We had a fabulous time, even though we didn't get home until 1 o'clock this morning. Jules decided there was no possible way he could go to work as he had no clean socks. Unfortunately, Ann (his boss) disagreed! Let's just say it was a long day for all concerned...
Flickr has contrarily decided I have uploaded my quota of photos this month, so the rest will have to wait until September.
For today, let me just say...half way around Pompeii I thought: "This is why we came back to this side of the world. Is it as good as you thought it would be?"
But it was - it really was. Suddenly the whole thing makes sense again.
Roll on Oktoberfest is what I say!
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Knackered
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Things I have learnt from Directgov
UK residents can write to their MP and request a ticket to attend Prime Minister's Question Time, which happens every Wednesday at 11.30 am.
"Dear Glenda", I thought, and seconds later it was done. Tickets are limited, so I'm prepared for a bit of a wait. I just hope it will be as much fun as it is in Sue Townsend's "Number Ten", when a journalist asks the PM the price of a pint of milk and he says, stalling for time: "Ha ha, we're in Europe now, Maggie, surely you mean a litre!" but she won't be put off and all the other MPs titter nervously, as none of them have any idea of the correct answer. Then someone asks the PM when he last caught a train and he says that he was on a train with his wife and children last weekend. He's unaware that in the gallery, a photograph is circulating of him sitting in a toy train with his knees around his ears at a local fun park...
In other news, Bridget Jones is pregnant, as predicted.
Off to Italy this afternoon - more when we return.
"Dear Glenda", I thought, and seconds later it was done. Tickets are limited, so I'm prepared for a bit of a wait. I just hope it will be as much fun as it is in Sue Townsend's "Number Ten", when a journalist asks the PM the price of a pint of milk and he says, stalling for time: "Ha ha, we're in Europe now, Maggie, surely you mean a litre!" but she won't be put off and all the other MPs titter nervously, as none of them have any idea of the correct answer. Then someone asks the PM when he last caught a train and he says that he was on a train with his wife and children last weekend. He's unaware that in the gallery, a photograph is circulating of him sitting in a toy train with his knees around his ears at a local fun park...
In other news, Bridget Jones is pregnant, as predicted.
Off to Italy this afternoon - more when we return.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Yes, we have tomatoes ... and inflated egos
Run: 45 minutes easy (as per Run London's intermediate week 1 programme).
Very excited to discover about eight baby tomatoes this morning, some on each bush. Luckily Warren will be here while we're in Italy so he can water them for us.
About the inflated egos, I have a new obsession. A week ago, I signed up with Statcounter.com, which counts your blog traffic and tells you all sorts of interesting things, like where your visitors come from, how long they stay and what keywords they searched for to find you (if any). I only have the free version, so it will only list 100 page loads at a time before writing over the old stats.
Anyway, I was thrilled to see that as well as my regular New Zealand visitors (who make up about 40-50% of visits, there are a decent number of UK and US visits and the occasional odd bod from Sweden, France, Germany, Chile, Japan and Canada.
Someone found me by searching for "friday cat blogging" on technorati.com. I told Jules about this, and his verdict was that I had become a self-obsessed freak.
Then this morning, I noticed that someone in Tauranga had found the site by searching on msn for "fork lightning".
I ran up the stairs to tell Jules (who took the fork lightning photo)and he completely lost his cool, frantically typing in "jules fork lightning" into Google. "I'm not there," he said, all despondent, and the next second there was a sudden shout of "Woohoo! I'm FAMOUS!" The fork lightning post came up about 7th in Google's search results.
Well, I dunno...maybe I'm completely normal after all. Either that or we're BOTH freaks!
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
is definitely worth a look, if just for the trained squirrels. It took a year to teach them to crack nuts on a conveyor belt, apparently, but it was time well spent. Johnny Depp was a convincingly disturbed Willy Wonka but the star of the show was the guy who played all the Oompa Loompas (male and female). And the Oompa Loompa musical numbers were excellent.
