Speaking of genius...

Three things people have said to me at work in the last month...

1. Woman filling in library application form - "What country is this?". What? Let's just be glad she knew her name.

2. Woman on a Saturday library tour - "So, are you only open Monday to Friday?". Actual answer "Errr, no, we're open on a Saturday as well". In my head answer "No, we're closed, all these people here working are actors". Alternative in my head answer "Yes, and this is all a dream, a dream, a dream...".

3. Man sitting in library. That's in the library. "Are you open?" Actual answer (a very snappy) "Yes!". In my head answer "No. We're closed. That's why you couldn't get through the locked door".

Another story about too tight trousers

I've decided to give up the annual pre-christmas diet. Maybe 'give up' isn't the phrase I should be using, as not eating biscuits between 11am - 7pm yesterday doesn't really qualify as a diet, does it?

Anyway, this years solution will be to go shopping after work tonight and buying a pair of the next size up trousers. That way I can eat what the hell I like, and my clothes will still be a bit loose, therefore creating the illusion of thinness.

Pure genius, that's what I am.

Card Humbug!

Why, oh why, oh why, oh why card manufacturers of Great Britain?

In the name of all things festive, why?

Why do you insist on making your christmas cards for family members so goddamn nauseating? All I want, if it's not too much to ask, is a card that says "Merry Christmas Dad" or "Happy New Year Sister". And what do you give me? "I'm glad that your my special daddy" or "To my special sister" or "I've already had my christmas wish come true, I've got you as my (insert blood relative of choice here)". And don't get me started on "To my mum and her fella", "You're like a dad to me", "To my special sister and her fiancee" (who is presumably just plan ordinary). What the hell is that all about? Do you have any idea how hard it is, as a child of non-divorced parents to buy christmas cards?

Just stop it. Oh, and while you're at it, people do still have birthdays in December you know, so maybe next year, leave a few birthday cards around. Cus they can tell when you've scratched 'Christmas' off and scribbled in 'Birthday' over the top. Trust me.

You know you should get out more, when...

...you get very excited at being given an Executive Room by mistake at a librarians conference.

Return of the killer librarian

I know, I know. I'm just not blogging as much as I used to. I've decided that this is because I no longer work in the thick of it in central London. And by "in the thick of it" I mean "amongst the freaks". Seriously. You work in central London and everyday your commute involves at least three incidents that no normal person would put up with/hang around long enought to watch. But because you work in central London, you are in your London Frame Of Mind, and so anything goes.

I mention this becuase on Tuesday I was off to a conference in Oxford (woo-hoo!) and so had to go in to London to get a train. There I was, still in my Suburby Frame Of Mind, taking everything in, looking in shop windows, walking at a normal pace, having a little daydream, and do you know what? I almost got killed! Shoved out of the way by sharpened elbows, scowled at by all and run over by peoples STUPID wheely cases. One woman who ran her case into my leg and then over my foot, turned round to me and said "Don't put your foot there!". What? Here where I've been standing for the last 15 minutes with the rest of Paddington Station managing to avoid my quite frankly tiny feet? I'm sorry how inconsiderate of me, you OLD BAG.

I decided that I had better switch up a gear, and by the time I got on my train 20 minutes later I had shoved, tutted, walked everywhere purposefully and at speed and kiCked a few wheely suitcases out of the way. Mwa ha haaa!

Ah, it's good to be back!

Dear Mrs Ritchie,

or can I call you Madonna? I love your new single, it's the best thing that you've done in a long while, it rocks. I suspect this is largely down to the excellent 'Gimme Gimme Gimme' sample, however I'll let this pass, 'cus it makes me want to dance like a crazy lady. And 10/10 for the Saturday Night Fever meets Agadoo arm movement at the the end of the vid. Inspired.

I have a comment to make about this song however. Would it have hurt you to have gotten a leotard that wasn't so high cut in the leg area for the video? Really, you are the same age as Mr L.'s mother. Put it away dear.

Yours, learning to dance in new killer heels,

Lady Librarian.

P.S. Really, put it away.

Shoe porn

Well if you can't buy yourself these to celebrate a) coming home with holiday spending money left and b) your friends 30th upcoming birthday, when can you?

I'm wearing them right now. With my pink p'jamas. Foxy or what?

What I did on my holidays...

Day One: Woo-hoo! Look at me all not scared of flying! Hypnotherapy rocks! The weather? Sunny and warm.The accomodation? Why, it's the skanky Hospedaria Verde Esperança. On several websites it says that this Guest House was renovated in November 2004. Hmm, usually when you "renovate" you do things like, oh I don't know...put locks on the doors, fill in cracks in the wall, remove newspapers with a date of July 2004 from the wardrobe, make sure the kitchen you provide has a working fridge, and hey! call me crazy, but a cooker as well. What they mean is, this place had new windows in November 2004.
Day Two: Ah, a relaxing start to the day with a lie-in before climbing literally hundreds of hills whilst out and about in Lisbon. I now have the not very attractive calf muscles of a mountain goat.
Day Three: Zoo! You gotta love the Zoo. A day that includes wobbly cable cars and a kiss each from a sealion. What more do you need from a holiday?
Day Four: Turns out the bites we have aren't from mosquitos, but bed bugs. Mr L wakes in the middle of the night to find the blighters fat and full of his blood. Gross. When we ask to change rooms we are roundly ignored by the "Hotel" owner, who even turns down the chambermaids request to change the bloody sheets (I'm not swearing, I mean the red stuff).
Day Five: Ooh, itchy itchy ITCHY. Also, rainy rainy RAINY. We go to the biggest aquarium in The Universe (or Europe, one of the two). We see lots of fish, cute sea otters and get shoved out of the way several times by an incredibly rude French family. (Rude, or stupid. One of the two. Probably both.)
Day Six: I.T.C.H.Y. That's itchy will a capital everything. Today we say a fond "F*ck You" to the Skanky Hospedaria Verde Esperança and head to the coast and a new hotel. Mmm, 4 star hotels, gotta love 'em. Cascais, lovely town, shame about the rain.
Day Seven: Buffet breakfast, rain, 4 star hotel.
Day Eight: Ditto. I don't think God knows we're on holiday. Or he hates us big time.
Day Nine: Train to Porto. In England to get on a long distance train with a ticket costing less than £1,000,000 you have to buy it 67 weeks in advance on the internet and travel in the middle of the night, standing on one leg, wearing stripey socks with a companion called Fred. In Portugal you ask for tickets an hour before the train leaves, and it costs 17.00 Euros. I have no idea how much 17 Euros really is, but it just sounds cheap, doesn't it?
Day Ten: Portuguese bank holiday. Everything shut. Even stuff that says it will be open. It's still raining by the way.
Day Eleven: Across the river to the Port warehouses. Free port at every turn and super steep hills. And yet we returned home with nothing broken. A miracle. It's still raining.
Day Twelve: Continuing this years series of Comedy Related Injuries (TM) I slip in the shower. I do what any normal person would do and grab hold of the shower curtain to steady myself. The shower curtain rail is in no way fixed to the wall, it is just ledged against the tiles. Really. Two seconds later I land flat bang on my bum with the shower curtain and rail over my head for good measure. Ouch. Although it did make me laugh and cry at the same time, which is always impressive.
Day Thirteen: On the way to the airport, the sun comes back out. Oh, ha ha HA.

