Kate’s blog

Advice, please

nobody@vox.com(Kate) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:57:13 +0100

I can't remember if I mentioned it, but I lost my emmpeethree player a few months ago, the day after my birthday, somewhere between Tottenham Court Road station and the pub. I was pretty gutted but being as how I hadn't actually paid for it (I got it with nectar points) it wasn't the end of the world.

Anyway, the time has finally come to replace it. I'm thinking of a Creative Zen but it has mixed reviews so I'm still undecided. The last one was a Samsung and I really liked it - it was glossy black with no visible buttons (the buttons appeared as lights when you switched it on - it was like the FUTURE*).

Can anybody recommend anything? And please don't say ipod - I've taken against all things Apple (no reason. I just don't like them).

*I'm not very technical and am easily impressed by coloured lights.

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Vote for me!

nobody@vox.com(Kate) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:11:13 +0100

vote! vote! vote!

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Things on Tuesday

nobody@vox.com(Kate) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:32:43 +0100

[this is not good]

Smokers. Oh, not all smokers - I'm not that much of a hypocrite. Specifically, people who walk along the street, smoking and flicking their ash behind them. When I smoked, people used to take the piss out of me because I couldn't smoke and walk at the same time and this is why. I don't smoke any more (more or less) and I don't want to turn up to work in the morning covered in someone else's ash.
My wool still hasn't arrived. Boo.

[this is wierd]

My dad is talking about getting married. He's not seeing anyone, he hasn't even gone out with anyone but his friends are trying to fix him up with ladies and he doesn't seem to realise that he could just go out with someone without having to make any kind of a commitment. We asked what the one of the ladies was like and he replied with a damning 'she was quite presentable'. When questioned further he said 'when you get to my age, you don't expect a babe'. Apparently, if you do get a babe she's probably after something and he'd regret it for the rest of his life. I don't know how I feel about this; he's lonely and I don't want him to be but after you've been with someone for 50 years, how do you get to have that same level of companionship and understanding with someone new?

[this is a vague musing]

I'm considering cutting my hair. Ideally, I'd like to have it shorter during the week, then big and exciting at the weekends. Also, I'm wierdly fascinated with how long I can get it before I lose patience/the split ends take over.

[this is good]

Snog, Marry, Avoid. I'm obsessed with this. It's brilliant! Terrifying orange girls wearing gaffer tape and badly applied eyeshadow are plucked off the street and made to wash their faces, before the general public confirms how much nicer they think they look. It's a little unfair because they only seem to show the responses from frightfully well-spoken public school boys. I wonder if they showed pictures of girls who are styling themselves on Jodie Marsh (why? WHY?) round the streets of Croydon if they'd get a different response.
I'm going to the real estate property fair in November with work. It might not sound that exciting but did I mention it was in Cannes? It's in Cannes! Ha!
In the absence of my knitting wool, I'm entertaining myself by doing some Nick Cave cross stitch.
My tomato plants (generously donated by a certain CQM) have baby tomatoes. This is enormously exciting and you'd think they were actual babies by the amount of attention they are getting (including being photographed on an almost daily basis) except that they will be eaten at some point.

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Mr Spain

nobody@vox.com(Kate) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:00:15 +0100

In an unprecedented fit of enthusiasm, rather than abandoning all my studies until October, I'm trying to keep up with my Spanish over the summer holidays. So far, this has mainly entailed reading Hola! online because I am a philistine and can't be bothered reading newspapers. I'm learning an awful lot about skincare and the dress style of Adrian Brody.

Much more compelling (and therefore, unsurprisingly of no language benefit whatsoever) is the voting page for Mr Spain. In case you can't be bothered going over there, I'll run you through my favourites.

I like Mister A Coruna for looking so resolutely un-Spanish (unlike the highly startled Mr Almeria).

