Book Club sometimes has a habit of losing its literary aspirations, particularly when none of us have actually finished the book yet. Yesterday evening may have been planned to resemble a meeting but, with Sanna unable to attend, it soon turned into an excuse to have tea with Saoirse. Long-term readers will be aware that ‘tea with Saoirse’ means a great deal of political chat interspersed with only a little gossip, which is always great fun. In fact, along with Saoirse’s mum*, we talked long enough for me to receive food and wine: is my entire life just a continual cycle around the hospitality of others? (Which reminds me: you all must come over sometime! We can compare carpets.) But yes – it was not only a lovely evening but I also finally finally finally got to try out the Wii. I know this is roughly equivalent to somebody proudly announcing that he or she has just tried out this funky ‘e-mail’ thing for the first time, but better late than never.
[*There is no really satisfactory formulation of this sentence. Yes, parents are individuals too! But it’s all about context, innit?]Anyway: I am very shortly off on holiday with Lucy! We’re going ‘up North’ – which means a bit of Yorkshire countryside as well as Leeds – and I won’t be back for a week or so. (Come to think of it, afterwards I really should be in high-powered revision mode anyway.) So please excuse my relative online absence. I’m sure I’ll still manage to Twitter…
Oh, and points for getting the title without looking it up, you literary folk.
A few days ago my watch strap broke. All very well, you might think, as your mind begins to drift onto the theoretical possibility of using artificial intelligence to fetch, read and digest your RSS feeds for you, before relating only the most important sections in a nicely synthesised voice balancing a matey joviality with gravitas and authority when the subject matter demanded it. (“And the breaking of watch straps”, you note smugly and with a slight trace of a snort, “would certainly be discarded by any intelligence even half worthy of the name!”) But hang on there, buddy, because it turns out that the opening to the watch strap story – in all its banal simplicity – was actually only the mere lead-in to the observation that the aforesaid event seriously disrupted my ability to live. I drifted through the days – two, possibly three – without much awareness of what time it was, my days punctuated instead by the motion of checking my empty wrist and sighing. Sure, I had the time on my phone, on clocks, on my laptop and in the corner of breaking news channels, but none of it could compensate for the simple service of a watch. Plus said watch can go 100m underwater, which none of the rival timekeeping devices can, so there’s a USP right there. Here’s to watches!
I’ve seen rather a lot of Joshua and Niamh recently, so much so that I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re mightily sick of me by now. (“A common sentiment”, our hypothetical rude reader adds, who you should probably know is Cubert.) On Monday night we were at the Blues Bar they’re fans of, along with Lucy, who was using London as a central cog in the transportation of goods between Rome, Sussex and Cofton. The next day the pair joined me and Katie in a Peggle practice session, in preparation for the Peggle ‘n’ Pizza tournament I have decided must be held. (In fact, I have apparently decided it must be held on Easter Sunday. Outlook doesn’t tell me things like this, you see, and each year I find it a big enough struggle trying to remember how many days Easter even spans. I thought I had it figured – death on Friday, ‘your call is important to us’ on Saturday and (brief) resurrection on Sunday – but then my dad started talking about ‘Easter Monday’ and I lost it again.)
Joshua and Lucy
We read Nic’s bl… I mean, Peggle practice
Battle of strength
And then, yesterday, I went to see Oliver and Abi – plus Abi’s sister Sarah – for a picnic. Except that it rained, so we ate indoors instead, but then ate crisps, popcorn and French Fancies during a splurge of Buffy watching, so all’s good. It is true that the sugar slightly went to our heads. as we may have ended up lying on the floor trying to arm wrestle, but that’s allowed. Oh, and we all watched the first episode of the latest series of The Apprentice, on which I want to say only two things. Firstly: using the phrase “at the end of the day” should result in instant expulsion, not just from the show but from society itself. (Shut up, Cubert. I don’t want to hear about your mastery of the search engine.) And secondly: the boys’ choice of the team name Empire – on the explicit grounds that it was ‘distinctly British’ – actually caused me to involuntarily drop a spoon. Good idea, you utter, utter pillocks.
Those of you living in an RSS or Facebook world might never even notice. But tonight I have been spurred on to a small bout of online home improvement, motivated both by the release of IE8 and Nic’s forward march. While Nic is busy adding features like ‘comments’ and ‘gravatars’, however, I’m already several steps ahead* 
So without further ado, I present the new version of feed mix!
Feed Mix Upgrade
*Nic’s blog is wonderful really. Go read it.
