the disappearance of a noever

See what I did there? I did a punne, or play on words using my own name. My e. e. cummings styles leave an ambiguity as to whether I'm talking about a generic Noever or myself, A. Noever. Oh the hilarity! Oh the literary genius! I am wasted on this world. (Never mind that a pedant might point out that this entry is really more the reappearance of a noever as opposed to the disappearance...)

*sigh*

It's been a long couple of weeks. Deadline last week and we're a man-down in the art department with the departure of Jon so it's all hands on board and absolutely no quality blogging time. These are stolen moments folks. If only I could offer you gems as opposed to the slightly incoherent drooling ramblings of a sleep deprived, multi-tasking Goddess wannabe.

A touch of home
The other morning I looked out my kitchen window to be greeted by a sight that made me seriously nostalgic. I mean you practically expect to see this kind of sight on a Sat or Sun morn in Dunedin but in London...? I was grinning every time I looked out the window.I had another moment like that when I was in Edinburgh over the Bank Holiday weekend. It was the last weekend of the Fringe Festival and I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to see a road cone on top of a statue and apparently I missed out on one the other day that had been perched atop one that was much higher up and harder to get to. Kudos to the drunken climbers out there. Also the masses of bollards covered in various posters made me think of home as well. I know they're not a Dunedin specific thing (I know this because for every show that Julie does, there is a photo of her beside a bollard pointing to one of her show posters ;-) ) but you don't really see them in London. At least not where I go...

Edinburgh
I flew up to Edinburgh on Friday evening to catch the end of the Fringe Fest and to catch up with Aimee and Reece. I had the best weekend, it was just great. The vibe generated by the festival probably helped but Edinburgh itself just made me smile. It does feel quite reminiscent of Dunedin although of course Edinburgh feels older. There is this delicious contrast between these dark, cold, and looming Gothic buildings and a quite upbeat feeling to the city. It should be miserable, it really should- but it's not. The colourfully painted shop fronts are totally weighed down by the oversized stone structures towering above them and it just feels so heavy at times.But then the sun pops out and you walk down Princes St. (for the Dunedin girl it's hilarious to see so many familiar street names) and everything opens up and you have the park/gardens opposite the castle and it's just beautiful. I'm definitely going back.This was a piece of graffiti I found on the street and had to stop to take a photo. I mean what the f***? ;-) I'm afraid that I don't really have any pics of me from the weekend- me being behind the camera most of the time (as it should be)- so this is the only one I have. Hmm..... Kind insane huh? (And definitely not flattering...)But I have no shame (well not a lot) so I thought I'd slab it in anyway. This is me and Greyfriars Bobby (check out the link, I'm too lazy to explain) and everyone gets their photo taken beside him so why not me and midnight on the way home? I am modelling Reece's jacket which I appropriated because I was cold and it's bloody huge on me and pretty soon he and Aimee were referring to me as the Michelin man. Not that I cared. I was warm.

The Festival itself
In my three days I saw quite a lot of standup comedy, lots of street performances, some exhibitions (oops, forgot to bring my postcards to scan in!) and did a tonne of wondering around. (If indeed wandering can be measured in weight- which I guess it could if you take it as the accumulation of my weight per step I took over the weekend. That must be a tonne. I walked a lot.) This dude was the first item of street performance I caught- Eli the Kid from Adelaide. He did nifty tricks with boxes and wobbled around on the unicycle and was quite amusing.

Both Aimee and Reece were working on Sat and Sun which actually turned out to be quite a good thing for me. Not since Greece have I been somewhere new by myself and it was really nice to be able to just amble around at my own free will and stop if anything seemed interesting and not to have to worry about if the person I was with was interested to or if they wanted to see something else. Nobody else to make decisions with. It was nice. There were lots of juggling and diabolo stuff and sometimes those street performers can be bloody aggressive when it comes to gathering/keeping a crowd. I only caught the end of this act and I'm gutted. They were an Irish couple and seemed absolutely charming. And amazing- she's doing a handstand on his hands folks. For the girl who's still just doing handstands up against a wall (I have a fear of being too enthusiatic and going over backwards), that's bloody impressive.

My fav performance was Albannach. They are a Scottish group with bagpipes (just the one) and a whole lot of drums and as soon as I heard their drums, I'd ditch what I was doing and try to find them. It was this amazing celtic music that has you tapping your feet and wanting to dance but not this airy fairy diddly dee bullshit but this deep primeval rhythm. So incredible. I bought their CD. I will be keeping an eye out for other performances of theirs in the UK. They're about to do a US tour so for the mystery readers of this blog, check out that url and hunt them down. They're awesome.

Right, and now work calls. (The writing of this has been spread out over a couple of lunchtimes...) More about exhibitions I saw at some later date.

My little sister is oarsome!

