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.