Librarians cut out of Da Vinci Code shocker!

I finally saw the Da Vinci Code last week and I have to say it was a bit of a disappointment. Obviously, the subject matter is quite complicated to get into a film of an hour and a half, so they chose to have a five minute bit in the middle where they just go "yeah, Jesus had a kid right and the Church don't like it much". Ok. But the worst change?! The bit where Tom Hanks visits King's College Library which annoyed me so much the first time round when I read the book? Cut!! Completely cut out of the film! There is a vague mention of having to go to Chelsea Library (which is nowhere near Temple Church incidentally) and the crucial visit to use the library databases is replaced by the French bird using some kid's mobile on the top deck of a bus to do a complex internet search which handily tells them where to go!! It was an abomination!! Insinuating that librarian search skills and library databases can be replaced by a search engine on your mobile?! Honestly. Tom Hanks, I hope you are proud. Offend the nuns if you are brave enough, but librarians?! You are a very very brave man.

Daytime tv

After spending the month of January mainly on the sofa, I can now class myself as a world expert on daytime television. And in a phrase? It sucks. When I was at university we used to spend a lot of our free time in the day watching tv (to avoid writing essays natuarally) and back then it seemed much more interesting. My schedule most days? Well after the first week I dumped the Jeremy Kyle Show for Homes under the Hammer which I do love. Watching people buy houses at auction and then paint them in magnolia holds a strange fascination. Then it's over to This Morning which has been strangely miserable of late, people's dying wishes, post-natal depression, fat people being miserable, thin people being miserable etc etc. Then Loose Women which I HATE but can't switch off. Then the news. Then 60 Minute Makeover which I also hate. Then Daytime Cooks which makes me mad when they say "are you stuck for what to make for tea tonight? Don't worry we've got some great recipes today that you can make later! First - take a live crab ... " Uh huh? I have a whole tankful of crabs in the kitchen just in case I feel like making them for tea. Then it's Countdown just to see what the hell Carol Vorderman is wearing - her dresser must really really hate her that's all I am saying. Then it's Deal or No Deal - yey! The highlight of my day (sad I know) and it does spend too much time nowadays "getting to know" the contestants, who cares?! Not me. They think they are the stars now, when clearly it's still Noel (and Mr Blobby the banker).

And that's my daytime tv fix over. My brain is mush, and I'm off to the kitchen to stun that crab.

Maybe if you don't have any pressing work to do, the lure of daytime tv lessens. There could be a whole PhD in this you know: "This Morning +/- impending deadline = interest level".

Why are there no films on in the afternoon anymore? There isn't even Murder She Wrote. Cable tv has a lot to answer for, even with 600 channels, there still isn't anything on! If Baby Babs doesn't show up soon I'm going to have to find a new hobby, writing to the tv program commissioners might be one!

Animal Idol!

The best bit so far from the new series of American Idol?

"You can't sing, you can't dance, and you look like a monkey"!!

A bushbaby to be exact, poor sod!! He did though.

The biggest difference I can see between the American and English versions of Idol is the confidence of the American kids. They seem to have been brought up by their parents with a hugely misguided belief in their own talents. Now I am all for your parents telling you you are great and to "follow your dreams" but honestly? I would appreciate a little realism check before my parents allowed me to go on national tv in front of millions of people and then get torn to pieces after 16 years or so of thinking I was the best thing EVER!

Miami WHAT?!

Man we made a HUGE mistake last night - we watched the new film version of Miami Vice. Seriously, it is one of the worst films I've ever seen. Not quite on the par of Monster's Ball, but really not far off. After the first 20 minutes I had to ask Mr Barbara if they were talking in code or Vietnamese or something as I hadn't understood a word of it. To save anyone else from the horror of having to watch it - not that I think you discerning types would even consider it but I have a husband who likes films with guns and the possibility of boobs in them - I will summarise the plot for you:

Crockett: "The DCA want the ABC to hunt down the CUD about the HOS"

Tubbs: "The HOS yeah?"

[- both look moody and macho -]

Crockett: "There's a meet and greet at twenty hundred hours at the LDI with the FFI. Gotta go"

Tubbs: [Looks moody and fiddles with a big gun]

[Cut to random sex scene with one of them and girlfriend]

[Intersperse shots of scary Colombian looking men with guns and drugs, shots of driving fast on freeways in fast cars, change to fast boat scene, insert glamorous bad girl who falls for one of the cops - more sex - lots more moody looking shots - big fight scene. All bad guys die. Bad girl goes off into the sunset. Make sure script is peppered with lots of random letters and sentences. If no words, replace with moody look and gun. The end]

Bloody doctors receptionists...

