Shhhh....

I have a migraine. I've spent the last few hours in bed with the electric blanket on and a chillow (a pillow that's cold - obviously) under my head. I've reached a brief hiatus from my symptoms which I know from experience won't last long, but I thought I'd use the opportunity to get out of bed which is frankly boring after a while. My husband has banned me from watching television incase it makes me any more ill, so here I am with the laptop writing nonsensical e-mails to people and writing a Virgina Woolf-esque blog. I hate migraines. I feel sick. One side of my face is numb. And an alien being has hatched inside my head and is banging on my skull trying to get out.

Okay, time to stop writing shit and go back to bed...

Raindrops on roses

I'm having one of those days where I had to literally drag myself into work. It took all my inner mettle to stop me from wrapping myself up in my duvet, sitting under the dining room table and rocking backwards and forwards until the day went away. So... on my way here I tried to think of nice things about the journey to work. They were:

1) Travelling with my husband. We actually managed to leave at the same time today, whereas every other day this week, he's been out the door when I'm still skulking about in my pyjamas.
2) Reading the Metro. Even if it is only for the letters and the cartoon.
3) Comedy TfL staff who put on a funny voice when saying "mind the doors".
4) Freebies. Today I was given a BAA bag containing a box of Fitness cereal, Aero bubbles, a tin of vegetable broth, hair gel, tissues and eye drops.

No...bollocks...it hasn't worked. It's still a bloody awful day.

I carried a watermelon

I have been reprimanded for not blogging in a while and for my previous blog containing too many fucks (as in the word, not acts of copulation). So, I shall be writing only about cheerful stuff:

1. I rewatched Dirty Dancing yesterday. Now I've. Had. The time of my life. And I've never felt this way before (never felt this way...)
2. I'm going to Center Parcs tomorrow
3. I've got a week off work
4. It's nearly Christmas
5. Nobody puts Baby in the corner.

Hickory dickory

Who the fuck's fucking idea was it to put the fucking clocks back? I am very tired and confused. It's five minutes to nine and I'm so tired I want to stab out my own eyes. Fucking stupid idea. I'm going to bed.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

It's my birthday next week. At what point does that stop being exciting? Surely there must be some point when it just seems like another day. I remember my Grandma always answering the question "how old are you?" with a vaguely uninterested "oh, I don't know... what year is it?".

I'm going to be twenty-seven. That's a proper grown up age. It shouldn't be that exciting. It really shouldn't be punctuated by four separate celebrations (going to Avenue Q and a meal with my sisters yesterday, tea at the Savoy with my husband on Tuesday, work drinks on Thursday, and general drinks on Saturday).

I always assumed that women approaching thirty were meant to get depressed and sigh for their lost youth. I've heard people bemoaning the fact that they can't tick the '18-25' box on questionnaires anymore and are no longer eligible for a young person's railcard. But I'm genuinely quite excited about getting near to thirty. My ultimate goal in life is to be a cantankerous old woman, so every birthday brings me closer to that goal.

I hope I'm always excited by birthdays. I shall be the queen for the day and I love it.

A truth universally acknowleged

I have finally found some kind of justification for marrying a boy! After a weekend listening to Star Wars on the Playstation interspersed with vauge twangings on his electric guitar (and no, that's not a euphemism for something), I finally persuaded him to sit down and watch an episode of the 1995 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. It had never occured to me that he hadn't already seen it. I've always assumed that anyone with a pulse has not only read P&P but also watched the BBC version and secretly coveted a corset and bonnet.

He didn't get off to a good start by pointing at Mr Collins and saying "is that Darcy?" but once we got into the swing of things and I'd explained that the plot was the same as Bridget Jones (Austen clearly guilty of plagurism there), he actually seemed to enjoy it. Yesterday I watched a documentary about why people love the novel so much and there was a clip of their first dance at the Netherfield Ball. I actually overheard my husband say "oh, I love that bit!" and then look around him confused muttering "I don't know where that came from..."

