a heap of broken images

I miss my blog.

2010-02-21T22:36:00.002Z

My old site is down, now, so it's back to this broken piece.

I was reading a list of things that one should do, in the order one should do them, and it made me feel guilty because I hardly ever do the things I should do and always seem to validate doing the things everyone knows I shouldn't.

I'm sad at the moment because the people I moved in with have turned out to be either absent (and selfcentred when present) or miserable and unfriendly. I feel like this is perhaps my fault as I was flaky about a couple of social things when I first moved in - but I can't believe it is only me who has caused this.

One housemate who never leaves her room (except to have sex with her boyfriend in the bathroom) and one who eats nothing but toast and switches everything off at the plug as soon as he leaves any room. Surely I deserve better than this.

UPDATE

2009-09-28T17:08:00.002+01:00

Supposed to be moving house in less than three days and I've yet to sign a contract or give anyone any money!

Also I have too much baking componentry to move house; a desperate brownie-making session must ensue tonight.

Does anyone know, are you actually allowed to store yourself at 'self store' warehouses?

The story so far...

2009-09-12T19:34:00.002+01:00

I am bored of looking around houses now. This would be more fun if I had some money!

At the moment I am choosing between two places;

House 1) PROS: near the Arboretum, really convenient for town, two really nice housemates; CONS: may miss out on a parking permit, not the world's greatest area, house is currently really 'boy-studenty', twelve month lease.

House 2) PROS: in West Bridgeford, nice area, nice light room and big kitchen, parking garden (v important!); CONS: probs too far out of Bridgeford to walk to town, didn't meet any housemates, room is next to a wetroom which seemed to have caused a (now fixed) damp problem which could of course re-occur.

My first 'Will You Be My Flatmate' response!

2009-09-09T17:35:00.001+01:00

Hello,

Thanks for your email and interest in my Apartment so fill out my form below and we can go from there, since i am not residing there for now,The apartment is fully Furnished and has a big storage. The kitchen is fully equipped with all necessary cooking utensils,refrigerator-freezer,four-hob and oven, microwave,dishwasher and washing machine, my computer connected with Internet access.I have the keys and document with me here in West Africa Nigeria to be precise,I and my wife had the intension of selling our property before leaving but after a while we decided to place it for rent and and had few tenants before now so the apartment is very available and ready for you to move in if you are really interested in my apartment.I am here on a missionarry work with my family and will be here for 3yrs but on Due cases i will be visiting to check on you and my apartment cause absolute maintainance of my apartment is what i am after cause its newly renovated,Very spacious and Clean,So after Normal process is taking i shall be sending you the keys and document for you to move in and should in case you need reference on my apartment you can call my Brother Tim on this number....07045712681, Also i will like you to know that the rent charges is not really the issue, hope you are okay with the price of 75Gbp per Week which is 300Gbp Per Month including all bills like hydro, heat laundry facilities, aircondition and so on, but your absolute maintenance of my apartment is most important to me, if you are really interested renting this apartment fill the application below and get back to me with the answers,Moreover as a man of God i intend to do my things with soft kindered heart.

Bedrooms 1
Bathrooms 1 full, 0 partial
Sq Footage 600
Parking 1 dedicated
Pet Policy Pets Allowed
Location.........Flat 2, 7 Redcliffe Road, Mapperley Park, Nottingham NG3 5BW

********RENT APPLICATION FORM*******
********PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL*********
Also,Pls answer these questions below:
1)Your Full Name_________________________ ____________
2)Present Address(where you reside now) & Phone ___________________
3)How old are you___________________________
4)Are you married _ _____________________________ _____
5)How many people will be living in the apartment __ _________________
6)Do you have a pet ____ __________________________ __________
7)Do you have a car _______ _______________________ ____________
8)Occupation ____________ _________________
9)What is your religion __ ____________________________ _________
10)How long are you willing to stay _______ ____________________-
11)When do you intend to move in ___
12)1 month Or 2 month deposit needed ___________________________
13)Picture of you or Occupants......--------------------

I personally will come visiting you sometime during the as our new tenant. Looking forward to hear from you with all this details so that i can have it in my filed as my new tenant and we can go on with the process.Awaiting your reply so that we can discuss on how to get the document and the keys to you.

Thanks And God Bless.
Paulo Materanni
+2348023917216

Me And My Wife[.bmp
42K View Download

I am moving out!

2009-09-08T07:54:00.000+01:00

Again!

I haven't done it for so long, I've forgotten how.

I think I need to hold a belt amnesty before I can go anywhere, though . . .

Minutiae

2009-08-26T19:44:00.001+01:00

Slug meeting - Agenda
Salt - why am it hurt so much?
Lettuce - Do we gets to find it?
Catfood - Will it make am cats to eat us?
Lucy - am she slug or panda?

Names have been changed to protect the work-shy

2009-08-17T17:22:00.001+01:00

Vikram... swamp donkey..
Lucy... monster features
Vikram... you are man's most unpleasant person.
Lucy... you are the scourge of the earth
Vikram... you are the shit on the shoe of a tramp.
Lucy... you are a feral kitten with a missing ear
Vikram... you are a rabid dog with snot hanging out your nose.
Lucy... you are a fetid and overgrown urban swamp
Vikram... you are a rank and misused public toilet.
Lucy... your hair looks like rotting curtains
Vikram... your skin is like an overused scoring pad, with remnants of 3 week old food dripping from it.
Lucy... your breath smells like the rotting corpses of a thousand sweaty zombies

I am useless

2009-08-10T21:31:00.002+01:00

I get one new boyfriend and my ability to type journal entries completely dissapates.

To be honest, I spend most of my free time these days watching this mashup again and again. I cannot stop. I don't even understand what Tron is.

Summer holiday (after a fashion)

2009-07-19T20:25:00.004+01:00

28th August - 30th August: Kickin' it in Cambridge with Will. Watch RSC do their thing.
31st August: Fly out to Dublin super early. Fun packed day; hotel.
1st September: Another fun packed day; fly home super late.
2nd September: Drive up to Alton Towers. Do the rides thing! Hotel nearby, tasty meal.
3rd September: Back to Alton Towers! More rides, also Dance Dance Revolution.
4th September: Chillax at home. Prepare for Bestest Friendses Wedding.
5th September: Drive up to Leeds, don finery, cry buckets at wedding. Dance. Hotel overnight.
6th September: Hangover to beat the band; huge amount of breakfast; drive back to Nottingham. Will must get on a train or be stranded forever.

DONE!

Instant messenger FTW

2009-06-25T17:18:00.004+01:00

We were discussing the fact that my affianced colleague Alexa spends her working day looking at the 'Mens' section of asos.com, admiring the male models walking the runway. I was worried I would appear to be a pervert if anyone glanced at my monitor.

Alexa... half of the senior leadership team walked past me looking at boys shorts
Lucy... it is a bit different when you are single, though, i think. people are obviously thinking that i have given up on snaring real-life men and have descended into the realms of 'imaginary internet boyfriend'
Alexa... maybe they thought you were looking for a pic of someone to photoshop into a pic of you and send to your family pretending it was your boyfriend
Lucy... you know what
Lucy... that is actually a good idea
Lucy... how do i persuade IT photoshop is a business necessity on my computer?
Alexa... just fill out your end user request form with the details and in 'reason code' put 'emergency lie'

I gots a green drink!

2009-06-18T20:39:00.004+01:00

Blue vodka + apple juice = awesome.

I made a picture

2009-06-17T22:39:00.004+01:00

Balloons; sent by a friend.

Sunglasses; received in exchange for eight strawberry jam tarts.

Conclusion: awesome day.

This weekend I

2009-06-15T19:46:00.004+01:00

took some pics of my cat.

Haven't done this for a while!

He's still got it, though.

+1 vote for fringe trim

2009-06-12T17:57:00.003+01:00

My cakes went down like a literal, actual storm. I am sooo pleased!

In celebration I spent twenty minutes watching and then copying this stupid kawaii hairstyle from a Youtube video meant for asian girls with much, much longer hair.

I am now everything I despise about the internet.

Moar cakes!

2009-06-11T20:30:00.003+01:00

Oh yeah, that's right. I have got Friday Cakes and Quiz all sewn up.

Things I have made recently:

2009-06-10T20:35:00.004+01:00

I made this medley as a surprise! It was a great success, as these things go. The container is a tiny cake tin! Multiple use gift, see.

I have also made two batches of peanut butter cookies (both dreadful!) and these tiny individual apple-and-rhubarb crumbles. My boss gave me the rhubarb! The crumble involves cinnamon and pecans, my favourite. I am pleased!