In other news, we have a TV. Wom has restarted his Sopranos campaign. At first I thought he was miming playing tennis but it turned out to be chucking a body off a bridge. It's hard to tell sometimes - his arms are quite short!
In other news, we have a TV. Wom has restarted his Sopranos campaign. At first I thought he was miming playing tennis but it turned out to be chucking a body off a bridge. It's hard to tell sometimes - his arms are quite short!
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Friday Cat Blogging on a Wednesday
Our tabby neighbour finally made an appearance and posed fetchingly in the early morning sun yesterday. In honour of the occasion, I have uploaded a new set of photos on flickr: Cats of Gascony Avenue.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Run London
I must be mad. Have caved in to pressure from the big J and signed up to run the Nike 10km. Two months tomorrow is the day: 16 October.
Celebrated the beginning of the new regime with a last supper in Brick Lane with Warren.
Celebrated the beginning of the new regime with a last supper in Brick Lane with Warren.
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Incriminating evidence
"Sober as a judge, I can see," said Jules, whipping out his phone like a papparazzo who's spotted Kate Moss without makeup in an airport.
We met up with Geoff and Heike last night in Covent Garden. Heike's mum is staying, so they were eager to take advantage of the unaccustomed luxury of a free, reliable babysitter. It was just like the pre-Danny-and-Anika days, more bottles of wine as people. Reminded me of the memorable evening we tried to explain to Heike what a badger was, via a circuitous discussion of 'dachs' and 'dachshund', which culminated in Jules roaring: 'It's a bloody dash-hound!' Not quite on topic, but entertaining nonetheless.
Anyway, we went to Loch Fyne, which was very (fyne). I had a lobster, as you do - delish.
This morning, far too early, the buzzer went and it was the postman with a parcel (hurrah!) and a very cute photo of our nieces. Also a card from Mia, which just said: "Dear Uncle Jules and Aunty Rac, I want to come to your house and live there. Love Mia."
Interesting...Thought it was best to have another little sleep before processing the implications of that particular message.
We met up with Geoff and Heike last night in Covent Garden. Heike's mum is staying, so they were eager to take advantage of the unaccustomed luxury of a free, reliable babysitter. It was just like the pre-Danny-and-Anika days, more bottles of wine as people. Reminded me of the memorable evening we tried to explain to Heike what a badger was, via a circuitous discussion of 'dachs' and 'dachshund', which culminated in Jules roaring: 'It's a bloody dash-hound!' Not quite on topic, but entertaining nonetheless.
Anyway, we went to Loch Fyne, which was very (fyne). I had a lobster, as you do - delish.
This morning, far too early, the buzzer went and it was the postman with a parcel (hurrah!) and a very cute photo of our nieces. Also a card from Mia, which just said: "Dear Uncle Jules and Aunty Rac, I want to come to your house and live there. Love Mia."
Interesting...Thought it was best to have another little sleep before processing the implications of that particular message.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
More Friday cat blogging
Another indoor cat looks out wistfully at the world beyond their front door. A genuine Gascony Avenue inhabitant this time, directly across the street from us.
On another subject entirely, it seems I can't turn my back for a second without New Zealand going to the dogs. Can Dr Brash please explain why the $58 I spent last time I visited my GP is not adequate payment for the gruelling 6 minutes she spent taking my blood pressure and filling out a blood test form? I mean, I understand there are expenses to consider: tissues are a terrible price these days and for some reason the patients seem to be getting more and more upset...
Hurrah for the NHS is what I say! And roll on the weekend.
On another subject entirely, it seems I can't turn my back for a second without New Zealand going to the dogs. Can Dr Brash please explain why the $58 I spent last time I visited my GP is not adequate payment for the gruelling 6 minutes she spent taking my blood pressure and filling out a blood test form? I mean, I understand there are expenses to consider: tissues are a terrible price these days and for some reason the patients seem to be getting more and more upset...
Hurrah for the NHS is what I say! And roll on the weekend.
