Hate

C: "Is this XXX?"
Me: "Yes"
C: "Of # YYY Road?"
Me: "Yes"
C: "I live on YYY Road and am part of the residents committee and we've decided you're an unwelcome element"
Me: "ok"
C: "you're not welcome on YYY Road"
Me: "Ok"
C: *hangs up*

I call police. Then compliance, who cheerfully run the tapes and ask for a trace.

Freedom and the Flag

In two weeks the Hubs and I head off on our Regulator mandated holiday. I love the Mandatory Time Away requirement. Without it I would probably not ever take long trips, holidays being as expensive as they are. All those years of being lectured on valuing money and not squandering it did sink in at some level after all. These days, with baldness and a breakdown looming over me, I'm beginning to appreciate having to take some time off.

This year we're heading Stateside. It will be my first time really visiting the US, which surprises most people I know. The plan for 2010 had been South Africa but the proximity of the World Cup and the shameless demand of an invitation to the Bakers' wedding in November meant that was put on hold, and we had to think of something else.

The US has, to me, a diffused sort of culture. So much of the world has insight and mimicry of "American" culture that it's become less interesting and exotic than it perhaps should be. I also get a sense that there isn't really an "American" culture at all, but a more regional division. I would say that what I think of as "Southern", which includes fried Coke, dominoes and Southern Hospitality, is distinct from what I would find in California or New England. That's always been the rationale I've had for that statistic about the number of Americans who don't travel. When coupled with the other statistic about the number of Americans who live below the poverty line, I just figured that many either couldn't afford to, or simply didn't need to. There's plenty to see on American soil. Of course, I'm sure there are plenty of Americans who also have no interest beyond state, national or any other borders, but there are people who feel that way in most places.

I've always wanted to tour the Southern states, but think this may take at least a month, so have put that on the back burner (who does that anyway? I always cook on the back burner). More manageable, I hope, is California. I expect muggings, guns, keg parties, serial killers, fake boobs and hair, tackiness, poverty next to showcasing wealth, trailers, crack, Celebrities, Hummers, vampires, eco Warriors, cameras, stars, gambling, hangovers, Target and dive bars. This is what Hollywood has given us. Maybe California was a bad idea.

Only kidding, it'll be amazing. Bring it!

Fireflies - Owl City

There are a lot of #1 singles I don't understand. Lets review 2010:

Lady Gaga: Bad Romance. Check.

Iyaz: Replay. Neutral. Exceptionally bland and uninteresting.

Owl City: Fireflies. I just don't understand why tracks that are this dull sell enough to get number 1. Number ten, maybe, five at best. The vocals put me straight to sleep and make me moderately suicidal (perhaps not the right day to have heard this for the first time). Then, when I was trying to find the perfect macaroon recipe, I heard this and realised how much better the song was then I'd realised. God bless you Kurt Schneider and Sam Tsui. Your wonderfulness is almost good enough to make me go to iTunes just so I can contribute to the propulsion of your talent up the charts.

For the sake of completeness, I thought I'd better mention Helping Haiti: Everybody Hurts. This is surely the charity single equivalent of James Blunt. I realise it's a sombre event and all, but that is not a song to inspire hope. Even if it is about hope. The Owl City version of Fireflies would have been better. Ugh, now I really am contemplating suicide, James Blunt does that. Time for some heavily refined sugar.

OMG

This is horrible. RIP.

Sliding Doors

There's obviously been a lot of writing about the financial crisis as it's unfolded, and I've managed to resist the urge to post anything too close to it to date. Well, no longer.

It's been a fairly busy year for me, what with the house buying and associated poverty, the new job and the crazy hair loss. It made me think about how different this year could have been.

Could I could have taken redundancy? Then I'd have had a payout, some time off, re-entered a pretty good job market (for what I did) and possibly still have my hair. I'd probably be a little more poverty stricken, but I'd still have a house. I'd have spent some time in it. Instead, I opted for long hours and some seriously bad days, and now, with three months till my bonus (which was not meant to be joy inducing this year), I have this .