Getting up to date

2009-06-04T19:58:00.002+01:00

I spent last weekend in Cambridge. It was bliss. I might spend more time down there in the coming weeks! Which does me no bloody good because Stephen Fry's Twitter feed indicated HE was there LAST night. Talk about star-crossed lovers.

Also I just totally life-hacked my way to the perfect morning. 1) cheap-ass coffee machine and some super-strength coffee granules. 2) electronic timer set to come on at 6.50am every morning except the weekend. 3) Alarm set for 6.55am. Conclusion: WIN! The coffee brews, I have a reason to sit up in bed rather than snoozing the alarm for 45 minutes, and everyone's lives are better. The coffee I don't immediately consume will go into a colourful travelmug and taken to work. Simples!

In other news, I think it's going to snow at the weekend. True fact.

CRISIS: averted

2009-05-24T00:43:00.003+01:00

So, today, I painted some masonry. I painted the masonry on the front of the house and it looks beautiful!

Then I went to paint the masonry on the back of the house. I locked the front door as I went through because I didn't want bad people coming in while I was tucked away behind the kitchen.

Because I had to scrub the brickwork with bleachy water before I could paint it, I shut the back door to keep the cat in the house. I didn't want him drinking the water and getting sick!

I painted one windowsill and by then the bleachy water had dried. So I thought, well, Bear is miaowing to come out, so I guess it's safe to open the door for him.

Of course, the back door operates via one key lock (unlocked) and one Yale lock (locked). There is no key for the Yale lock.

I'd locked myself out.

I was annoyed! Very, very annoyed. I considered my options while I painted the remaining windowsill (I needed time to think rationally, as I make very bad snap decisions).

1. My housemates were away until Monday night. So they couldn't let me in.

2. My phone was inside so no calling them for emergency favours (one housemate has not gone far and could have come back).

3. There is a locked gate on the entry passage to the back of my little terrace houses. The key for that is on my keyring (in the house). So I can't even get onto the main street.

4. Even if I could get round to the front, my keys are in the house. Can't get in the front door either.

5. The backdoor looks frail. It has a big window in it. I might be able to kick the door sufficiently to tear the Yale out of the wood, and just replace the lock the next day.

6. The backdoor has a big glass panel in it. I could smash that and reach in and flip the Yale lock. But: the glass has that criss-cross wire in it designed to stop burglars doing that exact thing! I would have to replace the whole door.

7. The bathroom window is open! But it is very tiny and there is a long drop.

8. Next door are in. I could ask them for help; or they would let me use their phone to call my parents. Not sure what they could do about it, though.

9. I could break the kitchen window; or the living room window. But these are sash windows and expensive to replace, I fear.

10. My bedroom window is open. I could somehow climb up to that and then open the door from the inside? But that is on the first floor, around the front of the house.

My plan of action was as follows:

a) tried to kick in the back door. No good. The door is burglar-safe, which is good to know in other situations!

b) tried to climb through the bathroom window. I was more worried that the police would arrive shortly after, called by a neighbour who didn't understand that I was trying to break into my own house. But I couldn't get my boobs through the window. True story! I would make a terrible cat burglar.

c) went to knock on next door's house. They let me in; I explained the predicament. She fetched a ladder and we discussed me climbing up the sloping bay-window roof and hauling myself in via my bedroom window.

d) She went to speak to her partner. He immediately climbed out of their bedroom window (adjacent to mine), across to mine, and vaulted in with ease. She explained that he is super into parkour and urban exploration! Then she said, "oh god, you don't mind him letting himself into your house, do you?!" I was like, "I'm just glad one of us is in there! If he wants to steal all my jewellery on the way through I consider it a small price to pay not to have to sleep in my back garden until Monday!"

e) I was in! God I was so grateful I thought I was going to cry. I am going to have to do something amazing to say thanks (obviously I said actual 'thanks' several times in person!).

What makes it all the more amazing is that I've only spoken to these people twice before. Once when we had their post; and once when they brought us a bottle of wine to apologise for their noisy party. And they just helped me, with no qualms and hardly any questions, and were totally cool and with it and they absolutely didn't have to.

So! I am in my bed. And I have a renewed regard for said interior in general. I am never going to leave it again; that way I will always be safe. Safe from myself.

2009-05-08T21:13:00.000+01:00

Bloggy McBloggerson strikes again

2009-05-01T19:54:00.007+01:00

I have done something I regret. Yeah yeah, what week doesn't go by when I don't make some sort of stupid decision, right.

But this one has been particularly crap to deal with. I think it's because it involved me making a decision which has negatively impacted someone I care about and in confessing which makes me into the bad guy. The thing was totally selfish of me and I deserve to feel like crap. Doesn't mean I like it and doesn't mean it hasn't absolutely ruined my day.

It's actually not the thing itself I regret, but the flawed decision-making that got me to that point. And now the other party is understandably pissed off with me, or has lost respect for me, or whatever. And I'd really like to be able to explain myself, not to redeem myself but because I want them to understand why I did it and what they should be hating me for, exactly. I know, however, that I don't get to dictate terms of contact now, and I just have to choke it down and see if they give me a second chance to prove that I'm not a shallow, fickle, deceitful nightmare.

They may not give me a chance, as is their right, but I hate the fact that there is someone who thinks so badly or - worse - so little of me. I know, I know, if I didn't want that to happen I shouldn't have made the original stupid decision, or at least I shouldn't have owned up to it. But I told the truth because I hate lying to people; it's just that in telling the truth I showed myself to be unreliable and maybe a bit amoral and potentially unlikeable. I'm also worried it makes other, genuinely unrelated, behaviour or comments look horrible, too. But maybe not everyone analyses like I do.

I hate to be that guy. Also I hate posting this sort of stuff. I guess this is self-flagellation. I had something I liked, and now I don't. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Oh dear, poor, abandoned blog

2009-04-21T23:14:00.002+01:00

I never write in you anymore!

Is this because my brain has finally atrophied and my eyes are covered with the scaliest scales?

The only thing that raises my ire without outlet these days is cyclists on the ring road. There's a perfectly good cycle track on the pavement, which my tax dollars helped to fund, cyclists! How dare you turn your nose up at it in favour of pootling along at 20 mph and then glaring at me and wobbling when I whizz past at 50mph, which is the speed limit.

Otherwise, everything is pretty great!

BROKEN

2009-04-12T20:46:00.002+01:00

I battered our soi-broken washing machine in aquiesence earlier on (while I was possessed by a tidying fit) but now the whole little-finger-side of my right hand is swollen and immobile. I might get a sling tomorrow.

I have cleaned and cleaned and cleaned today, after getting out of bed laaate due to deciding to watch Apocalypse Now this morning.

Tomorrow I go to London! I am sooo excited. How will I ever sleep?! I'll have to try and batter my head against the washing machine, too, and hope Donna drags me up to my bed.

AND THEN HE HUNG UP!

2009-04-08T19:10:00.004+01:00

Max: "Oh hi, Lucy, it's Max here."

Me: "Hi Max! How are you?"

Max: "A WASP! A WASP IS HERE! OH MY GOD!"

Me: "....."

Max: "CAN YOU SEE IT?! LOOK THERE'S A WASP HERE, OH NO, SHOO HIM TOWARDS THE DOOR! WASPS, ALREADY!"

Me: "Ah - "

Max: {CLICK}

YARRRR

2009-04-04T11:12:00.005+01:00

I put up a new blind last night! I've lived in this house for nearly two years (or is it nearly three?) and I've had the same see-through bamboo blind the whole time. Needless it to say it doesn't stop any of the ambient night-light or blazing day-light but I knew it was time for a change, so change it was.

I put it up myself and halfway through I was all "yeah I'm totally amazing, a year ago I would have had to phone my dad to come over and put this sucker up for me and now look at me go!". I replaced the advised hacksaw (for sawing the poles to length) with a breadknife, because realistically what use would a hacksaw have been to me following that one use? I already had a breadknife. Then I put it up and it didn't fit and I thought, oh, shoulda phoned my dad.

But it's up now and that's the important thing.

I took pictures so I could photo-blog about How To Put Up A Blind but in the end the two best pictures came when I was drawing the Cut Here line on the blind. I found this pencil, which has a pirate-Viking on the top of it; and I sharpened it with this wind-up pirate pencil sharpener.

Then I had the best night's sleep for two (or maybe three) years and when I woke up I thought the last of my sight had faded overnight because I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. Black-out FTW!

Today I am going to town to buy stencil-materials, so I can make it beautiful.

Got my favourite sunglasses back!

2009-03-22T21:15:00.003Z

Also got a new car, and a walk in the Peak District, and a number of cheeky nights out with people I especially like, and a new dress from Primark which, on reflection, does make me look like a nurse.