They bloody well don't have the answer

Has anyone eaten Smarties recently? Like, reeeeally recently? I had some last night and it was like all my childhood dreams had been smashed. They've taken out artifical colours. The bastards have taken out artifical colours. Gone are the day-glo pretty colours that you can arrange into rows (or is it just me who does that?). Gone are the blue ones altogether.

Smarties are now an assortment of muddy colours that look like those jam jars of water that we used to wash our paintbrushes in at school. There's even a white one. A white smartie. As we all know, white smarties should only exist when they've been out in the sun for too long and the colour has sweated off. They should not occur naturally in the tube.

And speaking of the tube, where have the old-fasioned circular tubes with the plastic lettered top gone? How am I ever meant to make up my name using smartie lids? The tubes are now entirely made from cardboard and are hexagonal. Hexagonal, I tell you!

They don't even taste the same - they left me feeling sick (both metaphorically and literally).

If I buy a tube of Smarties, I want a lovely blend of sugar and fat with pretty colours. I don't want some bloody hippy sweets that look like they should be sold at a stall at a festival.

Gutted.

Carry On Nurse

So, the government are thinking of establishing a two-tier NHS scheme. This basically means that if you approach your hospital with a brown envelope of cash, you'll suddenly find yourself first on the list for chemotherapy. Well, maybe the details will vary slightly, but that's essentially the point of the scheme.

Some people might label that as corruption made visible. Some may ask what is the point of the welfare state. Some could even question whether it's a Labour government we (and that's 'we' in the widest sense of course) elected recently.

But not me. Oh no. I'm currently emptying my jar of pennies into a brown envelope in readiness for senile dementia.

Harry Potter Update

I'm at the end of the fourth book now and will borrow the last two from my sister on Saturday. James Joyce they aint, but I have to admit that they're streets ahead of your average chick lit or thriller. So far, the characterisation and the plot has been complex and (for me anyway) unpredictable. I've got completely immersed in her world and have been genuinely scared or moved by parts of it. Plus I'm developing a crush on Snape.

Belgium

I'm just back from a holiday in Bruges: beer, chocolate and chips with everything. I have found my spiritual homeland.

I'm the tin dog

IhatemyjobIhatemyjobIhatemyjobIhatemyjob.

I don't want to say any more than that because:

a) I don't want to get fired (ironically)
b) I don't want to divulge where I work

But, I hate my job.

Filthy / Gorgeous

I'd suspected it for some time. The signs had always been there: the devil's horns or angel wings worn to parties where fancy dress was surely unnecessary, the predilection for the Eurovision Song Contest, the visits to Las Vegas. But it wasn't until I found myself dancing to the new Scissor Sisters song a couple of nights ago that it really hit home. I am a gay man trapped in a woman's body.

There really is no other explanation for the unashamed campery that I surround myself with. So, I've decided to get down to the gym and have 'BOYS BOYS BOYS' tatooed on one muscley forearm. I'm going to refer to all my male friends as "she". And I'm going to buy a dog that's so small I can carry it under my arm in a handbag.

So there.

Meg the Mad Muggle

It's taken a lot of persuading from various sources but I have finally relented and am reading the Harry Potter books. I don't normally like reading anything favoured by the great unwashed, so I feel quite uncomfortable with the entire business. I'm only on the second book so far and it's very readable but I have yet to see anything that makes the books particularly stand out. My sister says they get better as they go along so I will update you on my progress...

Two minutes silence

Did anyone else do the silence today? We all stood on the steps at work to do it. When we first went out there were a couple who had just got married getting their photos done on the steps and I thought it could be a bit awkward, but they soon buggered off.

