In the latest instalment of my remedial film education, I sat down this afternoon to watch Back To The Future with dad and Katie. What fun! Indeed, it has just inspired me to prepare a tall glass of chocolate milk for myself – which, as everyone knows, is the sure-fire prerequisite to approaching attractive 1950s American girls in chrome-plated suburban diners and successfully asking them to the dance. Fantabulous!
(Of course, and here’s the weird thing, if I had to travel back in time to make sure that my parents got together I’d be round about the right time to go see that film in the cinema on first release. But then 1980s Britain would hardly be my first choice of time-travelling destination… [cue predictable ‘I wish the same could be said for David Cameron, eh?’ witticism. Aha. I’m here all week.])
Anyway, Back To The Future was a generous DVD loan from Paul last night at Abbi and Paul’s dinner party, also featuring Paul’s brother and cousin. This was my first time visiting their lovely new flat, but the potential for many more parties has already been well observed, assuming that we all band together and get them some more cutlery. (I did wonder, on my way there, what would happen if I ran into one of those public transport knife-searching efforts clutching my little bag of knives, forks, spoons, wine bottles and After Eights… threatening much?) A lovely evening, and delicious food too 
Now, holiday part #2: from Sunday to Thursday I had a wonderful time down in Deal with Oliver, Abi and Abi’s friend Helen. It feels like we did a lot, even though it was hardly packed with strenuous activity, from seaside fish and chips to Jenga Truth or Dare. We watched All About My Mother and the adorable My Neighbour Totoro, as well as lots of Black Books and (my contribution) The Day Today, and just generally had lots of fun – especially during the now infamous ‘why look, we’re running out of lemonade…’ vodka night. (Ahem.) And now, alongside photos, I have some tasty rhubarb jam to remember it by! Yum yum.
Little piggy pig
Always a good combination
Here we all are!
Oliver can never get enough praise for all of his cooking
Hey y’all. I’m back! Well, back for a little bit – from late on Wednesday night until Sunday, in fact, and then holiday part #2 starts on Sunday 
Croatia, unsurprisingly enough, was hot and sunny and very restful! I feel under a bit of pressure to blog well about it, though, since we were sitting around one evening discussing blogs – as families do – when my own mother opined that The Musings of a Red Dalek has gone downhill over the past six months. A stab to the heart is what it was, I tell you, a bloody heart stabbing incident indeed. (Between mournful gasps, I countered that at least it was still going, and has comfortably outlived most of its contemporaries. So there.)
Croatia woo!
If you’re short of time, this basically sums up my holiday
No Self holiday is complete without air hockey
Aww…
As you may have gathered, Tasha was having an eventful time doing other things this time round, so Katie and I held the generational fort with a raft of silly activities. These included a developing a serious addiction to German MTV – or Mighten Tighten Vighten, as it shall now forever be known – to the extent that I now have a bunch of German-only pop songs stuck in my head: an itch that Spotify sadly fails to satisfy. Wir war’n Geboren um zu Leben, mit den Wundern jeder Zeit!
I have to say, though, that acting as a family of four for a while did confirm to me that being one of three siblings is clearly best. I know this is controversial territory. Only children in particular can be rather militant in demanding equal rights these days, and I’m totally not prejudiced – some of my best friends are only children! – and liberal enough to believe if consenting adults don’t want to share their toys that’s alright, as long as they do it in private and don’t try to teach siblinglessness in schools. But just one sibling still isn’t enough. Don’t get me wrong: Katie and I got on great in Croatia, as we (almost) always do, it’s just that family mealtimes with five people are even more competitive in terms of getting a word in edgeways, and I rather enjoy this constant shouting healthy dynamism. Maybe even more would be even better…
Oh yes, and on the subject of me and Katie – we had a wonderful moment together in Split, after petulantly refusing to accompany our parents to see the interior of a church and opting instead to stay outside in the glorious sunshine. (It was borne of an immediate but nonetheless remarkably firm conviction that we rather liked our own shoulders, thank you very much, and weren’t about to cover them up without a more enticing incentive than, um, the interior of a church.) Yet the moment they went in without us a pagan alternative suddenly turned up outside, in the form of a bunch of toga-clad, crowd-pleasing ancient Romans. Hurrah! No matter how much gold was inside that church, in the coolness stakes our team totally won.
Down with Theodosius!
