Collecting: sussed

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?

Matthew Herbert: newsical genius

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...

Run a-mock

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?

My year in words

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!

London, Paris and First Book

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.

In The 'Trick or Treat' Of It

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:

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

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...

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

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...

gIRL about town

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!

The Knock On Effect

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.

Parmageddon

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....

Long time no blog

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.

Frost/Nixon fact/fiction?

Another reason why I love living in London. I got into work ridiculously early on Monday as a result of a big leak in my flat (long story). As a consequence of my early start, I managed to spot an advert in the Guardian offering free tickets to a preview screening of 'Frost/Nixon' much earlier than I normally would have done, and managed to get my hands on a pair.

So Thursday night, just hours after the film had picked up five Oscar nominations, off we went to Cineworld Haymarket after a beer and a sausage at my favourite pub, The Harp. The foyer was packed, with hundreds of people all clutching their printed tickets, and amongst the throng was none other than former Lib Dem leader, Charles Kennedy. I do like my celebrity spotting, so I was quite chuffed with this one. Then, when we took our seats in the grand, art deco Screen 1, we spotted legendary broadcaster John Humphrys (whose real first name is apparently Desmond, according to Wikipedia). Turns out that, as well as watching the film for free, we were to be treated to a Q&A session after the screening with Charles, John, Observer film critic Philip French and Channel 4 news broadcaster Samira Ahmed, hosted by the Observer's political editor, Gaby Hinsliff.

It was riveting stuff, with lots of intelligent debate about the film itself (I thoroughly enjoyed it, although the Q&A session sparked the panel to deliberate whether it should have simply stuck to the facts, rather than adding in bits such as the late night phonecall between the two lead players), as well as some amusing anecdotes from John Humphrys after he was asked whether he believes Gordon Brown is 'Nixonian'. According to Humphrys, Brown, like Nixon, has a 'desperate need to be loved'.

A fab evening, and spookily, all as a result of my own, rather less complicated, 'Watergate'.

Watch this and weep

Most depressing film ever = 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas', but I would still urge everyone to watch it at some point, even if it's not in the immediate future.

I went along to a free preview screening tonight, courtesy of The Grauniad, before it's officially released on Friday. Let's just say that I'm not sure I have ever heard anyone actually sob in the cinema before - and not just the one person. In fact, I think I was in the minority with my dry eyes.

I don't know what's wrong with me sometimes. Perhaps I'm just emotionally retarded. But then how come I cried like a baby during 'Titanic'?! Anyway, a thought-provoking film that certainly puts all silly, everyday trivial matters into perspective.