In order to divert some of the vitriol that would otherwise be directed at last night's abysmal The Woman in White (goldfish flapping in puddles - dreadful music, ditto lyrics, everything else great. Hum) I have written a TEST! But not just any old test, oh no! It's a test about Jaws! Woo and indeed hoo!

I really have to stop starting things with "Well".

My incredibly shiny new phone has decided that O2 is too rubbish to work with and has therefore stopped receiving text messages. Which I am being sent. So there. Damn. Off to the theeeaaaateeeer today to see 'The Woman in White' which will hopefully be obscenely melodramatic and full of the joys of the season. Parking in London though - hum.

Well I think we've just confirmed that Rupert Everett is god. Or rather a god considering the time of year. Sherlock Holmes was fantastic tonight - obviously I didn't have a clue what was going on as I have all the deductive dkills of a potato, but even I twigged there was a twin involved. Rock!

The belt has been loosened due to the influx of Stilton, turkey, chocolate and television - satsumas are doing no job whatsoever of counterbalancing seasonal fatness so sod it. Was marginally horrified at Christmas lunch yesterday to discover my seven eyar old cousin has developed a dripping sarcasm to rival mine in the last year and owns the Franz Ferdinand album. Suddenly I feel dramatically outclassed. Got mildly pissed, went home, got less mildly pissed and had a musical interlude with Dad while the Boy read and mum did her fiendish jigsaw. Genius.

Happy Christmas one and all. No relatives were harmed in the making of this season.

Well, the radio says it's going to snow tomorrow and the radio doesn't lie. Apart from the torrential downpour outside my window, I am entirely convinced that we are going to have some a-mazing snow tomorrow - or at least somewhere in the UK anyway.

Am loving being on holiday - the sleep, the carols, the unequivocal love of the dog. Work can well and truly kiss my ass for the time being.

Only question: how the heel do you dress up as corruption? I love fancy dress parties...

Damn. I guess I'm just going to have to face the fact that Ebay is not going to rescue my financial situation. What to do? Temp? Where! Rob stores? No gun! Beg? Too un-tramp-like looking! I know the festive spirit should be kicking in and believe me, it's a-kicking, but the noose of poverty is creeping tighter around my neck. And yes, my grammar is failing me as well. The shame.

NOOOOOOOOO! PJ Harvey's giving up performing live. Sad day.

No longer a gigwise virgin. More internet reviews! Oh yes!

Home tomorrow: Christingle, dog, fire, goodwill, Stilton, satsumas. It's what Christmas is all about.

I now have two friends my age who are married. I am 22. This should surely not be happening. It's a good thing I have the biological clock of Doctor Who or I might be starting to feel cagey.

Poverty is now no actual joke - is it ever. I know compared to, well, everyone else in the world, I am ridiculously fortunate, but going to a Christmas social and standing like a lemon sans drink etc smacks of something rotten, plus staying at home and watching Holby City (unexpected bonus, I love that show) instead of going to the meal. I must seem like the most aloof, unsocial, typical post-grad. I hated those people at university, and now I am one of them, "too good" to socialise with undergrads.

I'm not too good! I'm really rather shit! I'm just poor!

Hurray! I have new work at gigwise. Unlike artrocker, they seem to be slightly smarter than your avergae bear and get you guest list which is nice. Bonus at last, makes up slightly for the drastic levels of poverty I once again find myself in.

TRAGIC DEATH OF PANTERA GUITARIST
____________________
At about 4am last night, Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell was shot dead onstage at a gig in Ohio. Members of the audience were also injured and the gunman was subsequently shot dead by police. It is not yet known whether any other members of the band have been hurt.

What's twistedly apt is that when I went onto the website to see if anything had been posted yet, their sounds were of gunshots. Someone's got a black sense of irony I guess.

Finally. After two and a half days of searching for rock, metal and fetish clubs, the Kerrang holiday listings are finito. I'd like to thank ents24 and netgoth in particular for being quite ridiculously useful. Phew.

A bizarre twist in coincidence last night continuing from Monday. Monday: I decided to take advantage of the fact that the Tate Britain is just around the corner from my flat and try and get on telly while the Turner Prize was being awarded. I got into the actual building by smiling at the guards when they asked for my invivtation and saying I didn't have one. Obviously, all arty people do this because they're "mad" and "out there" and "don't carry anything" because they let me past no problems. Came to a slight flaw when it came to having my name on the list and I was flurried out of the building by anxious curator types who thrust me accusingly at the guards and looked at me as if I had a bomb shoved up my top ready to deploy. The earnest arty demonstrators outside looked thoroughly bemused and a photographer took photos of me under the impression I worked for the NME. Hum.

Tuesday: Kerrang gave me free tickets to go and watch The Features at the Dublin Castle last night which I reviewed for Artrocker. This Italian guy with an extremely large camera tapped me on the shoulder and asked if he'd seen me here before. Turns out it was the guy from the Tate! God I love random coincidences.

After two days of Metallica, Korn and, um, bagpipes, the Kerrang office is now playing Longview. Or Long_view. Or however they're hyphenating themselves these days. Happily, it's 'Only When You Sleep' which is my favourite. Hurray! Way to cheer up listings.

Well. I spent my first weekend "living" in London and got extremely freaked out. It's about ten minutes to the Houses of Parliament for God's sake. There's something massively different in staying with people you know or in an area you know to just staying in a house. Hmmm. I felt very provincial and rather worried.

I took the tube to work this morning which was rather cool - getting it to work I mean, not the tube. (I should really stop calling it work. But I haven't made tea yet, so perhaps I technically am.) I felt slightly Mary Poppins-ish bouncing along Oxford Street, almost being run over by double-decker buses and singing "Chim Chim Cheree" loudly. Alright, I made the last bit up, but what the hell. It's all very English and very London. It freaks me out quite a lot actually, but I guess three days is no time at all to even start getting used to a place.

I went to a great surplus store in Warren Street this morning, getting a lab coat for a photo shoot. Damn it, what's it called again. Leonard's Corner? Lionel's Corner? Anyway, go out of Warren Street tube, turn left and cross the road at the second set of traffic lights you'll cross over. It's just on the corner there,funnily enough.

Anyway, back to playing with Quark again. I'm tired and really quite Londoned-out. Not boding well for my journalistic career I guess...

...And back to the wishlist. O please Santa, bring me aLa Petite Salope dress! I've been ever so well-behaved.

It's a dream come true! Damn my unfeasibly man sized feet! An Irregular Choice sale!

Ordinarily I wouldn't link to something as mundane as a mate's left-over tea but this is so frightening it deserves a special "wooargh" mention. Oli's monster.

My mum's in the Times! P61 bottom right hand corner asking questions! Go Mum!

Weird ebay crap fills in those little holes in the day so well!

On the musing side: why do Tomato Ketchup, Worcester Sauce and Prawn Cocktail Walkers all taste exactly the same? It's so unfair!

Argument from d21 re: The Libertines. I need to rant.

I completely agree with Pete re: the car crash idea. It's a tragedy that this actually rather good band (Can't Stop Me Now = genius) have been torn apart by drugs and the behaviour of their members but hell, that's not exactly a new story is it. Read The Dirt or hear about ACDC anyone? What's the tragedy is that the NME, the 'Sun' of the music world and the most despicably hypocritical publication around, is touting 'cool' as being self-destructive. Fuck that. Being cool isn't screwing up your own life and those of the others around you, it's doing your own thing and being utterly driven by passion. Not by the fragile need to boost your self-esteem by blowing your brains out, either with drugs, or with guns.

***NEWS ALERT***NEWS ALERT***

Idlewild are releasing a new album on March 7 2005 called 'Warnings / Promises'. A new single 'Love Steals Us From Loneliness' will be out on 21st Feb. I am so excited I can barely speak. HURRAY!

