Pop Quiz of the Damned

Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: Moira Jane's Cafe

Had bizarre zombie-infested nightmares, and woke up to find a cat staring at me.
The zombies were after me because I didn't know enough French, German or Physics, and right before they munched my face, they were going to take all my qualifications away. Thanks christ Vic knew some Physics, or I'd never have survived the test.
I haven't studied French, Physics or German since I was sixteen. But I've had nightmares where everything goes wrong and I lose my degree because I haven't studied them hard enough before. Perhaps at some deep level of my id, I retain some basic, chthonic knowledge that I haven't done any French, German or Physics homework for sixteen years. This, surely, could not go unpunished.

Another question solved: who hugs you awake from a nightmare? The droolingcat does. Awww.

Divorce Me 1

Mood:  vegas lucky
Now Playing: Definition of Sound

So we discussed who gets the cats. And it's me! Just like that. Really surprised me. Last year, the ex-DH spent sixteen hundred pounds on dialysis for sickgrumpycat (even my cats have pseudonyms), when I wanted her put down.
And, that, ladeezangennulmen, is how I qualified as primary cat-carer. Spose while junking one prior attachment, you can junk em all.

avoidance tactics

Mood:  rushed
Now Playing: giggling neighbours. Cripes, no music listed on here for a full week!

Crikey. All I did was post a link to a babelfishtwisted French version of the front page. Out of boredom. Bastards. You stuffed up my pretty pictures now. 260 page views. Remind me never to mark something 'Private' again.

I fully intended to go to my |genericjob| today, it would get me out of the house and give me something to conversationalise with my New Best Friends at the opera tomorrow, it would liven up my sad boring life (illustration: I spent last night piddling my pants laughing at all of Eurotrash's archived posts), and the exhaustion that |genericjob| usually induces would mean I got enough sleep tonight. (see, if I'm going out with crowds of lesbians on Saturday, the chances of me staying up till 5am Friday night, drinking myself stupid and then looking like Peggy Mitchell on a bad day are increased tenfold. My avoidance tactics are so predictable they've actually become repetitious.)
Plus, |genericwankercolleagues| might actually have been grateful.
I had at least attempted to prove my independence and sanity by walking to the corner shop for some tuna, last night (first time out of the house since Sunday), and felt distinctly unwell. It didn't help that it's Freshers week at QMW, so everybody else in the shop has New Funky Jeans, New Funky Trainers, New Funky Backpack, and makes desperately friendly eye contact for just that little bit too long. Always peps you up to wander, snot-nosed and stringy-haired into an impromptu episode of Dawsons Creek. I tried not to linger by the Pot Noodle, for fear of being sucked into an undergraduate puppy-eyed vortex. Bad enough the first time round.
So I did intend to go and work. The intention was about all that was left. I admit now that it was a bad idea to get pissed in the bath at midnight, not do any of the reading I need, piss about laughing at udate on MSN till about 2am, or to sit up playing with cats who kept fighting over bed-hogging cat-puddle formations till 3am.
The alarm went off at 4.30, ready for me to spring into the required reading. Predictable response.
Woke up again at 8am, which is the time I'm supposed to be pulling the car into the gates at |genericjob| and hastily rang in, to do the crappy 'weak as a flea' voice, not really assisted by my bloody phone zoning in and out of its near-death trance-like state. Causing me to yell in time honoured lusty fashion "can you hear me now?"
Oh well. They thanked me. I got guilts for a full ten seconds till I realised now I need a doctor's cert.

Sleepwatch: 6 hours

Maintenant je suis un lapin malheureux

Mood:  suave
Now Playing: Not Radiohead, for sure

Private Blog for Pandy Pears.

Yidaho fried her kitten. I call that mean-spirited. Ickle puddy.

I weigh: 68.5kg.
An entire tub of Ben and Jerry's and all the fried food / custard / biscuits I can fit down the hatch = only 0.1 kg of pud. I think I inadvertently Atkinised it. Gah.

Quelle horreur! Pacman fait le sexe avec sa soeur!

