marathon
Mood:  spacey
Now Playing: Skinny Puppy - Bites & Remission
Topic: Stephen Says
It's funny that I hadn't realized how busy I've been until Elisabeth pointed out to me last night that I left for work before her on Monday and only just got home from work after her on Tuesday. That she had worked two full days to my one, long, extendoshift.

Work is busy right now which is good.

I only got three hours of sleep on my sleep-in which kinda sucked because it left me feeling grotty (And, as a result, hyper-cafeinated) for all of yesterday. I normally sleep really well during sleep-ins but these birds in the back garden sang all night long. The silence also got to me - everyone wet to bed around midnight and the house was very quiet (There's usually banging around all night long). I blame the beloved dehumidifier, actually - I'm used to its gentle backgrond hum and and reassuring tinkle when a squirt of water falls into its basin.

We still haven't given it a name.

As a result of being unable to sleep, I watched late night TV. It's the 1st time that I've been annoyed by England only having five channels. After two thirty (And 2 1/2 hours of Celebrity Big Brother [Go George Galloway, you meglomaniac!][Boo Dennis Rodman! - you're only there as the token American who is going to draw attention t how stupid you are and, conversely, how stupid all Americans are so that the British can feel superior.]) there's nothing really on other than moto-cross (Yawn), down hill skiing competitions (Started off good showing a bunch of terrible falls and injuries but became dull, repetitive and made me feel very ADD), a smarmy UK Jerry Springer knock off (Totally lacking in empathy and actually encouraging his participants to fight and then, when they do, the skinny tie, hawston fin wearing jack ass would just stand back and smirk.), lessons in speaking German and a documentry in exploring the origins of geological formations that make famous vacation resorts into famous vacation resorts (Teribly boring, acually. I suppose that if it had actually been an interesting documentry, then it wouldn't be showing at 3 o'clock in the freaking morning.).

Iterestingly, starting at around 2AM, the BBC 1 & 2 has little men & women pop up in the bottom courner of the TV screen and do sign interpretations of all the shows. Is there a massive surge of deaf BBC 1 & 2 viewers at 2 o'clock in the morning that makes this a necessity or is this just some BBC tokenism?

Hmm...

I'm taking it very easy today. There's a Visa bill I've got to pay and a mystery package from B&Q that's waiting to be picked up at the post office. Things don't get more exciting than this.

Catch-Up,
Mood:  silly
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
It's been all quiet on the blogging front, and probably because we've just been having too much fun.

Friday, now lets see, we spent the evening eating and drinking wine, and watched Lost in Translation. Beautiful, touching, and a slice of wealthy life.

Saturday I kept my promise to myself and ventured into London to check out the Borough Market & the foodie shops. Stephen decided stay home & chill out in the apt.

I'll defintely have to do the Borough Market & Southwark again with Stephen. It cracked London's armour for me. In a short radius there's the oldest market in London, and it supplies wholesalers and restaurants with produce during the week & promotes artisanal trade on Saturdays. Lots of fresh meat, bread, cheese and wine. Not to mention fresh produce, spices, jams, and HUGE bricks of BROWNIES!!! Fringing the covered market are all sorts of indepedent gormet foodie shops, cafes and restaurants. Not far away, down a narrow cobble-stoned alley is the Clink museum, which presents life in the clink, the original one. You could look through small jail-barred windows at street level into the basement musuem. Lots of dingy, dark cells, axes & blacksmiths?

I meandered past Southwark catherdral & a really cool historic boat, and walked down the Thames eating an organic bean burger, until I found myself at the Tate Modern, about 5 min. later...so close!

The Tate has an amazing installation in the Turbine Hall by Rachel Whiteread. Go to http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/whiteread/default.shtm to see pictures. This was real interactive art, because you had to walk through this "maze" in order to see & experience it. It was unexpectedly revealing.

Right, after looking at the nudes collection & Picasso's Weeping Woman, I headed back home.

Stephen & I were happily reunited & ate & drank more and watched Nil by Mouth, written & directed by Gary Oldman. Extremely well acted. It reminded me a lot of Cronenberg's History of Violence. Ooh that Viggo ;P

SUNDAY: Lazy morning. We ate lunch at the pub & read the paper. AH! Relaxing.

Now it's Monday & we're back at work. Stephen's doing a sleep-in, so I'm all on my lonesome.

