!! Peril !!

One of the highlights from the Isle of Wight that I clean forgot was the entertaining road signs. "Entertaining road signs?" I hear you cry. Why yes! They were bloody brilliant. As the island is mainly made up of windy country roads with lots of woods and fields on either side we (well me really, Mr Babs didn't quite see it the way I did) were treated to road signs saying:

! Badgers !

! Red Squirrels !

! Elderly people !

I totally read these as meaning we could be in peril from ravenous badgers leaping onto the bonnet of the car and ripping the windscreen wipers off, or red squirrels dropping onto the roof and tearing off the aerial. I dread to think what the elderly people would have done. Poor Mr Babs regularly heard me chortling away in the back seat with Baby Babs, going "Badgers! Squirrels!" but sadly we never saw any animal life, never mind rabid ones.

Holiday!

We've just got back from a week on the Isle of Wight, which wasn't exactly Las Vegas but perfect for Baby Babs' first holiday. It was a lovely week, we did lots and as you do on holidays bought lots of tat to bring home - fridge magnets, novelty souvenirs etc. I hadn't been to the island before and it was an eye-opener. My main memories?

1) Sunday drivers. As the island has no motorways and only one or two "main" roads, driving around isn't quite the London experience. They are great roads for rally drivers, all bends and hills, but more often than not you get stuck behind someone tootling along with no idea of the other traffic on the roads. My favourite one was an old chap who was clearly showing some friends the sights as they went along. Sadly this involved braking randomly to slow down enough to give a guided commentary on something we were passing. But not slow enough so we could overtake him. This carried on for a good half hour with Mr Babs getting more and more irate (he's a London driver through and through, I was surprised he didn't try and force him off the road) until we got to a big enough town for us to pass him. Mr Tour Guide was merrily pointing at the harbour and looked quite upset when the 20 cars that he had held up for so long sped past him giving him their not so polite opinions on his tour of the Isle of Wight.

2) Shops. Again, as someone used to London and 24 hour shopping facilities, we were quite thrown by the lack of shops. On our first day we managed to find a small supermarket so we could stock up on the essentials (beer, wine, crisps - I brought my own tea bags naturally). But it was 3 times more expensive than probably anywhere else in the world (Britain is an island too - what's with the import tax?!) and everyone in the shop knew each other and knew we were strangers. It was a bit like the League of Gentlemen - "you're not from round these 'ere parts are you?". The main town, Newport, was about the only place on the island where you could find what you wanted. Not that that is a bad thing, who needs Starbucks and Tesco Express?!

3) Local hostelries. We went out for dinner at the local pub and afterwards had a drink in the bar. I was looking after Baby Babs who was causing chaos and his dad had gone to feed his gambling addiction on the slot machines (you could hear his brain thinking "pretend it's Vegas, pretend it's Vegas") and of course I attracted the local nutters. It's quite heartening to know I haven't lost my attraction to weirdos despite being an old married (but obviously so young looking that they wouldn't think that). One was a fisherman, I gathered that, the other could have been a fisherman. Or he could have been just out of prison. Who could tell? They used Baby Babs as an excuse to keep chatting and smirking while I sent desperate looks at the slot machines to no avail. I almost asked if they didn't have to be in bed as they'd have to be up for the fishing soon. But we escaped unharmed. And everytime we drove past they were there, smoking outside, as they're not allowed to do it inside anymore. So we couldn't go to that pub again. Typical.

4) Oh so friendly shop assistants. At the main tourist attractions, the staffing policy seemed to be "employ students". And that was that. They were all to a man extremely sullen, bored looking, and completely apathetic. I know they've spent a whole summer doing the same thing for hundreds of tourists, but really. They could have at least pretended to look enthusiastic! At the Needles, the sullen staff were managed by a student barely older than they were, but who had attempted to grow a moustache to demonstrate his seniority. He was very amusing. He looked like a Chuckle Brother and his misguided attempts to enforce jollity to his staff were the stuff of stand up gold.

5) The Zoo. Main memory? Don't go to the zoo when it's raining. The animals will be indoors.

Birthday girls

A bit late I know, but I thought I should report back about the night out. It was brilliant, I haven't laughed so much for ages. I was so excited I thought I might be sick, and on the train there I was SUPER SUPER excited. Lady L was there first, then Miss S not long after me. Amusingly, after we'd all agreed to wear heels, Lady L didn't bother as she really wasn't very well, and me & Miss S put ours on just outside the pub. Classy! We drank 3 pitchers of cocktails which were lovely and I even attracted a freak called Brian so I knew I hadn't lost it. And Baby Babs went straight to sleep for his dad so my plan is to have lots more girls' nights out. Oh yeah!!

