A Cherry Cherry Christmas

How sweet of Neil Diamond to write an album in my honour

I needed this to cheer me up as I am currently on my deathbed with a rather fierce flu virus and am weaker than a jelly kitten. Still it has been interesting being hot and cold at the same time.

Ex pat life

I have survived my first week as an ex-pat, and you’ll never guess what? I bloody love it (although this may be subject to change).

Gibraltar is a far simpler place to live and work than the UK. It is also significantly warmer.
Gib also has something the UK will never have. A channel called Gibraltar Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) which is perhaps the most wonderful thing I have seen in my entire life. I think it deserves a post of its own another time.

People say that living in Gib is similar to the eighties and it is so true, right down to the dogshit! I am a bit worried about what am going to do with all my trendy London gear. I could easily end up looking like am on my way to a fancy dress party. I don’t think Gib is ready for my jumpsuits yet. I don’t think they have had jumpsuits the first time around yet. I would go a little further and say it is a bit like an 80s sitcom, but that is based almost solely on a morning spent in the Gibraltar tax office. I’m upholding this by watching re-runs of Last of the Summer Wine on UKGold. And wouldn’t you bloody know it, the episode where Compo rolls down a hill in a bath was on over the weekend! Last of the Summer Wine is ACE, why did no one tell me? I am digging the eighties and will be going out to buy a spectrum and a lolo ball at some point this week.

Most excitingly of all, I have found a venue for Gibraltar’s first comedy club, and may well be coming out of retirement soon! Watch this space for more info.

Still have not been to see the monkeys, but like I said, don’t want to wear the place out.

Overall I am having a ball and am not missing London one little bit. I miss people but not London. Cut to 11am tomorrow when I am screaming “Get me off this ridiculous bloody rock and back to civilisation”!

Gib Gib hooray

Hello from sunny Gibraltar. I have arrived in one piece and have not run home in tears yet. For those what are interested, here are some pics of my flat. It is very cool.

I have been out and about investigating my new home. Have not seen any monkeys yet but I didn’t want to wear the place out on the first day.

I’ve learned that Gibraltar does not seem to sell books. You can’t buy them. Maybe they fear reading, I don’t know. But anyone coming to visit must buy me books. Which is amusing in itself as I am not allowed to borrow my friend’s books because of my book religion, Book Flux. I believe that you cannot really own books, you read them and then they move on. Once a book is read it becomes valueless and you must give it to someone else. So when I finish books I give them away or leave them on trains or similar. This can be very annoying to people whose books you have borrowed, especially if they do not believe in marrying the twin disciplines of eastern philosophy and book ownership.

So now Hotel Green is only open to visitors who bring me a gift of a book and agree that I may throw it in the sea when I’ve read it if I wish to do so.

Gibraltar also has those enormous sea gulls that I call Seagles in my head. Pronounced to rhyme with eagle.

So, Seagles and no books. That is pretty much it for now!

The power of perspective

Here is a picture of me with my adorable Godcat, Tweets. For once she decided to forgo her “I am not a lap cat” mindset and sit beside me and be fussed before getting back to her extremely busy schedule of savaging toy mice and relaxing in the airing cupboard.

You might also notice that the angle the photo is taken from makes it look like I have massive legs and a tiny little pin head. But of course if you know me you will know I have ordinary legs and a normal sized head.

Tweets is demonstrating the power of perspective here. What might seem distorted and wrong may seem utterly normal from another angle. So there is something for you all to think on.

Green
X

A dog name is for life...

The weather at lunchtime was crisp and dry like a popular 80s cooking oil, so I went for a walk into the village where I work. Outside the local store, I spotted a lady talking to her dog before she popped in to buy a weekly paper, or some date expired dairylea slices*. Now I am not exactly on the Crufts judging panel here, but it was some kind of reddy chocolatey labrador blend. You get the idea.

"There there Skippy, you just wait there," she said.

I then puzzled all the way back to the office as to whether Skippy was an appropriate name for a dog. Bush kangaroo, yes. Dog, hmm. Not convinced.

