big fans of the classic British dish, toad in the hole. So when BBC1's programme 'Rachel Allen: Home Cooking' had a segment dedicated to cooking this dish this very morning, my mum and brother watched with interest to get some tips.

Chef Galton Blackiston was the chap leading the proceedings: "The tip is to leave it in a hot oven for 20 minutes and not look at it once." Fair enough, they thought. However,when they saw the result, they understandably doubted the chef's 'wisdom':

This is definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, burnt, right??!! But Galton didn't reference its charcoal-like state, and neither did the people who had to eat it!

You watch the sillyness for yourself here in the latter half of the show.

The Mayfly Project

2010-01-09T01:07:00.003Z

Thanks to becksldrt for flagging up The Mayfly Project which she discovered on Meg Pickard's blog. The Mayfly Project is this:

At the end of every year since 2000, we invite readers to look back on the last twelve months of their lives and reflect on what has been important, defining or constant during that particular year, and then sum their year up in just 24 words.

I know it's a little late, but here's my 2009 in 24 words:

Career steps up. Nervous 'VIP', but confidence grows. Night, Nan. Blushes, but laughter always follows. Drums and Glastonbury. Punbreak my heart, Twitter. Goodbye Granny.

Two-eight Two-eight Two-Snow

2010-01-09T00:50:00.002Z

Before I begin, let me quickly point out that the title of this blog post is a reference to my age as of Wednesday, combined with the snowy weather conditions, combined with the once-famous advert with the telephone number that sounded like an owl.

Now my shameful pun explanation is out of the way, I would like to firstly say that I've had a brilliant week. I remember when the white stuff descended in February last year and transport here in south east London was well and truly borked, with no buses, no trains, no DLR, and the snow was really too thick to walk through. This time I think both the snow hasn't been quite as severe (albeit it's more persistent), or TFL have pulled their socks up somewhat, or a little of both, as despite various transport cock-ups I have managed to get into town and home again every day. Yes, it's taken me a little longer than normal, but the DLR really has come to the rescue.

I'm very glad it did, because the last thing I wanted was to be stranded on my own on my birthday and for my planned celebrations to be a 'white off'. So I made it to the office after a rather epic effort, had a lovely birthday lunch with colleagues (three out of five of us have our birthdays within a week of each other; obviously Capricorns make good newspaper PR people) then went to a local bar for 'Birth-hay drinks'. I was absolutely chuffed to bits with the turnout as I thought the weather would have put more people off. My friends who live in Abu Dhabi were in London this week, so they made it along, as did lots of other good friends. A huge thank you to all who came (but absolutely 'snow flurries' if you couldn't make it).

I then had a couple of days off work, during which I was out and about quite a lot, catching up with the aforementioned Abu Dhabi pals before they flew back, and tonight I went to watch The Snow Queen ballet at The Coliseum. A fantastic production and some of the dancing actually made me gasp. I have a new-found appreciation for ballet after stumbling (apt for me) across a fabulous BBC4 drama about Margot Fonteyn last week.

In all honesty I know I've been lucky this week as during the latter half when the weather really deteriorated I haven't had to battle through rush hour crowds to get into town and back again. But I must say that - when I have needed to travel - I've been mightily impressed with how smooth my journeys have been. Yeah, it's taken a little longer and my wellies (above) have probably worn down a few millimetres with all the extra walking, but it proves that if you don't want to be sat at home on your own when the sky shakes out its dandruff, you really don't have to be.

And finally, here are some [girly] 'when it snows, anything goes' observations from the last week:

You can walk in the middle of the road
You can wear wellies in The Coliseum (well, I did and no one told me off)
You can wear a hat without even considering what your hair will look like when you take it off because NOT wearing one simply isn't an option
You can leave the heating on at night (cos, you know, you might freeze otherwise...)
You can wear uber-cosy clothes to work
You can build a snowman ANYWHERE. I saw one yesterday on the roof of a car...which was being driven along the road. Classic. Shame it wasn't on top of a van as it could have been a SNOWVAN.

Doctor Boo-Who

2010-01-02T22:09:00.003Z

Let's just say I'm glad I had the flat to myself last night. David Tennant's final flourish as the tenth Doctor was always going to be emotional, but I hadn't prepared myself for full-on sobbing.

I have loved Doctor Who since it came back five years ago. I just about remember watching it as a child on and off (the Sylvester McCoy era mainly), and I'm always proud to tell people that the second - and arguably the best - Doctor was my Great Uncle, Patrick Troughton.

I thought Christopher Eccleston did a pretty sterling job during writer Russell T Davies's first series at the helm, but I always thought it was a shame that the BBC failed to keep it a secret that Eccleston was leaving after one series, as the moment when he regenerated into David Tennant would have come as a massive shock, a bit like when The Master regenerated into John Simm (or am I alone in thinking that they managed to keep that gem under their hats?).

Tennant was born to play the Doctor. Unlike Ecclestone, he's a huge Doctor Who fan and he knows the show inside out. It also helps that he's a talented actor (not that Ecclestone isn't). And acting was what it was all about last night. Tennant - and Bernard Cribbins as Wilfred - blew me away in the key 'knock four times' scene; a genuinely spine-tingling moment when the Doctor realised with bitter dread that he hadn't managed to escape his prophesised demise after all. The sobbing began at this moment for me, and continued for the rest of the episode. I've sensed on the web that many people thought that the final 20 minutes was a load of over-indulgent, sentimental crap. But I'm firmly in the 'sod it' (or 'sob' it) camp on this one. Yeah, it was all a bit 'get the violins out' as the Doctor travelled through time to say a few final farewells to those humans he had encountered over the previous few years, but it was good to have absolute closure for once in a television series.

All too often these days (US) TV shows like Lost, Heroes and Flashforward appear to be uber-clever and mysterious at first and suck in their audiences (and advertisers) for countless series, seemingly promising some kind of huge reveal and plot twist, but it quickly becomes apparent that the 'writers' actually have no idea where the story is going. But The End Of Time tied up all the little loose ends very neatly, and you have to applaud Davies for being able to do that so masterfully.

So on to the eleventh Doctor. Young Matt Smith - and I'm permitted to say 'young' as he is nine months my junior - made his first appearance at the end of last night's episode. I've never seen him act before (I have the Sally Lockhart Mysteries on order, in which he plays cheeky cockney lad Jim. If you haven't read the Philip Pullman books on which these TV dramas are based I would thoroughly recommend them) so I have no frame of reference. It's pretty impossible to tell what his characterisation of the Doctor will be like in such a brief appearance, but I hope he doesn't try and copy Tennant too much. I know he's youthful and all, but it would even be nice to see him as a more melancholy character, with less bouncing around. Here's a preview of the next series which hints at what is to come:

I notice that Alex Kingston is in there as the character River Song. My friend Carl, who is a MASSIVE Whovian, detests the River Song episodes (Tennant's Doctor didn't recognise her, but we were led to believe that he meets her at some point in the future and gets very close to her indeed), but I actually quite liked them. Interestingly, these episodes were written by the new main writer / producer of the forthcoming series, Steven Moffat, who also penned my favourite ever episode, Blink (the Blink statue baddies are in the series preview too, woop!), and another brilliant episode, The Girl In The Fireplace, in which he falls for Madame de Pompadour. I think the fate of the next series lies largely with Moffat rather than Smith, so here's hoping for some more top-notch writing.

But, for now, let us as a nation mourn the passing of the tenth Doctor; for he was fun, he was handsome, he had good hair and wore good clothes and - most importantly - he was a proper geek. And we loved him.

Drumming fingers

2010-01-01T23:44:00.002Z

Wow, a whole new decade hath landeth, and it's that weird time of year during which I seem to sit around and wait for the cycle to begin once more. 2009 ended in an uncharacteristically disorganised fashion as me and Dunlop Junior desperately tried to battle the crowds and cross the Thames for our planned parental rendezvous, but I now realise how naive we were to try and even attempt such a feat a mere hour before the fireworks began. Despite having alighted at Embankment armed with the reasonable plan of hopping on a quick train from Charing Cross to meet the folks at Waterloo, we had no physical choice but to be herded like Lemmings east along the Strand all the way to Blackfriars Bridge. To be fair we did have a partial view of the fireworks from there, but nothing like this:

The silver lining was that we somehow managed to bump into our parents at London Bridge on the way home for a little family reunion. I'm sure they're glad they made the trip from Bristol for that... (sorry mum and dad!).

But before the decade was out, I returned to London to discover a package from my London Blogger Secret Santa, which was all very exciting. It was a nifty little finger drum kit. I have no idea who sent it to me, but it's nice to know that they took the time to send me something so appropriate. The festive geekery was a concept developed by Melinda, who I know through the London Bloggers Meet-up Group, and I thought it was a great idea. I just hope my giftee liked my present as much as I like mine. Oh, I just googled 'drumming fingers' and look what I found! Blimey.

I don't do new year's resolutions, but I've been involved with some exciting work stuff over the last few days so hopefully that's an indication of how 2010 may pan out. I'm curious to see what the next 12 months will throw up, but I guess my main aim is that I keep smiling both in and out of work, and that I continue to meet new people, but also spend as much time as possible with the awesome people I already know. Oh, and I must *try* and write in my diary more frequently (I'm still out of the habit). Speaking of which, I have a new one sitting on my bedside table right now, patiently waiting to be written in, so I will save my Dr Who sorrow for there (for now).

One of life's great mysteries...

2009-12-28T16:53:00.003Z

Overheard today in a shop...a husband desperately trying to find the matching shoe of a pair that his wife wanted in the sales. He couldn't find it anywhere on the shelves, or under the mountain of discarded bargains. "One of life's great mysteries," he proclaimed with a grin on his face. For some reason this made me chuckle. I think because usually shopping in the sales can be quite a stressful experience, especially for chaps who have been dragged there by their other halves, but this fellow definitely had a nice attitude about it all.

Sale bargain

2009-12-28T16:43:00.002Z

A few weeks ago, shopping / blogging queen India Knight flagged up this amazing handbag from Marks and Spencer. I wanted it, but at £79 it was a tad expensive. So imagine my joy today when, whilst shopping in the Bristol sales with my mum, she managed to find the last remaining bag in the colour I wanted, a bargain at £39! Go mum!

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

My year in words

2009-12-22T22:25:00.003Z

A whirlwind year to cap off a whirlwind decade. Here are the most notable bits that happened to me:

Happiest moment

Finding out I’d got my job at the Guardian. When I got the call I was the most shocked I’d ever been in all my life. It’s been a rollercoaster few months at work, but I absolutely love my job and work with incredible people on so many interesting projects. I am very lucky indeed.

Saddest moment

Both of my grandmothers passed away this year. My Nan was a lovely lady with a ready smile and a twinkle in her eye, and had a knack for saying hilarious things without realising it. My quirky and sharp-witted Granny lived a fascinating life and always had fabulous stories and anecdotes to tell. I miss both of them hugely, and hope that I’ve inherited at least some of their qualities.

Most nervewracking moment

Living in London for the past couple of years seems to have eroded away most of my nervous tendencies, but the two hours or so before I performed my first gig back in the summer were terrifying. Thankfully my mates in the audience kept me going and it was loads of fun.

Most surreal moment

Wandering around backstage at Glastonbury surrounded by ridiculously cool-looking people and feeling completely dumbstruck about how little old me had found herself wearing a VIP wristband. Then finding out that Michael Jackson was dead whilst listening to East 17 (couldn’t see them, the crowd was too huge). Come to think of it, I'm not really sure why I didn’t write a blog post about my Glasto experience at the time. Oh well.

Celebrity encounters

I had an *actual conversation* with Eddie Izzard, shared a lift and a restaurant with Colin Firth, Jon Snow flashed his socks at me, and an actor off the telly critiqued my short story. In fact, all of these could quite easily slot into the ‘surreal’ category above.

Best purchase

My wardrobe. I am in love with my wardrobe. I have l’amour pour l’armoire. In fact, I only added in this 'best purchase' category so I could mention my beloved piece of furniture. If there was a photo of it online I would put it here, but it's such a rare piece of (melamine? mdf?) beauty that no online record of it exists. I may have to commission a photographer to take some shots, since my amateur snapping skills would never be able to do it justice.

