"We shall retire to the drawing room for drinks, while the ladies deal with the housework"

Last night was fun, I crashed the Bolton monday night meal. There was pizza and ice cream, also booze. I did not sob in a corner; I got most of that out of my system in the car. Rob Dougan's music continues to be beautiful.

Because the shop around the corner from richc and ajon's does not carry Alco-Pops (or, as Morrison's would have you believe, "Party Drinks"), I decided to try Taboo, which advertises itself as "Vodka, Peach and Fruit Juice". unfortunately, checking the back after purchase revealed it to be in fact "Vodka, Wine, peach and Fruit Juice". I am not a fan of wine. Luckily the peach flavour was very strong, and once it was sufficiently chilled it became drinkable. I don't think I'll be buying it again though.

After the meal I slept in ghostbritain's spare room (ps thanks again). It was enormously hot, so ajon will no doubt be excited to hear I slept naked and uncovered. Still got very little sleep.

Something for the Weekend

I'm in two minds about the coming weekend.

Gran's funeral is on Monday, and there is a SoS event over the weekend proper. My options are:

1) Spend weekend in Ilkley, possibly Birmingham, with Mum.
2) Spend weekend at SoS getting enormously drunk.

Both choices have advantages and drawbacks. It will be a tough call.

Hmmm ... in related news, I am considering giving Gemma's house a miss tonight. I can watch this week's Angel in Ilkley, and catch up on the previous episodes at my leisure, secure in the knowledge that I will not be falling behind... as is, I've arranged some house viewing tomorrow evening, so I'd be making the Manc-Skipton commute three days in a row. So much driving, so much petrol - and I wouldn't get to see Mum until Thursday.

Decisions, decisions.

Holy Days

Just so people know, I have booked three weeks of holiday this summer (which will save me taking an entire year's allowance in March again - our holidays run for the financial year and do not carry over), and they've been approved. I've booked a week either side of August Bank Holiday, and the week after arwel's wedding. This means it will be SUPER FUN HAPPY HAPPY ARWEL SUMMER (since August Bank is primarily Arwel's stag).

Admittedly Arwel himself won't necessarily be there except for the weekends, but he is the cause of my holidays, so.

A little more detail: ( Read more... )

Which reminds me. Hey anne_l_davies, did you actually go ahead and book us a cottage? I can't remember how we left it. If you did, I owe you money. Otherwise ... do you have their contact details?

THE NEWS

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/tv_film/newsid_3777000/3777753.stm

An interesting (if simplistic) piece from the Children's BBC team on how HP3 got its "PG" rating. Basically: Children's movies are allowed to be a bit scarier, because being a children's movie you know everything will turn out alright. Hmm... I don't know, I'm not sure that reasoning holds up to close scrutiny, but I can't easily put it into words. They're right when they say that the majority of the audience will have read it already, though.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/3786397.stm

Speak Your Brains: Is flying England's flag right? There's a variety of opinions there, ranging from worries that the St George's Cross has been co-opted by racist bigots, to those who don't see what the fuss is about and don't know why you'd wave a flag anyway ("Birthplace is fairly arbitrary"), by way of those who believe they should be able to show their patriotism and racist bigots be damned. Personally I'm with the people who don't particularly see the point, but I also think it's a shame that those who do like to wave a flag only seem to feel the need to do it during football tournaments. They're not saying "Our country is the best", they're saying "Our lads can beat your lads at football".

The reason it's been co-opted to an extent by the far right, of course, is that they've taken "Our country is best" and extended it to "because all foreigners are dirty and should stay where they belong", which is much worse. Given the choice, I think a world in which people could support their team at sporting events without raising unfortunate associations would be a good one. But then, I'd quite like a world in which people could support their teams without painting their country's flags on their enormous distended bellies, which currently seems sadly out of the question.

Right, that's quite enough half-baked drivel from me for now.