Read this news story about my wonderful talented little sister!
And oogle at the higbees, but one (handsome pete), at a BA frenzy!

oooer, that's pretty

Has anyone else noticed how Kitty and I seem to be corresponding through our subject titles? I remember a series of email with Philip years ago where we were taking turns with lines from 'Boom Shake the Room'... (I know, I know- what was I thinking? But a part of me stuck in 1993 (in my defence, I did have to look up that date, I was thinking 1996...) still thinks it's a cool song. And knows all the words. For those who do not know me, do not judge me on this. Please.) Aah the crazy days of youth.

On Tuesday I could hardly walk because I'd been way too enthusiatic at the gym on Monday and yesterday I can't use my arms because of climbing. Small surprise then that I slept through my alarm and it took me twice as long to haul my protesting muscles in to the shower. It's still a cool feeling though. I mean now I know have muscles. If they weren't there, they wouldn't hurt. (Every cloud and all that... I'm having a bit of a Pollyanna day.) I even have muscles in my back. Dude.

Purchase purchase purchase!

Look! I just bought this little purse on TradeMe! for $11!

That guy has a pretty hat though!

Hey - I am going to make this blog open to anonymous comments - awesome!
Because I want people to go to this link, look through the thumbnails, and tell me which three Critic covers from this year I should enter into ASPAs.

I'm imagining tens of comments to come torrenting in by the way.

Also,

In an unexplainable upturn in zoo freedom bids, a Red Panda escaped from Hamilton Zoo, and was later found dead on a road near the zoo - apparently a victim of a hit and run incident. The Red Panda, Badal, and his (oarsomely named) brother Chito, had just been transferred from Auckland zoo, and some may speculate that the car incident was merely a Red panda unable to come to terms with Hamilton being his new home, and committing Red Panda harikari.
NB: Red pandas are actually racoons, not panda-pandas. Although they do eat bamboo.

what is the world coming to?

Surely this is just tragic? This is not the kinda thing I need waiting for me in my inbox on a Monday morning. I actually started to get angry. Please tell me the smokers out there think this is awful too?

shiny new climbing bling for Aynia

A slightly misleading title because I am in fact currently bling-less *sob* *sniff* but this new hobby of mine will be an easy source of birthday and Xmas beautiful blingorama for years to come. For the person who loves to accessorise, climbing is the sport for you! I have currently spent far too much time today looking at amazing pics of bouldering comps and investigating prices of various bits of gear. Because not only is there quality to take in to account but colour coordination. My shoes and chalk bag are currently kinda matching (of course), being ochre and black so I'm probably having to look at gear like this but I will have to branch out. Oh it's gonna be fun. Soon I hope to look like this. (But not be a boy.) So beautiful and shiny. I must have been a magpie or a bowerbird in a past life....

just when things seem to be calming down

Not much to write as I want to be heading home (I have banana cake and bread that needs baking) and I'm sure you all know about this but dude. It's kinda scary to be in London and hear about this kind of stuff happening to an airport you use fairly frequently. The poorPOOR people having to be at Heathrow today. And even for the next couple of days, this will sod things up right proper. Some may wonder why I'm linking to Sky News articles instead of the BBC- well I think the Sky ones are better. More coverage. Just more. And because, contrary to what Britain may believe, the BBC are not media Gods.

And on a similarly sombre note, look at this. I cannot even begin to think what life would be like with 2 heads. Since they have separate brains, will she have separate personalities? What's that gonna be like when you share one body? If you scratch the nose on head one, will head 2 feel like its nose if being scratched or will it just feel 'a nose' being scratched? I can not get my brain around it. I do hope she lives. Some might say it's an extreme form of Siamese Twinism (my word) but I say it's different.

good things come to those who wait

You may have a while to wait of pictures of me climbing my sweet. Until I look a bit more elegant, there won't be any pics of me whaling my way up a wall. That said, I had such an awesome time last night. I end up partnered with Rodrigo which is actually a really good match because we are both keen to climb marked paths and give each other advice as well as being slightly competitive about the whole thing. We both did a tricky-ish one and then I did a 4a (I haven't worked out UK gradings compared to what was used in NZ) so Rodrigo had to go do a 4+ (just that little bit better) so I did that one too and then he mostly did a 6+ on the same route and I tried, I really did, but I just kept popping off the wall. Partially the holds were just that little bit too far away for teeny weeny me but also I just wasn't good enough for it. Still, I had a bloody good bash at it and came home with adrenaline pumping through my veins and my forearms not working at all. Throwing ourselves off the wall went well, Rodrigo went first and he let go and jumped away with such enthusiasm that he set the bar quite high so of course I had to respond in kind. It does build trust quickly...

