How to have a baby in Essex

Ok we'll skip the obvious part (when a lady really likes a gentleman...) but this seems to be the standard antenatal care policy for my borough:

1. Visit the house of the newly pregnant couple and make it sound like it's going to be great. Promote home births till your eyes bleed (it will become obvious why later)
2. Pregnant lady visits the hospital several times for scans and tests.
3. Pregnant lady then starts to visit midwife every few weeks. Test for blood pressure and stuff that looks appropriate.
4. As D day gets closer pregnant lady may start to ask awkward questions. For example: can I have antenatal classes, or see the hospital before I'm actually screaming obscenities at everyone I see? Answer these as vaguely as you can, for example, "oh we don't bother with antenatal classes here, you don't really need them. And how can we show you the hospital? We don't know where you're going to have the baby yet - the one you have been going to has just been closed down and will soon be luxury flats" (see point 1).
5. Don't bother bringing up the idea of discussing a birth plan with the pregnant lady, it'll all work out in the end.
6. When lady is indeed in labour, pick a hospital out of a hat and send her there. She won't know where to go or what to do, but hey, it's someone else's problem by then. She should have gone for the home birth option.

Bored bored bored

OK I am on the second day of official maternity leave and I am bored to tears! Remind of this in a few weeks when I am complaining about never having any free time please. But honestly, there is shit on tv, you would have thought as it was Christmas and all that I'd be spoilt for choice. But no. It's all repeats or bloody soap operas where people are miserable and die or are miserable and kill someone else. Or are just plain miserable.

Christmas was nice. Sober which was a new experience, but nice. We had the usual family arguments (not me thankfully), I've eaten loads of chocolate and mince pies, mmm, and managed to successfully cook a turkey all by myself (though it was touch and go whether it would fit in the oven at one point). But how does it go by so quickly? You start thinking about it in November, spend weeks fretting about presents and food, and then it's all over. And you realise you really overdid it, the world wasn't going to end because the shops were shut for one day. ONE DAY!! This year's legacy? We have enough cheese in our fridge to keep us going till next Christmas.

Ho ho ho

Last day was my last day at work! Yey!! Doesn't feel like it yet as we broke up for Christmas anyway. As we were trying to close the Library one of the regulars wished me a Happy Christmas and said "see you in the New Year!". I said "oh no you won't, I finish today". He looked perplexed, looked down and said "Oh. I see I haven't seen you standing up for a while have I?" Bless!

But this doesn't mean I have been sat on my arse for the last few months, far from it actually and it's amazing what black jumpers can hide! And he obviously thinks I'm far too young to be breeding.

I'd make a GREAT Father Christmas this year, if only this pesky beard would grow...

Alien or baby?

So, the time for Baby Babs to arrive is dawning at a very scary pace. And although there are technically (according to Mother Nature) still 8 weeks to go till D day, Baby Babs has spent the last week trying to break out. It can be very offputting, you're sitting there watching the tv quite happily, then the imprint of a head suddenly sticks out of your belly. You're nicely asleep at night and a foot kicks you somewhere it probably shouldn't. Alien ain't got nothing on this. It is super freaky. But BB must be a girl as no boy would move so much, just too lazy!

Restaurants

We did it again. Decided to go out for dinner. This time round we were taking my in-laws to thank them for the marvellous job they did on tiling our bathroom. They were great, someone told me that pensioners work hard and don't eat very much when I felt guilty about all the hard work they were doing! So we went out on a Saturday lunchtime, I figured we didn't need to book like in the evening, hey it's only lunchtime! So when we got there, it was busy, they didn't seem to have many staff so we had to wait a while to be seen to. While we were waiting another party came in behind us, including a v. posh old "dear" in a fake fur and lots of bling. She raised her eyebrows at the thought of having to stand in a queue and barked at me "Have you booked?". I said "oh no, we're just waiting to see if they've got a table". "WE have booked," she snapped, and I immediately got a sense of "uh oh, this broad is going to be trouble". Thankfully a waiter arrived in the nick of time, and said of course they had a table for us, it would be ready in a couple of minutes. This upset the old bag who literally clicked her fingers at him and snapped "WE HAVE BOOKED". Very politely he explained that yes he knew that but their table was also being prepared if they wouldn't mind waiting too. Didn't go down too well. But we escaped into the bar to wait for our table and I thought that was the last of it. We were seated a little while later in a nice table on the ground floor and had ordered our meals when the old bag party walked past us - they hadn't been seated yet! Ooh the satisfaction! She glared at us as she walked past and then very openly compared the table they had been given - seeing as they had booked and all - and ours. No difference at all if you ask me, we were nearer the toilets I suppose.

Anyway we managed to have a lovely lunch with no other rude old ladies wagging their fingers at us, and were just thinking about the bill when she reappeared, haranguing the poor waiter about something. I think she complained about the fact they had to wait, the table they were given, the service, the food, the fact that people who hadn't BOOKED (queue glare in our direction) had got "preferential treatment" and the staff were all rude too. Allegedly. I just hope they spat in her food as the waiter let them off paying - presumably just to get rid of them. She had 2 grandsons with her, in their early 30s I suppose and clearly only after her money - and they were ALL so smarmy!! And it was only a Beefeater, not the bloody Ritz!! And they were clearly busier than normal so everyone else gave them some leeway - not her though.

Grrr it makes me mad. I almost felt like complaining too to see if we got our bill waived. She was SO rude, and I only hope next time she phones up to book they tell her they are full for the next 5 years. She might be dead by then the old trout. We did have the satisfaction of laughing openly at them when they stalked out of the place and they looked slightly confused that people weren't nodding in agreement at what they had had to suffer. Some people!

One question...

... WHY ????

Procreation? It's a terrible idea!!

My boss isn't the most pc of people. This week a nice young chap came in and was telling us all excitedly about his new baby. Bless. My boss's reaction? She put her nose in the air and declared "rather you than me". I am surprised she (for it is a she!) didn't point at me and go "SHE has decided to have one too" in a sneering way. The poor bloke certainly had the wind taken from his sails.

The one good thing about her attitude is that no poor child has to endure having her for a mother. Librarians are a weird bunch sometimes. The slogan for most of them should be: "Have cats not kids!"

Things not to admit to ...

"I went to a rugby match and I had to put in an official complaint about all the swearing I had to endure from the drunk men next to me."

Excuse me? Did you think you were going to the theatre and ended up at a rugby match by mistake? Did you not realise drunk men who are probably going to swear alot may be sat next to you at a rugby game?

It's a good job this person isn't in my front room of a Saturday when the football is on. Hubbies reaction to his teams poor performances can turn the air blue!

Sport = men = drink = swearing. It's that simple.

Things not to announce to a roomful of people #1

"I have got piles"

Yes. This was announced to me yesterday by someone who should know better. Surely ANYONE would know better wouldn't they?

Headline of the Week

Chris De Burgh healed my withered arms - you couldn't make stuff like this up :-)

Girls in songs

Listening to the radio every day, it strikes me that they must have passed a new law making it compulsory for song titles to have girls names in. The Zutons are mostly responsible for this with "Oh Stacey look what you've done" and "Valerie", now there's "Sophia" from Nerine Pallot. Then there's "Chelsea Dagger" by the Fratellis which I always think is a reference to Prince Harry's girlfriend when it's more probably about gang warfare in Chelsea. And of course "Jenny don't be hasty" by Paolo Nutini.

I'm getting fed up with it frankly. Unless someone does a song with the name Barbara in it, I'm vetoing the radio. So there.

Gambling is a Bad Thing

I have discovered that I have inherited the family Gamblers' Curse. My Dad is infamous for this - whenever he had a flutter on the Grand National (probably the only time he ever gambled apart from the Pools and that doesn't really count) - you could put money on the fact that the horses he backed either died or never raced again. In the end we had to persuade him to stop betting on it. Last night me & hubby went to the dogs. Hubby loves a flutter, he'd bet on your nan making it to the postbox without pausing for a rest, and it's quieter in the week, not so full of chavs, so I agreed to go. I usually do ok at the dogs, win a couple of quid and go home happy. But to my horror, last night the Gamblers' Curse struck me down. My first dog finished about 10 minutes after the others, the second one finished lame, the third and fourth were last, the fifth had a fight halfway round the course and so finished last, the sixth was bumped and finished (you guessed it) last. I put 50p (last of the big spenders me) on the dead cert and cursed it completely. We had to leave early. I can only hope it was a one off, or we ain't going to Vegas again!

Write to your MP

Or don't. I did, in a new scheme I found called "Write to your MP" where you can email them directly about any concerns you have. My current gripe is that our borough has stopped ante-natal classes and is instead publicising a course which costs £80 per person (run by midwives who have gone pro incidentally). It makes me mad, how am I supposed to know what I am supposed to be doing - and I ain't paying for the privilege of being told nasty things that are going to happen to me. So I emailed our local lady MP with my concerns. Her response? (I suppose I should be grateful that I got one) "Oh I didn't realise the Council were responsible for providing such classes!" ????? I replied saying "Oh I don't think it is the Council, I'm pretty sure it is something to do with the NHS but as my MP I thought you might be able to do something". Clearly not. The woman is an idiot.