Old or young?!

It's coming up to me and Miss S's birthdays again and we're going out on Saturday night with Lady L. I haven't been out in so long I am nearly wetting myself with excitement. But nearing the mid 30s brings weird feelings. My immediate thought when deciding where to meet was a) would there be somewhere to sit and talk and b) would we have to wait ages to be served at the bar. That signals the onset of old age. But then I also wanted a) lots of cocktails and b) somewhere I could stagger home from in my heels which really means I am still in the prime of my youth. This was reinforced last week when I was ID'd in the supermarket. ID?! I said to the lady "I am 32" and thankfully she believed me. The days of carrying around picture ID with my birthday on it are long behind me. But I was buying wine at 10am so she might have thought I was an irresponsible yoof who was off to the park to drink and smoke pot. Then later that day a woman doing a phone survey asked my age and I said the 30-34 bracket, and she said "that can't be right, you sound far too young". Bless!! Asked for ID at 32 years of age, it made my week! Now should we go dancing after the pub? Hell yeah!

Waiting waiting waiting...

Today I am waiting in for our tv to be returned for the second time. The first time they returned it, after an hour it went funny again. They've had it for well over a month now - how hard can it be to fix a tv?! They didn't offer us a temporary set or anything so it is a good job we had a spare one, or I would have gone crazy by now stuck at home all day. Or we'd have been bankrupt as I would have had to go shopping every day instead. I'm not looking forward to it, as the old man who is bringing it back is very patronising to me - like I wouldn't know anything about electrical equipment. When I asked last time what was wrong with it, he took a big breath, and told me that it was surprising as in the summer (summer?! what's that then?) most people are out and about and not watching their televisions ALL THE TIME. Git!! I don't, it's mostly background noise to keep me company. And what business is it of his? And how is that related to what is wrong with the tv?! What, they don't like to work in the summer and it got the hump? Please.

Song "lyrics"

On a recent long motorway trip, my ears were beaten black and blue by the most godawful song lyrics I have heard in a long time. Fergie (this one not that one) has a new song out "Big girls don't cry" or some such rubbish. It is about dumping some bloke and is all "it's not you it's me", "I need some time to find me" crap (sorry it makes me mad) - and the offending line? "I'm gonna miss you like a child misses its blanket". What?! And there are too many words for the line so she gabbles it and everytime I hear it I want to stick something in my ears so I can't hear it anymore. She might as well have said "I'm going to replace you with chocolate and red wine as you are purely a comfort thing" and had done with it. Or possibly stop writing rubbish songs.

Random conversations

On the way home from town today, I passed an elderly man with one of those bags on wheels struggling down the underpass. He waved at Baby Babs saying "hello little one!" and was very friendly. As I passed him he said "bye bye, you're much faster than me, I've only got one and a half legs" - I paused at this and looked back, looking for evidence of a wooden leg or something. "It's ok!" he chirped up, "the other half is cancer!". What do you say to that?! He was so jolly about it that I got away with looking suitably horrified, saying "bye then" and waved as I hurried off...

A plea from housewives all over the UK...

...to the producers of Countdown. Whoever is responsible for the fashion travestys that Carol Vorderman wears every single day - please stop it. The "dresser" must really really hate poor Carol, and since she lost all that weight, it seems to be a mission to still make her look really terrible. Every day I wince at her latest creation, and I can't find any way to contact the show directly to plea with them so I am starting a petition now. Vote for sensible middle-aged clothes for Carol Vorderman. No more white shirts, beige skirts, thick black tights, roman togas, pinafores, cowboy boots. Make her wear a uniform or something for pitys sake.

The wrong end of the stick...

...last night Miss S texted me, but I didn't see the message till I was woken up at 2am by Baby Babs. In my defence, he has been teething (now the proud owner of 2 bottom teeth) and we haven't had much sleep for about a week. And Miss S's message was rather cryptic. But in my lack of sleep addled state I read it as "we have broken up" and replied (also at 2am) with my condolences. But to my horror, she actually meant "we are getting married". Which is brilliant! But imagine it, you are really excited having just got engaged and text your friends - and they reply assuming you have split up. Miss S, I am SO sorry, I am so pleased you are finally joining the old marrieds, and when are you having a baby so Baby Babs has a friend to play with?!

Life in Essex

A snapshot of life in Essex in a single day...

(1) Yesterday Mr Tv Repair Man came over to look at Mr B's tv. He frowned and tutted and said "ooh I'll have to take it back to the workshop". Him and his loyal assistant started loading it into their unmarked white van and then it struck me. The neighbours will all think the Repo men have been round! The shame!! Mr B thinks he has been hustled and will never see his tv again...