But then, to my mind, dogs should get simple nouns for names, like Banana or Fondue. If we give them human names, we let them think they are like us. And they should know their place.

Though nothing puts you more in your place than picking up Banana's poo in a Tesco carrier bag.

*I did get £5 in vouchers and a "sorry" letter where they spelt my name wrong.

PS wasn't really worth waiting 5 months for was it, but seeing as there's two names on this blog...

Spooooky Halloween

Hello Biscuit Fan. Or should I say, Hi Becky.

This weekend was Halloween and the London Branch of Biscuits for Girls celebrated in style. Organised by the Queen of Halloween herself, Sarah, we embarked on a zombie pub crawl that kicked the arse of all other zombie pub crawls. Except for me, cause I was dressed as She Ra. I didn’t want to be a zombie but I did want to be She Ra. There I was, kitted out in a She Ra costume that was very revealing and a little chilly, so I was rather jealous of all the nice warm zombies. Add in Charlotte’s white platform boots from her slappier student days and Hey Presto, six foot two inch She Ra is ready to conquer the town. I got a round of applause in the first pub when I took my coat off from the very much non dressed up locals. Thank goodness for Hollywood Tape!

We seemed to be the only people doing Halloween in Dulwich, but we weren’t discouraged. And after Sarah’s skilful application of zombie make up we shuffled, lurched and tottered carefully in our platforms to the drinking holes of South East London. All the time calling for Braaaaiiiiiinnnss

Some Highlights.

1) Zombie Rob being unable to see properly with his contacts in
2) Dean getting a bit “method” with his Zombie acting and terrorising a woman in a parked car by clawing at the window. We all agreed it was the funniest thing ever.
3) A loud and drawn out conversation about the under-representation of nonces in Hollywood films.
4) Lurching, shuffling and tottering across the road in front of a bus that had to stop for us, while being waved across the road by a devil.
5) Rob biting a stranger’s head. Apparently he was only going to go for his throat, but his natural sense of showmanship took over. The bloke loved it too.

A good time had by all, and it would have been even better if someone who was there in spirit could have been there in the flesh! A someone who would have absolutely loved the make up, shuffling, head biting and tarty She Ra outfit. All Hallows to absent friends.

Check out the pics on Flickr

Body off Baywatch, face off Crimewatch

As is our way, my brother and I settled down to watch Crimewatch the other night, and set about our hobby of threatening to ring the hotline and implicate each other for the most heinous of crimes.

While doing this we noticed something rather sinister about the presenters. Not the standard presenters, the delicious Rav and that woman who isn’t Fiona Bruce but may as well be. But there is a C student of Crimewatch. Those who present the in between sections and the reconstructions are all wrong uns of the highest order. Honestly they were worse than thec riminals some of them. I’ve been doing extensive searching on Google and I can’t find the names or photos of any of them.

Now I’m wondering if perhaps if you commit a crime and get community service, you can do community service presenting Crimewatch.

Wishing on a star

Last night as I made my way through the world I saw a shooting star. Unusual in inner London, but you tend to get more of them around the end of October and the beginning of November. Often accompanied by a high pitched whistle.

So anyway I saw my shooting star and like any sensible person, I made a wish. I’m not convinced that such wishes will come true but it seemed foolish to potentially look a gift horse in the mouth. As an aside, does anyone know where that expression comes from? Can you tell me if you do? Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Anyway. There I am wishing away and I got to wondering, how so many things are associated with making wishes and yet so few wishes come true. Birthday candles, eyelashes, stars and so forth. And yet the only time I have made wishes come true it has had bugger all to do with eyelashes and everything to do with sheer bloody mindedness.

If the eyelash thing worked I’d have about twenty five ponies by now. And I’d be at the stage where I would have to start wishing for fields and hay.

Some of the wishes I’ve made this week have included “I wish I had some bacon,” “I wish I didn’t just put my hand in the toaster,” and “I wish I hadn’t drunk all the wine in the world last night.” None of which were last night’s wish, but now I do wish I’d wished for bacon. Bacon might not be achievable for this morning (until I invent time travel!) but it sure is available in the future... so do wishes depend on time? I wish I knew!

