Cluck cluck

Crikey. All I can say is that I very much hope that my marriage lasts, because I don't think I'm physically capable of getting through another hen party. Of course, this entirely my own fault for deciding that the way forward was a no-holds-barred weekend of decadence in Eastern Europe, and so I'm not going to moan on, not least because it was one of the best weekends of my entire life.

I am far too tired to go through the ins and outs of the weekend now (owing to the whole month off work lark coming up in three weeks I am rather short on leave and had to go to work today), but I had to post this photo which was taken at 4am on Sunday morning. This charming fellow is advertised as being called 'Roger More' (ho ho!) but we all agreed he was rather more Magnum PI.

Ah, how classy we were.

I should be less likely to fall asleep on my keyboard tomorrow, and so I'll update with more "hilarious" tales then.

Quote of the weekend: "Are beef curtains like beef jerky?"

Can't...stop...laughing....

HAAA! The cricket is too depressing for words, so I thought I'd try out this crazy face recognition software that tells you which celebrities you most look like.

Before I crack on with the results, I think readers should bear in mind that I am a white woman in my mid-to-late 20s.

I fear that said software is fucked. This is who I apparently who I bear the biggest resemblance to in the celebrity universe: Wayne Brady. Who he?

Far from being annoyed, I am rather pleased. It certainly beats being told I look like Anne Diamond - a situation which actually occurred during my lardy university days.

Who else do I look like, then? I hope the next one in line is at least female.

Oh, not my day then. I'vd just tried for ten minutes to insert a picture of said person, and Blogger won't let me. Bah. However, it is probably best. Said person is actually Kyle Maclachlan.

Kyle. Maclachlan. Of Sex & The City, "John Thomas", floppy cock fame. Shut up, face recognition software. I've just texted The Fiance (currently en route to Slovenia for his stag do - fitting in with his request of somewhere that has, in his words: "slack guns laws and loose women". Nice) asking him what on earth he sees in me considering his stance as a heterosexual male. He has sent something rather soppy back which I won't repeat here; but despite this boost I fear any confidence I might have had re: not looking like a man in my mid forties may have been shattered forever.

So, what women do I look like (if any)? Probably Hattie Jaques, judging by the way this experiment has gone so far.

Christina Applegate! Rock on! OK, last time I saw her she was in that terrible girls-version-of -Road-Trip movie with Cameron Diaz and Selma Blair; but Don't Tell Mom is one of my favourite films ever. I am feeling somewhat more cheerful.

Gah - Meg Ryan. How the hell can I look like both the Ryan and Kyle Maclachlan? I am mystified; and think I'm going to quit this stupid game for fear of developing severe psychological issues. Also: Freddie's just got a wicket and I wouldn't mind keeping a beady eye on this cricket until lunch. Au revoir till Monday. Keep those fingers crossed for the boys in Brisbane.

Let's hear it for the boys

A short one tonight. I've got to get off the internet to get some work done before I head off on my hen do in Budapest at 7am on Friday; and am going to be doing said work in front of the cricket till about 4am this morning.

All I can say is: good luck fellas. I'm thinking of you every step of the way. Let's retain this:



Last year was phenomenal. OK, we're without Vaughn and Trescothick. Bell and Giles are only just back post-injury. Freddie's got to take the utmost care not to overdo it on the first day at Brisbane. Harmy, judging by that first over I just watched, needs to get comfortable before he starts causing any trouble to the Aussies. Still, I reckon we can do it. Have faith, fellas. I'll be passing out on my sofa at stupid hours of the morning till I get to Sydney to see you in action. Please keep it going till the Fifth Test. I'll love you all even more if you do.

I'll be back on Monday after a worrying weekend spent in Budapest, hopefully not wearing a fake veil or being molested by a Timmy Cappello-alike stripper. I shall try and post some comedic photos from said event on here next week. Until then, fingers crossed for Freddie and the lads; and I'll try not to die of alcohol poisoning over the weekend. Not that I'm going to have a choice, by the sounds of it.

Still crap

Gah. I am officially one of the most rubbish bloggers of all time. When I started this I planned to try and write something at least every other day, and have blatantly failed to keep to that. I apologise sincerely. I can't even blame it on the broadband, as that seems to have sorted itself out at long bloody last. All it is is that I am stupendously busy and by the time I've done everything I need to do I haven't got the mental capabilities to try and write something comedic or, for the matter, interesting. However, I'm well overdue an update and so will try and give you a round up of recent events without sending you to sleep. This entry may well be somewhat disjointed though, as I am writing it while watching this crazy Derek Acorah programme on Living TV. He appears to be possessed and thinks he's being beheaded, and it is nothing short of hysterical.