There are so many things wrong with that new tax. The threshold is ridiculous. I think it's highly unlikely that only 20,000 people in the UK who work in "banks and building societies, including groups that operate in the UK under a European Union branch system" have a bonus of more than £25,000. It seems feasible that 5,000 earn more than a million but there are a lot of VPs and above in banking, if you include the middle and back offices, who would probably meet the threshold in a semi-decent year. So what if it's the bank that pays? It's the people on the ground who worked. With five months prior to the end of the tax year this is looking at a cost that no bank would have provided for, which means one of a few things:
- a reduction of the bonus pool in 2009;
- a reduction in the pnl for 2010 via an exceptional item, which I suspect may not be permissible under IFRS but can't remember;
- a reduction in dividends, unlikely for the non-UK banks;
- a reduction in retained earnings.

If the government wanted to penalise excess, they should have taxed the genuinely high bonuses. Ultimately a person with a £25,000 bonus was only going to take home about £15,000. If you are the breadwinner in your family with a stay at home spouse (given the cost of childcare they would have to earn about £8,000 gross annually to breakeven, assuming there is only childcare to consider and not "sunk" costs like clothing, feeding, caring and entertaining. The average salary nationwide for full time workers was £31,323 in 2008 with part timers on £26,020. The top ten percent earn £44,881 and the top five percent £58,917. Given that the bonus data would be built into those numbers, I think it could be tougher than it initially looks).

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the need for a progressive tax system, and I realise how lucky I am to be able to live the life I do and have a job I enjoy. I just never understand how there is never any consideration of regional variances and household income in the tax system. I guess it's a good thing all the jobs are moving out of the UK, since it seems increasingly like working here is less rewarding and even less supported. When I wake up at 0530 to kick off my day, I do think to myself that every day I work, I pay enough tax to cover three people on unemployment. I don't find that much of an incentive. Particularly since working much less might entitle me to a range of benefits and assitance (childcare, housing, tax breaks anyone?) if I was a National. The injustice is galling, especially when I think about how few of the people I work with are Nationals and therefore entitled to the benefits their taxes help pay for.

BAH. I think I'm officially old and right wing, I know I sound it.


***

Update: These are probably one of the best reflections of sentiment I've seen.

I'm riding the central line at six pm on a friday. A guy in front of me with a faux anarchist haircut looks nervous. He checks his watch, his phone, his map, his nails, his watch, his phone, his map... He bounces on the balls of his feet. He is carrying a slightly oversized and narrow violin case (an anarchist violinist? Is he warping Vanessa Mae?). There is a sticker on the case. It says "bam".

Suddenly I'm nervous.

Is tonight when the Christmas lights are being turned on by the stars of a Christmas Carol? The celebration of the most obvious street crossing system of all time? Have I wandered into a prime terrorist opportunity?

So Tonight I Can Write...

Not for romance, sadly (though I still think Neruda deserves a shrine), but for reality.

Kami and I went for a drink with the couple who will soon be the Bakers, and on our way home we contemplated normalcy. Something that has always been painful for me is the act of just letting go. The Asian concepts of things like face, tradition and propriety mean that I am often offended even when that may not seem to be the case. To a large extent, I ignore my discomfort and my distaste, explaining differences away to reasons of cultural differences, or (should that fail) my own snobbery. In reality, however, I think these are excuses, and really, it's about linguistics.

Case in point. Random girl says to the Hubs how admirable it is that he tolerates my social schedule. To some this would be interpreted as "concerned female friend expresses concern for her married male acquaintance". To me, the cynic/realist, this reads as "are you envious or just trying to ruin my marriage?". One of these is not the normal perspective... Which though? I think both scenarios are equally likely. Well, ok, I lie. My opinion is skewed.

When I tried to illustrate my point to Kami, I used the example of the perfectly happy couple, much like the Hubs and I, who win the lottery. The Hubs is one of the luckiest people I know, forever winning prizes and landing feet first. Still... we hardly ever buy lottery tickets . If we did win the lottery, would we cash it? Why not? Well, quite simply... if it ain't broke... why tinker with it?

As I explained to Kami, I know too many families ripped apart by good fortune. If you are happy, why would you throw a windfall in the mix? Your life is balanced and well - where would greed take you? Yet, at the same time... would you be happier with more options and more opportunity? I've always said that I work as I do so as to provide opportunity and choice to my children. Should I cash that ticket on that basis? If I did, how would I manage the risk that they turn out like so many of the rich kids , where they choose not to work a day in their lives instead either gambling their easily gotten gains on one scheme after another, or simply trading the family name. How would I respect them?

