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I can feel a new addiction coming on. Oh yes I can.

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Here are the latest additions.

My 20 - OK, 21 - notable films of 2007

...in no particular order.

Cashback
Last King of Scotland
Letters from Iwo Jima
The Lives of Others
Notes on a Scandal
300
Clerks II
Away from Her
Ratatouille
Little Children
Persepolis
The Painted Veil
Half Nelson
2 days in Paris
28 Weeks Later
Control
This is England
Knocked up
Stardust
We own the Night
Gone Baby Gone

A few were remarkable, and a few were more along the lines of personal guilty pleasures, but looking back at a year's worth of ticket stubs, those were my favorites.

And the only contender for "this is so bad I am angry, no, livid, at having just wasted 2 hours of my life" that I can think of right now was that holiday themed dreck with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet. Kate, what were you thinking ?

Yesterday

 

 

...was my birthday, and a fine day it was too.

The "best present e-vah" (in the breathless tones of a Strictly Come Dancing Chistmas Special contestant) was that I got my deleted-through-no-fault-of-my-own photos back, thanks to a seemingly simple but rather miraculous piece of software.

S very cleverly convinced me that for my birthday I should buy him a mobile phone as a belated Christmas present, and he is now the proud owner of a Nokia N95 which I get to play with as much as I want, so we're both happy geeks.

And last but certainly not least my dear friend M and her husband are in town, so we had dinner with them and the food was almost as good as the company. Bliss.

Today

...after a decade of financial irresponsibility and general foolishness (but oh what fun it was at the time!) and two and a half years of frugality and saving, I am debt-free.

Except for the mortgage, but I think we can all agree that doesn't count as bad debt.

I'd be tempted to do out and treat myself to something luxurious to mark the occasion (designer handbag? jewelry? cashmere sweater?) and then a huge dinner at a lovely restaurant, washed down with champagne from start to finish, but as it is exactly that sort of behavior that got me into trouble in the first place, I shall refrain.

And so it all feels a bit anti-climactic and dull.

Christmas in England

Christmas pudding - check.
Fish and chips in Brighton, looking out at the sea - check.
Bitter shandy in a proper old (i.e. non-chain) pub - check.
Roast dinner with potatoes, parsnips and Yorkshire pudding - check.
Anglo-Indian curry (miles better than Franco-Indian, it must be said) - check.
A trip to Tesco's to stock up on as much Marmite, Branston, HP sauce, tea, pickled onions, and Hellman's mayo (yes, I know how to make my own, but for most uses I prefer Hellman's) as could possibly be carried back - check.

Missing: full English brekkie. Ah well, next time.

Also missing: 85 photos including some absolutely gorgeous ones of S and I at Beachy Head, overlooking the Downs on one side and the cliff and sea on the other, and of S's family members and friends, due to a fucking arse buggery shite computer-memory card transfer problem. There are worse problems in the world (doh!) but I'm still gutted...

I need a pet.

Or at least some more photogenic houseplants.

Just when I had got used to receiving Christmas cards featuring my friends' children (as in, I look at the photo and think, "my, they've grown since last year!" instead of shrieking "holy shit, we're grown ups! how did that happen?!?") - I get a card with a pic from a childless but doggy-mom friend featuring... her two back Labs.

A Metro Moment

On the way home, standing next to a young guy. Leather jacket, long hair. Scruffily cute. I peer at his mobile phone, because I am thinking of getting a new one for myself. I can read the text he is typing.

U are making me like u more than I should.

I smile and turn back to my book, hoping he didn't notice me noticing.

The best little jazz combo you've never heard

Equinox Jazz Combo

Yay, F !

Domestic God

Tonight, S
roasted a chicken for dinner
made stock from the carcass
roasted butternut squash, onions and garlic (for tomorrow's soup, with the stock)
and is now making chocolate cake.

I have
eaten dinner
licked the bowl that held the melted chocolate
made (helpful, or perhaps not) comments on how thick eggs should be when beaten for cake, and the like.

That is all.

Inspired

...combination for dinner last night: mashed sweet potatoes, sausages, watercress cooked until barely wilted. The smoothness of the mash, the slightly fatty meatiness of the sausages alongside the peppery, bitter cress... yum.

And the colors were pretty on the plate, too. Less gluttonous bloggers might have taken a photo, but not I.

It seemed to last forever

...and now it's over. The rugby, of course. While France were being ousted by England, we were at a Richard Thompson concert. An unfortunate scheduling conflict, but no regrets. He's a genius and I cried like a crying thing during his rendition of Who knows where the time goes.

Love it !

Le Match : Zidane/Galthié
Video
Envoyé par orangerugby sur wat.tv

Anger management

The number of cars, motorbikes and scooters that run red lights just when you think it's safe to cross the street is shocking. Is it normal to give each and every one of them the finger while muttering "crash and die, motherfucker", though ? I'd happily kick and/or key the paint too, except my reflexes aren't quick enough.

Too cynical

... for wildlife documentaries.

Went to see Un Jour sur Terre - very impressive visually, stunning in fact - but the excessive anthropomorphism, twee narration and over the top music (look, I'm a cute furry baby animal and I'm being hunted by a predator! quick, bring on the dramatic crescendo orchestration during the chase and have a lone sweet violin playing while I'm being eaten!) are enough to make me want to go out and buy a gas-guzzling SUV and say to hell with climate change and the disappearance of cute furry baby animals.

Anyway, it's OK, because Al Gore just won a Nobel prize and I saw his documentary, too, so that's enough planet-friendly action from me, right ? Bah humbug.

Note to self

Give up going out for lunch with more than 3-4 colleagues at a time.

In a larger group, there will always be someone who bitches about the choice of restaurant. Someone who doesn't drink wine and "jokingly" calls the drinkers alcoholics, and/or someone who does drink wine and "jokingly" accuses the non-drinkers of being no fun. Someone who brings the conversation back to petty office gossip after the rest of the table has only just, with great effort, managed to leave work topics behind and are discussing what movies they've seen recently or what their plans are for the following weekend.

And last but not least, when the bill arrives and gets divided, most people will put down enough money, even rounding up a little, yet when the money is counted there is always an amount missing.

Next time around if anyone is looking for me, I'll be at the salad bar with a good book.

Things men do not understand.*

Why it's upsetting when 2 pairs of your favorite work shoes (smart enough for office wear, that look good with either skirts or pants, yet are amazingly comfortable, so that you can go straight from work to whatever you're planning to do in the evening without wishing you had time to go home and change, you know the kind - the ones you wish you had bought in every available color) give up the ghost within the same week.

So what, he says, you've still got 53 pairs left.

*Lest I am accused of blatant sexist stereotyping, let me say here that no doubt some men understand. But not the one I share closet space with.

A perfect mango

... is wonderful thing indeed.

Today

...things have gone wrong. Not badly, but little annoyances have added up, errands that should have been simple took forever to run, the roast potatoes were still undercooked long after the chicken was done. Stuff like that.

And S. has gone to a party which I begged out of, because I'm tired and don't feel social. Which is fine, except I've just noticed the post-it note on which he carefully wrote the address, door code, and name of the host is right here next to computer instead of in his pocket. And he doesn't have a cell phone. And his phone card didn't work last time he needed to use it, and there are no coin operated phones left anywhere in the city. With some luck, he'll run into someone he knows going to the same party once he gets there, but the way things are going today ? I suspect he'll be home soon.

I'm too old

...to go out on a Friday night and have nothing but beer and peanuts for dinner.