On the way home I stopped by Kerry's and was greeted by Jen and Tanya bearing over-ripe bananas and winsome smiles. Having tasted both my banana cake and my banana bread, they were hoping I'd bake some for them. And I'm ever the sucker for someone who loves my baking... ;-)

But now for piccies and a brutal summary of my weekend:

On Friday we went out to celebrate Rose's 30th birthday (far left in the pic) and we went to the Medieval Banquet which was quitequite cheesy but a great evening. Some people dressed up in full medieval kit and others of us just opted for a fancy hat. I had this stunning red princess-esque number but it kept slipping off my head so it spent most of the evening under the table.Basically it's like attending a perofrmance where they have audience participation and stop every now and then so you can eat. Everyone got in to the spirit of it and there was much laughing and hilarity.Kerry and I have reached the conclusion that no matter where we go out to eat, there will end up being a picture of her with a napkin tucked down her front. At the moment food just seems to leap off her plate/fork/spoon in an eager bid to splatter itself all over her chest. A girl can't win. This photo sums Lauren up perfectly really. Check out her sensible trainers! In her defence, you couldn't see them under her long skirt unless she lifted up the dress.

On Sunday I got sunburnt for the first time this year. It seems there's always gonna be once no matter how careful I am. Lotte, Fanni and I went to FruitStock, a free festival in Regent's Park. It's sponsored by this fruit drink company and was a fantastic day out. We wandered around, enjoying the food stalls with funny signs. This sign was beside a stall that was doing different types of hummus-based meals. They even had badges with 'give peas a chance' but sadly I was too slow and missed out. Lotte and I enjoyed tucking in to some massive wedges of watermelon which, although a smidge on the floury side, were enormous fun to eat. I mean check us out, those things are nearly the size of our heads! The rest of the afternoon was spent lazing in the shade listening to music and reading and chatting. I even bought some poi with streamers on them. I know I have poi at home but they aren't doing me any good in NZ are they?Sunday evening saw yet another BBQ at Kerry's (the Sunday BBQ at that flat seems a summer tradition by now) and I brought out the pois and of course everyone wanted to learn. More hilarity ensued with great feats of lack of coordination and of course the crowning glory when JJ cracked himself in the nads. *sigh* It will never be not funny...

I want pictures of you throwing yourself off the wall!

Just so there's a picture for our blog, I thought I'd put one of my new friend.
Her name is Chelsea. And she likes the smell of permanant markers. She lives on the lawn in front of the clocktower.

nonsensical late afternoon babble

Everyone I make coffee for leaves me. Well every guy in this office that I make Magic Coffee for (instant coffee + milk = Magic Coffee). First Christian and now Jon (Dive's designer). They claim they love my coffee and I get such heart-warming smiles when I make it. And then they leave. Is there something they're not telling me?

And why do you guys get to hear about this? Well I tried to upload weekend happy snaps but blogger.com photos is 'not responding'. So instead you get nonsense. Shortly I shall be leaving for week#2 of my climbing course. Tonight we get to spontaneously thow ourselves off the wall so that our belayers get a chance to see what it is like to catch someone when they're falling. It'd better not have to be from too high up, that's all I can say.

So if this blog is my last, it's been great folks, remember to be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone.

Peace out.

dude

Firstly: Kitty my sweet- you cannot just slap up new Jessa pics and not give any links! That is so cheating!

Secondly: look at my supercutie family. Well supercutie Mumsie and sister. Dad sent me these pics and it's only been just over 3 months since I was home (really?!! It seems like sooooooooooo much more than that...) and seeing this pic, I was struck by how much alike my Mum and sister look. I mean dude. It's not like I should be surprised, genetics and all that, but still...

Thirdly: I had to put in this picture of Julie because it just made me smile and almost laugh out loud. (J, if you want me to take it down that's cool.) This folks, (mystery readers in California and Ohio-ish regions) is my sister. She is posing beside a poster for the play she is putting on at Bats at the moment. Props, kudos and best of luck to her for it.

Fourthly: Monday is too busy to post other photos and stories from the weekend but I'll get on to it tomorrow.

Jessa's back - back again!

Your Ireland wedding blog is like a chicklit dream come true! Did you wear a hat?

stolen moments

Too busy. Too much to do. Too little time. Poor little Aynia brain about to implode. (Ever since seeing a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where he imploded I've decided that it so soooooooooooo much cooler than exploding.) So who knows how much wedding and baby madness I shall fit it. I've worked solidly through the morning so I now intend to reward myself with 10 minute bursts of blogging after I finish minor tasks. I think we'd better buckle up and get ready for a bumpy ride.

But first before I forget:
These are the coolest bags ever. When I am finally back near a sewing machine I intend to steal this idea. Sorry, I mean "appropriate". I saw these when I was at V&A and would have bought one but just couldn't let myself pay out £30 for the smallest bag which isn't even 200x300mm in size. Sooooooooooooooo beautiful though. And cool. And innovative. And trendy. Julie- do not steal this idea before I get a chance to!

The coolest thing I have seen this week. Even if it wasn't George Bush, this would still be superultramegaübercool. You can even click on him and move him around. Dude. I could watch this for hours.