OK OK, I will blog, otherwise you might start thinking that I never actually made it home at all. I did, and have entered full-on lazy mode, which means my days are filled with sleep, Peggle Nights and Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. It was Owen who introduced me to Darkplace over the term and I now have the DVD to savour, although with only a paltry six episodes ever made. The theme tune is also semi-permanently stuck in my head (on an alternating basis with Alphabeat) – go on, try it!
On Sunday I was ‘at’ (in a rather virtual sense) the premiere of The Age of Stupid, a film about climate change which forces you into a paranoid mode for the following few days, as every light bulb you switch on becomes a source of anxiety and guilt. But it’s a bit like Catholic guilt, which doesn’t really alter your behaviour, but just lurks menacingly until the genuine benefits of a short attention span become evident and you convince yourself that you do really need to be using a laptop and a desktop PC side-by-side. (I did.) But no, I do recommend people go see the film. And given that my blog already has a reputation for being the ongoing chronicle of Ken Livingstone’s extremely slow re-election campaign, I won’t shrink from mentioning that he put in an appearance at the actual premiere which was being beamed to us lot at The O2 Centre in Finchley Road. The makers of the film apologised on behalf of London for the election result, raising actual cheers at our cinema, clearly demonstrating that he would have won if only you could have picked the right voters.
I was also unlazy enough to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with Joshua and Niamh last night at The Corrib, although you could argue that ‘drinking’ is still a pretty long away from ‘revising’ in terms of productive activity. But you wouldn’t, because it was lovely, and I would include a sweet coupley photo to demonstrate this – all nicely Irishly themed, too – if I hadn’t been forbidden from doing so on the grounds that it wasn’t flattering enough. Pfft. Instead you’ll have to be content with the (entirely mental) image of a fox darting in front of me as I walked home that night before disappearing back into the shadows. I wonder whereabouts they sleep?
I’m not complaining about work, but the final few days of term are always so luxurious! My final essay was handed in just before 8pm on Tuesday and within half an hour I was watching Watchmen thanks to Sharon’s very impressive organisation of the masses (thank you!). I would have needed to have been organised to see Watchmen, to be honest, since the promise of gore would have put me off, but thankfully the extreme violence was sporadic and sufficiently comic-bookish not to be a problem. The film itself was faintly ridiculous but extremely enjoyable nonetheless, not least because of the cute interweaving with modern American history, albeit in a counter-factual form. And if you haven’t seen it, please skip the rest of this paragraph now. Good. Because I was wondering if I have a problem when my reaction to giant nuclear explosions going off in New York is “ooh, this will really hand London an advantage in global finance”?
The rest of the week has been similarly fun, with delicious servings of Peggle served with the sweet sauce of tyrannical victory. Lucy 
arrived yesterday afternoon for an impromptu visit, partly to use Cambridge’s – ahem – relaxed pace as a detox from the adventures of normal universities. Obligingly we all headed over to the Granta for drinks and very much appreciated burgers. I hope I will be forgiven for using a photo of Oliver and Abi now, because you guys are sweet and I love you both! 
Aww *grins*
That night our party settled in the comfort of Oliver’s room to watch some more Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I very vividly remember choosing not to start watching this (in Year 5) when it came to BBC2, because – as with Lost – I knew I would love it and it would thus eat up my time. Well, I was right, because I do love it, in all its 90s glory. Of course, my objectivity is a little suspect in claiming that the 1990s (hmm, the decade of my childhood) was the best era ever, but who cares: we all know that it was. Sure, it would seem awful and primitive now, but at the time we were young, carefree and devoted to BBC2’s 6pm masterpieces. (And all of this is not even to mention Willow’s endearingly beautiful dress sense.)
This morning Abi and I finally, finally went swimming in the pool that’s so close I can see the water from my bedroom window. (Now there’s another precious piece of childhood: swimming pools!) Despite our less-than-rigorous attitude towards swimming it still felt invigoratingly refreshing, and I’m very glad we eventually got it together to go. Of course there’s nothing like swimming for leaving you hungry, and so it was perfect timing to stroll over to the Picturehouse to have lunch ‘n’ beer with Bill Thompson. Bill always gives you rollercoaster conversation so it was great to be able to see him again. It’s interesting, too, because this is a friendship inherited from my parents – all those years ago youngBill mixed with with youngDad and youngMum in this very city. So will I be chatting to any of my friends’ children in a couple of decades? If so… I hope they find this blog to be a useful source of embarrassing photos of their parents as pretty young things
Me and Bill
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