Devil woman

I'd like to take a moment or two to thank the woman that drove her car through a huge puddle/small lake on my way to the hypnotherapy dude yesterday, soaking me from the waist down and covering me in enough muddy water that my fabulous (as announced by lovely waiter in wagamamas) coat now needs dry cleaning. You evil, evil BITCH. This is a tamer version of what I actually shouted at her.

Two things about this really annoyed me. One - the three cars in front of her had actually slowed down and swerved out of the way of the puddle, and I saw her deliberately swerve into it, and two, she was a woman, now from a man I could almost kinda understand it, but from a woman? I hope your children turn out fat and ugly and that you never find another pair of comfortable shoes as long as you live, you rotten old hag.

Holiday (preparation) from hell

What was my favourite part of my 'relaxing' day off yesterday? Was it discovering that even though I thought I'd finished my freelance work, I actually had another two hours worth left to do? Realising that you need to buy your Euros a bit sooner than the day before you travel? Being soaked on my way to hypnotherapy and having to lie in soggy trousers whilst trying to conjure up positive thoughts about flying?

No, it was the bit when I ordered my holiday money, only to find out that if you order over £500 on a debit card with this company, you will automatically be classed as a 'fraud alert'. Now, this is great, it's actually nice and reassuring to know that if some scoundrel had made off with my purse, they wouldn't be able to jet off to Fiji with a suitcase full of dollars before it was too late to catch them. My gripe is - why the hell didn't this company put a disclaimer on their website?When I spoke to the call centre, they said very matter of factly that "it happens all the time". So why no warning? This would have saved me the nuisance of having my card turned down in shops later that day, and a visit to the bank, and a call to the fraud hotline to sort it all out. And we still have no holiday money!

The wrong trousers

Every Saturday to distract myself from the fact that I am at work, I buy myself lunch from Eat. Mmmm, they do the yummiest everything, ever. Every week I walk in there and look the three cheese and caramalised onion sandwich in the eye and say "Oh no my little calorific friend, I'm going for one of your healthier relatives" and I usually have something involving roasted veg and it is (as are all their sandwiches) divine.

Last Saturday my alarm didn't go off, so I woke up thirty minutes before I needed to leave the house. This is the second time that this has happened in recent weeks, and quite frankly if the clock wasn't from Queenstown NZ, I'd be taking it back all in a huff. Anyway, come lunchtime I was staaaaaaaaarving, which as those who know me know, is not an unusual occurrence. I am always hungry. But Saturday I was hungry AND grumpy, on account of me not actually being awake yet. So I looked at that cheese sandwich, and I thought "oh yes, your time has come". So I brought it, and I ate it. Then I ate some crisps. Then I ate a mango & greek yogurt thing. Then I had to phone home to get Mr Librarian to bring me some, ahem, more comfortable trousers when he came to meet me from work. You see, we were going to a birthday party and I didn't really want to have to go with my trousers open, just to be able to breathe.

There's an old family story about my mum, who after returning home from a particularly delicious and large meal out, undid her trousers to make things a bit less painful in the midrif area. It wasn't until she undid the trousers that she realised it wasn't her clothes that were tight, it was her skin. Saturday was one of those 'skin too tight' moments for me.

And the moral of this story? Don't be such a pig Lady Librarian. Lesson learnt. I'm back to the healthy boys this week. Or maybe I should just carry a spare pair of bigger trousers at all times?....

Note to self #2

Stop going out drinking the night before you are teaching. People want information, just not from someone who smells like a wino.

Note to self #1

When roads have "hill" in the name, it's there for a reason.

They're playing our song

Oh, Bookish Barbara, Andrew W.K. 'Party Hard' is on tv. I'm sorry to tell you, but this reminds me of you! Remember when we saw them at Reading? Oh, such happy memories.

I actually have no idea what I'm watching, but it seems to be some kind of cruel joke chart, in which Good Charlotte 'lifestyles of the rich and the famous' is higher up a 'rock' chart than R.A.T.M. 'killing in the name of'. I think it may well be tv from the world of Just Plain Wrong.

R.A.T.M.? Why, Bookish Barbara, remember when we went to see Audioslave record 'cochise' for kids tv? And we were so excited that we got a bit drunk before we went, and then we worried that we wouldn't be let in? And remember how we made everyone we know watch the tv programme over and over until they agreed they could see us? Ah, happy days. No freakin' way! Super spookily, Audioslave have just come on tv! It's the cochise video! Ooh, I need a lie down, too much rock for someone who has to go to work in the morning.

Living for the weekend?

No, I'm living for Monday when I get to see Hard-fi for free. Why free I hear you ask? Why, because I'm on the GUEST LIST!!!!! (Yes, that does justify capital letters, bold type and plenty of !)

This is the second time in my life I've been on a bands guest list, (this is the first) and it makes me so disproportionately happy! I did a little jig when I found out. It makes me feel special, and yes, I am going to be stopping strangers in the street and telling them, and yes, I am going to be going on and on and on about it for at least the next six months.

Why you shouldn't talk to strangers

Last week I went to speak to a group of GPs and other community staff about the services that the library I work in can offer, and in particular my amazing training sessions (how modest of me). The talk was as productive as it gets, people hear the word library and switch off, but just as I was about to write the day off, I had a super journey back to work.

I get to the bus stop and there's a bus pulling away. There's one woman waiting "You just missed one" she said "Ah, always the way" I said. I thought maybe that was it, a few pleasantaries with a fellow bus-stopper, but no. In the space of the next two minutes here are some of the things I learnt about this lady;

1. Her mum is in her 80's and has always smoked.
2. The lady herself has never smoked, and hates the smell of cigarettes.
3. She plays darts on a Wednesday.
4. She had lived in this part of London all her life until last year.
5. Her oldest son is disabled and still lives at home.
6. She has one other son, he doesn't live at home.
7. Her mum has her old mobile phone.
8. The lady is always forgetting her mobile phone.
9. Her husband had tickets to the test match the next day.

And with that last remark, she got on a bus and sped away, leaving me to wonder if I'd been out in the sun a bit too long and had imagined it all.

Shoes, glorious shoes

My feet are shrinking! Now, this would be a cause for concern at the best of times however this is not the first time that this has happened to me. When I was 14 I had (UK) size 5 feet, sometimes even a six. Cut to four years later and I was wearing 4's. Which was weird, but I like it. I like having small feet, call me a shoe snob, but I just think shoes look better on small feet. Ah, who am I kidding? I think shoes look better on my feet.