Hope all your resolutions are on track, and for those who didn't make them, well, just be smuggly happy with yourselves.

A link
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: BBC 4 news
Topic: Stephen Says
Because sometimes over in Stephen & Elisabeth in England-land we like to be a little bit political, I thought I'd post a link.

Over in This Modern World, Tom Tomorrow has posted some pretty interesting pictures of newspapers over in West Virginia announcing the survival of the 12 miners and contrasted them with the later amended headlines. There's an interesting pseudo-analysis about what it means now that the 'miracle in the mine' didn't happen and how Americans will only tie their religion to good things that happen.

It's early, I've got to go to London, I haven't had any coffee and I bet I could have just typed that alot more succinctly. Anyway, Here's the link.

E's Year in Review
Mood:  hungry
Now Playing: BBC4
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
Well Stephen's selfish ways has inspired my own recap of the first lines of each of MY first posts of the month:

January:
Yesterday Stephen posted some pictures of us, but I got "pissy" and told him to take them off. Sorry.

February:
"She-bop", better known as Stephen's Laptop, has fallen ill and will be out of commission indefinetly.

March:
You can now rest assured that Stephen has not done me in...I am alive and living in this noisy hell called England.

April:
I'm scrapping brownie from a knife with my teeth, and then washing it down with white wine.

May: Guess who's back?

June; Good Morning Blog! I sit here listen to Ray Charles on a Sunday morning, watching the washing machine spin in front of me.

July: We did it! We did it!! We've booked our tickets to Canada!!! FINALLY!!! Look out for us on September 16th in Montreal...and we will depart from Toronto on 29th September. 2 weeks to drink Sleeman, eat poutine, and eat scrumptious Canadian breakfasts....oh bliss...

August:
Wail...wah...Stephen's doing a sleep-in tonight.

September:
Yup---Tim & Vicki(e)? and I saw Knightsbridge & Chelsea, Westminister, Camden Town, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, Soho, Regent & Oxford Streets, Savile Row, Piccadilly Circus & then capped the evening with a stroll along the South Bank of the Thames to Waterloo Bridge to see Parliament. I think it's safe to say they'll be back to London soon.

October:
So I've taken seriously the advice of my big brother Mark & have not just sat on my arse waiting for some stupid job to come along.

November:
Didn't end up doing any theatre stuff...hopefully tonight. Did go for a run this morning, did go to work (so did Stephen), and we've had leftovers for dinner, Stephen was kind enough to bring a fresh baguette home...so we're now happily full.

December:
See what did I tell ya? Going back to work would effectively kill off the regular blogging!

What excitments will 2006 have in store?

Alright, fine,
Mood:  silly
Topic: Stephen Says
I really should be going to bed but there's this silly bloggy meme thing going around where you're supposed to put the 1st sentence of the 1st entry of each month of 2005 that you posted on your blog, get all 12 sentences together and that's the summary of the year.
So I just did that.
(Loser, I know.)
But I only did it for entries that I wrote.
(Selfish loser to boot!)
And, um, it's pretty lame, actually.
Anyway, without further ado, here's my year in review. Make of it what you will:

What better music to listen to when you're about to go on the dole?
Okay, first things first: I've been meaning to post this link that Sean sent me.
Ok; first things first.
Or else I'm not sleeping enough.
Light blogging over the next few days (Erm, isn't it ALWAYS light blogging???) as I'm working & Elisabeth's still fighting jet lag & illness (Not SARS or bird flu, I swear) and working awfully hard getting all the work that she did in China ready for presentation.
The weather is ominous today.
Is what I've been told.
Pooped.
My God, it's September already!
I meant to say this earlier, but one thing that I really miss over here that Canada has is a strong sense of a social contract.
Elisabeth has just blown out of the house because she's late for a hair consultation and hasn't eaten her pancakes.
This was the conversation E&I had on the way to the pub last night:

Random Stuff
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: Stephen Says
Just got back from a long day at work and am chilling out before bed. So, what's new, you ask? Well, after two very, very slow weeks where it feels like I've been the only person in Britain actually working (And, if by working you mean sitting in the smoking lounge watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Jungle Book and other festive treats, lamenting the fact that no real work can be done because, well, everyone else in England is off, then yes, that is working. [Sorry, I lost the plot there, somewhere.]). So now I'm getting used to suddenly having to do things all over again which is weird because watching old childrens movies on television can be really quite addictive.

