You had plenty money 1922

I now has :

the other two torchwood books
Jamie Oliver's ministry of food
another amber necklace
pearl-style bead spiral bracelet
seanik shampoo bar
Zorro ST
Master and Commander ST (legit copy)
Batman : The Dark Knight

And a dover sole, onion tart, mash, lardons, mushrooms, hollandaise sauce, two g'n't's, a white chocolate and berry cheesecake with happy birthday written in chocolate sauce on the plate.

also, my workmates are strange. there is a tradition of cake on birthdays. Almost invariably the chocolate fudge cake from tescos. However, their timing can be ...odd. I leave at 5pm. I sense the crowds massing behind my head at 4:55pm. Cue them singing 'Happy Birthday', me conducting, turning round to blow out the candles and going 'er... you do remember chocolate cake makes me sick, right?' 'You still have to cut it.' 'Fine. But I get the chocolate balloons.' I personally suspect they just wanted cake. And my bag now has a fuschia rosette pinned to it. They're odd.

Wandered around the Oracle (Reading's centre-of-town shopping centre) before dinner, poked head into Bay Trading, perused rails, and.... I has my first pair of skinny jeans. That will fit *inside* boots. Also? Found a cropped pair of white jeans in my size that I'll only have to turn up a bit, so that's just the converse to find or paint before T1.

oh, and Flickr has the Twelfth night photos of me attempting not to gurn whilst standing next to indira Varma and Derek Jacobi and Daniel Boys.

...lj archive won't work. Suspect will have to read instructions for once in my life.

Birthday : emails emails all no corrections you bastards all had to come back to the office on the first monday, didn't you? Three bloody weeks' worth of chase letter replies. Oh, and what is getting to be the once or if they're lucky twice thing - Heather goes round like unto headless chicken having discovered glitch in xml/workflow/new way to break the xml or workflow again. Or as I quoted, 'you can never make something idiot-proof because there's always a cleverer idiot'. And thus busied self in depths of evil coding and manuscript ids (interspersed by texts wishing me a happy birthday) until I get this pointed cough over my shoulder and I look up, expecting there to be another 'do you know where this went/how to solve this/which bit are you working on so we don't duplicate' and see everyone staring at me and going 'cake!'

Seriously. It's a disease in my dept. Someone has birthday. There is a *rule* for birthdays. Hugs and birthday wishes in the morning, and then chocolate cake from tescos' or m&s + card that normally one person has forgotten to sign at 4pm on the dot. It never, ever varies. Yet the birthday person always forgets this, and normally buries self in work and looks extremely perplexed and takes a couple of minutes to connect the time on the clock, the date and the birthday rules. Seriously. Never fails. They even got two of us at once last year due to shared birthday, where you had *both* of us going 'gimme a minute, trying to solve this - was there a meeting? Why are you hovering and staring at us?'

Patrick was going round all day starry eyed due to getting a new piece of music production tech that's operated by touch screen that he's been drooling over for weeks. He even has it as his wallpaper. Every day, there's this murmur of 'Lemur... so pretty.... it will be mine.'

Anyhoo, went Malmaison with parentals + bro, where the decor was rather lovely and stylish but a bit dark for a hotel bar and the restaurant decor would've worked better in a bar. anyway. For those in/near Reading, the food is stunning. Utterly stunning. I was making 'oh my god. oh my god.' noises over my cod and risotto, had an utterly perfectly done eggs benedict for a starter, and the lemon sorbet was 'died and gone to heaven with a bottle of limoncello'. Seriously. Parentals have judged it second-best in entirety of Reading, and they're serious, serious snobby foodies. However, service and details. Arrgh. it's like they're just... really badly organised. Okay, so it's monday night and you're mainly a hotel. Running out of olives and crisps in the bar and not even making the effort to go to sainsburys or m&s (five minutes away for those who don't know Reading) just to temporarily re-stock? Who *cares* that they're not your usual standard as long as they're half-decent, people just want nibbles. According to bro who's done the bar previously, they did this last time. Running out of bread and not having the presence of mind to get some more out when you've just served your last loaf. Slow and a bit absent-minded service. But also very good price-wise aside from the expensive drinks.

Bro gave me the Humphrey Bogart collection and the Hotel Chocolat kiddy selection. me : '... you have no shame.' him : *shit-eating grin*. Lindsey has been making dribblesome makeup choices again - clinique lippy set. Handbag and mad dvds from Hansons. Parentals - Lush vouchers, a newly illustrated Pippy Longstocking collection (though, er, I think mum forgets that I never actually read Pippy Longstocking even though she and her sisters did and everyone else seems to have including my mates) and a Puppini Sisters CD from dad which I squeed over on seeing the name while he went 'I wasn't sure but people who like the era you love recommend them' as I went 'Puppini Sisters! OMG! Puppini Sisters! Mwhahaha, Walk Like an Egyptian?'

rec for UK peeps : 17 has finally been ousted from pride of place after a solid reign for near-on two decades as best and damn near cheapest nail polish source with glorious shades, fast drying and long-lasting. Sorry, 17, but Miss Sporty has gone and kicked your arse. All your shades are now boring. I am sporting a glorious shade of metallic red that has me going 'oooo' every two minutes and previously had the metallic green/blue. both have had people going 'oooooo'. And it dried much faster than 17 ever did.

So, wednesday? can people make it wednesday?

After discussing it with the trainee librarian and she who works for the arch-enemy, it was reckoned that birthday would be best on monday (8th Jan, you feckless lot) rather'n sunday. Restaurant/bar in centre of London somewhere. Please to comment if you want to come and be silly, along with suggestions for where to go.

Back at work. Facing inbox o' doom. aiiiiieee!

Also, had the utter classic : the indignant email from an american author who had no life over the holidays and wanted to know why his manuscript hadn't gone through yet. Reply : 'We were on holiday.' Subtible : 'it's not our fault you live in a backwards colonial wasteland that believes in the least holiday per year in the west. Also, you bastards were incommunicado for a week in November and expect the rest of the world to suck it up. Consider this our revenge.'

Tonight will be Torchwood watching numero 3. During which I will once again make high-pitched squeeing noises and be slightly in awe of the *accuracy* of Eve Myles' grief acting, dignity be damned. And fall for John Barrowman all over again. :sigh: That man. Just... :wibble:

:pokes womb: stop giving me mild cramps. It's annoying.