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Colchester...
...is a pleasant enough day out, if not a Top Five destination. The 11th-century norman keep has a museum that kept us entertained for a couple of hours: a short slideshow complete with squeaky, panicky dialogue from Roman soldiers as Boudica's army burnt them out of the Temple of Claudius, and diverting exhibits of skeletons, fossilised human excrement (is there any need?)and roman mosaics. St Botolph's Priory is pretty old too, but not exactly on the scale of Tintern Abbey. Then there are some interesting 16th century houses in the Dutch quarter and some lopsided tudor ones scattered about as well.
Looking at the photos we've just put up on flickr, I think the Colchester cream tea may have been a mistake. Click on the photo here to have a look.
Looking at the photos we've just put up on flickr, I think the Colchester cream tea may have been a mistake. Click on the photo here to have a look.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Reading matter: the good, the bad and Bridget Jones 3
Today I read on the BBC website that Helen Fielding was writing new weekly Bridget Jones columns in the Independent, starting today. So I looked up the Independent's website only to discover that I could buy the right to read the column for a quid. (That's the per article cost - pretty steep when the whole paper costs 65p!) So I bought a paper copy at Westminster tube station and abandoned it, disgusted, at West Hampstead. With any luck someone else who was intending to buy a copy will find it and the Independent will lose a sale.
Let me just say - I think the original Bridget Jones is a work of comic genius. The sequel wasn't quite as good but still enjoyable. But this new column has completely lost the plot. For a start, it reads as if she's parodying her own style. A few abbreviations like 'v. g' and leaving out the 'I' at the start of sentences makes the original seem like a real diary, but you can take this too far. Nobody would actually write "if see what mean", and you certainly wouldn't have seen Bridget do it in book 1.
Secondly, the review on BBC said how lovely it was that the column showed Bridget commenting on current affairs again, which she doesn't do in the movies. I don't think the reviewer was trying to be funny, but in this case it is literally a hastily cobbled-together comment on the nation's current affair, that of Jude Law and his children's nanny. It's not particularly witty or insightful, or even to the point. "Oh dear - do want a little baby to love. Though not ex-husband to shag the nanny. If had ex-husband." etc. From vaguely wanting a baby to thinking about non-existent ex-husbands shagging the non-existent nanny is a leap too far for me.
Thirdly, you get sick of a character who never learns anything and never grows up. Each of the books had Bridget reaching an epiphany of some sort (invariably Mark Darcy-related) but now here she is, back to square one despite being ten years older now if we're going to be literal about it, shagging both Mr Darcy and Daniel Cleaver in a drunken haze without really meaning to sleep with either of them. Surely there are more men in the world than just these two?
Also, now she talks about being a "career woman", without irony. I liked her better when she despised her job and did as little work as possible.
And finally, you can't just recycle content you've used before. I do not wish to hear about how having a baby is something you always intend to do in about three years time - have heard it all before in book two, in exactly those words.
On a positive note, I've read some fantastic books lately. I can wholeheartedly recommend, in no particular order:
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. A great book for a long-haul flight with a gripping plot about a 13-year-old girl who was selected as an embryo to be a donor for her sister who has leukemia. Initially, the idea was that she would only need to donate some material from her umbilical cord but as time passes and her sister gets sicker, her parents demand more and more medical procedures. When they ask for a kidney, she hires a lawyer.
The Queen and I and Number 10 by Sue Townsend. Both role-reversal comedies. In The Queen and I, a republican government sends the royal family to live on a housing estate. The star of the show is Harris, the Queen's corgi, whose point of view on his new life in the estate's canine underworld is very entertaining. Number 10 sees a thinly-disguised Tony Blair dress up in drag (which he finds disturbingly enjoyable) and embark on a tour of Britain with the policeman who guards the front door of Number 10, to get back in touch with the people.