I've also got a cat who is sick three days out of every five, a housemate who uses scalpels to cut things out on our now-horrendously-scratched coffee table, and a colleague who I suspect of harbouring a secret crush on another colleague. All these things make me nauseous.

But on balance I like all things at the moment.

Good news, or somethin'

2009-03-17T22:15:00.002Z

My default reaction to people shooting out from sideroads across major roundabouts because they've been looking at their SatNav and not traffic conditions:

1. Right foot brake

2. Left foot clutch

3. Heel of right hand slams into middle of steering wheel like it's on fire

4. Optional (depends on company): profanity which would make a sailor (with Tourette's) blush

On the plus side: the horn on my new car is nearly as good as the old one. Just needs some breakin' in, is all.

2009-03-14T16:51:00.002Z

I've been trying on dresses all day, in town.

I am wearing an enormous, ornate, heavy gold bead necklace that my housemate bought me for my birthday.

Every single time I've whipped a dress off, over my head, I have caught said necklace in the hem and twatted myself in the face with it. Every single time.

I didn't buy any dresses, in the end, and all I've got to show for a whole morning's work is a black eye :(

Crazed, brutal tyrant

2009-03-10T17:55:00.002Z

So I've got this thing going on at work.

A third party company is making something for me. Someone else from my business is liaising.

I asked Thirdparty politely if something which was previously undiscussed would be possible. Thirdparty went straight to Liaison Woman bitching and whining about my 'unreasonable demands'. Liaison Woman has got her panties in a knot about it because it has uncovered a big fuck-up in her project management of Thirdparty, and she's now decided to instruct Thirdparty to stop making the thing they're making for me!

Seriously, this is the business equivalent of "it's my ball and I'm going home!" except it's my chuffing ball.

Bravely struggling on

2009-03-08T13:30:00.002Z

I am currently dying of what I have diagnosed as Meningicoccal Influenza. I am hardly ever sick and now I feel like my skin is on fire (dead giveaway for flu) and my throat is so swollen I can't move my head (must be meningitis).

I have to soldier on because I've got an appointment in town. Despite working in the field of freely-available medicines I don't seem to have any paracetamol in the whole house, however, and my housemate drank all the emergency lemsip so I'm hunched like a crone with limited mobility. Getting into the shower took about fifteen minutes and then I had to stay in there for three-quarters of an hour trying to summon the energy to re-open the showerscreen.

Last night was worse, though - I couldn't sleep because someone had set my bed on fire and all my joints hurt. I actually did wonder if I might need to go to A&E because there just seemed to be so many incapacitating things wrong with me. I hate feeling ill in the middle of the night, it's so scary and makes a mockery of my 'totally independant' attitude because I want to sob quietly into a housemate's shoulder while they call me an ambulance and mopped my fevered brow.

NEW GAME

2009-03-06T18:11:00.001Z

I've just wasted half my ridiculously expensive prescription ear-drops playing "Catchee Bottle" with the cat.

The game is: he creeps up; I flick the bottle; he looks intrigued and pouncy; I spray him in the face with antibiotic fluid and he leaps in the air in the most humerous fashion! It was so droll.

Now he's gone away again because he heard someone less cruel come home.

State of the onion

2009-03-05T22:52:00.002Z

God absolutely everything has been a struggle this week. I'm walking uphill backwards carrying a monkey a pile of chips and set of encyclopaedias through a contraflow of molten lava. I've got plans for the weekend but I swear to god I'm going to cancel them and just sit under the desk in my room with a rolled up ball of yarn instead.

Even writing this entry: struggle.

Surrounded by boring mysteries

2009-03-04T17:07:00.003Z

My housemate ('stablemate' from now on) bought me Twiglet Book Four as a joke birthday present. It was a joke but we both know we'll both read it and whinge but it's what binds us together at the moment.

I'm two chapters into "Stephanie Meyer's Fantasy Wedding To A Mysogynist (Only She's Too Much A Product Of Her Southern Upbringing To Realise That Her Main Character Is A Controlling Tosser); Also Featuring Stephanie's Bestest Imaginary Friends From When She Was A Lonely Teenager!" and, I swear to god, I have physically gagged more than once.

New peril

2009-02-28T17:53:00.001Z

(9:12:22 pm)gavin777:HI sexy godess.iam looking for a woman to be an online slave to by text or email, i have a thing for women in control plus i secretly wear womens underwear, if this is your thing and you want to email me or text me orders what colour womens underwear i must wear under my clothes everyday, let me know and i will give you my email and mobile, i hope your intersted in having me as your online slave sexy godess , and iam willing to give two of my females co workers emails so i will have no choice but to do as you say mistress, BUT WOULD BE UNDERSTOOD YOU WOULD NEVER USE THEM , JUST TO KEEP ME IN LINE, AND WOULD BE A TURN ON KNOWING A WOMAN HAS THAT POWER OVER ME, IAM WILLING TO WRITE LINES DO ANY TASK EVEN EDIT MY PROFILE TO SAY ANYTHING YOU THINK I SHOULD PUT ON IT LIKE THE PANTIE WEARING INFERIOR WIMP IAM

(9:20:36 pm)mobda:God above in heaven. You are an instant BLOCK mister

SUCCESS

2009-02-27T17:45:00.003Z

I bought a ring which I LOVE but it is off being resized to fit my weirdly thin fingers so I can't wear it until it returns, which gives me a chance to get a manicure (I was ashamed to get my hands out in front of the nice jewellery lady). I am eagerly awaiting its return. Thanks, Eric! It it is old fashioned and ladylike and it glitters in the sunlight :)

Also I bought an SD card for my stupid fancy phone but apparently my phone OS doesn't support the massive GB size I bought? Does anyone need a card? Also I can't sync my phone with my computer so I can't put any music on it, because I need some software and I haven't got it. I hate software.

Also it is literally impossible to believe, but there is not one single shop in Hyson Green which would allow me to bake my skin until it peels off my flesh. Not one! It must be the only suburb in the world without one. I guess that is what comes of living in an ethnic neighbourhood.

This sort of thing

2009-02-25T21:02:00.002Z

is why I can never be without a cameraphone.

Sometime between me parking my car at work and me driving that car home tonight, someone wrote SEXY DRIVER! in the dirt on the back of my car.

For those who have just tuned in, a couple of months ago someone also wrote 'cunt' backwards in my rear windscreen. Is this the same person? Two separate, unrelated incidents? No one has EVER written on my car before, and now two in two months.

And in what way am I a 'sexy driver'? Is it my driving method which is sexual? Or am I a sexy person who drives? Does the person who wrote it know me (in which case why not just write 'sexy lady'); or are they a stranger who picked a car at random? Or is it someone who followed me into the carpark and decided to write a sarcastic missive on my driving style?

I fear I may never know.

But I haven't got a pic to put in here because I cannot sync my motherlicking BlackBeret with my chuffing computer. I need to hire an assistant.

2009; better and also worse than 2008 YTD

2009-02-24T22:52:00.005Z

I know I talk about boys aaaall the time, and if I was a nice girl I wouldn't (if I was a nice girl I would be married by now I guess).

HASTY EDIT lord above will I never learn

In other news, I had an all-day meeting with some guy so enormously, morbidly fat that I thought he might have a heart attack and die right in the middle of struggling to make himself a cup of tea. I had 999 tapped into my phone, ready. I've never had to dial it before!

I'm not blaming anyone else

2009-02-23T18:03:00.002Z

but all these things happen to me and none of them are my fault.

SIMULTANEOUSLY BEST AND WORST DAY EVER

2009-02-19T17:11:00.002Z

WORST THINGS FIRST:

Yesterday I made a decision about how to do a manual workaround for an aspect of my job which doesn't work. As far as I knew there was no set process; but what I did made sense and has in fact been done before.

Somone with FUCK ALL involvement in my project caught wind of it via an innocent third party and came storming down the office all guns blazing and proceeded to chew me out in front of my team, my assistant, my category contacts and the third party, who I barely know. He shouted at me for a good twenty-five minutes. The upshot of it all was; a) there is a process, an incredibly complicated and secret one I've never heard of; b) I am an incompetant retard; c) I've been deliberately and maliciously misinforming colleagues with, I can only assume, the desire to cause the downfall of the company that provides the means by which I live.

Two meetings later, this nightmare emailed me and TWENTY other people - half of whom I don't even work now, but will be doing on future projects - telling them all what a huge fuckup I'd made, how he'd fixed it for me, and how what I had achieved was a sackable offence. Sackable offence. Them's fighting words! It's lucky I'm a battle-scarred, emotionally distant tough type because someone of lesser moral fibre might have dissolved into a nervous wreck after an onslaught which basically lasted all afternoon.