Gibraltar? No I went of my own accord.

Hi biscuit fans. Yep. Both of you.

So the hot gossip on everyone’s lips here in biscuit land is that I (Cherry) am going to be carrying out a life experiment, that involves moving to Gibraltar for 3 months. Now many of you are probably thinking “What sort of experiment is that?”, “Where’s your control?”, “What statistical test is going to prove it significant?” and “Where or where is your retort stand?”

All good questions. None of which will be answered here.

So after a fairly long and tedious 2009, filled with a lot of hard work, I have decided to seek excitement, adventure and really wild things on a strange retro peninsular that has yet to leave the seventies. There and southern Spain. I reckon 3 months should be loads of time!

Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Ho ho.

In case you were wondering, I’ve been offered a job there. A large betting firm want me to sort out their website, so that people with gambling problems can fritter their children’s university funds without running into tedious usability problems. I’ve decided on a big banner on the home page that reads “How much of your personal wealth would you be willing to gamble if there was a slight chance you would become immeasurably rich?”, the user simply types in a number and the site deducts that sum from their bank account. Easy peasy.

Although that is supposedly why I am going, I shall also be doing a little light hunting of sea monsters while I am at it. Scylla and Charydbis being the critters thought to inhabit that bit of sea. So I shall routinely be wading into the sea, holding animal carcasses attempting to do a spot of summoning.

Anyway I am now the owner of The Largest Suitcase in the World and am trying to decide which shoes to take with me. Choices choices. Honestly, the suitcase is huge, it is a suitcase I can fit in. Maybe I will try and take a photo of me in my suitcase in order to prove this point.

My sister told me an amusing story today about a friend of a friend who moved to a very small town in Cambridgeshire and hated it so much that he started a blog about how shit it was. Long story short, the villagers found out about it and ran him out of town. They actually ran him out of town! I was so delighted by this that I am now wondering if I can use the power of social media to get deported from Gibraltar! Watch this space people!

Off to plan my leaving party as I prepare to navigate Scylla and Charydbis!

The Big C
x

The I Ching and I

Happy birthday to Confucius for earlier in the week.

Which brings me nicely on to the I Ching, which Carl Jung, another good friend of mine was very into. (You may recall I visited his tower on Lake Zurich with Lovely Swiss Matt)

A dear friend and I consulted the I Ching recently, and as oracles go, I was rather impressed. I think it was far better than the one on the M4 near Legoland.

The I Ching is a Chinese Oracle, for those that don’t know. It is famously never wrong. Although it isn’t afraid to be vague. I once consulted it about a website I was working on and it said “the man walks as though the flesh is stripped from his buttocks” which proved pretty accurate. Strangely I can’t find this passage anywhere now, so it must have been magicked up to describe how screwed we were.

Anyway, the I Ching is not prescriptive, the idea is that it gives you ideas to meditate on. For example I did not ask it whether I should have bought these Jimmy Choos or that leopard print dress in Hobbs, cause I know the answer to those questions and no ancient wisdom is going to stop me looking like an exquisitely groomed hooker.

You should never consult the I Ching frivolously, or so says my friend S, presumably if you do, it comes up with something facetious and bummy.

So as a life experiment, I am going to obey the I Ching religiously for 1 month. This will be like the Dice Man but instead of pooing in a plant pot, I shall be drawing a wagon full of devils, or losing the little boy in clinging to the strong man. Or furthering myself by crossing the great water.

Hopefully I wont be walking as though the flesh has been stripped from my buttocks. Unless the Choos really hurt!

Hello, She Ra here. Whose ass would you like me to kick?

Hi Kids,

So I was training with my personal trainer, who took a photo of me doing chin ups so I could see my rippling muscles. Check this out! Not bad for a girl.

Apparantly the triangular formation of muscles is called the "Christmas Tree" so I shall be decorating it with fairy lights.

I am She Ra and I WILL kick your ass.

I suppose now is the time to start working through that list of people whose asses need kicking.