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Political Jargon Bingo

Now Playing: freeview channel 45

I sublimate my desires by watching the Labour Party Conference (freeview channel 45! wa-heyyyy), and playing political jargon bingo. I couldn't in all honesty recommend it, but the nightmares that follow are exciting.

Card 1:
basic legal right
democratic society
justice in an unjust world
the 21st century
shoulder to shoulder

Card 2:
full defence counsel
benchmark
settle for nothing less
innocent people
as it is, not as it was seen

Card 3:
tyrannical
freedom of choice
18 years of Tory rule
succeeded for years
sexing up

Card 4:
the Euro does not need sexing up for me
no matter what you think of Margaret Thatcher
aims of equality and opportunity
we must be realistic
not just in the UK, not just in Europe

Card 5:
er, er, er
could everyone sit down for the moment
conference I invite you to consider
i fear disastrous consequences for the whole world
sisters!

Card 6:
lift three hundred million people out of poverty
it was great ....... to hear ....... that
this is crucial
getting ready and getting organised
the US would not concede

Card 7:
outward looking internationalism
UK must bear some of the blame
the courage to choose
reformed more deeply
this is a crunch time

Favourite part so far: The super-swish stylised bigscreen video speech (ie, no big hitters could be bothered to be present in person) to memorialise Michael Foot.
Camera 2 cuts to the ever less than photogenic Foot, and the old duffer isn't watching, he's intently scratching his arse.
That's what I call spin.

Mission Statement

Mood:  quizzical
Now Playing: Late night radio phone-in

I like smelly food;
I always want a kebab after a night on the piss;
When someone tells me a problem, I try to think of a solution instead of just sympathising;
I'm pushy, and I think what I think is the right thing to think (actually, that's just as female as male, innit?);
I find irrelevant debates good fun;
I assume housewives need to escape from their lives;
Find it quite awkward to talk about girly emotional stuff;
I shudder at the pity-me culture that allows people to do what the hell they like (one person I know shagged around her fiance, married him anyway, wouldn't take her meds, spent 20 hours a day online, became totally messed in the head, lived a totally self-centred self-obsessed life whilst ignoring husband, then shagged around some more. When he finally wised up and dumped her, it was all testament to how Truly Brave A Poppet She Is. Made me want to puke.)
(Yep, there'll be no more Pity Me posts on this, Your Daily Charlatan's Blog. Thank fuck for that.)
I really don't care what other people think (PMT apart, though);
No matter how voyeuristic anyone reading this feels, I'm never going to blog the stuff that's really important;
I pick the scabs on my scalp;
There's fifty-seven varieties of ageing curry sauce in my fridge. And an onion;
I love driving, and when you're in my car, then everyone behind is a wanker, and everyone in front is a fool;
I judge people on how they look. Always;
Doing the washing seems unnecessary until the basket is more than full:
Actually, when I lived in Balham, I used to chuck my dirty washing in the spare room and buy more clothes rather than go to the launderette down the street. Eventually, even when I threw the clothes out, the room smelt too much to let out to any lodger with a human physiognomy, and I moved out, leaving the rest of the dirty laundry where it was;
I make the first move (well, unless I really really fancy someone, then I'll be all girly and terrified);
I don't want kids or a marriage or a house with a garden - a brilliant record collection is far superior;
Speaking of which, my record collection is sorted by musical style and era. I look forward to the day when I'm so bored I sort by musical influence;
I own three hi-fis, four walkmans, three TV sets, two videos, one dvd player and three computers. This does not seem an unduly large amount;
I can't be fucked opening letters if they don't look interesting;
I luuuurve a good action movie;
Phone conversations should be short, and communicate information;
I worry what beer is acceptable to drink in the pub;
If I try keeping plants, they die;
Skirts are for girls;
Going out for a few jars means I won't be back till 5am tomorrow;
I can be very very very scary if I want to be. I tend not to want to be, but knowing that makes you more confident than most girls;
I eat my steak blue.

This was originally going to be called 'Things About Me That Seem Blokeish'**, till lemonpillows messaged me on MSN and said it sounded more like a mission statement.