(2) Our neighbours have just had a baby boy - yet another boy for the street. There's only one girl, poor thing. We saw the husband to talk to yesterday, he was very proud, the baby popped out in 2 and a half hours which was very decent of it really. Now I've got the hump as I'm not the newest mum on the street and the neighbours stop me to ask about them not me. Pah.

(3) We were woken up at midnight by the sound of the police breaking down the door of the flat at the corner of our road. Again. It's working out about once a month. I wish they'd either put him in jail or just go round in the daytime. Trying to imagine what he could possibly be up to is quite entertaining though. He annoys the hell out of us as he gets a cab every morning before 7 and it always beeps it's horn and wakes us up, but that really isn't a reason to get the heavy mob involved I suppose...

(4) Baby Babs did a poo so bad I had to cut his clothes off him. Nice. I did get to feel a bit like a surgeon in the ER though which was weird.

TV

Oh yes I forgot to mention, it seems my rage at adverts made our tv blow up. Oops. It is Mr B's pride and joy (flat screen, 42" - this is like porn to him!) and now it hangs on the wall looking blankly but accusingly at me. It's weird how your eyes are still drawn to it, even Baby Babs lies on the floor staring at it. Me and BB were watching the Glastonbury highlights at the time (trying to educate him young) which Mr B takes as a big factor in the tv's demise...we had watched the Who which can't be that bad, I'd fast-forwarded Corinne Bailey-Rae, and The View had just come on so make your own judgments...

It's July so here come the terrorists...

...here we go again. They started a bit earlier this year. It is really scary, weirdly even more so now I don't go into London everyday anymore. It makes me more paranoid about my friends and family who do. But the news is typically sensationalist, giving airtime to random "eye witnesses" to rant freely. One hysterical interview I saw (I know, it shouldn't have been funny) was after the first car was found in Haymarket. The news had this extremely camp man practically jumping up and down with rage exclaiming "they tried to blow up Tiger Tiger!!! How could they?! It would be a travesty!!". Now to me, having to actually go to Tiger Tiger would be a terrible terrible experience. But this bloke was talking about it like it was The Best Nightclub In The World (tm) when it clearly isn't. If it hadn't been proved to be scary terrorists I could happily have believed it was a disgruntled partygoer who would rather drive a car into it than pay to go in.

Adverts

One thing that drives me mad now I have more time to watch the tv (albeit while wrestling a small wriggling thing, doing housework, trying to eat etc...) is the adverts. When I am Prime Minister (or Ruler of the Universe) I am going to make it the law that ad makers are strapped to a chair and made to watch their oh so clever creations at least 50 times straight. If they still have their sanity then the ad can be released. My pet hate at the moment is the AA advert, where lots of AA men sing "You've got AA (sic) friend" - it's really pissing me off. But this is probably because the AA wanted to charge me just shy of one thousand pounds for a year's insurance/breakdown cover!! How much?! I would want a hundred AA men to turn up everytime I broke down for that money and I'd probably keep taking the spark plugs out just to call them out and get my moneys worth. Damn them. Oh and don't get me started on the stupid washing powder ad where a stupid woman decides to go out to dinner in her stupid bloke's white shirt, as you do.

Baby blindness

Tip of the week: take small smiley baby shopping with you. Checkout girl will be so busy cooing and talking to the baby that she will completely forget to scan everything in your basket and you'll save a few quid. This did happen by mistake, I didn't plan it in a cunning heist manoeuvre, and I didn't realise till I got home and checked the receipt or I probably would have said something. I felt a bit guilty but it was the cheapest items she missed so I don't feel too bad! I'm off to Harrods next...

Men and chainsaws

Mr Babs and our brother-in-law attacked my garden at the weekend with a chainsaw. True, the trees were in need of severe pruning. But somewhere along the line, they confused "please prune the trees back a bit" to "try and mutilate them beyond all recognition". Or they just got overexcited to be let loose with electric power tools. Thankfully no limbs were severed in the process...

Noise police update

The day after I sent the email to the noise police, one turned up at my front door! Turns out the scout hut was running illegal raves (this is in my head, they claimed they had just had a "one off" party for someone who was leaving when asked which was quite clearly a lie) and this weekend was as peaceful as the grave. I was super impressed by their efficiency, and the man was really nice and said he hadn't told the scouts who it was that had complained. Mr Babs had visions of hoardes of angry scouts beating our door down...

Only problem now is in a few years Baby Babs will join the scouts and come home one day saying that they used to hold discos that were really good until someone complained...

Just stop watching films!

