Flaming Zinc

I am trying to get to sleep. I notice that Alex has my latest blog up on his laptop, but why does he also have Ecto running, and why does it contain my raw blog entries. Calmly he replies ‘That there were some obvious spelling and grammatical errors’. Blow me if I haven’t wandered into 1984 territory were Big Brother is correcting other peoples personal and published work.

Alex, leave off my blog entries – other wise you will stand accused of blog invasion or perhaps blog r@pe. Not that my work is in the same league, but you don’t wander around the Met with a felt pen improving and correcting.

I have no problem with my lax use of grammar or my interesting take on spelling. It is my style, it is personal and what’s more I don’t change your entries to make them funnier so hands off!!!!

A few things that caught my eye, so, here goes….none of them are in the least bit news worthy and though it’s late for me I am in a rambling mood.

Apparently ginger nuts, no sniggering in the back, are the best biscuit to dunk. I do hope not too much time and money was wasted researching that subject as I, and the rest of the biscuit munching world, had solved that little conundrum quite awhile ago. But it puts me in mind about Natalie Imbruglia and the tim tam explosion on Graham Norton.

Another Irish comedian is coming to NYC under the British/Irish comedy invasion that Alex and I attended earlier this year… praise the god of light entertainment Dionysus.

On that note as a teenager my drug of choice was humour. So, the thing I miss most is the British wit – not that I want you to think that my childhood was all Oscar Wilde style quips around the dinner table but there was also a healthy balance of “Milky, milky” and Bottom impressions as well. It’s just that I was SO spoilt during my formative years that there is no way that Saturday Night Live or Joey are ever going to satisfy my need for satire. Whilst other girls of my age were queuing to get into night clubs (or practising applying make-up and hair styles) I was standing in line for The Comedy Store or watching Radio 4 recordings at the Paris studio in London. I hung on every angry word that Ben Elton uttered (how our idols have clay feet when they start collaborating on Lloyd Webber musicals) and learnt about politics with HIGNFY and Drop The Dead Donkey. It saddens me that this weeks Time Out NY comedy section only runs to two sides, so WestBeth Entertainment please keep sending the alternative comedians this way and Andy Hamilton don’t ever stop writing for Radio 4.

Two new trailers on Apple, on one side you have the wickedly cheeky Shaun of the Dead and on the other the earnest Closer.

Just in case my mum needed any more proof that I am a little loopy, though I prefer to think of myself eccentric a la Brideshead Revisited, and that I’m taking Alex down with me – it was bath night for young Bertram.

In my defence he was rather smelly and he is far cheaper (and much more fun) to maintain than any pet. Any how, not spending all Saturday night projecting personification on to my bear we’re off to the pub to socialise with real people…well programmers any way!

Yesterday at lunch the cap on my soda bottle had a message for me – ‘Use Less’.

So I shall!

** In case you think I have fallen down a rabbit hole and gone all Alice on you, don’t worry the makers have just put ‘real’ fortune cookie messages inside the lids.**

My body is angry with me.

Ten days since my last yoga class and my joints are creaking, aching and in general grumbling. Days on end of eight hour shifts has me longing for an hour stretching and twisting myself out. So tomorrow morning I shall be waking up early and dragging my sorry self to a morning class.

Namaste.

I had to break away from my theme posting, as Alex and I finally got around to watching The Others.

Wow.

Another showcase of what an amazingly, versatile actress Nicole Kidman is, even during her wilderness years – Days of Thunder, Far and Away, etc, and how she makes 1950s fashions ultra sexy. I remember her as a gawky teenager in Bangkok Hilton, but still she had the ability to handle the weighty topic and hold her own against Denholm Elliott. The Others really was one to watch ‘behind the sofa’ and although the ghostly twist wasn’t too much of a surprise the way it was executed was first class. I loved the dynamic between the brother and sister – reminded me of Jonty and myself!!!!!!!!

Another fright I got last week and today – my exam results. One half of the parental unit has already lamented me for not posting about it sooner. Well, after all my wailing and gnashing of teeth or should that read panicking that they wouldn’t be able to read my handwriting or plough through my dyslexic prose…. I only went and bagged myself an A in AS English Lit and Lang and a B in AS Classical Civilisation. Alex is in the process of widening all the doors to allow my inflated head to pass through.

