Christmas was wonderful, presents galore, silly photos a-plenty, christmas hats a-go-go - almost too much stuff to be properly thankful for! But I managed to be thankful enough, don't you worry!

New Year's Eve was spent at a very convivial January BBQ - cold, yes, but also very fun. I reccomend you try it if a) you don't live in the freezing wastes of Canada and b) aren't in charge of the meat and can therefore nip inside as and when one finds it necessary.

As you know I'm all into cocktails, and my favourite for a while has been a Tom Collins:

1 part Sugar Syrup
1 part Lemon Juice
2 parts Gin

Shake over ice, Pour into tall Collins glass filled with ice, top up with

4 parts Soda Water

EXCEPT: it turns out this is only a Tom Collins if made with Old Tom Gin which is sweeter than London Dry   or Plymouth (most commonly available gins), and so what I've actually been making all this time is a Gin Fizz. And how can I make it more Christmassy, because delcious as it is, it is more of a summer drink? Well, simply replace the soda water with Champagne and voila: you have yourself a French 75, or Soisante Quinze.

AND then, I discovered something called a Chelsea Sidecar:

Equal parts: Gin, Triple Sec and Lemon Juice, shaken over ice and served in a sugar-rimmed martini glass.

This one tastes almost identical to the Gin Fizz, just without the Gin; the Triple Sec must act as a replacement for the Sugar Syrup and is frankly decadent and delightful. I reccomend it to all, but make it yourself with freshly squeezed lemon juice, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

And you know what, it tastes all the better for being named after my number one canadian.

i made my first (ever so minor) mistake at work today, which, considering i've been there 6 weeks now is probably some kind of record, but still... i wrote some copy and forgot to get it approved, and after bugging my boss to do so all day he had a look and told me to re-do it all... AFTER i've already sent it to some people and with another colleague desperate to use it tomorrow for something or other. fine you say, just do it tomorrow morning, but i'm not in tomorrow due to a funeral i have to attend (horrible story, a neighbour of mine contracted spontaneous CJD, sCJD for short, look it up on wikipedia to find out just how rare and awful this) and so i've bashed out a version right now and fingers crossed it gets approved and then can be used because otherwise... OOPS.

also. quantum of solace: thoughts? daniel craig didn't wear his swimming trunks so it's automatically down a peg or two from casino royale, and it's NOTHING, nothing i tell you, on goldeneye (the best bond ever. end of discussion) yet still... i didn't hate it, as the reviews had led me to believe i might. i think, on balance, i liked it, but i liked it as a mild stopover to DC's bond 3, which will surely be a return to girls, gadgets and guns? [see music below for the best bond theme ever. also end of discussion]

can you imagine, CAN YOU IMAGINE, if we'd all woken up on wednesday to find Palin as the vice-president-elect? it really doesn't bear thinking about now does it.

started with a little light opera, moved on to table moving and balloon inflating (for which i was rewarded with two free dvds) and then preceded to a meeting, a party to celebrate the BFI's 75th anniversary for the staff (champagne and cake, whoop!) and then my journey home.

not bad for a first day!

i feel, however, that a leetle more might be expected of me in the days to come.

i had the interview training day combined malarky for the catering job today and i SPILLED THE WINE. (or, more accurately, "wine", since it was just water). i spent a year working in catering without ever spilling the wine and this time i spill it.

still, i think i have a better chance of the job than this one girl who made my mind boggle. i was boggling all over the place. she couldn't follow a single instruction. and i don't mean anything complicated, i mean like how to hold a bottle of champagne. or how to open a bottle of wine. she couldn't even get the foil wrapper off the bottle. she would sit there, watch a demonstration and then do the exact opposite fo everything she'd seen whilst simultaneously complaining that her hands were too small. FOR EVERY JOB.

i won't lie, i wanted to smack her.

as a good samaritan i of course did not smack her. even when her incompetence made me look incompentent (we partnered at one stage). of course i then preceded to ruin my own chances with the wine spillage so maybe i should hold back a little.

I JEST. oh man. she really took the biscuit. and incidentally, she only ate chocolate biscuits (or so she claimed).

i've just been mauled by my cat, who is spooked by the nice man making a new back door for our kitchen. MAULED, i tell you.

in good news, i got my internship at the british film institute. in less good news, it's unpaid so i have a sneaky feeling i shall be working all weekends and many mornings/evenings in order to make ends meet. i have an interview on weds for some catering work, and we all know how wonderful and experienced at that i am. and i'm being all sensible and looking into working at bars and coffee shops that are near to the BFI. wish me luck!

so i go to print out 5 copies of my cv, simple pimple, no worries... but wait? what's this? oh, the warwick printroom printer decided to print a black smudge down the side of them all, rendering them useless. so i find a different printer, reprint them, all is fine and dandy EXCEPT i went over my print credits by FOUR WHOLE PENCE.

