Insomnia

This morning on the way into work I found myself listening to an excellent wee essay from this week's Book of the Week on Radio4, At Large and at Small: Confessions of a Literary Hedonist By Anne Fadiman. Today Fadiman was talking about the fact that your likeliness to be a lark or an owl are actually hard coded into your DNA rather than just being habits. Her description of being a well adjusted owl was a reassuring burst given that I was listening as I lugged my immense mocha to work in a semi-comotosed state having the previous night been positively buzzing with energy come bed time.

And today here I am at 1am still fairly wide awake and with a wee pile of things to do before bed. Sometimes you just need to give in to night owl temptations I think. Although I don't have to give in to watching the OC which is currently polluting my audio landscape and is about to be unceremoniously switched off.

A whole lot better entertainment can be found with Dan Savage at the Stranger.com. John recommended his podcasts when he was staying recently and they are a catty explicit treat. Today I started subscribing at work and though the content is a little work inappropriatte, it's actually therapeutically wakeful and spikey in a day otherwise dominated by munging data and counting sets of 3 consecutive digits. Not that work is bad at all at the moment but in the pre-Xmas lack of goals and leave taking bonanza things are less than fabulously exciting. Especially with the charming December weather and light levels in Edinburgh at the moment which have me about fit to hibernate.


Thank goodness then for sleaze, sequins and stripping in the form of Burlescapades, a classy slice of kink that will be livening up Heather, Sarah and my Friday night. Having raided my substantial collection of ludicrous gowns (years of murder mystery parties have left me with a formidable dress up/formal collection) I eventually found my chosen combo: a chartreuse green showgirl skirt from an outfit I made for Vegas in about 2002/3, the corset I made for my wedding, the pearly necklace (to be draped on the corset) I made for a murder mystery where everyone was a colour (I was Lady Pearl White), several fabulously OTT plastic and glass rings, the chandelier earrings I bought in jenners some time back before they were evil (if not evil then certainly bland), my dress pins (yes that would be a matched pair of bling a ding ding retro brooches brought in two completely different places but fortuitously perfectly matched) and some necklace or other to be decided from the general beaded collection. All that remains to find/make are two kick ass fabric rosette type flowers to meld corset with skirt. And an outfit for Heather who is significantly less interested in such dressing up silliness. Which I mostly don't mind as I get to show off more but it's a shame as Burlescapades looks like a glam affair. Ho hum.

Which reminds me... Many many moons ago I used to write a column called "Dyke Without Dungarees Ranting" (see links at the end of this rant - I tried to find the inappropriate picture but now I get a lot of political pics as Google thinks I mean some unholy combo of Nicola Sturgeon and George Osborne :::::shudder::::) and a friend at the university's then excellent gay group BLOG's (now more a guys dating network than the serious minded lesbian-led political group it was circa 1999) told me I needed to write about the nightmare that was PMT in a long term relationship. At the time I was single, nieve, and less than enlightened about the sheer predictability of much of life's crankiness. I now believe said lady so expect the theme to raise its ugly head if/when I get around to updating this blog at a suitable time.

Now is not the time though: I have loads of transatlantic pressies I swore would be wrapped before bed, work tomorrow and a world of panicking over how few christmas shopping days there are left to take precedent...

For now I will leave you with links to my former column:
I can't find a feminine lesbian for love nor money!
Rant of the Month: Nicola Osborne on the gay press

And an excellent film that all this Googling reminded me to rerecommend (review hosted by the lovely Amber and co at eyeforfilm:
Lifetime Guarantee: Phranc's Adventures in Plastic

The day I took the train...

A little Ocean Colour Scene reference for you there. Today I am stuck on a currently static (I lie, it's just started to crawl along) train down to London for the excitement that is the Aleph User Group meeting at the British Library.

Apparently the problem was:

Traction motors in the Drem area...

Anyway, much fun with trains and delays, trying to type minutes and occasional bursts of badly streamed Radio 4 including the shock news that Oh My God, Ming has resigned! I think it's probably overall a good think but it seems a shame that he's basically been nudged out for being too old. But maybe someone will notice that the Lib Dems are actually coming up with the few original policies in the weird Thatcher political soup out there. We'll see...

That's about all for now, odd little post as it is, as I'm watching the end of Nurse Betty and feeling only slightly guilty for not finishing my minutes for work yet.

Showered with frustration

It's turning into an odd autumn...

