Hobnobbing

Before this blog grinds to a complete and pathetic halt, mainly due to most of my spare braincells being devoted to the demonic throes of NaNoWriMo, I really should let you know what I’ve been getting up to. I’m sure you’re dying to know, aren’t you, dear Reader?

Well, over the last few weeks, I have been hobnobbing with the stars. Yes siree. Forget Jedward (no, seriously, please do!), forget Jordanformerlyknownaskatiepriceandreandnowknownasjordanagain, I’m talking proper slebs, people!

To kick off the series, while we were holidaying in Sweden, we hooked up with the delectable Geoff Lloyd (aka Dr Fluff Glitter, international man of mystery and radio DJ on occasion) and his adorable better half, the faaaaabulous superstar Zena Birch, plus the loveliest of all dinky schnauzers, Miss Laika Lloyd-Birch. In fact, I almost don’t count this as hobnobbing, as they have both put up with my twittering/facebooking/emailing and visiting the Virgin/Absolute studios for long enough for this to be considered a meeting of friendship rather than pure fannish adoration (well, by me at least, they probably still call it harassment). But given the location of our meet-up, I have no choice but to refer to hobnobbery all the same. In fact, this was far beyond hobnobbing: this was the realm of chocolateolivering.

While deciding where to meet up, I mentioned that Husband and I had just bought tickets for a boat tour of Stockholm that left from and returned to the main tour boat stop in front of the Grand Hotel. So Zena suggested that we meet there for afternoon tea and cakes. Oh my. If it wasn’t the poshest place I have ever been into! We were shown in to the tea rooms by a Maitre D’, for heaven’s sake! He settled us in around a coffee table with some lovely armchairs and the most ridiculously deep sofa in the world. We shared 2 tea-and-cakes menus between the 5 of us (a friend of Zena’s had joined us); the tea was served in beautiful white china cups with fancy silver spoons, and the dinky cakes and triangularly-cut sandwiches came presented on one of those silver three-tiered platters that you’d see on Masterchef. Fancy.

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Anyhoo, after we got back from our holidays (full coverage of that is on its way, I promise!) we had a couple of days left before heading back to work. And then Jon Ronson went and tweeted that he would be doing a Q&A at the premiere of the film inspired by his book The Men Who Stare At Goats. So we figured that, seeing as we had been planning to go to the movies anyway, we would go see him, and hopefully get to meet him afterwards. So off we went to buy tickets… Except the cinema staff didn’t seem to know anything about this premiere, could it be next Friday maybe? Next Friday? Oh, crap, I suppose it had to be, so I tweeted Jon to convey my dismay at not being able to attend next Friday. “No, tonight!” he answered. Oh? Was he sure it was at that cinema? Yes, he was sure, if we were having trouble getting tickets, he could try to get us on the guest list, he kindly offered. After answering a frantic “yes please!” I had no further news from Jon who was busy being interviewed about a billion times, and we walked around Dublin hopelessly trying to find out where this thing was and how come there was no news about it anywhere. At the Savoy cinema they even tried to persuade us that the film was not out until January. Idiots.

So we ended up back at the Cineworld at the time Jon had mentioned, and we tried again, this time asking a manager. “Oh yes!” he said, “there’s a lady over there checking names…” So off we went to see the lady. It turned out that it was a very private and exclusive premiere, for the winners of a couple of competitions and a selected guest list. Oh well, I thought, maybe Jon put my name on the list, and hell, if I’m not on it, well, we’ll just go see something else instead. So we asked the lady if Jon had put my name on the list. “Oh, you’re a Jon Ronson guest? Oh yes, of course, go on up, screen 4, second floor…” she exclaimed, crossing off an anonymous “Jon Ronson guest + 1″ from the list.