Honest there are muscles there and everything. Although I will post again in a month when it might be more impressive

101 Power Ballads.

Ever since my project went west because life was peaceful there, I have been left with some rather tedious data entry style work. This was not good. I was very bored.

Clearly I needed to hit my ipod and hit it hard, hence the purchase of 101 Power Ballads from Amazon.

Now it would appear that the committee behind 101 Power Ballads didn’t decide on the track listing until after they had already had the meeting in which they agreed that 101 Power Ballads was a winning compilation and had already designed the sleeve. Only later did they sit down and go “Hey, does anyone actually know 101 power ballads?”

Clearly they didn’t because there are some very dubious choices on there; none of which are Wind of Change by the Scorpions. Mind you Wind of Change by the Scorpions make me bawl like a massive girl for reasons too distressing to go into here [unlike Rockstar by Nickleback which only induces dry but racking sobs].

Any way, I was happy to sea some Whitesnake on there, the classic Drifter along with Is This The Love. I am always happy to see Whitesnake. I’d be happy if I came home and found that David Coverdale had broken into my flat and was on my sofa watching telly. I’d even give him a lend of my hair dryer, since we actually have a very similar hair do. But I digress…

What I did not expect to see was Angels by Robbie Williams. What was that doing there? Hmm? Where are the guitar solos in that?

Still, what do I care? I built this city on rock and roll.

Just for fun, I have included a picture of me tearing the ocean apart like an arrow. Not like a massive fool. No.

For Sarah Jones

Here is that picture of me with the squirrel you wanted

La Roux

La Roux has spoken out in favour of Whaling in Japan.

A spokes person said she was "Doing it for the krill".


Oh dear.

Work rant #1

Just been in the queue at the coffee place here, where there were 25 people being served by 1 bloke who refused to move any faster than your average glacier. This gave me ample opportunity to listen to be people talking rubbish to each other as they waited.

One particularly awful pair where discussing the various "chats" they were going to have with people. "Yeah, I need to have a chat with X, the campaign manager [insert your own made up sounding pointless job in here]". When did everyone start having chats at work? Those aren't chats. Chats are about the weather and the neighbours and the cat. The correct term is "I've got to have a pointless, boring and utterly meaningless conversation with an odious little turd who, as far as I can see, does nothing" but to make it sound jolly and animated they call it a chat.
Honestly, if all the chatters and the campaign managers were laid off, we could run this place at twice the efficiency with about 30 people, leaving everyone else free to work down the mines. Maybe then we could get another person in the cafe.

Cheryl's Diary

With a little imagination, and a few pints of pear cider, you could almost believe you were hearing the inner rumblings of Oor Cheryl, the nation's sweetheart..

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch?e=20090618185319223

Or not

Nazi gold, cuckoo clocks, the large Hadron Collider and me.

That's right folks, I've just flown back from neutral Switzerland and boy are my arms tired.



I've been visiting a friend in Zurich, the German bit.



Things I learnt:



1) They don't let tourists press buttons on the Large Hadron Collider. Apparently the risk of creating a black hole is minimal but not that minimal, thus making Angels and Demons even less believable than it already is.

2) The Swiss have an overblown idea of how much cuckoo clocks are worth. 200F? I think not!

3) Nazi gold is very well hidden. I didn't find any.

4) Popular psychologist Carl Jung (known for his theories on synchronicities that are slightly more believable than Angels and Demons) built a tower on late Zurich and spent a lot of his adult life hiding in it. Despite being the only famous dead person Zurich had on offer, the Zurichians showed no desire to make a tourist attraction of this, and indeed the boat passed by without even pointing it out. Come on Switzerland, put down the sausage and pay attention to your heritage.

Tickets please

On my way up to London on the train today, I was joined by three fare evading teens. One of which spent most of the 45 minute journey to East Croydon hiding in the loo. I was quite aggravated by their constant twittering on about where "the lady" was and whether "the lady" was going to get them. They finally got off the train at the Eastern side of Croydon, where in my head I imagined they got tasered to the ground and eaten by a pack of dogs for skipping the fare. Now that's justice the youth can understand.