My run of bad luck with terrible films continues. I'm just not going to bother anymore. Last night we watched "The Quiet" - a new "gothic drama" advertised on the film channels - and we paid for the privilege. It was truly truly terrible!! The plot in a nutshell - family adopt deaf/mute girl. Dad is abusing his daughter, deaf/mute girl finds out, mum already knows but dopes herself up on prozac or something to block it out. Eventually deaf/mute girl kills dad when he's attacking his daughter. Mum takes rap, goes to prison. Deaf/mute girl isn't deaf or mute at all. Starts talking. The end.

Why oh why do films like this get funding?! It had that blonde girl who plays Kiefer Sutherland's daughter in 24 in it so we assumed it might be vaguely credible. Pft. I take back everything I said about Miami Vice. I swear the premise we read before deciding to watch it - and indeed the trailer - was about a different film.

Keep the noise down!

Pft, I must be getting old if I'm complaining about the noise to the council! Or not. We have a scout hut at the bottom of our garden, hadn't really noticed it before. Until recently that is - they have started having raves on a Saturday night. Our garden is 100ft long and it still sounds like they're partying in my kitchen. Even without Baby Babs to think about, it's really really loud and louder than the bars in town that pump out that techno crap the kids all love thesedays :-) Anyway, it's peeing me off, especially now I have a littl'un to try and get to sleep, so I have emailed the noise police to investigate for me. It wouldn't surprise me if they know about it already, there's a whole row of houses right next to the hut, they must have bleeding ears. Or it's them partying. But I wish they'd all sod off, if I was inclined to sit out in my garden of an evening with a glass of wine, I'd have to wear industrial ear protectors at the same time. Bloody ravers.

The worst two hours of my life this year...

...were spent watching "The Holiday". Baby Babs was asleep finally so we indulged ourselves in a film. Light romantic comedy with big names Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Jack Black, that should be ok shouldn't it?! No. It was bloody awful. One of my Worst Films Ever. They were all so smug. SO smug it nearly made our eyes bleed. Cameron and Kate have bad love lives and swap houses for 2 weeks - one in LA, one in a picture perfect cottage in Surrey. Within these 2 weeks, they manage to get over their exes, meet the men of their dreams and sort out their inner angsts. My god. It could have been so much better. Even Jack Black couldn't save it. Jude Law is a widower with 2 kids who all just "fall in love" with quirky Cam, and she gives up a high powered movie job in LA to move in with him and become their new mum. Kate charms everyone in LA with her 'refreshing Britness' and falls for Jack Black who likes to sing the themes to movies while walking round Blockbusters. Honestly. I could still be sick thinking about it. Miami Vice was a film classic compared to this one. Do the movie makers think as long as they have enough big names in a film that the script doesn't really matter?! Honestly. I want that time back! Thankyou.

Where is my mind?

Pregnancy and motherhood take quite a toll on a normal person you know. Symptoms I have become aware of include:

1) Someone tells you to do something. You agree to do it. Then it goes out of your mind completely. Hubbie is regularly driven mad by this, especially as before baby (herein "BB") I never forgot anything and never had to be reminded to do anything. But I think he should take the trouble to remind me again after reminding me, or even do it himself! What an idea?!

2) You fall out of the loop of everything you held dear BB. Take Chris Cornell. He is my rock idol and if I wasn't married and he hadn't turned into a bit of a strange man recently then I would have run off with him no questions. I knew that he had quit Audioslave. But I didn't realise he had a new single out until I read it in Heat! Heat!! The shame!! His new album is out on Monday and I only pre-ordered it yesterday!

3) I asked Lady Librarian (who thankfully still has her finger on the pulse) if she had heard that "good new cover" of the Smiths by Mark Ronson? Apparently it's been out for months and everyone is fed up of it now. Oh righty. Same goes for the "new" Manics single. Sigh.

4) I haven't read a book that didn't start with "there once was a ..." for months and months. I have a stockpile of books I want to read but can't find the time. When littl'un is asleep I either do housework or check my emails. I need to make a rota to fit everything in. Who has time for a job these days? :-)

5) You become oblivious to sick stains on your clothes and are quite happy to leave the house as long as you are fully clothed, never mind what combination of clothes you have put together in the 2 minutes you have to get dressed before littl'un rolls off the bed and a trip to A&E ensues.

6) You are quite happy to discuss highly personal details (birth/breastfeeding/baby poo) with anyone who seems interested. And bore people are clearly aren't.

7) You have the attention span of a small gnat and can cope with 1/2 hour tv programs if they cover property/decoration/animals/tattoo artists/holidays but films and complex tv shows are completely out.