Since a rather horrified neighbour called at our door early last week we have been without the use of our shower which had been leaking into their newly redecorated bathroom. Until our tiler gets in contact and/or a new tiler is found and whichever of them gets on with making us water tight we are stuck having bathes or very odd showers whilst sat in the bath (too impossible for me to deal with but Heather's an expert). It's surprisingly frustrating even though the bathes themselves are strangely calming (mind you tomorrow I have a meeting so calming is less what I want, fast and wakeful would be better) and just a tad decadent (bubble bath being essential).

All the bathing fun is just a wee drop in the ocean of some rather seasonal depression though: we are down to much lower levels of light and shorter days already; we are starting on the boring road to an entirely root veg filled weekly veg box; work is getting duller and duller as we await some excitement like the changeover to the next funding period while at the same time also having lots of meetings at which we have less to report than would make them exciting; I have a newsletter to write and a website to update but getting round to it is proving hard and even my happy distraction of dress making is tough as I'm losing patience already and haven't even finished H's dress let alone started mine. I've just lost my energy lately and having lunch in doors away from the rain, having only my 18 minutes of walking to and from work as my exercise for the day is all taking its toll. And just as I'm slowing into flabby winter hibernation the world seems to be holding parties and social stuff for the first time in months...

So now I'm hoping I can get my rather unmotivated and unusually flabby arse in gear sufficiently to get into swimming and maybe belly dancing again so that I have a bit of energy injected into my day. Fixing my lunch hour so it's not so cabin feverish would be good but I'm not sure how. That said when my MSc starts in January that will help keep me over busy. I'm also trying to wean myself off my daily Metropole Mochas. That is going to be hard but it's a special request from my Missus as it becomes an expensive habit over the course of a month and is hardly useful so I'm gonna try my best. And I'm trying to arrange some social stuff as any deadline/goal helps me sort stuff out in a way I never manage without some sort of cut off point (that's the main problem with work at the mo actually - endless unchanging frustration with no point at which to be able to feel something is completed or achieved).

However any ideas for perking me up at the moment would be much appreciated. Currently emails from nice work and non work folks are keeping me just about chipper at work but something needs to change as badly as I normally cope with winter this year could be really horrible if I can't wake up my routine and shake it up a bit... I'm trying though.....

In the meantime it's off to the daily challenge of bathing and hair washing without splashes, leaks or soap bubbles escaping the tub... much fun... !

Appropriatte Behaviour...

I've been wondering lately about what it is and isn't appropriate to chat to people about. You know, whether or not to tell your work colleagues about your partner's job situation or your horrible encounter with scabies; whether to complain about how bad your day is to the Big Issue Man (my normal seller, John, is studying to be a veterinary nurse in Glasgow so I think he won't be selling in Edinburgh much anymore which will at least appease my guilt for suggesting his day of selling might be less stressful than my day in my cosy office upstairs converting libraries. I think I'm right but I'm also well aware of how flexible and lucrative my job is and how much more preferable. However John always seems upbeat and a veritable guru of life advice - apparently I should brighten up my desk for maximum effect); whether you try and engage in stilted conversations with the barista you buy your daily hazelnut mocha from, how to tip fairly amongst the variable quality baristas and, worse of all, how to deal with an exchange like this:

Barista: The usual?
Me: Yes please.

then several minutes later as I make moves to pay, I get told the charge...

Barista: Er, the usual...

Now this would be fine in Starbucks or Costa or anywhere with a set in stone pricelist but this exchange took place in Metropole, my very favourite coffee shop in Edinburgh, which is eccentric to the point of bafflement. In the last 7 days I have been charged: £2, £2.50, £1.60 and £1.87 (reduced by a number of completely inexplicable moves from about £2.80). However the nice Barista (I don't know their names but this was Nice Man With Kids Who Gave Me a 10% Discount Card, there is also: Camp Teddy Boy, Cool Inks Guy, Ginger Man, Eczema Guy, Trying Not To Be Ya Girl etc...) was trying to give me massively discounted coffee (in my gorgeous big UC Davis plastic mug stolen from Heather) when a big queue of non-regulars was waiting. But I ask you... what should I have paid??! I went for what he charged me last time and that seems to have stuck now but Heather was with me and the blank looks exchanged were quite something to behold.

The world is a minefield!