On the way back from London village, once again, by train, I actually saw the ticket inspector and happily showed him my ticket. As did the charming Frenchman with the woven - yes, woven - bumbag in which he kept his railpass.

So, Britian, is it more of a crime to skip the fare than keep the ticket in a jaunty weave near your balls?

Britain...

...hasn't got talent.

Sorry.

The dangers of taking a photo of yourself in a hat

So we've all been there. You turn up at a meeting and no one is there. Furiously you call the chair of that meeting asking why they have cancelled it without telling you. They snigger and point out that you have the wrong day and you are given a dunce hat to wear by colleagues.

Entering into the spirit of this, you take a picture of yourself in the hat and send it to a friend.

The friend uploads it to Flickr, and tells everyone they know.

You mither to the creators of the hat that a person can't take a photo of themselves in a hat anymore without it being uploaded to the internet. Your colleague and hat-fashioner laughs for a moment before uploading the picture to a number of stock image libraries and tagging it "Blonde dunce".

Yes - this has happened to all of us, but is a serious reminder of what can happen. Just ask that Star wars kid

Aside from that, good news to anyone who is blood group A and has recently had a massive haemorrhage. You may get some of my blood!

I spent Monday evening bleeding into a plastic bag for the good of mankind, and have the following comments:

1) A lot of Wrong-Uns give blood. I am glad there is a collection of my blood because I don't want any of their weird person blood.

2) Ideally I want to make sure my blood is reserved for me for when I am practicing surgery and trying to improve myself. However I will settle for certain people being prevented from having my blood. Notably ex boyfriends and the neighbours who kept me up all night listening to Grease. Ideally the ex/neighbours will be filmed bleeding to death while doctors dance around waving packs of my blood before uploading the lot to youtube.

3) Not all Blood Donor centres are created equal. In Dulwich you get wagon wheels and kit kats whereas in Dorking you get Tuc biscuits and fruit.

4)I'm sure I had more comments than that.

Accidentally overlooked?

Hello biscuit lovers. I read today that a Rangers footballer injured himself this week, inspecting an egg he had just poached in the microwave. He had to call his parents to take him to the hospital to tend to his scalded cheek. I hope his parents told him to stop using the microwave for eggs, poaching really deserves vinegary water on the hob.

The story ended with the news that the accident data on egg related incidents stopped in 2002. At first I thought that the government had just given up on the type of no hopers who dislocate a thumb popping a scotch egg in their mouths. But some research showed that the government has just stopped collecting data on accidents at home, full stop. I guess they just don't care about us anymore.

I can, however, tell you that back in 2002, 226 people were injured in incidents involving artificial limbs.

1,189 people got in an injury pickle with a coat hanger.

And I can reveal that 82 poor souls suffered a superficial injury to an unknown body part. ("sort of ouch"..."where does it hurt?"..."I don't know")

How many of these poor, slightly injured in an unspecified area types are walking slightly wounded and uncared for today?

Sort it out government towers. Get that moat cleaning money back and get back in the accident data collecting saddle.

But be careful, or you could come a cropper like 656 others did with saddles in 2002.

Play nicely folks.

Fancy a slice?

Outside the Coop near my house is a lovely sign that proudly promotes three of their new hot dishes, now available in store.

Let's have a look at them...

1. Sausage roll - yeah, I get that, pastry round a banger, ok nice.

2. Vegetable pasty - ok with that as a concept too. Veg, encased in pastry, job is a good un

3. Hot slice - a hot slice of what exactly? This is worse than the ambiguous meat curry you come across on those cheap wipe clean take away menus. I thought hot slice was what men referred to their girlfriends as with their mates after a few gallons of Stella.

If anyone has tried a hot slice I'd love to hear from you. I think you're brave.

Bloating

The world seems to want to tell me how bloated they are this week. What is this mythical condition known as bloating. I've never had bloating. And at least one of the people who claimed to be bloated was very definitely just fat. There is nothing wrong with carrying a few extra pounds but please don't tell me that you aren't fat, it is all air.