I feel a bit sorry for Mr Badajoz, being placed next to the handsome Mr Avila, whilst looking like he would be more at home talking you through loan rates at the bank. I genuinely like the look of Mr Burgos, who looks like he's just hopped out of a Hugo Boss ad (the one with the man covered in tattoos. Hm.) whereas Mr Cordoba just looks like he's hopped out of an 80's band (possibly one of the less good-looking members of A-ha. Or Aztec Camera).

Mr Jaen looks like he's had the head of an indie singer grafted onto a much buffer body (although some of these buff bodies look a bit like they might have been painted on) and Mr La Rioja is downright menacing - he's like an evil version of the evil geek from Buffy.

Mr Las Palmas has a touch of the Jonathan Rhys Meyers about him - but again with the suspect painted on contours. Mr Malaga has swept in straight from the pages of an Anne Rice novel and poor old Mr Melilla has swept in from hosting a late night quiz show on ITV2.

Mr Palencia looks like he might have something wrong with him, so I won't mock and I don't quite know where to begin with Mr Segovia. Mr Teruel appears to have had most of his neck transplanted onto his forehead.

I can't go on - I'm becoming immune to the ill-fitting suits but I think I'll vote for Mr Madrid. He looks quite smiley.

Who would you vote for? (if you could be remotely bothered). Is there an equivalent in the UK? Is it being shown on ITV2?

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QotD: Kindgergarten Rules of Wisdom

nobody@vox.com(Kate) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:41:35 +0100

What did you learn in kindergarten that you wish you did a better job of applying to the way you live your life today?

That people will stop picking on you once you've pulled the see-saw over onto their head. A sad lack of see-saws (and indeed, any play equipment constructed of scaffolding poles and poorly attached to the floor) has meant I am unable to apply this to the way I live my life today.

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QotD: Lessons from Dad

nobody@vox.com(Kate) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 14:49:17 +0100

What lesson did your father teach you that still helps you in life?

How to be kind and hospitable and to make sure that people have something to eat on the way home.
How to make maths easy, by writing problems out on big pieces of paper.
How to write an academic essay and the right way to speak to lecturers so you get what you want out of them.
How to get out of social engagements you don't want to go to and how to extricate yourself from unwanted acquaintances.
How to deal with various kinds of back injuries.
How to read Russian and to speak some French, Italian, German and Danish.
How to think for myself.
That throwing your head back and bellowing with laughter at something funny is perfectly normal - not for us are stifled and repressed giggles, but big laughs, all the time.

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Things on Thursday

nobody@vox.com(Kate) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:17:01 +0100

Midori

1. I don't have enough of my book left to get me all the way home.
2. Mark can't come down for the weekend, despite my best efforts to entice him with the immense fun we'll be having because work are making him photograph the fashion for which they're not even paying him. Boo.
3. Snails are, for whatever reason, deeming it worthwhile to crawl up two storeys of brick, just to eat my plants (thus running the risk of being thrown mercilessly off the roof)

Martini

1. It was still light at 10 o'clock last night and I'm going to be in Avebury for mid-summer.
2. I've ordered wool to knit myself a 'bolero/bed jacket' from my 1940s knitting book.
3. The weekend of Immense Fun is nearly upon us.
4. I got a First for my linguistic module. Yeah, baby!

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Me! Me! Me!

nobody@vox.com(Kate) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:33:44 +0100

1. What were you doing ten years ago?

I was working at FoxKids and what with it being in the meedja and all, was drinking far too much. I'd been living in my flat for two months and I think Helen might have just moved in and was setting up her nest in the living room. We didn't have a sofa and were having to make do with a couple of cheap deckchairs from Woolies but other than that, were in a whirlwind of fun. Not much has changed, really.

2. List five (non-work) things on my to-do list for today.

Claim refund from TFL for Friday's shambles on the tube
Get some money out to spend on gin later
Leave the office and have a stroll in the park at lunchtime
Investigate train times from Barcelona to Benicasim
Eat more fruit

3. Snacks I enjoy:

I like all snacks indiscriminately, but particularly savoury things, if I had to choose. I have a limitless capacity for cheese and biscuits.

