...that she realises quite how pretentious that particular picture of those particular flowers really was.  And she lets out a great HAH! of derision because freedom of thought and thought of freedom are so very, very different when you think about them.  Which obviously you do.  Ha ha fucking FUCKING ha.  This shouldn't make me so angry.  Is it bitterness?  Futile FUTILE ha fucking ha.  Nobody Breaks Out Of Their Shackles when there are things they won't talk about.  Twisted.

 

Check Sophie's and my pumpkin.

 

 

That was an evening well-spent.

 

Does anyone else find the Post Office's new adverts REALLY annoying?  Yes, alright, we get it, you want us to start sending letters again.  Now put Land of Hope and Glory back in the box where it belongs.

 

It's half past nine.  Sixty-eight and three quarter hours.  Tick-tick-tick-tick.

Well, today has been a thoroughly poetic day.  Not that I've written any, that was all in script format actually, although I might take the opportunity to write something due to now having been put very much in the mood.

 

A's poem.  About M.  Really, really good.  A little scary.  But sometimes I wish I had that sort of way with words, and on occasions the confidence to be that unabashed about my subject.  Good grief, incredible, absolutely incredible.  And... if velvet had a voice, forget Alan Rickman, T's your man.  The reading voice.  I was listening to what he was saying, by the way, which was quite difficult because it was very easy to just listen to his voice and that's it.

 

I found one of my favourites, too, this evening, it's a James Hunt poem and it makes me smile every time, so I'm going to copy it out here because it's just wonderful, really really wonderful.

 

 

And, because good things come in threes, and the third is always the best, there's another one.  And when I opened the envelope and realised what it was I had to excuse myself upstairs to read it so M+D wouldn't see tears coming to my eyes and think something's wrong.  You tease, you wonderful, incredible, beautiful bloody bastard.  Byron.  It's coming up to a quarter to nine, I make that ninety three and a half hours to go, that's five thousand six hundred and ten minutes, that's too long, far too long...

 

And they wonder how Elizabeth Barrett Browning got her inspiration.  Really.

Life is not a film.  You cannot do the obvious things like fast-forwarding, which I would quite like to do at the moment, rewinding, which I would also like to do, or simply choosing not to watch it.  You cannot sum it up as a number of stars out of five in a single paragraph in some newspaper, much as some people try, and you can't stick it in boxes as a comedy or a tragedy or whatever.  You can't choose the rating, or who's in it.  The set.  The budget, even.  It can't be done.  Films cut to the best bits and ignore the uninteresting parts.  They don't tell you that, and if it's well-done, it escapes your consciousness at the time.  For instance: I'll take next year and last year, please.  I don't want now.

 

Continuity, the bane of my life.

 

Sometimes you need more than a picture to remind you that it's not so bad.  If you get that reference, I pity myself.  My taste, you see, isn't as good as yours.

 

Complete and return: It's All Very Well But ____________________________.

It won't let me post things, and it's just deleted what I've written.

 

I've just found out that somebody in particular is changing without me and that scares me, it really does and I don't like it.  My brain is telling me SOMETHING IS WRONG HERE, SOMETHING IS REALLY WRONG and it isn't is it?  I don't know.  Anyway, there's no chance of clearing it up for some time.  I'm clinging here.

 

-: I know you don't have to trust me, maybe you have reason not to, but I am never hungry in the mornings and that is the way it is.  I am not Making A Plea For Help, attention seeking, or heaven forbid starving myself.  So I don't appreciate you suggesting that I need spoonfeeding, if you pardon the pun.  For God's Sake.  That stung a bit.

 

Otherwise, today has been very very good, nigh on unbeatable.

 

Off to Geneva 5.30 tomorrow morning *ack* until Wednesday, so only one night.  See you then then.  It should be good.

 

I'm so tired, you can tell, my temper's wearing thin.  Off to bed, then.  Goodnight.

So Dumbledore is, in fact, gay.  What this basically means is that in ten years time, Stephen Fry will have completely morphed into him.

 

Apparently JK Rowling's comments were "I would have told you before if I knew it would make you so happy" and "Oh my god, the fanfiction".  Gay Rights movements have obviously had their say, for god's sake, it's a STORY.  It's not meant to be political, or educational.  Let's not discriminate between Bad Propaganda and Good Propaganda and just leave the subliminal messaging to Bill and Ben.

 

Andy Parsons the other night: "After the last World Cup, we were going to make rugby our national sport instead of football, and then we didn't because we realised that only eight countries in the world care about rugby and four of them are us."  And on a different note, "I only ever do the vacuuming when I'm really drunk so that when I wake up the next morning and can't remember what I did the night before I'm always pleasantly surprised by the state of the lounge."  That made me smile.