**That probably just reveals how little lesbians actually know about blokes....

Food cures all evil

Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: slurping, gobbling, ice-creamy sounds

Gawd bless my yesterday-self. My whining, self-pitying, gratuitous self. Because in the gaps between attention seeking, and melancholy, I spent four - yes, four! - hours logging onto Tesco online and ordering groceries.
This means I had to crawl out of my stinking pit by lunchtime, to accept the delivery. Even better, I had to actually shower - a great service to humanity and the other beings who have to inhabit my airspace (mostly feline, but you never know).

Brushing my teeth and commiserating on the hard life I lead, I noticed that my lips are chafed. Strange. Was I attacking my own lips in the night, in a furious search for solace? Or did the bloody cat have at me with her claws when I missed the alarm again?

Aaaaaaaaanyway, as lemonpillows says, by this morning I had no memory whatsoever of what I'd ordered, just that it had taken four long, infuriating hours to do it, and that it had cost a bomb. Oh, and that I'd been drunkenly upbraided by ex-DH for not ordering her favourite brand of toothpaste (Bad Mexican Maid: but stuff it, when she pays for any of the food she eats, she can claim priority in toothpaste branding). Cue about eighty bulging carrier bags and one Nice Man who didn't mind carrying them up to the third floor ("it's my job miss" - bloody hell, the whole concept of 'uncomplaining' was enough to shock me from my stupor - I hadn't even tried The Ankle Excuse).

And --- praise --- benedicite --- gramercy to my Sick Self: I'd ordered everything a Sick Person could possibly require. No, not that sort of Sick!

Nine bottles of very expensive wine (shameful!);
Eighty-two sadbastardreadymeals (including five variants of Ocean Pie);
Four pots of ice cream (three low fat, one B&J Cookies n Cream, currently sinking into an insatiable hollow) (ie. my face);
Deep Heat anaesthetising sprain spray (yay! just in case there really was a sprain, which, dammit, there is) (Note to self: do not spray on face, even if depressed);
A billion English apples (that's the sort of thing I always presume will make me healthy - conveniently forgetting you have to eat them as well)
Great toast-making bread, crumpets, choccy biccies;
Quaker oats (so I can imagine a warm orange glow from the 1970s, protecting me from harm);
Every type of continental cheese I can eat (none of which would go into a fondue, but hell, I can work my way up) (sorry to Dave for the frequent references to cheese of late!);
Eggs! For the frying of! With Beans! and Toast!
Some German salami (to enable me to make my favourite salami and grilled feta sandwich, yay).

Now I am one happy bunny.
And what's more, listing these gustatory delights has knocked the blog entry where my girlfriend dumped me from the front page. So life does go on.

CNPS: 20
I weigh: 68.4kg (lemme see how much I can gain by tonight... hehehe)
The Gender Genie algorithm still says my blog is male. Dammit!!!!

fractured femur

Mood:  accident prone
Now Playing: my anguish filled screams, vying against neighbour's muffled telly sounds

Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow!

Not only is my nose running onto the keyboard, the cats are heat-seeking missiles (ie, pestering me constantly to sleep on my shoulder), and I emanated noxious fluid onto the sofa.
Further humiliation was to arrive when I tried to simultaneously uncross legs, avoid leaning on either cats, hop over PC, navigate items strewn across the furry rug, and take back to the kitchen the remains of an old sweetcorn tin (all the better for chucking up later) (I've degraded one day beneath sadbastardreadymeal).
Note to self: do not jump over things while carrying breakables when your leg has gone dead.

Landed fairly effectively, although with loud cracking sound as dead leg failed to hold upright, keeling me totally over, and pitching the contents of my sweetcorn tin everybloodywhere.
Spent five good minutes rolling around the rug ... clutching leg ... screaming ... waving off nosey cats (for whom this constitutes almost as much excitement as a litter change) ... screaming a bit more for effect. Then thought about it a bit, and realised I still couldn't feel my leg below the ankle.
This could of course mean that it was hanging by a thread. Tried a few more tentative screams, and felt to see if foot was still attached. Screamed instinctively when I touched it, and again a few times in case it hurt.
Decided to sprawl on the floor choking in putrefied sweetcorn juice, mangled limbs dangling until I starved to death and THEN the world would be sorry, but I became bored.
After a few seconds, the feeling came back to my leg, and I got up and cleared the sweetcorn away.