***End of CNN style News Alert***

Another outstanding Jeremy Clarkson quote! On the Mazda 323 - "An avocado bathroom suite in a Barratt home if ever I saw one." Genius!

Also amazing but for completely different reasons...protect you dog! Make him wear Doggles!

Breathtaking. Check out the NHM's Wildlife Photographer gallery - absolutely amazing. The winner is genius.

Life is good. On Wednesday I was interviewing Sheiks at Cardiff Bay mosques and finding out about illicit casinos in the 60s over a gin and tonic (not with the Sheikh, obv) and last night I rocked up to Durham to run into six lovely people randomly on the street. Random. That's such a nice Durham occurrence. The bloody Riv Caf has ceased its production of those thoroughly addictive chocolate fudge brownies (alias crack for eaters) and replaced them with some insipid wannabe cake product. This will not do! On the bright side, students really will go for anything as long as it's free - there was chlamydia testing on offer outside and queues of people were waiting to receive packets of swabs. Free - everyone's favourite word.

As if people needed another reason to think Brad Pitt was fabulous:

Brad Pitt says he's coaching Matt Damon to become the sexiest man alive, so he beats Jude Law in next year's People magazine list. "I think Matt was shaken by it. He campaigned hard; he put up a good fight. The kid really tried his best and I think it was toughest on him. I think if he sticks with it and he keeps applying himself like he has been this year, I think we'll see some greatness from him next year."

"George Clooney and I have started a class as former sexiest men alive. We're working with the young 'uns. Jude was at the top of his class immediately. It was obvious to us that he was a natural. But we have great hopes for Mattie that he'll get there."

*sigh* poker face is so attractive. GLAMOUR

When did Longview become Long-View? More to the point, why am I in London when they're coming to Cardiff to do a special acoustic set? Will attempt to get to King's Collge to watch the one there, but it's the last day of my much anticipated and immensely fabulous work placement at Kerrang! so I will probably be doing something embarassing and refusing to leave. Hey ho...

If you want to go to Longview instead, they're at Newcastle on 23rd, London King's on 10th, and Cardiff on 9th. They're doing lots of other places too so check it out. If you haven't heard them before, they've got an amazingly majestic sound without being pompous. And they made me cry.

A lovely attitude to death this, as long as you're not related to any of the deceased. Who's died recently?

Wow! As if it wasn't already amazing enough that there's going to be a Spongebob Squarpants film, the Flaming Lips are on the soundtrack.My day just got a whole lot better. No updates recently as I've been feverishly working on my website for college - it is extremely sexy I promise. Lots of swirly buttons and pretty things. Will put a link up here as soon as it's done so you can judge for yourselves (but only if you say nice things about it, obv)

Moment of tv joy now over - sounded like I'd swallowed the Queen but it was a lot better than I thought it would be. I didn't die of embarassment anyway. And hey - I got 45 minutes of fame which is a good half hour more than my due!

Hurray! A new interview has been done. Bless him. And I don't have psoriararisis or however the hell you spell it. Am going to have a sandwich to celebrate.

I hate computers. The interview I typed up this morning has completely disappeared which means the feature we have to hand in on Monday is completely bollocksed and there's sod all I can do about it.

Yet another public admin lecture in which I fell asleep. Thank God the textbook is being republished at Christmas - sod sweeties, I'm genning up on the inner workings of local government! It's so bright and hot in that room I keel over within ten minutes, like Elvet on a Monday morning only so much worse.

My tv spectacular is on next Monday, 5pm BBC2. Golly gosh hurray.

Turns out the evil hickey from hell that's been plaguing me for the last two months is something called psoriasis. According to the National Psoriasis Foundation "If you've been told recently that you have psoriasis, you may feel a sense of relief from having a diagnosis. You may also feel some confusion and even anger. Your feelings are normal, and you are not alone." I just feel a bit itchy to be honest.

Have discovered the best cure for Sunday-ism combined with "oh bollocks it's November again" syndrome - being given faffy time-wasting coursework to do building a web-site! You just build and build and break it and make it prettier. That's way better than moping in front of the tv. Aha!

Had an excellent weekend with GG putting the world to rights over bottles of Rioja, home-made mocha and Cardiff fireworks. Saw The Grudge, GG has now vowed never to set foot in a horror film with me ever again. Hmph. Went to The Summer of Love on my tod today, as did everyone who went to go and see it. Very lovely, in a Heavenly Creaturessort of vein. Dreamy and acidic - very good.

Ooooh! I've got two phones. That makes me twice as pretentious as I was yesterday.

Bless. My dad has cyber nannies to protect him at work!


From: itsupport@___.com
To: phaeton>Subject: Profanity Detected
Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 20:06:06 +0000 (GMT)

Profanity has been detected in this email which appears to be from phaeton@_
to the intended recipient blah@blah.com

subject RE: contacts.

If you have any queries please contact I.T Support.

Happy Birthday to me! Am celebrating by losing my homework. Instead of being 22, it appears I am in fact, 12.

Oh my! All my childhood/ teenage/ early twenties dreams are coming gratuitously true! I've got an interview on Friday for a work placement on... Kerrang! I had serious trouble trying to persuade the nice lady on the other end of the phone to give me an interview at all as it's for 13-17 year olds and you don't actually get to do anything beyond filing. Fuck it! Ashley Bird got a job after work experience! A joyous day for me. Yay.

And how are you?

...and dwarf throwing has just been made illegal in Canada. Grazie popbitch!

...and moving back onto matters of no importance whatsoever. Neighbours is going to have a terrorist bomb blow up the pub and buildings... so producers can renovate Erinsborough with a cactus garden and wine-bar. Joy!

John Peel is dead. The legendary broadcaster died following a heart attack while on holiday with his wife in Peru. There's a real sense of shock in the office at the moment - the man is irreplaceable, a true institution and one of the best advocates of unsigned bands around. Home Truths was Saturday mornings and those gravelly northern tones were much-loved by generations of radio listeners. He united radio audiences and will be sorely missed.

Apparently I have a cake above my head on Friendster. I like the fact that birthdays on the internet start well in advance so you get a proper build-up. More importantly, I'm looking forward to just having a birthday - even if I do share it with the US election. Bed? I really don't think so!

President Clinton of the USA: To Copulate he finds interns

Favourite anagrams of me...

Her worn beatnik
Bahrein network
Nora: web thinker
Hearken! Wit born
Breaker with none
Knower in the bar

J1 is Johnny Mash Pie which is ace.

Housemate: October+men=cash. Or "Car botches omen" - pass your driving test lady!
God I love break times...

Hi kids, I'm Glitter Silvers!

Mmm...a favourite thing to do - a quiz! This time a Munich university sleep quiz in The Times. Lovely way of wasting five minutes "constructively."

Hurrah! Bloc Party review is on the front page! Promise I'll stop doing this as soon as the excitement wears off. Oh come on, it's winter and I'm learning shorthand. I need some joy.

Shameless me plug: my first sub is up on Artrocker, J1 and I are rocking the front page! Read it here then read J1's Bees review. Smashing. Bloc Party review to be up soon.

Nice one to B and the folks at d21, once again nominated for NUS student website of the year. Barney's also been nominated for student photographer so well done to him.

Bloody hell it's Monday.

Went to glorious Cheltenham on Saturday (in a car no less! fancy!) to see Greg Dyke speak at the Lit Festival. Cheltenham is a mad place - utterly beautiful but looking as though every other building is an overgrown doll's house. It's also, as J2 pointed out, a fantastically un-useful place if you want a bottle of water. Crabtree and Evelyn - check, East - check, assorted glitzy pizza places - cher-eck, but score zero for newsagents. As if anyone in Cheltenham collects their own paper! Really.

Greggie was on good form once he got going and bloody Gillian Reynolds had stopped her sycophancy ("I remember Greg, that dinner party we were at with your lovely partner blah blah blah, when you said blah blah blah") CEASE YOUR INFERNAL PRATTLE WOMAN. He was pretty frank about Hutton and how angry he was about the whol affair. Unfortunately the room was so warm and dark and I'd been working the night before so I fell asleep for the last ten minutes. Useless fool.