Anyway I am off to Alexandras birthday but before I go two links both sourced from that national treasure that is Stephen Fry. If you saw part one of his "HIV & Me" documentary you won't need my recommendation for part 2 next Tuesday at 9. If you missed part 1 I suggest you seek it and part 2 out as it looks to be an excellent balanced show (except the omission of the ladies who like ladies but since we are a stupendously low risk group I do understand that). Anyway, to the links:

Stephen Fry's latest excellent blog entry, this time on Fame

Oh it's the aesthetically hideous but content rich Richard Dawkins site, he's certainly controversial and I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't like him a lot more if he didn't work as such good PR for organised religion since his attacks are often rather below the belt, surreal or simply displaying as much closed mindedness as his subjects. However I'm fascinated by genetics and I really can't get into any supporting any religion whatsoever no matter how positive or negative it's cultural impact so for my money it's worth having a wee look at Prof. Dawkins thoughts...

And finally a link to the Radio 4 show, 4 at Forty, which saw me through the last of my stressful conversions of Cambridge Library records. It's taken ages but I think I've cracked it hence my chirpiness! On the slight chance that it's still there when you read this I also highly recommend this episode of Lives in a Landscape about showgirls - fascinating, respectful and so strange to listen to on Radio 4 but so entirely the only place on radio or tv that they could do it properly!

fluffy ol' egg head

fluffy ol' egg head
Originally uploaded by eurovision_nicola

Wohoo! I'm feeling all creative ahead of the Big Knit and wondering if I can also find space for more beading and the marvels of such places as Beadworks.

In less good creative news I'm struggling with Flickr netiquette. Someone has posted LOADS of comments (mostly sarcastic but nothing offensive - more the sort of comments that amuse 8 year olds) and I'm now not sure whether to:

(a) politely email the chap and ask him nicely not to comment
(b) delete some of his comments
(c) delete all of his comments
(d) start making more of my pics private
(e) all of the above
(f) something else entirely...

Oh the modern virtual minefield of Web 2.0!

Mind you I'm getting off lucky if this young Flickr star's torment is anything to go by.

Jack Straw has some odd ideas about law and order...

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Originally uploaded by eurovision_nicola

On the news yesterday there was a bizarre story from the labour party conference:
"Self Defence" Laws to be reviewed

Ostensibly Jack Straw is encouraging people to take the law into their own hands - after recent stabbings and shootings though this seems like a ludicrous idea. One wonders if he only came up with it to show off about his own Have A Go Hero exploits. Anyway vigilantism with government approval as a concept surely puts Jack Straw somewhere right of Thatcher. Although he still looks like a leftie compared to Blunkett.

I fear common sense has taken a permanent holiday in a world of terrorist paranoia and wrapping children in cotton wool. Indeed this week I was intrigued and horrified (for lots of reasons) by Radio 4's show Bullying.com which both told me of untold nastiness of children but also the bizarre level of protection, aged naivety and weird attitude of some parents. However it was the total unthinking trust, peer pressure and dependence of what should have been fairly mature teenagers which was really shocking -both the victims and the bullies. One wonders if the age of maturity in the UK isn't now edging towards 50 rather than 18. Odd.

Anyway. The whole weird thing is at least an excuse to show this bizarre newspaper hoarding from the Glasgow Airport bomb scare. At the time I thought it was insanely unhelpful, an opinion that only grows stronger with time.

Interesting little view of Facebook

As a full on FB addict I was interested to read today's blog entry from the always interesting Susan Mernit's Blog

Ruff Bus 3

Ruff Bus 3
Originally uploaded by eurovision_nicola

I spent some of my bank holiday yesterday (a weird edinburgh/uni holiday, no idea why) uploading some very old pics to flickr. This is an ongoing effort to try and get myself organised, the pics archived and tagged and also shared with folks.

So I started yesterday by adding pictures taken with both my various mobile phone (the quality evolves noticabley) and the pocket digital camera that lasted about 2 weeks until a bright day of sunshine busted in sensors into oblitoration. And I found some weird gems in the collection because I take mobile pics as the mood takes me and really quickly so it's often for stuff that I wouldn't otherwise snap...

Such as Ruff Bus 3... !

Bank of Scotland Festival Fireworks 2007

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Originally uploaded by eurovision_nicola

Oh my goodness! Tickets to the park means I got to take possibly the coolest shot I'll get this year!! (If I'd actually remembered the mount for my tripod who knows what other gems I might have taken?!)

More fabulous fringe, rainy days and the end of a musical era...