Sometimes I have to questions whether it's my point of view that's perverted or whether it's just that no one has the same outlook that I do. Is that the same thing?

Housebroken

On Halloween mi casa had it's first ever JamTam party - a Halloween murder mystery. The murder mystery itself was scripted for 14 characters, which was a bit of a dillema since we had around thirty people coming on the night. Everyone lived up to the challenge and there were some brilliant costumes including the Hubs as toxic-green Frankenstein (though if you squinted he could've been a Ninja Turtle), Celia as Carrie and her capital-M in Man as a two headed monster. The Whaley's came as a hot vampire (with a slight lisp) and drunken pirate complete with Captain Morgan's, the pirate outfit was my favourite for the night (two headed monster came close). Mr. Anderson came as a Mummy and was soft to the touch. The Evans' came as a vampire couple in the best I-only-discovered-the-costume-I-was-meant-to-get-two-hours-ago costume imaginable. I'm still not sure how they managed it. Amongst my favourite moments of the evening were my sister's boyfriend being murdered around the corner from where the scene had been cunningly set, which led to a full three minutes of confusion; dunking apple into toffee and then rolling it in nuts (wasted = scalded finger, but it was tasty and therefore worth doing repeatedly); making ridiculous food; the random call-outs by the people playing the game; a visitation by my cousin and her friends; doing shots out of ramekins. It was a good night. Evidenced by the appearance of a pair of gold heels in my kitchen (someone was Cinderella) and scattered articles of clothing through the house.

Most impressively, the thirty of us (including at least four non-drinkers and four people who left early, so really it was about twenty of us) drank
- 15 bottles of wine
- 20 beers
- 2 bottles of Jägermeister *gag*
- 2 bottles vodka
- 1 bottle rum
- 1.5 bottles whisky

My neighbours, who until that day thought we were going to be pillars of the community, took photographs of our recycling. I don't think it's a good sign.

Boo! *Sulk*

Every one of the Small Town Anywhere performances is sold out. Life is lousy sometimes.

Not So Open Minded

I've always been slightly amused by people's reactions to menstruation. To me it's one of those facts of life that people have to deal with, like wet dreams and acne. I don't understand why people are embarassed buying condoms, lube, sanitary napkins, tampons and junkfood. These things exist, are real life and just happen.

Having said that, I cannot deal with the picture in this article on Menstrual Activism (wtf?! There must be bigger issues). I have indulged in the odd lick of a wound or possibly even a dalliance in letting, but this totally turns my stomach. Maybe it's a consistency thing.

More Than Words

Last night I had my first Nuno Mendes meal for a year. Not that Nuno Mendes, this Nuno Mendes. There is a lot that can only be described as being beyond words in most of my experiences of them, but I will attempt to do some justice here.

My first ever experience of his cooking was at Bacchus. Approximately a week after it opened I rang up to book a thirty-five strong group in. I suspect, though this has never been validated, that we were the first large group he'd had there. I was determined to have the tasting menu but realised that there was no chance of getting thirty-five people to join in a meal that was challenging. It's always been strange to me that so many people I meet are conservative about food, by which I mean BNP, Daily Mail conservative. Tar with one brush conservative. "I don't eat fish", "Well done", "Chips with that mash, please" conservative. I appreciate if something is attempted and rejected, because as with nice men, you never know when it could turn out to be interesting. Anyhow, this occasion was no different. I arranged for a seven course paired menu (paired with beer, wine, sake, juice and cocktails) and a three course involving steak and chips. Eleven of thirty five opted tasting. Six of twenty four complained because the steak was pink. I ignored them. It wasn't hard, I'd found a new obsession.

That was three years ago, so I'm unlikely to remember the whole menu. Some things stuck out, like a foamed lemongrass bubble bath that nearly floored me. A marinated mackerel. There was an egg at sixty-four degrees, the first time I'd had it, which I think came with braised eel. There was a lamb dish that was so good that I tried to filch it from Lionel's plate. A chawanmushi. The main thing though was that it was eating the way any Singaporean loves it - all about the best things in life. The great quality, textures, flavours and execution needed for the food to go from good to great. Delicious drinks that complemented the food and suited all palettes. Incredible ambiance considering the complexity of the cooking, the strapline was "fine dining in sneakers". Amicable but unobtrusive service. Best of all, best of all, excellent conversation. I wish I could relive those hours.