J1 cooked a damn fine roast chicken yesterday which gave me vitamins and protein and all sorts of things you can't get from chocolate bars alone. We toddled along to Shot in the Dark with his housemate and engorged yet more vitamins and a shed-load of cream with a smoothie - mmmm. Went to Bloc Party gig later; sold out so lots of upset indie kids looking traumatise by the fact a band they liked had sold out. What? More than three people went? You lie! Damn good gig anyway and scribbled off a review for a website at lunchtime.

I am now a desk-bound lunch eater. God help me.

So much for a night of cerebral comedy and general telly visuals: J and I rocked up to Bristol on what might just be the train equivalent of a slow, miserable death before being unleashed into the rain with ten minutes to go, a mother of a taxi queue and drivers who said we had no chance of getting to Bath Road at all. So we thought "fuck it" and went and explored this rather lovely city - another one that reminds me of Strasbourg.

After looping through assorted streets, we ended up at the bottom of King's Street in a gorgeous Jacobean pub letting the rain fizzle off our clothes, supping ale and gin (not together - that would just be wrong) and, um, doing shorthand. Who says journo students don't know how to have fun eh?! Grabbed a very nice supper at a place called the Zee Bar (v pretty, but so empty that we felt not at all shabby) drank a bottle of wine and then toddled off to the train to head back to the Taf. Whereupon I found I'd left my keys at home. But of course. It meant I got to have a nice chat to the girls who live in the ground floor flat and then R got back from the flicks and let me in like an errant dog. Sleep, so much sleep, followed.

Tonight I am sitting on the sofa and doing sweet fa for at least three hours before going to bed. Hardcore is clearly not the word!

Bit of a gigtastic weekend and for free no less! Small price to pay for free tickets ie; picking emails etc although it's a rubbish job and once again I am vindicated in my hatred for the general public.

I ended up working the Razorlight gig on Friday which meant seeing Dogs (good then sliding down to average noisy rocktastic tie-swinging) and the Duke Spirit (lovely voice, not as amazing live as thought they might have been but lots of tambourine shaking which was nice) and Razorlight themselves. hmmm. Vice is good and I can see why teenage girls have taken them so far up the charts, but they're not exceptional.

The Zutons and The Futureheads on Sunday (latter very good, Zutons really good, loads of energy) but I got stupidly tired after running around London all weekend so went home early. Loser. Eastern Lane gig last night at the Welsh Club - miserably average support band first, no substance, less style. then the Paddingtons who had some overkeen indie boy stripping and jumping around naked which was, er, lovely. J and I were knackered so slid home half way through the set and missed Eastern Lane which was rubbish but hey, we're old or something. Half seven starts - boring life a necessity.

Heading off to Bristol tonight to watch Kings of Comedy which should be cool; I'm hoping for Scott Capurro and Dara O'Briain, but someone who'll make me laugh will do. Another late night though, however will we manage?

God - we're actually pathetic.

Things you've done when you had no money. Nice... Cheers B3ta!

And then there was Nick, a quiet Australian, who came to the Highlands to get away from a koala hospital in Queensland. A koala hospital? "Yup." Did you get lots of patients? "Hundreds." What dop they suffer from mostly? "Chlamydia." You're joking? How do they get it? "From people." Oh my God. Australians will do anything. "No, they have a dormant virus that's brought on by stress, which is caused by contact with people." How do you treat it? "We put them down." No? "You can't give koalas antibiotics. Their digestions are too delicate. I guess there won't be any koalas in Queensland in five years." Wiped out by a sexually transmitted disease caught by simply looking at Australians. Isn't God weird? "Yup."

Extract from AA Gill's latest food critique in the Sunday Times Style section. This is why the man is a genius.

Way to make your company sound thrilling: Boring business systems owned by Mr Dean Boring. We salute you sir.

Reports are coming in that Ken Bigley has been killed. This hasn't been confirmed yet but check the guardian for details.

From the Durham Alumni newsletter... "The BBC reported that more students at Durham complete their courses than just about any other University in the country. 97.7% of all students who start a course at Durham complete it. This compares with the national average of 14%."

14%?? What the fuck do they do? How can that many people drop out?

Fave new bits of utterly useless info...

Giraffes and turkeys are bisexual.

Steve Mason, the guitarist from 90s Indie-rockers Gene is now a male model, spotted recently auditioning for a bank advert wearing only Speedos.

And people who use their baby to meet celebrities. Oh God.

God bless popbitch!

If you do nothing else today, check out the pic of the "rejuvenated Tory party" on the front of the Guardian. Absolutely priceless.

Want to buy Prebend's bridge? Who doesn't!

Listen to the new U2 single and check out Bono's incredible spanish. One, two, three, fourteen indeed...

I really, really want a Belle and Sebastian calendar! Please, buy me one.

Alas my pre-term library enthusiasms have been thoroughly squashed by the enormous library fine awaiting me yesterday - no more books for me. Sneaky bastard librarians letting you take out cds etc without telling you to pay for them, so much for my exciting new reservations...

God it's sad.

Some excellent William Shatner quotes in the Times yesterday, bravo to him. Other than that, head to radio 4 and click on listen again to catch an amazing version of The Woman In Black. Third time's the charm I guess but it's still bloody scary. If you havent' seen it at the Fortune Theatre already then I highly recommend you head there and take advantage of some cheap tickets - one of the best things on in London.

William Shatner doing Common People! NME finally providing something good! Making up for their gratuitous over-exposure of libertines and every other band in the world ever!

No more !.

Shorthand! Nine in the morning! Everyday!

Sorry, what?

And for those of you who have not yet had the pleasure of Steven Seagal's up and coming music career...

Oh god help us all.

Lots of free gigs coming up which is ace - after seeing the delectable Paddingtons last week I get to cover the Eastern Lane gig they're supporting at. I believe the word in cases such as this is huzzah!

Autumn has the potential to be sunny and joyful but more often than not ends up covered in gloom which is pretty much how it's been this week making us tired and mildly wishing to return to the warm embrace of the Known. Still, Zane Lowe and Annie Mac djed at the Union last night which was brilliant and we have actually met real, honest to god people and the course is going to be excellent so I'm sure we'll get into it soon.

I hate gloom.

_____GEEK ALARM GEEK ALARM____

My quest to read every single graphic novel in Cardiff central library continues apace - rather faster than my efforts to drag myself through Essential Law for Journalists alas - and continued last night with my first dabbling of Hellblazer. Met Mr Constantine before in Books of Magic but bloody hell, I wasn't quite prepared for how disturbing it was - child abuse, rape, homelessness, all dealt with in a fair, unflinching way that was excellently written but delivered a bloody great punch to the stomach. Phew. Not entirely sure that Kenau Reeves (slow, dark, american) is quite the right choice for Constantine in the film (british, blond, chain smoker, haunted) but it'll be bloody hilarious if it goes wrong.

(once again - joss whedon for X4! Rumours MUST come true. Dammit. Astonishing X-Men is fabulous)

....GEEK END....

Wow. I knew you could sell anything on ebay but the fact my *ahem* pop accident cd will eventually go for pretty much exactly what I paid for it is remarkable. TWELVE people want this cd! Or bid for it anyway. The internet is a truly marvellous thing. Shorthand on the other hand is worse than crosswords.

Devestation ran rife yesterday as new heights of geekery were reached - I maxed out my library card. R chastened me hugely and general loserness prevailed. We checked out Ifor Bach (or as it's much more pronounceably known, the Welsh Club) yesterday, taking full advantage of beats, funk, rock and all-out wonderful music, gallons of sweat and our new pretty skirts to dance around like fiends and generally have lots of fun. My brother and his housemates etc rocked up and we whiled away the last hour dancing shamefully/enjoyably to misplaced cheesy disco and pop klassix (TM). It's really good to have found somewhere like that to go and dance in though, lots of variety and some rather sexy gigs coming up. I get to go see The Zutons and Futureheads for the grand sum of free in a few weeks - yay for Wild! Yay for me! Yay for libraries and shorthand avoidance through books!