The weather's warm & humid, lots of drizzel and there's not a damn thing to eat over here. Even our massive stockpile of assorted flavours of squash has run dry. The so-called Christmas detox isn't happening by choice, folks, we just can't find time to go grocery shopping!

(Actually, that's not true; I'll be going tomorrow and right now, as I realize that I'm quite tired and that what I've written is quite pointless, I'm off to bed.)

The Party's Over!
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: BBC4
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries

Of all possible words to describe a mood, why do they have incredulous? There's no "tired", "fatigued", "stressed" or any other normal frame of mind! I mean really. Hmph.

Anyway...this blog marks the end of the blogging streak as tomorrow it's back to work.

I caved in and took advantage of the sales & bought a jacket, trousers & a wrap-around sweater...all around 50% off so I feel satisfied.

What I'm unsatisfied with though is my lip wax. While 95% of the hair was removed, my skin is reacting as if in shock and little bumps and red marks are dotting the upper lip. Nothing that can't be concealed with make-up...but a bit disappointing. And yes, I've been keeping it clean, exfoliating, moisturize, moisturize, moisturize & lashed on the tea tree oil. But I must not focus on such superficialities, right?

Stephen's been working today & am now signing off to make some Minestrone...we need some detox food to flush out the Pizza Hut pizzas we ordered last night...mmm...greesy goodness...

ok-until next time!

2006: Day 1
Mood:  party time!
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
For anyone who does not know how to straighten or curl your hair, I URGE you to check this out, and click on: "Watch the preview"

http://www.ghdhair.com/uk/news/promotion-dvd.php

In other news: Happy New Year! I hope it came in with a bang...we've had 2 bottles of champagne & some pizza...just about as exciting as it gets chez Allins-in-Woking.

New Years Resolution: drink more champagne, and make food that tastes very good when possible.

Bonne Annee!

Last blog of 2005 (maybe)
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: Hanson Brothers - Get it right back (My Game)
Topic: Stephen Says
Well, Happy New years everyone!

E&I have been doing the pubs and eating pub food before they all get jam-packed, we've got some champaigne over here (Some very nice bottles, actually - thank you to whoever sent us that Marks & Sparks gift certificate for Christmas).

This year's depressing predictions come to you courtesy of The Independent:

In 2006:
-30bn tonnes of greenhouse gasses will be released,
-22bn rolls of toilet paper will be used,
-The sea will rise by 2mm,
-Around 130m babies will be born, and aound 57m people will die,
-292bn cans or bottles of Coke will be sold,
-around 350bn pounds will be spent on advertising,
-Around 1trn pounds will be spent on arms,
-1 person in 5 will be Chinese,
-Over 100,000 new book titles will be published in the U.K.,
-More than 900 films will be made in Bollywood and,
-Around 2.7trn insects will be accidentally eaten by humans.

I hope that this upcoming New Year is a good one for you all!

Chilly Chilly Bang Bang
Mood:  cool
Now Playing: Chattering Teeth
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
Drafty pooh apartment! It's cold cold cold in here!

Mr. Dehumidifier isn't standing up to those "and it warms the apartment too!" claims.

At the moment I've got my woolly toque on, and waiting for Stephen to call...which he should have done .5 of an hour ago! The idea is we'll arrange to meet in town so we can grocery shop together, but I can't go into town until I know what time we're meeting, and where. Isn't this what mobile phones are for? Mine is on the blitz you see...

So I've run in the rain, made my first miso soup, played piano, read, etc...made an appointment for my first lip & chin wax tomorrow... I know I'm so blonde, but being a feminist (quasi or otherwise), I seem to have a healthy level of testosterone. I shall say no more, for your sake of course.

Oh, & I cleaned our water filter today...bingo!

Now the big question is: What are we going to do this weekend? We have no plans and I'm already bored. So will it be DVDs? Board games? an excursion (not bloody likely), or some good old-fashioned tuning into the radio?

Ah! I know...we'll just get pissed drunk and make Mr. Men cupcakes...

Whatever we end up doing, you'll be the first to know.
>>>>>>
Or the last to know. It's Stephen here and bloody algelfire isn't updating properly. This was supposed to have gone up yesterday. Moan.