Yesterday I went shopping to spend the new wages that were burning a hole in my pocket. I wanted to get some new work trousers (the pair that I have now are disgraceful, I've worn them so much the pinstripe has worn off!) and a couple of work tops, but most importantly a pair of new dancing shoes for my fake birthday. Shoes to go dancing in, you understand, not magic dancing shoes like Lisa Simpson gets when she discovers that she can't dance.

So I tried on a pair of fabulous heels in Debenhams, the only pair left, and they were a 4! These shoes were perfect, turquiose blue with a peep-toe and a full ankle, a 2 inch heel, and they were reduced from £40 to £9.45 - extra perfect. I tried them on, they fit! Until I started to walk in them, and they kept slipping off my heel. Like when you wear your mum's shoes when you play dress-up. "Dammit" I thought "I bet some sneaky size five has tried to ram their feet into these 4's just to get a bargain, and they've stretched them. Grr." So I left them where I found them, tried not to cry, and carried on with my shopping.

I found a pair of flats that I liked in Clarks. I tried the 4's on. Too big. Hmm. Suspicious. Also, the most uncomfortable shoes I've ever tried on, (and I have tried a lot of shoes on in my 28 years)there's no way that these babies would ever get comfy. (Yes, Clarks, what's that all about? You're making your shoes a bit cheaper, and they look great, but I can't remember the last time any of your shoes were comfortable - sort it out!). Then I try on a pair of gold, ankle strap, strappy sandals from Next. Too big! If it wasn't for the ankle strap they would've been off my feet flying across the shop in seconds.

So, it must be me. Three pairs of shoes, from three very different shops, all too big. And I just can't bring myself to buy a smaller size. Because 4 = cute and ladylike, 3 = small child weirdo feet.

Say it with a card

After finding these little beauties via Just Jenn I have decided to write to Ken to demand that they become compulsory and free in London. I would buy some for myself, but I would get through about 500 packs a week.

Three little things

that cheered me up on the way home from work last night:

1. My mp3 player behaving when on random and choosing (amongst others) Veruca Salt 'Seether', Maximo Park 'Graffiti' and Hell is for Heroes 'You drove me to it', excellent choice little music buddy! Glad to hear the days of Random=Manic Street Preachers are over.
2. Seeing two sisters wearing the same outfit - they were in their 60's! Fashion faux-pas, psychic sister powers, or just uncanny co-ordination? We'll never know...
3. The lights turning to red almost straight away at the crossing by the hospital, I usually have to wait about five minutes!

They're off!

Today is the 1st September, which means it's Day One of Adam and Marty's trip from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. "So what?" I hear you ask. So, they're doing it by cyclo. Which is just crazy. Infact, it's Crazy with a Big C. They're not doing this for fun, oh no. They're doing it to raise money for KOTO which is the main venture of the Australian charity Street Voices. KOTO trains street kids in the hospitality industry so that they have the skills to get stable jobs, to give them a decent future. Which is just bloody brilliant!

Follow their adventure, and if you can donate some, please do. If you've ever visited Vietnam I'm sure you'll want to help, and if you haven't visited, you really should!

Happy birthday to me?

Two of my bestest friends have birthdays this weekend. I know, I know, I keep meaning to audition my friends so I have their birthdays spread throughout the year. I currently have availability for new potential friends with birthdays in February, May, June and July.

Apart from having to think of two present ideas so close together (oh, the brain ache!), my main problem with them being born a day apart is that they always have a 'do' and I get so involved in their preparations, I start to think it's my birthday too. I am aging twice as fast as everyone else! I'm three years younger and two years older than these guys!

Queuin' in the rain

I suppose I should've blogged about the Foos gig before now, but to be honest a week on and I'm still so over excitable that there's a strong chance that the blog, as much as I want to give an objective view of the evenings entertainment, I just know that it will come out as "IlovethefoosIlovethemIlovethemIlovethem" or something very similar. Let's just say that Oh My God They Rocked.

The one thing that marred my super evening was losing my umbrella. And not in the usual getting off the bus and realising you left it behind way. Oh no. Last Wednesday it rained all day in London. And I mean all day. None of that "Oh, quick! It's stopped raining for five minutes I can nip to the shop without fear of drowning" kinda days. Non. Stop. Rain. All. Day.

So as we reach the front of the queue, we noticed a whole load of umbrellas on the pavement outside, including a few big golfing umbrellas (Foo Fighters gigs/playing golf - hey, I know I'm always getting those two mixed up!). We didn't think anything about it, other than "Wow, what a lot of umbrellas". So we get inside and this 'security girl' says I can't take my umbrella in. I ask "Why?" she says "No umbrellas". So, enlightened by her super explaining skills I put my brolly back in my bag before going to queue to pick up my tickets, I'll dispose of my brolly once I have those tickets in my grubby little mits. Anyway, security girl grabs me by the elbow to tell me that I have to give my umbrella to "that girl over there", I said (okay, maybe not in the nicest tone of voice, but she was seriously pissing me off) "I'm going to get my tickets first" and she said something about "that girl over there" again, and to cut a long story short I abandoned my brolly! They weren't even letting people take them to the cloakrooms, you had to leave them behind the box office counter! Yeah, right, I'm going to come after the gig , along with everyone else, and explain what my umbrella looks like! "No, not that pink stripey one, it's more, erm, well..." Can you imagine?

Gigs are getting stupider and stupider. And I'm sure that there's no coincidence that the rules at gigs have got more bizarre and the ticket prices have gotten extortionate ever since a well know brand of 'lager' (and I use the term lightly) started sponsoring most of the venues in London. In the past month I have been told that I can't have a (plastic) bottle of water with a lid on incase I throw it, but they were still serving beer and alcopops in glass bottles to the person next to me. I can't take my umbrella in for no good reason, other than I'm sure it greatly amused someone somewhere. (It wasn't me!)

Con Yo Toke Lark Mey Surry?*

The BBC are doing a series on dialect at the moment. You can't turn on the tv/radio/internet without hearing some intellectual with a cut-glass accent going on about how "quaint" and "super" regional dialects are.

I'm from Stoke-on-Trent originally, and although I don't have a strong accent, to most people's amusement I'll usually come out with some phrase or word that no-one else has ever heard of on a regular basis. I love different words and sayings and so I thought I'd share a few of my favourites with y'all. (Y'all being one of them). Robbie Williams is from Stoke, so I sound a bit like that. Only in a female voice. And without the singing.

Black over Bill's mothers - this means that there are dark rain clouds on the horizon, headin' your way. And not where Richey Benaud was staying during the 1993 ashes series, which is what my friend thought when he said the phrase. He said "It's looking black over Bill's mothers", she said "Ooh, do you think that's where he's staying, with Bill's mother?" I said - well actually I said nothing, but I did fall off the chair with laughter.

Mard/Mardie - this site says has the definition "spoiled, marred, spoiled child" but it's used for everything, people who are feeling a bit sorry for themselves are "feeling a bit mardie".

Nesh - someone who is a bit soft, but also someone who feels the cold easily (eg me!). In the winter I am totally nesh.