Oh. Ok. I was pretty sure that wasn’t actually meant for us, but it was a bit late for that, so up we went, and we saw the film, and it was awesome! And then we met Jon, and he was awesome too! Turns out he hadn’t been in time to add us to the list although he had meant to, so yes, we did totally and inadvertently blag our way into a private and exclusive premiere! So we had a laugh about it, and a quick chat, and I got my copy of Goats (the book) signed, and George Clooney’s mobile number, which Jon does tend to just give out to anyone and everyone…

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Last but not least, the following Friday, I had volunteered us to sell merchandise for the hoopy frood Jonathan Coulton, and the equally* arrrrrsome Paul and Storm at their concert in the Academy2.  So we turned up there at 7, and met Aaron, a young man with Impeccable Hair™ and skinny jeans, who was apparently organising things for JoCo in Dublin. Paul and Storm were doing sound checks on stage. And then the shaggily handsome Jonathan appeared, did a few bars of Tom Cruise Crazy, and then came over to greet us and show us what needed doing.

It was then that I committed smalltalk. The kind of self-destructing nuclear laser clusterbomb smalltalk that can kill a conversation dead from 20 paces. It went something like this:

“So, here we have the tour t-shirt, that we got made specially for the UK and Ireland tour. So here we have me, coming through a portal, haha, and there, we have a zombie leprechaun and a British monkey…”

“Ha ha! Last time I saw a British monkey, it was eating its own poo.”

…

Yes. That is indeed what I said.

Yup.

When it left my brain, it was a very amusing, if a little risqué, anecdote about our last trip to London zoo, and the antics of the big male gorilla who completely grossed out the large crowd of schoolkids who were all gathering around the glass wall of his enclosure to get a closer look. Somehow, the rest of the anecdote got lost on the way to my mouth.

I am an idiot.

Anyhoo, the concert was, as could be expected, incredibly cool (in a geeky kind of way. But geeky is cool, right?), we sold plenty of merchandise (I did actually coin the term “nerdchandise” at one point, hoping it would catch on, but the stench of monkey poo must have been on me by then, and it was ignored in spite of its brilliance…) and got a couple of pics with the man himself and a signed DVD.

So, I guess that’s it for this year, my hobnobbing will now return to the usual bourbonning, with maybe a little choc-chipcookieing thrown in on weekends…

.

*Well, not quite equally, I mean we all know JoCo is like, totally so much cooler than Paul and Storm, but the poor things are already so self-conscious about it that I didn’t like to point it out… oh. Ooops, sorry.

Pick of the week XVI

Right, time to pick this up again, can’t be having with all this doing nothing nonsense for long now, can we?

This pick of the week will be a very awesomely awesome webcomic named XKCD which you probably already know. And if you don’t, then you should. Which is why I’m picking it as pick of the week. Because it’s awesome. Awesomely so.

See below. Then click.

Knitting++

The other day, I tweeted something like “I don’t care how uncool this make me sound, knitting something this complicated is exciting!”, but I think this may need a little bit more explanation.

Aside from providing warm fluffy things to wear on various extremities during the winter months, and being a handy passtime, knitting is also quite an interesting thing in itself. And just the other day, I realised that I actually get the same kind of kick out of it as I do from programming. Computer programming, that is, not setting up the sky+ box to record True Blood on Wednesdays.

Programming is basically getting a machine to do what you want it to do by using a set of instructions. You only have a limited amount of different instructions, so it’s the way you combine them and the order you use them in which will make the machine do stuff. So getting a machine to do something fairly complex when you only have a basic set of instructions, solving that problem, is quite a satisfying thing. It’s a bit like building with LEGO blocks, depending on how you assemble them, they can be a bunny or a castle.

Well, knitting is just like that, without the bricks. Because knitting with bricks would be awfully hard. Not to mention just plain silly. You have 2 basic stitches, knit and purl, and a few extra things like casting on or off, increasing or decreasing, but that’s pretty much it for the basics, almost everything else is a combo of those basic elements.