The Kiss by Joan Lingard. Inspired by the author's passion for the artist Gwen John. An Edinburgh art teacher in his 40s is a sculptor with a passion for Rodin. His best pupil is a 15-year-old girl who becomes obsessed with Gwen John, who was Rodin's lover. Naturally, she soon becomes infatuated with the teacher and there is a school trip to Paris where all hell breaks loose. I sympathised with his predicament but I liked Elspeth Sandys' Finding Out better, for its treatment of a teacher/student relationship. Still a great read though.
I also enjoyed Love Me by Garrison Keillor, although it peters out towards the end. A witty and entertaining read about a guy who writes for the New Yorker and realises it is run by the mafia. Great comments about writers noone knew were Italian e.g. E.B. Blanco who wrote about Carlotta the spider and Stuart Piccolo!
And finally, the piece de resistance: The Future Homemakers of America by Laurie Graham. I would put this in a "if you liked Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" category. Six women and four decades of friendship, all underscored by the consequences of an event that happens early on slowly playing themselves out years later. It has really short chapters and a narrator who has plenty of spark and gets straight to the point:
"Ed was always tinkering with their car. First time I noticed she had sump oil the same place as her bruises was the day I realised how things stood between Betty and Ed."
Could not stop reading.
Let me just say - I think the original Bridget Jones is a work of comic genius. The sequel wasn't quite as good but still enjoyable. But this new column has completely lost the plot. For a start, it reads as if she's parodying her own style. A few abbreviations like 'v. g' and leaving out the 'I' at the start of sentences makes the original seem like a real diary, but you can take this too far. Nobody would actually write "if see what mean", and you certainly wouldn't have seen Bridget do it in book 1.
Secondly, the review on BBC said how lovely it was that the column showed Bridget commenting on current affairs again, which she doesn't do in the movies. I don't think the reviewer was trying to be funny, but in this case it is literally a hastily cobbled-together comment on the nation's current affair, that of Jude Law and his children's nanny. It's not particularly witty or insightful, or even to the point. "Oh dear - do want a little baby to love. Though not ex-husband to shag the nanny. If had ex-husband." etc. From vaguely wanting a baby to thinking about non-existent ex-husbands shagging the non-existent nanny is a leap too far for me.
Thirdly, you get sick of a character who never learns anything and never grows up. Each of the books had Bridget reaching an epiphany of some sort (invariably Mark Darcy-related) but now here she is, back to square one despite being ten years older now if we're going to be literal about it, shagging both Mr Darcy and Daniel Cleaver in a drunken haze without really meaning to sleep with either of them. Surely there are more men in the world than just these two?
Also, now she talks about being a "career woman", without irony. I liked her better when she despised her job and did as little work as possible.
And finally, you can't just recycle content you've used before. I do not wish to hear about how having a baby is something you always intend to do in about three years time - have heard it all before in book two, in exactly those words.
On a positive note, I've read some fantastic books lately. I can wholeheartedly recommend, in no particular order:
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. A great book for a long-haul flight with a gripping plot about a 13-year-old girl who was selected as an embryo to be a donor for her sister who has leukemia. Initially, the idea was that she would only need to donate some material from her umbilical cord but as time passes and her sister gets sicker, her parents demand more and more medical procedures. When they ask for a kidney, she hires a lawyer.
The Queen and I and Number 10 by Sue Townsend. Both role-reversal comedies. In The Queen and I, a republican government sends the royal family to live on a housing estate. The star of the show is Harris, the Queen's corgi, whose point of view on his new life in the estate's canine underworld is very entertaining. Number 10 sees a thinly-disguised Tony Blair dress up in drag (which he finds disturbingly enjoyable) and embark on a tour of Britain with the policeman who guards the front door of Number 10, to get back in touch with the people.
The Kiss by Joan Lingard. Inspired by the author's passion for the artist Gwen John. An Edinburgh art teacher in his 40s is a sculptor with a passion for Rodin. His best pupil is a 15-year-old girl who becomes obsessed with Gwen John, who was Rodin's lover. Naturally, she soon becomes infatuated with the teacher and there is a school trip to Paris where all hell breaks loose. I sympathised with his predicament but I liked Elspeth Sandys' Finding Out better, for its treatment of a teacher/student relationship. Still a great read though.
