Dirty dirty dirty Kiwis

I walked into the flat last night, exhausted from a day at the coal face, and entered the living room, looking forward to collapsing on the sofa and staring blankly at the wall for a bit.

The Ignorant Kiwi was playing Call of Duty online on the big TV, whilst simultaneously watching some rather vigorous porn on his laptop.

I almost feel I should applaud the fact that he actually *does* know how to multitask.

Morning has broken (me)

So I've got myself into a lovely little morning routine that really is making the whole being awake at a stupid hour thing a lot easier. It mainly involves getting out of bed and eating breakfast, which I know is what most people generally manage to do without making a whole big song and dance about, but let's not lose sight of the fact that up until last week, my alarm going off was my signal to pull the pillow over my head and burrow deeper into my duvet.

This morning I decided to have a little Breakfast Television with my cereal, and duly popped BBC Breakfast on. There on the news was Boris Johnson opposing the new Heathrow runway. Now, say what you like about Boris the Bumbling Buffoon, but the video footage they had was of him on a panel with Roy Puddifoot and Zach Goldsmith... Puddifoot looks like a gay serial killer from the 1980s, and to be honest, the entire Goldsmith family look like they're direct descendants of Seabiscuit the Horse. I know who I'd rather have as my mayor.

So... I switched onto GMTV, where I was greeted with the hideous sight of Mr Motivator in his aerobics gear. For god's sake man, give it up. I don't want to see your manboobs jiggling up and down as you try to get the nation's housewives fit. Buy a sports bra and GO AWAY.

Switching back to the Beeb I tried to work out if the female presenter was fat or pregnant... she's ever so old if she is in the family way. Then I berated myself for reducing the serious stories of the morning down to my Heat-style, petty observations.

The item that did catch my interest was Jay Rayner plugging his Channel 4 documentary, exploring the quality of supermarket 'basic-brand' food and drink. He's upset that their sausages are made up less of meat, more of crap that will make you ill, steal all your money and shop you to the Inland Revenue for tax evasion. Which is interesting.

I've just finished reading Rayner's book "The Man Who Ate The World", in which he spends THOUSANDS OF POUNDS travelling the world, dining at high-end restaurants, in search of the perfect meal. In one section, he expresses surprise at the notion that people may save up for months on end to have a meal in a restaurant like Petrus. I've eaten at Petrus, it was bloody gorgeous. But at £260, it was the most expensive lunch I have ever eaten, or am likely to eat, and I still experience the occasional shudder of guilt at the sheer decadence of it, despite only having to pay a small proportion of the bill. So I find it odd that Rayner would make a programme denouncing a pack of 99p sausages... Who is he making it for? For the people who buy them? Or for middle class suburbanites, to assuage their middle class guilt and make them feel better about shopping on Ocado?

Discuss.

Ahhhhh

I think this may be the best music video of all time. But then, I generally prefer animals to humans anyway.

Hibernation is a great idea

I'm all for climbing into bed in mid December and not getting out till March. But apparently I'm not allowed to. So Happy New Year everyone!!

New Year's resolutions have to be amongst the most soul destroying things in the world and yet we all make them. Here are mine. I will inevitably fail at most of them.

1. Smoking blah blah blah. This is still ongoing from last year. Trying to work out how to not have that sneaky fag at the bus stop before work and be able to get on the train without killing anyone. It's time to dig out the old inhalator. Cos there's nothing humiliating about looking like you're sucking on a tampon. Really.

2. Booze. Every year, every SINGLE YEAR, I say I'm going to give up drinking in January, for the whole month. This is absolute bullshit. It could not be more bullshit if it rose up from the middle of a cowpat to declare itself as bullshit. Within a week, sometimes less, I am in the pub being egged on by one of the Tab Twins and telling myself that if it's just shandy it doesn't count. This year I have set my sights to a more reasonable level and just decided not to put that bottle of wine in my basket when I go to the supermarket. Cos it's clearly better to go to the pub and binge drink every night.

