You had plenty money 1922

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This, children, is the song that turns me to wistful sap when *Gareth Gates* sings it. This is Danny Boys, who is a far better actor, singer, and fucking adorable. Shoo. Buy it from Dress Circle.

First issue of the day : BNP flyer stock photo fail. Point and laugh *loudly*, people, because public humiliation and derision are the best way to fight racist fuckheads.

Brought to you by 'this *needs* to be used in a B-Movie' : My uncle is keeping bees on top of Newcastle Fenwicks. Have images of him directing them to attack people on high st. (Fenwicks : big dept store. Uncle pointed out that other swanky dept stores have their own brands of honey, so they're trying it out.)

Forbury last night for Dad's birthday : omnomnomnomnom. large amount of Cornish fish on the menu. also, classic moments of ordering : mum going 'I'd like the brownie but can I have it without the brownie - just the chocolate sauce and a scop of vanilla ice cream.'

Registration for the 2010 Discworld Con is now open. All of you laggards who were thinking about it and keep failing to register in previous years, your mission should you choose to accept it...

:sigh: Have been spoilt. This job? my first real office job, and thus first working experience of receptionist and office managers. We moved offices a month or so ago when we got bought, and got all-new receptionist and office manager since the old ones stayed at the previous building. We now find out that our previous ones were super-efficient mindreadering pros and we'll probably not seek their like again.

Listening to the Lady Gaga album to see if I want to buy it. so far, all the tracks that aren't singles sound like a cross between middling Gwen Stefani, Alphabeat and Aqua. Which is a bit odd since the singles sound *nothing* like that. What happened, did they just do major remixes to get them up to standard? I know she got 'discovered' as a singer by Akon when they were writing for someone else. Might be worth seeing what she used to look like, and what the stuff she wrote for Fergie et al sounded like. She might be another Sam Sparro - Black and Gold the single and video were clearly hit with a tonne of cash, stylists and re-mixers when you compare his previous stuff.

Topshop? EVIL. Walked in last night, saw an intensely cute dress of 'possibly', go on the website and they have more cute dresses. including the first one in two other colours. Problem being that local shop doesn't have them and it's impossible to find anything in the Oxford St branch. Gahhhh. On the other hand, I now have new cute practical *leather* sandals for £16. (my current emergency New Look semi-gladiators, though cute, constantly have the back strap sliding down my heel and they're completely plastic, and feel it.) Noticed a new trend in sandals - only saw gladiators in a couple of places - the new trend appears to be the Roman soldier style where the sole comes up the sides and the laces go through that.

Reading The Devil Wears Prada. How does the film compare?

blegh. I hate how one bloody side-effect is the source of most of the really vile symptoms of colds.

over-production of mucus = blocked sinuses = pressure headaches, wooziness, dry mouth, fuzzy tongue, light headedness, hearing problems, etc, etc... and you feel instantly better as soon as you blow your nose. Seriously, evolution, you fail.

Listening to Felicia Day's Dance music so good it's bad mixtape, which contains a lot of classics. I don't produce or make music, so I only know tunes from the audience side, where if something is instant classic, it's an instant classic because everyone starts grooving to it. For those who do make music, do you ever know if something's brilliant when you're making it? Making stuff, I only know from art, photography and fashion. Photography you know instantly - either at the point of click or the point when the image is out of the camera. Art and fashion, it's a case of you only really know by the final point if something's really good, which is different from going well during creation.

Need new sandals. Cheapo pair that I bought last summer are on their last legs. Contemplating a pair from Office that're £40, but the problem is whether the more expensive pretty ones will be any more hard-wearing than the cheapo pretty ones I'm currently wearing. Opinions?

Augh. The early-mid nineties really are back. just seen a sight I haven't in years - cardi, short tartan shirt dress and ankle-height Docs. It doesn't help that I watched Empire Records a couple of days ago. (which is definitely a case of hee, since who would've predicted that out of all that cast, Renee Zellweger would be the star?) Oh well. At least the tartan shirts are actually cut to fit people this time.