i go to the it services helpdesk to confirm that they'll just waive 4p and that the whole "you can't graduate if you owe money" thing is just for, you know, actual sums of money, but no, i'm informed that this will indeed prevent me from graduating. (which would mean that after spending £5,000 on fees, £4,000 on accommodation and most recently, £40 to print and bind my dissertation (for which i was even overcharged by the lovely warwick people) they would have gone after me for another 4p) and i know now that they aren't joking, because when i explained why i'd gone over by 4p the ever-helpful staff member said "well i don't really know what i'm supposed to do about that" to which i replied "well, refund my money, surely" and he then said, in a suitably huffy tone "this is stupid, i don't even care. I'LL pay the 4p". and he did.

now, i could easily have paid the 4p (although i had zero moneys on my person at that time) but a) it's the principle of the thing b) why do they have a system whereby you can go over your existing credits anyway, c) why would warwick really care about 4p, d) why do they have a system whereby when they are at fault there's nothing they can do and e) why do they employ such cretins, albeit ones who did get me out of a bind?

all good questions, to which there will be no answers. ever.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!!!!!

my dissertation has been handed in, it is officially out of my hands.


aaaaand, relax!

 today on the shrills, the girls went to the gym and lifted 1 pound weights a couple of times and presumbaly chatted about boys for the rest. i'm very glad to say that i still have yet to hear any of them speak. i did get to see heidi wear a fantastic (read: horrific) wig for no obvious reason. maybe she's bald under all that blonde?

matthew mitcham: diver extradordinaire - if you didn't watch the mens 10m final you missed out something proper, he pulled off THE best dive to edge out the chinese right at the end. smokin', literally.

i had something FASCINATING to say here but i've forgotten what it was. gosh darn it.

OH YES.

estelle - american boy (feat. kanye west)

any o' you heard this track yet? i don't know whetehr it's been released or played on your side of the pond but 5 months old and this tune is still bangin'. and i *just* heard the line "i'm like michael at his baddest, like the pips at their gladdest" which brought a smile of joy to my face whilst on the crosstrainer. so anyway, you all should check it out, you know you want to.

now that the dreaded hogan knows best is off my gym screens, it's my delight to be subjected to hours and hours of the hills, something i'd managed to avoid up to this point. obviously i don't actually watch it, especially since the olympics has been on, but today it was boxing so my eyes naturally sought out other entertainment (but i refrained from the full experience by rocking out to kylie while i crosstrained).

ANYWAY.

the hills, we all know it's scripted and not in any way reality, but that's beside the point. it's the fact they've done such a bad job at hiding it that irks me. take today, two groups of identical girls are in a bar - i assume they are actually different girls but it's impossible to tell. the hair colour changes occasionally but the range of facial expressions do not - having extremely bitchy, handily subtitle conversations about each other. the natural assumption would be that they at different bars, or opposite sides of the same bar at least. until of course the long shot shows that they are sitting TWO FEET from each other, meaning that a) both groups can hear what the other is saying and b) the cameras for the close ups would have to be where the other group are sitting. WHY EVEN BOTHER. for their purposes they could just have been further apart, or not had the close up followed by the long shot. of course, their intended audience is presumably as dumb as the characters so only those with average intelligence or above will notice.

i'll stop ranting now.

had i a) had better coaching, b) more motivation and c) slightly  more natural talent i would have been in beijing at the moment.

i say this because blake aldridge, stacie powell and nick robinson-baker, members of the GB diving team, were all people i dived with way back when, as in we were in the same club and at various points in time i was at least a better diver than the latter two. of course that state of affairs didn't last long and i quit diving age 14 (the age that tom daley made it to beijing which is weird thought #2). but when you think about it, that's where my life could have gone. weird.

we had a screening of batman begins last night in preparation for the forthcoming dark knight (that's right i live in stoopid england now with it's stoopid later release dates) and i went in not having been overly impressed with it at the cinema but hoping for the best. and i was nicely surprised, who knew it was a good film? i still prefer burton's batman, but still, begins rocks.

OR DOES IT?

for one, to whom did christopher nolan owe SO much money that he was forced to cast katie holmes? HOW DID SHE GET CAST? how? HOW? it just beggars belief. unless nolan was actively searching for a bland brunette capable of moving only half her face to just really make sure the movie wasn't a complete success, the only other option is that he was forced by a falconi-esque figure. i mean really, she just kills that film. i'm awaiting the news that they've decided to just be done with it and reshoot al her scenes with maggie gyllenhaal, i would even accept just a cut and paste of maggie's head, IT COULD NOT BE WORSE.

also, christian bale is fine as bruce wayne, but as batman? just adding trailer man voice is not acting, it's annoying. so stop it.