Over my next years I lost my appetite for "molecular" cooking. I steadfastly favoured Bacchus. Anthony's didn't impress at all. The commendable l'enclume leaned towards the story telling side of the genre, as the Fat Duck does, and as is the case with both of these, lost a little in the flavour on occasion. Not to mention those stories are costly! Bacchus constantly offered excellent value for money, and so I kept going back to spend it.

Then, without warning, it was gone. Replaced by a "gastropub". I remember feeling like I might cry. Mentally, there was at least a howl of despair. I boxed the betrayal and torment in a cold place in my heart and moved on. I thought the love affair was lost forever. Or at least I did until I bumped into a friend of a friend's from Singapore who informed me that Nuno was going into partnership with someone as close to me as Kevin Bacon and therefore there was a sliver of hope! Investigations commenced. What they yielded was...


(I hope this gives a feel for the venue. It's sexy and cosy, all at once.)

... The Loft. A supper club. A place to go and have a dinner party, albeit it one that could only be prepared by someone with training and a budget. As with Bacchus it was at the other end of the world, but I would travel! Well. Assuming I could go. The Loft had been intended to run for Fridays and Saturdays as tider-overer while he worked on his next big thing (or not so big, since critics love him less than foodies do), but his entire rota filles in a weekend, and when he added Thursdays, those filled in a day! I know he trained at El Bulli but really that is too much! I did the only thing I could think of. I begged. That is how we ended up with a table for sixteen on a Wednesday night.

I don't want to write about every aspect of the meal. This blog isn't a food blog, it's a dull, unfocussed, life blog. I did think I'd share some of my (new) friend Bao and my photos though. Sadly there isn't much to convey the feel. We literally hung out in his home, which was comfortably decked out for loft living, for five hours, eating, drinking, living. There was course after course, with explainations as to how they were made and inter-courses. It was a little heavy on the seafood, though this was unsurprising since it was a Wednesday. Here are some of my favourites:



I have dining table envy.



Cosy with Posy.
Sea bass skin over pickled cucumber and marinated sea bass. Ponzu ice.



Four types of tomato. Mozerella so creamy I thought it was goats cheese. Watermelon soup.




Razor clams and enoki in a mushroom broth.



A poached quails egg in laksa accompanied by chicken skin and daikon.



Tribute to onion. An onion bubble - Nuno later explained this was made by dipping a teaspoon of french onion soup into gelatine. Tapiaco pearls (sago gula melaka!)





A slow cooked piece of steak, with three takes on mushroom. A mushroom caramel. Diced garlic mushroom. Chilli button mushrooms.


Maybe I'm not that tired of the style after all...

Healthcare Homework

I have to admit that I've been largely ignoring the Healthcare reforms being elucidated by Obama and his administration. For most part this is because I've never really thought about healthcare. In Singapore there used to be free healthcare for all. These days I think it's means tested, but only such that a top tier tax payer has to pay a couple of dollars to see a doctor, and a hugely subsidised amount for medication and treatement. There isn't really any waiting lists to consult, and although it's rarely possible to schedule life-altering surgery in a fortnight, most surgeries can be scheduled a month away.

In the UK, things are a little different, with visits to doctors being covered by the NHS, assuming you are able to register with one. Medication is sometimes free (if, for example, it assists with population control), but otherwise subsidised. Consultations with specialists can take weeks to schedule, and private healthcare, as I discovered today, is insanely expensive.

I discovered this today when I shelled out a hundred and one pounds for every ten minutes of my doctor's time. Of which I took three batches. Who would have thought that I'm (a) not as healthy as I've taken for granted all this time, and (b) now having to pay for conversation. I'm lucky enough to hopefully be able to claim this back from my insurers, but imagine if I couldn't! This was just the first of potentially many sessions. If I had stuck with the NHS, I'd be looking at a huge lead time for a consultation on something with symptoms that include exhaustion, hair loss, the odd rash, brittle nails and eventually infertility. Given the obvious symptoms, can you see how I may have not thought anything was up for years? Everything I was aware of was explicable. Partying, crappy hard water, my allergy to prawns, never knowing different and as for that last one, I'm hoping it's not the case but if it was, I wouldn't have tested to see.