Needless to say, I shall be discussing this further with my line manager on her return (at which point I will clear my desk).

BEST THINGS IN THE WORLD:

A guy I sort-of know at work has sold me his bitchin' BLACKBERRY at supercheap knockdown price and option for favours (non-sexual)! I did want an iPhone, but I did a survey of the number of picture messages I take in a week and their humour-factor relative to that of my text messages; and I concluded I cannot live without the option to send pictures of the cat in funny poses to my housemates whenever I damn well please. Whoop de whoop!

ABSOLUTE TOTAL BEST THING THAT I THINK HAS EVER HAPPENED TO ME:

My brother wins THE GAME for inexplicably giving me this amazing wonderful gift of life. For those without eyes, it is a voucher for ONE METRIC TON of money to spend in a jewellery shop and above all things, I love jewellery! Lord above I nearly had a stroke when I clapped my beady eyes on this and there was such a shriek the cat shed all his fur in horror.

Thank you, god, for providing me with a brother who has more money than sense. Although god knows I deserve it after all I've put up with.

HA HA HA HA

2009-02-16T17:25:00.000Z

A list of all the things I have asked my brother to buy me for my birthday - UPDATED

2009-02-14T19:38:00.003Z

1. DVD from Studio Ghibli (not Spirited Away or My Neighbour Totoro)
2. Subscription to any leading Lit or Lang journal
3. Something called Labyrinth the book (I actually meant House of Leaves)
4. An iPhone
5. Anything by Denis Johnson
6. A tattoo
7. A print from ISO50
8. Something which might be useful for someone thinking of going to Nepal
9. Books about the political history of the Cambodian genocide
10. A book about bee-keeping (in the guise of a book about meerkats)
11. And a huge gingerbread latte from Starbucks

This is going to be the best birthday ever.

Scratch all that

2009-02-12T20:59:00.003Z

All I want for my birthday is books about Cambodian political history and subscriptions to any number of daily papers.

Shit I've left everything too late again.

Does anyone want to be my academic reference, I can't ask Uni because of that scandal with that lecturer, I'm remembered for all the wrong reasons.

LONDON GATWICK < EGYPT > LONDON LUTON

2009-02-11T17:32:00.002Z

So I went on holiday a couple of weeks ago. I went to Egypt. Egypt is awesome! I would like to go back and see the pyramids and learn to dive and be sold into marriage to a boyfriend who brings me icecream when I've already eaten seven desserts. My dowry will be seven camels. My bemused family will have to visit the camels when they are missing me too much.

The whole expedition was doomed from the start. Mistake number one was going with Emma, who doesn't feel it's worth going on holiday unless one gets bitten by at least one exotic but unidentifiable beast while you're there. Mistake number two was only booking the holiday two days before it started, because this means all local flights (local being within three hundred miles) are booked up and one is forced to drive to Gatwick at 3am in the morning.

Mistake number three was owning a car of such haughty, fickle Italian heritage that it refuses to work sensibly when it is raining as though the apocalypse itself had begun. Mistake number four was using Googlemaps which thinks it is perfectly possible to travel three hundred miles in an hour and a half, forcing one to drive at ninety billion miles an hour in order to keep to schedule.

Mistake number five was getting to check-in right as it opened only to find that the flight is delayed for 3 hours. Mistake number six is not always travelling with two days' worth of movies, games and music to fill hours waiting around the terminal.

Mistake number six was leaving Egypt to come home again.

Mistake number seven was not taking the warnings of snow, overheard when still in Egypt, seriously. Mistake number eight was feeling relieved to land at Luton airport after the pilot, who had been circling Gatwick airport for two hours in the worst blizzard for twenty years, promised there would only be an hour's delay getting to Gatwick.

Mistake number nine was imagining that landing at Luton at 10pm on a Sunday night would enable us to get back to Nottingham in time for work at 8am on Monday morning. Mistake number ten was not bringing sufficiently warm clothing, sleeping bags and portable showers to allow spending the night in Luton airport, on the floor sans blankets or advice on whether we would ever be provided with alternative transport in order to be reunited with our car and lives..

Mistake number eleven was driving three hundred miles back on Monday night in another blizzard despite not having had any sleep for at least thirty six hours. This mistake worked out ok, though, no one died.

Mistake number twelve was going back to work for my ungrateful company, who tell me I don't get paid for missing work on Monday! Scandalous.

CONCLUSION: airports suck! I'm scared of flying! Cruises down the Nile ftw.

I know I haven't written about London yet

2009-02-10T18:23:00.003Z

but this video nearly made me lose it completely.

In other news: things I want for my birthday include House of Leaves, a tattoo and an iPhone.

And a lion, obvs.

So I might go to Nepal?

2009-02-09T18:30:00.001Z

I write
and write, and transcend
nothing, escape
nothing, nothing
is truly born from me,
yet magically it's better
than nothing

Twilight

2009-02-08T12:41:00.003Z

So I took this book on holiday with me, and I read it twice.

I took it with me because it sounded like a cross between Harry Potter and Ten Things I Hate About You. I love Harry, and Ten Things is my favourite film.

I read it twice because it only took about four hours of beach-lounging and I had nothing else; also, I couldn't believe how incredibly bad it was.

Seriously! I know, I'm a lit student, lit students hate anything that isn't Bukowski or cut-up bits of newspaper stuck together and called anti-art (yeah, I'm looking at you, Burroughs). But I'm a lit student whose favourite books feature a series of post-apocalyptic mutants, one of whom has a secret destiny to save the world. What I'm saying is, my reading habits were set early and I am really easy to please. Vampires? Amazing. Unrequited love? Can't go wrong.

Sadly, though, this is pretty much the whole plot. The first two thirds of the book are; boy does inexplicable things; girl rationalises it and gets it wrong, then gets it right; he spends the rest of the book alternating between being 'macho dick boyfriend' and 'Bunty reader's ideal boyfriend'. You get the impression the author had a tough time in high school. In hindsight, she should have spent that time practicing her writing. I had to re-read the first chapter to make sure that it wasn't something I'd written when I was ten. It is basically pretty bad.

The last third of the book, however, is like a lorry jack-knifing. Everything is going nicely, it's sort of like a Mills and Boon without the sex (I'm coming back to that), she's met the parents etc etc and then - BAM! VOLTE FACE! You can hear the creaks in the plot where the author shoehorns in her written-for-a-movie set piece. Seriously, you could rip this book in half and have two perfectly independant stories. This is annoying.

And yeah, there is no sex. I didn't get into the book thinking it was a piece of erotica, mind - but the lack is glaring. Yeah, there's some kissing - but somehow the vampire who's been a seventeen year old virgin for a hundred years and the girl who has just fallen in love for the first time in her loveless life don't find it a big deal that there is no sexytime?! It is sort of rationalised in the plot (he is sooooo powerful he might accidentally kill her - haha yeah like I haven't heard that before) but honestly, I don't think that would have stopped me, or him. Maybe it is a bit silly to complain about lack of realism in a novel about high school vampires - but I'd find it easier to believe in vampires than celibate teenagers.

My main mistake in all this, of course, is that I bought the first three books as a set, so convinced was I that I would chuffing love Twilight. Now I've read the second one (doesn't even warrant a whiny review) and will, I'm sure, read the third before the week is out. And that will be twelve hours of my life I could have spent writing my own masterpiece, about this unicorn who starts a job with a pharma company and has to keep his identity secret in case someone grinds him up for use in a new cancer drug. He falls in love with the microbiologist who is in charge of the research and is conflicted because his death would help others to live. In the end, he'll accidentally gore the microbiologist and feel so guilty he has to go and live in Alaska for a week or so.

The end.

FOUND

2009-02-07T20:17:00.002Z

ONE MEMORY FROM MY CHILDHOOD

So about a week ago something happened to trigger a memory in my clouded brain of watching a movie about wolves and a stream and a fight with an old wolf on a rock. In the way of these things, once I'd remembered it, that was it, I had to know. Because I am tenacious and clever, I DUG IT UP.

I was convinced that what I was remembering was not the Jungle Book, based on my knowledge of the Disney version. I was wrong! So wrong. It was this Japanese anime version of Rudyard Kipling's book which somehow filtered into my tiny most-central-and-most-ethnically-white village-in-England childhood. How?! Does my brother remember it? Would my parents? Was it just me?

Sadly, now I have an absolute need to own it on DVD. The sad part is because the only places I can find to buy it are in Asia and they are seriously expensive, even for my profligate nature.

Oh well, at least there is still Youtube.

I am back

2009-02-03T20:12:00.001Z

God am I ever back.

I can't begin to explain how difficult it was to become 'back'.

