Cannonball

Keep getting Damien Rice's Cannonball going through my head, and it even makes me hum and sing out loud sometimes. But it's a beautiful song, so I don't mind too much. Better than all the crap I've had in my head recently - I always seem to get stuck with 80's/90's novelty songs like startrekking or They Might Be Giants songs.

Graham seems a little chirpier now, hopefully he has started to get himself out of the rut. Trouble is, I get really down if he's down because I feel so useless. We're going into town tonight to play pool and listen to live jazz at one of our new favourite pubs -Horts. Has a nice ambience there and hopefully we should have a chilled out and happy night and Graham can drink his Waggledance.

I'm quite tired today - have been going to bed late recently and it's finally catching up on me. Just as I was being a wise-arse and telling Graham that I feel more alive if I don't sleep my 8 hours a night.

Ralf Schumacher has got two fractured vertabrae so will probably be out for 3 months now - the rest of the season. There is great speculation on who will take his place. I want Gene to have a go, as he's been test driving for Williams for yonks, and he did a good job in the one race he drove last year when Ralf was out with an injury - he came 5th. But if Ralf is out long term then they might get someone else in to do the job - probably the person who is going to take his job when he moves to Toyota next year.

I'm cold. It's gonna pour down soon. I'm hoping for some thunderstorms myself!

Woo hoo, woo hoo hoo

And I haven't written this blog for a week why?
Because I've been lazy and also haven't had much going on.

England won against Croatia in their best display of football for years, but then lost to Portugal in the quarter-final because they played like schoolkids. The ref was a nightmare official, but the England lads only have themselves to blame at the end of the day. Beckham needs to sort his head out by the time the next big tournament comes around. Now I'm gunning for Czech Republic or Holland to win, as I get a meal out paid for by Graham if they do - courtesy of a little bet we made at the beginning of the tournament.

Tim Henman is playing good tennis - could this be his year? Depends on the quality of play of the other top seeds. He'll be lucky if he can get past Roddick and Federer. I've turned into a bit of a tennis nut myself since the weekend as Graham bought Top Spin for the Xbox and I've been playing on it loads. I've won all the pro-am tournaments and got up to the heady heights of world no. 9 before losing out in the semi-final of my first major tournament and slipping down to no.13.

Had a pretty boring weekend. Went shopping on Saturday and got really wet. Bought a shirt and jeans and the Evanescence CD which has one beautiful track on it - My Immortal. Finally got around to watching Magnolia which was overlong but generally a good film. Graham thought it was pants, but then he is the biggest film grumper around. In fact there isn't much at all that will please him at the moment as he is on a real downer, just disatisfied with everything. He's turning into me far too quickly, I need to stop him quickly!

Went out for lunch with mum and dad on Sunday as they were housesitting in Olveston but was all distracted because Graham got called out just as we left the flat. He managed to eat something before getting the phonecall to say that it was critical enough for him to have to go in - meaning a drive to completely the other side of Bristol to where we were.

I had to go to the docs for some tests yesterday - they ended up taking FIVE vials of blood from me, the vampires. I don't expect anything nasty to come up, but the doc wants to rule out all possibilities before referring me to a specialist. I got into work at 10.45 only to find that Sue had phoned in sick so poor old Julian was on his own all morning, so it was just as well he didn't have meetings to go to.

Life is about to get more hectic this month. This week is pool and jazz on wednesday, curry and beer with Graham's work on friday, Jon's (grumpy pants as it's his 30th) birthday meal on saturday. Next week is my work do on Friday, a visit to Rolls Royce for an open day on Saturday. The week after is a steam train dinner up in Loughborough on Saturday, prob Hereford to see Graham's mum on Sunday. Then there's a weekend free to rest, and the last week in July we're off up north to visit Ade and Sheila for the weekend. Hopefully all that will get Graham's spirits up, if it doesn't wear him out...

I wanna go home

and I have done since I got to work this morning. Probably before that actually.
Last night I didn't sleep very well cos I kept dozing off and having these really vivid hallucination type "dreams" and waking up with a start. On more than one occasion I spoke or laughed and woke myself up. After one of these episodes Graham was going to comfort me because he thought I'd had a nightmare, but I'd just woken up laughing because Graham was wearing some silly clothes in my dream and was acting a goon.