 

Chris Addison tomorrow night.  Tis going to be great.

 

The Most Wonderful Television Channel In The World has just proved itself worthy by having a QI night.  I mean really.  A TV channel called Dave.  Byline being "the home of witty banter".  Voiceover man being Phil Jupitus with one eyebrow raised.

 

Eddie Izzard was not made to have an American accent.  Neither was Hugh Laurie.  They are both Quaintly British and consequently House and The Riches scare me a lot.

 

I want to sleep in but I can't until Thursday.  This is no great tragedy in itself, I'm just really, really tired.  So go to bed you idiot take your own advice.

THEY'RE FILMING FROST-NIXON AND IT'S GOT MATTHEW MCFADYEN IN IT

 

(One more thing, I've decided upon the best question ever to ask halfway through watching a very important sporting event in the company of people who are much more interested than you: ten minutes into the second half, "So which ones are we again?")

One of the things that I really, really hate, is when you're walking along minding your own business, say, going back up to college this morning after going into Winchester and getting some coursework done.  And walking the other way is an old couple, and as you pass them they glare at you and the man passes between you and his wife as if he is shielding her from you but doesn't want you to know it.  This is, if it is possible, even more irritating than being followed around Superdrug in case I steal something.  For fuck's sake.  Yes, I am between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five.  This does not make me the kind of person who shoplifts, I have not shot anything up my arm in the last half-hour (see previous entry), I am not about to pull a knife on you or relieve you of your wallet.  Nor do I spit, drink alcohol at college, truant or eff and blind at people for no reason.  So please don't tar me with that brush.

 

This is one of the few occasions I feel justified in moaning, "Don't judge me!!"  Usually that is pathetic.  It just REALLY gets my back up.

 

The word "strike", I have found, has an interesting effect on me.  It probably says quite a bit about me but there we go.

 

 

Here's something you might like (from the Plain English Campaign website http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/news.htm#eu):

 

Plain English Campaign rues departure of English football's 'finest orator'

(Posted 20 September 2007)

Language group Plain English Campaign says it hopes to see Jose Mourinho’s swift return to football following his departure from Chelsea Football Club. Mourinho, who refers to himself as ‘The Special One’, is well known for his love of using strange and overextended metaphors during press conferences. He is already in the hat for the campaign’s annual ‘Foot in Mouth’ award as a result of his ‘omelettes and eggs’ comments earlier this week (see below).

“Not since Eric Cantona has a footballing figure had so unique an approach to the English language.” said a Campaign spokesman. “Jose Mourinho is possibly the finest orator the English game has seen since Eric Cantona, and will be sorely missed.”

Last year, Plain English Campaign supporters voted Bill Shankly’s famous ‘life and death’ line the best footballing quote of all time.

Six of the best Mourinho quotes:

• 'I am more than unhappy. Unhappy is a nice word.'
• 'The moral of the story is not to listen to those who tell you not to play the violin but stick to the tambourine.'
• 'Usually, when you score two and concede one, you win the game.'
• 'Almost. But in football, almost is almost.'
• 'It's like having a blanket that is too small for the bed. You pull the blanket up to keep your chest warm and your feet stick out. I cannot buy a bigger blanket because the supermarket is closed. But the blanket is made of cashmere.'
• 'In the supermarket you have class one, two or class three eggs and some are more expensive than others and some give you better omelettes. So when the class one eggs are in Waitrose and you cannot go there, you have a problem.'

Just to let you know.  They are evil bastards.

 

What happened was this.  The lovely Flu Nurses came round this evening, people told me it'd be a nasal swab and that's it.  Much as you wanted to know.  It's not.  Yet.  Apparently I have to do several of them over the next few months... ack.

 

What it was was a blood test, and for this, they needed samples.  I do not like needles, and I do not like tourniquets.  Not in the slightest.  And I hadn't had anything to eat since a relatively hearty lunch (well, two cups of coffee strategically placed throughout the afternoon) and this was about 7pm so I was starting to get a bit hungry and energy-deprived.  So I thought, shit, I don't like this, and looked the other way as they asked me how many times I'd been to a pub in the last week (just got back from Brussels, seriously, "erm, four nights I think" is not representative... currently) and then they stuck a bloody great needle in my left arm and I tensed.  So they couldn't get anything out.  And it HURT.  And I was shaking and it was stinging and they said, okay, well, we'll try the other arm, try and relax.  So I held out my right arm... that didn't work either.  And hurt more.  So I had to go away and have some chocolate and orange juice and then try the right arm again "because you've got a really nice vein there."  "...Thanks.  My left arm loves you too."