But I will, later, once I've slept and washed and gathered my shattered wits about me.

So I'm going on holiday?

2009-01-22T19:14:00.000Z

secrets

2009-01-19T19:46:00.002Z

I've got a livejournal.

Not a lot of people know this. Some do, but they might as well not because I never write in it anymore and anyway it's 'friends only'. I'm very proud of the little banner I made to announce the start of 'friends only' and also I have deleted all my LJ friends.

But I also have a secret livejournal! One that even I had forgotten about, until I stumbled across some maudlin livejournal community about Sylvia Plath or someone equally nauseating a couple of days ago.

I only made about half a dozen posts in that secret journal, but - and I do say it myself - they were amazing posts. I remember a time when I had the inclination and a reason to take the time to write properly and I haven't done that in so long.

Fittingly, I no longer remember the password to the secret account.

earth mother

2009-01-18T16:13:00.002Z

This weekend I have made:

1. heart-shaped chocolate orange sponge cake with sprinkles

2. huge enormous treacle rye bread loaf with mixed seeds

3. a massive amount of mushroom, aubergine and pea risotto

4. a second rye loaf, smaller and with golden syrup in place of treacle

I had wanted to make blueberry muffins, but now I fear they'll have to wait until I come back from holiday.

Also I missed an important step in the treacle rye loaf (recipe failed to inform me I would need to activate the yeast with warm water and sugar before adding to flour) which means it's a little heavier than one would like (it's a weapon which I intend to send to Gaza), hence the second try.

I am proud of myself!

But I need an apron. I also need a bigger kitchen but apparently this isn't as easy to come by.

oh god it's happening again

2009-01-15T18:01:00.002Z

SO every year I get this chuffing birthday, and this year is no exception.

And every year it's the day after Valentine's Day and every year I have to fight with my friends to get them to put me first above their significant others.

This year there is no point whatsoever as the proportion is higher than ever and anyway I have things to do.

This is the list of options I put together at work when I supposed to be working out next year's stock budgets:

1. Going out for lunch with work on the 13th.

2. Can't have a night out for friends on the 13th because of getting people who live far away up to the city after work, and also the next day is Valentine's Day so potentially getting people to put me first might be ego-brusing.

3. Can't have a party on the 14th because it's chuffing Valentine's Day and everyone is doing other things.

4. Can't have a party on the 15th (my birthday) because it's Sunday and people need to get back for work the next day.

5. Can't do anything in the week because this sucks.

6. Could do something Friday 20th (this will encourage work friends to come out because it'll be soon after work) but getting people from Far Away here in time for a meal at 7pm might be difficult.

7. Could do something Saturday 21st, this is indeed the preferred option, but it's not my real birthday and anyway 2 of my better guests won't be able to make it.

Conclusion: not doing anything, going to sit in by myself and eat pot noodle.

broke no more!

2009-01-12T18:14:00.002Z

So this morning I didn't have a car.

I was all for riding my bike to work, until I woke up and found it was lashing down.

So I thought I'd get the cunning free bus which goes from the tram stop at the end of my road, via the QMC, all the way into the Park and Ride site about half a mile from my work. Then I'd walk to the office. Not too difficult!

No. Difficult. The bus does not, it seems, go from the QMC to the P&R. It just stays at the QMC.

So I had to get off at the QMC and then walk aaaaaall the waaaaaay to my office. In the driving rain. In boots which, apparently, leak. With a wayward umbrella but - luckily - with my MP3 player. I sang out loud all the way there because who the hell can hear you in a howling storm?

I just googlemapped it and it's 3.5 miles. It took me forty-five minutes, which I actually don't think is too shabby? But I got there cold and wet and tired (but pleasingly tousle-haired).

Then this evening my friend Sophie took me to fetch my (repaired) car and I was ecstatically, exultantly happy.

Until I got home and found that, once again, my housemate's boyfriend has come to stay, I can only assume for the whole week.

Am I being unfair and petty to expect some warning before he comes to stay for long periods of time? I choose to live with Zoe and with Donna, not with their boyfriends.

I am very much seriously considering moving out and in with Olly from work.

got 99 problems and four of them are catering

2009-01-11T10:54:00.002Z

So, my gammy eye means I'm supposed to stay indoors in the dark.

Also my car has been making a funny clunking noise when going round corners, and although this was negated by driving with the clutch in I decided to get it checked out anyway because one can't drive with the clutch in all the time. Turns out there's something wrong with its insides and it's been kidnapped by the garage because it's too dangerous to drive. It's also £200 worth of fixin' and a busride to work on Monday.

This all means that I can't do the things I'd planned this weekend and I am feeling very sorry for myself indeed.

I have got loads of cleaning done, however. Is this a good thing?

solo polo vision

2009-01-08T19:37:00.002Z

Last night I'd been asleep for all of about twenty minutes when I woke up with grit behind my eyelid. This is annoying but not unusual for a contact-lens-wearer so I took my usual route of 1) sleepy rubbing; 2) annoyed blinking; 3) getting up, bathing my eye with contact lens solution; 4) increased annoyance, turn on main light to see what the problem is; 5) ARGH GOD BLIND; 6) fish contact lens out of eye whilst weeping uncontrollably in pain; 7) try to go back to sleep assuming all will be well in the morning.

However, it never got better, I never got back to sleep and by 4am I was so tired and in so much pain and so worried that I'd scratched my cornea that I donned the pirate eyepatch Donna gave me for Christmas and phoned NHS Direct for advice.

Twenty minutes later I was sitting in the eye casualty ward at the QMC crying quietly because I've not felt so sorry for myself in a long time, and also in my halluncinatory haze I was convinced I was going to lose my eye.

Needless to say, three consults later over a period of eight hours I am not blind, I just have abrasions and an infection and an earful of vitriol about the dangers of all-day all-night contact lens.

I have also got one swollen-shut eye and some serious sleep-deprivation issues.

Change of plans

2009-01-07T19:30:00.002Z

Due to my ongoing lifestyle of Elizabethan Dandy I cannot afford to go to Dubai.

Instead I am either going to Egypt or Goa or the Canary Islands or nowhere.

I love looking for bargains, it is an all-consuming passion.

FINALLY

2009-01-03T18:16:00.005Z

I've just invented a way of keeping my digging-and-defecating kitten out of my neglected room-plant.

I've no idea how I'm going to water it, but to be fair, that's an infrequent problem for me, given my complete mistreatment of the poor thing.

Given the chance . . .

2009-01-03T00:37:00.001Z

. . . would you spend a week in Dubai, just because you could?

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T22:09:00.000Z

Someone has

2008-12-30T17:38:00.003Z

written the word CUNT in the scum on my car's rear window.

I only noticed it tonight, leaving Asda, so I don't know who did it, why or when.

But they were thoughtful enough to write it backwards so when I glance in my rearview mirror, I can read it clearly.

At first I was shocked and was going to clean it away post-haste.

But now I've decided to leave it, as a warning and as a reminder.

Christmas mash-up

2008-12-18T18:51:00.002Z

So last year I spent some time at the logistics bash dancing with someone I didn't know.

I saw him around the business after that and, once I'd remembered where I knew him from, didn't really speak to him again.

Then I went to a conference with work and he presented a large part of it and I realised that actually he is someone quite important and mentally kicked myself for acting like a twat yet again.

Then last night, at this year's logistics bash, he came over to talk to me when I was with my friends. Turns out he'd tracked me down, worked out what my job was based on where I sit, but then been too shy to attempt a conversation. Fortified with free beer and lots of salmon-based canapes, however, situations are different!

When I told my friend Vik this last night, she nearly passed out. Apparently, this guy is a catch? Shows how drunk I was, I couldn't even remember his name when I was telling the story.

Today's things:

2008-12-16T17:32:00.003Z

1. Boiler wasn't working this morning so I had to have a freezing cold shower. I am now ready and prepared to swim the Antarctic (cursing and bitching all the way).

2. Upon exiting my death-shower, I discovered the washing I'd put in last night was not, as I had expected, still in the machine awaiting hanging. It had instead been mashed into a sodden, mildewy ball and thoughtfully left rotting in its own moistness on the leather armchair. My housemate's washing was instead in the machine and, residing smugly on the radiators (where my washing would have loved to have been and, as first-washed, had their rightful place) was same housemate's boyfriend's washing. Said boyfriend does not live in our house nor pay our bills, nor has his near-constant presence ever been discussed with me or the remaining housemate. This act of vandalism was enough for me to make sure I slammed all doors near her room especially hard on my way out.