Neighbourhood Watching

We have been invited by our nice local bobby to form a Neighbourhood Watch. I can only assume that he hasn't met our neighbours. We have lived here for over a year now and nothing - that is NOTHING - gets past our neighbours. In fact, I think one nice lady a few doors down has made it her mission in life to watch her neighbours. I think forming a NW would be a little like bolting the door after the horse has legged it. The only benefit of joining would be that you can get together at monthly meetings and drink tea and get all the gossip instead of standing outside in the cold. "She did what?" "What time did they get home last night?" etc etc. I have over time figured out the best way to get the word on the street. Befriend the local windowcleaner and also the nosey lady I mentioned before. Between them (they live on opposite sides of the road and have slightly different agendas) you get the goss on everything that has happened since you last bumped into each other. The latest scandal is a single lady who seems to have a lot of gentleman callers of an evening. And as a bonus the windowcleaner tells me what we are supposed to have been doing (or not doing) according to the neighbours. Mainly not opening the curtains on a weekend - this seems to drive them to distraction which entertains me no end :)

But who is going to tell the poor keen policeman all this? He will think we are all rude anti-social not caring about our neighbours people. Maybe we should join just to appease him, we might get biscuits out of it!

I'm sorry I just can't wear that catsuit dear

This made me laugh today - apart from the whole almost being murdered thing obviously. A woman allergic to latex met her murderous other half on a fetish website. When things soured he then stuck a latex glove in her mouth to try and kill her. A fetishist who is allergic to latex?! Whoever heard such a thing! He could have done a goldfinger on her and used that spray on latex stuff instead.

Dinner or tea?!

One of the complications that arises out of marrying a southener is the language barrier. I realised today that I have had to adapt my northern ways to be understood by hubby and his family. It has made me cross. It is mainly in the meal department, for example:

I call the meal you have at midday "dinner". The southeners call it "lunch"

I call the evening meal "tea". The southeners call it "dinner".

So you can imagine the difficulties when I asked hubby at 12.30 - "what do you want for dinner?". He would always reply with "sausage and chips" or "chicken curry" or "pizza" which left me mightily perplexed when I was planning a cheese sandwich. Then I realised the language barrier. And despite me telling him thousands of times that when I say "dinner" I mean "lunch" he doesn't get it, so I found myself using "lunch" against all my northern principles. I also used to say "butty" instead of "sandwich" and "ought" instead of "anything" but more and more I sound like a bloody southener.

I worry for my child I really do. I am going to have to have regular visits oop north and expose Baby Babs to the most northern old chap I can find in the pub. Otherwise it is going to grow up a southern softie - and an Essex one at that!!

A passage to India

My friend Miss S has gone on her hols to India for 3 weeks. I'm not sure if Lady L and me were more excited than she was. Now I have to live my life vicariously through other people I get super excited about other people having fun. Yesterday I was asked about catching night buses in London and my response? "My days of night buses are long gone". Anyway, Miss S was on the email and the only advice I could think to give her? "Ride camels and haggle if anyone tries to sell you a rug". Her brother warned her about stampeding elephants. The poor girl will be highly paranoid about wildlife and shopkeepers now, I hope she still enjoys her holiday!

Oh and if anyone is wondering, Baby Babs is kicking the crap out of me. It's either a boy or a very butch girl. Joy.

Scary husbands...

I have had a week of comedy conversations. One of my colleagues has a very needy husband who rings about twelve times a day to speak to her. This pees the rest of us off as he always phones the desk, not her direct extension, which means one of us usually has to run down the Library to answer the phone, or stop helping whoever is at the desk. But the nicer side of me assumes there must be a good reason for all this phoning. Yesterday I had an insight, and it wasn't good.

The phone went and it was matey. For once, his wife was busy so I said could she call him back? He got very stroppy, "no she can't ring me back! That's just no good!" to which I paused, thinking about the best way to handle this, then he said very grumpily "oh, I suppose I'll just have to remember to tell her we have no teabags when she gets home then!".

Whilst trying not to pee myself, I said "oh I am sure I can tell her that when she's free!".

I was so tempted to say "Your husband says you need to buy coffee" and mess with their heads but life really isn't worth trying to explain myself to them afterwards.

Tin foil helmets all round please!

Today I met the world's Most Hypochondriac Barrister. The Library has recently come out of the Dark Ages and got a wi-fi signal so people can use their laptops for internet access. So, said barrister comes up to the desk and asked me about the wi-fi signal. I told him how it worked and said if he wanted to use it he had to sit in a certain area of the Library. In true Librarian style we have a laptop free zone - other hypochondriac barristers in the past have complained about being disturbed by loud typing! Anyway, today's nominee for crazy customer of the week said "oh doesn't the signal go down to the other end then?" - at this point I thought he was trying to flout the rules! - so I said "oh it probably does but we don't allow laptops down there". He then looks pained and says "oh, but the wi-fi signal gives me a headache!" to which I went "oh! Well I am sure if you sit at the very far end you'll be ok!". Man whatever next? Does he avoid coffee shops now too, they all seem to have wi-fi signals. And certain parts of London do too don't they? He should really move to the countryside. Or the Moon.

I saw stars...

As if going to the hairdressers wasn't torture enough, today surpassed my expectations. The music in hairdressers varies quite alot. Today when I got there they had some kind of instrumental jazz thing going on in the background. Quite inoffensive and easy to block out. But while I was having my hair dried someone obviously changed the cd...

The hairdresser switched off the hairdryer and I was suddenly listening to Simply Red. Loud. And it wasn't a single. Oh no. It was the whole album.

It was all I could do not to go, "Thanks that looks great, must dash!", with half my head looking lovely and half a bit shit and run out of the shop as fast as I could. Do hairdressers know no boundaries?

Is that your child or are you a kidnapper?!

Last week I went for lunch with a friend and her 2 year old daughter. I don't see her very much so her daughter wouldn't have remembered me as I last saw her about a year before, but we had a very nice time. Towards the end of lunch it became very obvious that a nappy change was in order, but mummy had lost the baby wipes somewhere between the London Aquarium and meeting me. Baby wipes are crucial when dealing with babies' bottoms, tissue just doesn't cut it. So I piped up helpfully, "I'll watch the little'un if you want to nip out and get some more" (this is from a shop 2 doors down so I didn't envisage she'd be very long). Everything was fine to begin with. Little'un seemed quite happy with me, and we were playing with a jigsaw. Then someone came to clear the table. When faced with yet another stranger, little'un looks very perturbed and pipes up "I want my mummy!" and looks at me like I'm a complete stranger. Louder "I want my MUMMY!!!" and tears weren't far off. The lady clearing the table looks worried and frowns at me. It's all I can do not to say "hey, I'm a helpful librarian not a childnapper. Back off lady!" but I just tried to smile reassuringly and attempted to distract the child from getting me arrested. I am sure this made me look even more suspicious.

The minutes until mummy came back with the wipes were interminable. I was starting to think she wasn't coming back. There was me, stuck with a very smelly bottomed child, a jigsaw that was rapidly losing its appeal, and half of the shop staff discussing whether to call the police or not. When mummy finally showed up again I could have cried, never mind the baby!

That'll teach me to be helpful. Probably.

A large dog did it

We caught a bit of the X Factor last night, this is the beginning bit where they mainly show all the rubbish people and slag them off and make them cry. Last night actually made me cry - with laughter. They single certain people out who have "stories" to try and make their attempt at fame seem more meaningful, and possibly get them more votes if they make it further on. One older lady who got her 5 minutes of fame with an interview said she had had a life threatening injury a year ago, and her recovery had made her keen to live life to the full and to "make it". When the intrepid interviewer asked what happened to her, she said (and I quote):

"Well I was at the top of some stairs and I tripped over a large dog, fell down the stairs and broke my spine".

A large dog?! Was she not expecting one to be there?! Did he jump out of nowhere going "Raaar"?! Hee hee. Why she didn't just say she fell down some stairs and broke her spine I'll never know. The introduction of the "large dog" just made it hilarious. Well I know Miss S would have found it funny, especially if was a large fluffy doggie!

Good news for the lady though, she is walking again - and "dancing" - and her exuberance at being alive got her through to the next round, despite a decidedly ropey Kylie impression.

Pft

I am half way through my 2 week "holiday" and I wish we'd ignored our "sensible" heads and just gone to Magaluf or somewhere hot. It would have been cheaper too. Poor Mr B is putting in a new bathroom, which seems to involve lots of swearing and more problems every time he moves. I'm sorting the rest of the house out - that I can get to for ladders, drills, crap, old toilets etc. - and you know what, being at work seems kind of preferable! When I go back next week I am going to have the almighty hump as I won't feel like I've had a holiday. But hopefully I'll have a lovely new bathroom, at the rate we're going I don't think it'll be decorated, and it will probably stay like that till next year, but it won't be green. And that is a bonus.

America!

If I didn't get such brilliant material for this blog, I would refuse to be taken out for dinner ever again. I'm starting to think it's me, the amount of freaks we encounter on a daily basis is getting ridiculous. Saturday night, we ventured out for dinner again. The restaurant was quiet, no mention of "tits!" by the main course, I started to relax. BIG mistake. A group of people showed up and were being shown to their table. They spot whoever is sat behind me, and chaos ensues...

Characters:

Group 1: Let's call him Sean, wife Brenda. Another younger couple with them, never speak, just look blankly around.
Group 2: Quietly eating their meal, let's call them Colin and Edith and their kids.

Sean: "OH MY GOD! Look who it is!! Brenda, look who it is!!"