I've only got 2 weeks to go (allegedly) on Sunday before Baby Babs turns up, quite scary. Yesterday I saw the midwife who had to take my blood pressure 5 times (FIVE TIMES!!) before she was happy with it! But then she decided it all seems fine. But then there was a stupid farcical moment as she wanted to see me in 2 weeks - I thought it would be every week by now but oh no - but then she remembered she is on holiday. So she took me to reception and said could I have an appointment with a doctor instead considering the circumstances - queue a huge receptionists' debate - "oh she can't have an appointment in TWO weeks! How about 5?" - to which I was stood there pointing at my HUGE stomach and saying "that might be a little late actually". Then she said "well you'll have to come in at 8am and try and get an appointment on the day" to which I pointed to my stomach again and said "I ain't walking down here twice a day". Then they tried the other antenatal clinic that runs on a Tuesday "ooh that is full actually". Then they finally agreed they could fit me in to that clinic!! I wouldn't mind but it's not like I have a choice in the matter, and if the midwife was on holiday they should have thought about that earlier shouldn't they?! Obviously my blood pressure was just great by then!! Bl**dy doctors.

Who needs a doctor?

In one of the Sunday papers they do a self diagnosis chart for various illnesses. The best one by far was a couple of weeks ago, they managed to go from the mundane to the extremely serious illnesses in a few easy steps! The topic? "Am I a hypochondriac? What are the noises in my head?" The chart went thus:

Do you hear ringing in your ears? Yes? You have tinnitus!!

Do you hear a thudding in your head when you lie down at night? Yes? It's your pulse dimwit!! It's quite natural to hear your pulse beating you know!

Do you hear voices telling you to do bad things? Yes? You are mental! Get sectioned immediately!!

"Celebrity" Big Brother

I only watched it as Miss S told me Justin from the Darkness might be on it! Of course he wasn't, but there was a copycat rocker - Donny Tourette from "the punk band The Towers of London", who up until now had escaped my radar, I thought they were like a modern day Spinal Tap. He was hilarious, he strutted his way up the red carpet swearing at the crowd and flicking the v's at them. Someone in the crowd tried to attack him, he told them all to kiss his f'ing ass, and then showed his ass to the crowd! Rock!! He strutted into the house, still swearing and looking rock, then completely ruined it all by going "Hey! Leo!" - and it turned out he was mates with Leo Sayer!! Rock n' roll credibility out of the window in one easy move. Now I was imagining him as a spotty 15 year old having singing and dancing lessons from Leo Sayer: "come on Donny, a 1 a 2 a 3: you make me feel like dancing...get that leg in the air!"

Hee hee! But when do the REAL celebrities turn up?! You know there's a problem when even the "celebs" don't recognise each other!

That's Life?

I watched the This Life + 10 yesterday and it has depressed the hell out of me. 10 years on and they are still a bunch of self obsessed miserable wankers ('scuse the french, they deserve it). When they were in their 20s and newly let loose in London you could kind of understand it. But to be 10 years older and just the same? The only slightly sympathetic character was Warren, the token gay guy, but they had killed off his partner and made him a bit of a health freak. Ooh it made me so cross. And WHY was Milly still with Egg when he still spouted the same old rubbish, had written a book about his "friends" (poor sods) so had a bit of money but was still a git frankly?

I only hope the new Green Wing episode on tomorrow is a million times better or I'm throwing the tv out of the window.

Drunk dad update

Well it gets worse. The taxi didn't show up, queue a very long walk through very dark country lanes with water filled ditches at either side. Thankfully dad was prevented from toppling head first into one, but about 10 minutes from home he'd had enough and laid on the ground unable to move. Clumping his head on the way down. When he was eventually dragged home he had a great big shiner and a grazed head. 12 hours later he was still lying on the sofa sleeping and making the odd bit of conversation when he woke up. Allegedly he wasn't concussed, but I did advise going to the doctor's today if he was still in that state! I don't think I have EVER been that drunk. Go dad!

Happy New Year!

Well you know you've lost it when your Dad has a better New Years than you! We stayed in - not being able to drink and all takes the fun out of paying £20 to get into the local hostelry. We watched the shittest tv in the world, but did manage to stay up till 3am (whoo hoo!). 2 friends texted before 10 to wish us a happy new year as they were going to bed, and they are both younger than me! Come midnight, I texted my Dad as I wasn't sure if he would still be up either. I got 3 texts back saying the same thing - I assumed he hadn't yet worked out how to work his mobile. This morning I had another 2 texts on my mobile and a text had been sent to our landline - queue a robot voice saying "Happy New Year to you!" - bit freaky. Then I had a message from my stepmum saying Dad was "a bit the worse for wear" and she had had to get my brother out at some godawful hour to help get him home! My brother sober? My Dad pissed? And out on the piss after midnight?

The world has gone off kilter somewhat. I dread to think what else this year will bring!

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 :-)