IN OTHER NEWS: i just completed the first draft of my dissertation. 20,000 words DOWN. fingers crossed that my supervisor likes it! 

that's right, after all these months of doom and gloom, hogan knows best is FINALLY off my gym screens. it turns out it was on such heavy rotation in order to promote brooke knows best, which actually looks a whole lot better now that the plots won't be "hogan disapproves of another of brooke's boyfriends" but will instead be "brooke's new oh so hilarious gay friend runs around screaming for no obvious reason. ALL EPISODE." fortunately that counts as primetime for mtv, so instead i get run's house, or whatever it's called. run dmc is waaaaaaaay more interesting, and his show waaaaaaaaay less offensive. and i got to laugh at his daughter who graduated today, from something called "fashion and beauty high school", which i'm sorry, is not a real school, surely? SURELY?

 

after a better than average but still largely boring williams-williams ladies final, all i wanted for christmas was a federer-nadal five-set thriller, and BOY did they deliver. although i should add that both williams' played very good tennis, they were just scuppered by being sisters, making it hard to choose between them and no real sense of competition.

so, nadal took the first two sets, and after i threatened federer that he would be DEAD TO ME if he lost another grand slam final in three sets he rallied after a rain delay in the third and took sets three and four. and it was about half way through the fourth that i got off the fence and claimed nadal as my desired victor. the fifth set, well, BOY was there good tennis throughout but the fifth was where it was at. tension mctension mctension, but it all went the way it should. i kinda felt bad for federer cos he played well, but nadal played better. AND i kinda like that 5 in a row is still the an unbeatable wimbledon record, AND this is by no means the last time federer will be in contention for the title. so all was good.

watch for the slow-mo tennis fight facebook photos. my inspiration was kung-fu panda.

well toscana was faaaaaaaaaabulous. i did nothing for 10 days. nothing. so nothing, that despite only being a 45 minute drive away, we didn't even go to pisa. although that was more because we were reliant on other people's cars (my mum won't drive abroad) and everyone else had already been. the weather wasn't fab but by wednesday BOY did it perk up. i cried a little at the news of thunderstorms in toronto next week but i'll get over it I'M SURE.

in other news, my cat STILL can't use his new catflap, which i think might have set a record for feline stupidity.

i'll see you in toronto tomorrow... :o)


ESSITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

my last post before toscana (and given my insane turnaround time, before toronto as well), where i shall spend a delicious 10 days sans internet. and if the weather forecast is accurate, in suspiciously british weather. still, i shall be among friends and family and vino mucho so i shan't complain.

i will however complain about having to try SIX opticians just to buy a suitable sized sunglasses case and the fact that nowhere obvious sells inflatable rubber rings. BUT muji came up trumps with an anywhere to anywhere travel adaptor that includes a usb port. handy mcdandy and making my day. the red cross chuggers outside the tube station kind of ruined it though, since none of them believed me when i said i already donated. which is true, i do, but i guess they get that line all the time. red cross should give me a card i can flash as proof of donation. possibly with razor tipped edges if any of them get too close.

enjoy your two weeks holiday! oh wait, that's me...

THREE 3-POINTERS in last nights basketball game. i'm basically a professional baller now. YOU KNOW YOU'RE JEALOUS. 

 well hogan knows best appears to be over... YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS but apparently the ideal replacement is some show about idiotic teenage girls vying to be avril lavigne. america's next top avril lavigne wannabe? which, considering avril's status as a wannabe herself is quite a feat. fortunately i discovered a new cardio machine that doesn't have a port thingy to the tv so i was forced to listen to my ipod. and as for the machine, it's fab. no idea what it's called but it's a cross trainer where you set the stride, kinda feels like you're doing really really long running strides on the moon. obviously.

ukraine woz robbed!!

i had my first decent eurovision experience last night, at the black cap in camden, hosted by two amusing drag queens and with plenty of champagne and glosticks. except... UKRAINE WOZ ROBBED. that shady lady was awesome mcawesome, whereas russia's song was booooooooooooooring. second place should have been armenia, which if i'm honest, was (i think) the same song as ukraine... still, i WILL get over this. honest.

best drag name i've seen for a while: the disappointer sisters.

and the bank saga: it doth continue. after having removed the hold (as described) last post i tried to make the transaction that had been flagged and lo, it's blocked again. turns out the idiot on the phone had cleared the hold but not removed the flag. or something. so it took three phonecalls and two days to solve a very simple problem. bank, you should be proud of yourself.

yesterday's basketball game = amazing. not only did i score twice but one of them was a three pointer, which NEVER happens. AND it tipped my team over to a win for that round by one point, as evidenced by an opposition player saying "i can't believe we lost by only one point". which was strange when after the second round which his team convincingly won he denied all knowledge of this and claimed his team had won by two. i'd be bitter but my team won the season so i let him have his hollow (and false) victory.

also, i got a message from a bank to ring them urgently about my credit card. i do and it turns out there's a hold on it and i just have to confirm i'm the one who's spent what i've spent. fair enough i hear you say, except i knew there was an issue because it was blocked the day before, and so i rang my bank and they said there was no problem with my card, it was their payment system. banks are stupid. but then i guess you all were already painfully aware of that.

and that's a wrap.