Best party

The Guardian Creative Christmas party at SimmonS (awesome little venue on Caledonian Road). Great music (but no rock, as I endlessly pointed out to the poor DJs), lots of happy people and way too much wine. How I made it home I’ll never know.

2009 in one word…

TWITTER. Yes, call me a nerd, but I can honestly say that - without Twitter - 2009 wouldn’t have been half as eventful. I’ve met some great people as a result, and it’s also helped me out at work; both in terms of getting to know people across the organisation whose paths I would never normally cross, but also with my job and networking with external contacts and bloggers. Thanks Twitter – yes, sometimes you can be cruel like your big sister Facebook and tell me things I don’t necessarily want to know, but overall you’re all right.

The noughties

I started this decade as an independently-minded but quiet(ish) teenager venturing off to Cardiff University to study journalism. And I gave journalism a good old go, but quickly realised it wasn’t for me after writing a few pieces for the Southern Daily Echo, where I worked as a receptionist after graduating.

In hindsight, I blatantly should’ve moved to London after Cardiff, but I chose to follow my heart to Hampshire, which was definitely the right decision at the time, and the experiences I had there have made me a much stronger person. I met some great people there and I’m adamant that I wouldn’t be where I am today had I not lived on the south coast for a few years. But London eventually beckoned and I can honestly say that moving here is the best decision I’ve ever made. I have made some wonderful friends, done well for myself career-wise (*pats self on back Trevor & Simon style*), and I’m sure sooner or later my prince will pun.

Farewell 2009!

LOVE this photo of my bandmates

2009-12-17T23:54:00.003Z

via nickdillonphotography.com

Omar on the left and Kev on the right. Lovely lads.

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

Let me tell you a story...

2009-12-16T23:51:00.002Z

I love stories and I love writing; I always have done. I was one of those kids who would plead with their parents to be allowed to read 'just one more chapter' at bed time, and would sneakily employ the torch under the duvet trick if I was at such a crucial part of the narrative that sleep simply wasn't an option.

At school, writing always came more naturally to me than drawing, and one time I even won a competition for a piece of writing I did about milk(?). The prize for this competition was immense: I got to meet Rolf Harris with my teacher and another competition winner!! I was only about six, but I distinctly remember my mum sending me to school that morning with some fifty pence pieces taped inside my Garfield lunchbox so I could buy one of Rolf's books and get his autograph. Of-course, being six I had no idea how a transaction in a shop worked, and I remember getting home that afternoon and proudly showing my mum my Rolf Harris poetry book, complete with his trademark 'Rolferoo' autograph, then witnessing her horror when she discovered that the money in my lunchbox was still neatly taped inside. So there's a very strong chance that I stole this book:

This has gone off on a bit of a tangent, for which I can only apologise, but basically I think what I'm trying to say is that the fact that I chose Rolf's blue poetry book (A Catalogue of Comic Verse), instead of the red one about drawing which he was also promoting in the bookshop that day, somehow demonstrates that words for me have always been more important to me than images. Or maybe it's just because I'm crap at drawing...

That being said, I'm not the quickest reader in the world (I like to absorb every word and feel genuinely guilty if I skim read), and I'm certainly not the best writer, but recently I decided to take the plunge and submit one of my short stories to the monthly Writing Salon I attend in Covent Garden.

The gist of this meet-up is that, each month, two of us submit a piece of writing to be read and critiqued by the rest of the group. If you've ever been to a book club, you'll know that more often than not some of you will love a book, while others will detest it. But you can quite happily debate both sides of the argument safe in the knowledge that the author isn't listening in to your scathing remarks. Well, the Writing Salon is a bit like this, except the authors are there to hear your views; both good and bad. So it was with an underlying sense of fear and trepidation that I went along to the December gathering last week to hear what they all thought about my story.

The overall verdict was pretty positive I'd say, although the group was split about whether the twist was 'twisty' enough. About half of the room had guessed what was going on quite quickly, while the remainder had read the story as I was hoping they would. Some of my turns of phrase were criticised, which I think is probably the most difficult kind of criticism to give and to hear, although none of the feedback was unjustified or harsh. It'll be boring for me to go into details at this point since you may not have read the story in question, but it was a really valuable experience, not least because the other piece of writing we discussed on the night was absolutely incredible and I felt honoured to be in a room with such talented and creative people.

As well as discussing the two pieces of writing, we also did something rather fun since it was the last session before Christmas. Fellow Writing Salon-er Alex Vail writes more about it here, but we had to come up with a six-word short story. There were lots of very clever and moving entries, but I obviously went for the 'comedy' angle. So, to round off this blog post, here is my rather festive six-word short story:

Rudolph woke up. Brown nose. Shit

Me drumming

2009-12-16T22:48:00.003Z

via nickdillonphotography.com

Here are some awesome pictures from our most recent gig, taken by genius photographer Nick Dillon.

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

Merry Christ-moustache: Our final gig of 2009

2009-12-14T23:31:00.000Z

If someone had told me at the start of 2009 that by the end of the year I would've played five gigs I would have had them sectioned under the Mental Health Act. But shiver my timbers, that individual now writhing around in a padded room in a strait jacket was right! Release them! (I'm in a strange mood tonight; that's what an exciting day at work does to me).

The final Witness To The Beard gig of the year took place last Friday in Stockwell, and what a cracking evening of entertainment it was. We played at The Cavendish Arms at An Event Of Some Kind (I've blogged before about the general format of this particular event), and it was such a quirky evening. We were the first band on after the accomplished compere / event organiser extraordinaire H Anthony Hildebrand did a little ditty on stage and we played a 15 minute set; the tightest we've sounded yet I reckon. I also bit the bullet and sang my alternative 'Saved By The Bell' lyrics.

After us was a brilliant comic called Eric Lampaert, whose wacky (but not over the top) physical comedy, combined with his improvisation skills, got us all chuckling very heartily indeed. He even did a bit of comedy about our band name! He was also a fan of the other band's name who played after him: Don't Tread On Spiders. Oh. My. God. They were absolutely amazing. Check them out for yourselves, but you really can't appreciate them until you hear / see them live. The drummer ROCKED. She has completely mastered the whole singing whilst drumming thing, and I've still got loads of their songs stuck in my head, despite only hearing them once (such as the song below, demonstrating awesomeness of said drummer). LOVE them. Need to buy their entire back catalogue (yes, unlike Witness To The Beard, they've actually recorded stuff).

During the interval there was a drawing competition. We were asked to draw two things kissing under the mistletoe. I can't draw for love nor money, but I can pun for prizes. So I drew two feet under the mistletoe, labelled the big toes "toes" and labelled the mistletoe "mistle". Yes, sounds very random, I know, but so is this event, and I won a prize for my skillz. After the interval (and mince pies) it was some more fabulous word-play observations from Monsier Hildebrand, then us again. Omar and I were convinced / bullied (joking!) by Kev to don Santa hats with beards attached for our final mini set. Humorous, indeed, but Kev wasn't laughing when the beard fell over his face whilst he was singing. Ha! Then his strap fell off mid-song: disaster! Thanks to the valiant help from Sonny from DTOS and the legendary sound man the situation was remedied without us having to stop the rock. And Kev totally redeemed himself by saying after the song: "Well, that was a strapping performance!"

We came off stage and waiting in the wings was the headline comedy act for the night, Tom Basden (*swoon*). It's just him and his guitar. And an endless supply of hilarious - yet extremely melodic - songs. My personal favourite was one about Neighbours (but Neighbours as it was ten years ago when Toadfish was still a chubby rebellious teenager rather than a slimline high-flying lawyer). He also sang about a ghost who keeps himself to himself, a girl with a glass eye, a guide dog who is being fooled by his non-blind owner and a Chinese fellow called Wan Ni. Have a listen to some of his songs here or in the video above.

All in all it was a fantastic night.

Christmas cringe

2009-12-11T14:36:00.003Z

Err, who is this guy singing to me? Just got this on an e-mail from PR Newswire...

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

My short story...

2009-12-08T11:22:00.001Z

So here's my short story that I submitted to The Writing Salon. I shall write about the experience of having my writing critiqued last night in a subsequent post when I get the chance...

THE ROOM

It was too cold in the room. And the symbols on the thermostat were just ambiguous enough to make it impossible to fathom which way to turn the knob to slow down the relentless flow of Arctic air from the dusty vents on the ceiling. No one in the room wanted to make a fool of themselves by turning the knob the wrong way, so instead we all sat there and gritted our teeth. I sat on my hands, hoping that everyone else thought I was doing so to keep them warm, not because they were shaking. I was nervous, and this time I was not going to back down.

It was hard to believe that outside it was a glorious August summer’s day, and each and every one of us wanted to be out there, rather than cut off from the world in here, taking in every tiny detail of each other's fluorescent light-bleached faces; faces which were currently so familiar, yet would soon be forgotten. But we didn’t have any choice. We had to work this out now.

As stale water was poured and chairs scraped by their occupants into their final positions around the coffee-stained melamine table, I remembered the last time. The circumstances had been similar, but different in so many ways. The last room had been bearable - for one thing there had been a window to gaze out of as a minor distraction from the harsh realities of the room. But, no matter how you looked at it, our actions that day had resulted in a life being ruined. It was almost as if we deserved to endure this horrible space as a punishment for our previous behaviour. I tried to shake the memory from my thoughts. Focus.

How did I get here? Well, I really had no choice in the matter. You can put it off for so long, but these things are unavoidable. It was the same for everyone around the table. No choice. Of course, some people took a thrill from it, and I could understand that up to a point. Having the power to destroy someone certainly does bring with it a certain rush, but surely the subsequent shame meant that no one could truly perceive this as 'enjoyable'? Then I remembered the first time just ten days beforehand, and how it had lulled me into a false sense of security. It had been so easy! Fun, even. But now that day felt like so long ago, because here we were again for the third and final round. Now was the time we had to get down to business; no more small talk to fill the uncomfortable silences, no more polite chit-chat and no more ice-breaking quips from those who were blatantly enjoying every second of this torturous procedure.

"So, who wants to do it?"

I can't remember who asked the question, but the only sound that greeted it was the sporadic clunking of the over-efficient air conditioning system. There was absolutely no way I was going to do it, not after what happened before. "I would rather not," I eventually volunteered, diplomatic as ever. An avalanche of "me neithers" quickly followed. The matter was finally settled with the toss of a penny. My penny, obviously. A lot of responsibility for such a small denomination. I missed the catch so it clattered down on to the table and I clumsily dragged it across the surface under my clammy palm until it slipped onto the upper side of my other palm at the edge. Heads. The Queen's head, no less. How very apt. Decision made. I put the penny back in my purse and snapped it shut. The sharp noise seemed to jolt everyone from their thoughts, as if someone had clapped their hands, signalling that it was time to begin.

"No matter what anyone says, there is absolutely no way I am changing my mind," said Sylvia, to my right. I knew exactly how she felt, as my mind had also been made up from the very beginning. The trouble was, we were definitely not on the same page with our unwavering views. In fact, if I was the preface she would have been the glossary. But her definitions would have been very muddled up indeed. This was not good. I really liked Sylvia. We had gone through a lot together since this ordeal had begun and I respected her. But after the last time she had obviously gotten it in her head that her mind was not to be swayed on this occasion, just like I had. I silently groaned, but on the outside maintained my fixed, tight-lipped polite smile. God I needed a drink, even just to stop my hands from shaking, but I now knew what had to be done to stop this nonsense from going any further. I took a deep breath, and - having gained unspoken permission from the unfortunate individual who'd earlier been struck down by that little penny now tucked away in my purse - began to speak.

I'd always be able to hold a conversation, but public speaking was definitely not my thing. Put me in a social situation with a few people and I'd be in my element, shamelessly drawing attention to my flaws and social gaffes for the sole purpose of making people smile and feel at ease. Too honest for my own good, people often said, but I actually enjoyed it. Put me speaking in front of people on a serious topic without being able to get people onside with a humorous remark, and then the confident facade would quickly give way to my inner bumbling soul who can't look anyone in the eye for fear of glimpsing their dawn of realisation that I have no in-depth knowledge of absolutely anything. Apart from an in-depth knowledge of that very fact. And now here I was; not a single self-mocking joke up my sleeve with which to win over the people who were now hanging on my every word.