 

As a consequence, both of my elbows have plasters on them and stung for a bit, still do, not happy, and I was shaking for at least another hour.  I do not like needles.

 

Mum, bless her, said at least it means I won't try heroin.  Damn straight.  I'm not paying that for that.

First of all, this is how medicine ought to work, I think: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7037443.stm - basically, the poor man tried to commit suicide with a poison which apparently is found in antifreeze, and the hospital ran out of "pharmaceutical grade alcohol" which is evidently some sort of antidote, they resorted to, quote (a different website, by the way) "rounds of rum, scotch and vodka".  Incidentally, in the Calais branch of Tesco we have found that it is possible to buy Tesco Value Scotch Whiskey.  Needless to say we didn't.

 

Second of all, the Ig Nobel Prize winners have been announced for this year (well, 4th October, but there we go).  They are as follows:

 

Aviation: Patricia V. Agostino, Santiago A. Plano and Diego A. Golombek, for discovering that hamsters recover from jetlag more quickly when given Viagra.
Biology: Johanna E.M.H. van Bronswijk, for taking a census of all the mites and other life forms that live in people's beds.
Chemistry: Mayu Yamamoto for extracting vanilla flavour from cow dung.
Economics: Kuo Cheng Hsieh, for patenting a device to catch bank robbers by ensnaring them in a net.
Linguistics: Juan Manuel Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Nuria Sebastian-Galles, for determining that rats sometimes can't distinguish between Japanese, played backward, and Dutch, played backward.
Literature: Glenda Browne, for her study of the word "the".
Medicine: Dan Meyer and Brian Witcombe, for investigating the side-effects of swallowing swords.
Nutrition: Brian Wansink, for investigating people's appetite for mindless eating by secretly feeding them a self-refilling bowl of soup.
Peace: The Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, for suggesting the research and development of a "gay bomb," which would cause enemy troops to become sexually attracted to each other.
Physics: L. Mahadevan and Enrique Cerda Villablanca for their theoretical study of how sheets become wrinkled.

 

This, amongst other things, makes me very happy.  I'm going to attach, if I can, a copy of the award itself.  I think you'll appreciate it.  Ah, here we go.  I don't know if you can see this, but I love it:

 

 

Anyway, Brussels.  Brussels.  It was great, especially (on the subject of completely improbable and frankly laughable things) the UKIP MEP.  I will prove him wrong, though, on at least one count, partly because I think he was a bit bigoted and irresponsible to say some of the things that he did, partly because it will make me feel superior, and partly becuase I'm almost certain he was wrong about it.  I feel a bit stupid after not being able to say anything intelligent to the EC woman, but a good time was had by all and I'm determined now first of all to learn conversational French and second of all to TAKE NOTICE OF THINGS THAT ARE HAPPENING NEXT DOOR.  To be honest.  Sheepishness.

 

Top Gear is awesome, with a superlative choice of soundtrack.  Hammond's hair amuses me.  That is all.

I'm sorry but it's bollocks.  It's utterly bollocks and the statistical community is screwing up your head.  And I've only just this last hour worked out that it actually works.  It goes a bit like this (wording courtest of Wikipedia):

 

 

So... it looks like it doesn't matter either way.  But.  But-but-but-but-but.

 

Say there's a car behind door A, and there are goats behind doors B and C.  So consider every possibility:

YOU PICK DOOR A, which has a car behind it.  The host therefore reveals goat B.  You switch, to door C, and LOSE.

YOU PICK DOOR B, which has a goat behind it.  The host therefore reveals goat C.  You switch, to door A, and WIN.

YOU PICK DOOR C, which has a goat behind it.  The host therefore reveals goat B.  You switch, to door A, and WIN.

 

So if you swap, you win two times out of three.

 

Which screws up my brain.  I don't know about you.

Just a quick plea to anyone who feels like reading this, for a bit of moral support.  Because it's raining.  And I have Economics to do, amongst other things.  And generally I feel like crap.  So any gestures of solidarity/moral support would be good, I've spent the morning feeling ungrateful for the Wonderful Analytical Conversation D has seen fit to grace me with.  Let's say I got a bit snappy.  I don't care why I say "that looks good" (emphasis on "looks") about something on the radio.  And, frankly, at 7.30 on a Monday morning where my mood is approximately as good as the state of Romsey's pavements (dark grey, muddy, damp and fag-ridden - no, scratch that last).  But generally what I'm trying to say is I feel like shit and could do with a hug and a sleep and somebody saying I'm alright really.

 

Alright, alright, I know this is going to be late, so I'd better get on with it.