Blame Canada

I'm going on holiday! Woo hoo! I'm going to spend a week in Montreal with the husband. I'm so excited - I'm going to catch a bear and become a mountie.

Welsh cakes and silly hats

Today is Grandma day. It's my Grandma's birthday, which we still celebrate even though she's been dead for ten years. We eat the kind of food she used to make (shepherd's pie, toad in the hole) and light a candle. This year I'm having shepherd's pie and trifle, and I bought a bag of buttermints to keep in my handbag in an old-lady kind of way.

Grandma was a huge part of our lives when we were growing up. Both my parents worked full time so it was Grandma who took me to school, cooked my dinner and helped with my homework. Thinking about her today I started to remember all kinds of random things about her. Like the way she used the word "terrific" to mean a lot ("oh, it rained a terrific lot today"). I remember her teaching me to knit with green knitting needles and purple wool. We used to watch television together when I came back from nursery school - a children's programme about a man who owned a bric-a-brac shop for me, and Pebble Mill for her. In the middle of the afternoon we would share an apple and an orange, and then she would fall asleep.

I remember staying round her flat where she had a pyjama case shaped like a dog, and I remember the smell of fat frying when she cooked me breakfast in the morning. She wore a huge coat and a big furry hat which the kids on the estate made fun of but she didn't care. Once I made her take me to church because I was a Brownie and had never been. Reluctantly, she took me. After an hour she said in a big loud voice "once these people start bloody praying they don't know when to stop!".

I remember putting a cross in the box for her when she voted in a local election. I remember endless knitting of yellow jumpers. I remember casserole every Monday. I remember her taking her teeth out and singing Happy Birthday to make us laugh. I remember the gold locket she wore round her neck. I remember endless batches of welsh cakes and mince pies.

My mum has a saying pinned to her noticeboard at home. It says "Say not in sadness that she has gone, but in gladness that she was."

Brave little soldier

I am an infected. Somehow I have managed to get a bit of dirt under my fingernail and the tip of my finger has swollen up and I look like ET.

My all-knowlegable husband told me it's called a whitlow and then proceeded to attack me with a sterilised needle to get the fluid out. Bastard. I'm now on antibiotics but got to spend the whole of yesterday with my finger all bandaged up, not able to type or use my mouse. It was great. If nobody had pitied me or stroked my hair for five minutes I got to shout at them until they made me a cup of tea. I love being a cripple.

Shell shocked

Yesterday I saw The Last King of Scotland at the cinema. It's a very good film but was one of those ones which leaves you feeling really anxious afterwards. So my husband, in his infinite wisdom, decided that the best thing to do was to go home and watch Dawn of the Dead. Oh my god. I had the strangest dreams last night of being attacked by zombies sent by the president of Uganda.
Today I'm going to stay in my pyjamas and watch Ice Age with my teddy bear until balance is once again restored in the Meg household.

Big Brother Bullying

Has the world gone mad? Are people really complaining to Ofcom about racist bullying in Big Brother? Have these people actually watching the programme?

For those of you, which I sadly suspect is the majority, who have not been watching the show, Shilpa (a Bollywood actress) is being picked on by Jo (from S Club 7), Danielle (a model) and - to a far lesser extent - by Jade (former Big Brother contestant). It's been your typical bitchy bickering that happens when people are bored and can't think straight, and they've given her a bit of a hard time. But Shilpa will live. We're talking about arguments over how long to cook a chicken for, not the systematic bullying of an eternal victim.

And as for racism, where has that come from? Yes, they laughed at how she pronounces Dirk's name, but equally Shilpa, Dirk and Jermaine constantly laugh at those in the house with English accents. Yes, Jackiey asked if Shilpa lives in a shack, but I'm guessing that she doesn't know too much about India and looked genuinely embarassed when Shilpa described her glamorous lifestyle. As far as I can see, there's no evidence of racism in the house at all, only ignorance. And a perfect example of that is Jade's ponderings on eskimos last night:

"How is it that they don't turn into icy-cubes? Because they don't have electricity or heating and their homes are made of ice. Why is it that when they close their eyes their eyes don't get stuck together? You know how dolphins talk? Do they talk like that? Will eskimos ever become extinct? Where do they go when they die? Because they can't bury them under the grass like we do....if there are any eskimos watching who would like to come and meet me and tell me about themselves, that would be really good."

Fantastic. Now that's telly.

Why have I been forsaken?

I didn't take any time off this Christmas because the last two Christmases at work have been jolly affairs involving playing silly games and eating mince pies. But this year the team deserted me en masse, leaving just me and the boss at work last week. This actually turned out not to be too bad because it gave me a chance to do all the things I've been intending to do since Christmas 2005.

Having spent last week working like mad, I was really looking forward to seeing everyone back at work this week. But where are they? They're all still on annual leave the bastards.

I'm so lonely I might have to siddle up to the canteen staff and ask "whatcha doin...?" Maybe I'll make some new friends.

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!