Ey up

Spare ticket is yours. Due to finish work at 4-4:30, so can be at yours 4:30 - 5. Will that be OK?

Lx

What to say about Slow Club. Amazingly it's 3 years when I saw them for the first time in the Rescue Rooms blowing The Hours off the stage with their fun and mesmerising slot. They had also scattered the club with hand-made adverts for their own gig a week later at the Social, so I went straight out and got tickets. Since then, they have gone from an amazing tiny band to an act that get played on Scrubs. They fizz with joyful, not-quite-twee sounding melodies with razorblade lyrics nestling inside. Sherbert and arsenic, my favourite cocktail.

And now they've got a single UK gig this side of summer being hailed as HMV's Next Big Thing. Corporate-tagging aside, this Garage gig is going to be amazing. I just found out about it yesterday, as a speshul birthday surprise. And it's a tenner. Come see, with me. Before it sells out! P.S. I have one spare ticket, bought on a just in case basis.

http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/user/?query=search&INTERFACE=ticketweb&category=misc®ion=gb_london&search=slow+club&beginmonth=02&beginday=9&beginyear=2010

at the Pembury, playing board games.

Howling with laughter fratboy - the platonic ideal

So I have had my start date confirmed as 4 Jan and my last exam is 15 Dec so... I've just booked 4 days in Marrakesh with a backpack. Pre-Christmas sunshine. Burnishing an awesome year :D

Oh my god I passed the interview. Subject to ex-boss not hating me (and as far as I know, she doesn't) and no sleep-walking crimes, my dolescum status has a 2009 deadline.

I'm going to be the Living Wills finance girl. Oh oh oh! I've nearly done it. 2008 February Resolutions ftw!

www.postmodernbarney.com/2009/04/uncomfortable-plot-summaries/

This is half a year old, but new and giggleworthy to me.

My faves:

300: Gays kill blacks.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: Peasant girl develops Stockholm Syndrome.
BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA: Redneck trucker kills Chinese immigrants.
FALLING DOWN: Life is difficult for white men.
GONE WITH THE WIND: Rich, white slave owner enjoys getting raped, miscarries.
ROCKY: White man beats black man.
W.: Unspeakable disaster afflicts America. Then terrorists attack.

and I grdgingly have to accept:

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: Teenage serial killer destroys town in fit of semi-religious fervor.

And I will share lots about exciting Ontario odds and ends.

But---


I got all 3 seasons of Veronica Mars for 36 quid.  :::does the Dance of Sad Geeky Joy:::

 Comes from rahirah rahirah.livejournal.com/411832.html  who has crisply encapsulated the arguments that leave me frothing but too easily tied up in knots until I'm inarticulate.

Awkward

I missed doing this in the New Year and just came across it now so I thought I'd try it.  And, hmmmm.  I appear to be underwhelmed by their selection.

SF/fantasy novels everyone must read

The Guardian has come up with a list of 1000 novels everyone must read. (well every Guardian reader anyway). This is the Science Fiction & Fantasy component.

 The ones in bold I've read; the ones that are underlined I loved; the ones that are in strikethrough I hated.  Italics mean I’ve heard of and may try.

(  Here's the List )

I had hoped to go to 2 London parties then sneak off to Eygpt this weekend but a housebound cat needing daily antibiotics has put a stop to that.   Lovely as my friends and neighbours are, I could not ask that of them.

Said cat went in for first dental treatment, with the expectation that they would remove one tooth, or call if more serious work was needed.

Instead I got no call and they whipped out 8 teeth including all his remaining top molars.  All!  I was gobsmacked but now I think I'm emerging from shock as I intend to make a formal complaint. I'm really quite angry that they did not consult with me before proceeding.  I would have not opted for that all at once, even if delay of some would have only bought him a couple more years of toothiness and cost more in the long run.  Poor Funks.

But saw a longlost friend yesterday who said she's going to Latitude with a bunch of mates next week.  As travel has always been the factor preventing me from Latitude so far, I've lept at the chance.  So now I'm doing at least one festival a month, May to Sept.  Hee.  But Florence and the Machine are not at this one, so I think that her Sept tour is my best bet to see her.

Life.  It's a funny old game.

In all the time I’ve been going, I don’t think I’ve ever written about Glastonbury.
Even talking about it, I am conscious of not conveying how it feels, what it’s like, how it’s shaped my life, my attitude and my values. And I may fail here as well. But that’s no reason not to try.

Here are the consistencies:

• I have always bought a ticket – I just felt that it was such a privilege to be there and if Eavis was kind enough to create it, the least I could do was pay my way. Student, unemployed and working – always paid.
• I have always agreed with Eavis’s verdict at the end of every festival – best festival ever. The most recent is always the best. You want to yearn for the good old days, then stay away and nostalge all you like.