I'm still here, only with loads more graphic novels.

I won a competition yesterday - I got onto the radio and everything. The tragedy is of course that I have the backbone of a jellyfish and so ended up speaking to darling lovely Liz Kersahw in the most spasmodic accent imaginable. Hideous. Still, I get exciting goodies so not all bad at all. Cheers Mr Brian Molko!

Cardiff gets curiouser and curiouser as anything would be wont to do if you hadn't spoken to anyone you knew for three days straight. PLeasant amblings and readings and musings and then starting to go a little crazy. C rescued me though which was brilliant and took me on an incredibly surreal 'date' to Ikea which was unfeasibly large and really rather terrifying. We feasted on 65p hotdogs and admired shelving before toddling off through an extremely fast approaching mist to have tea at the flat. C taught me bits about the docklands area and corrected my Welsh pronunciation which is, unsurprisingly, shit. It's very odd not being able to speak a foreign language at all - even with spanish I can have a 70% chance of getting the sound vaguely in the right area. Welsh - no. dd, d, f, ff, they're all different, mad and beautiful.

Apparently Cardiff consumes more alcohol at the weekend than London. I am unsure about this but my brother promises it to be true. I may have to stop believing what he says...

A lovely fairytale courtesy of Anna...ace.

Once upon a time, in a land far away, a beautiful, independent, self-assured princess
happened upon a frog as she sat, contemplating ecological issues on the shores of an unpolluted pond in a verdant meadow near her castle. The frog hopped into the princess' lap and said: "Elegant Lady, I was once a handsome prince, until an evil witch cast a spell upon me. One kiss from you, however, and I will turn back into the dapper, young prince that I am and then, my sweet, we can marry and setup housekeeping in your castle with my mother, where you can prepare my meals, clean my clothes, bear my children, and forever feel grateful and happy doing so."

That night, as the princess dined sumptuously on a repast of lightly sautied frog legs seasoned in a white wine and onion cream sauce, she chuckled and thought to herself: "I don't f***ing think so."

My brother and I went to the world's saddest acoustic night on Tuesday - one man and his guitar, playing Lord of the Dance and Ocean Drive. Oh well. My brother nipped off and I went and chatted to this one-man-jukebox and ended up drinking cider and singing along to Sam Cooke and getting to play on a Fender Stratocaster electro-acoustic so not a bad evening at all! Even better - he turned out to be a journalist so another random crazy link for R and I on our career schmoozing.

So much for keeping up the social pace - instead of going to Ifwr Bach to meet a Wild contact I fell asleep and stayed in. Two days of excitement is clearly more than enough - boo.

Wow! And to think I'd had my last school lunch years ago. I'm temping as a dinner lady, yep, a dinner lady, a profession that requires me to wear yet another utterly ridiculous hat/ apron combination in the name of hygiene. The agency actually drives me there which is a godsend as a) Cardiff is a LOT bigger than I had previously thought and b) I'm lazy. Lovely little primary school so got to go "aaah" over the tiny infants getting fractious over their lunches and also hand out pudding. And everyone likes the pudding lady best. I got a terrible reminder of how awful primary school kids are when doling out lunch to the older ones as a blonde girl ran up to the counter and with a smile Beelzebub would be proud off uttered the dreadful words "he really fancies you" whilst pointing at some poor cringing boy looking as though he'd rather die. "Aha!" I thought, "revenge shall be had" so picked on his hyena-esque mate instead by saying he fancied the girl. I'm so eight years old it's pathetic. Hahahahah!

Went to Café Jazz last night in search of relaxation and jamming at the Jazz Attic (somewhat confusingly on the ground floor) and ended up singing with a really good pianist which was lots of fun. A Jazz society's being set up soon which sounds like it could be really good so not a bad couple of days considering I've only just moved in.

Still no hot water, I'm showering at the brother's tonight as I think I'm starting to ripen.

Truly the streets of Cardiff are paved with gold! Or at least they were this morning when I acquired a job, gave blood and sang in the sunshine doing a little surreptitious dancing as I went. The flat is broken in places - no bloody hot water for starters, cold hairwashing, mmmm! - so marched off to CPS to get things fixed (won't put up shelves the book hugging bastards) and promptly forgot about the mysterious key which will happily open locks from one side but not the other. The temptation to call it Jekeyll is just too...strong.

I'm sorry.

Continuing the "lalalala!" aspect of settling into Wales, I was made thoroughly at home by bumping into Beanie Hatted Rock Matt who I bump into every in Durham and seems perfectly natural to do so here as well. I terrified the bejesus out of the poor guy by pointing wildly, shrieking "a-HA!" and generally flailing a lot. Sorry ducks. Went off to give blood as true Cardiff initiation ritual and proceeded to have the most painful blood letting ever followed by a bit of staggering and the utterly devestating sight of assorted nurses padding damp cloths on the back of my neck, putting me on my side and fanning me furiously with large pieces of card. I kid you not. It was shaming. Got a nice keyring though and a patch on my arm to make a hypochondriac weep.

Flat is inexplicably "un" for a furnished flat so dear parents bought saucepans and cutlery yesterday and I went out to seek out poundshops and places called Hyper Market to buy household crap for cheap. Um, yay. Got an amazing and entirely unnecessary selection of Hoegaarden prayer candles and a Virgin Mary to watch over us though so cheered up a bit. Raining like buggery now though.

Brilliant! Photos! God I love wasting time on computers. Apart from virus fighting. That's just tedious. Seeing as I have a good five to ten years before I can legitimately start boring people to tears with sodding baby pictures, this is my dog. She got a rather unfortunate addiction to the red thing and is now going cold turkey, which seems to involve sitting and staring at the door behind which the toy's hiding. She's now addicted to a grey rug instead.

Posted by Hello

Yet another reason why my mother is cleverer than me: Minstrels in the fridge. So cold! So yum! So handy to dip your hand into when going outside! Mmmm...

Cleverer. More clever. Hum.

Finally. After three days of wrestling with incompetent computers, that ntsearch bugger (download spybot, it's amazing, highly recommended and cleans up anything) I've manage to put something for sale on Ebay! This is a glorious moment in the history of computing and myself, although to be fair if I wasn't dogsitting then I'd most likely being doing something that didn't involve sitting for hours at a time fiddling with software. Ace.

I just had a look at some other people that blog and got thoroughly confused. It's like a dating service, or worse, these are just people who want to make themselves look thoroughly interesting. Listing what they like: "fashion, anime, golden retrievers, email, vintage". Vintage? Fashion? See, these are things that would look patently obvious if you met them in real life (hum) but cos this isn't real they go to enormous pains to make themselves appear "cool" and interesting. That mystifies me. It ain't real folks! I think the sun's gone to my head; maybe I'll just go back inside now.

Saw Shaun of the Dead last night - brilliant. S won at the "spot the comedy cameo" game; contact lenses or not I am still incredibly blind. Best sort of film watching, making yourself feel mildly sick on Butterkist and Haribo, then getting disgruntled by the fact that inevitably all that remains are those shitty little fried eggs and hearts. Who likes those fluffy things anyway? More rings! More mini bears! more cola bottles! Yeah!

If you think hell is other people then I recommend calling Transco the Gas Overlords and spending some quality time with their painfully inept voice recognition software. (Cue flat, unutterably dull voice) "If there is a smell of gas or gas emergency, please say 'gas emergency'. If you need help, please say 'help.' I'm sorry, could you say that again? Your address is not recognised." For fuck's sake. Why must it take so much effort to hook up gas and electricity? Why is the agency so incompetent? Why have I not got a monkey specifically trained to deal with tasks such as these?