Summat - my mum's favourite! I was always being told off for saying "summat" instead of something.

Duck - a term of affection "Ow at duck?" (How are you dear?) which confuses the hell out of anyone who moves to the area. You can spot a Staffordshire Uni fresher by the look of bewilderment on their face, wondering why the bus driver just called them "duck"?

And the famous "Cos kick a bo agin a wo an' 'ead it til it bosses?". Next time you see Robbie in the street, you just ask him that.


* Can you talk like me, son?

6 days and some hours

until I see the Foo Fighters, 'cus hell yeah, I got the Foo tickets! It was touch and go for a while and I must have clicked on 'order now' about a million times before I got through, and then I held my breath whilst the transaction was transactioning, and then I shouted "yessssssss!" and did a little jig in my chair. I think my new workmates think I'm a bit mental.

I also have someone to go with after nagging, nagging, nagging Mr Librarian until he agreed to go with me. He has been told that he is not allowed to make any comments about The Grohl, but this morning when their video was on tv he said "I hope he hasn't got that beard next week, it really doesn't suit him" and "Did they have to get a drummer that looks like Kurt?".

Oh well, better he gets it out of his system now I suppose.

The Foos are in town!

Which is like the circus only 50 bezillion times more exciting. What with the whole Dave Grohlness of it all. They are playing a gig at a tiny venue next Wednesday and the tickets go on sale tomorrow at 9am. I want to go so much, I could probably puke with excitement!!!!!!! See, see how excited I am, look at all the exclamation marks!!!!!!

Anyway, I emailed all my friends today and asked who wanted to go. And who wanted to go? Why, none of them that's who! Maybe it was because I called them my gig bitches, maybe it was because they are scared of me getting arrested for trying to Davenap The Grohl. But I think they all have watertight reasons for not going. My last hope is Mr Librarian. Only I just know he'll spend the whole gig picking on The Grohl. He's just jealous.

Maybe I'll just have to go on my own. But, and let me just say this for the record, I will not be held responsible for my actions if there is no-one there to restrain me.

Neighbours

No, not this kind, the kind that live by you. And share walls with you. And play their guitar and stereo loud enough to wake you up at 3am. 3AM! In the morning! The middle of the night!

We only moved in five weeks ago, and the loud music has happened a couple of times before, but that was earlier in the night, around midnight, and for only a short while, which is still annoying, but I can let that go. We've had much, much worse than that in the past. Only last night, 3am the music starts, then the guitar, then the singing along. She woke me up, and then she woke Mr Librarian up. So we lay there for a while, quietly seething, holding our breath in between songs in the vain hope that she'd turned it off/down/the stereo had exploded. After 20 minutes, Mr Librarian says "Maybe I should go down and say something". I say "maybe". He says "What would I say?". I say " How about 'Shut the f*** up bitch?' or ' Oi lady, turn your stupid music down' or 'It's 3am, are you KIDDING?'". He says "Hmmm". We decide against going down, 'cus who's going to open their door at 3.25 in the AM? After another 20 minutes, I have super had enough and go down to complain. I stomp very loudly down the stairs, and ring her doorbell. No answer. I can hear her in there, moving around, but no big surprise, like I say, who's going to open their door at (now) 3.45 in the AM?

Anyway, long story short, Mr L resorts to earplugs, and I fall back asleep just after 4.

And do you know what? Our neighbour? A teacher in her 50's. Lady, you should know better.

The best day of my life?

I have just been for a good old gossip complete with pizza and ice cream sundae, there's an evening of Britpop on bbc4 (Marion are on!), and our broadband has been reconnected!

What more could a girl ask for?

Tonight we're going to party like it's 1995

or "a story about an Indie Boot Camp outing".

Last Friday lunchtime I get the most exciting email I've had in a very long time. It says "Oh My God this looks amazing!", and it's all about this. How cool? Really. How exciting? Really, really. So a plan of attack forms, and despite going out on the Friday night to this, we decide to take the whole 1995 thing very seriously, and pretend that we are all still under 25 and can still do going out two nights in a row. We spend all Friday evening deciding what to wear, what we still have in our wardrobes and more importantly, what the hell will still fit or will last one final spin in the washing machine.

Saturday sees many text messages conveying minor panic attacks along the lines of "I have no shoes!", and results in Clare being ready at 4pm with the message "I'm ready now? Can we go?" to which I had to reply "No, I have three more episodes of SATC to watch and a bath to have". I do these things in order of importance (SATC first, of course) and by 6.30pm I am in my bedroom looking at my wardrobe, and having this realisation: I am not retro and cool, I am just cheap - half my wardrobe is clothes I had in 1995! I decide on a compromise - Pulp yellow "I'm common" t-shirt, with my jeans. Now in 1995 I didn't even own jeans, they were too 'mainstream' for me, but back to 2005 and the fact that I had spent all day trying to dry my jeans, and it seemed such a shame not to wear them. And it would've meant that my battle scar/burn from touching the zip after they had been baking on the front of the oven was for no reason. (However, between you and me, the main reason that I decided to wear the jeans? I tried on my orange skirt - £5 Topshop, Meadowhall, summer '95 - and do you know what?Apparentlyy I was a slut in '95, 'cus the skirt? Turns out to be teeny tiny. Oh my god! I was the Christina Aguillera of my day. Oh, the shame. )

My hair, to be truthful was more circa '98, but then in '95 I had shorter hair than I do now. And there's no way I was cracking open the bleach and pink hair dye for one night only.

Anyway, we all manage to meet in the pub, where we are all at varying levels of excitement. Okay, me and Clare are so excited we could puke, the boys are probably more bewildered than excited. We decide to get to the club nice and early so's we can get seats/get in cheaper (hey, we're only pretending we're under 25). And what an amazing night! Well, amazing apart from the bit where there was a poster of Liam Gallagher on the back of the door in the ladies loo, and I was too scared to go in. Luckily someone ripped it down, and we could all answer the call of nature in peace again. I danced so much, in such a small space! I was escorted off the dancefloor when Oasis came on by a lovely young man shouting "Indie snobs coming through" which did indeed clear a path back to our seats! I met some lovely new people and had random conversations about taking my mum to see the Manics, how everyone wore CKOne in '95, songs that make you cry and the first time you ever heard Mansun on the radio.

What a night. And do you know what, two days later I'm very nearly almost recovered!

Sit down next to me

I'm taking the advice of James and I'm sitting down. Well of course I am now, I mean when I go to gigs.

I've being going to gigs ever since I made my dad take me to see these guys for my 12th birthday. That's 16 years of gig going people, and I'd say for about 75% of those 16 years, I haven't been able to see the band. I stupidly and stubbornly insist on standing, 'cus it's "cooler", it's "closer to the band", but do you know what? No more!