I don't know what it's like in the US, but I do remember reading years ago that a huge percentage of the population was living below the poverty line (considering). I know there are a lot of people for whom three hundred dollars in a half hour, or a couple of grand a year in insurance, would be out of reach. What happens then? Do they simply wait till they get treated? I don't even know if people have the option of free healthcare in the free world. Something to investigate...

** UPDATE**

This is what I found out.

FRANCE has #1 healthcare. I guess that fits with their taxes and lifestyle.
Singapore ranks #7
The UK ranks #18
The US ranks #37

I anticipate that this is going to see some flaming...

ER made it look easy

So last night I reluctantly missed Book Club in favour of drinks with my new team. There were about 20 of us at Pearl, which I thought was an odd choice for a team event, since the last time I went there the bill almost made my fingertips bleed. Still, the crunch is allegedly turning, and the cocktails were good, so I was happy to go with the flow. At least until the tide turned against me at around nine o'clock, when suddenly we were told that it was time for the "(COO) dinner", so those who weren't invited for the dinner would have to leave. That's fine, obviously, since I hadn't expected dinner, particularly in light of the cost. What wasn't quite so good was when it transpired that the non-COOs were quite literally every woman (and one gay man) there. It was bizzare. I'm not normally one for the sexism argument, although I do think it exists and that I've experienced it and seen it all through my career. I just happen to also think that it's possible to buck the trends. It's just harder, is all. After that though, I'm not sure.

There are a couple of very good women in my workplace, who deserve to do better than they have done. This obviously doesn't bode well for me long-term. The thing that I thought was strangest was how, in a group of 20, they left 5 people to walk away. Did they not see how badly that reflected? I'm guessing they just can't care.

As an act of rebellion, I took two of my future colleagues for dinner at one of my favourite restaurants, Ciao Bella. Dinner was relatively uneventful, although I do think that Ciao Bella has lost a lot of it's charm now that it's no longer a secret. Still, there aren't many places where you can give the potatoes on your plate to a random stranger sitting next to you. Or where a different table of (American) strangers will share massive slices of home made cake with you. Anyway, when I got to Holborn tube to get home, there was a man passed out by the lifts. His eyes were open but very glazed and he didn't look good. About 5 or 6 people were standing around him and someone had cunningly put him into the recovery position. Sadly, they then chose to leave and I arrived just as one of the spectators was in the act of turning him over. That was pretty much when he turned blue.

There was blood on the ground around his head where I think he'd cracked it on landing. I couldn't see any wounds though, and the girl next to me (who turned out to be a doctor, albeit a paedetrician) agreed that this was not a good sign. Another doctor in the crowd started giving him CPR while the ambulance was on its way, but he stayed blue. She got tired, so the paedetrician took over, then me. It is so much harder than it looks on TV. The ambulance eventually got there and I gave them my card in case they needed a contact but haven't heard anything. I'm not optimistic though. He was blue and cold.

I just remember thinking as I was trying to help that he probably had a family, and what a horrible thing it must be. I also remember noticing that his belly wobbled as we did the compressions and that it seemed undignified, but how could it be helped (in the end I rearranged his scarf). I hope he made it.

I thought bad news came in threes...

Last week
- neighbour died. He was 98 so not really a shock. He'd started a company in Singapore that employed hundreds of people over the years. Decades after his retirement, dozens of people went to his wake.
- friend's husband died. He was in his late thirties and they'd been married for under five years. They have a toddler son. He was standing in waist deep water off a beach in Bali when he was pulled out by an undertow.
- family friend diagnosed with breast cancer and was hospitalised. Her husband lost his job. They have two young children.

This week
- friend from back in the day died in Australia, still not sure how.
- one of my best friends was in an accident and shattered her wrist, is now in emergency surgery.
- Friday night in hospital when the Hubs is randomly wracked with cramps. No one knows quite what it is, but he seems ok now. We felt a little lame trying to induce vomitting next to the dudes with stab wounds and broken bones, though

What is going on in the world?! Is it safe to go outside?