Brenda: "OH ... MY ... GOD!!! We f'ought you was in America!! Didn't we Sean?! We f'ought they was in AMERICA!"

Sean: "Yeah that's right!"

Brenda: "Yeah we saw Barry and he said you was in AMERICA! Massachussets or somewhere beginnin' with M"

Colin: "Ah ha, ha, erm, no, we was in Somerset"

Brenda: "No!! We f'ought you was in America! Didn't we Sean? And to see you here when we f'ought you was in America!"

Colin: "Erm, no, Somerset. Got back last week. In a caravan".

Sean: "Well that's great that is, you can come round to ours tomorrow now we know you're not in America!"

Colin and Edith: "Erm .... [desperately thinking of excuses] ... yeah, maybe."

Colin: "Why don't you go and get sat down and I'll come and have a word when I've finished me dinner?"

Sean: "Yeah ok Colin, but don't be a stranger!"

Colin: "???"

It was all I could do not to turn around and go "they weren't in bloody America!! They were in SOMERSET! Now piss off!!". Then they went and sat down but bloody Brenda could still be heard chirruping "I f'ought they was in America!" every few minutes. Then every five minutes they reappeared to plague poor Colin and Edith's dinner. And ours. Honestly, you couldn't make it up.

"I told you we were closing..."

Man this story hit a nerve with me! It is a terrible story and the poor lady really didn't deserve it just for going to church, but his excuse for killing her? "Ms Lonati, who was a student, had hit her head during a row sparked by her refusal to leave the church so he could lock up. "

Come 6pm tomorrow evening, I'm handing out copies to my barristers and saying "come on, do you feel lucky...?"

Rock n' roll

So the Priory is the new PR stunt for rockers? Pete Doherty, Justin Hawkins and now Tom from Keane have all signed themselves up. God help the poor other people in there who have real problems. It'll be karaoke every night, singalongs around the piano, presumably not in the bar though. I love the Darkness, but the idea of being in the Priory after paying shedloads for the privilege and ending up in a self help group with a self-obsessed rocker would piss me off. I'd be there having to admit I'm an alcoholic and open up my darkest secrets to complete strangers, then in the middle of it Justin pipes up with "ooh that gives me a great idea for a song, la la la..." and whips his notebook out. They'll all write touching memoirs of their time for the newsrags (Pete Doherty for the nth time, a bit like his prison diaries but less angsty), and sell more records, and feel a bit more "rock". But it is hardly Hendrix choking on your own vomit rock is it? Or Keith Richards falling out of a tree while stoned out of your head rock?

And I bet they aren't addicted to anything rock. It'll be coffee and fig rolls, or milk, cheese and Gaviscon that are their demons! Or Rennies! They are SO addictive! Rock!!

And another thing...

I haven't had the best of weeks. Yesterday at a routine hospital appointment to get my blood test results, I experienced the NHS "how not to act around patients" demonstration or perhaps their "let's scare our patient half to death just for a laugh" routine. Let me explain.

Step 1: When queried by patient, claim that a blood test wasn't actually done, and patient is lying.

Step 2: Some bright spark thinks to ring the lab. Gets results over the phone. Spend alot of time going "A-ha, erm, ok, a-ha" whilst frowning into the receiver. (Patient must have a clear view of this for best effect).

Step 3: Doctor puts phone down, calls for senior doctor. Both medics frown over patients notes, muttering and looking worried. (Obviously in front of patient, but not close enough to hear).

Step 4: Send random other doctor in every 5 minutes to ask patient where notes are.

Step 5: Call senior consultant out of meeting. 3 medics now repeat step 3. More shuffling of notes, frowning and occasional glances at patient.

Step 6: Senior consultant approaches patient. Demands full medical history from junior medic, while rifling notes distractedly.

Step 7: Announces "well everything is fine! Come back at 41 weeks if you haven't had it yet".

Step 8: Leave bemused and by this stage quite upset patient to it.

I'm with stupid

My god, I hate hate HATE the "vacation hours" I am currently being forced to work. We close at 6 instead of 8. There really isn't the demand for proper hours, including weekends, at the moment. So we advertised the fact long in advance, we put it on the web, we put it on the answerphone, we bloody leave notices on EVERY desk. Has this had any effect at all?! NO!!!!!!!!!!! AAGGGHHHHH!!! It drives me mad. Trying to get people out of the library at 6pm is the most stressful experience of my week. It's like they are aliens and don't understand a word I say. The fact that I have to ring a big bell 5 minutes before closing doesn't have any effect either.

Then tonight. The icing on the cake. Stupid barrister man comes up at 6.05 when I am despairing of ever being allowed to go home. "'Scuse me, where are your Saturday opening hour sheets?" Me (not fully understanding): "Oh they haven't been printed yet, they don't start till September". Barrister: "So who's open tomorrow then?". Me: "????"

My god. These people are supposed to be educated. The cream of society.

I used to have a tannoy at my old job, that worked much better, and you can tell them that the doors WILL be locked in 2 minutes if they don't get their asses outta there. Grr.

Brain mush

One aspect of pregnancy that I wasn't prepared for is the complete inability of my brain to work properly. As a librarian, I take great pride in getting things right and never making mistakes. Now I've just given up and have warned my colleagues it can only get worse and to double check everything I do. I think as I haven't had any symptoms to speak of this is bigtime payback. I keep randomly putting things down and losing them, cataloguing things with random titles instead of what is clearly printed on the page, half doing something then wandering off and forgetting all about it. Someone can ask me to do something, and not even ten seconds later, it's gone out of my head completely. I need to stick post-it notes on my cardigan, that's what I'm going to do. I can look like a mad crazy pregnant/chubby person - hey maybe then nobody will bother asking me for help! Result!

Mine's bigger than yours...

I have discovered a new phenomenon: competitive mothers. Today me and Mr B wandered into Mamas and Papas, a VERY pricey baby things shop. We just nipped in to gasp at the prices mainly. And the blandness of the extremely expensive stuff. It was all beige!! If we won the lottery next week I still don't think I'd buy anything from there, unless my house was having an all neutral theme. Anyway, back to my point. I think I had half noticed this before, but in this shop I couldn't miss it. Other women stare at your midriff blatantly to see if their bump is bigger than yours. Then, as at the moment most of them are, I've only just started looking pregnant rather than chubby, they look very smug and carry on walking past you. The rude beggars!! I might go in next week with a cushion rammed up my top and show them!

Tits!

So last weekend Mr Barbara took me out for a meal on Saturday night. It was a lovely place, in the middle of the countryside, and even though I had to drink lemonade it was lovely. We got a nice booth and were halfway through dinner when a couple were seated in the booth behind us. As it turns out, it was lucky that they were kept well away from the many families with young children sat around us. I think maybe the bloke asked to be kept away from children. I really hope it wasn't a first date. This was their conversation:

Characters: Girl - early thirties, pretty normal looking, voice like a foghorn.

Bloke: early thirties, reminiscent of a deer in the headlights.

Girl: "eh, isn't this lovely? Yeah, I know I don't know you very well but I'd show you me tits if you want?"

Bloke (nervously): "um, eh, he he, no thanks yeh?"

Girl: "Yeah, well when I'm out wiv me mates, we are always getting our tits out. It's a laff innit?? Me mate Karen gets her bits out after a few bacardis too. What are we like?"

Bloke: "???"

Girl: "Yeah and when we were in Magaluf last year we had a competition, you know, who can get their tits out the most? I came second to Carole, she only won coz she had more photos as evidence"

Bloke: "So ... aha ... how is your meal?"

Girl: "It's lovverly, ta, I've got great tits really. Do you want to see them?"

Bloke: "!!!"

And on and on. Her voice carried so much at one point I had to openly turn round and see who was talking. Seriously, every other word was "tits!". She was oblivious. Her "date" would have been happy if the floor had opened up and swallowed him! I could have sworn at one point he was fashioning a noose out of his napkin...

Drunken sots

All my illusions have been shattered now. Robin Williams is in rehab for alcohol abuse. Mel Gibson is also a raving (and swearing) alcoholic apparently. I thought they were the two Nicest Men in Showbiz. Bless, they always seemed so nice. Well, I suppose that in 1 Hour Photo, Robin Williams was a bit off from his usual nice films and quite scary, and the bizarre films Mel has been making recently should have given it away. But it's like finding your dad has a secret porn collection. Or that your brother wears women's clothes and wears mascara better than you do. Lovely Mel, lovely lovely Mel. How touchingly he portrayed destitute husbands in Mad Max and Lethal Weapon - why did something horrible always happen to his wives?! - and cute little Robin - Flubber, Peter Pan etc etc. It just goes to show the secrets hidden beneath the smiles for the camera. Evil booze that's what it is!!

They'll be telling me that Hannibal Lector loves puppies and bakes cookies next (hee hee, not puppy cookies I hope!), and that Evil Severus Snape (aka Alan Rickman) visits old people on his time off.

(I think the line between reality and fiction is blurring a little here...)

Adverts

I don't know if it's me getting older or maybe just maybe adverts are getting worse. Honestly, some of the current ads make me want to hurl things at the tv or the radio. Ad men really aren't checking their audiences nowadays. My pet radio hate is Autoglass. They fix your windscreen for you if it's busted. Which is a Good Thing and people ought to be aware of them. But they picked THE most boring man in the world to talk about it, called Gavin, and then gave him about 5 minutes of airtime to drive his listeners to do things they normally wouldn't. He makes Mr Bean sound like an amazing conversationalist and after the 100th time of hearing it I almost want to write to the radio authorities and complain of cruelty to listeners.