The funniest thing I have seen this week. Click on each animation and watch it go. Courtesy of my sister which was in turn probably courtesy of one of her crazy friends. Thanks hon! Thanks crazy friend! (The email I got from J had each cat labeled as rocking out to a certain type of music which this link doens't really seem to have which is a pity. Make up your own. Most of the head-bangers are death metal kitties and the one that runs around the shop with the drugged up scared eyes is a techno one. Hee hee.)

Down to business
Here are the happy couple. I had the most fantastic time in Ireland. Whenever I'm there I never ceased to be overwhelmed by the warmth and hospitality of Pat, Olive and their family. I think part of what made the wedding so special was not only that Anita & Steve were so happy but that everyone was there was so happy for them as well. This is Daisy, Cathy's daughter (I stayed with Cathy in Portugal and she is Anita's eldest sister) perched atop her father's shoulders. Over the course of the weekend, Daisy seemed to flip, Jeckel and Hyde styles, between being a total BernieLimpet and being Little Miss Sociality.The reception was at the beautiful manor home with the most amazing lawns and while the wedding party had photos taken, the rest of us could have a drink at the bar or play croquet or petanque on the lawn which was a bloody awesome idea because they're nice light sports and it was mega sunny. Bernie and I teamed up against two strapping lads, Steve and Dave, who were friends of the groom, and we got our asses kicked. Well to be honest Steve had played before and he kicked all of our asses but since Dave was on his team he got to share in the glory. Croquet is a nasty devious game really and we all had enormous fun abusing each other and being croquet divas. And then to top it all off, I ended up seated between Steve and Dave at the meal! What a twist of Fate. And so the afternoon off piss-taking and comradery continued. It helped that both lads were quite charming and attractive and all in all, Aynia had a fantastic day. ;-) Cathy's kids almost stole the show though with Daisy being the cutest thing ever and Sean asking to be picked up so he could sing, "One, two, three, four, five, once I saw a fish alive..." etc etc after the speeches. What I want to know, is why are little girls just so gosh-darn adorable?
So that was the Thursday. I spent Friday and most of Saturday with Cathy, Bernie and the kids. We drove up to South Ireland (only in bloody Ireland could you drive up to go to southern-whatever. Typical.) to stay at Pat and Olive's mobile home and have a general wander around the countryside. For me, the highlight had to be driving through a town called Muff. Muff. They called a town Muff. Bernie and I sniggered for a good long time over that one. He was educated in the UK (I think) so he got it but Cathy was like, "What's so funny about Muff?" [Cue more sniggering from me and Bernie.] So of course I had to take a photo. During this trip I got treated to the best all time chat up lines ever- courtesy of a 3 1/2 year old. When I was seated between him and Daisy on the back seat, he would occasionally sit there looking at me and stroke my arm and come out with such corkers as, "I like touching you." "I like your muscles." And also, "Do you want to touch my muscles." I mean dude! He just melts my heart- when he's not busy being a precocious little shit that is- he's at that age where he really enjoys testing his boundaries- but despite that, he is an absolute honey. Apparently when Cathy and he went to the airport to pick up Bernie, Sean said, "Can we wait here for Aynia?" Cathy said yes, he could, if he wanted to wait another 2 days. He looooooooooves me. ;-)

I'm going to Paris!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kerry has never been to Paris and the last time I was there was 8 years ago so we're going in September! Part of me doesn't want to jinx it by writing about it but hey, here I go anyway. Accompanying us shall be Andy and JJ, two of Kerry's flatmates. I'm really excited about it and it should be a total blast because they're cool guys and the bunch of us always have fun when we're out together and the boys are quite hilarious. My aim is to see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night, I've never seen that before and I think it could be something quite special. And we're getting (well we hope to get) this special Eurostar deal which is train plus accommodation and is soooooo much easier than having to go to the airport because the train takes you right in to Paris. Oh joy!

And for now that shall have to do whilst I wind up Friday madness. Let's hope that from now on I'm better at this updating thing.

Space filler until aynia's fantastic ireland wedding/babies blog (are there babies? I hope so)

CUTEST BABY EVER!!!

look at his schnuggly wuggly ears!!

okay so maybe Friday...

Good ole Kitty. She hides in silence for weeks and then WHAM! she comes out with gems like those pill packets. Geez Louise- I thought I had some random urls. You put me to shame hon!

In other matters, I'm glad I didn't explicitly promise to write a decent blog today because- you betcha- no time. I was hunting down special deals to Paris and now my time is up and work calls. Especially as tomorrow I'm out of the office doing press passing again. Maybe Friday? Maybe.

Last night I did the first session of my beginners' climbing course. It was awesome and, as predicted, my forearms nearly dropped off. It's a 4:1 ratio of students:instructor and apart from me there is a British couple and a guy from Brazil. We're a nice bunch and I think we'll work well together- climbing is so much nicer when you talk to each other and discuss problems and have someone yelling at you from the ground to tell you where to put feet/hands when you get stuck. Oh yeah- and the instructor is hot. ;-) Call me shallow but it never hurts to have eye candy around... We did belaying, knot tying, and then just generally scrambled our way up the walls using whatever came to hand. The focus was on getting belay technique down and believe you me, I never realised how important it was. I was spoilt because I was taught by people that I knew and trusted and had already climbed for a while. As a result I could slap myself in a harness and happily scramble my way up knowing that if it went pear-shaped, I'd be fine. Last night I discovered that you climb a whole lot more carefully when the person at the bottom of the rope is doing it for the first time...