Transco can be reached on 08706081524, although if you get cross for long enough a real live human will come on the other end.

Back home. Or rather at parents' home. I'm not a big fan of this nomading around, much better to have a hobbit hole of your own to dive in. A friend of the parents has got a mountain of rugs she needs to get rid of though so I now have five beautifully patterned floor-huggers to cheer up the 70's carpeting disaster that masquerades as the Cardiff Flat.

I'd forgotten how odd it is down here - I live in one of the most gorgeous areas of England but as soon as I land I get claustrophobic and don't leave the house except to drive five miles to meet someone. You'd think that after so many years of being driven around I'd relish the chance to escape but I appear to have become conditioned to balefully glare at the world from the safety of a socking great sheet of a glass. Oh goody.

I was lucky enough to get a lift home with K, the guy whose house I was crashing in in Durham. A great drive - sunny, lots of drinks, silly conversation and slightly crazed chanting of the phrase "lemony-limey". Don't ask. We hadn't even got out of Durham however when I saw a small dog, can't have been bigger than a Jack Russell, writhing around on its back with a car pulled in front of it. I managed to convince myself that running would be the quickest way to get back to the dog, not staying in the car and preserving my maltreated lungs and lack of stamina, but either way when we separately reached the place the dog had run off. It had blood running from its mouth, so K reckoned its ribs had been forced into its lungs. I rang a very indifferent sounding vet who said he'd come and look for it. That dog is probably dead now.

New best fun ever: or rather, ongoing best fun, throughly addictive is rating films on empire's website. DIE EXISTENZ! DIE!!! (And don't think I haven't seen YOU Unbreakable.)

Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who was better on the computer. They had been going at it for days, and God was tired of hearing all the bickering. Finally, God said, "Cool it. I am going to set up a test which will take two hours and I will judge who does the better job".

So Satan and Jesus sat down at the keyboards and typed away. They moused. They did spreadsheets. They wrote reports. They sent faxes. They sent e-mail. They sent out e-mail with attachments. They downloaded. They did some genealogy reports. They made cards. They did every known job. But, ten minutes before the time was up, lightning suddenly flashed across the sky, thunder rolled, the rain poured, and of course the electricity went off. Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed in every curse word known in the underworld. Jesus just sighed. The electricity finally flickered back on, and each of them restarted their computers. Satan started searching frantically screaming, "It's gone! It's all gone! I lost everything when the power went out!"

Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all his files from the past two hours. Satan observed this and became even more irate. "Wait! He cheated! How did he do it??!!" Satan screamed.

God shrugged and said, "Jesus Saves"

Bored? PLay Crackman with Mary Kate and Ashley! It would be mean if it didn't make me laugh so much. Hehehehe!

I'm a bad person.

Last day. Off to Durham. Knackered. Need sleep and better punctuation. Mmmm... we managed to hack our way into the Assembly Rooms members bar tho' so our month of shameless activity has clearly been well spent.

-----------------------------------------------------
A six-year-old boy emerged from a New York lake last
with a rabid otter hanging on to his back and legs by
his teeth and claws. Lifeguards had to wrestle it off.
-----------------------------------------------------

Saw New Zealand's foremost digi-bongo-acapella-rap-influenced guitar-based bongo-funk folk band Flight of the Conchords last night - massiv venue at Reid Hall which was a bit different from the Late Show in the White Belly two weeks ago. God they kick ass. One of them even turned up in LOTR which is interesting, although the fact that he now has mildly disturbing fansites dedicated to him is not. Slaughterhouse Live earlier in the evening, bloody brilliant - haven't laughed that hard in a very long time.

Bruises gone. Replaced by sand rash. Oh well. A gang of us went off to the beach in C's car yesterday to get away from Edinburgh. I use the term "beach" lightly as when we got there it was high tide, there was the creepiest fun fair I've ever seen and it was cold and grey. Still there was cavorting and general japery so that's alright then. I went swimming for some reason - I hate the sea. Why? We headed off to get food afterwards; being Sunday natch every pub was down to elderly toasted sandwiches so we had a bizarre meal in what appeared to be a converted aeroplane called Bar None. London! Paris! Milan! Kirkcaldy! Hum. Meals were two for one for some unknown reason - we figure C or P chatted up the waitress - so we dined like kings on Chateaubriand and King prawn thermidore. As you do when you're poor, clearly. It was really good to head out of the city for a bit, I know what we're doing isn't exactly taxing but it's still knackering and just to see some greenery without a flyer being shoved in your face was ace. Hope of the states tonight, should be interesting.

Wow. Just seen one flew over the cuckoo's nest at the Assembly Rooms - you can see why it's sold out, it's absolutely incredible. Mackenzie Crook as Billy was just spellbinding and the set was immaculate. Wow.

Been a good few days actually, a lady from Sweet TV came up to us when we were flyering on Friday and asked if we would be interviewed! Ace! Charlotte had tickets for Will Smith and Helen couldn't do it so i ended up sat with a boom on my knee outside the Hotel being tormented by bagpipes. Adding to the general star feeling, two women came up to me and asked if they could take my picture as they'd been taking photos of all the shows they'd seen and didn't take one of ours. Wow again! Yesssss!

Saw Keiretsu last night at the Underbelly - played a BLINDINGLY sweaty set during which I had to step outside for a moment or risk drowning in my own body fluids. They're playing the Belly Dancer there again tonight, half ten, be there. I can't wait to sweat some more - obviously.

If you're up for T in the Park next year and want cheap tickets, go here and pick them up at this year's prices. Ltd time only though so get a move on!

First part of the Fringe diary is up - incidentally Jerry Sadowitz = tosser. But then again who's surprised? But then again, wouldn't you be a tosser if a slightly inebriated girl came up to you and asked if she could take your picture? Well, hum. Takes away a piece of your soul - Jesus.

Woo hoo! From threeweeks.co.uk...

Two Women and a Chair
Not Now!
Theatre! Theatre! This is an enjoyable look into the clichés surrounding theatre and in particular the audition; as Sartre taught us, Hell is - other actors. The 4th wall becomes a mirror, and the audience is cast into the role of the voyeur, director, judge. As the characters unravel we are treated to a slow, at times funny, at times desperate, revelation of the stories behind the stereotypes as the clichés turn into real people. The stage becomes a personal place, you partake in the twists and turns and delight in their admissions and insecurities, growing into your role as they go on and you come along. Until the 4th wall is thoroughly shattered. But hey, in the end it's only theatre, isn't it?
C central, 6-30 Aug (not 15), 2:30pm (3:15pm), £7.50 (£6.50), fpp 188
tw rating: 3/5
[fh]

TWO WOMEN AND A CHAIR ***

C CENTRAL (Venue 54)

"THE lady is cool and remote and a total bitch; the servant is calculating, cold and a total weasel. All in all it has the makings of a great lesbian love story."

This, declared by Kat (played by Kat Brown), is the tongue-in-cheek synopsis of a play for which she and another aspiring actress, Helen (played by Helen Macfarlane), have arrived to audition for. Only - there’s nobody else there. No director, nothing, nada. So they wait, and wait, and wait a little more. To pass the time, they talk. Unfortunately, though, they don’t have much in common: Kat is a tough-talking power-bitch while Helen is a droopy, drippy daddies-girl. They are bound to hate one another, and they do.

Michael Olsen’s play is cleverly plotted: two women are stuck in a room together, the tension gradually mounting as they wait to audition for a play about two women stuck in a room together slowly going mad. Brown is particularly convincing in her role while Macfarlane perhaps has the misfortune of playing the less charismatic character of the two.

Plays about auditions make for entertaining Fringe viewing, and there is the uncomfortable feeling that there maybe a hundred Kats and Helens freely roaming the streets of Edinburgh right at this very moment.