I swear I heard it crack.

BAD Mexican Maid!

Mood:  hug me
Now Playing: care in the community blokes making screaming noises in some dialect outside

Dammit, angelfire seems to have been up and down more than a tart's knickers this afternoon.

Blogwarning: I have flu, and therefore I am entitled to whinge constantly without recrimination.
I find it a little bizarre that I was more than happy to accept that I was skiving without any real excuse, but had to be forced under pressure to admit I was actually genuinely ill. Perhaps I'm even more arrogant than I thought.

Last night, when I retired to my [shitty little] [spare box] room [crammed with the ex's stinky spare washing] [and no space to stand], I had that awful feeling that you're not asleep, you're dead. You know when your limbs feel heavy enough to pull down through the bed? Mine felt like someone had lassoed them and they were shooting groundwards at high speed.
So, to take my mind off the snivelling and self-pity, I decided to mentally blog myself to sleep, with a spot of whingeing, snivelling self-pity, and thought up things that feel deeply scarey about being single again:

I'm not sure if I have anywhere to live;
Never going on holiday again;
Or if you do, then being the person the waiter pities in the restaurant (I know this is a stupid thing, but something jatb said once in an amusing diatribe about Israel made me think of it);
Living with an ex-DH is sending me insane;
Particularly since it's me who has to do all the cooking, shopping and cleaning so far - I've renamed myself: the Mexican Maid;
Actually, that should be: the Bad Mexican Maid - while suffering the worst flu / mild cold ever, I only managed to provide three breakfast options this morning.
Bad, bad, bad, BAD Mexican Maid!
Christ! Perhaps *that* time was the last sex I ever had?!
My mates have already set up two blind dates. Bastards;
Which is hypocritical of me, because I've already chatted up four women;
Unsuccessfully;
Actually, the Bad Mexican Maid thing has all the hallmarks of a Future Fetish;
If ex-DH opts for the best case scenario and offers to let me buy her out of the joint mortgage, then I need to come up with something like seventy thousand knicker to stay here;
Which means opening letters from banks ever;
Oh, how DULL;
Never being hugged back to sleep after a nightmare.

[end maudlin tosh]
For the record these fookin stupid emoticon things at the top of each post are ARSE and NOT TRUE! So there. :o)

online dating

Mood:  amorous
Now Playing: screams of horror

Another day off work, with mild stomach ache. Sometimes. What a wuss, eh? I'm hoping the image of me as 'unreliable' is being sharpened in their minds.
Spent the day worrying that one of the search terms that led to my blog in the last month was "nude girls spreadsheets".
This led me to check into udate, and update my pictures and profile. I widened the age range of potentials to 18-99 years old, and specified a particular liking for tubbies.
Here's my profile:

Sarsparilla: female, London (UK), Korean, 240lbs+;
Over 6ft 6, small/petite build,I don't like children, ethnicity: other;
Hair: Not much left, black eyes, beard & moustache, single, gay, looking for marriage, stunning looking, masters degree, occupation: celebrity, annual income over #1K;
Left Wing Extremist, no religious beliefs, I drink to excess, maxed out with tattoos, maxed out with body piercings, 1 or 2 pieces of jewellery, I take drugs to excess, non-smoker;
Won't cook, won't clean, won't do housework, love food shopping, hate all other shopping, won't garden or do DIY, depend upon others to clean up for me;
Quite feminine, not really warm, not at all caring, not at all supportive, not really understanding, extremely aggressive;
Extremely successful, ambitious, extrovert, impatient, I am angry all the time;
I am not really intelligent, not at all faithful, not really passionate, fitness fanatic, pride in my appearance? Not really;
Not really spiritual, extremely superstitious, I'm a sex bomb, who's not at all deep, and anything goes;
I'm not at all reliable, I have no willpower, am extremely selfish, am always late. Sorry, I'm not at all spontaneous;
I dislike the following forms of food: English, Italian, fast, pizza, Japanese, Indian, Chinese, French and McDonalds. I like to eat KFC cuisine;
I hate bars, pubs, clubs, movies, the theatre, museums, raves and discos, and The Arts are above my head, I'm afraid. There's nothing better than a walk in the park;
I hate reading, and only take the Financial Times, Telegraph and News of the World daily. My TV tastes run to game shows, game shows and game shows; I also enjoy magazines about automotives, housekeeping and religion;
I play bowling, boxing and disabled sports, but only enjoy watching wrestling;
The best place to go on a date with me is Embankment, and three years from now I shall be in Brazil, working as a gravedigger;
What really really makes me happy is licking gingivitis from teeth.

In fifteen minutes, 43 blokes suddenly checked me out. One look at 'MarquisDeSuave's handsome wrinkles and bulging packet, and I swore never to brush my teeth again.

Just lettin' ya know, girls, where you're going wrong......

Another day on the road

Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: sound financial advice which I will not follow

Just got in after six hours driving Duch to Oxfordshire and back, (via a stopoff at my parents' in Wiltshire for refuelling - human - and some wild pony poo chocolate) to be vetted by a Mad Cat Breeder for suitability. She's buying a Maine Coon kitten - the ones that look like weirdly still tigers and grow to about 35 pounds. Jeez!
Right now, it's an adorable bundle of damp smelly whiskers that mewls and bounces and scratches. Whereas Mad Cat Breeder's whiskers rustled with annoyance if we even so much as moved, and her fur well nigh stood on end as she waved us off with dire stories of how that friend of Duch (me) had dangerous, sickly, plague ridden cats who would murder her kitten one day, "mark my words". I am saving up for the bell to warn Duch of my proximity, in future, so she be ready with the bleach and plastic socks.

Last night was great fun, wandering around olden time East End boozers, full of crooning old blokes who looked like Jack Duckworth - I visited The George at Terminus, The Ten Bells, where you were on permanent display to armies of visiting Americans doing the rather morbid Jack the Ripper walking tour (although I rather preferred to think it was me they were pointing at, it was the dilapidated old Hoxton trendy wine bar that has replaced the pub, cleverly keeping eight of the original tiles for historical relevance), the Brick Lane Beigel Bake, The Approach, and The Palm Tree's late night singalonga old joanna lock-in.
Martin was terribly interesting company, whereas I was bloody blotto yet again, and spent most of the evening bothering Dave with drunken texts, apparently, while he tried to concentrate on delivering a competent fondue party. Why he would attempt such an insane undertaking is patently his business, and I was wrong to assume he had lost all sense of proportion and sanity, and quite deeply wrong to assume these could be regained in a Hoxton pub.

< == Two new blogs on the blog roll over there.
Yidaho and JATB are two (real life) (!) friends of mine who have been secretly blogging without allowing me to look at what they're written. I know it's customary for bloggers to pretend a degree of humility, (what this ole blog? no, no, no, surely nobody would read it...) but really, that's an outdated ritual that no-one ever believes.
Writing a blog is in and of itself an exercise in arrogance constrained by irrelevance. Embrace the lunacy! Be proud of the insensitivity. And blog more.
I want to see at least one divorce and two family feuds from these two blogs by Christmas, gels.

High Drama

Mood:  surprised
Now Playing: Not Cosi Fan bloody Tutte
Fuckit! Went to the ENO (at the sodding Barbican, which is a sod to get to), ordered interval drinks, found the vertiginous precipice 'pon which I'd booked my cheap seats, then me and Martin proceeded to attempt to bully six shy 19 year old girls out of their seats, all the while clutching the safety pole in a mild panic, when I looked back at the bloody ticket.

October.

Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: Cosi fan tutte

Off to the opera... tra-la-laaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Cannibalise this

Mood:  hungry
Now Playing: wind blowing the leaves of the hawthorn that's outside the window

I've been wasting my sickie day browsing blogs in the sunshine and eating cheese on toast (PURE eighties food... I may move a step up to sardines by tomorrow), and came across some real gem quotes:

"Safeway, I'm convinced, is run by ex-convicts and sexual deviants. Why do I say this? I don't know, call it a hunch. This all may make me sound like a cheap, judgmental bastard and that may be true, but who gives a rats ass?" Tiberius Furioso

"Not that this really represented any real sort of problem for me because I definitely am a creature of habit - get off of work, go home, check out the same newsgroups in the same order looking for porn, go to the comic book store every Wednesdays (or Thursday in the event of a Monday holiday), rinse and repeat. [...] I am in obvious need of more social interaction." I Have No Life

"So what did I do ? The Cumbrian sausages are now mine, so is the cheese, the HP Sauce and not just the one, but both jars of Marmite. " My Boyfriend is a Twat

"The last time I was in church was for said mother's funeral, and I had to go to communion because all the old biddies would have been horrified if I hadn't and I forgot what you were supposed to say when you got the wafer. It's Amen." My hero, Eurotrash

"What the fuck's wrong with me, you ask? Well, I have always been very, very particular about my toys. I don't like them exposed to direct sunlight. I don't like them handled by unclean hands. And I don't like them near potential chemical fumes or even strange smells. Don't ask why; this is just how I am. [...] I am obviously overly paranoid something will happen to my stuff. It's a miracle that I've kept "The Girls" on open display like I have. The only way I've been able to handle this and keep my sanity is to start buying two of anything I really, really like. One can be taken out of the package, the other stays sealed." Fuck Everything

"Quit staring at my cunt."CreepyLesbo

God, people can be interesting. I just whinge about eating cheese.

Diarrhoea of a Nobody

Mood:  lyrical
Now Playing: Planes screeching as they prepare to land at City Airport

My blog looks like poo. Oh dear. May have to re-think that.
I know I could spend the afternoon doing a proper, more visually arresting template, but clicking on 'brown' somehow seemed less time-consuming.

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This is my blogchalk: United Kingdom, London, East London, Bow, English, German, Vanessa, Female, 31-35, Literature / Movies, Food / Eating / Drinking. Read THIS blog:

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booooooooks

Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: cars driving down a quiet street, sounding like waves on a beach

Time for another reading list:

Antony and Cleopatra - 2/10, still can't get past the first scene;
Julius Caesar - 8/10, so good I read it twice;
History books about Cleopatra - 8/10, but I only read the pictures;
History books about the Roman Empire - 6/10, mercifully brief;
History books about the changeover of the Elizabethan / Jacobean era - 9/10, bloody useful stuff for work;
Machiavelli's The Prince - 8/10, better than expected, but skipped the first half;
Plutarch's Lives - 4/10, I cheated and read the study notes first;
Playscript of Twelve Angry Men - 7/10, great reading when you're pissed, but difficult to recall a word the next day.

Is it just me, but when you leave the house at night time, do you hear something in the wind whistle and think it might be your sanity slipping past?

Days Missing

Mood:  rushed
Now Playing: target practice with the cat

Been way too lazy about blogging this week.
Tuesday was stressed at work till about 9pm, got home and split up with girlfriend - had way too few braincells left functioning to paraphrase that in any polite sense afterwards, so left it.
Thursday I went out to a pub in Balham to watch some liquid laughter-aerobatics, and drink way too much. For some reason, I thought the last tube home wasn't that important, and thanks to Tristan's superior taxi-directing skills, ended up back here at 1am, trying to sober up enough to focus on the two scenes of Coriolanus I had to read for Friday morning's 5.30 start (yes, really! Got to stop thinking about work constantly, it's becoming deeply sad).
Eventually I woke up in a foetal position slumped and drooling over the damn scenes at around 4.30 this morning, and realised that I was never going to sober up enough to drive within the space of one hour, so called in a sickie today.
It took me two hours to write the bloody fax necessary for [wankers I work with] to [disregard] the work that they'll [try to avoid doing] for me; at this point the hammering behind my eyes was matched by the concrete drills of the builders who've spent the last year and a half doing up the house opposite. Oh joy. Still, ex-DH has spotted them mostly playing footie inside the house rather than working, so maybe the day will be mostly tea-break and I'll get some kip.