3. I accidentally blocked a junction on my way home and the car just pulled right into my path and the occupants (Daily Mail readers) sat slow-clapping and bad-mouthing me whilst we all waited for the traffic to move. I did a comic doubletake and, after some searching, found the Vs I was looking for in my pockets. They were duly flipped. Then I felt bad, because I'm supposed to be being polite to people these days.

4. Just came home and realised I don't have any food. I really would like some food.

5. Boy Who Is A Tosser now looks like Elvis Presely and once again sits near me. I'm intrigued to find that I no longer have the desire to do rude things to him, however, and not just because of the image-change. I just don't think it's fair to get involved with someone new while I'm still emotionally involved with someone I can't see anymore (Merlin).

6. Tomorrow is the Supply Chain Bash and I am so bloody excited!

7. The shower is working now and I just spent forty minutes languishing in the opulance.

8. I've spent a lot of the day researching MAs because it's that time of year again for me to pretend I'm going back to uni next autumn.

How to suck at baking: the tertiery edition.

2008-12-14T19:16:00.003Z

When left to my own devices, I always seem to get into trouble.

Two weeks ago someone at work gave me a tiny mince pie and that set me off boasting about how I liked to make tiny food too and that I would make some tiny mince pies for everyone! Then life took over and I never got round to it.

Tonight, I have made them!

They didn't turn out quite like I'd planned. I lost patience pretty quickly with the 'tiny' aspect (really hard to work in minature with long nails) but even regular mince pies in the cute pink muffin cases I've got didn't work.

Infuriated, I gave in and made regular mince pies. Two of these are pudgy-fingered ugly children because I had forgotten that the lid needs to be smaller than the cup. The rest are the work of a blind plumber with leprosy, the sort of thing you'd be embarrassed if your child made.

To add insult to injury, I've just realised that no where - no where! - in this whole house do I have any icing sugar to dust these monstrosities.

There must be something that I'm good at?!

ARRRRRRRRRRR

2008-12-13T18:34:00.000Z

NOM NOM NOM

2008-12-11T18:07:00.004Z

Because I work in logistics, sometimes suppliers cock it up. When they do, we issue a Notification Of Misdelivery.

Yesterday, because I was expansively hungover, the long and slurred conversation I had with my warehouse liaison about NOMs for a certain supplier was very difficult and all I could think of was this:

Update

2008-12-10T17:16:00.002Z

Went out last night to the Panto with a bunch of people from a pharma company and a bunch of people from work.

Came home at 3.30am this morning, very very drunk and happy.

Woke up at 8.20am already resigned to the idea of being late to work.

10am: dizziness and cheese-hunger

1pm: sugar headache

3pm: suddenly cold

5pm: violent nausea

The worst thing is I've promised to meet a different company tonight for drinks and nibbles but the thought of doing anything apart from going home, having a shower and lying facedown on my bed is literally unbearable.

God how can I get out of this.

Oh my actual god

2008-12-08T12:16:00.003Z

Some people have put together the best map in the world. Fact!

via this Telegraph article. All sorts of placename meanings have been translated back into English and they are so beautiful!

I need to start dropping some serious Secret Santa hints.

ooh ooh ooh a tiny twisty

2008-12-05T21:08:00.002Z

Some bastard's sent me a parcel which I have to go and collect from the Central Post Office Of Death.

Who would do this to me?!

Minutiae

2008-12-03T18:49:00.002Z

This afternoon when I got back to my desk my colleague passed me a note. She'd fielded a phonecall for me.

Plz call Killermeds about their email, it said.

I work in pharmaceuticals.

She meant Tillomed.

But now I am starting a drugstore chain called Killermeds.

So we need to talk about Merlin

2008-12-01T22:25:00.002Z

I was going to talk all about how I went out over the weekend and how bloody awesome my friend Andy from work is and how Donna had a wicked birthday and how rough I felt on Sunday.

But the important thing is that I nearly didn't go out at all because it meant missing Merlin. I've got some sort of major problem with Merlin and I think he might actually have replaced Stephen Fry in my affections.

And then somone who's aware of my equally major problem with boy-kissing ('problem' in the sense that I am banned from watching any TV or movie scene - no matter how innocent -which involves two men, due to my constantly muttering "kiss him" to both characters in a threatening, hopeful manner), sent me a link to this video.

And now I'm ruined forever.

Christmas Wish List

2008-11-20T19:10:00.002Z

1.It's short this year.

I wish I hadn't agreed to the price embargo with my family and most of my friends and could reasonably request this £50 clutch bag.

word clouds

2008-11-19T18:45:00.003Z

    

    

courtesy of wordle

How I know I am a grownup: Reason #23

2008-11-18T12:18:00.000Z

I can manage to drive to work in my high heels!

Last night I dreamed about riding my bike

2008-11-17T20:55:00.001Z

and this morning I woke up and my legs ached.

WTF?

Two years ago I shaved off my hair for Children in Need

2008-11-14T18:05:00.006Z

Last year I worked on the phones

This year I only just managed to sit still long enough to get my enormous face painted!

In other news, my company is still in love with Children in Need and I've done literally no work but have entered every raffle going and eaten a lot of biscuits.

This, I feel, is a Friday well-spent.

P.S. if anyone wants to help me fathom the mysteries of RSS I will shower them with tea and kisses

Just to reiterate:

2008-11-11T18:10:00.001Z

9 days into NaNoWriMo

2008-11-09T15:20:00.003Z

and I've yet to set pen to paper, or finger to keyboard.

This would be the third year in a row that I've known about this project and yet, despite my write-y inclinations, done nothing about it. Conclusion: there is something wrong with my brain.

I spent four hours on a train yesterday and took my notebook with me, thinking that my travel-numb brain would welcome the chance to churn out literary gems by the dozen. Sadly, I found in the end that I preferred re-reading The Road (not On The Road, you understand, which is the polar opposite of The Road) for the umpteenth time since I bought it two weeks ago. When I got bored of that I got into re-arranging my scarf. I really need a new scarf because mine is more of a lightweight desert affair which doesn't hang properly, but I can't find any that suit my personality as much as the current woven green one I bought in Cambodia. But that's beside the point.

What I am supposed to do? Now I'm 15,000 words behind schedule and yes, at uni that would only have been the work of one-and-a-half allnighters. But at uni I had a support network of people who were doing exactly the same thing and no I have no support network.

At least I haven't told everyone at work about doing it this year. At least my failure doesn't let anyone else's inflated expectations down.

Obernewtyn

2008-11-02T19:20:00.002Z

I've been reading this series since I was 11 and some time ago I gave into my choking curiousity and ordered the recently published fifth book from Australia. It turned up last week and now I've finished it.

For a series which was originally supposed to be a trilogy, this thing has grown beyond all sensible realms. This last book was 1,000 pages and still nothing is solved. I can see the plots advancing and joining and now what am I going to do in the inevitable gap between this hour and the next book? I am more emotionally invested in the characters in this series than I am in most of my friends.

Lord help me that I care so much about a series originally written for teenage girls, about the paranormal and secret quests, but I literally can't wait, whilst simultaneously dreading it because what will I care about once I know who the Destroyer is? I will have to undergo surgery a la Eternal Sunshine so I can read the series all over again every year for the rest of my life.

P. S. Elspeth + Dameon 4 eva

My bedroom looks like a scene from Dexter

2008-11-01T14:55:00.002Z

We went to the party and then went to Gatecrasher.

Turns out Zombie Chavs have all the fun, and also Gatecrasher is pretty cool! I love strobe lighting although it does make me feel a bit autistic.

I wish it was Halloween more often, I chuffing love dressing up. I made literally the best chest gun-shot wound EVER out of liquid latex and cotton wool but after 2am all the blood had rubbed off so I peeled it off my chest, whole, and left it on a sink in the bathroom in Gatecrasher.

And oh man did we ever take some pictures.

t minus two days

2008-10-28T20:00:00.004Z

I'm involved in a project at work which will either make me famous or get me fired. It's also top secret so this is the only thing I'm allowed to say about it.

Halloween is looming. I love Halloween more than Christmas but it's harder to get people into the whole scene. I'm making themed cupcakes and dressing as a Zombie Gun Shot Wound Chav (Sexy Version). I'm so goddamn excited. Two of my party guests (it's not my party) cancelled on me already which bodes marvellously.

I've got the day off tomorrow to track down a tiny black lycra skirt with fake chinese lettering embroidered onto it in white cotton and a shiny red kappa jacket. Then I'm going to buy some wax and a litre of fake blood and create a massive gunshot wound right in the middle of my chest. Afterwards I'm going to pile on as much plastic gold jewellery as I can carry and swagger across town like a goddamn princess.

I'm just slightly worried that certain establishments won't understand and will issue a Citizen's Asbo on the spot. But I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Then I'll burn it down.