Back to School

This morning was my first day in the Singapore office. I got up, got into the uniform, dealt with any blemishes, and headed downstairs. My mum gives me my allowance and drives me to the office, stopping at a petrol station for me to buy pau and a bottle of water.

I do 17 Again better than Zac Efron. Actually, it's more like 10 again, but the concept works.

Very Superstitious...

... this Wednesday I have what I'm hoping the final meet and greet for one of the potential new jobs. I'm hoping that I'll walk out, with an offer on the table and two contracts to choose between while I'm in Singapore. One of which will hopefully offer a package akin to the size of third world/US debt.

... this Wednesday I'm paying over 10% of the house value and agreeing to exchange, unless something horrific comes up.

... this Wednesday I am wearing a power dress.

... this all feels like it's all going to go horrifically wrong on Wednesday. You can't have too many things at once or something is bound to go wrong.

Midnight Cowboy

I've always had a tendency to live as though there were 28 hours in each day, packing in things to do and people to see (In reality, I just cut back on sleep but that sounds much less fun). I don't think there was a time in my life where this was more true than in the year between my leaving secondary school and leaving for England. Particularly at the point where I didn't yet know that I would be leaving. My friends had either gone on to Junior College or to study in England, the US or the UK, or were sitting around FEP all day. A small number of the older ones had started national service or gotten jobs. I threw my lot in with these, not enlisting, which would probably have involved sweating and getting up early, but signing onto the payroll of a company that was later to be embroiled in scandal. After I'd left, naturally.

The company was essentially a holding company that pandered to the discerning gay eye. There was a magazine, the name of which escapes me, an advertising subsidiary, and a media company. I initially wrote copy for the ad agency before being roped into freelancing on the magazine. A couple of months in though, this all changed and I became a full time devotee of the media company. Why? Simple. It was time for Manhunt International.

My role on Manhunt was officially titled "Media Liaison Executive". What this meant was that I ran everything from scheduling press to managing the boys on the day. One of the first things I had to do was run the pre-press, which involved getting a hot white dude and a hot Asian dude (note the science involved) to look enthusiastic, moody, sultry and serious on camera. Preferably all at once. This was the shoot where I met my Midnight Boyfriend, as my mother likes to term him.

MB was an expat kid of the German variety (tall, big in the shoulders, smelled good - other varieties offered different traits). When we met it'd been years since I'd dated anyone German, and any German I'd once spoken was almost entirely lost to me, but for one very appalling phrase. I was pretty much where I am now, come to think of it. This was incredibly useful since the appeal of MB wasn't his conversation. Whenever there were gaps to fill in our time together, we had to think of other ways to occupy our lips, for the best really since we had pretty much nothing in common and no genuine interest in establishing common ground.

The one key thing we did have in common though, was that we were busy people. He had his girlfriend, I had my boyfriend and the FEP crowd. Quite how we ended up hooking up is totally unknown to me now, since he knew it would be a problem for him more than I should we be discovered, this was a point where expat kids were growing less welcome around FEP, and there were a lot of safer bets out there. Some would probably even have put out, which I refused to at the time, for reasons that I never understood.

In any case, at some point on this photo shoot one of us "forgot" something and as a result we had to meet a couple of days later for this to be returned. I'm not sure why but almost all our meetings took place in his car. Possibly down to the tensions I mentioned - the first time we met up I got in and he gave me a ride home, the next day the word was out and I took a lot of hassle. I suppose he did too because he never picked me up out front at FEP again, only slightly further afield. What were the chances of this going anywhere, seriously - every meeting was in 3 to 5 cubic metre space. It must have been like being in the diary room of the big brother house, but with handbrakes and less comfy seats. There was one time I allowed him into the house and, if anything, that was the beginning of the end. Suddenly he needed to know why I enjoyed spending time with him, when I'd always thought that was communicated whenever our lips were moving.

Anyhow, this was my staycation romance. It must have lasted about the length of a summer holiday, though there was never any sunshine. This weekend, a decade later, we became friends on Facebook and he sent me an email, probably the longest exchange between us. Both of us seemed slightly stunned that the other wasn't a total deadbeat - MB is now MD of the Vietnamese subsidiary for a German company following a degree at Cambridge (I hadn't even thought he could speak much English) and an MBA at one of the better European schools. If I'd realised he was potentially smart, maybe we would have spoken!

