I am in somewhat of a dilemma as I am only in the UK for day one of the Premier League until mid October. Obviously thanks to global communication I can keep up with how the season’s shaping up (and whether Southampton continue with their “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” routine). But my main dilemma is with the predictions league of which I am a part (narrowly missed out on promotion last season). I have to do eight weeks of predictions after just one game. Now I think this would be a tricksy challenge even for the great Lawro never mind a bear of my little footballing brain.
Luckily the lovely Mark who runs the predictions league (and is a man who likes a spreadsheet) will accept me changing my answers and even texting them to him instead of the usual email so now I just have to hope that I can get some sort of internet connection to follow the form.
Yes, I don’t need anyone to point out to me how sad this is.
“complixificating” has to be a truly outstanding word. I think Suw may have made it up (see full article here) but I’m determined to try and use it as if it were a real word and I’m sure it will soon find itself in the OED. Might be a bit difficult to shorten to a txt word though!
Evening Standard headline this afternoon “Property PR Tricks: Bugging, Bullying and Forgery”. ARGH!!
I would like to point out that these are not “PR tricks”, they are criminal offences.
I would also like to point out that decent PRs do not rely on tricks to get their message across.
I would also like to point out that if it wasn’t for PRs, newspapers would be strangely empty and journalists’ lives would be much tricker.
Rant over.
On Friday I went to the Inner Space lecture off St Martin’s Lane. I’d been to one of their lectures before which was attended by 15-20 people so I was a little overwhelmed when I walked into the room and there were about 70 people there. I thought “how on earth am I going to be able to concentrate, let alone meditate with this many people around me?”.
The speaker was Nikki de Carteret, who is big in the world of spirituality (I’m new to this okay). The subject was the power of forgiveness (let’s face it I need to learn how to do this in my life) and, at first, I was a bit frustrated. We didn’t seem to get on to the subject matter very quickly (plus there was a very noisy man behind me rustling a plastic bag which was doing nothing for my serenity) but soon I was being blown away about once every two minutes. Not only did Nikki share her extremely credible and highly useful “prescription for forgiveness”, but she got us meditating: not once or twice but about four times within the hour and a half. I was not the only person in the room who found these meditations so powerful that tears were flowing.
I can’t believe these lectures are free. Everyone should go. Well no they shouldn’t because then it would be even noisier and more daunting.
Went to the O2 last night to see the Scissor Sisters. First off, the venue. I think it’ll be great when it’s finished. I don’t mean that in a derogatory way but there is still a lot of construction going on outside and there are a fair few empty spaces inside. It was fairly rammed; long queues at every restaurant and as for the queue for the ladies: unbelievable. The actual arena is great though (a lot more toilets for a start), views of the stage look nice and clear (although we had pretty good seats so hard to comment what it might have been like in the tier above the executive boxes).
All seems well organised and looking forward to going there again (this Wednesday in fact!).
So to those New York pop divas. They were fabulous darling. We’d both been a bit nervous because last time we saw them was rocking the Brixton Academy so we weren’t entirely sure if a venue 10 times the size was going to dilute their shimmery sassyness.
We needn’t have worried. Wearing more spangles than you’d find at a 70s’ sweet convention, they looked great and Mr Shears does have one of the most pleasantly toned bods around (not that he’d be remotely interested in my opinion), perhaps the teeny tiny lame hot pants at the end were overstepping the camp mark even for him though. The sound was shaky for about two thirds of the first track (She’s My Man) but after a bit of knob-twiddling (it’s a technical term) all was well.
Highlights were a funkier rendition of Filthy/Gorgeous, a swoopingly melodic Mary (dedicated to the absent Paddy Boom and his mother who died earlier this month), Comfortably Numb and Return to Oz - who am I kidding, it was all fab even those ‘don’t really know them’ second album fillers.
I haven’t bought much music recently (apart from my slightly scary iTunes addiction) but I think I’m off to get Ta Da as soon as I can.
I am so looking forward to the release of “The Golden Compass” despite its rather crappy name. I suspect it has something to do with the Conservative Christian Right in the US. I just hope the film is faithful to Philip Pullman’s classic.
I promise this won’t turn into the ramblings of a carbon-emission deprived lunatic. However. Today I had to get some supermarket shopping which turned into 6 really heavy bags (hopefully enough wine to last me until I go away - no I’m not a lush, I’m just planning to share some drinks with people before I go to a land where beer is a mere 40p a pint!). So I thought I’d get a taxi home. Top tip: do not try to get a taxi at lunchtime on a Friday. Almost every taxi driver in this corner of south west London is either at the mosque or driving people to and from the mosque. I’m a great one for religious observance but you’d think the taxi companies might encourage some of their non-Muslim drivers to cover wouldn’t you?
Whinge over.
Last night I heard that Gloucester is running out of drinking water. Excuse me, we live in the UK. We have a decent (ish) infrastructure. Is it beyond the wit of man to just get stuff where it needs to go?
It also puzzles me why people are blaming the government for the flooding. Politicians are not - as far as I know - in charge of the weather. Okay, the response and defences etc is down to ‘those in charge’ but some people will use any excuse to bash the government, mostly the very same people who are too lazy to get off their arses and vote on election days.