So once you know those elements, you can knit yourself a scarf, with just casting on, knit stitch, and casting off. Then you can start having some fun: alternating rows of knit and purl will give you the classic jersey stitch, the nice flat one we all know. Alternating the two stitches on the same row and reversing that alternation will give you a ribbed pattern, and so on until you get some really complex patterns, and that’s before we even talk about using different coloured wools…

And then you get the insanely complicated knitting patterns, the kind that look like the secret plans for D-Day, that take up several pages with diagrams all over the place, and extra explanations for the special stitches you’ll need. And even then you’ll probably need to look up half the words used in the explanations.

You’ll probably have to start over a few times, you’ll spend a lot of time unraveling and cursing, but that’s pretty much the same as debugging a complex programme (except IE6 doesn’t mentioned quite so often when it comes to knitting). However, when things start to come together, in knitting as in programming, when it starts to look like what it should, and you’re really getting the hang of how it actually functions, you properly understand what’s making it tick, then, dear Reader, then it gets properly exciting and you just can’t put it down. You just want to get back to it, add another line of code, another row of stitches, get one step closer to the final result…

I mean, just look at this:

Does that make any sense to you? Nope?

Well, me neither for a good long while… But now the actual knitting is beginning to look very slightly like it may just become something that will look a little like the crazy sleeves of this jumper over here ==>

And you know what? I’m excited!

WooHoo!

Trick or tweet

Halloween is a terrible ungodly blood-sucking devil-worshipper’s feast, where little children go out and get kidnapped and chopped up by evil neighbours. Well, at least, that’s what I was give as a reason for not going out trick-or-treating when I was little. “It’s fun and everyone else is doing it” seemed to be my parents’ favourite reasons for not doing things…

Meh. Anyhoo, let’s not get bogged down in that. The thing is, tonight, for the first time in ages for me and the first time ever for Husband, we are handing out sweeties to the kiddywinks, dressed up in our best black outfits.

Except that dear over-enthusiastic Husband has been getting all excited and  giving out our precious stash of treats by the handful, so after only a few bell-rings, we were already half way through our bowl of mini-twixes and mikyway treatsizes. So we will probably end up lynched by a mob of angry 10-year-old sexy kittens (is it just me or is that just plain wrong?) and half-hearted attempts at hoodie-skeletons.

Please, dear readers, avenge us if we come to a sticky end at the hands of sugar crazed pre-teens!

Suit up!

Businessmen are very silly creatures. Even more so when it rains.

Only since I have been working in an inner-city office have I really begun to notice how the office-workers of the western world behave. There are a few details that seem to be common to all: the smart clothes, the quick walking pace and the “I’m far too busy for this crap” look on their faces. All to be expected, I guess.

But recently I have noticed a few other things, specifically about the male yuppy (are they still called yuppies? I mean, is that still too 80’s or is it old enough to have become trendily retro again?). You often see young ladies in suits and skirts walking around in a rather surprising choice of sporty footwear, and it is quite obvious why: due to peer pressure, aesthetic considerations or a foot-fetishist boss, they wear stupidly impractical high heels in the office and any actual walking in them is painful, or at best uncomfortable. Especially in a city where, for some reason, cobbled pavements are particularly popular. So they wear their runners to walk to work and slip on the Jimmy Choos around the people they want to impress. Fair enough, I guess that’s what is called a woman’s prerogative.

But suddenly, the males are at it too! Walking around in the street in suits and runners! What the hell is the matter with you? Are you no longer men? Have you removed your testes and popped them in your manbag with your leather shoes? Men’s dress shoes are as comfortable as anything to walk around a city in! I should know, I used to have to wear them before some shoe shops realised that women could sometimes reach a colossal size 8! Why on earth do you need to change your shoes?

Honestly, the whole point of being a man is that you don’t have to endure all the stupid crap we girls have to go through! And now you’re waxing and plucking and carrying handbags and wearing make-up… Why? Why would you want to do that? Besides, the whole metrosexual thing is, like, sooo 2005, darlings, what are you thinking?