Last night we saw a very different pair of shows albeit only 1 degree of Sue Perkins apart:

Rhona Cameron (8pm Dining Room, Gilded Balloon Teviot)

This was the show we were booked into the 2for1 version off last weekend and were rescheduled due to overbooking. Rhona hasn't done a live stand up run for the whole festival in absolutely years and, as far as I recall, it's been a good 6 years since she was here at all (for a one week run) but she has been gigging and also writing novels. Nevertheless the overwhelming feeling here is one of rustiness and extreme nervousness which seems to mostly manifest itself as aggression towards the audience. Often I've seen a hostile audience be turned into a warm receptive one but it's rare that I've seen such a positive supportive crowd become quite uneasy by, in the main, a strong batch of material. The delivery was just so aggressive and London-centric that it was a bit off putting but its nothing a few less nervous and good adaptive editor couldn't fix. This long into her run though Rhona should have sorted this out already. At 2for1 I wasn't disappointed but I'm not sure the same could be said for the majority of the audience who'd paid their 12.50 for this odd hour.


Eurobeat: Almost Eurovision (9.45pm, Pleasance Grand, Pleasance)

In stark contrast Eurobeat was absolutely fan-fucking-tastic!!

An hour and a half, every member of the audience assigned a country, flags, clackers, live text voting and 10 phenomenal Eurovision parodies made this the most infectiously hilarious and enjoyable thing I've seen at the fringe in absolutely ages. A particular unexpected treat was the fact that Eurovision-obsessed Mel Giedroyc was playing co-host and there was a little recorded intro from His Greatness Sir Terence of Wogan. The campest numbers (Estonia's "Together Again" being my personal favourite), an unbelievably energetic cast w0rking their way through amazing parody Eurovis numbers with spectacular cheography and the genuine each-night-is-different twist of the audience picking the winner (ours pickes Ireland) made this an affectionate and loving mockery that hit all the right spots for me and the 5 folks Heather and I convinced to join us. It's so very very very good we're looking for a good excuse to go back again - this time in spangled with flags and proper insane levels of participation. Fabulous.


In other fringe review type news it seems I forgot to mention a show we saw last week:

A Conversation with Edith Head - Susan Claassen (6.15pm, Assembly@Hill Street Theatre)

This is a classic fringe theatre kinda production - one person monologue (well sort of a Q&A format but with feeder lines from a plant in the audience constituting most of the Q), great quality character acting and a show well honed from lots of runs in small but lovely theatres (like it's home for the festival in the Studio of Hill Street Theatre). However much of the charm of A Conversation with Edith Head comes from it's old fashioned style. Susan Claassen, on realising she was the utter spitting image of Edith Head with only a paur of glasses and the addition of the highly individual bangs (that's a fringe for those of you unconverted to that lovely American phrase) required. Thus a show was born and a truly staggering amount of research has been undertaken. Claassen doesn't so much act the part as channel the very spirit of Edith as she discusses her life behind the scenes as the costume designer to all the most golden decades of Hollywood's golden era. References to Head's sexuality and plaguerism are a little overplayed and those staged questions rather unneccassary but overall this is a joyous hour for any fan of those fabulous glamerous films from the 30's to the 60's which which Heads designs are most sonomous. Claassen is astonishingly good and, as long as your prepared to show your film geekdom and hang out with the predominently pensionable audience, this is well worth your early evening hour.


And finally... I awoke today (just before the excellent Hardeep Singh Kohli covered Fi Glovers presenting duties on Saturday Live) to the news that Factory Records founder and all round Manchester music scene supremo Anthony Wilson had died at the age of 57 of cancer.

Aside from admiring his prescient band-signing talents I have to also admit that Tony Wilson was a key figure in my late night tv watching as a telly obsessed adolescent (I can't recall it's name but Wikipedia suggest it might have been The Other Side of Midnight and later I certainly watched Remote Control with odder than odd clut character comic Frank Sidebottom on unlikely sidekick duties). Having never seen 24 Hour Party People I'm now feeling it is the appropriate thing to do but perhaps the documentary on Joy Division, Control, playing next week at EIFF 2007 will be a fitting piece of viewing in memorium.

More fringe, less hair please

Well today is another showtastic day. And we say one yesterday but it was god-awful in the "lots of hats mould" (if that makes no sense I can highly recommend looking out for reruns of Bruce Morton's Comic to Comic interview with Chris Green (Tina C) for Radio Scotland). Not recommended. Anyway here's the fringe bit, everything else afterwards...