The majority of my captive audience slowly nodded in agreement with my torrent of sentences, glancing at their watches and stealing looks at their fellow numbers to gauge their reactions. I could also see that the few others making up our imprisoned contingent desperately wanted me to slip up. It was this thought that gave me the surge of adrenaline my mind had been crying out for since I'd opened my mouth. The adrenaline came from the sudden understanding that I simply couldn't slip up, because what I was saying was the truth; it was fact. And I possessed an in-depth knowledge of the facts about which I spoke because they had been forced into my head over the last few days. I didn't have to 'stick to my story' or tell more lies to get myself out of the lies I'd told before. That's precisely where the subject of our discussion had gone wrong the last time. As the words continued to pour forth, I realised that it hadn't been our fault that his story had unravelled as he'd told it. We hadn't destroyed him; he'd brought on that destruction himself, and we'd done the right thing that time, no matter hard it had been. Now I felt the responsibility to do the right thing once more rested on my shoulders, and my shoulders alone. So I kept talking, until - slowly - one, by one, everyone agreed with me. Except Sylvia.

Deep down I knew that there was no chance of her changing her mind. We all knew that. It was time to communicate with the outside world.

Less than an hour later and it was all over and done with. As I gulped down the sunshine-drenched air outside the grand building, grateful to feel the warmth beat down on my body, I watched with a strange combination of sadness and relief as the other occupants of the room scattered across the city, never to cross paths again. I looked at my watch; it felt odd to be able to look at it so brazenly, when only minutes before looking at it would have been seen as a 'tactic'. It was actually earlier than I expected so I hopped up onto one of the walls which surrounded the building as it was the nearest thing that resembled a seat, feeling a little rebellious having left all of the rules and customs of the last fortnight behind. I switched on my phone. Text from Mum: 'How did it go ? x'. I touched the green handset icon and put the phone to my ear. I rubbed by eyes as the phone rang, unaccustomed to the bright natural daylight.

"Hi Mum, it's me. Yeah all over now. It took us a good few hours but we got there in the end. Yeah we definitely did, I'm sure of it. It was another drugs one..."

Tom stepped out of the building and into the sunlight. He couldn't believe after all this time it was finally over. He nonchalantly strode away from the building, unfastening his top button on the white shirt which had been purchased especially for this week. He was tempted to take it off completely and chuck it in the nearest bin, but he figured he might need it again some day. As he turned left onto the main road, he recognised a young woman sat on a wall. She was one of them, he realised. He smirked as he walked past her. She was so engrossed with her telephone call she didn't even notice him. Walking along the busy street Tom felt his own phone vibrate in his pocket. It was Pete. Good news obviously travelled fast. "Yep?" he spoke into the small silver handset. Pete was a man of few words, and his congratulations were brief and to the point. "Cheers mate, yeah, not guilty. Great, eh? Not a unanimous verdict though - the cops somehow managed to convince one of them, but the others sucked up my story. Yeah, we should meet soon, pick up where we left off. Laters."

Tom slid the phone shut and took one final glance over his shoulder at the fading image of the woman on the wall. She was only in her twenties, he reckoned. Could she have been the one who had figured him out? The thought wasn't in his head for long before his phone buzzed again. This time it was the phone in his other pocket. "Yeah?" he answered. "Sure, just need to sort out a few things first. Call me back in half an hour and I'll tell you where and when." It was good to be back.

London, Paris and First Book

2009-12-06T00:55:00.001Z

December is upon us, and how it's already whizzing by. I've got a particularly busy couple of weeks coming up so thought I'd drop in now while I have the chance and make a note of some of my recent London exploits...

The Guardian Public Services Awards at Old Billingsgate. Wow, what a venue. The place looked stunning and it was a great event with loads of worthy winners. I shared a table with a group of student volunteers from York and Hull, who went on to win the Citizenship and Volunteering Award (I knew in advance that they had won so had to keep my mouth zipped).
Here I should be writing about an amazing bloggers' trip to Brussels I went on courtesy of Eurostar's Little break, Big difference campaign. I was unbelievably excited about it, but then I got an evil bug and couldn't go. I hear through the blogosphere that it was lots of fun, and Sian from Domestic Sluttery brought me back some posh chocolates, which was very sweet. Literally.
The December London Bloggers Meetup, sponsored by Symantec, was on Tuesday. Sian (see above) spoke at the event and provided us with some really useful blogging tips, and supplied us with yummy cakes.
The Guardian First Book Award ceremony was the following night. I felt privileged to meet the winner, Petina Gappah; a Zimbabwean writer who won the Award with her amazing short story collection, 'An Elegy for Easterley'. I'm in the middle of reading this now, and each story that I've read so far is incredibly moving, but laced with an underlying layer of humour and modest self-awareness. The judging panel described her writing style as 'deceptively simple' and I would definitely agree with this.

Speaking of short stories, my very own attempt at writing one will be 'critiqued' on Monday, and I'm cacking myself! As I've mentioned before, I attend a Writing Salon at the Hospital Club in Covent Garden, and this month it's my turn to have my writing scrutinised. Writing this blog is one thing, as it's for me more than anyone else and I'm not really bothered about what people think of my storytelling 'skills'. But with fiction it's different. Although my short story is based on me and a real experience, the way I tell the story is so crucial to the impact that I want it to have on the reader, that if I've written it badly it simply won't work. I may report back next week on the reaction it got. Or I may not, depending on how emotionally scarred I am from the experience...

Ooh, and today I received a rather exciting e-mail from the people at we are social. They're the ones who invited me to the aforementioned day trip to Brussels, and now they are offering me the chance to win un séjour à Paris (surely extra points for the French, eh?! Unless the French is wrong, in which case - ignore that). All I have to do is to write about what my dream weekend in Paris would be like if I had €1,000 to spend. Well, to be honest, my *dream* weekend in Paris would involve me being whisked away to the French capital by a decent chap who'd make me laugh a lot and forget my stresses as we wandered around random streets stumbling across little bars and getting nicely merry. But since that isn't likely to happen any time soon, I would have to say that I would absolutely love to take my Mum to the city and spoil her rotten. She's been an absolute legend this year and I would take her to a posh tea room, perhaps somewhere like here, then buy her something sparkly and try and squeeze in a show.

Chocolate fon-don't

2009-11-22T22:13:00.001Z

Having written on many occasions about my love of Masterchef in all its various guises, this weekend I now have a new-found respect for some of the more laughable contestants. As I've previously pointed out, the chocolate fondant is the dish of death on the show. They either leave it in the oven for too long so that it ends up as a plain, old chocolate sponge, or they panic and take it out too soon so it happily collapses into a gooey mess. Given that the programme is called 'Masterchef', you'd have thought that they might be able to get it right. But no.

So this weekend, fellow Masterchef enthusiast - Brother Alex - and I decided to try it out for ourselves. We followed the recipe to the letter, and took out the ramekins from the oven after precisely 12 minutes. They collapsed into gooey messes. But they tasted awesome; surely simply a matter of leaving them in the oven for longer? So tonight, with Alex's lovely girlfriend Holly round for dinner, we were confident that we'd get it right. Wrong! They were still too gooey!

Now I understand why the contestants keep insisting on trying to produce the perfect chocolate fondant, because it is a very tricky pud to master. But, to be completely honest, the gooey bit is so delicious that I'd quite happily eat / drink that without the sponge casing.

Comedy connections for Witness To The Beard

2009-11-22T01:00:00.001Z

It was gig number four for Witness To The Beard last night, and my throat is certainly paying the price for it today. I only sang one brief ditty, but my vocal chords were already feeling vulnerable after a week of coughing, and - if it's possible for throats to have mood swings - it's now sulking in a big, croaky way. Ah well.

We returned to The Comedy Pub for the gig, which is where we played live for the first time a few months ago. It's a nice little venue and the sound quality is pretty decent. We were playing alongside a really eclectic mix of artists too. The first act were a funky group called Scarletts Roses, whose songs were foot-tappingly and smile-inducingly catchy, with some quirky rap thrown in for good measure. I really liked their song 'My Heart Belongs to Judy', and I'm very jealous of the girl singer's voice, which is as melodic and floaty as mine isn't.

Second up were The Technicolour. Their drummer, Alex, used to be in our band (before we were reincarnated as WTTB) and we have the same drum teacher (the awesome Darren Malley). It was nice to catch up with Alex and see him in action as a drummer, since he used to play bass / guitar in our band. A very good drummer he is too.

Then we took to the stage for our 30-minute set. I think it was the best we'd played out of the four gigs, although there were a few fluffs, but nowt major. We also played a couple of new songs for the first time, which is always a bit nervewracking.

After us, one chap and his guitar - Chris MacArthur - wowed the crowd with his amazing guitar skills and voice. Stoned Phoney were the last to play. Unbelievably this was their first ever gig as a band, and they really were brilliant. They described themselves as grunge / blues when we were chatting before the gig, and I guess this sums them up pretty well. The ferocity of the drummer's beats was demonstrated when a huge shard of drumstick flew across the stage during a particularly frenetic flourish. I wish I could flourish like that, but as Darren is constantly reassuring me, keeping a steady beat is more important than doing fancy fills and whatnot. Yeah I know, but it's just not as cool! I also wish I could link to them so you can have a listen / look for yourself, but they have no internet presence whatsoever.

All in all it was a fun night, and we donated all £22.50 of our takings to Movember. When I told someone last night we were giving the money to charity, they jokingly responded "what, a beard charity or something?!" to which I accurately responded "Yes".

The next Witness To The Beard gig is on Friday 11 December at The Cavendish Arms in Stockwell. I'm hugely excited about this one, as we were invited to play by all-round funny man H Anthony Hildebrand, who runs the An Event of Some Kind night at the pub every couple of months. The evening is a mixture of comedy and music, and if I wasn't playing at it, I'd go along anyway. Headlining the night is Tom Basden, who was a Never Mind The Buzzcocks guest a couple of weeks ago. We've got two mini sets throughout the evening, which will be a refreshing change, and if all that isn't enough to tempt you to come along, there's a drawing competition in the interval, and free snacks from the bar! Anyway, enough plugging...

The Dunsfold Seven

2009-11-16T00:03:00.001Z

In my last but one post, I talked about how much I love London - and I really do - but the pace of life is so relentless, and so much can change in such a short period of time, that getting away every once and a while is the only way to maintain a healthy outlook on things. So after what can only be described as a challenging week, I was very much looking forward to a weekend in the countryside with a bunch of good friends. A while back we arranged a trip to a village called Dunsfold in Surrey (they film Top Gear there), where one of my friend's granny's lives (Granule), and the timing for the trip from my point of view couldn't have been better. Her home is a lovely rambling yet cosy place, with room for all seven of us.

But this year's trip didn't get off to the best of starts. Firstly, I was awoken by a full-on thunderstorm; not a great weather prospect for frolicking in fields. Then, having decided to treat myself to a massive bowl of steaming porridge for breakfast since I never did get round to dinner the night before, I discovered that water was dripping into the kitchen from the newly-occupied flat above. So I met my new neighbours in my pyjamas to introduce myself and request - as cheerfully as possible - they switch off their shower, like, now. Which they promptly did, and they called out a plumber straight away to fix the problem. Legends.

After the morning's dramas I donned my trusty cagoule and wellies and hotstepped it from London and its related stresses as fast as I could. I'm so glad I did. The torrential rain cleared just in time for a bracing walk around the village and the surrounding area. The wind was still ferocious - strong enough to lean into without falling over - and we even saw a massive tree uprooted before our eyes, blocking the country road (we called the necessary people). Quite a sad moment in hindsight, as the tree must have been hundreds of years old. We returned to Granule's in time for tea and brownies around the roaring fireplace. A jumbo crossword and a game of cheat later and it was time for fireworks! Granted, a week late, but it's part of what is fast becoming an annual tradition (we made the same trip this time last year).