Zoë Green, The Scotsman

Bruise count now stands at 41 - I am beginning to think that Charlotte is abusing me in my sleep. Lots of Durham folk coming up today which will be nice, Fringe diary is being sent off today so check d21 soon if you are interested. I met famous people! Oh yes!

Jings. Edinburgh kicks a quite extortionate amount of ass. Weekly diary will be going up on d21 so apologies if I don't slavishly write down every word on here but quite frankly it's knackering. And I'm a lazy, lazy child. Have become a shameless starfucker in that have taken to obtaining autographs in my fringe diary, something I swore I'd never do. But hey, I'm doing lots of things I never thought I'd do up here! And not in a bad way.

Popbitch news of the week - look away if offended easily.

Pet Shop Boys have remixed Rammstein's new single, Mein Teil, which means "My Cock".The song is about the recent cannibal case but written from the viewpoint of the dying man. The chorus goes, "You are what you eat And you're eating my cock". The video has torture scenes and a bandmember killing an angel after a blow-job. Nice.

Mildly troubling - there's a ceilidh going on just out the window and a forest of children carrying large instruments have suddenly sprouted and are now playing along. Not literally outside the window, or rather yes. By the Gala. Go now and see for yourself.

Oh my! What an amazing looking show! Quite clearly the person that doesn't go and see this incredible piece of theatre deserves to be cast out from society and made to hunt for yams in the wilderness. Or strung up by their ankles. There's a scary thought now. Was sunny, now it's not. That's about all of interest. Other than the fact I can now cook without fear. Excellent.

Oh yes! I am no longer to be inhabiting a cardboard box next year! After two days of bag lady/ tramp/ mistaken lesbian status, R and I are to become the proud owners of a rather sweet little flat that has the obligatory 70s carpet disaster (bless). I managed to lose many, many items of usefulness including my new best friend alias the Cardiff pocket a-z which was glued to my nose for most of Sunday and Monday and somehow mysteriously disappeared along the way. Much hilarity involving near misses with lamp posts ensued. Only down side is we have to slog all the way back down to glorious Wales on Friday for ten minutes of form signing - bloody agencies.

Things are rotten and slightly cadaverous at present. That feeling at the end, beyond the end of something where nothing can be rescued and you've been pointedly (or worse, unpointedly) replaced in terms of friendship, but obviously a long time ago. Ironic then that this slightly sickening feeling comes about on a day when the sun is blissfully shining and everything should be happy and dandy. Once my bank explains itself obviously. I'm in the mood for doing something mildly self-destructive so I think I will take myself off for a picnic and the pub. I said mildly!

*phew* what a day. Having solved the "sleeping on a park bench" prolem of crashng somewhere last night by staying with C and the Ruff thesps somewhere near Cheltenham,my unfeasibly sleep deprived good mood was marred ever so slightly by the utter buggery of trains. Damn them. R and I slogged round Cardiff with assorted baggage trying to flag down an internet cafe without success before incurring americn wrath by diving into Virgin and payng exorbitant amounts for house hunting. Having managed to find our way t the most purple hostel imaginabel, turns out that an implausibly be-lycra'd cross country meeting was going on all over the city so we have ended up in a ridiculously priced double room the size of a small box. This would be survivable if one of the guys who showed us a house this evening hadn't casually asked if we were looking for "one room or two". Check out the lesbian action my friends, we are shining examples of type it seems. Hum... No real joy with houses as our ardour was cooled by a ) odd landlords and b) creepy neighbourhoods so we're flying of again tomorrow to find us a house before teatime. Will try, will try. In the meantime, the purple hostel is more fun than the evil pub hotel...

incidentally, saw Before Sunset yesterday - never saw Before Sunrise (Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy) but it wasn't really necessary seeing as how you could pick up on what happened in the last film through flashbacks. Absolutely beautiful film, felt like I was floating on a dream for two hours afterwards. Go and see it, you won't regret it.

Um, hello Michael Olsen. That was a bit embarrassing really, don't worry - not a word is going to be changed and Edinburgh will naturally love it. Lovely to not quite meet you, we'll pass on reviews as and when.

Oh dear...

Just what every voracious self-interested reader wants to know - just exactly how literate am I? Take the rather wonderful books are my friends quiz and find out - am such a book geek...

A present from Sara! I got lots of presents today thanks to amazon deliveries and letters from Anna and folk. Post is a vastly underrated resource. I am single-handedly going to return letter writing to the forefront of communication. Once I found out where my friends actually live...

A rant about Two Women and a Chair, and fear.

Edinburgh is creeping ever closer. I say creeping, because if I say that it's approaching with all the finesse of an axe-wielding maniac then i just end up turning blue and making odd squeaking noises. We have two weeks to write 15 minutes more script. The director and co-star are at the other end of the country until five days before our first show. We have no idea what the hell to write 15 minutes about. Silence? I'm thinking we jack in the whole idea and just turn up a bit late and do it regardless. Oh dear, as I was getting frightened the sun went away - again.

---tangent approaching---
On the bright side, we have somewhere to live, which is a damn sight better than Cardiff where, er, I don't. I'm going down to have a look at a place this weekend which should be good - then again, when the hell has any house I've lived in been remotely normal?
---End of tangent---

The play is good. That's a bonus. Some of the blurbs in the programme have terrified me with tweeness. If you ever want an illicit insecure giggle, check out the performance theatre section. Then again, our entry has been butchered to the point where I have not the slightest idea what the hell it's about, and I'm in the damn thing! We're just to the right of Puppetry of the Penis' crotch, mmmm, just where you want to be on a hot summer's evening.

Mother Teresa...I had no idea I was such an all-round fabulous person...no, wait, I did but I didn't realise the internet would believe it too. Hurray for Ebay and general buying of things! Boo to Paypal who is no pal of mine. Down there with the people I met once and didn't really get on with very much.

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Spiderman 2 - the greatest sequel ever? God bless Sam Raimi, and scratch the first comment, this could well be one of the best films ever. Bit too scary/ deep/ emotion-y for the kid contingent though and definitely not a straightforward popcorn chomper. Seriously brilliant. Go and see it and see what I mean.

What a simply delightful day - note for future reference, zoos are highly underrated. Today, children, I discovered bongos and congo buffalo, the latter deliciously tufty and generally wonderful specimens of what can be done with a bit of imagination and some excess fur. Bongos are not drums, nor are they drunk in the congo, um or otherwise. Stripey ginger okapi types. Excellent! Another tip for successful zoo going expeditions is to go with folk who know it inside out and work at Birdworld so they can tell you exciting facts about, er, birds. Only downside is that aforementioned folk will inevitably sneer at zoo's inferior bird keeping facilities and until you've been to Birdworld this can be quite confusing. Rock on congo buffalo! Oh yes!

Oh yeah: the Justin Grounds album is absolutely outstanding, as soon as his website is up and running head there but in the mean time you can email him at just@justingrounds.com and ask very nicely to buy one of his lovely 'Rise and Flow' albums. Very, very good, bluesy and folky and very special.

One thing I've learned today: carrying acoustic guitars is bloody hard work. Funnily enough, nobody looks at you oddly in the way that they do when you're carrying a giant mirror around (there was a perfectly good explanation for that.) It is at present tucked under my arm so it doesn't fall over as I'm terrified someone's going to tread on it. Hum. First sunshine in Durham for bloody eons today - the joy is overwhelming. A jaunt to Persephone is certainly on the cards if a) I can survive the journey home with guitar intact and b) it doesn't start raining. Damn it. Off home tomorrow, hurray!

Wow. So much for my plans for making shed loads of money - last week and Ye Olde Meate Packinge Factorie was actually fine: quite zen-like, no concentration required and perfect insomniac hours. This week however, it's supposedly a six am start which means yours truly waking up at 5, round about two to four hours after she's got to sleep in the first place. So mostly not working this week as a) can't turn up when wish and b) no more late shifts this week. hopefulyl working next week, please? Would do fun things but now have even less money than I thought and also lost my sixth bank card yesterday on way to see the rather good Fahrenheit 9/11. Ho-hum. Am writing articles I should have written weeks ago instead. joy!

