// Musings
Russell Howard
Oh I so would.
Welcome to 2008…
Well, how was your new year?
I spent mine at home, on my own, sober, watching crap telly and only pausing at the stroke of midnight to raise a (slightly larger than I’d intended) glass of Amaretto to the new year.
Frankly it was bliss.
Over the last few years I’ve come to regard New Year’s Eve parties as a bit of a nonsense really. I somehow either find myself trapped in a houseful of almost complete strangers whose attractiveness causes my normally low self-image to crash still further; or else crammed into a bar - where the DJs are trying to be cool - whilst being jostled left, right and center while it slowly dawns on me how awful the journey home is going to be.
I have enjoyed precisely two NYE events since moving to London. One was a private bash at the Griffin last year where it was just about the right number of people and they were mainly people I knew. The other was an OUTintheUK event where Other Rob and I did DJ duties over the actual moment. (Boney M doing “Auld Lang Syne”. Who’d have thought?)
But there we are. Nothing much seems different. I look back at 2007 and think it was okay, really. Aside from the buildup to the collapse I suffered in April it’s been not too bad. Following said collapse I changed jobs (hello comfort zone - nice to be back), and moved to a bigger, more transport-friendly location. I even had a boyfriend for a few months too, which was a novelty - although obviously this now precludes the possibility of me having another until about 2011). And the Quiz is - whilst utterly exhausting to keep going - well received and went out with a bang for the last one of the year. And I got 25,000 words into my novel which is officially more than I’ve written in six years so I’m quite pleased.
Okay, 2007 slightly fell apart at the end with a death in the family and the associated running around and so on as detailed previously, but on the whole it was good.
So what for 2008? Well, drinking less is on the agenda. Friday aside (where Daniel and Orlando came over for a very pleasant evening) I’ve been laying off the sauce mainly over the last week or so and feeling quite proud of that too. The health and monetary benefits of this are something I hope to be reaping over the coming months as long as something awful doesn’t happen. And I finally will be rid of the tummy, I’ve decided. The gym-going starts in earnest on Monday and I WILL NOT FALTER!
I have trips to see Girls Aloud (amazingly good tickets) and Kylie (rather less so) over the coming months - did the Spice Girls on Wednesday by the way which was fun - and a trip to Gran Canaria coming up in February so there’s some other events to look forward too.
And in between all that hopefully I’ll get the novel doubled in size on the way, and a new Vitriol and Old Lace website should be live by the end of the month (trust me - it’s gorgeous) so Daniel and I can start pushing that again too.
I’m feeling quite positive about 2008 really. Hope it all goes well for you too!
Posted on January 6, 2008 | Filed Under Musings, My So-Called Life | 0 Comments
Noisome Deodourants
Gentle reader, pray tell me why so many men’s antiperspirants/deodorants are so utterly disgusting.
I mean… you do your duty to your fellow man by giving yourself a liberal blast of a morning or prior to going out and so on, only to spend the next five minutes gagging in an acrid cloud of spray that clings to your throat and nostrils, apparently burning its way through any membrane it clings to.
I’ve tried dozens of the buggers now and they all have that basic problem. Admittedly they settle down after a few minutes and become vaguely bearable (with the obvious exception of the entire Lynx range which is a form of chemical terrorism I can’t condone) but the application is an almost unbearable form of self-torture.
I’ve had to switch to a lady-spray instead.
Posted on October 27, 2007 | Filed Under Musings, My So-Called Life | 3 Comments
Sugar-Dodging and the Potato-Swerve
What with the new job, I have taken to popping into WHSmith of a morning to stock up on Pepsi (Max, that is, not the full fat) and a couple of bottles of Lucozade Hydro-Active which, I must confess, I have rather taken to.
And every morning I suffer the onslaught of offers you can get from around the till-point. At the moment I am declining, on a daily basis, the offer of a pack of Haribo at half price. This is not, you understand, because I don’t like Haribo, but simply because at the moment I am trying to eschew sweets and anything too dangerously calorific.
Today, however, there was an additional trap. Having picked up a copy of some random periodical I also got an offer of a tube of Pringles too - again one which I politely declined for the sake of my somewhat amorphous waistline.
It does occur, however, that WHSMith’s current desperate touting of sweet and potato-based temptations is maybe not entirely in line with the current Government panic about obesity and making sure you get your five a day and so on.
Surely they should be pushing apples and bananas instead? Or just not be so heavy handed with the promotions?
Posted on September 3, 2007 | Filed Under Health and Fitness, Musings | 1 Comment
Charity Ends at Home
In the wake of the new television was the question of what to do with the old one. It is, after all, in perfect working order - it’s just surplus to requirements. So Chris decided to give it to a charity shop for them to do what they will with it. It should, we considered, raise a few quid for someone.
Turns out however, that none of them (or at least any within easy staggering distance) will take it. Electrical goods have become a no-no it seems since they require a certificate of electrical somethingorother to be sold again so it’s just easier for them not to bother.
Same was true when our old furniture got taken away from the old flat. We had to make sure they all had fire-retardancy labels or they wouldn’t be taken - and of course that huge tag is usually one of the first things to have its string cut.
So, despite our best intentions it looks like the TV is just going to have to go outside the block with a “it works” label on it in order to get nicked, rather than raising money for a good cause.
It’s getting so you can’t even try to do your bit for charity these days.
Unless you’re being chugged on the street, of course.
Posted on August 26, 2007 | Filed Under Musings, My So-Called Life | 3 Comments
Snogging Quicksilver
My iGoogle home page served up my daily star sign today as usual (well, I usually find them diverting in a “yeah, right” sort of way) but the opening line this morning was particularly unusual I thought:
“Your key planet Venus receives a thoughtful kiss from intelligent Mercury”
I’ve got to say, a full-on tongue-lock with intelligent Mercury sounds like a scene worthy of Doctor Who in my opinion.
It’s probably being RTD’d even as I type…
Posted on August 17, 2007 | Filed Under Film and Television, Musings | 0 Comments
Moth Attack!
Is it my imagination, or are there more moths around at the moment than ever before?
I can’t seem to pass a single night without encountering a couple of the buggers at the moment. Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head… (well, okay, maybe a mild exaggeration on that last one), but since barely a day goes by without being woken up with a panicked fluttering I struggle to ignore, or finding one floating in my bedside glass of water I’m beginning to think I’m the target of some lame plague.
Are moths the new locusts I wonder?
Posted on June 4, 2007 | Filed Under Musings, My So-Called Life | 2 Comments
Inappropriate Thoughts
Spent a pleasant afternoon and evening at my aunt’s yesterday at another one of her annual “invite several of Rob’s moxen friends over and try and kill them with food” events.
Much food and alcohol were consumed (although miraculously I have emerged from this hang-over free) and a good time was had by all.
Two key moments stand out in my mind, however. First was Ben’s insistence, following a gargantuan repaste, that he currently felt like he’d been stabbed by a sherry trifle (a dish which, it must be said, had fumes the like of which could have made people in London Bridge tipsy).
Second was the flatmate’s revelation that tomorrow he is off to see “Fiddler on the Roof”. This lead directly to the idle consideration of what a Bugsy-Malone styled version of said story were to be perfomed entirely by children, what would it be called?
We decided in the end (after I’d laughed until I hurt) that “Kiddy-Fiddler on the Roof” probably wasn’t going to be it.
I guess you may have had to have been there.
Posted on June 3, 2007 | Filed Under Musings, My So-Called Life | 0 Comments