On our Sunday morning walk we splashed in giant puddles, saw a beautiful rainbow, made friends with a couple of horses....then stumbled across a crime scene! I don't want to go into too much detail as it's obviously still a live case, but we had to call the police and everything. A proper mystery straight out of an Enid Blyton book, but a traumatic experience for the victim no doubt.

So now I'm back in London. Back to reality. But with a renewed energy, thanks to a perfect weekend full of simple, wholesome pleasures, and the magnificent seven people I shared it with, including the irrepressible Granule.

Twelve LOLS for the price of six

2009-11-08T22:15:00.002Z

Myself and Dunlop Junior are pretty ruthless - in an efficient not tyrannical way - when it comes to our fortnightly food shop. We always take a list, we often split up to source the necessary purchases in order to get in and out as quickly as possible, and we like to find a good bargain. It's toilet roll that always stumps us. It's just so blimin expensive! Today we opted for Andrex - extravagant, but it had three free rolls, or 12 for the price of 9 if you will. Decision made, or so we thought...
For when we were transferring our goods from our trolley to the checkout conveyor belt (heaviest items first, of-course), we caught the tail end of a tannoy announcement: "...buy one get one free, 65p for six rolls." One all-knowing sibling glance was all it took, and before you could say 'supermarket sweep' off I sprinted to the bog roll aisle to source this elusive special offer. It was only when I reached the aisle that everything became crystal clear. Bread rolls. Bugger.

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

London on the cheap: Striking a Chord

2009-11-08T18:34:00.003Z

I'll always possess a Bristolian soul, but having a few days off in London has reminded me how much I love this city. When I first moved here in 2007 I was concerned that everything would be so expensive that I would never have two pennies to rub together (interestingly, if you do rub two pennies together between your thumb and forefinger, it looks a bit like three pennies), but that really couldn't be any further from the truth. Sure, if you want to go out to expensive restaurants every night and shop on Bond Street then you can, but if you look in the right places there are so many things to do here for free.

Take the last few days, for example. On Tuesday the London Bloggers Meetup was a completely free event. Granted, not everyone is interested in blogging and online networking type things, but it really is such a nice crowd of people. Then on Thursday evening the play I went to was through the brilliant Audience Club. You pay £50 a year for membership to the club (I purchased my membership jointly with a friend, so a bargainous £25 each), and it entitles you to go along to fringe and West End shows and concerts all over the capital for two quid a pop. Over the years I've been to see Bon Jovi, an amazing ventriloquism show, comedy acts and tons of plays - from West End hits to back-room-of-a-pub dramas. I'd implore everyone in London to sign up, or buy membership for a theatre lover as an ace Christmas present (oh, and if you do, mention me as they'll whack on another couple of free months to my membership...!).

This weekend was another freebie special. On Saturday I went along to an incredible art installation in the Kingsway Tram Tunnel. The installation was a piece called 'Chord' by the artist Conrad Shawcross, and although you had to pre-book, it was free admission. The art itself is a rather funky piece of engineering brilliance, which is somehow automatically winding a multi-coloured piece of rope along a track. Sounds weird, and that's because it kind of is; in a good way, though. I do like these strange arty things, especially tunnel-based ones. For a more eloquent description of what it all means, here's the official site. Or take a look at the cool photos on Londonist (mine came out pretty rubbish as it was too dark, plus we weren't really allowed).

Although the art itself was impressive, personally I was more in awe of the tunnel itself. The subway - which is mainly used for storage by Camden Council these days - was last used for trams in 1952. More recently, the tunnel has been used for a number of films (Hidden City, The Avengers, Bhowani Junction and The Escapist), and some of the props from these films still remain, such as the rather spooky fake underground map, which I did manage to successfully snap:

I would absolutely love to visit some old, abandoned tube stations in London if possible, so if anyone hears of such an opportunity, please do let me know, as I find it fascinating.

The final freebie came in the form of some wonderful fireworks on Blackheath on Saturday night. Firework displays always astound me, and this one ticked all the boxes, those boxes being: a) availability of mulled wine b) duration of display c) fireworks I had never seen before (my favourite new one resembled a broccoli floret) and d) a suitably awe-inspiring and climactic finale.

So there you have it; proof that life in London can be easy on your wallet. I had intended to go to a free cinema screening this morning as well, but after weighing it up I opted for the lie-in. I do have to go back to work tomorrow, after all.

Speaking in puns...

2009-11-06T00:04:00.001Z

...is quite often what I find myself doing, mainly for my own childish amusement. Most of them are pretty weak and groan-inducing (which isn't a bad thing), but there's something incredibly gratifying about coming up with a pure pun. By a 'pure' pun, I mean one that works on not two, but at least THREE separate levels; they're the puns that are meant to exist, and they'll pop into your head almost effortlessly, before you've even had a chance to process the sheer brilliance of it. I reckon I've come up with a triple-tiered pun on only a dozen of occasions or so. Those who've ever interacted with me in any way shape or form know that a dozen is a tiny drop in the ocean when it comes to the sheer volume of my word-play attempts. So they're very rare creatures indeed.

Anyway, I've gone off on a punrelated tangent, as this blog was meant to be about a play I saw tonight called 'Speaking in Tongues'. A very good play it was too. It had John Simm in it (most would know him from Life On Mars, but as a Doctor Who fan I only see The Master), and another Doctor Who connection via actress Lucy Cohu, who played Captain Jack's daughter in the latest Torchwood series (thanks IMDB, that had been bugging me all night). There were only four actors in the production, but each one took on at least a couple of characters throughout the play.

The story initially centres around two married couples, whose lives and relationships are about to become as interwoven as the fast-paced dialogue, which is spoken in unison by the characters in the opening scene. Each of the couples is experiencing marital problems, and by coincidence they each find solace in the other's spouse.

By the end of act one, the audience is left wondering whether the couples will resolve their differences once their individual deceptions have been discovered and agonised over. But then the second half takes the audience on an altogether different journey, following the stories of a number of other complicated relationships, with a dark mystery linking them all in unspoken little ways, as well as the characters we met in the first half. It's all very clever and tense, and it was a great production which definitely gets you thinking about the notion of trust and just how blimin' complicated human relationships are, and not just the romantic ones.

Before the play, I caught up with some old colleagues and friends, and had a yummy Thai meal in a restaurant which I never knew existed before tonight. It's called Thai Pot, and it's just round the corner from my favourite pub in the world, The Harp. So, basically, everything I have mentioned above, I would very much recommend.

Remember remember, the November LBM-ber (or...something)

2009-11-05T00:21:00.004Z

I arrived back in London yesterday fully refreshed after a few days in Bristol. I would have stayed perhaps a day longer, were in not for the November edition of the London Bloggers Meetup last night. 'What the heck,' I thought, 'It would be nice to actually go along to one of these events without the little sensible voice in my head telling me that I should really stop drinking these lovely free beverages because I have work the next day.'

So I timed my journey east in order to arrive in the capital for LBM at Doggett's Coat and Badge. It was nice getting there early for a change, as I was able to chat with brand new attendees who I wouldn't normally get to say hello to, as I usually turn up when the room is brimming with people I already know. So I got chatting to Pascale, a make-up artist, which excited me greatly as I definitely need some advice to help me look all 'rock chick' for my upcoming gig.

I also met Zubyre, and had a good discussion with Peter about the future of photojournalism (speaking of which, there's a fascinating nine-day press photography series starting in the Guardian this Saturday *removes PR hat*). I then got chatting to Dafydd from Cite, who'd travelled down from Leicester with a colleague (didn't catch her name but she was very nice) especially for the event.

Because I'd had maybe one or two more drinks than I normally would, I then proceeded to have a strange conversation with Tom (of Tired of London, Tired of Life fame) about my wardrobe. Sorry about that. But it is the nicest wardrobe in the world. Fact.

The ever-glamorous Sian and Alex arrived - laden with freebies from a fashion event - just as an interesting presentation by Marco Saric began. Then the legendary Gary turned up, fresh from recording the latest Two Footed Tackle podcast. It was good to catch up with him, as he hasn't been able to make the last few events. He's a busy chap.

As ever, it was lovely to see and chat with Shell (who has been doing a marvellous 'for how many days can I wear the same dress?' experiment on her fashion blog), Matt (Churchill), Chris (Witness To The Beard's number one fan), Melinda (aka Miss Geeky), Tom (Flashboy), Kate, Lolly, Darika and Alex L. I also briefly met Chris (of the Tiki variety - who won a telly on the night courtesy of the event's sponsor, Paramount), as well as a number of others who I failed to exchange cards with (including a cycling blogger who - it turns out - I'd already been in touch with about Guardian stuff).

Huge thanks to Andy who organised the event, and I'm looking forward to December's already.

Pub quiz-co

2009-11-02T23:25:00.001Z

So I'm having a bit of time away from London during my week off work, chilling out with my family on the outskirts of Bristol, where I grew up. Knowing how much I enjoy a good pub quiz, my parents decided we should go along to the Upton Inn a couple of miles down the road for their Monday night curry and quiz. I like pubs, I like curry, and I like a bit of healthy trivia-based competition, so it sounded like a good deal to me. But I was not prepared for what fun was to come...

For after the quiz had finished but (crucially) BEFORE the winner was announced, the lights are dimmed, the music (from the music round) is switched on and the little country pub transforms itself into the hottest village disco this side of, err, Bitton. It was lots of fun, and a great way to liven up what would otherwise be the dullest evening of the week. So bravo, Upton Inn - your curry was gurt lush, your staff were all tip top, the quiz cash prizes were not to be sneered at (we came a respectable fourth out of eleven teams and won £20, the winning team got £100) and all in all I would highly recommend a visit. But be warned: it's a popular place is this, so booking is definitely recommended!

In The 'Trick or Treat' Of It

2009-11-01T11:07:00.001Z

Friday was a fun day in the office. I had loads of things to do as it was my final day at work before a week off, but in between all of that it was the inaugural Halloween Bake-Off contest and a preview screening of 'The Thick Of It', which had been filmed in the Guardian building a few months previously.

The premise of the Halloween Bake-Off, which had been conceived by one of my colleagues in the press office, was simple: bake a Halloween-themed cake, get a judge to choose the best cake based solely on looks, then sell the cakes for charity. I love cakes, but baking is definitely not one of my personal strengths. However, making Oreo balls certainly is a forte. So I decided that it would be much easier if I made some of my yummy Oreo truffles and decorated them to make them look spooky.

ERROR.

What I failed to foresee was that, although making standard Oreo balls is indeed quite simple and speedy, making fiddly ones which are meant to actually resemble something is not, especially if you've got plans for the two nights before which the truffles have to be ready. So I concocted a plan. Three nights before Bake-Off Day: crush the four packets of Oreo biscuits into a fine powder (took an hour using a tin of chopped tomatoes as a crusher and a sieve to ensure the powder was fine enough). Two nights before: mix crushed biscuits with cream cheese, mould into spooky shapes (pumpkins and skulls) and coat in appropriately-coloured melted chocolate (two hours). Night before: add the finishing touches with coloured piped icing sugar (one hour). They turned out pretty well, but I didn't win. However, we did raise lots of cash. Photos of all of the entries are here.

A couple of hours later and it was time for The Thick Of It screening. Back in the summer the cast and crew spent the day at Kings Place filming. I spent a couple of hours during that day supervising the crew as part of my job, which was incredibly interesting. The director of the series, Armando Iannucci, is an absolute genius. I also learned that the guy who plays Elvis the driver is - in real life - the production office's accountant, and he was given the part solely because of his long and mouldable hair. He was very nice. The Guardian episode was aired last night, but as a thank you for allowing them to film in our building, they agreed to the preview screening, followed by an off-the-record Q&A with lots of the cast, along with the producer and the scriptwriter. Fascinating stuff. Here's a screenshot from the episode, walking down the stairs from the floor where I work:

Once you've tasted glove...

2009-10-31T23:05:00.003Z

I was listening to a feature on Radio 4 this morning about a guy who tastes words. Yes, you heard (or felt) me right, he TASTES various flavours according to what words he hears. Apparently this disorder is called gustatory auditory synaesthesia and it can affect all of the senses in a whole multitude of combinations. So, from what I understand, some people can feel noises and smell things they see (more information at http://www.uksynaesthesia.com/).