Apparently the cause of this mystery condition is bread. I have been eating bread all my life, little knowing that I was at terrible risk of becoming bloated.

Things that make me bloated:

Pastry
Pork pies
Lard
Sausages
Wine
Lager
Curry
Chocolate

Oh and KFC makes me retain oxygen.

Bloating my ass.

Money to burn?

For reasons too dull to list, I am awaiting a hospital referral to my local cardiology department. And the nice people there sent me a letter yesterday...to say I should get a letter in the next fortnight with an appointment. Why not save the stamp and just send me my appointment? I mean, I'm kind of ok with the whole concept of waiting in general, I'm orderly in bus queues and I don't expect a letter 2 weeks before my birthday saying yoo hoo, look out for a card from me soon!

And, to pad out the postage even further, they also enclosed a leaflet on giving up smoking for me. Now, I am pretty darn sure my NHS records state I am a non-smoker - and in fact, baring a drunken drag in 2005, have been all my life.

However, I got so cross at the waste of funding I started puffing furiously on a pipe to quell my rage. The leaflet has been useless in helping me kick my new addiction, but perhaps it'll give the heart people something extra to look out for.

Gok Wan's Fashion Fix...

... had me screaming at the telly last night. In fact Gok's Fashion Fix left me requiring a heroin fix.

Who is this man? What rock did he crawl out from under? When is he crawling back and why on earth has he taken it upon himself to take responisbility for the self esteem of woman kind? Has there been some petition or pressure group that I have missed? And surely, if we badly needed a man to cheer us all up, it wouldn't be one who had willfully rejected women as a lifestyle choice. It certainly wouldn't be this little twat who refers to a lady's bosoms as "bangers".

Gok, take your "whanger" and shove it up your "crapper". If I catch you on my telly again I'm putting my foot through it, and guess who will be getting the bill.

In this episode, unbearable Gok was styling the equally unbearable Cilla Black who apparently "lives in jeans" when she is "Not on camera". All the time then Cilla?

She also proclaimed that she would "rather diet than wear a size 14".

Read my lips, Cilla:

And

The

Rest

Tell me why I don't like Tuesdays?

Ok, so maybe I am greedy and just want to eek out the bank holiday until the banks are just closed all year round, but I am not a fan of the Tuesday. I much prefer a Thursday as there's normally something funny on the telly and you can almost smell that warm and invitating fresh-baked Friday night approaching.

And today I found out (ie, looked and saw) that my birthday falls on a bloody Tuesday this year. Ugh. Who's going to want to go out and help me celebrate pre-mid-week?

No-one, if I keep whinging that's for sure. So, I'm going to make my peace with Tuesday right here and now, in front of one co-writer and an online blog follower and thank it for keeping Monday far at bay and for being a key part of an amusing euphemism.

Here you go life....

... a nice picure of my arse. So you know where to kick

To Watch or Not to Watch

Here's something that IPlayer wasn't made for.

To Buy or Not to Buy...series 8...presented by two-footed skating grin-monger Melinda Messenger and Ricky from Eastenders himself Mr Sid Owen. Property gurus, I am certain.

'Melinda and Sid try and find the perfect love-nest for a young couple', bleats one episode descriptor.

Perehaps 'Sid and Melinda find temporary shelter in the "go get a job/I am very ill today" TV schedule' would work better.

Life. Up to his old tricks again

Life asked Shiv to pull his finger this week. Hopefully she will learn now.

Meanwhile Life came round my house and top decked me. Bad Life!

Shiv and I believe that Carol Decker from T'pau enjoys top decking people, and is known by her friends as Carol Topdecker. We believe quite a few things about Carol Topdecker which may be mentioned another time.

Just imagine 80s songbird, Sonya, in her scouse bleat complaining "Arr Ey. T'pau's shat in the cistern again."

Life. Oh Life. Oh life. As the Lighthouse Family used to say to me

Hi Kids,

We've been a bit quiet recently as Life has been determined to kick us both up the arse lately.

Only last week, Shiv was on her way home from work when she saw a pound lying on the floor. Bending to pick it up, she heard the sound of galloping footsteps behind her. That's right, folks, it was Life taking a run up to kick the twin peaches of her arse.