On the tv, an ad for a fabric softener is so so bad it makes me want to hurl. A stupid lady is getting ready for a date, but her clothes are "so soft and smooth" she can't decide what to wear and would obviously spend the evening poncing round her bedroom instead of drinking lots of wine at a restaurant. But this isn't the worst of it. Her obviously caring boyfriend (or girlfriend, hey who knows?! But I suspect a girl wouldn't put up with that shit) phones several times to be fed a whole heap of lies (LIES!!) - "ooh I'm just leaving...I'm stuck in traffic...oh now I'm stuck in roadworks!" - by the hussy. Then about 2 hours late she decides she is ready. But she's wearing the worst outfit I've ever seen. I can only hope her poor date saw the advert and dumped her ass. Grr. And it doesn't make a good case for relationships, apparently if you use certain products you have carte blanche to lie blatantly to your other half and leave them standing like a lemon in a bar for hours. Relationships should be based on honesty not lying sirens whose only positive quality is that their clothes smell nice!

I know they're only adverts, but after the 77th time of seeing them I take issue with the actors personally for making me suffer so much, and if I saw them in the street, who knows?! Being able to blame your hormones for everything is great!

Dribble!

Lady L may well have found the Best Website in the World!! I don't know if it's my current obsession with all things sweet, but I could cheerfully order pretty much everything off this site. If it was a shop I would be there with a giant brown paper bag filling it with 2 of everything and drooling like Homer Simpson :-)

These might be today's favourite.

Lesson # 1

Things not to say to a lady you suspect may be pregnant:

"Excuse me, but are you expecting? Oh, I didn't know, I just thought you looked chubbier"

Chubbier!!!???? Imagine if I wasn't! The shame!! People, if you ain't sure just don't say anything, it's much safer that way.

(And don't tell the lady's husband that she looks "stout". Stout isn't much better)

Outed.

So it's now out in the open, Booky B is having a little book of her own. Kind of weird. So I guess this blog is now going to be full of pregnancy related posts for a little while, I don't really do anything else now I'm an old married. But if it gets too boring I might start making things up instead! BUT I am going to a gig on Monday! Whoo! And it's the fab Automatic - "What's that coming over the hill? Is it a monster? Is it a monster?" And my mission for the evening is to masquerade as a 20 something student not a 30 something married lady of burgeoning girth. Just watch me!

Urgh!!

Spotted on a market stall. Well I say stall, it was just a blanket on the ground near a market:

"For Sale. Bic Razors. 20p each. Only used once in pre-operative procedures."

Sorry Mr Cyclist!

So we ran over a cyclist on the way home tonight. Thankfully he was fine, he was trying to get down the side of us via a very small gap and he attacked the front bumper with his wheel. Usually I get really cross at cyclists, running red lights etc etc, but I thought we'd killed him. He was thrown off onto the pavement and his chain fell off. But he was SO nice. He was apologising over and over for being run over, and said "not to worry, it was only his chain" and told us to get going and leave him (to spend half an hour putting his bike back together probably). Bless him. I felt really bad, and I wasn't even driving! But I guess he won't be weaving through tight spaces anymore.

As for the two women (you know who you are!) I saw this week weaving in and out of traffic with abandon while on the mobile phone - next time I'm taking your number plates and reporting you. Sigh. I think it would be easier to get the train to work sometimes.

Don't hassel the Hoff

What is going on with David Hasselhoff? Last week he was in the news for "accidentally" severing a tendon with a chandelier. I don't even want to think too much about that. Today he has allegedly been thrown out of Wimbledon for being drunk. Of course the toffs at Wimbledon are much too polite to admit to it, and it would ruin their idyllic vision of people who go to Wimbledon all eating strawberries and drinking Pimms and being jolly nice people. They don't want Mitch Buchanan turfing up out of his head, slurring leerily at the lady tennis players and throwing up in a champagne bucket. It's not the rugby you know!

But it intrigues me. He is either on a very misguided PR mission at the moment, or pretending to be a rock star for a while. Before they announce the surprise making of "Baywatch: the Movie!" - coming to a cinema (or straight to the DVD shop) near you soon...

New pecs please!

You know what Tim Henman's problem is? He needs to buff up a bit. Roger Federer is practically bursting out of his top with well toned muscles, but poor old Tim still looks like a 16 year old public schoolboy all skinny in his big flapping white shirt. He just ain't got the power of the muscle men. Send that man to the gym!

Prenups

Apparently Nicole Kidman has got her fiancee Keith to sign a prenup saying if he gets drunk or out of his head on coke he is out on his ear without a penny. She is more like Tom Cruise than I thought. I wish I'd thought of that before I got married. Failure to make me a cup of tea every morning, or hoovering the lounge at least once a week would result in serious sanctions. I so missed my opportunity.

And is Urban his real surname?

Men vs women

This week has demonstrated a lot of differences between the sexes. I like to think the fairer sex has won. I do like football and have watched most of the World Cup games so far, but I view it in a slightly different way to hubbie. He groans at dodgy passes, missed opportunities, and the other side scoring. I sit there chirping "that one's called Fred! Fred!!" or "oo he's called Kaka!" and "that one's got funny hair! Just look at it!". And our guide to the World Cup courtesy of the Guardian tells us that Nakata, the David Beckham of the Japanese team, is chief branding officer for a firm and specialises in "snack and biscuit research and development". What a job!! And he wasn't 25 stone. I would read "research" and "biscuits" as "eating biscuits" myself. This World Cup has provided lots of entertainment. (Sadly I had Japan in the work sweep and they've gone byebyes. It's back to the biscuits Nakata. I was on a course last week and they provided fig rolls. They were lovely).

For the England game tomorrow, hubbie has announced he's going to the pub. I suppose he needs some fellow men swearing at the tv, not me chirruping about hairdos and biscuits, for this one :-)

Brilliant!

I would like to meet these women. They thought it was necessary to insure themselves to cover the costs of bringing up Jesus should he decide to use their wombs for the Second Coming. How did we cope without insurance? Poor Mary and Joseph didn't think ahead obviously. Some wiley insurance agent in Nazareth would have taken their money! But go on lady, prove it!

My religious boss thinks this story was obscene. I just reckon it shows insurers take cash off any old crazy ladies who stumble through their doors. What are the odds of them paying out?!

They're here!

Conversation on the way to work this morning:

Me: Ooh look at that man, he's got something gold and shiny in his ear. What do you think it could be?"
Hubbie (without missing a beat): "He's a robot"

Yes. A robot. He didn't have a fancy hearing aid, or wireless headphones. He was a robot. Men's brains sometimes worry me.

R.I.P. TOTP

It is a very sad day indeed. The BBC has cancelled Top of the Pops. They reckon nobody watches it anymore. But it's their fault. First of all they moved it from its teatime slot on a Thursday when everyone knew it was on and watched it after their tea, to a Friday night when most people went out. Then they moved it to a Sunday night. And stuck it on BBC2. And hired the worst presenters you could find. Most people forgot when it was supposed to be on. And which channel. Or couldn't bear the cheery fake smiles. And so the Beeb's cunning ploy has worked. No longer will we have the entertainment of the latest Europop one hit wonder interspersed with the slightly perplexed "what are we doing here?" of the cool indie bands such as the Arctic Monkeys. And what will we do in years to come when we don't have TOTP2 to laugh at the funny old bands and their costumes? TOTP2 is a staple in my house.

The Beeb have got it totally wrong. They missed their opportunity. They should have got Noel Edmonds (before his Deal or No Deal success happened), Tony Blackburn, and Dave ("Hairy cornflake") Lee Travis in to revamp the show. Beards, sparkly hats and bizarre guests like Jimmy Saville would have revived the fortunes of TOTP and saved it for future generations.

Who will never know what they are missing.

Multipass

I've watched a fair bit of the World Cup, and the one thing that fascinates me is the giant security passes the managers on the bench have to wear. Seriously, they are HUGE! They are pretty much life size photos and a mysterious 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 on each badge. And a very unflattering bright green. Now I understand that security must be tight, but they might as well have made the managers carry round life size mannequins in their images.

Are England going to win? I don't know, but they make me crazy. Why is nothing ever easy for them? If they were playing the St Trinian's Girls School Under 12's football team, it would still go to the wire.

Sober and a law librarian?!

It just doesn't mix. Unfortunately for me, the annual piss up coincided with me not being allowed to drink. I thought "hey, it'll be cool, it's not all booze booze booze!". How wrong I was. The day's were full of watching heavily hungover librarians dragging their corpses to lectures, or just crawling outside to sit on lovely (apart from the lack of sand and lots of pebbles) Brighton beach opposite looking pale. Most discussions were competing "what time did YOU go to bed last night, I dragged myself out of the bar at 5am" type conversations. "Me? Oh 11.30". The evenings were fine until about 3 hours in when everyone else was wasted and running round being stupid and flirting with people they really wouldn't have looked at sober. I hope I wasn't like that last year! And they don't really cater for people who don't drink, there was water and that was it. One woman on our table one night didn't drink at all for some crazy healthy lifestyle notion and even asked for decaf coffee. I can't imagine what she did for kicks.

