dom.blog

Katie: “Dom, I’m not feeling your anger is real enough… OK, that’s too much.”

So it’s coming up to a month since I moved out, and definitely time for a quick update. We’ve already had a steady flow of visitors coming to look round and tell us to do the washing up more often – hello Katie, Oliver, Matt, Caroline, Robert, Sophie, Grace, Alex and Rosie (though not all at once). In our defence, it’s a period of transition: Joshua is arriving soon, but then we only have a couple of weeks before we’re moved upstairs into our actual new flat (long story) which we promise will be kept very slightly tidier. (Not sure I have the authority to promise such things on a flat-wide basis, but I just have.) It has also been determined that:

• Every home needs a whiteboard
• It’s surprisingly easy to walk to work, if you want to
• Going swimming at the local pool induces a warm glow of health and fitness, even if I’ve forgotten how to swim properly

A few weeks ago we found ourselves at Josh’s mum’s birthday pool party – yes, an actual pool party with an actual swimming pool in the back garden which is, at least in this country, the coolest novelty short of a private rollercoaster – which also gave us our first flat team photo. Be forewarned, blog, there may be a few of these.

In other news, Katie and I have steamrollered through the (super-awesome) first season of Dollhouse – our fourth joint sci-fi \ fantasy endeavour – and also saw The Dark Knight Rises, also known as The Film That Everyone Else Saw Last Weekend Too. And what everyone else says is true: (a) it’s a great watch, and (b) it could still have done with some editing. And also, (c) a consultant’s advice in handling nuclear bombs, because Katie and I both winced at the alarmingly cavalier attitude shown towards bumping them violently against any passing walls.

OK, so I promised you major life updates in the last post and here they finally are! The last few weeks have been especially hectic and life-changing, both for good and bad reasons, but in keeping with the tone of this blog I will stick unashamedly with the positive. So first of all: I’m writing this from the living room of my new flat Have moved in with the super-lovely Cat from work, with Josh joining us in about a month’s time… it’s all very exciting and we’re going to have so much fun together. So, yay! (Talking of work: I also have a new job to do from Monday… double yay.)

All the photos from the Emma June Event from two weeks ago are on Facebook, but suffice to say it was another amazing mix of black tie and bouncy castle, Josh’s newest secret passion (casino gambling this time) and some glorious cabaret. And then last weekend Grace and I went to another year of Puntcon – and there’s no better place than gently gliding down the river Cam after a fulsome picnic to know that life is good.

One more thing. Last week I turned 23. This is, of course, scarily and frighteningly old… but mollified by a little by getting a Kindle. Now, I’m quite sensitive to the pros and cons of paper books versus their electronic upstarts, and I’m sure I’m going to be using both for a long time to come. But a Kindle has one glorious property which makes it revelatory to me: I can read it on the Tube. I have never been able to do this. Reading books on the Tube has always given me a headache in minutes, even though phones \ newspapers were fine. But having a Kindle on a commute is like learning to read for a second time, and I don’t ever want to go back.

Arts & Culture
The Dictator (27th May, The Coronet)
Hands up: I laughed, despite an almost-empty cinema. It was a relief to watch a Sacha Baron Cohen film without having to endure the usual “that scene was staged!” \ “no it wasn’t!” back and forth, and although this isn’t anything very clever, it’s still a perfectly enjoyable silly caper. Irrelevant Top Tip: watch it after some frozen yoghurt:

A Slow Air (31st May, The Tricycle)
So I did half a GCSE in Drama before quitting to spend more time in the IT office (and making sure my blog was white-listed by the school’s filtering software as an educational resource – so time well spent). However, I do dimly remember lots of talk about monologues and split scenes: well, GCSE Drama teachers, this is the play to take your kids to. Two actors, speaking only to the audience in turn, performing a story of sibling separation – I was absorbed throughout.