In short, sorry I've been so crap; and sorry that I've been rubbish at commenting on others' blogs. Normal service will hopefully be resumed shortly. Mind you, I've heard that's what TfL said about the Victoria Line this morning, so I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Thanks very much to Dave, by the way, for linking me in his Sunday Service entry. I always feel rather bad when I go on Dave's blog, as it makes me realise how many blogs in this country are enormously interesting, passionate and well informed; whereas in mine I just bang on about meatballs and television. Still, as my workplace constantly reminds me, we must 'value diversity', so sod it. Tomorrow: an in-depth analysis of The Sooty Show!

So, what have I been doing? Find out all the facts here!

1. "Jocular: a Scottish vampire"

I was unbelievably lucky to get tickets to the recording of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue on Sunday night at the Victoria Theatre. It was fantastic - Rob Brydon took the place of the late, great Willie Rushton and was more than a match for the others. We also got to see Tim Brooke-Taylor's marvellous use of the swanee whistle. I cannot tell you how much I want a swanee whistle now, to annoy my workmates with. However, Humph was in a bit of a state. He had a rather nasty cough which at his age probably isn't something to take lightly. Poor Humph. He's one of the sharpest fellows in entertainment, and the day he has to give up ISIHAC will be a sad one.

2. "Gah! We don't need a milk pan!"

Tremendous fun and games between the Fiance and I this week, as we have been doing our wedding list. We didn't actually want one, what with it being quite a lot to ask for people to haul ass out to Australia for Christmas and New Year; but a large faction of family and friends who can't make it out have been badgering us about what we want for presents, and have been making ominous noises about choosing their own gift for us. There are only so many carriage clocks I can cope with, so we decided to bite the bullet and have a list. However, it is much more difficult than we thought it would be. Can one really ask for a set of pudding moulds and be taken seriously? Is asking for a Roomba just outing myself as someone who hates the manual activity of pushing the bloody Dyson round and so instead gets a battery operated beetle to do it for them? Do we actually need any more cushions? Oh well, nobody has to actually buy any of it.

3. "Now, don't lose any more weight."

Ha! Bwahaha! Was my reaction to this statement by the lovely lady in my wedding dress shop. Nobody has ever said this to me. Ever. However, recent stresses have conspired to make me lose a sackload of weight in about six weeks, and if you don't mind I'm going to be jolly pleased about it. Less pleasing is the fact that said dress is now hanging off me, and the fitting's going to cost a fortune. However, I shan't be smug for that long. Two and a half weeks in Australia drinking beer and eating Aussie pies at the cricket, and then a week in Thailand smugging it up on honeymoon will take its toll, I'm sure. By the time we get to the celebration party back in Essex (spiritual home of the Fiance) I imagine I will have regressed back to the days of looking like Britney Spears in pro K-Fed and Cheetos times; and everyone will think the wedding photos have been airbrushed. Hee.

4. I'm so lame

Today I placed my first Amazon order ever. How behind the times am I? To be honest, there is nothing more pleasing to me than spending three hours on a Saturday afternoon sniffing around Waterstones or Borders, picking up various books, putting them down again, picking up some that you will never read, seeing sense and leaving with only a copy of Q and a set of 24 Top Trumps. However, current busyness means I don't really have time for such capery at the moment, so I decided to "get with the program", as my old head of department used to say, and buy my books online. Mmm, expenditure.

5. "Dear DHL. I hate you."

So, my wedding shoes arrived. Yay! Or, more accurately, not. They were delivered to my flat on Thursday afternoon, when strangely enough I was at work. This is all well and good, though, because I can get them delivered to said work. Oh, no, sorry. I cannot, because DHL is based near sodding Edmonton and I have to go and pick them up myself. Bah! I did this today, and it was a pain in the arse. Not only because I had to blag off work an hour early (my manager was lovely about it, and so props to her) but because this bloody depot was a great big long, depressing walk from the local train station and it was raining and the map was completely useless and I didn't have a bag to put the enormous shoe box in and the whole place was awash in scary looking men who I didn't want to ask for directions in case they tried to mug me and...gah. Hateful. Combine this with a jolly bus strike and it makes for a damn cross Miss Hacksaw with crap hair requesting an actual hacksaw, Jack Bauer style, just to end it all.