After going to "see" The Cat Empire last week it took me three days to fully recover from standing on my tip-toes for the best part of two hours. So, no more will I be paying a fortune to see I band (and sword swallower!) that I don't actually get to see, no more will I be standing behind a 6ft 5 man, no more will I be standing behind snogging couple, and no more will I be getting smacked in the face by people's elbows. So I'm taking it up them stairs to the balcony people, I'm going along with the whole sitting downness at gigs thing. When this first occurred to me I thought it made me sensible, but then I had a panic and thought it might just make me old. And so far four whole people who are older than me have agreed that it is the way forward. Maybe I'll give standing just one more chance...

You have five days to memorise all of this...

We are still sans broadband at home, no, wait- I just can't bring myself to talk about it right now, it's too painful.

So thank goodness for Saturday jobs where they have computers and the internet and everything. I got to check my email for the first time in a week, which meant I read the email telling me that:

"Oh, by the way, I'm not sure if we mentioned it before, we didn't? Oops, how super careless of us, but you know your new job? Mm-hmm. Well, your first week is the last week that the librarian will be working before she goes on maternity leave. What's that? Sorry we can't hear you. Byeeeeeee."

Or something very similar.

And do you know what I say to that? Oh crap.

I'm outta here!

Today is my last day in this job. It's also my last broadband day for a while, but I'm not thinking about that, it's too sad. I have brought in chocolatey goodies and also some 'exotic' fruit, 'cus it's so damn H.O.T. here at the moment. So this afternoon, we can sit around downstairs where the air-con doesn't quite reach, eat the fruit and pretend that we are somewhere way more exciting. Like Fiji, or Hawaii, or, well, it's not too hard to get more exotic than South London.

I am really looking forward to my new job, but I'm now also getting a bit nervous. I'm worried that I'll seem like a fraud as I try to desperately remember all my teaching skills and NHS acronyms. And they'll realise that I'm all nice shoes and no brains. Eek!

My leaving 'do' last night was nice, well, apart from the bit where I discovered the meat in my vegetarian moussaka. Double eek. And a yuck. But the rum, red wine, company and conversation was great. Especially the bit when someone younger than me said "This music is a bit modern isn't it" (they were playing Nirvana Unplugged in New York, man, I'd forgotten how much I love that album "cover your hair and your eyes" is such a good piece of advice, thanks Kurt). Anyway, to the "This music is a bit modern isn't it?" I replied, "he's been dead 10 years" to which the younger someone said "Guns'n'Roses man is dead?". Oh dear. I explained to him the difference between Nirvana and G'n'R and then maybe suggested he'd like to enroll in Indie Boot Camp. He didn't do himself any favours by later saying "Grunge. That's the name for the clothes that indie people wear isn't it?". Oh dear, he has so much to learn.

Indie Boot Camp

Oh, the wonderful ideas you have when you're giddy on Moscow Mules and bbq smoke: Indie Boot Camp (IBC). Simple really, we will help people on their transistion to indie. We have no prejudice and will take ravers, metal heads, goths, or grebos. Simply send them to IBC and watch them pop out the other side all squeaky clean and clad in indie wear with a nice indie haircut (with compulsory floppy fringes for boys) to boot. It will save them all that painful wearing brand new Nirvana t-shirts and experimenting with home tie-dye that currently accompanies the indie-ing out of the closet process.

I will generously take all the credit for coming up with the name, but I have to take my indie hat off to my friend Clare who came up with this inspired timetable.

Indie Boot Camp - you'll leave us being the biggest fan of a group no-one else has ever heard of - or your money back!

The intensive one day course should be about £200 I think. But really we'll need a whole week which should be £1,000.

I see the week long programme looking like this:

Monday am - Introductions and enforced indie haircuts
Monday pm - The history of indie music (from The Smiths to Hard-Fi)

Tuesday am - Anyone Can Play Guitar (an introduction to strumming the guitar - only minor chords taught)
Tuesday pm - True Pop Facts, including extended sessions on the gossip pages of NME and Q

Wednesday am - In praise of the work of John Peel
Wednesday pm - Dance and deportment (or the subtle art of pogoing/dancing in fabulous heels)

Thursday am - Festival etiquette and preparation
Thursday pm - a choice of - Women in Indie or Kula Shaker (a warning from history)

Friday am - Unfashionable fashion Choices I
Friday pm - Unfashionable fashion Choices II

Saturday am - Art School Rock focusing on the work of Bernard Butler and Damon Albarn)
Saturday pm - Who we hate and why (Clare rants about Coldplay ALL afternoon)

Sunday am - Unusually cool Americans (The Killers are OK)
Sunday pm - Hunting for obscure gig tickets

and home.

Any takers?

People power

Well, there I was checking out the XFM website when I found this, their voting list for The Greatest Indie Band Of All Time, and to my horror I discovered that James Dean Bradfield had been missed off the singers list! So I sent this email:

Dear XFM list makers,

Imagine my horror at checking out your (so called) 'The Greatest Indie Band Of All Time!' only to discover that James Dean Bradfield was not in your greatest singers list! How can you justify having Pete 'barely conscious' Doherty on there and Chris 'whinger' Martin and miss out James 'yes, I did eat all the pies but listen to my beautiful voice' Dean Bradfield off? And the bassist from The Magic Numbers? And please don't get me started on Meg White in the best drummer category. If you look closely at her you can see her sticking her tongue out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrates really hard on beating that Fisher Price 'My first drum kit'.

I fear that you have gotten over excited at the prospect of an Indie Supergroup and have made that list in haste, and I urge you to reconsider.

Yours, in a right old state,

Lady Librarian

and got this back in reply (straight away!)

The last thing we want is to get our listeners in a state. 'Right old' or otherwise. Consider him added. Just don't try to persaude us to include Shaun in the drummer catagory. ;-)

Xfm

and now he's on there! Yey! People power!

The Steve Guttenberg Project

Now, even before she thought of this I wanted to be as cool as Alice is when I grow up. And this, well, this is just Pure Genius. If there is one thing that the world needs, it's a living archive of the Gutts work.

Genius.

Celebrity skin

London is slowly getting back to normal (or at least as normal as it can be right now) and so to do my bit I went to a party way over the other side of town on Saturday night. I was a little nervous on the way there, and more than a little drunk on the way back, but I made it in one piece and I'm so glad I did, it was great to see my friends.

For my friends wedding in April I made a mix cd. Now, 'made' doesn't really do it, or me, proper justice. I slaved over this mix for weeks, deciding on the tracks to put on there, waiting for my 'inner ear' to tell me what song would perfectly complement the one that went before, finding a decent bit of (free) software so that I could mix the songs together. At the wedding my cd didn't get played, but I didn't mind one bit, another (cooler) friend had made a motown cd which totally rocked and meant that I got to dance like my mum and dad did when they were young. Cool.