There were some highlights though. One night there was an Abba tribute band after dinner. They weren't that bad as Abba tribute bands go. As soon as the first chord rang out there was a stampede of aged female librarians in floral numbers pushing and shoving each other to get to the small dance area in front of the stage. And two male librarians. They were great. Much more enthusiastic than the women. One of them, in black trousers, a white shirt, black braces, and a pink feather boa (where he had got that from I would love to know), danced with amazing abandon. Pirouettes, arms wildly flapping about, crazy impromptu moves merged in with the moves the Abba girls were encouraging their audience to mimic. He deserved some kind of award.

Another was a well known creep who works for some publishing place. He is only ever spotted at social events, and will only talk to pretty girls. The Abba night he was spotted preening around the room with cuban heels on and a girl who was almost certainly coked up to the eyeballs dancing like a loon in his wake. Oh he thought he was so cool. He just wasn't. And most of the females of the profession know him of old and don't even bother making eye contact. As he gets older and older, it's just going to get sadder and sadder.

Ice creams on the beach are a definite winner at conferences. In future, they should only be held at venues with beaches. Abroad would be good too. It's Sheffield next year, the city of steel. I really ain't going to that one.

Wish me luck...

Oh Lord it's that time again. The annual Law Librarians Conference. The one that got my blog banned last year. I don't know what awaits me this time round, I just hope it isn't legs akimbo on the dance floor again...

"I'm sorry, you want to see a DOCTOR? What, THIS year?"

Doctor's receptionists. Now there's a profession that comes in way beneath estate agents, bailiffs and tax inspectors. I think they think that it is their job to stop anybody from bothering their precious doctors. Take our doctors, the ones I was so enamoured of their lovely surgery with a while back. You want an appointment less than 6 weeks (yes SIX weeks) in advance, you have to turn up on the day at 8am and join the queue of other desperate people in the hope of getting an appointment later that day. If you fail, you have to try again the next day. And the next. Skipping the middle man and going straight to A&E sounds preferable to me. If you aren't that sick, you still have to take at least half a day off. Then you feel guilty for taking a slot on the same day when someone sicker than you may have needed it. If you are really sick and have to crawl out of your house, you might as well hang on in there for the ambulance. If you ain't self cured by the time your appointment in six weeks comes round, then you can feel victorious.

There must be some evil kind of training program for wannabe receptionists. It wipes them of any kind of human characteristics and promotes repetition of phrases such as "try again tomorrow" "he can see you at a push a week on Friday for 3 minutes". I really hope I never get really sick.

My luck was kind of in...

On Saturday night we went to the dogs (for non Essex people, the greyhound races) to avoid our neighbours' Rude Staring Freak Friends. Because of the football, they were giving out free tickets on our road, saving us a good six quid on entry and a race guide. I am never one to turn down a free night out. So we went, and we were even in the posh bit! Whoo! I haven't quite figured out the difference between the posh and common bits, apart from the posh bit had richer nutters in it. The carpet was slightly cleaner, and there was a lady who came up and got your drinks and put your bets on so you never needed to move, but it was still quite shit.

My strategy for betting on the dogs is quite random. I usually blow a whole pound on each race, sadly you can't bet any less, and sometimes the names of the dogs just speak to me. I never even bother to look at their form, age, how many legs they've got etc, the favourite never wins. So my strategy for a while was dogs with names in their names, such as Big Dave, Paulee's Pal, Disco Lulu. They all to a dog came in last. The only time I won was when I picked complete random dogs and then as I bet so much money on them (!) I got about 20p back. I am still to this day upset about the time I knew a dog called Hot Chocolate was going to win, but I didn't go with my gut and put a fiver on it. It romped home, but my other choices for coming in second and third needn't have bothered turning up. Luckily for me, hubbie who thinks he is a gambling genius did less well, and he studied the guide like a proper serious gambler! I think the lesson here is: Don't gamble kids.

Our neighbours are ok (but their friends are freaks)

Yesterday our neighbours had a party. We only knew about this from eavesdropping the day before, and actually asking them outright when they put a marquee up. They didn't bother to tell us. Apparently 60 people were invited but they weren't allowed in the house and had to be in the garden. 60 people?! You'd be lucky to have elbow room in some pubs I know, never mind the garden of a 2 bed terrace.

It was the hottest day EVER, so we were out in the garden too. Put our new bbq into use and had the relatives over. Next door wasn't so noisy, not half as bad as I expected. But all the freakish people they invited stared blatantly over the fence at us every time they walked past. Seriously, we were getting complexes. They were so rude. And then someone parked across our drive. I made them move. Not that we needed to move our car, but they really take the piss. If our neighbours who are quite polite over the fence whenever we see them, had bothered to come round and say "hey, we're having a party, would you mind if our guests parked over your drive, if you need to move your car let us know?" we'd have been "yeah, of course, don't worry about it".

This is linked to a long running war of attrition with their in-laws. They are over most weekends and park on their drive so there is no room between their cars. So they all walk all over our drive to get in and out, but in the garden won't even say hello and look at us like we're weird. Again, all the neighbours needed to do was ask, but they never did. So we now employ a tactical game at the weekends, where we park the car as far over to their side as practically possible so there's no room for them to walk down the side, and then put our rubbish bags in front of the car to make it absolutely clear. Sad and pathetic I know. It never used to bother me them walking down the side of the drive. But when they all make us feel uncomfortable in our own back garden, and haven't even the decency to say hello when we say it to them, then they can take a running jump!

And as for the scary man who obviously thought he was god's gift, despite his choice of old jogging pants and a vest top that was several sizes too small for his big gut, and a loud braying voice that talked about the most boring things in the world, urrggghhhhhh stop looking at me you freak!!!

Don't upset Lordi!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5034874.stm

Those were the days...

I was reminded recently of my weird childhood imagination. As the eldest, every evening I was in charge of making my dad his cheese butties for work the next day. This was back in the days before cheap cafes and Boots sandwiches. For years I stood in the kitchen making the same old cheese butties every night, with piccalilli, not too much mind! And white bread, none of that fancy stuff. To get through the monotony, I used to pretend I worked in a cafe while I was making the sandwiches. At the time I had a thing for the lead singer of The Farm Peter Hooton. Yeah I know. I lived in a small village. Men were scarce, you had to take what you could get. Anyway, in my crazed teenage mind, luscious Peter would come into my cafe quite by chance, but immediately be taken by the beautiful young lady behind the counter. He would order a sandwich. When he had been seduced by the lovely tasty sandwich he would rescue me from my life of drudgery and take me on tour with his band. Luckily for me this never happened, The Farm only had one album to speak of, the world tour wouldn't have lasted long and I would have been supporting him. Making sandwiches. For money.

I also used to pretend I was Cinderella and sweep the garage clean. My parents must have thought they were on to a winner. Or they were very good at reverse psychology to make the kids do some housework...

Brangelina - be scared be very scared!

It amazes me how Brangelina took over an entire country just so they could have their baby in privacy. They were in charge of pretty much the whole of Namibia, who catered to their every crazy celebrity whim. Most celeb mums go to an exclusive hospital in America, not Angelina. I suppose the country will now benefit from increased tourism and those buses following the celebrity trail will start up there. "And here's the hospital Angelina gave birth in...here's the shop she bought her first nappies from...and here is the tree where Brad carved the baby's name..."

When me and Mr Barbara start reproducing, I am going to have the whole of the Isle of Wight under my control. Nothing less will do. No Librarians in or out without my written permission.

Sitting, waiting, wishing

If I could be one person in the world at the moment, I would be Jack Johnson. He lives in Hawaii, spends most of his time surfing or chilling on the beach, knocks off the old million selling album every now and then, is super environmentally responsible, and everyone seems to love him. Now he has announced he's had enough of this world tour malarkey and is going home to surf. His last album, the soundtrack for Curious George ("Show me the monkey!!") was self produced and released without a record company apparently, and has sold shedloads. The man is a genius. How can you be so laidback yet set yourself up for life within a year or so of popping into the music scene? And I bet he doesn't even care about the money, he will probably give it all away to koalas or orphaned goats or something.

But if I couldn't face being a man, I'd have to be Jack Johnson's wife instead. That would be cool too. But don't tell the old man this, I think he'd have enough problems coming to terms with me being a surfer dude.

The differences between us...

My Dad rang up on Sunday and I said I'd been to a Eurovision party. He said "did you see that terrible song that won? It was awful!". I had to admit that I loved it and had bought it. This prompted him shouting through the house to my stepmum (a bit like Little Britain): "Carolyn?! Carolyn!! She only went and bought it! She likes it!" to which shrieks of disgust and outrage reverberated down the phone lines.

They liked the Lithuania entry. That godawful one where men in suits sang (very hopefully) "We are the winners! Of Eurovision! Vote for us!". Nobody did. And please Lithuania, if you enter again, don't let that fat bald man humiliate himself by dancing again. Thankyou.

I also had to sit through lunch yesterday with all the oldies I work with denouncing Lordi. I didn't tell them I bought it, they are all so narrow minded it wasn't worth it really.

In Lordi news, they are having a square named after them in Finland! I so have to visit!!

Douze points to ... LORDI!!!

OH. MY. GOD.

What a night. Lady L can't speak from screaming so much, I don't remember leaving, I forgot to vote, I spent most of the night shrieking and it's a wonder I can speak today, Miss S sure put on one hell of a party.

Lordi will now take over the world. Don't be scared.