The other rather un-manly thing they seem to indulge in, these suited clones, is the use of not only umbrellas but incredibly large golf umbrellas. The kind that mean anyone else has to jump off the pavement into the oncoming traffic if they encounter one coming the other way. What is it with these gigantic beach parasols? Is it a size thing, boys? Over-compensating much? Are you protecting the finely crafted hairdo that you spent all of 3 minutes and a handful of gel creating? Or are you showing off that you not only work for Kockwadd and Bollocksson Ltd, but they love you so much that they gave you a whole umbrella. A whole golf umbrella for you and you alone!

Wow.

No, just wow.

Guys, please, in the name of what little manhood you have left, I’m begging you: get over yourselves.

NaNoWriMo

So, after many years of sitting back and watching others jump in at the deep end, I’ve finally bought myself some guts and signed up for NaNoWriMo.

If you are not aware of this insane event, it’s basically a challenge to write a 50,000-word novel in just the 30 days of the month of November. It happens every year, mainly online and across the world.

Have I mentioned that it is insane? That there is nothing to win except the glory of being able to say “I did it” (or “I failed miserably”)? That I am both scared silly and incredibly excited? No? Well, now I have.

50,000 words averages out at just under 1700 words per day. My blog posts tend to be around 500 on average (not counting the short ones I pack with YouTube videos). So it’s like writing 3 or 4 blog posts per day for a month. Crikey.

So, dear reader, the consequences of this are mainly these: for a start, I will probably not be posting much blog-wise during the month of November, so please forgive me in advance (consider it a well-earned holiday from reading my drivel). Secondly, if I do post, it will probably be to moan about NaNo, so please forgive me in advance.

NaNo is all about the figures, it’s about making yourself write quantities of complete and utter crap (and let’s face it, it will be crap), no editing, no self-censorship, just to get to that shiny, golden 50K in the sky. It’s not just about writing a novel, it’s about motivation and stamina. And I really need both of those. I also need to learn not to fuss and fiddle and just get on with it, to be a writer not a writing editor. To just let the drivel flow, free and wild. Wild drivel. That’s what I need. Oh yes.

Bring it on!

What is your favourite colour?

Blue. No, wait, red…

And so I am thrown into the Gorge of Eternal Peril, or whatever it’s called.

Monty Python’s Holy Grail is my favouritest film ever.

No, wait, it isn’t, my favourite film is… Ah. I actually don’t have one. There are so many that I like. So many in fact that I would be hard put to name my top 10, even without giving them any kind of order. The same goes for books, music, colours, food… In fact I don’t really have a favourite anything*.

I have kind of noticed this over the years whenever that particular kind of question arose, but I have only just realised the scale of it.

It’s all Absolute Radio’s fault. They are having a “Song of the Decade” competition, any song, any genre, as long as it came out within the last 10 years. So I sat there and thought for a while. I even looked at songs that other people had picked. I liked quite a lot of them, I agreed that they’re good songs, but could I pick a favourite, even from that restricted list? Nope. Just couldn’t do it. I could pick, say, the best rock song, or the best one to kick off a playlist with, or the best one to cheer up a rainy afternoon, I can do specific, I just can’t pick my overall favourite. It’s terrible.

I try to fill in the “Favourite books/authors/music/movies” sections on things like facebook or myspace, but every time I start writing I feel terribly afraid that I’m forgetting someone/something and my mind just goes blank. Then someone else will say “oh, I just love Such-and-such”** and I’ll think “Oh I am silly, I love that/them too, why didn’t I think to add them to my list?” and then I’ll forget.

What is it with this mental blockage I seem to have? Why can’t I just pick one thing, one band, movie, author, and become obsessed with it? Even a genre would be a start! No, I just have to love everything and everyone***. Not sure if that makes me a hippy or just a culture slut.

Oh well…

*Except human beings. I have a very definite favourite one of those, and by some miracle I managed to marry him. And no, just because it’s sweet doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

**Someone should start a band called Such-and-such. They would feel very loved and talked about without having to do anything at all.