The example they used for the flavoursome words chap was that the word 'Tony' tastes like desiccated coconut. He also revealed that the word 'coffin' tastes like boiled sweets in order to demonstrate that the negative (or positive) connotations associated with certain words in no way affects whether the subsequent taste is pleasant or rank; the tastes are completely arbitrary.

I've become a big fan of Radio 4 in recent weeks, but I do feel that in this particular feature they failed to address a number of key questions. For example, what happens when people talk about actual food? Does he taste mint when someone says the word 'mint'? What word is associated with the taste of chocolate? Does it work in reverse? i.e. does he hear words in his head when he eats? Does he actively seek out people who are likely to talk more about things that result in the flavours he enjoys the most?

P.S. The title of this post is a Take That reference. I wonder what flavour the word 'glove' conjures up?

Next creative venture: write a song

2009-10-30T00:10:00.002Z

2009 appears to be the year of 'doing new things' for me. So far this year I've played my first ever live gigs with my band, been to Glastonbury for the first time, went on my first business trips and I've recently written my first ever short story (which I might even share with the world one day). I have a week off next week, and I've decided that my aim for the week (as well as catching up with my family in Bristol, watching lots of TV, reading a stack of books and having a bit of time away from t'internet and its inevitable trappings) is going to be to steal temporarily borrow one of my brother's guitars and pen a song.
You never know, if it ends up being even close to ok, I might even perform it at an upcoming Witness To The Beard gig. So far I have two chords and the vague whisper of a melody, but I already know that the lyrics are going to be the trickiest part. Do I make them all deep and meaningful, or should my tongue remain firmly in my cheek? Should it be dripping with puns and irony, or should I - for once - strip away my defensive layers of self-deprecating humour and bare my soul (pass the bucket)?
I must admit, it would be nice to add my own song to WTTB's growing collection of original material. Don't get me wrong, I'm more than content to drum along to the songs the two lads come up with, since rhythm comes marginally more naturally to me and they're both great songwriters, but I've always enjoyed a challenge. Time to get out of my drum-fort zone methinks...

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

(Dried) Pasta-chef

2009-10-25T00:12:00.001+01:00

I couldn't let the latest Masterchef final go by without a little mention. Incarnated this quarter as 'Masterchef: The Professionals', we were led to believe that the contestants this time round already knew a little bit about cooking, so they replaced the usual 'cooking doesn't get tougher than this' tagline with 'cooking doesn't get better than this' (umm, I think it probably does, actually, but never mind). In order to demonstrate this new philosophy, for their penultimate culinary challenge the three finalists each had to cook a Michelin star-quality course, to be served to a room filled with such kitchen visionaries that they possessed 40 Michelin stars between them, as was repeated to the audience innumerable times.

Each course had been designed by the crazy-eyed chef Michel Roux Junior. Now I'm sorry if this makes me sound like a bit of a food snob (I'm definitely not a food snob, the most extravagant thing I've ever eaten is probably duck), but the main course and the dessert in particular looked like pretty bog-standard fare. The main course partly consisted of a posh macaroni cheese, made with dried - yes DRIED - pasta, stacked up all fancy and whatnot, but essentially it looked like a slice of pasta bake that had been left in the oven for too long.

The voiceover woman even had to justify why dried pasta was being used in the recipe because it really did look a bit rubbish:

"Steve's using high-quality dried pasta, used in many of the best restaurants in Italy."

The pudding was also laughable, consisting of a bit of chocolate on top of a rice crispie cake. But this wasn't any ordinary rice crispie (sorry, 'puffed rice') cake. No. This was because it had CRACKLE CRYSTALS in it. You know, that crackly stuff which pops on your tongue that you used to eat as a kid. The way Michele talked about it, you'd think no one in the world had ever experienced this "fun" popping sensation before. C'mon Junior, they've used this trick on Come Dine With Me!

Once the first challenge was over and done with, it was on to the final task: cooking their best ever three course meal. One of the contestants made the fatal error of making a chocolate fondant for his pudding. The words 'chocolate fondant' on Masterchef are basically the death knell for the contestant attempting to cook it, because they ALWAYS fail. The normal contestants fail, the celebrities fail and now even the professionals fail. It was only slightly gooey in the middle, whereas a flood of chocolate yumminess should have flowed from the sponge casing when the spoon broke through the threshold. Disappointing. I swear if someone made a YouTube compilation video of all the ruined Masterchef chocolate fondants it would be a very long - and amusing - video indeed.

So another series is over, and another Masterchef winner walks away with the fantastic prize of...oh yeah, there is no prize is there? Oh well. The question is, will John Torode be back for the next series? One can only hope...

Ringtone or no ringtone

2009-10-24T10:45:00.004+01:00

I'm an idiot. In my previous post I completely neglected to mention one of the greatest TV recording experiences of my life: DEAL OR NO DEAL. The show is filmed in Bristol and the Dunlop clan went along one Friday afternoon in 2006, smack bang in the middle of the show's heyday. Going to see DOND being filmed was unlike any other TV recording experience I referred to yesterday. For one, the show is filmed in an old warehouse and it was much less like a military operation to get it. Secondly, YOU GET FREE ALCOHOL AND FOOD. This aspect of the experience was particularly excellent. Thirdly, if you play your cards right, you could very well end up on the telly yourself.

Anyone who knows me knows that I would never pass up on the opportunity to put myself in a potentially embarrassing situation, so I actively sought out the researcher with the clipboard who was selecting the three audience members to open the boxes at the end of the show for the viewers' competition. Of-course, these were the days before Ofcom ruled that such money-making competitions were actually a little bit wrong.

Happily, the clipboard guy agreed for me and my brother to be two of the box-openers at the end, so after a quick lesson on how to open the box without looking like a fool (place one hand on top of the box, then rip the tag off with the other before lifting the lid with both hands) we were ushered to special seats in the audience with easy access to the relevant plinth.

Let's just say the next hour or so that followed was a bit of an ordeal. Not only was I terrified of my big box-opening moment, but my phone decided to start vibrating at a very crucial and dramatic part of the proceedings. I got away with it and dismantled my phone, a small sense of calm enveloping me, safe in the knowledge that it definitely couldn't go off again. About 10 minutes later, someone else's phone started ringing. 'Phew', I thought to myself, 'I'm not the only silly person in this room'. Except slowly I began to realise that I recognised the relentless ringtone, and then I realised that it wasn't a ringtone after all, it was my sodding iPod with The Subways blaring out of the headphones! I'd left it unlocked in my bag and I'd obviously nudged it on, and my attempts to muffle the noise with my feet only seemed to be making it louder. Somehow I managed to get away with that as well.

So, the moment of truth. I took my place in the middle of the plinth behind box number two, absolutely terrified, as you can see from my face, here:

'Please don't choose two, please don't choose two', I mentally pleaded with the random audience member who had been selected by Edmonds. They chose number three, panic over. Here are a couple of photos of the actual box opening:

The relief I felt at the moment above is almost indescribable. It was a lot of fun, thanks Noel!

Have I got queues for you

2009-10-23T22:46:00.002+01:00

Back in the good old Bristol sixth-form days, my media studies class went on a glamorous trip to London. We paid a visit to the now-closed Museum Of The Moving Image, then had some spare time to roam around the city before heading to a television studio to watch some Mr & Mrs-esque show being recorded, presented by Dale Winton*

Now, my media studies class were a bit of a rebellious bunch, and during the 'spare time' element of the day, everyone (apart from me and my clan of fellow geeks who ended up in Sega World or somewhere like that) got smashed in the pub and was pretty pissed by the time we got to the recording studio, to the extent that one guy even ended up gatecrashing the studio next door where a Clive James show was being recorded and being removed from the building.

It was a fun trip, and although seeing a programme being recorded was an enjoyable novelty, the show itself wasn't exactly enthralling. But I'm happy to report that since then my TV recording experiences have improved vastly with no drunken teenagers in sight. I've been to see 'TV Burp', 'QI', 'The Big Fat Quiz of the Year' and 'Bremner Bird & Fortune', and last night I was lucky enough to watch 'Have I Got News For You'.

We had amazing seats - right at the front next to Ian Hislop - as a result of priority tickets and my well-honed queue skills. Unlike some shows, this one is a really good one to be in the audience for, as it's recorded as-live and they simply edit it down for broadcast the following day. It was all over and done with in a laughter-filled couple of hours and I was home in time to watch THAT episode of 'Question Time'. The guest presenter David Mitchell was his usual quick-witted self, and the guests were top-notch. You can watch the episode in question here.

One observation from before the recording began was that Paul Merton is obviously quite fussy about ensuring he has the same chair every week. Before I took the above photo there was a little sticker on his chair with 'Paul' written on it, so they can obviously distinguish between his chairs and the others when they dress the set.

But one of my highlights of the evening took place before the recording of the show had even begun. We were shivering away at the front of the queue, when a frazzled researcher / runner from the Graham Norton Show came bursting out of the studio building and breathlessly asked the waiting mob 'are you fans of Michael Buble?'. The silence that greeted her as she asked the same question to the queue of current affairs fans was deafening - and hilarious. Goodness knows why she was so desperate to find Michael Buble fans; I can only presume that he was one of Graham's guests last night, and I very much hope that the poor girl managed to find at least one Buble fan somewhere on the Southbank for whatever purpose she had in mind.

*I cannot find a single online reference to this programme - not even on Dale Winton's Wikipedia or IMDB listing. But basically it was a Saturday night show which involved someone trying to work our who was the genuine partner / spouse of another contestant, with lots of bluffing etc. And Dale had an annoying catchphrase which involved a chaise longue...any ideas anyone??

Imagine you are turning into glass, from the feet up...

2009-10-21T23:11:00.004+01:00

You're out on a run one day and you feel something irritating your toe. You shake out your shoes and socks thinking a tiny stone must have sneakily worked its way inside, but the scratchy sensation simply refuses to go away. Upon taking a closer look, you realise that a small, twinkling shard of glass has somehow embedded itself into one of your toes. No matter how hard you try to pluck it out, it cannot be removed; it's truly stuck. Only after a while do you realise that it's not stuck at all, it's actually growing from your foot and - little by little - your feet begin to harden and deaden and you reach the horrific conclusion that they are turning into glass...

This is the situation faced by Ida in Ali Shaw's debut novel, 'The Girl With Glass Feet', which has recently been longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. Set in a faraway (or is it?) land which feels to be drained of colour, Ida stumbles across Midas - an exceedingly shy and lonely chap who is obsessed with light and photography. The pair embark on a very tentative relationship, but despite Ida's obvious physical frailties, it's Midas's sensitivity and vulnerability which threatens to ruin any chance of happiness they might once be able to discover. And if they do manage to overcome Midas's endless inhibitions, how much time do they have left before the glass decides to venture north up Ida's body?

We discussed this book this evening at our monthly book-pub-club (as I've just decided to name it since it takes place in a pub), and overall our thoughts about the novel were extremely positive. It's a wonderful story, and it's written extremely well, and in such a way that you really can picture in your mind the mysterious land that Shaw has created; like our own in the vast majority of ways, but just different enough for the reader to be able to suspend their disbelief and accept that, in this world, turning into glass is not an impossible affliction. Some moments are truly breathtaking, others are perhaps a little 'out there', but each and every character - all suffering from some kind of loss - is absorbing. And the visual metaphors are awesome. Here's one of my favourite ones:

"A robin tweeting on a branch was paling from chestnut brown to fine white. Its legs became white wires and its eyes became hailstones. Its breast remained a red thumbprint for a second, then that also faded, through pink to crisp white."

I just love that 'thumbprint' image.

I'd very much recommend giving this book a read. It's different to anything I've ever read before and it's also the prettiest book I've ever seen, with silver-edged pages. Almost glass-like...

A pea-sized amount

2009-10-20T22:30:00.002+01:00

Do you remember when you were little and the dentist used to tell you to use a 'pea-sized amount' of toothpaste to brush your teeth with? Well, I remember hearing these words of dentistry wisdom (teeth) and obediently trying it out when I got home.
There I'd be, stood at the sink with a determined look of concentration on my face, diligently trying to write the letter 'P' on the frustratingly-small surface area of the toothbrush. 'It's just impossible!', I marvelled, wondering how on earth all the grown-ups managed to create such a fiddly letter out of such a cumbersome tube of minty paste. After a while I gave up, and just used a spherical squirt of toothpaste instead. Much easier.