3. Diet/ Exercise. That old chestnut... OK, it's January, it's -5 outside and it's dark at 6.30am. None of which is conducive to making me want to go to the gym of a morning and actually get rid of the really rather warming extra layer of flab currently residing on my hips and arse. So all I've done is cut out biscuits, cakes, chocolate, crisps, takeaways, dairy and potatoes. You know, the fun stuff.

4. Get cultured # 1. There's only so many episodes of "Friends" a girl can watch. And as I shamefully demonstrated on NYE, I passed that number many, many, MANY episodes ago. So I'm going to switch off E4 and put on Radio 4. And read books that aren't chicklit. Just as soon as I've finished watching "The Most Annoying Celeb of 2008" on BBC3. FAIL.

5. Get cultured #2. Galleries and Exhibitions. Tons of 'em in London, I should go to more. I started off really well with this one, I went to the Liebovitz exhibition with Furious P at the Portrait Gallery. And nearly brained the shortsighted twonks who stood with their noses pressed up to the exhibits so no-one else could see them, but we don't talk about that. The photos were FAB.

6. Get (un)cluttered, period. This will be the year that I get rid of all the old tat currently residing in my flat. Clothes I don't wear, books I don't read (or have read once, thrown across the room in disgust at how rubbish it was and then never picked up again, except to shove it into my bookcase at a funny angle) and I really should think about getting rid of all those VHS tapes that I have no means of watching... 2009 is the year I stop being a hoarder. Or at least, it's the year that I put everything I don't want in a box to take to the charity shop and then leave in the corner of my room for 8 months.

Why do we do it to ourselves? Is it so we can be even more miserable and self loathing in the coldest months of the year, adding "Total failure at keeping resolutions" to Skint and Overweight in the list of our shortcomings? How terribly British.

On a lighter note, 2 things this morning have brightened my day. Someone very kind has sent me a mug featuring a Rodent with a Lightsabre, and another person has just used the word "frig" in an email, which I haven't heard for about 10 years. Brilliant.

So here it is...

The Last Day of My Twenties.

I know I'm harping on about it but honestly, 30??!! When did that happen? Last time I checked I was still 25.

I guess there's only one way to get through it. Bartender? A daiquiri if you please!

Eh?

Reasons to be grumpy this December morning...

1. December insomnia. Every year, without fail, I am awake at stupid o'clock throughout December. I have no clue why, but I've got a pretty good idea that it's something to do with Christmas and paying for stuff with money I just don't have. Today, I was up at 6.20am, and I give it about a week before I'm watching movies and writing Christmas cards at 4am. The one advantage of December Insomnia this year is that I might actually get out of the house and into the gym before going to the office, although I couldn't do that this morning because...

2. I can't hear anything. Not in a temporary deafness way, more a kind of cumulative deafness way that has got worse over the last few years. Given my line of work, this is a Very Bad Thing. So I made an appointment with the nurse to get my ears syringed, as so many people, bored with me asking them to repeat everything, have urged me to do. For the past 4 days, I have put up with the quite frankly icky sensation of dropping oil into my ears to soften the wax before getting them degunked. And the nurse peers into my ears to ascertain how manky they really are, before telling me that they're perfectly clean and that syringing them would make no difference whatsoever and that I should probably go and see a proper doctor about it. Great.

3. I am nearly 30. Why then, am I suffering from a worse acne outbreak than I ever had when I was in my teens? Why? I have one particular beauty, just inside my nose, that has no head, hurts like all buggery and has given me, quite attractively, a fat lip and a trout pout. At this rate all the photos from my party this Friday will feature me doing my best impression of Leslie Ash whilst pissed on tequila.


Reasons Not To Be Grumpy...

1. My rodents still love me.

Communication

Scene: My flat, this morning, 8am.
I walk into kitchen wrapped in towel, Ignorant Kiwi is ironing a shirt.

Me - Hi
IK - Hi
Me - Shower's f*cked
IK - What's up?
Me - Hose has gone
IK - I'll do it today
Me - Ta

As you can see, the art of conversation is flourishing in South West London.