Ahem.


Hello, all.


 


Yes, I know. It's been a while, hasn't it? For those of you who have been wondering whether I am still, you know, alive, let this post set your minds at ease. I am in full working order, apart from my lungs which seem to have decided that asthma is the way to go in 2006. Fortunately, my new brown inhaler co-ordinates perfectly with my freshly-purchased suede skirt, thereby achieving a wheezy-yet-fashionable look that I predict everyone will be striving for in 2K6. You heard it here first, kids.


So, to re-cap the last seven (can it really be seven?) months...


Trilby and I are still very much together. It's almost embarrassing how much I love him. He keeps pointing out that not everybody finds him as adorable as I do (generally when I've made a spectacle of myself by cooing over how cute his ickle-wickle toes are, while everyone in earshot retches onto their shoes). And Clerkenwell Towers is still one big skive. As demonstrated by the fact that I once spent the best part of a day doing this Julian Opie style picture of Trilby looking moody (hat not shown):



Time well spent, I'm sure you'll agree.


The acting... well, that's not going so great. The Shakespeare tour was something of a nightmare (and is deserving of a separate post, such was the scale of the ineptitude on display), the farce was just a bit disappointing and since then it's only been little bits and bobs of experimental theatre and short films. Not the meteoric rise to fame I'd hoped for, really. Still, who can tell what 2006 will bring?


Happy New Year. I'm back.
5.1.06 11:22


Bad Ideas Of Our Time #20

Giving up caffeine.


Especially giving up caffeine immediately after having spent Christmas at home, where the parents are in the habit of making a cup of tea or coffee roughly every 8 minutes.


 


Oh yeah, I know it'll seem like a great idea in a couple of days' time when I feel all spry and awake first thing in the morning, and when people comment on how bright-eyed I'm looking.


People:  My, my, you're looking bright-eyed. Look how bright her eyes are.


More people:  Yes, indeed, they are very bright.


YAAGs:  Why, thank you. I've given up caffeine, you know.


 


But now, right now, I would like the person who stuffed my head with wire wool to come and remove it ASAFP. And the little imps with jackhammers can bugger off as well. Thank you.
5.1.06 11:35


Portrait of a relationship

 


Night. YAAGers and Trilby are lying in bed.


Scritch, scritch, scritch.


YAAGers:  Got an itchy back, darling?


Trilby:  Yeah. Can you look and see if there's something there.


I flicked the light on and looked. I saw what appeared to be a blackhead, just above the small of Trilby's back, of above-average size and slightly inflamed from the scratching. So I did what any girlfriend worth her salt would do. I squeezed it, hard.


 


(Sensitive readers may wish to look away now).


 


Slowly, a huge plug of hardened sebum poked out of my beloved's back. It was about 1cm long and resembled a skinny maggot. It was the most wonderfully gross thing I have seen in a good while.


YAAGers: Oh. My. God. I've hit the motherlode. You've got to see this. Oh dear Christ, there's more.


More prodding produced about another half a centimetre of gunk.


Trilby:  Give it to me.


He placed all the crud end-to-end and held it in his palm, and we both looked at it in childlike wonder.


YAAGers:  That was so brilliant. I can't believe that was in your back. That's fantastic. I hope the pore refills so I can do that again.


 


And people say that romance is dead.
6.1.06 13:58


Deal! Deal! Deal, for chrissakes!

Rather tragically, I have become hooked to the new Noel Edmonds** quiz show, Deal or No Deal. The Flatmate is entirely to blame for this, as she introduced me to the show in the tail end of 2005 - I had a week off work, she works evenings, so it was inevitable that we would end up side-by-side on the couch, screaming "DEAL!" at the telly while the cats looked on disdainfully.


Such is my addiction to this frankly ludicrous show (wherein Edmonds sternly exhorts the contestants to "keep it low", as if they have any influence on what is inside their box) that I now put it on the TV in reception here at Clerkenwell Towers, so I can shout "NO DEAL, you moron!" in between fielding calls. I have actually spent time wondering what The Banker looks like (in my head, he's a cross between Cary Grant and Michael Douglas in Wall Street).


So I think you'll agree that finding a link to this game on the Channel 4 website could be potentially disastrous. If I've lost my job by next month, you'll all know why.


 


 


** Of course, as it is a Noel Edmonds show, it is only a matter of time before a contestant dies. And I will be watching when they do, oh yes.
10.1.06 15:55


Bleurgh

What in the name of the sweet Virgin Mary am I doing in work? I feel sick to my stomach, my nose is running, I'm shivering and my forehead is burning. And the Lighthouse Family are playing on the TV behind my head. It is all bad.


 


What am I doing out of bed? Am I an idiot? A masochist? A workaholic?


 


No. I am patently none of the above. Thus, I am going to get a temp and then go home.
12.1.06 10:05


Sunny memory

I'm feeling a bit miserable today, for one reason or another, so I decided to have a look through my photos from the summer to cheer myself up. In doing so I came across this picture:



It was one of our rare days off during the "Twelfth Night" tour, and we were back in London on one of the hottest days of the year. It was a weekday, and while all the poor wage-slaves were sweating away in their offices, we merry bunch of actors donned our sandals and went for a swim in Hampstead Ponds. We went the long way round, via Parliament Hill, and paused at the top to see London shimmering in the heat. Then we dived into the cool brown waters of the ponds and splashed around while fish swam between our legs. Afterwards, we had a picnic and read the papers while the sun dried us off. Then we swam again.


It was such a wonderful day, one of those rare moments when you feel absolutely happy. I would give anything to be back there right now.
17.1.06 11:40


Sniffle

So here I am, nose running, eyes streaming, sounding like Mariella Frostrup after a night on the tiles. Another Thursday where I feel like a reanimated corpse. What is it with Thursdays? Maybe I'm allergic to Thor.


Gallingly, I'm only in work because my replacement credit card was being delivered today. I had my wallet stolen from my desk on 5th December, and it's taken this long to get me a new card, so I wasn't willing to risk missing it. So it's the Halifax's fault that I am teetering on the verge of brain death. Feel free to firebomb your local branch of Halifax in retaliation.


I figured I'd be able to last the day if I could just get a quick bit of shuteye (as I woke up at 4 o'clock this morning with an attack of the sneezes, and couldn't get back to sleep). So I sneaked away during my lunch break and curled up on the sofa in the pool room (God bless media companies). I was just nodding off into sweet, healing slumber when the bastard fire alarm went off. And since I'm the chief fire marshal here at Clerkenwell Towers, I had to heave my aching bones up, don a lurid yellow waistcoat (which nicely emphasized my deathly pallor) and usher the complaining staff out into the cold.


It's just not my day.


However, I am trying to distract myself by thinking of the names I would give my children, were I to ever spawn. Current thinking is Hal or Kit for a boy, and Hetty or Grace for a girl.


(I think all the Actifed is doing strange things to my head. Either that, or over-zealous nose blowing has burst some of my brain cells).
19.1.06 16:00


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