Classic stupid pronouncements about swineflu : 'Latin people are more genetically susceptible'. ....What fucking hypothesis do you have to base that on? The fact that it started in Mexico, so most of the people who have it are Mexican or Spanish/Spanish speaking who visited their relatives or went on holiday there and thus came back from the area? This is like saying Soho natives are more genetically susceptible to cholera because they'd all been drinking from the infected waterbutt that first proved concusively the relationship between germs and disease spread. :headdesk:

I'd forgotten how fucking hysterical the Diva song was (the one that contains the immortal line 'I can't carry a tune in a bucket, but fuck it! I'm on the stage'), and the rest are seriously great. (not to menton the mic balance has been fixed so no-one else is drowning the others out, which was a problem in the theatre) Soho Cinders I want *now*, dammit. It's much better than I remember, the lyrics are really good, and the Ugly Sisters songs are brilliant. Only problem is that Gareth Gates is much, much blander than I remember and comes off worse than he did at the theatre. The songs he's sharing with Oliver Tompsett and Leanne Jones are 'oooo, great singer, zzzzzzzzz'. Pouting that a lot of the first half songs got cut, and the only one Daniel Boys is on that made it is about three lines of the ensemble song 'You Shall Go to the ball'. :sulk: And I hadn't noticed that Julie Atherton was singing 'Wait a Bit' in a ...midlands accent? (shush, it's north of the Watford gap and south of Northumbria, and isn't Sheffield. That's all I can tell).

Also. er. got persuaded to get the self-penned Oliver Tompsett cd. god I'm shallow. But so is everyone else, since it's been selling well.. Showed Ri the cover and she went 'okay, he's wearing clear mascara, right?' Me : 'sadly, no, his eyelashes are just that pretty'. Listening to it now, but it does seem rather Jazz fm so far with a touch of Boyzone.

You never realise you're a wee bit addicted until it's gone. New work, no iplayer. Which means I can't do my weekly listen to Annie Mac's show. I want my dubstep and random dance music. The only podcast you can d/l sans iplayer is the ten minute submitted by others. :sulk: Hmp. anyone who has access to iplayer - does it let youi d/l the radio stuff same as it does the tv? I may have to resort to d/l ing it at home and bring it in on the mp3 player. Tried subfm as rec'd by Internet Jesus, but it's sloooooooooow. I require my beats to be faster, not bloody sending me to sleep. Especially not if the DJ's constantly going 'all right yeah coming to you from _insert random location_'. last.fm's bugger all help since it's constantly giving me stuff I can't stand. The 'ban this track' button doesn't work.

Exposure to new musicals tracks verdict :
Every Rent track it brings up I can't stand.
Les Mis is interesting.
Rocky Horror : er. what?
Assassins : HEE. also. what version is Neil Patrick Harris singing on?
HSM is clearly a poppy bouncy guilty pleasure. Um. I think I may need the cd. possibly even the dvd. Don't look at me like that.
:gulp: Tim Curry's voice is sexy enough. but. um. Singing Kurt Weill? :swallows: I'll be in my bunk. Right now.

Okay, The Wire is now getting intriguing....

6 She-Ra Ladybird books off ebay. Given that I can't find them at home, I suspect they've been attic'd. or donated. :glares: re-reading really does prove that it is possibly the gayest little cartoon *evah*. or as I put it, showing people a pic of Bow (token male) 'Does this look like a man who could see heterosexuality with a telescope on a clear day?

grabbed girlie from work to check how a knee length tweed skirt in charity shop looked on me colour-wise, went in, no bloody skirt... but on the other hand, one ankle-length Gibson-girl style skirt. (hugs bum, flares out below for walking purposes) Admittedly it's more Edwardian than Turn of the Century late Victorian, but it'll be a good back up and i can always use it in something else. Still making the red full skirt, though, since I have *no* idea what to do with 2m of red twill otherwise.

biting nails slightly - a pair of size 5 orange lo-top converse have come up on buy it now on ebay - but they're yellow-orange (name of colour is 'cheddar' to give you an idea) whereas the colour I need is the more bright orange. I missed the last pair due to not having any idea what size I needed. Do I get these just in case?

Laughing my arse off. listening to annie mac's mashup on iplayer and the mini-mix included the Ewok Song. And yeah, those of you who have heard me sing it? I get the lyrics *right*.

Dammit. Scrolling through mp3 player on tube to find something to listen to... and could only find about two things I wanted to listen to. My mp3 player (and playlist at work) is full of musicals. Which I so didn't want to listen to today. Ended up listening to DJ Ear Worm's United States of Pop mashups in desperation. Seriously. I own plenty of non-musicals/soundtracks cds, I just don't have any of them ripped (reminds me, really need to rip my alphabeat cd I got for birthday - dad stole it early on. He's currently going through a phase of listening to all the 90s dance CDs, so you get jungle and hardcore bleeding through the walls in the evening and weekend afternoons.) On the other hand, Lissy just chucked her floorfillers cd at me to rip to the shared folder because her cd drive isn't reading anything. ah, sweet, sweet blessed coincidence.

Developed a very odd tic in the last month or so. Squinting when concentrating. it doesn't make me see better, so why the fuck I'm doing it i have no idea.