The sheer force of the creativity and dedication that hundreds, even thousands, of people bring to the festival awes and humbles me. Wicker sculptures, living arches, wooden scorpions, stone dragons, steampunk scrap metal edifices belching flame, every rubbish bin painted, silken flags, beaches, gardens, bike-powered mobile stages, glow-lit pools. Are only some. This year. Because every year brings new evolutions, new imaginations, new artisans motivated and inspired by past festivals and current interests. It floods me with serotonin and oxytocin.

It is the festival of the Moment. Always personal, but also often shared, sometimes communal. This year I was blessed with many.

( Cut for length. It appears I witter rather... )

Now off to pack for a 5 am start on the trains tomorrow.

Boing boing boing

Just seen the first episode of Psychoville thanks to the genius of iPlayer - my very first time with the latter! Utter joy - oh LOG I missed you so. And the final cherry on the arsenic sundae: at the end of the episode it said: "More Like this: Last of the Summer Wine Season 30." I couldn't make it up *gryn*

I am awhirl. Giddy with the new. Loving the bimbling even as ankles sore. Planning Black Light Theatre. Golden Tiger tamed. Castle and Boathouse Hostel lie in wait tomorrow. Just because it sounds quite sweet and I'm a sucker for rivers. But I am possibly low on blood sugar and high on Pilsner sugars so maybe I should go and remedy that. Then proper sentences might emerge. But don't count on it.

After Welsh camping, I set off on one of the most beautiful bus journeys ever, from Brecon to Cardiff.  As my 4am bus to London was due to leave from the same place, I trotted into the Hilton in front of me and deposited my heavy backpack.  Yay for 5-star hotel, esp when you're neither paying nor staying.  Plenty of time to go searching for lamb, beer and drowsy rivers at the gorgeous Y Mochyn Du (Black Pig) before stubbling across a Welsh language open mike night and then an indie club where this happy loon danced for hours.  2 am was still too early to retrieve bags so I decided to visit a casino for the first time in my life.  It was unexpected - the majority of the 60 or so people there at Wednesday morning 3am were of far-eastern origin, with a massive room dedicated to mahjong, and many poker-like games taking place.  There were more people playing computerised roulette that the baize table versions available, and the slot machines were unlike any I'd seen before.  An informative (and warm) experience for the price of half a cider...

Back to the Hilton, the lovely guy of the desk offered me a cup of tea and a window seat to wait to see the bus come in.  So nice.  Once on the bus I even managed to contort myself onto a double coach seat and sleep for a couple of hours, awaking to the rush hour excitement (cough) of kensington through to Victoria with an ever-more-frazzled driver.  Finally having to hoist the backpack again, after a few wrong turns I got myself onto a Cambridge Circus bus to become, on the dot of 9 am, the 8th person queuing for that day's Doll's House.  And as a cherry on top, got my cousin's text to say she could come after all.

After a delicious performance at the Donmar, London blurred into London things, but 3 precious experiences must be singled out:
1. I was introduced to the Islington Fantasy Centre, a week before it closes its doors after 40 years.  Erik Arthur regaled us with personal experiences of every speculative author of the last half decade while I clutched Ellen Datlow anthologies to my chest and regretted every moment I had missed.  It reminded me of the first bookshops I ever knew, yellowed pages and infinite imagination. Wah.

2. By pure chance, I stumbled on the British Silent Film festival, and they were showing an absolute corker: Palais de Danse, 1928 naughtiness and menacing mostaches. Phwoar dastardly.  With an absolutely brilliant 4 piece orchestra improvising seamlessly.

3. Arcadia, organised with panache by the_elyan so long ago, whose witty, pretty, fizzy brilliance put even Doll's House in the shade, and has made me seek out everything Stoppard.  And new and re-acquaintances with a very lovely group of people was the cherry on a martini night.

And now home, where CAB Volunteering is beginning to take shape, and all things Cajun cause me delight. 

Kisses to all who helped make the last couple of weeks so delightful xxx

Having made the 100% Right Choice - blown out the interview and hot-tailed it to Hay, I have been rewarded by the most glorious heatwave for my week in Wales.  Sarah Waters and Immodesty Blaize, jazz trumpets and Julian Clary...  have been deliciously followed wtth blue skies, blazing sunshine, babbling brooks, mountain peaks with a view to Bristol, warm surfs and luxuriant green, green green.  Tumbledown castles in evey village and town.  Woken  by ducks and lulled by delicious and ridiculously cheap ale.  Did I mention the blazing sunshine?... I am now a happy conker, shiny and brown.  British libraries with their free Internet for all.  I loves my island I do. /slightly sun-dazed and emotional.

Got an invitation for an interview today - for next week Friday when I was hoping to be in Hay from Thursday.  Have asked if appointment can be changed but til they get back to me, my London follow-on plans are in disarray.  Argh - cheap early tickets I will lose.