8) You learn to eat most meals in about 5 minutes flat as your previously happy and smiley baby turns into the antichrist should you have the temerity (ooh long word get me!) to try and eat a meal and not pay them your full attention for a short while.

But hey it's not all bad! It's actually quite fun, it's just adjusting to the brain decay that is bothering me! Maybe I should start doing some brain exercises...2x2 is 4, 4x4 is 16...

Animal mortuary?

Whilst feeding the little'un in the mornings, I have been watching Animal Park on the BBC at 9am. Remember the AM bit, it'll be important later. It's a documentary about Longleat Safari Park, "ooh", I thought, "lots of nice footage of monkeys and lions and it's much better than Jeremy Kyle on the other side". So far this week I have been traumatised and am thinking of writing an "appalled of Essex" letter to the Beeb. The first day I watched it a baby giraffe died. Instead of glossing over the fact, they chose to show the giraffe corpse led on some concrete obviously waiting for the incinerator. The next day a white tiger had to be put to sleep as it had cancer. Queue a shot of the corpse and a slow-motion montage of her finer moments. Then two male handlers were nearly reduced to tears reminiscing about the poor old tiger. Yesterday a pregnant giraffe had to have an emergency caesarean but the baby had died. The voiceover declared gleefully "it had been dead for so long that it had started decomposing in the womb". They then showed the poor mum wandering round looking really sad. I couldn't watch it today. I'm all for seeing nature as it really is, but honestly, whoever edits this show is a sadist. And I'm surprised there are any animals left to show us. Jeremy Kyle seems full of happy normal people in comparison and that's saying something...

Strictly playtime?!

I was strong-armed into attending a 6 year old’s birthday party at the weekend - it was only for 2 hours, I thought, how bad could it be? How wrong I was! It was horrendous. Firstly, a room of screaming 6 year olds would have put me off breeding if it wasn’t too late already. Then the games. They were led by a very efficient mother and her cohorts who had planned the festivities down to the last balloon. The poor kids were herded into lines, circles, groups etc by a whistle - and anyone who decided they would much rather just run around or dance than follow the strict “fun” guidelines got a sharp blast of the whistle and told off! Poor things. It reminded me of the Spongebob episode when he has a party and has planned the activities down to the last second and gets upset when people veer off his schedule!

And what is it with the new idea that nobody can lose at anything? All the games, pass the parcel, musical chairs etc, were played with the kids who lost being given a prize. This is probably so they didn’t feel bad, and all the kids then got the same prize, but it meant that all the kids wanted to lose and then kept sneaking back in again, so the games never finished. The mother running it all never really caught on to this and looked perplexed when the game had run on for about 15 minutes and the kids were looking very bored and there were just as many as at the beginning. What is wrong with a little healthy competition? When I was little, I thrived on trying to win things, it made me try harder. If I was going to get the same prize anyway, why would I bother? Now admittedly I was one of the brighter ones of my class and so rarely came last (apart from in sports but enough of that!) but that didn’t stop me trying. How come kids nowadays can never fail or lose at anything without people worrying it will affect them adversely? I think it is more the other way round, we’re breeding a generation of spoilt brats who have never had to face being last or losing at anything, and who are given everything they want in case they phone the social, so when they get to the real world they are in for quite a shock. My poor boy is getting a reality check the minute he can talk!

Coincidences

Ooh what a coincidence, after long periods of non-blogging, Lady Librarian and I decide to update within days of each other. She has been much more exciting since we last wrote but here's a few things I've done since my last post:

1. I had a little wee boy who has been calling the shots ever since he turned up. This is the first time I've managed to do more than send a couple of emails.

2. I've entertained (well they did the entertaining really) Lady L and Miss S a few times. Baby Babs has cried a lot at them, but he did look very fetching in the cardigan Miss S made for him.

3. That's it really.

But the main reason I am back is the Eurovision! Whoo! Is it really almost a year since Lordi triumphed? Last Saturday we had to decide who would represent the UK - I had high hopes as Justin Hawkins had entered. Sadly Morrissey changed his mind and backed out of it. Anyway, I hadn't heard JH's entry until the night and my god, it was bloody awful. Terrible. I was ashamed. Even Baby Babs had the good sense to cry throughout his "performance". But thankfully the Great British Public knew what they were doing and Scooch won. Baby Babs smiled and cooed throughout their performance, he knows his stuff that boy. I was cynical at first thinking they were rubbish, but actually they were great and me and Lady L will be making airline costumes and paddle scoreboards for our party. I swear I haven't been so excited for months when Lordi made a guest appearance at the end, I was hyperventilating and Mr Babs asked if I was still on gas and air. Roll on Eurovision!!

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 :-)

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!!!