So, back to Saturday night, and there we were in the garden when Duran Duran 'The Reflex' came on, and I was all excited because a) it's Duran Duran and why wouldn't you be excited? and b) that's the first track on the cd I did which meant I had a legitimate reason to talk about it! Then as Simon Le Bon fades out, guess what fades in (in the perfect place)? It was only 'Mr Brightside' by The Killers - it was my cd! How exciting! But that wasn't the best bit - people loved it. Everyone wanted to know where the cd had come from, which of course led them to me! Double how exciting! For about an hour I squeaked "it's me" whilst pointing at myself with both hands for extra emphasis.

Then all of a sudden it was time to leave! I'd told Mr L. that I'd be in about 9ish, sober me didn't fancy being out too late on my own in London, but drunk/celebrity me totally forgot about the time and all of a sudden it was 10.30! I left in a hurry, like Cinderella. Well, like Cinderella if she had got both her shoes on and stopped to dance to Dexy's Midnight Runners 'Gino' in the kitchen on her way out.

Then drunk on attention and more than a little Moscow Mule I made my way home, smiling to myself and feeling all was right with my world. Until I got to London Bridge station and got confused by a vending machine. Seriously, it's at a station, you'd think they would make them drunk proof.

London

Do you what I thought when I looked at the clothes in my wardrobe this morning "What will I be able to run in?". A far cry from yesterday morning when all my pretty little head had to worry about was "What will make me look thin?".

I still can't quite believe what has happened. I know that I am incredibly fortunate that all my friends are safe. My heart goes out to all those that are injured or have lost a loved one. I have never been so pleased to see Mr Librarian in my life as I was last night.

I can't even begin to understand the terror those people must have felt. I don't like getting the tube at the best of times, it always makes me feel vunerable. No, I am an overground, catch the bus kinda girl, but it appears even there we're not safe anymore.

I don't want to rain on their parade

or say "I told you so" but I will anyway.

The day the games are given to London, greedy vendors take their houses off the market, even those that have already agreed sales, so that they can put them back on with a £15,000-£20,000 mark up. Then today this is forecast.

Good job I already have that 2p in my mortgage fund, or I'd never be able to afford to buy a house.

(And yes, you should be reading this in a sarcastic manner)

Why I love Bookish Barbara

On Saturday both Booky B and I were working, which is bad for her as she doesn't usually have to, but great for me as it meant I had someone to email during those quiet issue desk moments.

Lady Librarian: Hiya, only just got to work, has been a horrible morning, had to fight the bleedin' tourists to get to work! How are you doing?
Booky B: I only got the tube from Liverpool St to Holborn and it was rammed with toothy girls in hobo gear going to Live 8. Damn them!
Lady Librarian: Hobo? Do you mean boho?

:)

See below

Crap.

Are you there God? It's me, Lady Librarian

Dear God,

Hi. Yes, I know I only get in touch when I want something, but this time it's really important, and also not just for me. Not like the time when I prayed that the fabulous Antoni & Allison coat would get reduced in the January sales (thanks for that by the way). Also it's not like the time when I was 10 and it was raining so hard and I asked you to send my mum to pick me up from school in the car (and thanks for that too, I'd be even shorter than I already am if I had subjected my growing body to that amount of rain).

This time, I am asking, praying, begging you to intervene in this whole 'Olympics' hoo-haa. Please, give it to Paris, Madrid, the moon, anywhere, just not London. Seriously. I do not want to be paying extra tax for this for the next seven years. I do not want every news bulletin for the next seven years to be talking about the 'o' word. I do not want Hackney Marshes to be built on. I do not want another repeat of the dome. Do you hear me? And most importantly I do not want to be fighting my way through even more clueless tourists everytime I want to go anywhere (come on people, I brought a map when I visited you, could you please return the favour?)

Come on god, don't let us down at 12.46pm BST,

Yours in hope,

Lady Librarian

P.S. If you can't do something about the Olympics, could you at least do something about how frumpy I look today? What's going on there? I was aiming for sassy Librarian chic and somehow ended up with aging, plump maiden aunt trying to look fashionable. Help!

Would somebody just shoot me?

I'm at work. It is so quiet that I began to wonder if I was the only human left alive. But then a man walked past the window, so apparently not. To make the dragging time seem less like every second is lasting a decade, I am reading 'Information & IT Literacy: Enabling Learning in the 21st Century'.

So, like I said, somebody just shoot me.

Yeah, yeah, I know it's obvious but...

Ahhhhhhhhhhh! I can't take it anymore, I have to blog about Tom Cruise again! I have been fighting the temptation all week, although to be honest this is going to be a lazy blog of links, I don't think I have the energy to type about how much that little man annoys me.

So, I'll just say this and then I'll leave you to some links. Was I the only person in the world who hasn't been calling him Dr. Tom Cruise?

What did Katie do?
Someone who thinks about this more than me!
I think this is serious, good job Dr T. knows all about the history of psychiatry, 'cus they need his help, fast!
Well, I wish they'd come and take him back, god knows we've all had enough of him.

Let me know of any good links people, I can't get enough. I think I caught this obsession from Bookish Barbara

The Killers

ROCK! After watching them on the Glastonbury highlights last night, I love them even more. God bless any man who can keep his make up on whilst sweating that much. And God bless them all for being the only people in a ten mile radius of Worthy Farm without so much as a fleck of mud on them.

Carried away by the whole festival thing, my sister, my friend and I decided that we were going to go to Glastonbury next year. Then we remembered there is no Glasto next year. Then we decided to go the year after instead, so the fund for Glasto 2007 starts here. I'm transferring the 2p from the mortgage fund over. Who was I kidding with that anyway? So, my friend wants us to go in a camper van (although a cruise liner might be more appropriate...) which I agree with. I'll be the big 3-0 that year, and if I'm going to do a festival, I'm going to do it in style. I want a cocktail fridge and my own chemical loo. Just like Nicky Wire :)

Right, so that's two years to save up for the ticket and the hire of a camper van. Oh, and for one of us to learn how to drive....

The Joys of Moving House (Part One)

Money, money, money. Welcome to part one of a no-doubt many parted series of The Joys of Moving House.

Our broadband providers are going to charge us £25 to move our connection to a new number, and we have to have a new number as we are moving to a new telephone exchange area. If we were staying in the same exchange area then we could keep the same phone number, but we'd have to pay for that to be transferred.

That's it, I am never moving again! The mortgage fund starts now with that mysterious 2p that always seems to be in my desk tidy.

It's like someone read my mind....

http://www.freekatie.net/

Check out the t-shirts.

Run, Katie! Run!

Super shut up!

Dear Tom 'I'm so happy' Cruise and Katie 'child bride' Holmes,

1. Tom: Shut up. You are not the first person ever to have a midlife crisis and fall in lust with a younger lady. Oh, sorry. I mean 'true love'. My mistake. And while you're at it, get the hell out of my country with your freaky "I'm so happy" crap and your sense of humour failure. And your oh-so-faux 'I'm going to phone your mum on your mobile' lame-ass routine.
2. Katie: Run! run for the hills! Run as fast as you can lady, run, run, run!

Yours, in a state of fed-up of hearing about youness,

Lady Librarian

P.S. Run Katie! Run!