Also: mum, Katie and I went rafting, which was lots of fun…
Row, row, row your boat
…and included an optional rock-jumping stop. Now, before I conclude on a photo of said rock-jumping, I must say a word about Katie’s sneakiness. Because there’s also of photo of her jumping off the rock – a photo I won’t be blogging, because it makes me look stupid by comparison – with her arms outstretched and a carefree, isn’t-this-fun look on her face. Great. I, on the other hand, am clasping my life jacket like a fool. But, ladies and gentlemen, we were told to do this! Honest! Katie just abandoned health and safety in pursuit of a cooler photograph – it’s her that you should judge 
Down, down, down, down, down
New shoes! Specifically, new shoes that I bought using a newly discovered and much valued technique: namely, gather a crack team of concerned girls together and get them to do it for me. So many thanks, Abbi, Maryam and Jules – you’ve collectively returned me to that (sadly always temporary) phase of my life when I don’t walk around with holes in my shoes.
Some of the shoe-buying team
(Oh yeah, Katie and I are building a Dalek btw)
This past week I’ve been working on another UCL(funding cuts)-QPCS summer school, and although the kids were all pretty sweet it does leave you with a sense of relief when you can return to talking to people your own age, tempered by a fear that you will inadvertently start shouting at your friends to stay in line or stop talking. For this reason, amongst others, it was very very nice to unwind in the pub with Matthew on Friday night – Matthew being someone that I see often enough to feel in touch with yet rarely enough that I feel compelled to blog his name. And then last night I went to the wonderful Alice’s birthday party, in which Elizer Eliezer and I were both mistaken for 23 (ahem), a corner of the room became dedicated to telling Jewish jokes and we all ate Emily’s delicious cake. It was great, and slightly nostalgic, for I remember being the age when you gathered at someone’s house for a birthday with vaguely illicit helpings of blue WKD…
Right, planned engineering work on this blog: I’m off on holiday to Croatia! (Again!) Have fun in my absence – and if you do find yourself without anything to do, try listening to a song about birds.
As I lean back tonight (with a mug of hot chocolate – yum) and prepare to organise my thoughts in handy blog form (yes, this thing you’re reading now) I am filled with that strangely comfortable achey-leg sensation – that one you get after a decent amount of walking (or ‘pacing’) around the place enjoying happy summery days with an array of great people. Which is not, I grant you, a very profound observation. (It’s just true, is all. Although ‘array’ was a strange choice of word.)
Now, how’s this for commitment? On Monday I started out taking part in a protest against the mass cancellation of Building Schools for the Future, which reminded me how very silly it feels to chant a slogan over and over again, but had to dash off before very long in order to *whispers* have coffee at the BBC. (Although it was actually tea, I think the whole story sounds better with coffee.) It was all in the service of stalking Bill, of course, who showed me round TV Centre (ooh exciting!) before we relocated to Bush House for the recording of Digital Planet. All great fun, and an opportunity to see Gareth Mitchell’s stylish leather which is left cruelly untransmitted by the medium of radio, so I’m sure the gods of political chanting will forgive me. (Still, ‘free schools’ rather than rebuilding actual schools? C’mon, government…)
Still, on the topic of a strong and stable coalition, what was most lovely this week was that Matt, Caroline and I full took advantage of all being in London at the same time. On Wednesday, Caroline braved the journey to Willesden in return dinner – OK, in return for fish and chips – and then on Friday night I successfully gathered people together at Camden’s Bar Gansa for ever-popular jugs of sangria and tapas. (And thanks especially to Saoirse for agreeing to come and making sure the political spectrum was about as wide as humanly possible )
Much love to all!
And then today, we three got together again for Hyde Park pic-a-nicking and Inception: a great watch, and likely to engender a good deal of existential teenage angst for years to come. (Now just don’t go and ruin it by making dull sequals a la The Matrix, yeah?) One thing bothered us about the film, however, and although it’s not much of a spoiler you may want to stop reading here if you haven’t yet seen it. OK, so: if you were in a long-term ‘dream’ with just you and your partner, in which you had the time and ability to create the entire world around you, then why on earth would you create a bland city of scarily symmetrical copy-and-paste skyscrapers and no greenery at all? Not even a little park? (It’s a lack of imagination which our theme park at least will avowedly avoid, you can be sure of that.)
Rise and shine!
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