Raaaarrrrrgggggghhhhh

What was the last song I downloaded before my credit ran out? Why, it was Hard Rock Hallelujah by Lordi. Oh yes.

Oh Lordi!!

Oh if the semi finals are anything to go by, Eurovision is going to be bloody brilliant!! And Lordi must win!! They were fabulous. Fire coming out of their guitars, the lead singer had wings and a Finland top hat, even the song was great! I voted for them three times, on two mobiles and the land line, to ensure they went through. But I was nearly sick when they were reading out the ten who made it to the final. Part of me thought it was all a fix and they wouldn’t be allowed to go through. But they did!! As well as that awful Lithuanian number “We are the winners of Eurovision” – subtle as Lady Librarian said. And it’s a good job me & Lady L are going to be in the same room for the actual final, I dread to think how much money all the text messages we sent cost us!

Da Vinci craze

You know, the thing that still upsets me most to this day about the Da Vinci Code is the bit where the librarian at King's College lets Tom Hanks in without an appointment and then makes him a cup of tea. In a library. Rule 1 of librarianship: you NEVER make it easy for random people who aren't supposed to use your library to get in. First of all they have to face a surly face at the equivalent of reception, then after several minutes of arguing and tutting, they are taken to see a more senior person who repeats all the points above. When they are feeling as small as absolutely possible, and possibly rethinking their urgent need to consult your material, then you have a generous change of heart and finally let them in, but only to see the book they wanted and no browsing! Rule 2 of librarianship: NO FOOD AND DRINK IN THE LIBRARY!! (The capitals are necessary). Where are all the librarians saying the book makes librarians look bad? I might start a petition. Or march outside Odeon Leicester Square (it's where all the important film schmoozers hang out, well it's that or Cannes) with a banner.

"Appalled of Hackney" speaks again

The most ridiculous accusation in the news today? That the portrayal of a crazed albino monk in the Da Vinci Code makes albinos look bad. Excuse me? Which bit of "fiction" don't these people get?! And why not say it makes monks look bad too just for the hell of it? So, in these people's minds, Donkey in Shrek means that donkeys talk and dance and date dragons? It's like saying that the portrayal of Damien in the Omen makes small boys look like evil demons. Oh. Hang on a minute, there may be a grain of truth in this after all!

Too busy for non-work related correspondence?

Ye gads, I think I am still in shock. I am "in charge" (you lucky lucky people!) of the library for the next two weeks and, I tell you, I haven't had a minute to myself for the last two days. My line manager who has a very anal grasp on all mundane library tasks, who doesn't even delegate opening envelopes, has gone on holiday leaving me to run the joint. And because of her failure to delegate AT ALL when she's here, this previously unheard of responsibility has thrown me somewhat. The days are certainly going faster and I'm sure I've lost several pounds through constant running around, but I have no time. Normally I have time to do all my work, help all the happy shoppers, and spend a good proportion of the day emailing back and forth between Lady L and Miss S. Not today. But then they haven't emailed either. Maybe today was the official "Busy at Work Day" and nobody warned me?

I can't decide whether having a Very Busy Job is a Good Thing. I know I am often bored out of my tiny mind, and scanning the BBC website obsessively every five minutes loses its appeal. And just last week I thought I was developing alzheimers. So this week just goes to prove my mind does still work, it was just bored. And I have no problem with delegating things to other people myself. Make the workers work dammit! I'm corresponding with a very important client.

Nil points

Oh we're having a party!! A Eurovision party!! Whoo hoo! I am SO excited. Miss S is the hostess with the mostess, and it's going to be great. Especially as Lordi are representing Finland. The last two Eurovision parties I went to are a bit of a blur, I can't really remember very much at all but I am assured I had a great time. Hubby refuses to accompany me and I'm trying very hard not to take this personally. What man, even if he doesn't like (god forbid) Euro-pop can't fail but to be entertained by old Terry's gentle Irish brogue? And get to drink shedloads into the bargain? He'd rather sit on his own couch by himself than come to a party. Miserable sod. And I ain't coming home neither, so he'll have to make his own breakfast while I crawl home feeling very sorry for myself. On Top of the Pops the other day our entry was on, it's a rather odd affair. A grown man rapping while grown girls dressed like schoolgirls "accidentally" flash their white knickers while leaning over old school desks. It's a perverts' dream come true and should get us a few points at least.

Two things...

...would make my life so much easier.

1) A transporter like in Star Trek. So much of my life is wasted away sitting on the same stretch of road in the same traffic queues. If I could just transport to work five minutes before I started, imagine all that free time and lying in! And holidays. No more 12 hour flights to get to a lovely sandy beach in Hawaii, report to the holiday transporter at the local station, and whoo hoo, cocktails on the beach in no time. Now I can't believe that all the spods out there (yes there are lots) haven't developed this yet. I reckon it is in use already but they won't share.

2) A composter. More likely to happen I know. Having a garden does have its down sides. The amount of times I've filled a bag with grass and leaves and stuff, then 3 days later gone to move it and there's all worms underneath!! Urgh. Worms. And slugs and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a bear in there too. I had to pay a fiver to get 5 special bags that the binmen will take away. So I've been looking into composters. You stick it all in there with your onion peelings, old bills so the identity thieves won't get them, coffee granules, tea bags, and it just goes away. And you don't see the worms coz they are hidden at the bottom. Then you get lovely compost to grow roses in. If you weren't spending half your life transporting around the world that is.

I've Lost it

Series 2 of Lost has kicked off and it’s doing my head in already. 3 episodes in, and I am debating not watching it anymore. I spent half of last night’s episode torn between switching the damn TV off, and wanting to see what happens next. I think the problem is that I don’t care what happens to the characters anymore. Once it was established that they weren’t going to be rescued, what’s the point? At one point last night, Doctor Jack (who is being very cross this series) had spent the last 45 minutes shouting at everyone, been reminded about his wife who may or may not be dead, and was facing imminent death in some random unexplained disaster based on playing a scale on a bontempi organ or something equally stupid. He was VERY cross at this point and he had a gun in his hand. Why didn’t he just shoot himself? I would have considered it. Stuck on a crazy island with a load of loons whose idea of looking out for each other disappears the minute they see a yorkie? No thanks.

In series 1 they at least had some light relief. Isn’t it filmed on Hawaii? Couldn’t Jack Johnson just pop in and play them all some of his happy tunes about his favourite banana daiquiris? It would make as much sense as the plot so far.

Blaine pain

Poor old David Blaine. He failed his weird underwater stunt thing and turned into a shrivelled prune in the process. His latest feat wasn't really publicised over here so much, but oh it takes me back to the summer of 2003 when he was hanging above the Thames in a glass box. How he misjudged the people of London. He was besieged with people throwing eggs at him, waving sausages at him, whacking golf balls at him from Tower Bridge, and general rudeness. One man tried to cut the cord holding the box up. Quite a few bottoms were waved at him too. The "magical genius" was not recognised in the slightest.

Lady L made the mistake of going travelling and missing this summer of entertainment. I had to become the David Blaine London correspondent and fill her in on all the crazy shit that was going down. Me & Miss S even went along one balmy evening to see it for ourselves. It was weird. The area immediately under his box was cordoned off with burly Sky security guards operating an access policy that only seemed to apply to young blonde girls. But we really had gone to see some "poet"* (for the want of a better word) who wanted to do his stuff under the Blaine. Apparently it was supposed to be a satirical rant against him. But when we actually got there, he got stagefright and dragged his audience off to an abandoned ampitheatre where he proceeded to bore us all senseless with some weird reading aloud story. It only got amusing when he dragged one of his audience in to help, which involved ad hoc pulling down of the trousers (in an innocent way obviously). Then we were beset with the local "youf" who tried to intimidate us with their bicycles. It didn't work. It might have scared old David Blaine though.

What will he do next though, this poor misguided "illusionist"? What was wrong with sawing ladies in half, or being locked in a case then stuck with lots of knives, only to appear with a flourish at the other end of the stage riding a tiger? He's thinking too much if you ask me.

[* Ah yes I remember now, he was supposed to be a comedian but was so unfunny I had forgotten. We knew a few unfunny comedians that summer that's for sure!]

Lucky number seven

Ok after saying my love affair was over, I caught Deal or no deal yesterday and it was very exciting! Though saying that, I only caught the last 20 minutes which means you bypass all the boring stuff where the person playing talks lots about their wooden leg/poorly Grandma/dodgy car and says they want to win at least £250,000.

So, when I switched it on Morris was doing rather well. And it got better and better. Down to two boxes. One with £20,000 and one with £250,000. Oooh!! How exciting. He had box number 16. The other box was number 7. The banker offered him £101,000. He turned it down so sure he was that his box had £250,000 in it. The banker offered to let him swap the box. He turned that down on the basis that loads of people have 7 as their lucky number and that had Noel estimated they had done about 160 shows and his box had 1 and 6 as it's number (weird reasoning if you ask me).

But he was wrong!! So wrong!! But bless him, he didn't cry. Still £20,000 isn't bad. But then Noel reminded him he had turned down an extra £80,000. That's it Noel, pile it on!! Make the poor man cry like a girl.

But I knew he didn't win the jackpot. The show's are pre-recorded and it would so have been reported in the papers before they actually showed it. Like they do with Millionaire.

Poor Morris. Seven really is a lucky number.

Wot?!