Right. Work. Ciao.

can i just say!

check out these alarm pill cases! halfway through wednesday print night, but needed to post this so i don't forget it!

smug again

We have a deal going at work whereby everyone has a cake buddy and on your birthday, your cake buddy buys you a cake (which everyone in the office helps you eat). Today was Ali's birthday (well strictly speaking it was yesterday but she had the day off so today was cake day) and she had requested carrot cake so carrot cake it was. I used this amazing recipe which Mum got from a friend years ago and tomorrow I will post it for the anyone who is a carrot cake fan to try out. It won over people in the office as well with many an orgasmic groan accompanying the first bite. So once again a pile of crumbs pies as a testament to my baking success. Oh yeah.

And apart from that I find myself, once again, without time to blog properly. What's with that? I guess because my spare time today has been taken up with trying to sort out flights to Paris (Kez & I plan to go there for a weekend in September) and flights to Berlin and accommodation for when a bunch of us hit the Christmas Markets just before Xmas. Tomorrow I tell you, tomorrow I shall write of Irish weddings and small children who flirt with me and photos and oh so much more.

the great thing about whanau

My parents just called me at work and it was just the nicest thing ever. I mean we talk once a week anyway and we're a close family so if anything goes wrong or I'm feeling down, I'll call them up but this week I've been thinking of them and meaning to call but haven't been home at the right times. And then taadaa! They call me.

I'm fairly happy with the life I've set up for myself over here and I'm doing it all without the support network/general frame of reference I'm used to at home and that's all good. Look at me all Little Miss Independant and Living it Large in London. Ka pai. But sometimes it's just nice to hear a familiar voice, especially when it's Mum and Dad.

So for a little while the stress of deadline, general lack of motivation and heat-induced headache faded away to be replaced by the warm fuzzy that you can only get from family. Thanks for calling guys. xox

whoopteedoo

This folks, is the 100th post on this blog. I should have photos galore and witticisms abounding but all I want to do is go back home and crawl in to bed. Or even just crawl under my desk. I have been struck down by a huge wallop of apathy and a side serving of lethargy. Or maybe it's apathy that's the side dish- I'm not so sure and predictably, I don't really care. I have no idea why I am this tired. I mean it's been hard to muster up energy in this heat anyway but this is the worst yet. (Not the heat, my reaction.) I even got myself to the gym this morning and usually this is enough to kickstart my day but my one minor surge of endorphins wore off a good wee while ago. This apathy inducing lethargy also feeds in to work which ain’t so fab. We're on deadline this week and I have a reasonably lengthy list of things to do, most of them just small things like emails to send but I can't be bothered to do even that. And if I don't, it'll pile up and Friday will be mega stress. So I need to do it now but all I seem to have the energy for is whinging into the cyber void about how shit I feel. Which isn't really what you folks care to read but if this exists, as I thought it did, to keep people up to date on the life of me well here it is. You're up to date. Woe is me, poor widdle Aynzy-kins, yada yada yada.

(Once this slump passes, there will be a hugely enthusiastic email about my weekend in Ireland which was fantastic. I had one of my best weekends ever and the wedding was beautiful. I just need to start in on this list that sits on my desk and glares at me ominously... I'm hoping things will pick up after lunch.)

this wasn't meant to be a vegetarian rant

Given the obvious enthusiasm with which I rended limbs from my lobster last night and sucked off every piece of flesh I could get my slippery garlic butter covered fingers on, no outside observer would ever guess that I'm vegetarian. (Although yes, I know, if I eat seafood I'm not really a proper vego. I know this but a girl has to live and vitamins do not fill the nutritional gap that fish (or just about any other form of marine life unlucky enough to stray across my path) does.)

So yeah, last night I had lobster for the first time ever. A bunch of us went to Belgos, a Belgium restaurant in Covent Garden, for Mandy's birthday and we had such a fab time. In London it can be so hit and miss when you go out for food and although slightly pricey, this place was worth every penny.