Boffinses

2008-10-22T20:59:00.003+01:00

I read Our Mutual Friend whilst on "holiday". I picked it up cheap thinking it was Bleak House and kept wondering where that that girl with smallpox was. Any page now, I thought. Soon I cottoned on to the fact that I'm an idiot, but I enjoyed the novel nonetheless, because I love Dickens. I wish it was still ok to write like that, or wear top hats.

Anyway, in the book, Golden Dustman Mr Boffin goes a bit barking and starts buying hundreds of books about misers, about men and women who forewent every conceivable expenditure in order to die alone and naked, dressed in a sack.

Something about this appeals massively to me. It's the same part of me that likes TV shows about horrific foreign prisons, or turn-of-the-century serial killers. It probably wouldn't stand me in good stead were I ever to run for office, but this is the sort of quirky shit I'm into these days.

However, back in the real world, despite being seized by a burning desire to read about this sort of thing for myself, I am foiled at every turn. Google doesn't know anything about books about misers (except for a play by Molière and some sort of Arabic compendium) and I don't remember a world before Google, so how am I to track these books of misery all by myself?! Some people don't like to be alone in the world, as in without a significant other. I don't like to be alone in the world, as in without answers at my fingertips. I can cope with being single as long as I can sate my curiousity in less than fifty keystrokes.

Misers, I know you're out there. I'll never be able to learn to save any money without you and I can't track you down without Google. Ergo, Google owes me some savings.

ready for the floor

2008-10-20T21:09:00.002+01:00

So some people are selfish. Go figure.

This year I am definitely, 100% getting on board NaNoWriMo. I chuffing hate the winter (cold, inconvenient, causes my car severe depression) so it's unlikely I'll be leaving the house unless I absolutely have to (work, supplies, jaunts down to London when I deem it suitable), so I might as well have something to do to prevent me teaching the cat to juggle.

I don't know if I think I could be a writer or if I just think I'd like to be a writer. I think I'm more 'situational comment' than 'imaginative novelist'. Still, I'm game if you are.

I always think maybe I'm not very imaginative, until I catch myself right in the middle of a long and elaborate lie involving the police, twelve ski poles and the state of Arizona. The commentary between me and my brother in our Facebook 'How We Met' section is shining, singing praise of my (our) combined brilliance. So I think I can knock out 50,000 words about a girl with a scar on her nose who goes to live somewhere unfamiliar to her, falls in with the wrong people, then falls in with the right people, undergoes some trials and tribulations and finally finds out that it's ok to be whatever it is she already happens to be. I'm going to incorporate the themes of 'song', 'magic' and 'talking animals'. Maybe it will be set in the future, or an parallel universe, or an alternate history. Maybe it won't be set anywhere. Maybe I'll re-type Catch-22 and claim it is an homage to Joseph Heller.

In the meanwhile, I'm allowing myself to read Joey Comeau's installment-Halloween-horror, even though every time I read anything he writes I end up unconsciously aping him for weeks afterwards.

results

2008-10-19T09:59:00.002+01:00

So I'm back from Lanzarote.

I'd love to tell tall tales about the wonderful larks and hi-jinks I got up to, and in truth I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy any of it.

But it was not everything it could have been. Holidays that are intensely boring and nauseatingly awkward are, in my newly-created opinion, to be avoided. I would have had more fun staying at work. Holidays which also force one to question the basis of friendships and indeed one's own outlook on life are not worth any number of pristine sea-view apartments.

I'm really, really sad that my overall outlook on the last week and a half is almost completely negative, and I'd like to be able to put a positive spin on things and just pick out the good bits to relate. But that feels dishonest and frankly why should I not tell the truth to people who care enough to ask?

Halloween, birthdays and tanning

2008-10-07T08:39:00.002+01:00

My friend Vik is moving to a new house with her boyfriend who now works on my team.

She's having a joint Halloween and housewarming party and me and my friends are either going as pregnant sexy nuns, or Death Eaters, or chavs.

We're leaning towards chavs now because I want an excuse to wear the bright pink skinny jeans I saw in Primark last week. They don't adhere to my current office-chic penchant.

On Thursday I'm going to Lanzarote! I'm going to get so brown.

Nobody knows it

2008-09-17T23:08:00.000+01:00

but you've got a secret smile

and you use it

only for me.

<3

2008-09-11T22:24:00.002+01:00

1. New computer; it's like having a piece of the future trapped and caged in an elegant silver prison

2. Archives are back, don't know how, now too scared to change any settings to find out

3. Newly discovered affinity for clutchbags means I will one day have to own this bag:

4. Eyes are bleeding from the brightness speed and beauty of new laptop; the prospect of being able to download music (hasn't happened for six months); watch movies (hasn't happened for eighteen months); leave the computer on, go away and come back to find it's still on (hasn't happened for nine months); and ability to log onto MSN Messenger for the first time in two years (even though none of my old friends use it anymore, apparently) makes it all worthwhile.

a kiss with a fist is better than none

2008-09-10T19:33:00.001+01:00

Victoria S/P... theres reports of a blackhole opening up over Iran.........
Lucy B/Peo... yeah, yeah
Victoria S/P... really, have you not been on bbc news in the past half hour?
Lucy B/Peo... blackholes don't 'open up' slowly
Victoria S/P... its opened up, but is now slowly growing, they don't understand why.
Lucy B/Peo... really
Lucy B/Peo... can you send me the link?
Victoria S/P... no
Lucy B/Peo... how strange
Victoria S/P... indeed.
Lucy B/Peo... are you suggesting this is linked to the Large Hadron Collider
Victoria S/P... yes.
Lucy B/Peo... which hasn't actually collided any particles yet and won't for several months?
Victoria S/P... what else?
Lucy B/Peo... and by 'blackhole above iran' do you mean 'earthquake under iran'?
Victoria S/P... Man, I was so proud of myself merging two breaking news stories into one highly believable pile of rubbish! I should write for The News of the World!
Lucy B/Peo... yeeeees
Lucy B/Peo... i'm not convinced your grip of the science involved is quite good enough to fool anyone except a toddler...
Victoria S/P... people who read that paper only have the brain capacity of a toddler. I am sorted!
Lucy B/Peo... done! quit your job right now and go! go find your calling!
Victoria S/P... i'm on the edge of my seat about to quit!
Lucy B/Peo... i am quitting right now
Victoria S/P... to do what? You can't steal my job !
Lucy B/Peo... or at least going home

i can see your face on the telephone

2008-09-09T19:09:00.002+01:00

I BOUGHT A NEW COMPUTER

but don't tell my current one because he might get jealous and also scared about his impending demise.

Realistically I should have bought a new computer thirteen months ago when it stopped playing DVDs and then started a long, slow shutdown of everything else. I can't watch anything that moves at more than 3 frames per minute, and I would have to wait for ninety minutes for even that to load. Except this machine gets so hot after the very briefest use that it doesn't even do me the courtesy of closing down my programs or giving me an error message, it just shuts down, laughing, so it would never load.

My new computer will have a DVD thing and a big screen and a colourful shiny case and a harddrive bigger than the moon and will, basically, be a rocketship in comparison to my current laptop.

Whoop de whoop!

loaded god complex

2008-09-04T18:31:00.002+01:00

Tonight on my way home I only wanted to listen to 'Sugar We're Going Down Swinging' so that's exactly what I did for thirty seven minutes. I sang along to every single word, too!

Usually when I drive home I spend 90% of my time fishtailing erratically across lanes while I skip track after track of music I hate but think I should like (Sigur Ros, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Of Montreal) and looking one of three Ting Tings songs, or Sleater Kinney.

Last night I went to the pub quiz and stayed out far too late for a schoolnight, so this morning I got dressed in a fog of headache and blurred vision. Imagine my surprise when I got into my meeting with my pharmaceutical supplier and realised that what I'd thought was a demure 40s-style dress of refinement was, in fact, more 50s Pinup than 40s Landgirl. I got what I wanted out of the meeting, needless to say.

I used to wear jeans to work quite a lot, because I was too tired in the morning to plan 'smart'. But now I like to look like I've made an effort (because one day Baldymort will realise what he's missing) so I almost always wear skirts, and usually heels too! I don't think I owned a pair of high heels until about four months ago, but now I understand that genetic midgets such as myself have to wear them by law, so that we don't make other people nervous. Also it freaks out the two incredibly scruffy (seriously; ratty, faded black t-shirts and baby blue sports jackets) new girls.

Also someone told me today that Stephen Fry is in panto in the South this year, but on investigation it's just his recorded voice pretending to be a mirror. I'd packed my bags ready to move down and woo him outside the stage door, but clearly the time isn't ready for us yet. Maybe it never will be.