All of this leads me to wonder, am I actually more shallow now than I was at 18?

Radio Silence Explained

Haven't had a chance to post much recently, there has been a great deal of upheaval in our world.

Hubs turned 30. Since he is equivalent to the Queen, his birthday was equivalent to a public holiday and celebrated over five days. On Wednesday we had a quiet dinner for two at Gaucho, on Friday it was the Half Blood Prince at the Electric, that had an unfortunate side-effect of creating an obsession with Freddi Stroma (me, not the Hubs. He was too busy loving Emma Watson). Saturday was the main event, which sadly involved a lot of running around in the day time. We sent off the exams we'd been marking and then had to go to the best ice cream place in London to buy his cake.




We got home twenty minutes after my girl Dr K was meant to arrive, and got out of the shower just in time. The party kicked off with A-Dub and her man, Dr K and hers, all of us celebrating birthdays and anniversaries. Suffice to say that we were full of tequila and champagne by the time the taxi arrived to take us for dinner at the Big Easy. Can I just say that I love, love, love this place? You have to like anywhere that girls in 5 inch heels and cocktail dresses can tear into chicken and ribs with their fingers, nothing but a bib to protect the sanctity of their dresses. The food is great and offers exceptional value. There's a live band and good margeritas, and no one leaves without full bellies and a smile on their face.

After dinner we headed over to Kensington Roof Gardens, where we'd booked a marquee in the Spanish Gardens. Turns out there were two parties that night, ours and Hayden Pannatiere's, so I guess we keep good company. It took till one pm the next day to get into the position of uprightness and reasonable togetherness such that the Hubs and I were able to get into the car and to Tunbridge Wells, for an overnight break at The Royal Spa Hotel. It was a lovely stay, the area is beautiful and the Hotel offers great value for money. For £250 we stayed in a suite and enjoyed 90 minute treatments each. There was also dinner and breakfast in the rate.

For day 5 we checked out and headed to Tenterden to visit Chapel Down, one of my favourite English wine makers. Sadly, by the time we got there, the concept of anything that wasn't solely composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen was downright repulsive. I've never used a spitoon before. In fact, I normally contemplate drinking from them. This time though, both of us couldn't comprehend the concept of swallowing (ha!) and were shamefaced and pouring away some genuinely great wines.

As I write this I am watching the end of Batman Begins, and the start of the Hubs' new decade. There's something incredible in the idea that we will be doing all of this one together.

FYI the Freddi Stroma thing is wrong. So wrong. White man overbite, general embarassment, etc. But, man, he's pretty.

All About the Benjamins

I just heard that Jet Li bought the house a friend of mine grew up in. This same house is where David Beckham misbehaved.

Talk about the walls having secrets...

Revitalised

The ladies with the hotness are starting a new trend and I thought I'd jump up on that bandwagon by kicking this 2002 blog back into life... suffice to say...

I have nothing to say.

Most of the characters I can see from the 2002 posts are still a part of my life. Breeze and I don't see each other enough. Neither do Ineffable and I, who now live continents apart. Guy is the exception and shall now be termed "Missing Guy", who I haven't seen or heard from since 2003 when we broke up by the banks of the Thames. Breeze told me once he married Chang, which is actually laughable in the context of the names I christened them in the blog and the lifestyle we led. I'm no longer a student of any schools, but am literally now playing lead role in a drama with the working title of "At Desk From Seven: Generation X goes Y".

These days there are still a lot of girlfriends - boys are a little off-limits now that I am an official Honest Woman. Still, who has time for hot panting boys when there's so much fun to have with the girls? Until a month ago I didn't think it was normal for girls to dance around in their underwear to 80s rock tunes before midnight. How much did I miss in my youth?! Who needs Chang and Guy(s)... there were friends to be had!

Still, 2009 seems to be all about reforming and reliving. So far this year I've watched 90210, screamed my undying love to Joey McIntrye, attempted the Hoedown Throwdown (surely the modern day equivalent of Dirty Dancing now that chastity is cool), been to my High School Reunion (in a non-musical context) ... who knows what the rest of the year will bring? One thing's for sure though, you'll be the first to know.