I'm not sure what I think about doing these silences. Obviously, I care very much about what happened on 7th July and spending time working at the mortuary made it feel very close to home. But, it's hard to know what justifies a minute's silence. Atrocities happen every day and we can't have a silence for everything. In some ways I wish we'd just stuck to a minute on rememberence day and found another way to mark other events. This two minutes thing is a joke aswell. Will the next atrocity be a three minutes silence to show that we're very very sad about it? Also, I can see why you might need to commemorate the death of many people, but when people did a minute's silence when Diana died, it was ridiculous.

I'm pleased we did the two minutes today though. I'm just glad I'm not the person who decides when to hold them!

Just Married!

Well, it all went splendidly. Hurrah. We both had a fantastic time and I really couldn't have wished for more. We're off to gay Paris on Friday (hopefully it won't be too gay) and then we're back to the drudgery of being Mr and Mrs!!

Tomorrow... is another day!

I'm getting married in the morning. Last time I could legitimately say that, I was dressed in a bonnet and in my school play. And, admitedly, I sang it rather than said it.

I feel a mixture of excitement and a feeling akin to a small rat nibbling on my innards. I don't really know what I'm nervous about, because the nervousness currently covers about everything: Simon not turning up, me not turning up, registrar not turning up, fainting / crying / getting a migraine, spilling kir royal down my white dress, having a fight with someone, breaking my ankle by wearing stupid shoes and a stupid dress, being made up to look like a drag queen, no-one turning up, being attacked by killer bees, getting food poisoning from my carefully chosen wedding breakfast...

The fainting one is probably the most likely because it's apparently going to be 29 degrees and the corset in my dress is so tight that my internal organs get re-arranged, and I can only breathe in short panting breaths like a pervert.

Anyway, I still have so much organising to do (and apparently there's this thing on the telly called the World Cup) so I'd better go.

I will post again once I am officially a Missus and am back from my honeymoon in Paris.

A Mars a day...

As someone who is officially on a diet, I would like to dedicate this space to Mars Bars. They truly are the daddy of all chocolate. As soon as my wedding's over, I'm going to buy a few hundred of them, melt them down and inject them intravenously into my bloodstream. I am determined to be a thin bride but a fat wife.

I don't want to be selfish, darling, but it's me me me!

Please re-arrange the following items to re-create my fantastic hen night last Saturday:

- An 'L' plate
- A veil made of toilet roll
- The phone number of a man named Vinny
- A photograph of me sunbathing topless on a beach. Aged three.
- Flavoured vodka
- A gorilla-gram
- Devil's horns
- Heart-shaped balloons and a red glittery curtain to walk through
- The following exchange:

Me: "What's a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?"
Him: "Having a drink with my boyfriend. Piss off."

- 'Like a Virgin'
- Penis earrings
- Chocolate iced gems
- Falling asleep next to the toilet
- Buck's Fizz
- A picture of a naked man with "this is what you could have had" written on it
- A red feather boa
- A flasher
- Banana flavoured condoms
- Dancing while standing on a chair
- Cocktails
- 20 fantastic friends

Never let it be said that my sisters aren't 100% classsy ladies who know how to organise a sophisticated evening.

Funkay

My new favourite thing in the whole wide world (apart from my boyfriend, a toy monkey called Micawber and Mars Bars) is Green Wing.

I half watched it last series but this year have actually sat down and devoted some serious time to watching each episode. I even tear myself away from my gin and tonic in the pub at 8:00 to sharp to make sure I'm home in time.

If you've watched one episode and didn't like it, please try again. It really will grow on you until you find yourself answering all questions in the style of a crow.

Just one last thought from Staff Liaison Officer Sue White:

"Do I look like a mug? Am I made from china? Do I live on a shelf or on a little tree? Would you like to put your lips to my rim? You may answer the last question. The others were rhetorical."

Last week, this week

Last week I was in Portugal. Last week I had a suntan. Last week I got up late, went for a walk by the sea, ate fresh fish and local vegetables, frolicked in the pool, ate ice-cream and went to bed. Last week the biggest decision I had to make was which factor suncream to wear.