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

Yes, so David Beckham's got a beard - stop shaving on about it

2009-10-18T00:35:00.003+01:00

via guardian.co.uk

Why is everyone so obsessed with David Beckham's beard? According to The Observer, it's "like an unstoppable hairy fungus" which is "colonising" him. I'm not denying that Mr Beckham has consciously decided to embrace his facial hair as some kind of fashion statement, but does it really warrant such debate?
If indeed it does, then let's start to discuss what his World Cup style niche will be next year. Red contact lenses? A blue nose? Fangs? Perhaps he's growing the beard now in preparation, in order to have a big dreadlock hanging from his chin. Personally, I'm going to put money on him getting a tattooed moustache.

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

The Ukraine really has got talent

2009-10-15T23:35:00.002+01:00

via youtube.com

Somehow I can't see anything like this winning Britain's Got Talent, but I think it's stunning. How *does* she get her hair so glossy?!

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

Homeless To The Beard: My band needs rehearsal space!

2009-10-13T21:02:00.002+01:00

My band - 'Witness To The Beard' - needs your help! We are homeless! We no longer have access to our London rehearsal space in Tooting (kind of a relief since it was a bit of a pain in the arse to get there and back, but it was free so mustn't grumble), so we're on the lookout for a new home.
Ideally it'd be in central London (around Waterloo area would be perfect), have a full drum kit, amps and microphones etc, and we'd be able to book it for a couple of hours at a time at a cost which wouldn't break the bank. I've already been recommended a few places after I put up a request on my work noticeboard, but thought I'd widen the net to see if I can get any more ideas. Me and the guys are having a (Witness To The) Board meeting this Thursday to discuss, so any thoughts before then would be much appreciated.

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

I love my postcode (thanks @qypelondon!)

2009-10-13T20:38:00.004+01:00

Woop! Just found out I've won a Qype competition, simply for telling them about the favourite place in my postcode (SE13). I e-mailed them saying my local library - Manor House Library in Hither Green - was top of the SE13 list for me. I absolutely love this place and find myself popping in nearly every weekend to exchange my books, browse through the weekend papers and generally marvel at the absolute beauty of this place, and how lucky I am to have it on my doorstep.

The library is a beautifully-refurbished Georgian manor house, and only opened to the public a few months ago. When I moved to Hither Green this time last year I presumed they were converting the building into flats. My delight when I found out it was going to be a library was huge, and my enthusiasm only ballooned once I'd paid my first visit; the books are all BRAND NEW! And the staff are great, too. Ok, the selection isn't huge, but I can also get books out from loads of other libraries in the Lewisham area, and it's honestly the loveliest little library I've ever been in.

For my prize, I get to choose an I love my postcode t-shirt. Think I'll go for this one.

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

Heel up

2009-10-12T23:02:00.002+01:00

In my drum lesson this evening I learnt that, in order to get maximum impact from the bass drum, you need to keep your heel off the ground and pretty much stamp on the kick pedal, as opposed to my current 'heel down' method of tapping the pedal with the ball of my foot. This method is going to take some getting used to, especially in all of my high-tempo (ish) bass drum sequences, of which I am a fan.
I also discovered today that my right foot and my left arm do NOT like doing the same thing at the same time, unless my right arm is also involved in the simultaneous action. I therefore now have a mission to make my right foot and left arm best buds. Inseparable, even. Sorry right arm, you're going to be left out for a little while, but soon you will have a new pal: left foot. But not for a long time yet, that really is my Achilles heel (or should I say foot).

Posted via web from Thoughts as she has them

There ain't no party like a...political conference

2009-10-11T10:22:00.001+01:00

There's nothing like sleeping in your own bed after being away, and the past couple of weeks I've been here, there and everywhere. Ok, slight exaggeration. More specifically, I've been in Brighton and Manchester working at the Labour and Tory Party Conferences respectively.

Working at these events gave me a valuable insight into the machinations of politics, as well as giving me a feeling for the two political parties who will be vying to run our country within the next six months. The nature of the work I was doing at the conferences meant that I didn't get to attend the big speeches or fringe events (other than the ones we were hosting), but simply wandering around the venues, speaking to the delegates and rubbing shoulders with the politicians gave me a real sense of where each party is likely to be headed.

Some of the most interesting / amusing / thought-provoking encounters over the fortnight:

At the Labour Party Conference Guardian / Observer party I eventually plucked up the courage to chat with Eddie Izzard about his recent multiple marathons charity effort. He was so nice but I got slightly star struck and tongue-tied.
Competition for seats in the Midland Hotel bar in Manchester was fierce - even at 2.30am - so we ended up sharing a table with a cross-dressing Tory with the most fabulous nails you have ever seen. Listening to him talk about why he'd attended the Conservative Party Conference for the last decade, despite being labelled the 'most unlikely person to be here', was absolutely fascinating. An interesting article about how the party appears to be embracing the LGBT community is here.
Having a press pass meant that I could pretty much access all areas. Walking along the media gantry alongside the main auditorium whilst a well-known newsreader was having his make-up airbrushed on was a particularly surreal moment.
Ken Clarke - who took part in one of our fringe events - is a great character, but I disagree with his views on the smoking ban.
On our last night in Brighton, we somehow ended up dining in the same restaurant as COLIN FIRTH! Oh, and Alistair Darling and Caroline Lucas were there too. Another one of those 'how the hell did I end up here?' moments.
John Snow: an absolute gentleman who wears the best ties and socks, and I now have a crush.
Our IT guys who provided remote comms support to our journalists and worked very long hours deserve a huge pat on the back.
Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell is actually a GENIUS. Watch him at work here.

It's been a tough year for politicians, and the next few months are undoubtedly going to be an even bigger political rollercoaster ride as the election campaigns properly kick-off. I think it's important to remember that - no matter how set in stone the election result appears to be at this stage - we still have the democratic power to determine the outcome ourselves.

It's not going to be an easy choice for many voters next year, but I'm of the opinion that helping to determine the political direction of your country really shouldn't be an easy decision to make. I just hope that the effort required to make this decision doesn't put too many people off from exercising their democratic right to vote. If disenchantment with the political system does get the better of us, then I think the outcome is indeed already decided. That's all I'm saying...

Not quite a gas-sacre, but still a (Griffin) lark

2009-09-20T18:09:00.001+01:00

Believe it or not I used to be a huge football fan. In fact, if you ask me a 96/97/98 football-related trivia question my knowledge may ~~astound~~ amuse you (especially if that question relates to the Euro 96 England squad, Bristol Rovers or, in particular, Marcus Browning). But after I left Bristol for uni my interest in the beautiful game sadly ebbed away. I still like to go to a match now and again, but the last time I was on the terraces must have been about this time last year when I went to see AFC Wimbledon.

So when I discovered that The Gas were playing Brentford this weekend - just a mere hour away - I decided to go along to Griffin Park to see how my team is faring in League One. To kick us off, here are a few pointless observations:

The Bristol Rovers away strip is way too similar to Norwich's home strip. On the other hand it is also rather reminiscent of Brazil's, adding a modicum of realism to the chant 'It's just like watching Brazil...'
Before kick off, the two teams now line up in front of the dugouts as if waiting for their respective national anthems to play, then go and shake each others' hands. FOR GOODNESS SAKE THIS IS LEAGUE ONE NOT AN INTERNATIONAL FIXTURE (apparently this has been going on for quite a while without my awareness)
For some reason, there were about seven ballboys on one side of the pitch, and none whatsoever on the other
Before the match the stewards confiscated my body spray, but were quite happy for me to take in my can of 7UP
Griffin Park pasty rating: poor (microwaved Pukkas) but hot and edible

In terms of the actual match (sorry fellas, I am a mere girl after all) it was a brilliant game. Rovers were 3-0 up by half-time, courtesy of two goals from new striker Chris Dickson on his debut (he's on loan from fellow League One-ers Charlton Athletic. What were they thinking?! As a result of yesterday's victory we're now hot on their heels near the top of the table - woop!) and one from Jolean Lescott's sibling, Aaron. The second half was somewhat tense in comparison, with Brentford pulling one back, but despite their dominance they couldn't get another breakthrough, so we were victorious! Championship here we come...

For my chewing pleasure

2009-09-15T22:13:00.005+01:00

Operation Good Guys was on the telly when I returned home this evening. Ok, so it wasn't actually on the telly, my brother was watching our never-been-opened boxset of the show, which he bought for me a couple of years ago but I've never got around to watching. This was obviously a huge error on my part, as it's bloomin hilarious! Who remembers it? Basically, it was The Office before The Office (first shown in 1997, whereas The Office was first broadcast four years later). It's a mockumentary about an undercover police squad who are supposedly being filmed by a BBC crew for a fly-on-the-wall look at the detectives in action as they attempt to snare the crime lord 'Smiler McCarthy'.

Predictably, the whole bunch of them are incompetent, but the real dig is at the fact that they're allowed to get away with their shoddiness, and - in one episode - even showcase their idiocy by coordinating an 'undercover squad open day'. But instead of demonstrating their detecting and policing skills, they instead decide to turn it into a cabaret show under the guidance of (the actual) Christopher Biggins. There are loads more celebrity cameos, my personal favourite being an appearance by David Seaman.

The first series is classic. From what I remember it seemed to go downhill in the second series. Indeed, having just read the Wikipedia entry, I remember now that they stupidly decided to introduce canned laughter in the second and third series, completely spoiling the documentary feel, but it's still worth watching to see where The Office may have got some of its inspiration from.

Speaking of small-screen hilarity, I am (of-course) addicted to the latest Masterchef incarnation, which is rather inappropriately called Masterchef: The Professionals. C'mon guys, even I know that you don't make sauce in a griddle pan!

From what I gather so far, this competition is open to people who make a living out of any profession which is - however vaguely - related to cookery. So they could be a catering lecturer in a college, or work in the kitchen of a local pub. I'm guessing these people wouldn't be eligible for standard Masterchef, and certainly not for the 'celebrity' version, so this show caters (see what I did there?!) for everyone in between. And everyone in between appears to be a white chap in their mid-twenties. Nope, the BBC certainly aren't ticking any equality and diversity boxes with this programme. Still, it's as entertaining as ever.

Highlights from the first two shows have been the guy who aimed to make ravioli from scratch, but ended up serving an omelette on top of spaghetti, and Jamie from Wiltshire, who is a walking, taking, real-life thesaurus. Jamie's through to the next round, so I'm looking forward to hearing many more variations on the word 'chuffed' from him in the near future / very soon / shortly.

Dear blog: you're cool, but I love my dear diaries

2009-09-14T23:30:00.007+01:00

Ever since I was 13 I've kept a diary. It's not the kind of diary where I pour out my heart and soul on to the pages, I simply write about what I did each day and keep a note of the funny things that might have happened.

As a teenager I used to write this on a daily basis, religiously. At uni I updated it every two or three days. But now I'm lucky if I update it once a week. It's getting to the stage where I can't actually remember what I did on certain days, and I will geekily admit that I sometimes have to trawl through my Twitter archive to remind me about what I was doing on a particular day so I can record these details in my week-to-view diary.

My diaries - and there are 14 of them so far - are my most treasured possessions in the world; certainly the first thing I would save if my flat was on fire. And here's why:

On this day...