Am I wrong to still be finding William Fichtner the hottest actor in Prison Break?

6. "Darling, I need to look fabulous."

Aside from the relative doom and gloom of above, I get to go shopping on Thursday. Hooray! Basically, Ma and Pa Hacksaw are hosting a pre-Xmas piss up at the beginning of December; as they're going to be in Sydney for actual Christmas and so they have to get all that boozing and inappropriate flirting with the neighbours out of the way early doors.

Most of these friends and neighbours last saw me properly when I was at university and looked not unlike the Pilsbury Dough Boy. Hah. So, in order to take full advantage of the current lack of lard marring one's waistline, I've decided to go balls-out shopping and buy a completely new outfit that will make me look halfway decent. How very vain of me! Mind you, as a thank you to K for coming along with me and heaving me into corsets and whatnot I am taking her to Ping Pong afterwards, where I always have a tendency to overdo things; so chances are I'll be busting out of my outfit like Tom Kitten anyway by the time the do comes around. Marvellous!

Told you: Boring Entry Of Champions. Once again, I heartily apologise. I'll be back with some more normal posts at the weekend hopefully.

Ooh, one more thing. I've got rather into baking lately, and have decided to dedicate every Thursday night to baking treats for my office to have on the Friday. I've decided to throw the question of what to bake this Thursday out to you lot. Any ideas?

Now then, now then

"Dear Jim'll,

Please can you fix it for me to have a Dalmation. My favourite book is 101 Dalmations by Dodie Smith, and I really want a Dalmation. Mum says I can't so I'm writing to you.

Thank you

Miss Hacksaw aged seven from Surrey."

So I wrote twenty years ago. I like the way I presumed that even though Mum had in no uncertain terms told me there would be no furry friend joining the household; if Jim wanted me to have a Dalmation then I'd damn well get one. Strangely, this letter went unanswered - as did my brother's : "Dear Jim'll please can I meet the Ghostbusters Egon is my favourite thanks". I fear Mum may have sabotaged our dog/ghostbusting dreams via some cunning lies regarding whether or not these letters were actually posted.

Anyway, break out the champagne and ring those church bells, for it is true: Jim'll Fix It is coming back on TV. Excellent! I was somewhat concerned that it is still going to be hosted by Jim'll Savile himself though. Seriously, how old is this dude now? My dad sat in the same carriage as him on a train years ago and said he was covertly brushing up on CPR techniques in case Jim'll keeled over.

I am pleased that Jim'll Fix It: The New Class will be not only featuring new fix-its, but also harking back to the proper old-skool glory dayz of Jim'll. I know we'll all have to sit through the damn cub scouts again; but I've been researching old fix its and would kill to watch some of them. For example, from TV Cream:

"A child wrote in requesting, 'Can I please polish a python,' so with the aid of some 'python polish', (concocted by the Fix It team) a cloth and a duster, the child polished a python in the studios."

What the hell? And I thought I was a weird kid. I can just imagine it: "Now then now then! Have you polished yer python?" (muffled sniggers from adults in audience).

"Yes Jim'll."

"Excellent. Let's have a look then. Oooh, you have got a nice shine on him. Here's yer very special Jim Fixed It For Me medal."

"Get the cigar out of my face, Jim'll."

"Right you are then lad."

I can't wait to see what sort of bizarre requests today's kids come out with. "Dear Jim'll, please can you fix it for me for Hackney Council to withdraw my ASBO." "Dear Jim'll, please can you fix it for me to design a ringtone guaranteed to send everyone who hears it completely batshit crazy and go rampaging down Upper Street with an axe."

I'm thinking about writing in myself, but in the event of my dream being 'fixed', I am unsure that the results of the letter that starts "Dear Jim'll, please can you you fix it for me to have lots of hot sex with Kiefer Sutherland" would be suitable for family viewing.

What would you like to have fixed? Best suggestion gets a homemade Jim'll badge from me. My brother has kindly started off proceedings by asking Jim'll to fix it for him to gob in Amy Winehouse's face. He's moved on a bit from Ghostbusting, then.

I heart my broadband provider. Oh sorry, I mean hate.

Heh. So, it seems I am useless at pub quizzes. Last week’s efforts were something of a wash-out after it because apparent that it was a Hallowe’en themed quiz, and we know bugger all about Hallowe’en. The Fiance redeemed himself with a couple of music questions that to be honest even I would have gotten had I not been in the loo or at the bar for both of them (“Which medieval torture instrument is also the name of a heavy metal group?”); and K saved us from complete annihilation thanks to some knowledge gleaned from seasons one to six of Buffy, but on the whole we were completely rubbish.