***Except for Lady Caca and that bloody meerkat. And the tenor from those gocompare adverts.

Pick of the week XV

This week’s pick of the week is Doing Nothing All Weekend. That is all.

Squirrel!

So we went to see Disney/Pixar’s new baby, Up. Despite the fact that they insisted on only showing it in 3D, which gives me a serious headache. Dunno if it’s the glasses or having to get my brain around the unnatural concept of three-dimensional space, but 3D movies do my head in.

Anyhoo, back to the movie itself. From the trailer, you think you get it: Carl is this grumpy old bugger who ties a load of balloons to his house and floats off, unwittingly taking a boy scout with him. Well, that is pretty much not the story whatsoever. I won’t tell you what the story is, because I hate spoiling things, and I know how sensitive people can get about these things. In fact I have a friend who is so sensitive about spoilers that she screamed abuse at the person who said “Oh, yeah, Harry Potter, that’s the one about the boy who finds out he’s a wizard, right?”. No, really, that is no word of an exaggeration.

I guess what I can say without giving anything away is that the characters are just perfect. All the way down to the dogs. In fact, especially the dogs. Kevin the giant bird is great too. It’s as if Disney has some special power to capture animal personalities better than human ones. If I was feeling mean I would say that it’s just because animal personalities are far simpler.

As for the story itself, well, it is rather sad, and very sweet, but it mainly made me think, which I hardly expected from a Disney movie. Admittedly, Wall-E had kind of the same touch of “this is a story for kids, but if you look past the obvious we are actually pointing our finger at something bigger here…” so maybe I should have expected it.

…

Damn this really is a lame-arse review. Just go see the movie, ok?

Design for life

Why the hell am I the only one watching the new “you’re fired”-type show on BBC2? I mean apart from Husband of course, seeing as we share the same TV. No, really, it seems like not only are people not watching but they don’t even know about it. It’s on after Masterchef, people! Everyone seems to be watching Masterchef, so why not Design for Life?

I genuinely don’t get it, I mean damn, product design may not be the funkiest thing on the planet, but since when was it less cool than bloody ballroom dancing?!! Or marketing? Or cooking? Or fashion design? (Ok, I’ll give you fashion design.) No, really, it’s cool and it’s interesting, so why aren’t people watching?

What’s more, location-wise, they’re in Paris. Paris! Not some manky penthouse in Notting Hill or a soulless apartment in New York, but funky, exotic, cliche-filled, postcard-perfect Paris, France! (I have to confess I hate the place myself, but that’s only because I’ve actually been there.) Come on people, you know that’s what you want…

As for the personality presenting it, forget old sausage-fingers-Srallan, boringly-always-pregnant Heidi Klum and eternally-preserved Bruce Formaldehyde, Philippe Starck is INSANE. Clinically. Starck raving bonkers. What’s more, he’s French, so you can’t understand half of what he’s saying. And the other half makes no sense! Seriously, we watch the thing with subtitles, and we both speak French, and we still don’t get half of it. Also, Starck is a bit of a jerk, so you instantly want to punch him with a lemon juicer. Surely that’s a must-have for any half-decent reality TV show?

So, Starck really pisses me off. But I still watch it. Why? Because unlike ballroom dancing, cooking or modelling, object design is something I actually know a bit about. Been there, done that, passed the exam. So I can actually sit there and legitimately pick holes in the students’ projects, call them idiots, and think of far better ideas, then gloat when Starck bullies them and calls them “little lazys”. I can scoff when they complain about only having a week to come up with an idea. I can mock them when they get their technical drawings all wrong, and have to stay up half the night redoing them. Because I’ve done all that and more. And I was only 15-18 at the time. Hah! And we didn’t even have computers, or the Internet, no siree, we had to do all our stuff by hand!

Ah, the good old days…

Anyhoo, the series is nearly over now, they’re down to the final two, so it’s a bit late to start watching it now. I hope you’re properly ashamed of yourself. But if by some miracle there’s a second season, watch it. I might just enter the next one myself, in fact, all the other students so far have been bloody hopeless…