14/9/2008: I decided that Hither Green was where I wanted to buy a flat
14/9/2007: Living in London, I went out for birthday drinks with a colleague and watched some rugby
14/9/2006: I was living and working in Portsmouth and loads of roads were flooded

14/9/2005: I went to a legs, bums and tums class...then had pizza for tea
14/9/2004: I was working as a receptionist at a newspaper in Southampton, and was happy to discover that my (now-ex) boyfriend had actually done some cleaning
14/9/2003: Watched the Grand Prix and went to a pub in Hamble, Hampshire
14/9/2002: I was hungover and applying for graduate job schemes
14/9/2001: On summer holiday between my first and second years at uni. Went for an Italian meal with my family in Bristol
14/9/2000: Went clubbing with mates in Bristol before we all went our separate ways to various unis
14/9/1999: Me and my school friends watched the video I made of our Newquay holiday and I got invited to a party with my college friends (!!!)
14/9/1998: I played hangman with Tim during my free period and had an argument with my dad and brother later on
14/9/1997: I went to Lauren's rabbit's funeral, then had a big stress about what to wear to the cinema. We watched 'Romy and Michele's High School Reunion'
14/9/1996: I went to Chessington World of Adventures, and went on the pirate ship twice and the Vampire ride four times!!! Rovers lost 1-0 (first defeat of the season)

Wow, that was really freaky reading through some of my older ones. My life has changed so much in the last five years or so. All for the better.

I think the reason I wanted to write this particular post was to spur me on to update my diary more often, as it's getting a bit ridiculous. I truly believe that keeping a permanent, hard-copy record of events is so valuable, and helps you to remember who you used to be, and how you got to where you are today.

Writing this blog and updating Twitter is all very well, but being able to flick through the pages of the last 15 or so years of my life is so precious to me, and it would be so sad to lose that. So, from now on, I WILL write my diary on a more regular basis. I promise.

Each year, when I get a new diary in my Christmas stocking (thanks mum!) I write a note or two to myself on random future dates. I saw one of those notes today and it made me smile, and inspired me to write this. Well done, me, you're alright I guess :)

gIRL about town

2009-09-12T23:52:00.007+01:00

Weeks don't get much busier than this. Well, not for me, anyway. I have calculated that I spent about 15 hours of it networking and mingling with people I don't know all that well, and this is why:

Monday
I went to my first ever Writing Salon at the Hospital Club in Covent Garden. I'm not a member of the club, but a friend of mine kindly took me along. The format of the evening was to discuss two pieces of creative writing, but what I stupidly failed to realise is that the authors of the pieces were members of the group and sat around the table! Fortunately I cottoned on pretty quickly, and had only positive things to say anyway, but it looks like that if I want to continue going (fantastic surroundings, good discussion; why wouldn't I?!) then I'm going to have to submit my own short story for the group to critique. Scary stuff, but I like challenging myself to do new things, so watch this space for my fictional debut.

Tuesday
The London Bloggers Meet-ups seem to get bigger (and sweatier!) every month, and September's gathering was no exception. This time we hung out in the basement bar at Ember in Farringdon, and the event was sponsored by eBay who told us all about their new Daily Deals feature. I ended up being the lucky winner of a netbook, which was the main prize of eBay's raffle. I will put my hands up and admit now that I won another netbook a couple of months ago, so my brother is going to have the new one and donate a nice chunk of cash to St Peter's Hospice, so thanks eBay! Here's a marvellous write-up of the event - and some amazingly geeky graphs - from fellow blogger (and Witness To The Beard fan) Chris Gilmour.

Wednesday
I attended the beautiful RSA building just off the Strand for the judging lunch of the Guardian Public Services Awards 2009. These awards do a fantastic job of rewarding people and services that might not normally receive such recognition, and it was a privilege to learn about the fantastic work so many people are doing around the country as the judges were debating who should make the shortlist (which will be announced at the end of this month).

Thursday
TWESTIVAL. Having met some Twitter people 'IRL' the previous weekend, luckily I didn't have to turn up to this gathering of the London Twitterati on my lonesome. But once I got there, it was incredible how many people I bumped into; people I already knew in person, but many who I'd only ever interacted with on Twitter. For those who don't know, Twestifals are charity events for Twitterers which take place all over the world, so they can meet up in person and raise lots of £££s. I met loads of new people and fully took advantage of free drinks, and a good night was had by all.

Friday
It was the infamous office beauty sale, where the squillions of free samples that get sent to the editorial department get sold to us minions for a tiny fraction of their high street value, with all money raised going to charity. I'd heard rumours that getting to the good stuff involves the use of elbows and excessive shoving, but I can quite happily report that I actually found it quite civilised. Or maybe that's because I was the first in the queue....Anyway, I was extremely happy with my purchases as I managed to get about £300 worth of stuff for about a tenth of the price! Just realised that my fun week also resulted in about £100 going to various charities - bonus!

Saturday
I commissioned a piece of art last weekend and I collected it today. It's by John Lynch, who you can find in Greenwich Market every weekend. Look how lovely it is (poor quality photo but best I can do for now):

And finally...a shameless plug
My next gig with Witness To the Beard is on Friday 25th September in Stockwell. PLEASE COME!

Design gufflaw

2009-09-06T15:56:00.004+01:00

As part of a humongous walk around London yesterday with my brother and our 17-year-old cousin, we walked past the Design Council on Bow Street. In the window they were showcasing an example of what they deem to be 'good design'. In this instance, a lightweight, uber-ergonomic horse saddle. As I walked up to the window to take a closer look, I stubbed my foot on an awkward step up to the window. "Now that's poor design," I said. I then proceeded to shamelessly laugh at my own quip for about ten minutes. Just wanted to share my joke with the world...

Being a juror

2009-08-22T23:52:00.008+01:00

It's been a funny old fortnight - extremely structured in one sense, yet all up in the air at the same time. This is probably a good way to sum up jury service, for which I've just completed a two week stint.

I got the summons in the post the best part of a year ago now, but managed to defer it twice due to bad timings and unavoidable circumstances. Obviously a blog isn't the place to go spouting off about all the specifics of the trials I was sworn in on, but I thought it might be useful or interesting to share my general jury service experiences here for reference.

If I'm honest, jury service is always something that I've been intrigued by in terms of the legal processes and the psychology of it all (I'm a huge fan of the film '12 Angry Men', pictured above), so I was pretty chuffed to have been randomly selected from the electoral register. Strangely the initial summons was actually addressed to 'Hilary Dunlop' as opposed to 'Hayley', but when I called to acknowledge the summons they insisted that it was definitely me who had been chosen. So I rocked up at the court on my designated day and got ushered into a big waiting room with around 75 or so others, where we watched a video and got given a talk about the general procedures we could expect over the coming days. In a separate room there was the same number of jurors again, who had started their stints the previous week. So at any given time there are around 150 jurors there, which I found quite surprising. The difference with a big Crown Court in London is that there are loads of courtrooms and lots of cases starting throughout the day. I don't know if these factors meant that me being selected as a juror for three trials across the two weeks was the norm or whether I was just lucky.

Well, I say lucky, but of course sitting on a jury isn't easy. Especially if, like me, you have the tendency to nod off at inappropriate moments. But the thing about listening to evidence in a trial is that you HAVE to listen, as ultimately the defendant's immediate future depends on you having paid attention in order to reach a fair verdict. So no napping for me. Although I found the procedures of each of the three trials extremely interesting, I did find the pressure on me, as well as the sheer level of concentration required to listen to hours and hours of evidence, extremely draining. I naively thought that the fortnight would possibly allow me to have a bit more free time than normal, but even though a typical day at the court would start at 10.15am and finish at around 4.30pm, at the end of most days I just wanted to go home straight away and sleep because my mind was full to the brim.

Each of the three trials I was sworn in on were relatively short ones, and for two of them we were deliberating the verdicts for a good few hours. For me, this was the worst part of the experience, as although I'm quite a headstrong person with often unmovable opinions, I also detest conflict and will instinctively do everything possible to keep the peace. In everyday life I tend to agree to disagree with someone if their opinion on something is in contrast to my own. However, when deliberating a verdict, agreeing to disagree simply isn't an option. It was certainly extremely revealing to see how a bunch of people who barely knew each other interacted in this kind of situation, especially in the presence of some very strong characters. I'd like to think that I remained calm and logical according to the legal guidance we had received, but on the other hand I also found it really difficult to detach myself emotionally.

Overall I wouldn't necessarily say that I 'enjoyed' the experience, although I certainly valued it. I discovered that I am able to stand my ground and argue a point rationally if I believe strongly enough in it, and I also met some lovely fellow jurors who truly did represent a huge cross-section of London. In fact, I was shocked at how many jurors were in their teens / early 20s; perhaps something to do with the fact that it's the summer holidays.

Some general tips and information if you get summoned:

Speak to your employer / HR department about it as soon as possible, as different employers handle jury service differently. All employers are legally obliged to let you have the time off, but they don't have to continue paying you (although most do I think). But if you do lose earnings as a result of having the time off work, the court will compensate for your financial losses up to a certain amount each day.
At my court we got given smart cards loaded with about £5.50 of credit each day which we could spend in the jurors restaurant. But if you choose to go out for lunch you'll get the money back instead (but no more than the daily limit on the card). Bear in mind that you can't go out for lunch if you're deliberating a verdict and I'd highly recommend that you bring in your own food if you think there's a chance you might be holed up in the room for a lengthy period.
There's aways the chance that you might get selected for a longer trial. When your name is called initially, you'll be told straight away how long the trial is expected to last (although you don't discover what crime the trial relates to until you are sworn in as a juror). If it's beyond what you can commit to then you can request to be excused from that particular trial. But this request has to be made to the judge and ultimately it's his / her decision about whether your reason is legitimate enough.
Take lots of books / magazines to read. Or ask about taking your laptop (they might have a wi-fi account you can use). I was fortunate in the sense that, because I did three trials, I didn't have to do that much sitting around. But I know of people who have literally had to sit in a jury waiting area, day in day out, for two weeks without getting chosen, so be prepared for a long, dull wait. Plus, even if you are selected for a jury, you're likely to get sent away a few times if the judge or barristers want to discuss a legal issue. From experience this could take an hour or so to resolve before you're ushered back into the courtroom.
Have an open mind. Listen to the evidence. Follow the judge's legal advice. Don't be bullied into changing your mind about something just because it's easier or more convenient for everyone else.
Get to know your fellow jurors as you'll be seeing a lot of them.
Oh, and tempting as it may be, don't Google anything or do your own independent research about anything to do with the trial whilst it's still going on as it's kind of against the law...

Unleashing the Beard

2009-07-29T22:35:00.012+01:00

I'm not usually the type of person who makes New Year's resolutions, but at the start of 2009 I had the urge to tick off one of my life's ambitions at some point over the next 12 months. I can now happily declare that I have achieved that aim - to play a live gig.

I've been drumming for a couple of years, just as a random hobby really. I've written before about how this may seem an odd choice of instrument for someone who is usually pretty clumsy and uncoordinated, but it somehow seems to work! My band - Witness To The Beard* - has been together for just under a year, and although we try and get together to practice once a week, work commitments have meant that our gatherings are more infrequent than we would prefer. So the prospect of actually getting up on stage and playing our songs (well, to be fair, their songs, as I just drum along) was pretty terrifying. But I reckon sometimes you have to challenge yourself and put yourself in unfamiliar situations simply for the experience.

I'm thrilled to report that our first gig was an amazing experience. Yeah, our performance was by no means perfect, but we got up there, played a set of mostly our own material, and even got paid for the privilege! We hadn't realised when we signed up to play a 30-minute slot at the Comedy Pub near Leicester Square that we'd get a quid for everyone who turned up to see us, so we were thrilled to get over a tenner each.

The 30+ people who were there to specifically watch up absolutely blew me away with their support and enthusiasm on the night. The chants of "Witness!Witness!Witness!Witness!" were inspired, and exactly the type of light-hearted vibe that we all thrive under. On this occasion I personally decided not to tell too many people about our debut performance, just in case it all went horribly wrong. But since it went pretty well, expect to see much more shameless self-promotion from now on! It would be great to see lots of familiar faces at one of our future performances, and I'd be really interested to get your feedback on our beardy antics!

*My dad grew a beard. Someone didn't believe me. Someone else said: "It's true. I was witness to the beard." Simple as. The beard is still in existence today, and we proudly represent those facial follicles through the medium of rock.

Cavorting in Cornwall

2009-07-25T09:23:00.006+01:00

I know, I know, it's been too long since I last blogged again. No excuses this time, I'm just completely out of the habit. I've just come to the end of a week off work, and what a lovely week off it was. I spend a few days of it down in Cornwall, chilling out with my mum and dad and breathing in some much-needed country air. We stayed in this gorgeous B&B near Liskeard, called Trussel Barn, which I would highly recommend to anyone considering heading south-west for a break. The rooms were stunning, with views of seemingly-endless countryside and luxurious bathrooms complete with fluffy towels and bathrobes. The breakfasts were to die for, with freshly-squeezed apple juice from the orchard down the road, locally-sourced sausages and bacon and a delicious fresh fruit salad each morning which I covered in yoghurt and drizzled loads of runny honey over the top. YUM!