Listening to Zorro musical st. Which was recorded live at one of the performances (they keep audience clapping in to prove this on the end of tracks). I frowned and went 'you know, this seems a bit lifeless compared to what I remember...' and went on youtube, listened to the trailer track the production put up there and the *single* bootleg one - and yeah, lo and behold, whoever was doing the editing did bland it. it's really, really noticeable on Emma William's (Luisa) numbers - which is seriously annoying considering this is one of the few cds that exist with her on it. You wouldn't notice if you hadn't seen it live.

:sigh: (though since parents requested to listen to the cd last night, i'm one step closer to getting them to see it...)

unclutter - pair of sandals and a cord skirt that mum picked up from oxfam and still has the oxfam price tag attached..

In other news, boss has got enthusiastic about a new toy, yammer, which we're supposed to update with whatever we're doing. I ignored it for several days, and am now taking the passive aggressive route by spamming it with *everything* I'm doing. 'tapping desk waiting for outlook's search functions' 'moving emails to another folder' 'replying to author' 'pasting correct info into xml editor'

Kernow day 3

Went for stroll along edges of Pendennis Castle, then throguh the woody bits around it. then bought crocs with fleece socks inside. Don;t ask. this is my mother's request for christmas...

Decided to go see Easy Virtue on a whim at the arts cinema. (colin Firth, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ben Barnes, Jessica Biel)

it is awesome. So rarely do you get Noel Coward done *right* in cinema. if it's not bitchy, awesome fun with fast cuts, it's not Noel Coward. Audience alternately giggling, hiding in embarassment as the characters did, gasping as they did... Yeah. Done well. Ben Barnes, get naked more often. (ah, UK definition of PG. We don't like violence. But nekkidness and sex is absolutely necessary.) And whoever did the soundtrack? Usual spattering of Noel Coward, a couple of Cole Porter, as you'd expect. But the genius move? Sex Bomb and When the Going Gets Tough, re-scored and done in 1930s light jazz style. it works so well it's not true. You could see people blinking when the lyrics for 'Sex Bomb' suddenly registered - because 'Spy on me baby, use satellite' isn't exactly period. I MUST HAVE THIS ON DVD. AND THE SOUNDTRACK. I NEED THE SOUNDTRACK.

Also? What's Jessica Biel been in that's good? She was really, really good in this, and I feel the urge to seek out more of hers...

Now, I'm goign to worship at the feet of light and fluffy and the awesomeness of Julie Andrews. Also Anne Hathaway and Chris Pine doing screwball comedy. Princess Diaries 2 and pizza. oh yes.

nano being fucking evil. Got completely bogged down every time I started a new paragraph. This section clearly doesn't want to be written. And considering it's the opening scenes of the Pevensies deciding to stay and aftermath of the battle of Beruna, gyeeaargh. Though I don't understand why Caspian's pov keeps sneaking in. It's supposed to be omniscient.

4,334 / 50,000 (8.7%)

Just hope the reaction scenes go better so I can get on with the sort-of-plot. Then figure out where precisely I want to stick Glozelle's pov on Peter. Or rather, where up to - I know I want to start from when he first encountered or heard of him, which is probably the siege on the castle, but not sure where up to after that. I'm presuming that most of the Telmarines know a bit about the Narnian kings as legends or something - not on the near-worship King Arthur status the Narnians have them (Calormenes have them on King Alfred/Normans level where they still have records of treaties and so on of the time and thus know a bit better what they're more likely to do), but more like... I dunno, Robin Hood? GAH. Why can't the English have more legendary figures so I could do comparison better? But nooooo, we only have two. :headdesk:

Went and saw Mariza (fucking stunning Fado singer) last night at the Barbican (food in the restaurant is really good, btw), including the newbies of my aunt Sam and her mate Heidi, and bro's gf Louise. See them be stunned. mwhahaha. And she just gets better every time - better interaction with audience, more confident, funnier, more commanding - she's learnt how to control the audience with a single gesture. Voice and stage presence are stunning, as usual. Added bonus - she came down into the crowd and was an arm's length from us. Mum has informed me she's going to torment the portugese bloke at work with this. (the only pouty bit of this vs. Cardiff is the fact that due to it *not* being Wales, the audience singing a bit back to her was rather weak. I still treasure that moment in Cardiff - it was the end of her last tour, she'd been getting audiences to learn the chorus of a song, and when it came to the part when the audience sang it rather than hesitantly repeated it, she had this rather stunned look since she'd got hit by the wall of sound that is Welsh choral and clearly hadn't been expecting it.) Half the portugese population of London were in the audience. :g: Oh, and she apparently did a kids and families session that afternoon with added Q&A, which is very cool and a great way of capturing the new generation.