I was naughty on Friday night and went out on the piss, with not much money. Now I am more broke than ever. I only have £20 in my current account until Friday. But it was a fun night out. We started out as usual in Wetherspoons for cheap drink (and their 2 meals for £5.75 offer) and football, then we went down to the Bristol Ram which used to be our favourite pub Le Chateux. It's still pretty similar but now brown and cream instead of yellow. Then we went to The Hatchet to see some goths and punks, then on into town to the Old Duke to catch some trad jazz. After that had finished we walked aimlessly towards the old part of town, and accidentally went into a gay bar down there, which to Graham's horror was also a (bad) karaoke night. Unfortunately we had got the drinks in before we realised so we had to stick with it. I laughed and evilly left Graham to his own devices for about 10 minutes whilst I went to the loo. When I came back he seemed desperate to snog me to prove his straightness to all those in the room, not that anyone had taken the blindest bit of notice of him - that was funny.

We ended up in the Tantric Jazz Cafe very late so got in free. We didn't stay very long because the bottle of house wine we'd bought was disgusting (and pricey too) and we'd had enough anyway. As proved when Saturday saw us lying in bed most of the day trying to catch up on our sleep and hydration.

Had a nice day for Father's day with dad, mum and Neil. The meal wasn't as good as expected but it didn't matter too much. Caught some jazz and sun at the Old Duke, went to Horts but missed their jazz session and then took them all for a little tour of historic Bristol.

US Grand Prix was a weird one. Only 8 finishers. Minardi got a point, Sato got his first podium and we thought Ralf Schumacher was gone for a while there after his crash - he didn't move for a good 3 minutes. He's apparently not too badly injured though - lots of bruising and concussion but nothing serious.

Croatia v England footie tonight. It's going to be a nail biter, as England need to draw or win to get through to the quarter-finals.

Wimbledon started today. Just when the weather is getting crap - typical!

Fantastic viewing!

Last night's TV was brilliant - England beating the Swiss 3-0 followed by France nearly losing to Croatia followed by the biggest brawl in entertainment television ever. Big Brother was hilarious, everyone was laying into each other and security had to go in and separate them all, locking Emma up in the bedsit in solitary confinement. I don't like any of them in there, so the more fighting the better in my opinion.

The weekend has come around quick this week and you won't see me complaining. Though I am being a sad muppet and staying after work to write this, but I will be off in a minute. Got an easy weekend planned - doing nothing much tomorrow, and on Sunday my parents and brother are coming down so we can take Dad out for Father's Day - we're going to watch some lunchtime jazz down the pub and have something to eat somewhere. Whether Graham joins us or not depends on whether he thinks it will be worthwhile going to Castle Coombe on his own in the rain to watch the Formula 3000.

F1 on again this weekend - Indianapolis. I wish I could say that I won't bother watching it, but I can't....I'm addicted.

Today Kerrianne and I thought that the work experience boy was very sweet and cute, and then I found out that he was only 15 so am feeling ashamed! I'm as bad as all those blokes fancying Matilda in Leon and Hermione in Harry Potter.

I'm working, I'm working!

Aside from the meeting I accidentally missed this morning (though the minutes tell me that I didn't miss anything at all really) I have been having a full-on working day for a change. I have enough things on to keep me busy, rather than just trying to look busy. I'm quite enjoying the responsibility. Feel like a go-getter at last (even if it is only going getting students to return their books before they graduate).

We went to an art exhibition on Monday night. Sounds posh yeah? Well, in reality it was an art exhibition by some college students so the quality wasn't all that great. The photography and graphic design was by far the best section, and Sheree's nude photography was some of the best there (the other 3 catching my eye were a collage of a hundred cafe photos, a Bristolian student interpretation of the 7 deadly sins, and some shots of local cathedrals and churches taken through a pinhole camera and presented on huge screens to stunning effect). Sheree was lapping up all the attention, and Graham was very pleased to single out "the bum" (the model that Sheree used for her shots) from the milling crowd.