Some lady was fined £75 for throwing a cheesy wotsit out of her car window today. Littering will not be tolerated in Luton it seems. I disagree with the council's reasoning. Throwing the cheesy wotsit out of the car window wasn't the problem. It seems to me that they are missing the bigger crime that was committed. WHY DID SHE THROW AWAY THE CHEESY WOTSIT??! I would NEVER throw away such a delicacy. What was wrong with it? What could possibly have driven her to such extreme measures? Was it slightly out of shape? Not cheesy enough? Too cheesy? If Miss S had anything to do with it, wasting cheese products would mean a lengthy spell in prison. I am not kidding.

Down with cheese wasters! I am talking to YOU lady.

Congratulations!!

Lady L got spliced at the weekend, and it was a fabulous affair. She looked fab, and Mr L looked very smart, and there were tears and laughter. The cake was never ending, and everyone hankered after the special cake that was for the kids only (it had smarties on the top). I saw loads of people I haven't seen for ages. At the Reception the music was brilliant and I had to download "Where's me jumper?" from the wondrous Sultans of Ping the minute I got home. I missed the Darkness though which I am very upset about. Lady L was very drunk at her Reception, something I failed to do at my own wedding, and there was dancing - including the Timewarp! - and it was all over far too quickly. What is the relationship between time spent planning a hen do or a wedding and the time the event takes when it actually happens? It's related to the leisure time vs work time ratio, and it's just not on!

No Deal

Oh my love affair with Deal or No Deal is over. I caught it again recently and it's all gone wrong. The contestants think the show is all about them. Who cares if they just got the sack or want seven grand to go kayaking with? The crazy people, like the woman who channelled her dead parents, were great entertainment, but the normal people are so dull. And they are all given 45 minutes of fame. Usually they don't win big and the banker makes them cry when they realise they turned down thousands in pursuit of the big win. And there's always some sad old bloke who has watched all the episodes and thinks he knows the formula. Then of course when it's his go, he walks away with a tenner. I've seen people go with numbers based on birthdays, the colour tops the other contestants are wearing, the position on the floor, and none of them have done very well.

But I suppose I'll still watch it. For the day that the Banker is unmasked as Mr Blobby. It will all be worth it. Blobby blooby blobby!!

Who's the man?

I had my appraisal today. They are usually non-events, "Are you happy? We're happy. See you next year" kind of things. This time I had a major problem to discuss. I thought about it for days, wrote down the major points and how I was going to handle it. This included the phrases 'calm', 'rational', 'professional'. And what happened? The minute they asked me if there was anything else I wanted to discuss I cried. I cried and snivelled like a big girl and totally wasted my opportunity and feel like crap into the bargain. Marvellous.

St George's Day

It's St George's Day today. I woke up to a street full of flags hanging out of windows. One house had 4 flags, one in each window, which was a little scary. I never realised our street was so patriotic. It makes me a little bit proud. This would be the kind of street that had street parties back in the war, everyone sat at trestle tables waving bunting around and talking about the person up the road who's got one of those "television" things in their house. Hubby and brother-in-law (who got up super early to get his flag out before everyone else) are so patriotic they've gone off to the pub in their England tops, chests puffed out, to have a patriotic pint or seven. Then they will probably have a patriotic fight and get kicked out of the pub. Proper Englishmen they are!

The Hen Night (Part 2)

So Lady L has FINALLY got round to blogging about her hen night! Fills in a few blanks I must say. Including my failed attempt at haranguing the miserable DJ at the club to play some tracks for me. He didn't even bother to speak to me but pointed at a pen and paper where people were supposed to write their requests down. There was a slight problem with this. Being a trifle tipsy, writing was beyond me. I could just about say "Play the Darkness and Audioslave please Mr DJ, hey, no-one's dancing anyway!" but written down this came out in a scrawl across the page as "Dark...slave..."

If for some genius reason the Darkness and Audioslave did decide to become one (imagine my delight!) they would obviously call themselves Darkslave. Or DarkSlave. Grr. "Audioness" just doesn't work rock fans.

Lady L, I really didn't ask him to play Orson. But I did dance to it. I apologise. Their new song is rubbish. My Orson phase is officially over.

You're taking the piss now

The ghost in my house is really taking the michael now. Today we mowed the lawn, weeded like crazy, pruned and cleared up. This was mainly after one of our elderly neighbours said our ghost would be turning in her grave to see the state of her garden (if she was in her grave that is) (and if this was her f***ing garden! It's mine!!!) and made us feel guilty. Then I sat down with a nice glass of wine after all the exertion, and within minutes the glass had done a complete 360 degree spin in the air thus pouring the wine all over me. I was sober and sat completely still. I still can't explain it. It was weird.

It's a girl!

So hello to Suri Cruise. Is it just me or is it weird (or merely a bizarre coincidence) that Suri is an anagram of the middle letters of Cruise?! I suppose at least they had a girl. Ron or Hubbard aren't really suitable names. I don't know any famous female Scientologists - oh apart from Katie now!

And what with all the rubbish about eating placentas (with a nice chianti and fava beans natch'), silent births, no painkillers etc etc, it's actually a relief that the baby has finally been born. Good luck to her I say. She'll be needing it.

Sexy!

So Michael Douglas seduces CZJ by talking Welsh in the bedroom? I really didn't need to know that. Though I now have visions of the narrator from Ivor the Engine going "ooh Catherine, who's a big boy then? Would you like me to rub your back for you?"

Thanks for sharing Michael.

Lessons I have learned in life #2

If your other half suggests ordering pizza at 10.30 at night, do not give in.

You will feel like a big old elephant the next day and you will have had awful dreams due to all that cheese so you will be grumpy too.

A big old grumpy heffalump.

Shop till you drop

Today I had cause to be stuck in Stevenage for over two hours whiling away the time. “What shall I do?” I thought, “two hours is a long time”. “Fear not!” said my fairy godmother, “you shall be entertained for hours just by one place, and you will wish you had more time”. “What could this place be?” I cried, “to entertain for hours and hours, I cannot think of such a place!”

It was Asda.

I kid you not. It was the first shop I saw, and I mainly went in for a cup of tea and a sit down. But I was in there for the whole time, I never got bored, and I had to stop for another tea break half way through. I wonder if it is possible to live in a supermarket for any period of time. I am sure it is. You can buy your food, be entertained by books and stationery, you can even write letters and post them in the store. You can watch DVDs on the big screens in the entertainment section. You can try clothes on for hours, hell you could buy a change of clothes a day. You can eat like a king. You can plan your garden in the gardening section. You can even pull a member of staff if you are so inclined and strike up an unlikely romance in the aisles. You can go on the internet. You can stack shelves if you feel like some exercise.

For a few lonely hours it was paradise. Today Asda, tomorrow Tescos…

The Hen Night (Part 1)

So, Lady L can tell you how her hen night was. I hope she had a super time and we made it fun for her. I certainly had fun. These are some of my highlights (though they were probably lowlights for the other people involved).

1) Inappropriate tales - this may be because I don't get out so much these days, but I have an unfortunate tendency to own up to stupid things I have done. Which is fine if I picked a good time to do it. One sparkly drink in and I was admitting all sorts to bemused looks from the other hens (is the bride to be called the hen and the other girls chicks? Or are we all hens? I don't know so I will refer to us all as hens). For Lady L and Miss S this was usual. For the other hens I've never met before, probably a bit weird and WAY too much information. Ladies I apologise.

2) Insulting men who seem quite nice but have made the mistake of coming to talk to you. I attract weirdos. It's always happened and I'm used to it now. In the pub a nice man called John decided to talk to me. I didn't feel it at the time, but I must have been slightly tipsy. He asked me what I thought of his jumper. I told him he looked like a male prostitute. A bad one. He seemed quite upset but it didn't put him off.

3) Insulting drunk men in nightclubs - more random weirdos turned up in the club. They were waving around pictures of dogs. One of them came up to me with puckered lips and asked what his pulling techniques were like. I said they needed a lot of work.

It's a very good job I don't need to attract men anymore. I seem to have developed the equivalent of turret's syndrome to chat up lines:

"Hello Booky B, you seem nice. How are you?"

"You smell like shit and you look like a tramp"

"Oh. You don't want to go out on a date then?"

"Feck off!"

A tale of hen night horror...

Talking of hen night related things, my boss just told me this horror story. A girl at work has to go to a hen do in a few weeks, but it starts with pole-dancing lessons in the afternoon (I dread to think what follows in the evening). They have been told to wear high heels and shorts. As if this wasn't bad enough, another girl at work has actually been on one of these pole-dancing things (don't ask, these people are in other departments, I don't associate with them usually) (and I didn't realise this was so popular, I thought pottery classes were the in-vogue hen entertainment at the moment). It was in a room above a bar. When she went through the bar to go upstairs she thought the bar was unusually full of men for mid afternoon and there wasn't even any football on. Turns out that their pole-dancing exploits were being broadcast on a big screen down below in the bar. They didn't know until afterwards.

Librarians on hen nights are a different breed. We go to shelf stacking lessons and turn up in twin sets and pearls.

Seen on the way to work

On the door to a block of flats: "Today! Indoor Boot Sale".

Now call me crazy, but if there are no cars involved (so no car boots) and it isn't in a field at 7am on a Sunday (because it's indoors), isn't that usually called a jumble sale?

Or perhaps they were only selling boots? Boots for indoors.

Lady Librarian's hen night is a'comin...