The Queef of Terrance - Olivia Poulet and Sarah Solemani (5.40pm, 10Dome, Pleasance Dome)
This was the god awful show. Two gals who've taken "renaissance literature and tv presenting" at their polytechnic combine both in this spoof pilot chat show. Only it's really not nearly as much fun as it thinks it is. All three actors are very employable and not at all bad but the writing is atrocious (and I suspect writers and actors are one and the same on this one) and the attempt to crowbar topical stories in is cack handed as it pulls all the humour out. Not that it would have to, it just does here in the realm of relying on comedy accents and hairdos rather than funny material. At £8.50 a ticket it's not cheap enough to forgive and since we saw it a week into it's run I'm more than a little horrified that they hadn't tightened up timing or rejigged the material a bit. NOT recommended. With bells on.

Next to see:
Rhona Cameron, Teviot Gilded Balloon, 8pm tonight
Eurobeat, Pleasance Grand, 9.45pm tonight
Failed States, Pleasance Dome, 3.20pm, Saturday? (we haven't booked but we'll probably head there)
Tony Blair the Musical, Teviot Gilded Balloon, ?? Sunday

And then the film festival really gets going...

In the mean time Heather wants a new haircut and seeing myself in the mirror just now I would say I need one quite severely...

Watch this space for more fringe, film and t'other updates...

July 4th (just a month late)

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Originally uploaded by eurovision_nicola

So this is a piccie from our silly July 4th Party with the very special Independence Day Red, White and Blue Jello (which joey is hacking into with the scary knife there!

Drumming!

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Originally uploaded by eurovision_nicola

Thought I'd share this extremely cool picture of the Korean drummers playing over at Old College Quad this month... The spinniness of the picture barely gives their levels of energy credit! (I wish my day at the office at the moment was as fun as theirs looks).

A weekend at the fringe...

Wow! A busy weekend of fringe shows with 2 for 1, preview and free tickets (ie cheap ones) being the primary reason for seeing 6 shows in 3 days:

Friday night was...
Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical (5.45pm Udderbelly)
Super tongue in cheek little farcical porn-inspired musical. Highly recommended though maybe not all more genteel viewers will get all the dirty references...

Saturday was...
Kendras 30th birthday picnic on the meadows which was much fun. Followed by...

Binari: The Spirit of the Beat (artist: Dulsori, 7pm Old College Quad)
This freebie to uni staff (a special deal for the first few performances to get the numbers up a bit I think) featured lots of enormously enthusiastic drumming from the group Dulsori which was only slightly upstaged by the raver throwing some fabulous acid house shapes to the traditional Korean beat. I was very pleasantly suprised and Sarah and George, who had joined us for it, seemed to like it too.

Sunday was... insanely busy!!
From James Bond to Alexander - Jeremy Engler (12.10pm C Soco Urban Garden)
Offered film memories from a fairly youthful behind the scenes chap whose clearly more keen in front of the camera than playing with the technogeekery that generally earns him his living. It was a pretty good show though and with only 5 people sat in a rain-soaked tent whilst the rest of the venue was still under construction and a loud banjo show could be heard throughout it speaks wonders that we were all feeling warm and happy at the end of the hour...

Minor Spectacular - Plested and Brown (4.20pm Pleasance Dome (well one of the Potterrow Pleasance rooms)
Was a fantastic show which we only saw due to having decided to spend the afternoon using the free uni wireless in Potterrow whilst we waited out the next show - when we were flyered and offered a free ticket we hit very lucky indeed. Plested and Brown are two expert performers and an extraordinarily versitile set (which Anna would love) brought loads of characters to life in fabulous fringe style. Get your tickets now!

The same enthusiasm can't be reserved for:
Tony! The Blair Musical (6.45pm C+1, Chambers Street)
This dire public schoolboy effort suffered inordinately from having been over-promoted (mainly catching the fancy of the media due to the presence of Ian Duncan Smith's son). Although a barber shop quartet of former tory leaders was genius, the rest of the show was dire. Giving us a 10 year retrospective of Blair is perhaps a challenging mission for an hour even if written by adults but these guys can't have been much over 20 and clearly had minimal interest in politics as they had timelines in a dire mess, no idea of how to handle the fact that they were performing in Scotland (easy jokes were missed on that one frankly) and just did not have the brains for the task. They had seen all the Bremner and Alastair Little parodies and that was all as it was like kids playing grown ups rather than genuine satire of any form. The score was passable (except for some oddly Gilbert and Sullivan numbers which didn't seem to fit in) and the singing ok but the one female star was fully atrocious and the boy playing Tony by far the weaker of the male leads. The whole effect was so much worse for being in an excruciatingly warm and crowded venue full of people who seemed to be genuinely loving it. I can only assume they are friends/family of the cast or very stupid tories. I am a hell of a long way from a Blair fan but dammit if I didn't feel he was worth a much more intelligent going over than this!