As Sheree says, now it's my turn - this all came about from a drunken night a couple of summers ago when I was trying to inspire her, her daughter and myself to live the creative dream. Sheree was to market and sell her photography, her daughter (a hairdresser) was to get a job at Vidal Sasoon and I had to write a novel. Since then, she hasn't sold any work but has completed a foundation photography course and is in the process of marketing her stuff, the daughter (I forget her name dammit) went off and got a fairly good hairdressing job only to give it up to become a pole dancer, and I....Well I started a distance writing course and promptly stopped after assignment 3 after criticism from my tutor and moving house and going on holiday and applying for Canada combined to distract me too much. I haven't written anything since, apart from this blog. I know I need to get back into the course, but I'm fed up of researching magazines in order to write articles for them - it takes up so much time, and I don't have THAT much to spare. I'm hungry to get onto some fiction writing to tell the truth - something a bit more creative and less restrictive, as I can write about what I want rather than what the publisher wants. Hey, maybe I can suggest that to the tutor...

I was off ill yesterday. Went home early on Tuesday with this blimmin' bladder infection again, but I left it too late to take a pill so the effects lasted into Wednesday when they usually would go away after one night. Tried to catch up on my sleep but my dozing was interrupted by Sharma opening the squeaky door downstairs about a hundred times.

England vs Switzerland in the footie tonight - we've got to win to stay in the chance to qualify for the quarter finals so it'll be tense stuff. Switzerland are definitely the underdogs but they managed a draw against Croatia, and underdogs seem to be doing quite well in this tournament so far - take a look at Greece! It starts at 5 so we might go down the pub and watch it straight after work.

I have practically run out of money this month due to buying too many unecessary things and going out a lot. I can't believe I bought even MORE books - even though I have 8 or 9 from the previous shopping spree that I haven't read yet. I bought Tim Winton's Cloudstreet after a recommendation from Anthony, my email buddy, and also JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas (well I've wanted it for ages and it was about £7 off) and Tony Parson's Man and Boy for Graham.

Coolio

Had a very nice weekend thank you very much!

There was so much going on that it was hard to decide what to do - how much sport do you need in one weekend? There was motoracing - F1 GP, Moto GP, BTC, Le Mans and practically everything else other than Rally, football, tennis finals, rugby, cricket...We settled for watching both the grand prixs and the England footie match (all on Sunday).

Friday night was a fairly nice night out and we ate at Tootsies. Somehow Jeff managed to eat a starter, a giant double burger (I just about finished my single burger once I had removed the top bun) and then a pudding as well, washed down with a fruit smoothie. I was in awe. Everyone really liked the food, and it was good to see Hing again - and he finally has a girlfriend! Saturday night Graham and I went out for dinner and onto The Fleece where we went to see a gig by Gee Baby I Love You - a 10 piece jazzy soul funk group. They were really good (from what I can remember, I was very drunk and probably in a hypnotic dancing trance) - very entertaining in a Commitments style way. They were supported by Funkenstein - who were possibly even better than the main act, but it was only three quarters of the way through the set that I realised..."hang on, that one's got boobs, and that one is showing her bra off, and the big singer bloke now that he has taken his cap off is, in fact a woman. In fact they're all women. duh." They made for very convincing men though - they were more butch than most men I know. Whilst at the gig we met some very strange local characters, some very weird Americans and I nearly got into a fight after (purposefully)nearly tripping up some prat who thought he owned the dancefloor and was bumping into everybody.

We also went to a motor show on the Downs on Sunday - lots of very nice old cars, and very nice newish sports cars, and some atrocities and other weird things. I ate junk all day and felt bad. Ah well, some sort of diet beckons now...

Friday feeling

It's Friday tra la la la la. It is also Canadian Grand Prix weekend AND the start of Euro 2004 - so we get to watch Engerland getting trounced by the French, but I'll still be cheering for them anyway.

It's not sunny today, which is a huge pain as it's the first day I have ventured out without a long sleeved top or a jacket at my disposal - and I'm a bit chilly to tell the truth.