At the weekend, I was asleep when Life done a poo in my mouth, took a picture and tagged all my friends with it on Facebook.

Stop it Life. We know your dad!

Biscuits

I second that emotion

I say that until 2009 is over, we all stay at home and play with ourselves

Now I understand

A fair few years back (think E17 in the charts) I was a school leaver, collecting comments and good luck messages for posterity in a science notebook I had 'liberated' from the Physics cupboard.

One teacher, who was probably the age I am now, wrote "Keep that sense of humour - you'll need it when you go out in the real world". The word real was underlined not once, but twice.

And you know what, as I survey what has been all told another pretty shoddy week for me, my close buddies, and a lot of the rest of the world, I know exactly what they meant. The real world (underlined or not) doesn't take any prisoners. (It probably just beats them up instead)

So as I sign off, I am looking once more for my sense of humour, and am hopeful its at the foot of this tea mug I'm nursing.

May you kind reader always have your humour near you.

Who would win in a fight between an emo and a goth?

Emo vs Goth has got to be the world’s lamest deathmatch. It would be like watching paint dry. Alien vs Predator it is not. While it is one of the immutable laws of nature that in any fight involving a goth the goth will lose, in this case I predict a gothic victory. This is because the goth only has to stand around looking sad and wait for the emo to self harm.

Interestingly, when writing this, spell-check kept trying to make the Goth fight an emu. That is an easy victory for the emu!

Shops I like - part I

Anyone for aertex shorts?

The Loan of Contention

Ok, ok, I know it's a pretty weak pun of a headline, but this week I have finally reconciled my account with the contentious grant replacing Student Loan people. And only 12 years after first utilising that funding for important student books and equipment like pints of Snakey B and patchouli oil. I actually feel like I own my BA outright and in full now, and I intend to use it more often in polite company.

It also means for the first time in my adult life (if you ignore my mortgage - Cheltenham & Gloucester please can you do the same, please, please?) I am officially loan free. I owe you nothing, uuh eer, nothing at all.

So it's good timing that the boiler should stop doing the boiling bit its name suggests, now I am flush with all this extra cash. Let's hope they don't mind being paid off in small installments over a decade.

The Oxo Tower. Neither an Oxo nor a tower

I went to the restaurant at the top of the Oxo Tower last night for the first time ever. And very nice it was too. Aside from getting hideously drunk and having to be poured into a taxi and flushed home, I noted a few things.

1) The Oxo Tower is not a tower. An eight storey building just isn’t a tower. My house is 4 storeys and you don’t hear me calling it the Dulwich High Rise.

2) I had it mixed up with the post office tower. Which is an actual tower and is also much larger. Most importantly it is round. Having spent the last 30 years thinking that this was the Oxo tower, you can excuse my other misconception, that the restaurant revolved. Which is just as well because revolving restaurants are in the same design group as guitar shaped beds. I can also imagine it is very difficult to find your table again when you come back from the bog unless the bogs also revolve. I can’t see this being the case because the only way that would work, what with the plumbing and all, is if there was only one bog, right in the middle of the restaurant. So you would essentially be sitting on spinning toilet, and the toilet is not a place where you want to introduce centrifugal force.

Other than that it was very nice.

From Vegetarians to Leather Trousers in One Seamless Move

Hi Children,

Recently, a vegetarian came into my life. Who I like rather a lot. I have to say that, because I am about to pan vegetarianism.

I used to be a veggie. Oh yes I did. I managed 10 years of vegetarianism. And during that time I was generally under the impression that what you put in your mouth was your own darn business and I was happy making lentil hot pot.

Now however, I just wish someone had fed me a bleeding steak and shown me what I was missing.

I believe vegetarianism may well come into its own several years in the future, when society has broken down and we are all stalking the desolate landscape stripped to the waist and wearing our post apocalyptic leather trousers* we will be able to hunt them on account of their being easy to catch and, let's face it, corn fed. But for now I think they are people who don't eat proper food. Vegetarianism is the domain of 15 year old girls. If you don't like that, go and blog about it to your emo mates on myspace.
Double standards? Yes. I can get my standards into double figures if I really try.