Title for HP 6 has been confirmed as "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince". JKR: “The Half Blood Prince, is neither Harry nor Voldemort,” she says. “and that’s all I’m saying on that subject until the book is finished.” Sorry, but this makes me quite excited despite the fact Phoenix was dull and this one probably won't appear for five gazillion years.

Woo hoo! have reached 40th article on d21! I feel like I should have an extremely large cake or something. Will go to the pub instead I reckon.

Well, graduation was super fun - didn't rain hahahahaha! I am now living in a palace, suitably at odds with the fact my temp agency is packing me off to put sliced meats in little boxes tomorrow morning. The joy is uncontainable, no, really. Shrek 2 is great, go and see it if it carries on raining.

	Cheer Bear You're the Care Bear cheerleader! Your spunky personality and optimisim lifts everyone's spirit. Though you want everyone to be happy, you stand your ground on issues you feel strongly about and this can bring disunity among your friends. Despite this, you are a true believer in working together.
Take the Which Care Bear Are You? Quiz!

Hahahaha! I got a 2:1! To celebrate my extraordinary brains, have another test: If you liked care bears or like wasting vast amounts of time, enjoy x

Goodness me, it has been a while hasn't it? One day I'll get a life back - lots of fun though, excellent production of Much Ado About Nothing up at Castle which was fab and generally pootling around enjoying freedom. Excellent.

quite over though because...d'd'd'd! I got into Cardiff! Journalismo here I come... x

Oh shut up, I've spent the last five hours revising Genet and Villon, I can indulge in pointless tests!

I am a Halo. I believe I am perfect. Others may not think so, but those others are wrong.

I'm terza rima, and I talk and smile. Where others lock their rhymes and thoughts away I let mine out, and chatter all the while. I'm rarely on my own - a wasted day Is any day that's spent without a friend, With nothing much to do or hear or say. I like to be with people, and depend On company for being entertained; Which seems a good solution, in the end. What Poetry Form Are You?

"People with histrionic personality disorder are constant attention seekers. They need to be the center of attention all the time, often interrupting others in order to dominate the conversation. They use grandiose language to discribe everyday events and seek constant praise. They may dress provacatively or exaggerate illnesses in order to gain attention. They also tend to exaggerate friendships and relationships, believing that everyone loves them. They are often manipulative."

Who, me?!

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Low
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	High

Take the Dante's Inferno Test

And yes, I apologise for filling up such an expanse of space about bloody Beckham woman. You see what exams have done to me? DO YOU??!!

What better way to wind down after a Molière exam than discovering that Victoria Beckham is picking on the poor. Er...still, more amusing than dissecting how education and marriage intertwine seamlessly...

Victoria Beckham has spent three days living with a poverty-stricken family in Peru as part of a secret charity mission. On behalf of Sport Relief, who provide aid to the country, Posh worked from 6am to 6pm washing and preparing food in people's homes in Las Lomas de Carabayllo on the outskirts of Peru's capital, Lima. Although bemused locals nicknamed her the 'Barbie doll' during the visit, it is clear she made a good impression. "She went everywhere and saw everything here," revealed Lillian Segura who runs a children's soup kitchen in the area. "She was wonderful, working and mixing with all of us. She went to see the kids at work in the recycling dump. When she arrived at first we thought she was a Barbie doll because she was so beautiful, but then they told us she was Victoria – David Beckham's wife… One of the first things she did was sing a song to a group of children." A friend of Victoria's added: "She lived the life of the villagers. It was an incredible experience for her. She found it amazingly moving."

Cringe. In a kindly, sleb free world this would be laudable. As it's a Beckham I just feel like pointing and laughing.

...And further to angry alien's Exorcist tribute last month, check out The Shining as performed by bunnies

A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of marriage have found out why they are still childless - they weren't having sex. The University Clinic of Lubek said "We are not talking retarded people here, but a couple who were brought up in a religious environment."

Hehehe! Scroll down to May 11th for amusing flash moment from Darius

...But this one is frightening, but more comprehensive if you can't be bothered to read/watch. Shame on you

Mmmm...just what I always wanted eight years ago: A Sharpe appreciation society! Damn it, Sean Bean may still be delicious, but he was so much more so when I was younger.

Oooh, blogger's been turned all fancy! Life has been short on the bloggin front recently, mostly due to oral exams coming up (twenty minutes to be precise) and excitement involving interviewing Delays and general faffing. Irony comes full circle - I got my first "first" for my last ever piece of formative work. Hey, at least I got one of the buggers at last! Things mostly joyful, have been watching "arthouse" french cinema in preparation for french; Baise-Moi (hum, good in spite of shock), Irréversible (very good, harrowing) and Intimacy (pile of crap but in english huzzah...). Wacthed Delicatessen too which had nothing to do with my project but was damn good all the same if thoroughly bizarred, first half comedy second half insane madness. Excellent then.

I overheard two girls talking today; that's part of the loveliness about Vennel's, you can four feet away from someone and still feel privacy. They were talking about relationships, very frankly, and one of them said something rather nice. That saying "I love you" to someone means saying that you care about them just as much as you care about yourself. i'd say that's fairly true.

Check out some of the worst t-shirt transfers I've ever seen. mostly not purchasing these, although the Easter one is terribly fetching.

Hehe! Looking for a film of 'Wit' to rent online: didn't find it, but was offered 'Advanced Spaniel Training For Fields And Trials With Ian Openshaw.' I'm nothing less than intrigued.

The ever lovely Dawn French has been voted the celebrity girls most admire. Dear Dawn said "I demand a recount. Perhaps the girls thought they were voting for a roll model, in which case I happily accept my champion position because no-one knows more about rolls than me." Bless her, she's ace!

Ooh! Alyssa Milano from Charmed's housemate is called Kat Brown...

I really need to stop and do some work now. This is getting silly.

I got my interview at Cardiff! Hoo-bloody-ray! Thing is, I have no idea what you're supposed to wear for interviews. Nor do I possess anything remotely smart. And I've lost one of my cuttings. Arse.

Hmmm...Brad Pitt's doing a show about nick Drake for Radio 2. Well he is forty I guess...

Last night my best friend broke up with me. This should probably be taken as a lesson in never dating your friends but it really didn't seem it would turn out that way. I'm fed up with being tired.

An article for Artslink...

Money's Made of Miramax
There are currently enough film awards ceremonies to wallpaper Mount Everest, but what’s the point if the best don’t win?

“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” How sad that Shakespeare never expanded on this idea, as today it seems we’re lucky if actors are players at all. Clothes-horses, models, party-goers, today’s ‘stars’ are just that: replaceable newspaper filler. The whirl of the awards ceremony has overtaken performance in terms of popular interest, as magazines spend a good ten pages assessing the outfits while the results get slotted in somewhere inconspicuous next to Celine Dion.

Media organisations the world over have awards presentations coming out of their ears, rewarding the brightest and best (or most unfeasibly chested) with enough ceremonies to mark each day of their year and well into the next. There are of course the ones with obvious clout that can further the course of the winner’s career immeasurably – the Tonys are tellingly on the same day as the D’Oscars this year – but who decided which ones actually mean something? Wouldn’t it just be easier to give everyone a lollipop and a pat on the back?

This would of course be missing the point entirely: with this many ceremonies, it’s a survival of the fittest in terms of glossing up your product. Heaven forbid it should be enough to be reviewed well, now you have to consolidate that with an Oscar and several ‘lesser’ awards to back it up. Today’s cinema goers are so spoilt for choice that it’s not longer a case of picking something that sounds good but the one with the most decorations. Reviews lie after all – how many people expected ‘Matrix Reloaded’ to be good?