Sometimes I wonder what kind of vegetarian I am. And I don't mean as in chicken eating/fish eating/vegan/don't put meat anywhere near where it could even think (were it alive any more, poor thing) about touching my tofu, but rather- am I a hypocrite or not? I'm vegetarian for moral reasons. What exactly those morals are I don't really know any more. When I was about 14, I burst onto tears while eating a sausage and I stopped eating meat. Then an unnatural amount of hair fell out so I started again but was still conflicted and as of New Year 1996 I stopped. (This is to date the only New Year's resolution I have ever managed to keep.) In the teenage years I, in my oh-so-wannabe-rebel-but-not-actually-knowing-anything-about punk/grunge/goth/anti-establishment way, defined it as "not approving of the heartless killing of innocent masses". And I think that's essentially what it still is. I have no problem with the food chain, that's life baby, but I don't like that things are mass-bred and go through nasty living conditions to feed us- especially when there is so much waste. I worked in a supermarket for 4 years and there's a LOT of meat that gets thrown out and I'd think, "That's a whole little piggy that could have been trotting around." During this time I was on and off with eating seafood. I ate it initially because, hypocritically, I didn't feel so bad about eating fish. Then my uncle pointed out to me that if it was the whole cruelty thing I didn't like then I was a total hypocrite with fish because those things are hauled out of their home and left to suffocate to death. And he has a point. So for a while, quite a while in fact, it was no fish too but there were health 'issues' so I decided to give it another go and I feel much healthier and better for it.

Just not morally better is all. Not only do the poor little fishies die nasty deaths but they are being over-fished and although I don't like animals being bred for food, at least we're not killing off species by doing it. So as I ripped in to my lobster last night I did spare a thought for this. I did think about my poor lobster which had probably spent his final hours crammed in a tank with other poor potential victims. I did feel bad. I did think I made up to him by thinking that if I were to die and get eaten, I'd hope someone served me up in a garlic butter sauce on a bed of rocket with a side of the best frittes to be had. And I'd hope that person ate every piece of flesh there was and cracked me open to find every last piece of flesh and wasn't picky about it and had a bloody good time doing it.

I was the kind of meat eater, back in the day, who chomped off the end of my chicken drumstick and sucked out the marrow. I like meat. Well I liked it. I honestly now don't how I'd react to the texture of flesh now. Over in the UK there is a comprehensive range of meat imitation vege products and I've been working my way through them- for something to do if nothing else. The other night I had imitation burger patties and it was a bloody disconcerting experience. These things smelt like meat, tasted like meat (from what I can remember) and had the texture too. I ate it all but had a very strange expression on my face the whole time. I really don't know how I felt about it. I think that now I would have a problem with eating 'flesh'. This is a feeling you don't get from eating tuna or smoked salmon but you almost get from prawns at times. That chomping feeling. It sometimes puts me off.

So now I am the kind of vegetarian who eats seafood, wears leather shoes and would happily eat an animal that I could bring myself to kill. For that matter I'd probably happily eat someone's family cow or chicken that had had a happy life of carelessly running free. So I don't think I can call myself a 'good' vegetarian but I still call myself vegetarian none-the-less.

But enough of my vege rant. I was meant to be talking about the cool Belgium restaurant. Or more to the point, about our hilarious waiter. The rest of the girls thought he was a bit much but I thought he was a delightful breath of fresh air. As we placed our orders he would give his opinion on what we were ordering. Prawns? [Sceptical raised eyebrow] Lobster? [well done] chocolate mouse [nose wrinkled in disgust] what's wrong with the mouse? [I don't like sweet things]. The best by far though was when Kerry ordered her coffee. Cappuccino [approving nod] but just half a shot [look of confusion] I just like it weak, a whole shot is too much for me [dubiously raised eyebrow] and can you make it decaf [chaos- total look of confusion, arms flung up in the air- coffee=café=caffeine=what are you doing?!] I know just how he would have reacted to someone ordering a caffeine-free diet Coke. ;-) Tee hee hee. They also have an absolutely amazing range of beers and even fruit beers. Dude. I had a mango one and a raspberry one and they were both delicious. Lauren (the girl in the pic with me) had mussels and I tried one and they too were amazing. I usually like mussels but have reservations because sometimes they're chewy and that's not cool. These were incredible melt-in-your-mouth muscles and I might have them next time because them I definitely DON'T feel sorry for at all. Kerry amused us all by "feeding her chest" as she puts it. Something of everything she are seemed to squirt or drop on to her shirt. (Hence the napkin on her chest.) So it was an interactive evening of ordering and all the food we got was great and I would recommend the place to anyone. Slightly pricey but for people coming to London- we will so have to go there.

the internet
Since I'm writing so much today (prepping you guys for the drought while I'm in Ireland), I've decided to get all jiggy with it and do some headings. Which means breaking out the old HTML for some fancy font sizes and colours. When I worked at Critic I often had to turn on my safe-search in Google because for some reason, the searches I would put in would lead me to the dark and dodgey corners of cyberspace. In my time at Geographical, I have had no such need. Until today. It was a perfectly innocent (or so I thought) search too: dragon pics. I was trying to track down an image library that I had been told was called Dragon Pics. So I popped that in to Google and got a whole lot of links along this line:

asian boys nude. barefoot chinese sex girls photos, amatuer nude ...
... asian girls lesbians naked latino asian longhorned beetle asian sex now ... asian girls naked grannys chinese dragon pics chinese tractors torture tiny ...