...and I am SUPER excited! We are going drinking, dancing and staying out ALL night. I've even got the day off this week to find a fabulous outfit to wear. But it also makes me kind of sad. I haven't been dancing since my hen night, which was over a year ago. I love dancing. Why did I stop? Why don't I dance in my front room instead? It's great for the old figure too. Back in the days when I didn't have to get up at some godforsaken hour to go and earn a wage I went out dancing 3 or 4 nights a week. I was so skinny. Legs that won the "best legs on campus" at my university halls. Well I did wear bovva boots too which is akin to wearing weights strapped to your ankles. I want them back.

The best job in the world?

Never mind cake testers, florists, or chocolatiers. Yesterday I saw the Best Job in the World (tm) on my way to work. It was the grand opening of a new shop in town and they were having some balloons delivered before they opened. The balloon man turned up in his little van, and then opened the back doors, let out a huge net that was attached to the back of the van, and then sat in the back blowing the balloons up and letting them outside into the net. When the net was full, he unhooked it, closed it up and took it inside. Call me stupid but I never really thought how the balloons made it from one place to another, I assumed they were already blown up. Or the people in the shop had to do it themselves. How do you get a job like that?

I hate other travellers.

On the annual trip to the folks last weekend, our train trip reinforced my belief that travelling with strangers should be avoided at all costs. Some lessons my fellow travellers should have learnt:

1. If you are going to travel on a Friday, reserve a seat. Don’t look surprised that the train is full to bursting and you don’t have anywhere to sit for the next two hours. And if you decide to plonk your suitcase in the middle of the aisle and sit on it, expect to be made to move regularly by people going to buy booze and then have to visit the toilet lots when they’ve drunk it.
2. When waiting for the train (on a Friday) and they call the platform, don’t run like a crazy person dropping all your belongings on the way and looking stupid. There won’t be any available seats.
3. When you get on the train and find the right carriage, wait till everyone has got past you before deciding to unpack REALLY slowly and put all your bags around the carriage in random places. And keep your bottom stuck in to avoid sticking it in the face of the poor passenger next to you.
4. When you get on the carriage and find someone is sitting in “your” reserved seat, make sure you check what carriage you are supposed to be in before you start an argument. You are guaranteed to be in the wrong carriage, and as far away as you could be from the right one.
5. If it is at all possible, upgrade to first class. You get free stuff and loads of room and don’t have to mix with the other idiots travelling with you.
   

Man, I feel like a woman (who shot her husband)

This song will forever be associated in my mind with this news story. You couldn’t make it up, and I wish I had been on the jury. Another news report in the paper added the details that the couple had an “experimental” sex life and the poor bloke was still wearing his blue dressing gown (but no underwear) when they found him – how erotic!

Vegetable porn

Sorry for the faint hearted among you, but here is the sweet potato that started it all. All credit must go to Mr P for taking the photo (though why he banned Miss S from buying it I will never know, presumably to allow other innocent shoppers to share in the fun) and Miss S for modelling it.

Confessions of a carrot packer

It recently came to my attention through Lady L and Miss S that I was part of a conspiracy to deprive northern England of comedy shaped vegetables. You know how it is, it brightens up your day when you take a carrot out of a bag and it looks like genitalia, or you come across a potato that looks like the pope. I used to have a summer job in a carrot factory. Depending on which line you worked on, there was a scale of carrot that had to be strictly adhered to. Marks & Spencer only had the best perfectly straight and unblemished carrots, and they had to be the same size give or take a few millimetres. The bigger supermarkets, Tesco and Sainsburys, were next down the chain; they allowed slightly bent carrots, and perhaps a bit of marking. Then right down at the bottom was Kwik Save. Anything went there, basically everything that the other supermarkets wouldn’t take. So my job was to weed out funnily shaped carrots, thereby depriving people of an unexpected giggle (well if you’re one of my friends anyway!), and in Miss S’s case pretty much a promotion! Surely one carrot tastes the same as another? But you wouldn’t believe the lengths the quality control people went to to ensure blemish free carrots. When the trend started for leaving the green bits on at the top for the posh folk, my that caused some people nightmares.

People of northern England, I apologise. If you want penis shaped vegetables, go to Kwik Save. It’ll be cheaper too. And taste just as lovely.

And as for the people who shop at Kwik Save. Why has their uncanny knack of getting a parsnip that looks like a willy or a potato with legs never come up in conversation?

I'm sorry do you think this is a doctor's?!

So maybe I was a tad too quick to declare my love for my new doctors. It was the new patients interview with the nurse this morning, she did the usual height and weight checks, asked how much we drank (think of a number, halve it...), asked if we smoked (of course not, the odd drunken social fag doesn't count) etc.

I started to worry a bit the third time she mentioned how hard it was to get an appointment at the clinic. She told hubby that he'd have to see his doctor before they can give him any insulin. This is quite important. So we asked for an appointment at reception. The next appointment is in May. May?! May!! It's March 21st today. What would happen if you were really sick? "If you're not better in a month and a half, come and see us"? Luckily being the marvellous wife I am, I had anticipated this and ordered shed loads of medicine from his old doctors. Which should keep us afloat in insulin. Unless at the actual appointment they then say it will take another 3 months to set up the repeat prescription...

Songs to wake up to

Rest of the week? Kelly bloody Clarkson - Breakaway. (There is a definite mind implantation policy going on by her record company).

This morning? A-ha - Analogue.

Oh it's going to be a good day :-)

There's a ghost in my house

One thing that wasn't on the survey when we bought the house was the ghost. Our house has a gooseberry in spectral form. Now I am sure that the ghost isn't malevolant and we don't mind it at all really. But when it tries to make me think I'm going crazy it just ain't right and I am going to have it out with the ghost and establish some AUTHORITAY! Oh yes.

So what evidence have I got for this ghost? First of all the stereo in the bedroom started switching itself on in the middle of the night. Then every time I went in the room the stereo was on. I ended up putting the volume on minimum just in case it happened in the day when we were out. And it did. I even moved the damn thing, thinking it was coz it was too close to the radiator and heat does funny things to electrical equipment you know. No change. One time hubby swore that it was actually switched off at the plug.

And things have gone missing. To date I have lost a bag full of necklaces, two pairs of scissors, a kitchen spoon thing that picks pasta up, and the lining off my coat hood. Maybe it's the Borrowers?

Then as the stereo and petty theft wasn't affecting us too much, the ghost moved to the lounge. And every Sunday without fail, it changes channels on the tv. It has happened on other days, but Sundays you can guarantee it. The remote control is usually on the floor, or on the desk, not even pointing at the tv. And it doesn't even change the channel to anything good, usually the premium "pay lots of money to watch them" movie channels or the Antiques Roadshow. This makes me suspect the old lady who lived here is our ghost. Why is she not at peace? Does she not approve of us living here? Or is it that she does approve and is just teasing us?

I am not mad.

Romeo

Ladies!! One of the world's most eligible men is newly single! Oi, get to the back of the queue, I saw him first!

Oh I jest of course. Lovely romantic old Phil Collins fell for this unfortunate lady and then dumped his poor second wife by fax. I wonder how this one went? "You're dumped" in alphabetti spaghetti at dinner time? A letter from his solicitor at breakfast time? Or maybe this is the first she's heard of it?

Phil must have someone lined up already, I can't wait to hear who it is. Hmm, who is single at the moment? Renee Zellwegger? Cher? Billie Piper?

He is rich though...if I was after a super rich sugar daddy husband who would surely die if he had an over-enthusiastic young wife I'd be straight in there.

You know you are too polite when...

...you walk into the only ladies loo in a pub to find a "lady" stood on top of the toilet snorting coke off the hand drier and you apologise.

Shakespeare is among us

So finally the world of literature has attracted one of the greats of our times who wants to tell us all about his life. In 5 books. Over 12 years. For £5 million quid. Who is this doyenne of intellectual thought who will teach us great things and make us question the world we live in? Why, no other than Wayne Rooney. What took you so long Wayne?

I imagine the first volume of the five (what do you call a series of 5 books? A cinquette?) will be something like this:

Monday: “I woke up and brushed me teeth in the special toothpaste that Colleen got me. It’s got seaweed in it and it makes me feel sick. Then I got dressed. Jones our butler had made me favourite brekkie – Lucky Charms and toast with the crusts cut off, I hate crusts. Then I got a call from Sven who wanted to tell me to stop eating so much cereal and start on the body building shakes for the World Cup build up. I don’t like them much but he wants me to be able to knock over those ‘orrible other players who think they can beat me easily”.

Tuesday: “I got up and brushed me teeth. Had a Crème Egg for brekkie, coz Colleen was out already at Lakeside shopping. Had footie training.”

Wednesday: “Went to awards ceremony after tea. Colleen made me wear a pink suit to go with her dress. Met Lionel Blair, he’s my hero.”

Thursday: “David (Beckham) called to see how I was doing. He says I’d better eat lots of eggs as well as all those shakes.”

Friday: “Watched Deal or no deal. Those poor people get really upset about a piddly 250 grand, Colleen spends that most weekends.”

And so on. How can he stretch it over 5 books? It isn't quite Lord of the Rings, and that only made it to 3. I imagine the early life will be: “I went to school, I was quite good at football, I got spotted and signed.” Of course there must be some early hardship to go through, maybe his mum couldn’t afford Adidas trainers and he had £5 ones from the local market. My life could be this exciting, do you think I could get a few million to tell my story?

I can’t wait to read them. No really.