I also enjoyed Love Me by Garrison Keillor, although it peters out towards the end. A witty and entertaining read about a guy who writes for the New Yorker and realises it is run by the mafia. Great comments about writers noone knew were Italian e.g. E.B. Blanco who wrote about Carlotta the spider and Stuart Piccolo!
And finally, the piece de resistance: The Future Homemakers of America by Laurie Graham. I would put this in a "if you liked Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" category. Six women and four decades of friendship, all underscored by the consequences of an event that happens early on slowly playing themselves out years later. It has really short chapters and a narrator who has plenty of spark and gets straight to the point:
"Ed was always tinkering with their car. First time I noticed she had sump oil the same place as her bruises was the day I realised how things stood between Betty and Ed."
Could not stop reading.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Happiness is...
...working from home on a gloriously sunny Wednesday, with a gastro pub meal in the evening to look forward to.
The new job is pretty good. It's expected that the editors will want to work from home some of the time and in fact all three of us are at home today. A great way to break up the week and gain an hour and a half back out of your day(in travel time) at the same time.
Geoff, Heike, Danny and Anneke came to visit at the weekend, which was fun until it poured with rain just as we were lighting the barbeque. Top tip for tandoori kebabs: the tandoori masala is a key ingredient, not something that can be left out if you don't have any, and cooking them under the grill will probably result in some drying out. Luckily Heike had made a cheesecake so we didn't starve.
We went to Kilburn Grange ( a smallish park in the next street) and Danny rushed up to every dog in the park, while Heike patiently repeated: "Now, Danny, you don't know that dog, do you? So you can't tell if he's friendly or not." Then we went to the Black Lion for a pint and the barman heated up Anneke's baby food and provided a bowl, which I thought was pretty good service.
Back at home, Anneke was quite happy flirting with Jules and grinding rice cake into the rug, so we needn't have worried about her crawling through the gap under the bottom railing on the roof terrace.
Tonight we are off to the Abbey Road (a gastro pub we pass on our run) to meet up with Craig. He's coming from work on his new scooter, which he has just ridden to Bath and back.Now, if I had a scooter...
The new job is pretty good. It's expected that the editors will want to work from home some of the time and in fact all three of us are at home today. A great way to break up the week and gain an hour and a half back out of your day(in travel time) at the same time.
Geoff, Heike, Danny and Anneke came to visit at the weekend, which was fun until it poured with rain just as we were lighting the barbeque. Top tip for tandoori kebabs: the tandoori masala is a key ingredient, not something that can be left out if you don't have any, and cooking them under the grill will probably result in some drying out. Luckily Heike had made a cheesecake so we didn't starve.
We went to Kilburn Grange ( a smallish park in the next street) and Danny rushed up to every dog in the park, while Heike patiently repeated: "Now, Danny, you don't know that dog, do you? So you can't tell if he's friendly or not." Then we went to the Black Lion for a pint and the barman heated up Anneke's baby food and provided a bowl, which I thought was pretty good service.
Back at home, Anneke was quite happy flirting with Jules and grinding rice cake into the rug, so we needn't have worried about her crawling through the gap under the bottom railing on the roof terrace.
Tonight we are off to the Abbey Road (a gastro pub we pass on our run) to meet up with Craig. He's coming from work on his new scooter, which he has just ridden to Bath and back.Now, if I had a scooter...
Monday, August 01, 2005
Microstory
At writers' group, Cynthia reads microstories (50 words). "Preposterous!" says Berend. "They are poems."
We bicker, then enjoy a beer. Sunday night I pen a romance: girl meets boy when dog sniffs dog. A Google miracle: Monday microstory contest deadline. Fame and book vouchers beckon. Why not? I click “Submit”.
It may not be great literature, but it's surprisingly difficult. Try it and see.
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