*Just watch any movie set in the future (Bladerunner, Mad Max etc) and you will note that everyone is wearing leather trousers. It appears that when society breaks down, technology becomes obsolete, particularly the technology required to make trousers out of cloth.

Oh dear what can the matter be?

I've been feeling under the weather for several weeks now, and I know that as I type, Shiv is hurling several pints of Pepto Bismol into the bog.

Why am I so ill? A number of theories have abounded. My mum thinks it is ME. But she thinks everything is ME and I'm simply not self pitying enough to have such a disease. Another friend suggested anaemia, but when I extracted some with a sharp stick, my blood was vivid with haemoglobin. Each molecule bound tightly to four irons. The last theory is that I'm depressed. I'm not having that one because last time it lead to me not being able to get income insurance. However it is probably the most likely. It would certainly explain all the crying.

The thing is does it count as depression when your life actually does suck? That shouldn't have any affect on your ability to qualify for insurance. Justifiable misery, that's what I have. I think the suggested remedy is to pull yourself together and stop whining.

However it isn't just me. Everyone I know is ill at the moment. The people who aren't ill are pregnant (and that's just the men!). Which is worse than being ill cause you can't eat brie and then a 9lb person forces its way through your cervix. Which just has to suck.

Biscuits for Girls goes Radio

Hello

Although Biscuits for Girls have only been running for a short time and we never update our blog, we have our first ever radio credit. So why not listen to it here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00j7vlf/Watsons_WindUp_Series_3_Episode_7/

(27mins and 15 seconds in)

In other exciting news, our very first photo story will be appearing here very shortly.

Keep dunking,
S&C

Is funny finite?

Have you ever pulled up short, as if a child had ran out in front of you, and considered how much funny there is left in the world? Or perhaps you just keep driving, in spite of the yelps, too absorbed in the thought.

How many variations on a joke have we got left?

Give it a couple of years and like pop music, will we see cover versions of entire shows and acts? Watch out for Russell Brandy and Victoria Woof coming to a venue near you.

Give Jack Doo a miss though. I saw him on "Jokes in his Eyes" and he was lame.

Finding the right words

On their lovely website, the scholarly sorts at the Oxford English Dictionary have a list of words and phrases which they seek the help of the world at large to date first usage.

Apparently, before 1986 no one used the term
chat-up (a.: designating or relating to flirtatious conversation)

So what did we do back then if we saw a likely sort swigging a pint of Hoffmeister? Did we simply "talk to them" or perhaps just club them over the head and take them home under our arm? And if the chatting up didn't work, we didn't stop at the kebab van to drown our sorrows in meat fat before 1990 apparently.

But somewhat more worrying is the fact that no one did a poo (as in the verb and very much without the H on the end) before 1975. And then, between 1975 and 1981, no one called their poo, well, erm, poo.

If you know any different, let the boffins know.

First day of school

The New Year should bring new hope and a refreshed vigour for the year to come. I hope it brings you, kindly reader, all that you could ever wish for



It has bought me so far - though in no particular order - a packed in radiator, a leak in the kitchen, a viral infection that has made my glands go crazy bananas and a dusting of snow.

The Arse Clench Redemption

So I turn on the telly this morning, and who should I see but Mr Motivator sitting on the sofa with Lorraine Kelly. I quickly checked my watch to see if I had passed through some time hole into the early 90s. But no, there he was, real as anything and still wearing the same colourful leotard.

Apparently the obesity crisis has reached such levels that the only person who can help us is Mr Motivator. I imagine some poor researcher from GMTV had the job of going around all the petrol stations in London, trying to find the one he worked at and then begging him to come back and save the nation while he switched on pumps and sold Jaffa Cakes.

Whatever can we expect next? Lizzie Webb from TVam working with obese children?

So anyway, there was Mr Motivator, offering to solve the obesity crisis and making Lorraine Kelly do arse clenches, despite her arse being beyond clench redemption