The story behind why we ended up in Liskeard is pretty amusing. Some of my relatives from Norway were in Cornwall for a holiday, so we thought it'd be nice if we were staying nearby so we could meet up with them. So my mum found Trussel Barn, as she was under the impression they were staying in Liskeard. Turns out they weren't staying in Liskeard after all, but in The Lizard (starts with an 'L' and ends in a 'D' I guess...), which is the best part of a two-hour drive away! Oh well, it was a nice drive!

If you're in that neck of the woods (Liskeard, not The Lizard), I'd also recommend a restaurant in the nearby seaside village of Looe. The Old Sail Loft is tucked away and not immediately visible, but definitely worth seeking out for their tasty seafood dishes (although my dad opted for a juicy steak) and friendly service. Note the name of the restaurant. The first question my mum asked our waiter was "what was this building used for originally?"...The menu's quite pricey, but if you get there before 7.30pm you can choose from their reasonably-priced brasserie menu.

Before I left for Cornwall, I asked for tourist tips on my Twitter feed. I was consequently informed about Adrenalin Quarry near Liskeard. Although the thought of digging adrenalin out of the ground does sound rather appealing, instead this relatively new tourist attraction boasts 'the longest zip wire in the UK'. The zip wire did indeed look long and good fun, but I chose to get a 10-minute adrenalin buzz from the nearby Go Karting. My arms were killing me afterwards but it was definitely worth it.

The Knock On Effect

2009-05-20T22:39:00.007+01:00

One of the reasons why I love my job is because I get to work on such a variety of projects and meet such a diverse range of people. Yesterday was once such example, when I had the privilege to meet 17-year-old Rosie Kilburn, who is from my neck of the woods in the good old Westcountry.

Rosie has a rare form of liver cancer, but instead of letting it get her down it has spurred her on to launch a sustainable fundraising project called 'The Knock On Effect'. Initially, Rosie aims to run an art auction, and she's already received loads of donated pieces to sell at the auction in July. She then intends to design a range of funky T-shirts, with cool yet inspiring messages on them to raise awareness of various issues. I saw one of her designs yesterday and it was very impressive. All of the money she will make from these ventures will be donated to various cancer charities.

To help get the project off the ground - and also to share her everyday experiences - Rosie's launched a blog, and she was invited to the Guardian to get some ideas for how to spread the word about her project and get more people to visit her site. This is where I came in, and I shared as much of my knowledge as I could in 30minutes, but above anything else it was such a pleasure to meet someone so genuine, focused and enthusiastic, yet so incredibly modest at the same time.

Please do take a look at Rosie's blog and find out more about The Knock On Effect. If you know of any budding artists who'd like to donate a piece or two for her forthcoming auction then you can also get in touch with her via the site.

Tunnel 228 = blimin great

2009-05-17T19:18:00.007+01:00

A couple of weeks ago I was browsing my ever-informative Twitter feed when the Londonist mentioned something called 'Tunnel 228'. Intrigued, I clicked on the link to discover a rather garish website that seemingly belonged to a train tunnel cleaning company. At first I thought that the url was wrong, but upon further investigation I discovered that most of the links on the website were inactive, apart from one rather inconspicuous link at the foot of the page, which opened up a whole new window, urging me to 'book tickets'. But 'book tickets for what?', I wondered. A quick Google search informed me that Tunnel 228 was an experimental theatre / art project, produced jointly by the Old Vic (Kevin Spacey being the man at the creative helm) and one of the UK's most innovative performance companies, Punchdrunk, along with the input of loads of urban artists.

Having thoroughly enjoyed the urban art Cans Festival last year, which took place just round the corner (in the tunnels beneath Waterloo station), Tunnel 228 looked just up my street, so I booked a couple of tickets on the spot. Lucky I did, because once word spread about the project - which was only going to be open to the public for 15 days - the (free) tickets were all gone by the end of that day.

My slot to step through the door into the maze of underground tunnels was yesterday afternoon, and I wasn't disappointed. The space was vast, the atmosphere spooky and surreal, and there was so much to take in. After wandering around for a few minutes, I began to notice that there was some kind of almost ritualistic performance taking place, with the Punchdrunk performers working meticulously on various mechanisms and machines to ensure the safe voyage of a silver ball around the tunnels.

The show is loosely based on Fritz Lang's classic film Metropolis, but having never seen the film I chose to draw my own conclusions about what it all meant. So my interpretation was that the ball represented money, and the performers repeating the same monotonous tasks over and over reflected the thankless routines of the working classes. This was reinforced by the fact that we were all 'ordered' to wear surgical face masks at all times (removing our sense of individuality) and we were only allowed to speak in whispers. In fact, at one point one of the performers reprimanded me for speaking too loudly, and although I wasn't intimidated by the in-my-face 'sssshhhh' that I received, it really added to the idea that we had entered a dark and oppressive underground world, despite the fact that the sun was shining brightly just a few feet away outside. I was also a bit miffed as I was told to shut up just as I was making an amusing joke about having to always queue for the ladies loos as we waited in line to peak through the door to witness one of the other mini-performances.

One of my favourite moments was when I spotted a piece by the artist Slinkachu, who has gained notoriety for placing amusing miniature scenes around the streets of London. I was chuffed to bits to spot four of his tiny installations in Tunnel 228, but I'm intrigued to know whether I missed any.

By the time I'd taken everything in I was rather surprised to discover that I'd been wandering around the performance space for well over an hour. If you're lucky enough to have tickets for this then you're in for a treat, but if not, there are rumours that the show could re-surface later this year, so keep your ear to the ground. And you get a free surgical mask to boot (no swine flu for me!).

My quest to discover the fate of Sniper the dog

2009-05-11T22:45:00.004+01:00

About ten years ago I was watching BBC Points West, the local BBC news programme for Bristol and the surrounding areas. One of the top stories was a frantic hunt for a dog called Sniper, who had gone missing in a forest whilst out on a walk. His distraught owners believed that their beloved Sniper - always the adventurer - had unwittingly wandered in to one of the hundreds of badger sets in the forest, and had gotten lost in the labyrinth of underground tunnels.

There was a live link at the search scene, where it appeared there were dozens of policemen, RSPCA people and members of the public trying to locate the canine explorer, with an emotional plea from the reporter for people in the local area to keep their eyes peeled for a dog matching Sniper's description. The story had me gripped, and at the end of the show they re-visited the scene to inform us that Sniper still hadn't been found, but that the search was still in full swing.

Now, these were the days before online news hit the big-time, and the thought of instant access to information was a distant dream. So the next day I dutifully tuned in to the news programme for a Sniper update. Nothing. After a few days, I was so disturbed by the lack of closure on the story that I even sent them an e-mail, requesting information about the outcome of the Sniper-search. Nothing.

A decade later, I have decided to make it my mission to find out once and for all - WHAT HAPPENED TO SNIPER THE DOG?

Granted, the details I have are rather thin on the ground; my estimation of when this story hit the headlines could be wrong, and it may not have even been a story on the BBC local news programme after all, but instead on its ITV equivalent. But I'm hoping that I will finally be able to discover the fate of dear old Sniper through the wonder of social media and modern-day technology.

Please help and spread the word!

Parmageddon

2009-05-02T09:45:00.005+01:00

Much has already been said about the media coverage of swine flu, panic mongering and the notion of 'the boy who cried wolf', so I'm sure there's nothing I can really add to the debate. However, what I have contributed is the marvellous pun above, relating to ham and the end of the world. Bad Science legend Ben Goldacre is certainly a fan, so I must thank him for circulating my pun-ditry to a wider audience.

In truth, I am a tad worried about a potential pandemic, but at the end of the day there's not really much I can do about it except wait and see how it plays out.

It's been a busy old week. The 'battle of the media' pub quiz at the Groucho Club (in aid of International Alert) was good fun on Monday. Other than getting confused between Rebecca Romero and Victoria Pendleton, I think I justified my place on the Guardian team...although mainly as a result of my extensive knowledge of Take That.

Tuesday I went along to the April edition of the London Bloggers Meetup. It was a good'un, sponsored by Fashion Targets Breast Cancer, who told us all about their latest interactive campaign and treated us to canapes, a couple of free drinks and a pretty target pin badge which is now adorning my (ridiculously massive) handbag. Loads of new people were there too, and I had the pleasure of meeting Laura from BitchBuzz, Meaghan from Spoonfed, Steve from LearnAsOne (very interesting social media / charity expedition project), Rachel Clarke, Tom from Tired of London, Tired of Life and Alex Lefley, as well as the usual suspects.

Just noticed that I've got a sore throat. Hmmmmm....

Jog save the McQueen

2009-04-26T23:08:00.005+01:00

What are the chances?! After mentioning 2008 Apprentice champ Lee McQueen in my first blog post in yonks yesterday, I only happen to see him running the London Marathon today! I screeched at him as he ran past, which coincidentally sounded a bit like a baby reverse pterodactyl.

It was a gorgeous day for watching the race, although I can imagine it was too hot for the runners. Sadly I am now sporting a rather strange tan (burn) line on my neck as, today of all days, I decided to wear a tie thing round my neck. Blimin typical. The atmosphere around the course was fab, and every year that I go along to watch I must admit that I am in awe of the sheer fitness of the athletes, and total dedication of the charity runners. It almost makes me want to do it myself...

I really need to get myself some regular exercise, but lack of motivation and time are my major downfalls. Sadly the time thing is easily addressed by my new employers, who organise various lunch hour exercise classes. So it really boils down to my laziness. I can use my sprained ankle excuse for now (tip: don't sprint for a train through central London in heels whilst trying to dodge innumerable hen/stag parties. Extra tip: if you sustain an injury but still manage to hobble to the station in time for said train as a result of pain-induced adrenaline, MAKE SURE YOU GET ON THE RIGHT ONE) but annoyingly it seems to be getting better. Yoga / boxing here I come...

Long time no blog

2009-04-25T23:05:00.005+01:00

A mentally busy couple of months has resuelted in me cruelly neglecting my blog, and now that my laptop has been given a new lease of life (extended warranty, get in) I have no more excuses not to write more regularly.
In the last few weeks I've started a new job at the Guardian, which is going very well so far and has proven to be extremely interesting and varied. There's talk of me representing the Guardian at a charity pub quiz on Monday. They seem to think that my enthusiasm for pub quizzes and unsubtle competitiveness must mean that I know stuff....

Some of my recent spare time exploits:

...I saw 'In The Loop' last night at the Odeon cinema in Kensington. Once I'd recovered from the shock of paying the best part of £30 for two tickets and popcorn, I very much enjoyed it, and noted that the kid actress from 'My Girl', Anna Chlumsky, had a decent role in it as Liza.

...'The Apprentice'! I must admit I've been watching most of it on iPlayer as I don't seem to ever be at home on Wednesdays anymore. My sweepstaker, Maj, has already been kicked into touch, so no chance of a repeat sweepstake victory for me after last year's Lee McQueen triumph. I reckon the woman who looks like Heather Mills might win.

...I went into Harrods today because I know they stock the wallpaper I want for my bedroom. I say 'stock', but turns out they just have loads of wallpaper books and then you have to order what you want, and pay a £10 delivery charge regardless of whether it gets delivered to your house or to Harrods to pick it up! Fair enough if you're wallpapering a palatial drawing room from top to bottom and a tenner's neither here not there, but if you're only after one roll for thirty quid, it's a joke. There must be somewhere else I can get my hands on a roll.

...The band in which I drum now has a name! We are officially 'Witness to the Beard', which is somehow vaguely connected to the fact that my dad now has facial hair.

Right, I had better get some shut eye before the marathon tomorrow. "Marathon? HAYLEY?!" I hear you proclaim. Obviously I'm not running, but there is talk of heading out and about to watch it locally since we're now in south east London.