Shut up!

I went home for the weekend, and these are the conversations I overheard and wished I hadn't.

1. On the train home I got to sit in First Class for no extra as the train was full and so they 'declassified' a first class carriage to let the general public use it. The train manager made an announcement to say 'if you don't have a reservation go to coach G'. Therefore carriage G was full of people who had brought tickets that didn't have reserved seats, and yet there were these two woman who were having this conversation when I got on the train, and when I got off it an hour and a half later:

Woman 1: Well, I shan't move when they ask us too, 'cus there aren't any seats, it's a disgrace.
Woman 2: Yes, and they can't make us move, and we shan't move, shall we?
Woman 1: Well, how will they make us move? They can't make us move. How many seats are on this train? 1000? And they're all full.
Woman 2: Well, we'll just stay here, we won't move, they can't make us. It's a disgrace.

Although they did venture off onto this subject for about 10 minutes when the drinks trolley came round:

Woman 1: £3.50 for a Gin and Tonic?
Woman 2: It's a disgrace.

2. On the train back, despite having my super earphones in that usually block out background noise, I managed to overhear a boy having this conversation. With every bleedin' person in his mobile phone address book. For three hours:

Boy: I went on a blind date with two girls on Friday, Girl Number One was alright, but I liked Girl Number Two, and then Girl Number One got really funny, so I told her to go home so I could stay out with Girl Number Two.
What a charmer!

And my favourite excuse that was given for late running trains, which were quite clearly to blame on over-running engineering works (clue: we could see the engineers from the train window) ? That old British standard - after two whole days of warm weather, the tracks were suffering from 'heat exhaustion'.

Too much month at the end of the money

It's pay day today, hooray! I have forgotten my pin number, boo! As soon as I stood in front of the cash machine this morning, my mind went blank. I'm hoping that I'll remember it soon as there are many albums I want to get (New Foos, Nine Black Alps, The Magic Numbers, Hard-Fi) and I'm going away for the weekend!

More distressing than the pin-number forgetting incident is me having officially lost the ability to travel light. How did I manage an 8 month trip with only 2 pairs of trousers and 5 t-shirts when now I feel I have to take three entire changes of outfits for a 2 day trip to my parents? On the final journey home I had in my day pack, 2 bottles wine from New Zealand, a pair of hiking boots, change of clothing, toiletries, magazines, 600+ page novel, 4 mugs with the logo "I heart NY" and various other bits of crap. In my day pack. The small bag. Today I have brought my tiny Miffy case and have, amongst other things, chargers for both my MP3 player and my mobile (including the adapter from Australian to English electric). For 2 days. I have so much clean underwear with me Mr Librarian must've thought his luck was in and I was leaving for good!

Packing bags always makes me feel travel sick. Not travel sick in a head-exploding-dizzy-like-a-drunk plane taking off way, or travel sick in a potential-vomit-with-every-bump-in-the-road on the bus trip between LA and San Fransisco, but travel sick in a wish-I-was-still-travelling kinda way. To cheer myself up I had a pineapple juice on the way to work this morning, always reminds me of travelling, it's just so exotic! Mmm, pineapple...To rub in the fact that I am not on my travels, I had to walk around the airport pick-up bus at the hotel next to work this morning, and guess what the last thing that came on 'random' this morning? (after the three Suede songs in a row. Random? Lazy.) Radiohead 'The Tourist'. It's all about the travel nostalgia today.

Richie not Richey

Richie (not Richey) Edwards has joined The Darkness as their new bassist. I am most disappointed that the new bassist is not husband of Booky B in his pirate outfit, and here are some other things that I have noticed:

1. He is nowhere near hairy enough for The Darkness
2. He looks like he should be the new member of Right Said Fred
3. His name is Richie Edwards, we can't hear the spelling difference can we? Imagine the upset amongst the old school Manics fans!
4. He has no moustache (see point 1)
5. He doesn't look like he just fell out of The Village People like Frankie did

and finally

6. I am thinking about this way too much

How clean is your house?

We've decided to go on one of those holidays where you go and live in a new house and take all your belongings and you don't come back. Oh, alright then, we're not actually going on holiday, we're just moving house. Which I am medium excited about. New flat: love it! Easy to get to new job from, near the town centre, fabulous 1920's building and (most importantly) we have our own stairs. I am so happy! The process of moving I am not so happy about. I hate the whole putting things in boxes to put in a van to drive a mile down the road to take it all out again. Someone better at science than me needs to invent some kind of machine where you can just zap your belongings to your new flat. Come on, quickly nerds, get to it.

The people we are letting from were like a breath of fresh air. The flat we are having has been trashed by it's previous tenants in a most spectacular fashion. To prepare us for this one woman actually said "It's the kind of place where you wipe your feet on the way out"! Much better than the flat we were shown in the morning which was vile. It smelt like someone had died in there by smoking themselves to death. The wallpaper was hanging off the walls and the one thing the guy showing us around said was "The bathroom extractor fan works". That was it's only redeeming feature in his eyes. I mine it was the serving hatch between the kitchen and living room. Fabulous. Shame about the rest of the flat. Hmm, and by the way, estate agents, if you ask us what we think, we will tell you the truth.

Estate agent: "So, what do you think?"
Me: "It's skanky and it smells like someone died in here"

Estate agent: "Tell me your honest opinion"
Mr Librarian: "It smells and there is damp on the wall"

Estate agent: "It's filthy and needs professionally cleaning and re-decorating"
Both: "We love it!"

He, he, he :)

Real, real, real?

Last night I thought I was sitting at home flicking through the channels trying and failing to find something half-decent to watch. However, what was really happening was that from a hidden lair somewhere an evil genius was messing with the space/time continue-thingy and we have all been sucked back to 1991. How do I know? Easy. Why else would the The Happy Mondays, Jesus Jones and The La's be touring?

Hmm, what's that you said at the back? Desperate for cash? Stoney broke? No, I think my explanation is more plausible.

Holiday! Celebrate!

So, Lady Librarian has a new job. Yes, well done me indeed. In between leaving this library and starting in my new library I am going to have a week off. Yesterday I got a tax rebate from those lovely, lovely people at the lovely Inland Revenue. And even those of us with only a basic grasp on maths know that week off + tax rebate = holiday!

So where should we go? Our last 'holiday' was an eight month round the world trip. So something a little less extravagant this time I think. And something a great deal cheaper too, they aren't that lovely at the Inland Revenue. And I'd really prefer it if we didn't have to do that whole 'up in the air' flying thing. Although in the name of holidays I am prepared to be hysterical on planes one more time. Well, two. See, now I just wrote one, and I am automatically thinking about the whole plane-crashing-falling-out-of-the-sky death scenario.

Anyway, death aside, I think I've found my perfect holiday. Tea and not flying, what more could a girl ask for? I'd really like to go here and here, but maybe next year after the new job wages kick in. I also want to do this before it closes, which would just be so sad. I didn't even know it existed!