Please note the lack of actual link because I am NOT linking to that. I mean what the f***?! How do those sites come up with this shit? I mean I know how they do it, good old meta tags, but what makes them think to drop in dragons with asian lesbians and something longhorned. I'm almost scared...

So have a fab weekend you lot and Mon shall see many glorious pics of me in Ireland. Hopefully.

poor ickle me

I think all my enthusiasm is evaporating out of me. This is not sweat I am swimming in as I sit here, it's my motivation oozing out of my pores to get all clammy behind my knees and down my back. It is H O T. It's meant to get up to 34 degrees today but I reckon we're well there by now and it has to be more than that in this office. Apparently temperatures on buses have already reached 50 degrees and it's 42 on the tube. And yes, that's celsius folks. Tomorrow we're meant to get up to 39 and I would seriously take a "sick" day( *cough* *cough*) if I weren't already off for 2 days this week and we have deadline looming next Fri. Damn me and my conscience. To get home I have to catch the overland (airconditioned thank you God) and the bus (why God why) and to get in to town after that for Mandy's birthday dinner I need to catch the tube (whatever it was I did, I'm reallyreally sorry. I'll be good from now on. Promise). So there may be no more blogs because you can't type once you've melted into a pile of goop.

a saga of Irish proportions

I had contemplated writing this up like a screenplay with cast lists and everything but frankly, I can't be bothered to instead you'll get the brutal summary- This Wednesday I'm heading over to Ireland for Anita's wedding. Anita is one of the 4 daughters of Pat & Olive who I spent Xmas with.

Plan A- fly over on the Wed evening, get picked up from the airport and stay with my cousin Aaron who I haven't seen in 8 years
Plan B- I can't get picked up on the Wed night any more so I suck up to Corin and get a bed to stay for Wed night and plan to bus out to the wedding on the Thurs morn.
Plan C- Cathy says she can pick me up and I can stay with her and her lot....

Today saw what I can only hope is Plan D, the last in the saga:
I will be collected by "a rather hunky friend of Steve [the groom] with funky hair" who will have a placard with my name on it so I will feel either really important or really embarrassed. He will then take me and another youngish couple coming in at the same-ish time to Anita [the bride] and Steve's house in Carrickfergus outside Belfast. There will be "5 young people, all direct or indirect friends of Steve", and Cathy tells me that Anita tells her that I'll be well placed and have a ball.

Dude.

If this is not the most Irish thing ever, I don't know what is. I think I shall either have one of the most fab weekends ever or things will be quitequite pear shaped... I am of course crossing my fingers for single, spunky-haired-hunks with hilarious Belfast accents. Wish me luck.

presspassing and trespassing

I got to go to Stonehenge!

Last Thursday, Ali and I went to Andover to presspass the magazine at St.Ives, our printers. Stonehenge isn't far from Andover and since Ali was driving, we took a detour. Armed with our audio guides, we traipsed around the stones and I really wish I could remember some of the interesteing facts and yes, I could Google it now to fill you folks in but you know what, you guys can Google it yourself if you care that much. About the only fact I came away remembering is that 1/3 of the stones is buried underground which is pretty bloody amazing. It would be moreso if I had a height figure for you (but I don't) so instead just think of these bloody huge stones being another thrid as huge. Dude. Them's some big ooga stones, let me tell you.

(This is Ali.)

As we walked around, we talked about the shame it was that th efield where the stones are is fenced off with barbed wire, that you have to pay to get in, and that the pathway around the stones is roped..........

------and that's as far as I got with my writing the other day. RIght now I'm just going to brutally wind this up. Slap in some happy snaps and get this baby posted because otherwise it's gonna hang around forever and I have a weekend coming up and hopefully new and exciting things to blog about on Monday. As a side note- Mimi Smartypants is an editor so small wonder that she writes well. That makes me feel a bit better. ;-) But for now- back to my abortion of a blog:



The stones are roped off so you can't stand beside them which sucks.


I have about a kazillion of pics like this but all are pretty much the same (although of course all totally different and special, hence needing to take so many...) It was al nice and moodybroody though.


Press-passing, which I will have to talk about later- and I feel I should, if only for Kitty's benefit because it's designy, was bloody interesting and I'm so glad I went.

The end.

Except forthis. Dude.

when I grow up

I want to be this cool

Or at least I want to write like mimi smartypants. I was checking out a related link on A Dress A Day which was, up until half an hour ago, my fav blog of the moment. (Even though I can't wear dresses (they never fit) I love to look at the pics and I like the way she writes.) But no more. I am now a mimi smartypants fan. What's the appeal? Well I'm still trying to nut it out but I think it comes down to: I like the way this lady thinks and the way she writes about it. It's the way I imagine things sounding in my head when I want to blog, it has to attitude and cadence I want and then I just come out with my usual bollocks. *sigh* I'll be that cool one day. Honest. In the mean time, everyone should get along and check out her blog: http://smartypants.diaryland.com because it is cool and cutiepie. And her kid sounds ultra supercutiepie. I don't like the dairyland setup as much as blogspot or maybe it's just the way she's set it up but focus on the content people.