So, Moby Dick has been languishing unloved and untouched for the past week. As, not surprisingly, I found the prospect of Lady Chatterly’s Lover slightly more stimulating. The prose is fully absorbing and some scenes are close to poetic – base level titillation this is not. By its close I was left pondering if it wasn’t just the passionate subject matter that had the censors and moral watch dogs alarmed but the portrayal of a woman fully aware of her sexual nature and the gamekeeper rising above his allotted station.

Poncy part of the post done – feast you eyes on two new Jude Law trailers: one and two.

- excess in eating and drinking.

Well, I really haven’t over indulged today – a glass of chocolate soya milk and a two day old jam donut for breakfast, banana and bottle of water for mid-day snack, hazelnut latte and chicken ‘n’ corn soup for my late lunch and this evening I will graze on watermelon, more water and a chocolate cookie or three – so I guess I better explore my other excesses….

Books

I am currently reading three books: Moby Dick, A Passage to India and Brick Lane. I am not really getting into any of them so I am eagerly awaiting the next Inspector Lynley mystery that is coming to me via my dealer. But, whilst I am already mentally compiling titles for my next order I have a full dozen unread books languishing for my attention. In alphabetical order…Anna Karenina, Aqagenesis (the origins of life in the sea), Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patrica Highsmith, Faces in the Water, Fortysomething, Mary Barton, Middlemarch, Notes from My Travels (Angelina Jolie’s UN diary), Schrodinger’s Kittens, The Map That Changed The World, The Match Maker (my first ebay purchase) and The Three Musketeers. I figure I need a fortnight on a desert island or one of those nifty time shifters that’s in Harry Potter three.

Films

Do you consider three trips to the pictures in four days excessive? Surprisingly, it was the Tom Cruise flick Collateral that was the best of the bunch. I think it had more to do with more Michael Mann’s awesome vision and direction than what those pesky actors were up to. I don’t wish to waste inches on The Village – so let’s just say it was a poor effort, you can see the pseudo twist coming from outside the cinema and it nestles somewhere between PBS’s Colonial House and MTV’s Punk’d. Occasionally I am rather directionally challenged (not in a “I’ve never been to me” sense but more compass related) so when watching Little Black Book I was very confused when they had relocated Trenton, New Jersey to Hoboken’s current location. Is the city name Hoboken not funny enough or if so what’s wrong with Newark..ahh don’t answer that! But despite the confusion it caused my little grey cells, it was a very pleasant chick flick and a good choice to accompany a mountain of ironing. My only other grumble is that the Brittany Murphy character had a Working Girl obsession (fine) but described a poster of the film as vintage (definitely not fine). Nothing that occurs in my lifetime can, ever, be deemed vintage. Period.

TiVo

An odd one I know but since yesterday, TiVo has very kindly taped the following programmes that it thought Alex or I might enjoy:

Episodes of The X Files, Angel and Gilmore Girls, two movies The Badge (starring Billy Bob Thornton and Patricia Arquette) and Unfaithful (the one with Diane Lane and Ricardo Gere), programmes covering the following topics; the civil war (US I suppose and not British), on the aviator Larry Bell, The Oracle of Delphi, One hundred years of Latin cinema (in Spanish), the wittily titled ‘Saints Preserved!’ (on how some saints bodies don’t decay), some farm boy called Audie Murphy who was brave in WW2, how the US has occupied countries on and then, and finally a documentary on ‘The Making of: Unfaithful’.

Two out of thirteen ain’t bad.

NB
Please forgive my lack of links but i am eager to get to my snacks and I am not allowed to consume food or fluids whilst on my mini me.

Aggie and Kim are coming to America to clean up.

I don’t think things have quite got bad enough to call them to our flat – even though this morning we were forced to break out the beach towels as I had got a tad behind with the laundry. Plus Alex was giving me his StarWars style ‘death stare’ over the mismatched socks that are breeding in his chest of drawers.

Oh well – he knew that i was solely a kitchen domestic diva rather than an all rounder before he married me. But, I must admit that his neatness has slowly rubbed off on me….who knows maybe in another decade I’ll see the point of dusting!

I got my first sociology assignment back from my tutor and I aced it – 93%.

I have been doing the happy dance around the living room and through into the hallway. I must admit that my experience at university severely knocked my academic confidence and my wise decision to easy myself back into to academia via correspondence courses in a few A-levels is paying off. Not only have I ruled out English Lit as a major (I am too much of a narrative junkie to peek behind the curtain) but I am exposing myself to a wide range of subjects that previously I had dismissed. I am champing at the bit to get myself back to school for fall 2005….scared but very excited about what might await me

As a footnote – this might all change come next week as I will get the results from my summer exams……