Right, I'm off to put 'tax rebate and holiday' into google to see where I should go.

Pretend Celebrity Boyfriends

(That is, celebrities that are pretend boyfriends, and not boyfriends that are pretend celebrities.)

So, in PCB news, despite looking dapper in a hat, Lovely Ewan has been relegated to the subs bench. It was a hard decision, but something I'd been considering since the final 'beard' moments of the new Star Wars. Lovely Ewan with beard in real life round the world on a motorbike epic = handsome and rugged, Lovely Ewan with beard in new Star Wars = old man beard that probably has bread crumbs in it. Or crumbs of whatever it is that a Jedi snacks on. Also all this 'Guys and Dolls' whoo-haa. When will I ever get to pretend see him? I'm not paying West End theatre ticket prices just to go and get my L.E. fix. No sirree. I'll just go home and re-watch Velvet Goldmine. So he joins Dave Foo (crime: getting married to someone other than me) and Alex Franz (crime: getting his fringe cut)back on the bench.

So, laydeez and gennulmen, my new pretend celebrity boyfriend is (drum roll.......) James Dean Bradfield! Check out the second row, second picture from the right. Phwoar! Yes, I'm going back to my first ever serious P.C.B. It's been quite a while since I was pretend involved with him, what with the on going fued with my friend Essex Librarian over who gets to marry him first, but listening to the Manics this morning on the way to work reminded me how much I pretend love him. That voice! Such passion! He makes my knees go weak. You can keep your Nicky Wire with his fancy frocks and love of Dysons, and you can keep your drummer Sean with his 'one haircut behind the rest of the band' hair, I heart James Dean Bradfield the most. And he'll have plenty of time for me, he's not showing off in some play, or touring, or being in the news. Although I have just noticed that Muppets Christmas Carol isn't in his top ten films. Hmm, we'll see about that one.

The second coming

So, the Live8 concert tickets went up for grabs this morning. I've been whinging about the fact that you can only apply if you have one of them new fangled mobile phones, and a billing acount phone to boot. What about the lo-fi kids like me with a pay as you go? Or the super lo-fi dads like mine who don't even have a phone, but still like to rock?

Mr Librarian entered a competition by email in our Sunday paper yesterday. Whilst I am still amused by the Saturday evening 'spot the 10 differences' in my back-home local paper (you can win £20!), he is above these things, and entered the 'spot the snippet of an obscure painting' in the slighly more high brow Independent on Sunday. Mr Librarian is very clever at all things art and sciencey, which is good, as I'm not. We'd make a killer quiz team, as I could answer all the biscuit/shoe/boy band related questions, and he could answer all the clever clogs questions.

This competition frenzy got me thinking; whatever happened to all the blank postcards? You know, answers on a postcard (or sealed down envelope). Any parent worth their salt had a book of blank postcards in the kitchen cupboard for Saturday morning competitions to win a signed photograph of Curiosity Killed The Cat, or a Blue Peter 'name the latest pet' competition. Is there a whole industry of postcard makers that have gone down the drain because of all these hi-tech enter using electricity methods? Have all the blank postcards lost their dignity and given themselves over the printed side? Do they all have saucy seasides scenes where they were once white and pure?

Well kids, I'm starting the backlash. I'm entering the Live8 competition by post. And if I don't get tickets, I'm going to continue Sir Bob's crazy everything-8ness by having my very own 'Going to work on a Saturday and being annoyed 'cus there will be loads of traffic around Hyde Park making my journey to the station fifteen times as long-8'.

ADDED 08/06/05 - News just in! I'm getting this woman to join my postcard campaign.

The perils of being too poor for a mortgage

The current abode of myself and Mr Librarian is very small. In estate agent speak it is "cosy". We have so little storage space that when we do a big food shop, we have to keep some of it in bags under the kitchen table. If we have more than one guest you can barely move. The night we moved in (and then every Monday at 1am for six weeks in a row) the upstairs neighbours woke up up by having the loudest sex you ever did hear. Vile. We've been there for a nearly a year now and I just about feel settled. When we spoke to our landlord about getting a new contract he said "the rent will stay the same". Silly me for not realising that this actually meant "I will write to you in a few weeks time with a letter stating that the rent will actually be increasing". Silly, silly me. I must remember to take that crash course in How To Understand Landlord. We may have to move flats. I am not amused.

To see if it would cheer me up any at lunch I ate a packet of crisps, a bag of maltesers, a minty sweet and drank a can of fizzy pop.

I am still not amused. And now I feel sick. And we still probably have to move. Pass the cardboard boxes...

Sometimes I feel like I live in a bad BBC sitcom

Scene: A scruffy GP surgery, south east London, one hot Friday afternoon in May. The librarian has gone for an initial check up to see if she will be lucky enough to be allowed to join this practice...

Doctor: Do you smoke cigarettes?
Librarian: No.
Doctor: Really? (Raises eyebrow in a 'I don't believe you young lady' manner)
Librarian: Yes, really.
Doctor: Do you drink alcohol?
Librarian: Yes.
Doctor: How much?
Librarian: Well, that depends, maybe on a Friday or Saturday night.
Doctor: On a Friday and a Saturday night? (Again with the raised eyebrows)
Librarian: God no! Friday or Saturday. How rich do you think I am?
Doctor: Well, how much do you drink then?
Librarian: It depends, I sometimes go for weeks without an alcoholic drink. The last time I had a drink was Saturday night, I had three rum and cokes
Doctor: That's not an alcoholic drink.
Librarian: Rum is an alcoholic drink.
Doctor: Oh. Right. Lets weigh and measure you.

Doctor weighs and measures Librarian. She is same weight and height that she wrote on the form she filled in to join this practice, two weeks ago. Funny that.

Doctor: Now, we need to take a urine sample.
Librarian: I have one with me (thinks: because your receptionist gave me two sample jars and told me to bring one. How much does she think I wee?)
Doctor: Oh, you do?
Librarian: Yes, I always have a spare one in my handbag (boom boom!).

The Doctor looks a little worried. The Librarian thinks he may not have got the joke.
A while later...

Doctor: Is there any history of asthma, diabetes or heart disease in your family?
Librarian: No asthma, but my dad has type II diabetes, and there is heart disease on my mums side of the family (thinks: 'I'm doomed!')
Doctor: Any incidences of heart disease or angina before the age of 60?
Librarian: Yes, my grandad had angina before he was 60, my uncle died in his 40's and another uncle had a heart bypass in his 50's.
Doctor: (Looks at Librarian in an accusing manner, like he is Miss Marple and she is the butler) How do you know this?
Librarian: (Has look of dismay on her face, as if to say 'what?!') Because they are my family, and we talk to each other.
Doctor: Yes, but how do you know about your grandfather? This must have been 50 years ago.
Librarian: (A little insulted that the GP thinks she is a lot older than she looks). My grandad did die when I was very young, but I know because they are my family and we've talked about these things.
Doctor: Thank you that will be all.

Exit stage left a very bemused Librarian.