Yet, in testimony to my comment below, we still won a prize – in the shape of four cans of Castlemain XXXX. I didn’t even know they still made that. Anyway, our two cans are chilling in the fridge, where they will stay until we either move house or K and I have one of those nights where we consume all the alcohol in the house and resort to desperate measures to get more (limoncello was the tipple of death last time. Skanks.)

I was enormously entertained by the group of people quizzing next to us. It was a group of blokes who gave off an air of smugness usually found in those who have been on University Challenge; and one girl who was very much all about the boobs, and seemed to have a rather bad case of PMS on her hands (“Fine. Don’t listen to me then. No, Dan, don’t even bother. I know I’m right. Just ‘cause you’re all blokes and I’m the only girl…” etc.). Anyway, contrary to their smugness, they only came one above us and stupidly sent the girl up to the bar to get their prize – confident, no doubt, of soon being in the possession of a can of non premium lager each. Ha. She came back with a massive bar of Dairy Milk. The boys all looked like their dogs had died. One of them even said, “That’s the last time we bring her, mate” to the bloke next to him.

Anyway, many apologies for the lack of blogging. The broadband has gone crazy and every time I try and post the net goes down. Bah! After many strange and not wonderful conversations with various buffoons based in Christ knows where, it seems to be on the road to recovery, so I should be around a bit more than I have been.

Not that much though, as all this wedding stuff has suddenly kicked off big style, and for the first time in 14 months I’m starting to panic.

For starters, when we were down at the Australian Embassy the other week I noticed that my passport runs out in April 2007. This is something of a bonus, as my current passport photo makes me look like a Romanian boy. Seriously. I was 17, yet for some reason I have this haircut from hell, and this really sallow skin that I totally do not have apart from in passport photos. For the record, I am also sporting a No Fear T-shirt and massive hoop earrings. Anyway, while the chance to get a new passport and getting to have a Post Office (Post Office? Royal Mail? Consignia? I have no idea any more) official snigger at whatever vile new photo I get taken is a jolly one, I was rather hoping to do this in April next year, when I’ll have a new name and everything. Not the case. To go to Australia and Thailand, one must have at least six months left on it from the time you depart said country. Which means I now have to have literally weeks of fun desperately trying to get a new passport in time. And yes, I know they say it’ll take two weeks. But if I get the bloody thing in two weeks, I’ll be amazed.

The main pisser is that it costs £66! I don’t have a spare £66 lying around for sensible things, for God’s sake! Well, I would if I stopped smoking and stopped going for crafty pints in Mabel’s most nights after work. And stopped buying shoes. Besides, all my spare cash is going towards actually having some beans to spend on this holiday of a lifetime.

In short: Bite me, Passport Office.

The current high alert of panic has not been helped by a dream I had the other night in which the entire flight was a complete disaster. I am not a good flyer. I am one of those people that others laugh at because on take off I am gripping the armrests to death (yeah, like that will help if we crash hideously to the ground) and every time we hit a bit of turbulence I get this look on my face like someone’s just surprised me with a cucumber up the arse.

In this dream, I forgot my new passport. Then I realised I had forgotten to bring a single thing to read; my laptop; and my MP3 player. Then we got on the flight and there was a five year old kicking the back of my seat from the minute we sat down. Then the alleged in-flight ‘entertainment’ broke. Then the Fiance started snoring. Then I cried for 20 solid hours and was threatened with a lifetime in a bouncy room wearing a straitjacket by some terrible air hostess who had orange make up that cracked when she frowned at me. Then I got to Sydney and the baggage handlers had lost my wedding dress. Then I woke up in a cold sweat and asked the Fiance if we could just get married married in the town hall with me wearing a beige twinset, and have our wedding meal in the local chippy, .
In short: help.

I am consoling myself by hoping that the fact I am going to roll up to check–in with a great big wedding dress might get us bumped up to first class. Yeah right, as if this is going to happen. Still, I can dream, because look how much fun first class with Thai Air is!

Is that a chateaubriand she's carving up there? I love it! Also, check out how blatantly both the passengers are checking out the air hostess's arse.

As I say though, I fear I am destined to spend 20 hours stuck in Pauper Class with my knees up around my ears, and not for reasons that one might enjoy. If anyone has any tips on how to survive a long flight from hell once the laptop's packed up and their beloved has started snoring then I would be most grateful.