celebrity stalker

I do, like most people, enjoy the odd moment of stalking my neighbours.
Mostly it's the odd, futile, (unexpressed) burst of (mildly contained) rage at their too-close coexistence. I'd purse my lips and mutter profanities at common or garden outrages: making any noise whatsoever, for instance, or daring to express their individuality in such unacceptable ways as smiling in the street, chatting to their friends and relatives on the step, calling to a pal from a car, or lounging on the window sills naked (despite lacking any visible sign of attractiveness, clothed or not) (yes, YOU, Vincent).
However, I don't actually tail, photograph, or collect jottings on the habits of common or garden neighbours.

One tends to find this all changes when you spot someone famous has moved in nearby, though. I mean, the East End of London has had in its day plenty of infamous residents. But not so many modern day slebs have fallen for the tawdry attempts at yuppification (read as: cheap housing for not-so successful City Boys and traders). The best I could muster was that awful Scots bloke who shagged Gwyneth Paltrow in Sliding Doors (really really not worth stalking... unlikely to last more than a week on Celebdaq, if he ever made it on there in the first place) - and Graham Norton.

Poor Graham. He must wonder how many times a week one not very fit jogger can run across his drive and back. And why she's so often eating fish 'n' chips.
Eddie Izzard once popped into a corner shop in Kennington for a pint of milk and some bread, and was not so discreetly followed around by me for a good half an hour.
The British method for noticing a famous person goes something like this:

rolled, swivel eyes,
pointedly ignore sleb,
hiss through teeth at friend,
determinedly stare in other direction, even if sleb is trying to get your attention
(for e.g. if you are about to mow sleb down in traffic, you must maim first, and protest "oh I didn't realise it was YOU" later)
kick friend and hiss even louder "Noooooooo, don't LOOK",
stare at sleb straight in face and pretend ineffectually that you don't recognise said megastar,
stiffly attempt to face a direction 65 degrees to the right of the sleb, while never allowing eyes to leave sleb's face at any time,
if sleb moves away, then shuffle clumsily behind him/her (in much the same manner as a comedy 1960s spy dressed as a large pot plant),
once sleb is almost out of sight: jump, lunge, run, shove, clamber over any obstacle until sleb is back within sights,
return to rolled, swivel eyes and ignoring sleb stage.

You can imagine how many night shifts I've had to spend parked across his drive while trying to work out the floor plan of Graham's flat.
So today, news breaks out that he's moving to America, where he hopes Comedy Central will appreciate his brand of humour! Camp humour in Britain is by now (and largely thanks to the massively over-exposed Graham) the exclusive preserve of bingo-loving pensioners and the Faliraki-going working classes. This applies equally to the gay audience.
Graham, current holder of last year's UK Worst Dressed Man award, will export his own personal brand of "chase me! / ooo-er, I said 'cock'... missus!" humour. He'll infest the light entertainment channels and make them his own. And at some small, oblivious level, he'll no doubt miss the shy, reserved class of well-brought up English stalker found even in the rough old East End.
Bet you Americans can hardly wait, can you?

Mono

Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: BBC1 (Cripes, it's gorn downhill, etc...)

Me: Where did you go in Melbourne?
DH: The Great Ocean Way.
Me: Where's that?
DH: It's near Melbourne.

Recent conversations with the DH have developed a theme:

Me: How was your day?
DH: Uh.
Me: Sorry?
DH: Weird.

I may be well dense but even I can spot a pattern if repeated frequently and emphatically enough:

Me: So what did they ask you to do at your new job?
DH: Work.

Upon analysis I think I may - perhaps - have detected a slight recurrence.
Now I just have to work out what I did wrong, when and where....