|
|
|
November 27th, 2009
01:45 pm
Happy Birthday ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) rainbow_spork! Hope you have a great day.
|
October 18th, 2009
04:12 pm
The Greggs in Glasgow airport (yes, there is a Greggs in Glasgow airport, because we just love living up to the national stereotype) has an advert for some spicy Halloween "steak" pasty. It says "are you brave enough?" which is presumably a reference to Halloween but is actually a serious question, at least for me, because I've had food poisoning out of Greggs twice, once off a dodgy turkey mayonnaise sandwich and once off of an undercooked pasty.
|
October 10th, 2009
09:01 pm
Felix, the neighbour's cat, came in tonight purring and looking for food. Getting no joy, he had a go at some channa dhal that I dropped when I took out of the microwave. He tasted it, shook his head and sneezed. Twice. Awww...
|
September 21st, 2009
07:04 pm
Does anyone from Edinburgh remember/know how to find out the dates of Fresher's Week 1999? I met P on the Friday and that means that we are coming up for our 10th anniversary. And neither of us can remember when it actually is. We're thinking probably this weekend is near enough, but if there's another day when I could be drinking champagne...
Also, I am loving having been together for 10 years. It's such a great rhetorical device. "Good god, do you know you've been saying that for the last 10 years?" etc. Round numbers are great for exaggeration.
|
September 2nd, 2009
06:48 pm
Bloody hell. I got bitten by a mozzie on my shin on Monday and now the bottom half of my shin is swollen and hurty, right down to the ankle.
That's it, no more gardening for me.
|
August 24th, 2009
07:49 am
Moved in yay. It took 2 goes with a box van. That house in Hertford must have been a giant jigsaw puzzle for us to have had all that stuff in there.
The kitchen and bedroom are basically unpacked, the tv and broadband and everything is set up and the bed has been assembled. P keeps wanting to assemble other furniture but I think I'm done for about the next few months.
Now I'm off to enjoy my tiny commute. I don't care if there's 400 people on the carriage, how bad can it be for 10 mintes?
|
June 17th, 2009
09:53 am
I posted sth over on restlessnesses. God I hate that name. I wish "sehnsucht" wasn't taken.
|
June 2nd, 2009
04:43 pm
I just donated my 25th pint of blood! So far everyone has been seriously underwhelmed by this news so I'm trying it on lj. My dad was up at about 60-something by the time he stopped, and it's this thing that I always wanted to do when I was little. I gave blood for the first time within about 2 weeks of my 17th birthday. I've had a few interruptions over the years (tattoo, Switzerland, being pregnant) so getting to 25 means... I'm really old!
Yay anyway.
|
03:58 pm - The mortgage, again
It'll be done by tomorrow at the latest.
You've been saying that for 2 weeks!
I'm going to give blood now, surely the one way to bring down my blood pressure at this time.
|
01:42 pm
Feh. I am bored and boring. The co-op continue to dawdle over our mrtgage application which they ALREADY APPROVED! WE'RE ASKING FOR 3 GRAND LESS! Tch. You can hear the tiredness in their voice when I come on the phone. How can it be taking this long? Gaah. In other news, we got the owners to clear out the house (hurray!) leaving the nice kitchen table for free (double yay!). Kirstie whateveryourname is, eat your heart out. We didn't even have to look in a skip.
The offer is going to arrive at the solicitor's tomorrow, then they will probably send us some piece of paperwork that we need to sign, and it will sit in the house until we get back from Duesseldorf on Monday. This must be the randomest holiday ever. Still, we have a hotel, we have flights - we don't have any Depeche Mode concert but we're going to try and meet up with some other fans and go to some concert afterparty thing in a converted steelworks so that all sounds like fun.
What else? I saw a baby great tit this morning being fed by its parent in a bush. Awww. And some goldfinches.
WHERE AR MY MORTGAGE? Gah. All this stuff is waiting to happen. I've basically got to stay here until we get the keys and get the rewiring started, and then I can take my bike and bugger off up north. I'm thinking about taking my bike up to Manc and meeting some people, then taking another train to Glasgow and then kicking about up there for a while and seeing my folks. In theory this would be cheap as I can travel during the week, but with the length of time it's taking to get the house stuff sorted I'm going to end up with walk up fares. Oh and we've been invited to another wedding, from one of my colleagues who I go to lunch with. I'm surprised to be invited as I've spent many a lunchtime moaning about weddings to him. Feh. And it's in Aberdeen. Which, fair enough, she's from Aberdeen and he's from Swindon. I can see how Aberdeen is the lesser of the two evils there.
|
May 31st, 2009
01:34 pm
A long shot, but has anyone in North London had any damp proofing done? Can you recommend me someone?