Costa Del Rah

2008-09-02T18:14:00.002+01:00

Today, I couldn't find any tights, so I wore a pair of sticky-top holdups, the kind I usually only wear when I'm trying to make an impression.

By the time I'd walked to the other end of the office, had a meeting, and walked halfway back, I was mentally calculating the distance between myself and the bathroom, as one sticky holdup was incrementally losing stick with each step. Desperation! Panic! I had to desperately apply basic trigonometry to work out if I was going to make it to Adjustment City before the Embarrassment Train ran me down, or whether I was going to be stranded in Exec Valley with one alluringly fake-tanned leg exposed to the elements.

Naturally I made it (just). Seems that my luck is on the turn!

About time too, as my emotional control has disappeared once again and I am literally FURIOUS with the rain for being so fucking noisy and unpredictable, and with my computer for being so slow, and with my keyboard for being temperamental, and with myself for my stupid lame-ass fake nails which make typing and texting almost completely unbearable.

This is nothing, mind you - NOTHING - to my sheer rage and incandescent hatred for the absolute mindless, brainless, illiterate moron who changed the password to the Boots Jobs site on the same night I finally have my application written and ready to send. I hope they get severe cystitis and also scabies of the face so everyone knows what a pointless and air-wasting jobsworth they really are.

Good news: think I have found a holiday destination which ticks all the boxes (price, sun, nightlife). Whoop whoop!

today: straight

2008-08-31T09:14:00.002+01:00

So the new rule is, I do one bad thing and get three back in return? I suspect this may be because I dabbled with black magic in my youth.

I have trouble sleeping these days, which in fairness is more to do with the nightly street-parties involving the gurdwara next door than my troubled conscience. But it means that I wake up in the middle of the night, gaze around blearily, panic because I think my jacket is a murderer, and then go back to sleep whilst worrying about not getting up for work in time the next day.

But last night it was great, because I realised in the midst of my worry that today is SUNDAY! It was like getting an extra day, all to myself, to spend asleep.

Well, not asleep, because now I'm awake and getting ready to go to the gym, but I could have been asleep, if I hadn't eaten a tall frappuchino with cream, a sandwich, a brownie, two peanut butter cookies, some cheese and a bagel yesterday.

hahahahahhahahaha

2008-08-29T22:37:00.001+01:00

hahahahahahahah

haha

hahahahahahaaaaaaaa

Outposhed!

today: curly

2008-08-27T18:18:00.002+01:00

I wonder how many times I'm going to keep on making the same mistake?

Sometimes I'm so glad my archives don't work, but at the same time maybe I could learn something from them.

On Saturday I'm joining the nunnery and taking a vow of silence because now I honestly believe it's the only way to stop the incessant flow of unthinkingly mean comments. Maybe having to assess what exactly is wrong with me will make for a better world.

In the meantime I'm going to comment only on the weather and whether my hair is straight or curly today because these things are no-one's concern :(

for rent: turkish villa (no fat kids)

2008-08-26T17:56:00.003+01:00

All I am saying is, I'm an almost psychic judge of character.

So today I went to the gym for the first time in about two weeks. I hate the gym. I hate not being able to stuff my face with brownies and bread and honey nut cornflakes at every hour of the day and night. Metabolism is the reason I don't believe in god. But I'm going on holiday at some point this year and as far as I can tell from Company magazine, no-one above a size eight is granted a visa for Spanish beaches. Plus the more unhealthily gaunt I get now, the better I'll look when I come back tanned and five stone heavier from the all-inclusive drinking.

My attitude to the gym is very much like my attitude to life. Get on the treadmill, hammer it for six and a half minutes, have a stroke because I'm doing too much too fast, falter, have to tone it down for my own good. Repeat for bike machine, rowing machine, sit-up machine etc etc. At the end of it I know I should go and do thirty lengths in the pool but all I really want is to go home and discuss with my housemates what sort of biscuits we'll get at the weekend.

sometimes I come home drunk

2008-08-24T00:55:00.004+01:00

and write stupid things.

New resolution: self-flagellation.

if I were to be applying for jobs

2008-08-20T21:11:00.002+01:00

I might be struck by how interesting and glamourous my job sounds when it's written down on paper

'buying and managing the international supply chain for a range of licensed medicines. I work with pharmaceutical companies, international manufacturers, factories, and a number of governmental bodies, as well as 1600 stores, 19 warehouses and the general public'.

Maybe I should ask for more money!

kissed a girl (found it awkward and slightly staged)

2008-08-20T18:29:00.002+01:00

I don't have an update on the trumpets.

My housemate has aggressive glandular fever, viral meningitis and hepatitis so I have to find other people to go out with now at weekends.

Where is hot and cheap in October?

BRING ON THE TRUMPETS

2008-08-14T17:51:00.003+01:00

BRING ON THE TRUMPETS

BRING ON THE TRUMPETS

BRING ON THE TRUMPETS

ha ha ha ha ha

TRUMPETS

new girl

2008-08-12T17:17:00.002+01:00

So the new girl started yesterday at 9am. She went into the 'Warm Welcome' orientation program until 1pm, when she came up to category to meet our boss.

At 2pm she came and sat with me for an hour and I showed her around and introduced her to everyone. Then we went into a 30 minute meeting, then she sat with Louise, whose area she was going to be taking over. Then at 4pm she went home.

At 9.10am this morning, HR phoned to inform us that Amber wasn't going to be returning to work. She'd quit. Overnight. After one day.

...

So, basically, she told HR she didn't like our boss (not possible, our boss is LOVELY); hadn't been introduced to anyone (the most blatant lie ever told); and that she didn't like the thought of 'chopping and changing' (I'd mentioned that sometimes Helen gets us to move product areas for experience - ASMs work according to the needs of the business).

We have concluded that she's a spoilt Princess Baby.

So now we're back to square one. I'm hoping my boss will blame me for 'losing' this new join and will take the priviledge of being Training Co-ordinator off me. That is the only silver lining I'm interested in.

there's no such thing as a british accent

2008-08-09T18:06:00.002+01:00

In Bridget Jones's Diary there's a passage where ol' Bridg is talking about her only well-adjusted friend, and speculating that the reason she is so well-adjusted is that she'd never read a self-help book in her life.

Well, I've never read a self-help book either, but Zoe and I have both been on our dating site for a month now and things are worse than ever.

I don't think I'm ugly. I don't think I'm beautiful either and I'm a terrible girlfriend but my face and hiliarious profile are the only things potential suitors have to go on and both are alright from some angles. So why, aside from maybe three or four acceptable candidates - only one of which I have any interest in whatsoever - are my days filled with the distressing viewing and time-consuming deleting of fellows like the one to your right?! It leads me to the conclusion that there are too many men in the world, all the good ones have picked their beautiful women and dragged them off to their lair, and that what is left is some pretty girls and hundreds and hundreds of inbred hairy monsters.

I'm a terrible girlfriend because I'm unbelievably independent. Most people think I'm being positive when I say this but, in reality, who wants a girlfriend who doesn't rely on them for anything, including emotional support?!

Moral of the story: going out with Zoe tonight, if we don't meet anyone worth our time I might suggest hardcore lesbianism. Are you allowed to be gay if you've got long hair?

come on take them off

2008-08-06T18:37:00.003+01:00

So somehow I've ended up as the trainer for my team.

The arrangement was that once our previous trainer moved on (which she now has), we'd appoint whoever was least busy at the time to look after any new people. This hasn't happened. What has happened is that without any help, guidance or coaching I am in charge of meeting, greeting, organising and training three new people, at the same time.

I definitely did not agree to this because a) I wouldn't have agreed to it and b) I would have asked for more money! I'm not stupid and I don't mind helping but I resent the way my boss sneaks extra workload onto you by stealth, by implying something is only temporary when in fact she's never going to move it on to someone else.

So I've got my rebuild, Alice's rebuild, Jen's rebuild, Alice and Jen and Amber's training and schedules, two large projects around dispensing and the closure of 17 warehouses, my regular work, hundreds of bitty things daily for the team as a whole, and any questions the new kids choose to ask, which is always at exactly the wrong time and about something I've already been over twice.

I hate being asked for help. I never ask, so why should anyone else need to?!

Also, when I tell someone that something needs doing urgently on a Friday, I expect them to respect the fact that I know what I'm doing and that it is actually urgent and to just fucking do it. I don't expect them to come shuffling over on Wednesday morning asking if they can put some time in with me later that day to baby them through writing the email. If they do do this then they shouldn't look shocked when the response is a furious scowl and a 'why isn't this already done' tirade.

But it's ok because today is Job Day in the local paper and I've got my red circlin' pen at the ready!