Next we were supposed to be seeing Rhona Cameron but some sort of freakish ticketing issue meant they were 8 people too many so we gladly accepted the Gilded Balloon's offer to exchange our tickets for another night (who would turn down 2for1 for full prive tickets on a better night?!) AND free tickets to that night's:

Karen Dunbar show (8.30pm, Gilded Balloon Teviot Debating Hall)
We went in with no expectations (although I did diss thoroughly the idiot who tried to edge her way into our 400+ person queue thinking it was for Jerry Sadowitz since what little I knew of Dunbar marked her comedy pedigree as substantially more desirable than scatological Sadowitz) but were enormously pleasantly suprised. Next year we'll probably even pay for tickets to see Dunbar. Her comedy is genuinely very funny, well observed, refreshingly non-cruel (a particular bugbear of Heather's) and highly entertaining. If it was a little generic then at least she had the good taste to do it enormously well. Would be nice to see her be a tad more personal but I suspect I can see good financial and audience-related reasons for keeping it general or personal only in a childhood sorta way. Again, highly recommended.

And then... after 72 hours of running about fringe venues and cafes, eating crappy food and catching up on phonecalls as we waited for shows we collapsed, nursed Sunday's sunburn and thought of the horror of the fact that work started in 9 hours time...

And more than 9 hours later I'm just about making it through the day by being caffinated and sugared to the hilt. Roll on our next 4 fringe shows (Conversations with Edith Head - tonight 6.45 Hill Street Theatre; Rhona Cameron - Friday 8pm Gilded Balloon Teviot Dining Room; Eurobeat - Friday 9.45pm Pleasance Grand; Tony Blair the Musical - Sunday ??pm Gilded Balloon Tevit), whatever else pops up through the month (The Sound of Music Drag Show sounds good), the art gallery shows (we've done a good but weirdly curated Naked exhibition at the Portrait Gallery but have Picasso and Andy Warhol, David Batchelor: Unplugged to do plus a few others), a week+ of annual leave (am going to book more I think) and the true insanity of the film festival (my press pass confirmed and my retrospective tickets purchased I'm ready to go)...

Have a fab festival and do let me know what you've seen and what looks good!

George Melly: Rest in Jazz Peace

I was very sad to hear about George Melly's death in todays PM Newsletter. I went to a fabulously inappropriatte concert of George Melly and Humphrey Lyttelton playing some fab trad-ish jazz and making the dirtiest jokes that I'd ever heard (and indeed about a decade on they are *still* the dirtiest jokes I've ever heard).

Melly seemed to be a fantastically decadent old fashioned jazz bohemian and I'm torn between being upset about his death and thinking that it may be something of a blessing that he died whilst he was still mostly copus mentus as he has been beginning to suffer from dementia and for a super smart intellectual quickwit can't be comfortable with the idea of losing control in that way. I wonder if that's why he's been refusing treatement for his cancer. Or maybe he was just being contrary. Both seem possible.

Anyway... that's what's on my mind now. Yesterday was much happier though as Alan Johnstone was released by his kidnappers and I can't believe how cheery that made me.



Also making me happy: a fun July 4th evening of jello and fried chicken and good company albeit with it's own slightly sad goodbye - this time to Joey who's about to return to the states. Angela we get to hang onto for another week or so but it's sad they are going at all. We'll miss em and I think we've decided we'll visit them when they are safely ensconced in Bloomington, Indiana, for Joey's PhD.

/Everybody Stand Back/

http://xkcd.com/

/Everybody Stand Back/: I Know Regular Expressions
(which I should buy as a t-shirt)

oh and americans finally think that you can't change your sexual orientation apparently (thanks for the forward Sarah) ;)

Some cool links

A Cool Textile Blog although there's an even better one I can't find a URL for at the mo...
At last! A Bollywood map of Britain

artsy things

So the last few weeks have been busy with fun anniversary and creative endeavors.