Will get that London filter sorted in a minute
|
May 29th, 2009
10:30 am
We got our postal votes last night. My god they are complicated. Put ballot papers in envelope A and then label A on envelope A. Put label B on envelope B. Put envelope A and this piece of paper in envelope B. Is it not remotely possible that they could preaddress the envelopes? I mean, I had to think about it carefully, and half my life is paperwork.
|
May 26th, 2009
02:01 pm
Poll #1405884
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7Can anyone recommend me a choir in north London, in or near Haringey for preference? I'm not too fussy about the music but one that doesn't require sightreading and is friendly would be nice. I need a London filter don't I? Would you like to be on my London filter?
|
May 14th, 2009
11:56 am - Writer's Block: Word for Word
Seriously? Well, there are 3700 songs on my mp3 player. Playing 10 on random I know all the words to 4 of them. So about 1500? And then everything that was in the top 20 from about 1984 to 1997.
So... quite a lot.
Can I remember what a Suzuki cross-coupling is? Not exactly. And I spent about 3 weeks in April doing them.
This is how I know I am not cut out to be a chemist.
|
May 13th, 2009
08:58 am
Has anyone seen the Robinson's juice thingy ad with the greenfinch? I said to P, I don't care what they're selling - I'm buying it.
Ah, here it is.
Seriously, I absolutely love that advert. It has finches! And a wee house like they would be people!
ETA apparently it's a siskin, not a greenfinch. So there you go.
|
May 11th, 2009
01:56 pm
This stuff with the political expenses: is this something to do with the professionalisation of politics? If I started a new job and they said "there's an allowance for house stuff for 20 grand, it's a relocation allowance but you can use it for buying a big telly if you want, we'll approve that" I'd consider it part of my benefits - like the healthcare and the yearly bonus - and I'd spend it.
Thing is though, I've mostly worked for private companies. Being an MP is something for the public, and their choices deprive much choice for the people at the bottom of the pile. Look at the French or Swiss systems: there is very little poverty, although there tends to be relatively high youth unemployment, specially in France among young people from ethnic minorities. Their systems take away a bit the incentive to work but more importantly make employers reluctant to take on new staff when it's so hard to get rid of them. So, until we make the perfect system, a choice: flexibility and the chance to control your own destiny, or more safety for the vulnerable. Maybe the French system is nicer, I prefer to live under the British system. Although maybe I'll feel different if I once get sick. But all I get to pick is where I live, not what the systems are. The people who pick are the government, and their accountability is to the people who're hardest hit by their choices, the ones who're not making much money. That's one thing.
The other is, if I'm working for a private company I'm making a sale on a free-ish market. My effort for their money. I am an efficient little market element and try to get the most money I can. If I don't, it goes to a shareholder or someone else on the staff, and who cares about that?
MPs are supposed to be doing something different: taking the opportunity to represent their community in Parliament, and so that it doesn't just get filled with rich people, we pay them a wage. That wage isn't a reward for being good at their job or the spoils of a successful campaign to become an MP. It's something we give them so they can go and do this thing they wanted to do, that we picked them for. That's all.
It's so funny watching all these shocked politicians talk about how they followed the rules, and hearing that labour is telling it's MPs that they did nothing wrong. Are they comparing with their friends in the City, in Law practices and accountancy firms and asking themselves what the problem is? Problem is, politics shouldn't be a career. Don't go to uni thinking you're going to become a politician. Go and actually do something, and if the world you experience makes you want to change things, then take that idealism to Parliament with you and actually make something better.
|
April 28th, 2009
01:38 pm - Writer's Block: Musical Affliction
Yes I do. It is Enjoy Yourself by The Specials. It goes:
Enjoy yourself
It's later than you think
Enjoy yourself
While you're still in the pink
The years go by
As quickly as you wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself
It's later than you think
repeat 400 times. I'm sure you can work out the tune from the words.
|
April 23rd, 2009
06:58 am - Eep!
Bluetits are taking baths just outside my window in our blocked gutters. It is too cute.
|
April 20th, 2009
12:02 pm - squee!
A fellow Depeche Mode fan has just come into my lab with a copy of SOTU! (Mine is at the post office even as we speak.)
I'm so excited I feel like I'm 8 years old.
First track - In Chains - is excellent, shares a chord progression with World In My Eyes, which is a good thing in my eyes, but it milks it a bit more. Liking very much.
Second track (don't know the name - we've no track listings) is OK, I'm told it's a grower.
Third track is Wrong and I already like it - I had it as an earworm all this morning anyway.
Fourth track - Fragile Tension. Ooh, I've heard this before. It's got some stuff from one of the PTA songs in it, but this time arranged so it sounds good. Sorry, PTA was awful. This is what they should have done instead.
I'll post again with impressions of the rest of it - if this is the brilliant album I think it might be, it'll be like I am 10 years younger. Something enormously good has just happened to me. It matters, I don't know why it matters, but it does, more than a lot of stuff that's supposed to matter more, houses and money and all that shite.
/gush
|
April 19th, 2009
11:43 am
A horse just walked past our house!
No, two horses!
They had riders and stuff, like.
This would never happen in Seven Sisters. OTOH, bits of dismembered body are not turning up in Seven Sisters at the moment either.
|
|
|
5 (100.0%)