This week it's cold. I have my period. I had a job interview on Monday and found out I hadn't got in on Wednesday. I was stuck on the Victoria line for an hour. My shower broke and I don't have enough money to fix it.

The first person to invent a time machine wins a biscuit.

Duvet Day

I had a day's annual leave on Monday. No particular reason or anything. I spent my day wisely, and it went like this:

8:30 - BBC Breakfast
9:00 - That Bloke That's Not Trisha and Shouts a Lot
9:30 - Trisha
10:30 - This Morning

I then took a break to stock up on important supplies (ie diet coke and a giant slab of Bourneville).

When I got back I watched Grange Hill. And this is where it all started to go wrong.

The children in Grange Hill have... Liverpudlian accents. And I don't mean just one visiting exchange student. I mean all of them. The teachers still seem to be from London but the kids are all Northern! What's that about? Grange Hill is on the central line for goodness sake! It's about cheeky chirpy cockney sparrows getting into fights with the public schoolkids and getting up the duff. It's like switching on Corrie to find them all affecting Jamaican accents. It's just wrong. I had a minor strop before turning over to watch My Parents are Aliens on ITV. This cheered me up a little but I still feel a letter to Points of View is due.

Mum's the word

I saw an advert last night in which one of the characters said something along the lines of "we know that mums care about their children eating healthily". Now, is it just me, or is that kind of statement not acceptable anymore? What was going on in those advertisers' tiny minds when they decided to use the word "mum" over the word "parent"? Do they really think that mothers have nothing better to do than wake up in a cold sweat worrying about which brand of bread their children eat? And do fathers not give a shit about their children's health and spend their spare time rubbing sugar into their gums? I know it seems like such a small thing but that kind of casual sexism really winds me up.

I had a conversation with someone at work once who, despite being quite senior, had always assumed that she would quit work one day and become a housewife. Now, that's fine if that's the agreement that she's reached with her partner, and it's the arrangement that works best for them, but then she followed the comment up by saying that women make better parents anyway. Apparently it's something to do with hormones. I completely disagree with that. I think that's the kind of statement which does a total disservice not only to fathers but also to adoptive parents. When I was growing up both my parents worked and a lot of the day-to-day 'parenting' stuff was done by my grandma. Now, unless I'm actually living out an episode of Eastenders, she didn't give birth to me. But she was still a bloody good parent.

And, if ever you think that we're living in a modern world without sexism, take a look in the Argos catalogue and look at which toys they have the boys playing with, and which ones they give to the girls. Interesting.

Slutbunwalla

It's suddenly dawned on me. Getting married means changing my name.

Well, obviously I don't have to change my name. He could take my name. I could (spit) double barrel it. Or we could make up a whole new name that grows organically from our love for one another. Like Slutbunwalla.

But I have, on reflexion, decided to take his. I tell everyone that it's because I want to show that his family are important to me. It's a really big gesture to make to someone you love. Of course, those of you who know what my current surname is will appreciate that having a name which is cockney rhyming slang for cunt is enough reason in itself.

My name will suddenly multiply from three syllables to five. I'll have to create a new signature. Last time I did that I was eleven and it involved the 'n' metamorphosing into a small animal. I'll have to say another name when I answer the phone. And, worst of all, my new name makes me sound about sixty years old.

Marriage I can cope with. A new name... I'm not so sure.

Smarter, faster, easier

I appreciate that people have a right to go on strike. I think it's important that they do. But, (sigh), I wish they'd pick their battles carefully. An annual strike about one big issue is far more effective than several smaller ones.

I did my preparation for the tube strike yesterday. I got an early night and left at seven that morning. I was clad in trainers and lots of layers. I was properly equiped with an A-Z, tube map, water and food.

I only spent two hours travelling which is a pretty good record as far as tube strikes go. The trouble is that I never got more than about a mile from my house, and after two hours of travelling ended up back where I started.

I was not amused. And was even less amused when I phoned work to hear that everyone else had perfect journeys to work, complete with chocolate fountains and naked dancing girls.