As I write, I have a draft of another entry almost ready to rock - lots of Stonehenge pics among other things - but for now this is what you get coz I am supermegaüberbusy with work. As you may have guessed from my one week blogging absence. Patience grasshopper, there shall be plenty of nonsensical blather soon enough.

Hello! Lady! Ok!

I just thought i'd show you what the headline on stuff.co.nz is today. For some reason I find this really hilarious.

First issue of Critic is out for the semester - a fishy and chippy themed one. Quite a shock to this technical editor, who thought she had another 10 issues to think about something different to do with fish and chips for the cover.
Virtual Critic will be up shortly. After my little break from putting VC up, it wasn't until typing this blog that I realised I haven't done it for this week.

Also, if you're a crazy person, the new "flatting mag" is out, and if you really want to see it I'll post it to you. W00T!

I am currently negotiating my ticket for GlobalKitty. Why is it that airlines only want to fly in one direction all the time? It's so fricken disruptive of my plans. It's like models who can only turn left or something. All I want to do is fly to Asia, then U.S then Europe. Cheesus!

ummmm.... yeah.

we will stop at nothing

As science progresses, the scenarios of the sci-fi books of my youth seem less like fiction and more like a potential reality. The stories where Earth is a barren wasteland because we've pillaged all its resources or global warming has had its wicked way with the planet; the ones like Gattaca where normal, unaltered people are the freaks, not the ones who have been enhanced or screened at birth; the ones about wars between humans and the clones/drone slaves they produced. I mean we have the technology and even if we don't quite have all of it just yet, we're well on our way.

I myself don't know where I draw the line with scientific research and how far we should take our findings or even how far we should actually explore. Surely there's a point where we should go, "You know what? We could find out about that but maybe we'd better just leave it as it is and, just for once, not see if we can put it back together better than it was before we pulled it apart."

Why the cynicism you ask? Well I came across this article the other day. I think this news story foreshadows (probably not quite the word I want but I'll use it anyway) up the potential fate of mankind quite nicely. I mean what can you say about a race that is willing to stick extended legs on to ants as well as chopping bits off just to see how exactly it is that they manage to get back to their home? Some may say I'm overreacting but to me it seems curiosity taken just way to fucking far that we will chop the legs of something (I don't know if they can feel it, maybe they can, maybe they can't.) to see how it works. I know, it’s ‘only an ant’, but for Christsake people, where’s the line people?! This is the human race folks. We will stop at nothing to scratch that curiosity itch. I say the doomsday stories of my sci-fi youth are just a matter of time. Someone will clone a human, someone will make a kangaroo/human hybrid and why? Just to see if they can.

the modern feminist

I like to think that being a true feminist in the 21st century means that although I know I can lift the 19L water bottle to replace it in the water cooler, I am perfectly happy to let one of the boys at work do it when they offer. Because they're being polite by offering so surely it's polite to accept? Also it's bloody hot today and I've already been to the gym and done yoga so I have every right to be lazy and accept chivalry when it comes my way.

So last week was press week and hectically busy as per usual and this week it's been horribly hot (and in the weekend too)- like up to 32 degrees. Apparently it got up to 38 degrees in some on the tennis courts at Wimbledon. Jesus. Those poor buggers having to run around and hit a ball in that heat. Not for me chickadee. And although I've managed to drag myself to the gym in the mornings, the heat has otherwise drained me of the will to do anything but sit in the shade with ice cold drinks. I can't even be bothered blogging which is saying a lot.

On Saturday I watched England get kicked out of the World Cup (snigger). Well not too much snigger really. They didn't play that well and didn't deserve to go through but they didn't deserve to lose out because of penalties either. And they cried at the end which really was just sad- not sadpathetic but ohyoupoorthingI'msosorry sad. They really did want it bad. So now all the England flags and support paraphernalia has come down and the place looks naked.

All this means that attention can be focused on Wimbledon (or in my case the tri-nations which is starting, I think, this week). My tube station is the one you get off at for Wimbledon and every year at tennis time the station gets a facelift. I should take before and after pics for you folks. It's quite hilarious (I've noticed that I use this word a lot) too see how everything gets dolled up for the tourists. What is not hilarious are the crowds we have to cope with. No cash at any of the cash machines because they've been cleared out, no seats available on the tube, stalls of tacky souvenirs everywhere. Grumble grumble. My friends went to see the tennis last Friday but I couldn't go because of press deadlines but secretly I don't mind too much because of the queuing involved to get in. People camp out in front of the venue during the fortnight of Wimbledon and queues can get to at least 500m (this is not a fact I know, this is me taking a guess at the distance from the venue to the park down the road). I do know you could be in the queue for 3 hours. It becomes as much of an event as the tennis. People bring drinks and picnics, it's insane. Only in Britain would they make an event of queuing.