Men In Black III (3rd June, Westfield)
I was just the right age for Men In Black to be the coolest film ever, and even the squeal was fun (if considerably less awesome). Well, this sits pretty successfully somewhere between the two, but in any case there was no way that Tash, Katie or I were going to pass up on the chance to sit with insanely overpriced hot dogs and return to the world of the Men In Black. And try to ignore how old they look now…

Francesca Martinez: What The **** Is Normal?! (6th June, The Tricycle)
Supported by Richard Herring on the night we saw her, which was a bonus. Funny (though not laugh-out-loud continuously funny – a pretty tall order from stand-up) and also thoughtful. As an aside, I did despair when I saw her disability (Martinez has cerebral palsy) described as “the last taboo” in the Independent. Dear journalists: a quick search for “the last taboo” brings up assisted suicide, mixed race relationships, congenital syphilis, “dementia and sex” and population control on the first page. They can’t all be the last one. Now please refrain from ever using this phrase again.

The Leveson Inquiry (All the time, everywhere)
Forget the Olympics: this is undoubtedly the standout British entertainment spectacle of the year. I would buy the complete Leveson Box Set on DVD if I could. It’s even divided into seasons – sorry, “modules” – so that viewers can join in halfway through without too much confusion. But forget about Leveson himself, because the star of this show is unquestionably lead counsel Robert Jay. When this is over, he really must give up law – he would be brilliant at doing an urbane, middle class version of Jeremy Kyle. “Would it be fair to say that your overall impression of your female intern was a positive one, Mr. Smith?”

Wining & Dining (or, ‘Beering & Snacking’, depending on the occasion)
In the last month I have… caught up with Melissa (“why would I pay £10 to hear about the future of the left from you when I can get it over lunch for free?”), as well as celebrated the birthdays of padrelawnmower-Paul, Osbiston-Paul and Emily “to get to my South London flat, simple walk under the railway bridge before entering the dark alley and turning left” Boyd. We also had a fun night out in Camden with Robert’s Californian friend, who seems to have a canyon in her back garden, and a lovely evening at Amy’s in which there was both pie and wine.

Oh, and, ur, I may have spent some of the Jubilee at a party called ‘Jubilation’ with a terrifying array of Union flags and photos of the Queen. But it was fine, because you can always diffuse any lingering tension with the ultimate unifying tool: Twister.

Sport
[tumbleweed]

Oh, but I have ended up with France in the Euro sweepstake at work. So, go France…?

Major Life Updates
Plenty of these too, but they will have to wait a little bit longer to see the light of blogging day.

Another irregular instalment of blogging! So irregular that, shocking, I neglected to mark its turning eight years old. That’s an awful lot of archives, and it would be sad to let them fade away now. So, in the last month…

• I spent the last weekend in April staying with Tash in Manchester, which was really great fun, despite waking up at home on Saturday with a bleak hangover and having to semi-crawl out of the door. Thankfully, Tash and I were in SiblingSync™ that day, so there was lots of mutual sympathy. (Question: is the sole purpose of Browns to be a ‘fancyish’ place in university towns where visiting relatives take students?)
• My participation in electoral democracy seems to be a miserable failure: Ken was always winning things before I started to vote for him, and now it’s Boris all the way. Again.
• Saw Dark Shadows with Abbi and Paul, which I did enjoy despite the film’s shortcomings – it was also just lovely to see them both again. And the soundtrack got the Carpenters stuck in my head for a little while, which you can take as a positive or a negative as you wish. Remain unconvinced that the ‘VIP’ bar of the Cineworld in Wandsworth’s Southside centre would quite match the expectations of touring dignitaries.
• We had a great team night out this week – so shout out to the wonderful Silka in London Bridge for satisfying an intense curry craving.

I should also introduce Lyra Self! Although as I am a terrible/busy person, I realised I hadn’t actually got any photos of Lyra of my own, despite her being plastered across Twitter by certain other Selfs. The following, therefore, is what inevitably happens when run downstairs wielding a camera and ask a cat to look cute on cue to meet a self-imposed blog publishing deadline: weary disdain. Thanks, Lyra.

(Yes, she came from the Mayhew. Obviously.)