In the case of the Academy Awards, the losers are often leagues better than the winners, but we’ve got quite used to seeing good films overlooked and think of it as just the Academy’s way. For every hit (eg;
(‘American Beauty’) you’ve got a veritable slew of misses or worse: rewarding someone for a performance entirely inferior to their capabilities (Gwyneth Paltrow). This is the tendency, but is that acceptable thinking? Surely the role of awards is to reward the best, not the ones with the most screenings or ad campaigns backing them up (I’m looking at you Miramax).
You can spot an Oscar contender a mile off: a worthy topic, stars putting on weight or losing it and jam-packed with drama - which made up 49% of nominated films between 1927-2001. In short, take a challenging (but not too much) subject and dumb it down for a middle-class middle-aged audience, but make them feel they’ve broadened their horizons by doing so. Not too broad or you’ve got a ‘The Color Purple’ on your hands (11 nominations, no wins). The recent piracy furore has meant screen copies of films on DVD may no longer be made available to Academy members so that unless they live near a damn good cinema, smaller films may not get a shot at all unless picked up by the critics.

The Academy has a phobia of anything remotely innovative touching the principle category winners – ‘The Jazz Singer’ lost out to silent film ‘Wings’ for being too “newfangled” - regarding a nomination to be sufficient reward for the obviously outstanding outsiders but leaving the actual trophy to go to something safe (the first ‘LOTR’ missing out to ‘A Beautiful Mind’ was typical.) With over 5,700 members voting the Academy should be far less predictable – a small board of crusty old WASPs I could understand, but some of the oversights made by this many voters are little short of outrageous. I don’t mean taking the caring beard stance and voting solely for ginger-balding-black-transsexual-one-legged Europeans with a lisp, but some variation on the traditional solidly-marketed Miramax output would be welcome – if it were merited. You could almost hear the Academy bursting with pride at its own broadmindedness when Denzel Washington and Halle Berry won two years ago, but as usual they missed the point entirely: Berry was in a typical Oscar winner’s role (no make-up, courageous, single mother yada yada ) and in an indie film i.e. she wins, we don’t have to nominate it. Forget Denzel, Morgan Freeman should have won years ago.

Despite all this, the Oscars continue to be the last bastion of acceptance for actors everywhere – who can forget Sally Field’s butt-clenching “You like me, right now, you like me!” Well, most of us really, it was 1985 after all but you see my point. Who really gives a crap about the BAFTAS, Césars or Empires when everyone’s gagging for a bite of the apple that counts? The BAFTAS made a cunning bid at importance by situating itself ahead of the Oscars, but the fact remains that their value is not primarily as an award in itself, but as an indication of who might be tearfully thanking God the next month. Even they are taking after the Oscars in the conservative nature of their nominations with all Best Picture nominees this year being blockbusting high budget films, or ‘Lost in Translation’.

It’s a typically naive form of idealism that hopes for quality to be recognised over quantity, but until films get greater exposure and true talent is rewarded, money and Miramax are going to continue keeping the world spinning. That board of WASPs may be slightly bigger than previously thought.

AS is the incredible zombie kittens game! God bless the folks at b3ta...

poor monkey! Utterly fantastic! And incredibly sweet in a very Spaced way.

...And according to the next one, it's Genevieve Noll. I think I'll stick with Ora.

According to the spam I got offering me a free degree (I wish!) my name is in fact Ora Kemble. I rather like that name and might pinch it for if/when I write a massively influential book. Huzzah!

I love cute things. If they involve animals that is! The Exorcist is a terrible, terrible film (for now) which is why I'm so thrilled they'v remade it in 30 seconds using bunnies!

Ah...the joy of being home. Or to be more precise, the joy of not being a) on a train b) waiting for a train or c) just about to get on a train. I love the fact it's 9pm and I want to go to bed. Mmmm...middle age.

Dammit. The programming page doesn't show the same space as on the blog. Two more boreds would have made everything symmetrical.

I should really go home and work now.

Bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored.

Who loves Jean-Marie Le Pen? Don't all call at once now...

Er...wow. We won Best Production at the Durham Drama Festival. Rock on Gwyneth, I nearly cried. No, really, I didn't. Went back to mine and drank fizzy deliciousness and played games until the wee small hours of the morning and feel rather thrilled about the whoel thing. So sue me, it was great!

The most frightening wedding photo in the world?

A week of random emails. Got a nice one from a Hanoi Rocks fan about an article I wrote and one from a Kat Brown in Massachusetts (I think) being bored and checking out other Kats. Nice to know it's not just me then...

Have the timetable from hell for my exams - three in a row at 9.30 and fairly small gaps between the others. At least French Language can be consigned to the sin bin sharpish. Why don't examiners set sensible timetables?!

Kat Brown's fear of graduating and messing up applications:

The Mirror

I wrote my college
Black and white should rub off on me
It sags and sticks everywhere else.

Think think think -
Why I want my life in 200 words
Can’t fill like I would, it’s important

When I can’t think, I look at her
Over there almost grown up.

While I wasn’t looking, I got older.

Hahaha! It's true, Angel gets turned into a muppet in one of the next episodes. God bless Joss Whedon - why why why are his shows being axed? Stop it. Now.

Hmmm...what's interesting on the net? Short answer: surprisingly little. The net used to be such a valuable tool in my schemes for skimming on work, but now it's impossible to get a proper search cos everyone's blocking it up with crap, crap and yes, more crap. Oh wait, it is the internet after all. Who am I kidding, it's great!

What the hell?! Apparently Angel's going to be cancelled after this season. What clever dick came up with that plan? Now what am I going to do beofre Nip/Tuck?

Bloody hell! Is Jordan going classy? No more appearances for boys, going back to her proper name...oh wait. Who cares?

You know what i want? one of those boxy BMW convertibles in navy blue, the old ones. You know how easy it is to find them on the net? Not very.

I'm utterly freaked out about these application forms: you know the feeling when you're sat staring at something that's too important to fuck up so you just don't try? Well I'm trying now and am feeling horribly inferior. *Swears very loudly and with feeling*

If you caught Absolute Power on BBC2 (damn funny), it's now back on Radio 4 on Thursdays at 6.30, but you can catch it here.

Whilst being a flid and forgetting what the date was today in order tow work out when 5th Febraury was, I discovered there is in fact a website called todaysdate.com, which is extremely useful for stupid people like myself.

Ah, the demons have flown. Wish my body could learn temperance *sigh*. If anyone knows anyone of interest to interview for my journalism course application, let me know. My shortlist is intimidating me.

Strange things happening recently:

- discovering that living off juice alone is possible during the day but the night brings demons craving chocolate.

- getting an email from some band in Florida wanting me to rate one of their songs. You can do it yourself on here.

- getting random emails full stop regarding d21

- oh yeah, not strange but go and see Lost in Translation as it's magical.

...happily, it seems mainstream internet DOES lie. Well, the shock hit me horribly as you can imagine (lies, lies, lies, I'm the most gullible person in the world) but hye, disocvered the amazing bartleby today which is a godsend - if you're studying english, german or french lit (especially Racine, Corneille or Molière) then sing to the rooftops as bartleby has translations, quotations and even a sexy layout. "!Sing!"

Hahahahaha! Guess who's lined up to play Voldemort in Goblet of Fire? Rowan bloody Atkinson! I'd like to write "apparently" but you know, mainstream internet would - not -lie.

Jesus. I really haven't posted in ages and ages and SEGA. Oops, sorry. Happy New Year everyone - what's amusing me at the moment: Tatu run for president of Russia - apparently they reckon they could kick Putin's arse. Hmmm, smell a publicity stunt anyone? Also the fact the Boogie Pimps were played on Radio1 yday as Sara Cox's new "favourite " tune - new my arse, Cat was playing that ages ago, god bless Austria. Smuggens for the day he he he.