Last week Heather and I went on a Silver Art Clay workshop at the Little Bead Shop and made each other beautiful pendants (pictures appearing soon!) and this week our creative mojo moves on to Jenny & Niko's wedding. Heather and I are making an abundance of chocolates and I'm making a frock from a 75 year old pattern of extreme 30s gorgeousness. Rather than using fancy frock fabric it's all getting crafted from basic £2/metre cotton lining fabric but will then be getting embellished like crazy and tailored with a waspie type belt. Should be good now that I've made some progress on it!

I'm also thinking of getting some of my photos on display at The Engine Shed Cafe where they have an exhibition space that will show your work for free but you pay a percentage to Engine Shed if anything sells. Sounds good to me ;) Although I'm still a tad disappointed that last week the cafe wasn't serving any of the increadibly yummy tofu they make downstairs...

We'll also be baking for a work pal, Ben, who's selling baking in aid of The Vine Trust, a charity that is super helping street boys in Peru. The actual site he will be working on is here and these are pictures of the 2006 visit he made (he's raising funds for another visit to help build the Inca centre).

Aside from some filmsoc reviews to do, a gig tonight and a drinks thing tomorrow I think that's about all there is to report just yet. Heather started her new job proper today though so maybe they'll be stuff to say (other than yikes! 6am starts!) soon.

A very very cool view of Edinburgh!

I just think this picture of Edinburgh's cultural attractions based on their footprint is awesome! :)



It was created by Nigel Peake who has given me permission to reproduce it. If you want to see more of his work he has a rather excellent website: http://secondstreet.co.uk
The image is related to the Talbot Rice Gallery's involvement in the 6 Cities Design Festival.

That's all for now... in a later post will be a wee bit about my granny's eccentric funeral and possibly my take on the fact that Britain has gone rather overdramatically missing kid mad...

On a semi-related note... Let's hope that this chap is still alive somewhere and gets a release very soon:

Random newsy links of trivial interest...

Cynical ads deconstructed (particularly by the user comments)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6592007.stm

tourism and edinburgh - apparently we are, on the whole, the place to be!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6615775.stm
castle = £9/visit
gallery = free....

gay business - an oxmoron?
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=420017&in_page_id=2
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6614887.stm

sad story but the advice is, er, interesting:
http://news.scotsman.com/edinburgh.cfm?id=681972007

testing...

testing testing 1-2-3...

Dictators, Wikis, Sleep & Randomness

I have decided to blog again, partly to get my web 2.0 sites all working excitedly together, partly to see if I find blogging as therapeutic as I used to... We shall see.

Having spent the run up to Easter panicked and having sleepless nights prepping the BFFS Scotland Newsletter, Flyer and Spring Event/AGM 2007 Programme I was all calm.... And then today I realised I hadn't actually emailed anyone about the event or the wiki yet AND I hadn't posted any of the details of our Spring Event and AGM on the website yet. Doh! It's particularly silly as I want to have my newsletter editorship taken over by someone new and the AGM is pretty much my only hope so it's all in my best interests.

Thus I found myself watching The Happy Dictator on More 4 whilst updating the website. It was a fascinating look, by Januszczak, at Turkmenistan and it's gloriously strange happy dictatorship. Well worth a watch if it's on again, even if it loses a tiny bit of it's relevance now that the dictator at it's heart has died of a heart attack which must, one assumes, have meant a significant change for the country. The footage of gas crators was terrifyingly beautiful - I hope the film crew took lots of good pictures as it looked amazing even on not great quality handheld footage.

As I watched Heather fell fast asleep next to me which was fine until she awoke and sleepily sent a glass of water tumbling. If there's one thing I still find difficult about being a mature married person it's knowing how to be calm but also not patronising when you're both really really tired... I haven't mastered it yet I'm afraid. On the plus side I've cleared some of my to do list staying up later than planned since there was no rush to get to bed at the same time as my missus once she was asleep. Ah well.

Talking of my to do list... I seem to be the person people ask really really weird questions of. Makes me wonder why. I can answer some of them but why I am the person who comes to mind to ask I don't know - it's a weird range of questions: promoting to students, getting into press screenings (ok I know why I was asked about that one), where people can find DVDs and library stuff, how to make belly dance skirts and sequin chaps, how to promote services to third party websites, how many journals does SOAS have?!

Anyway. Tis late and my sleeping wife awaits me. I shall take my brain of randomness to bed and await the next weird question to come my way...