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Initially I thought of buying property - New York, Sydney, Buenos Aires but if I'm a billionaire I could buy Tooting and fill it with bookshops and nice places to eat and drink.

5. Places I have lived:

Leeds, Sunderland, Birmingham, Sowerby Bridge, Bradford, London

6. Jobs I have had:

0898 Tarot card reader
Flogging timeshare to the unsuspecting public of Leamington Spa
Bar maid
Stuffing teddy bears and tying on ribbons at a toy factory
Purchase ledger clerk in a department store
PA (various places)
Customer service manager for a travel agency (manic laughter)
Private investigator

I now pass the mantle to Redshoes, Colonel Knowledge and Moobs and anyone else who can be arsed.

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Night of Terror

nobody@vox.com(Kate) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 12:24:17 +0100

I really shouldn't be allowed to watch hospital dramas because they always make me cry but nevertheless, I got cabined up last night for an evening of snivelling on the sofa in front of House and Gray's Anatomy (I don't alway cry over these, but there were a couple of things yesterday that set me off).

Anyway, I was feeling somewhat tired and emotional when I eventually tottered off to bed, with make up streaked down my face. I'd left the patio doors open as it had been such a glorious evening but when I went to close the curtains, there was an ENORMOUS spider lurking on the wall. Normaly, I don't mind spiders but this was the size of a kitten. It would have woken me if it had jumped on my bed in the night. So, it had to go. But how?

While I was pondering the spider, I heard it. A menacing flutter, the light flickering from something flapping around the moth. Suddenly, the spider seemed quite small. I planned my next move (from behind the door) although the most tempting option was to shut the door, sleep on the sofa and hope the pure moth evil would have flown back out the door by the morning. This was unfeasible for several reasons; my phone was on my bed and I needed it for my alarm (although by this stage I was starting to wonder if BT still did alarm calls), the moth might not fly out and could have been hiding somewhere, ready to pounce at a later stage and also reason was trying to knock on my head going 'Hello? It's a moth, get over it and get to bed'. However, on the upside, I wondered if the two giants of the night might not come together in an almighty battle, in which case I hoped the moth had its ass kicked. Eight times, yeah!

Eventually, the evil one came to rest on the wall by the ceiling and armed with the bottle of kitchen surface cleaner, I went at it. It flapped around and I sprayed and shrieked and jumped on and off the bed in terror. It stopped again, on the other side of the and I went at it with a can of hairspray. Not for me the natural look with minimal hold and this stuff may well have been made with the tears of Robert Smith. Liberal spraying seemed to subdue it. Was it dead? Was it glued to the wall with extra strong hold In-Set? Or was it just pretending, so it could dance on my face as I was drifting off to sleep?

No time to worry about it now! The spider awaits. I ran to the kitchen for the usual tools (pint class, programme from the BFI) and ran back to my bedroom. The moth was gone. Shit! I looked around the room frantically and eventually saw a horrible moth limb sticking out from the top of the door. I hit it with the BFI programme. I hit it a few more times, just to be sure. Back to the spider again and the manoevre is going well until Wah! a moth (thankfully smaller and less angry) landed on my wrist just as I was about to gently deposit the spider outside. I jumped and the poor thing was flung out harshly into the world. A few more minutes of running in circles, waving my hands and snivelling and I was eventually able to go to my slightly damp, yet fragrant bed.

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Essence of MissK

nobody@vox.com(Kate) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:50:46 +0100

Yet another colleague is off on maternity leave and whilst clearing out her drawers, came across her interview notes from when she met me (you may recall the flattering 'aged about 30' comment from the person I replaced).

There were only two words written on the bottom of my CV, but I think they sum me up perfectly.

Tooting. Handcrafts.

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