Going out later to meet up with Graham's friend Hing-Yu and probably some others - should be a good night, get some tasty grub in. Graham's just bought a load of wine so it's a shame not to be drinking that tonight - but I'm sure we'll manage to get through it tomorrow and Sunday.

I'm feeling a bit listless so I'm going to make some lists...

Things that I love:
Graham
My parents
Cats
Sushi
Books
Travel
Mountains
Lakes
Ocean
The moon
The stars

Foods that I am or have been addicted to:
Olives
Sushi
Pistachio nuts
Halloumi cheese
Salmon and Broccoli burgers from the mobile fishmongers
Mint viscount biscuits
Seafood crepes
Chinese curry
Indian curry
chocolates
macaroni cheese
dried spaghetti

Foods that I miss as they don't make them any more:
United bars with the honeycomb pieces in the chocolate
Roast Beef flavoured monster munch before they changed the recipe and made them smaller.
Spicy tomato Wotsits
Applause bars
Quattro (the drink)
This isn't a very good list

Favourite cities/towns:
Vancouver
Sydney
San Francisco
Queenstown
Edinburgh
Brighton

Places I haven't visited yet that I must:
Ireland
Iceland
Parts of US - specifically New York, New England, New Orleans, Washington DC, Montana, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Alaska
Peru
Thailand
Vietnam
China
Scottish Highlands
and many more but I have to go and do some work now...

Kitten

I have had enough of not having a cat around the place so I have adopted a kitten. He is called Plato and is very cute. He will be hanging around at the end of every post so please play with him occasionally - he is well behaved and won't scratch or bite.

Booooooooring

That's what my blog is. I don't seem to be doing much random musing - I didn't mean for this to become quite so diary-like.

Al rang me from Thailand today and we spoke for a good half hour (was I supposed to be working - yes - but I hid out in the dusty old stack room where no one could see me). I miss him loads. It was so good to hear his voice and to realise just how chilled out he is - it's looking like he might quit work when he gets back and start up a new venture where he can be more hands-on and creative. He is currently on an island with only him, his sister and a couple of cooks, within walking distance of a small town (about 8 buildings) where they go to eat at people's houses some nights. He is so in love with the Thai culture - he has so much respect for them and their way of life. He has to go to Malaysia to renew his visa at some point so he might check out that side of the border. He is also hoping to head to the more volatile south (having been told by locals that the fighting has all been Thai on Thai rather than Muslim versus westerners).

His money is running out faster than he thought, so he's probably going to head home a month early with a stop in Dubai on the way back. I have asked him to come and stay with us in Bristol for a while, at least a couple of days, when he returns. I could use some of his inspiration to give me a good kick up the arse. I have no motivation left at all these days - I think this job has drawn it all out of me. Maybe time to look for another, but the money is so good here and it will look good for my CV if I stay in one place for a while rather than hopping around all over the place like I have previously done...

Did I mention that the Flames lost in the final game of the Stanley Cup finals? Glad I didn't stay up to watch that on Monday night - I stayed up for Saturday's game (Flames only had to win that game and they would have won the cup without a game 7) and was awake until 5a.m. because they went into second overtime. Yawwwn. It was a fantasticly exciting match though.

Sharma downstairs has had the doctor in again because of her high blood pressure. Before a month ago she had never needed to see a doctor - and she is 70! She is having a hard time coming to terms with Sam's new wife living with them. She has been used to having him all to herself for 30-odd years and now she has to share him and her space with Annamika. Sam tells me that Annamika is settling in OK, but with no family or friends in the country and conflict with Sharma, it must be so difficult for her. She never leaves the house apart from with him. I don't think she speaks English particularly well, so I think she should get out there and meet people in order to assimilate herself. Then what I think doesn't matter - there's obviously a whole load of stuff I don't know, and I don't know crap about etiquette in arranged marriages either, so I guess I'm one of the least qualified people to pass opinion on the matter!

Voting today for the European elections. I've already voted by post. Hope Tony gets a good old slap in the face, I'm thinking with some sort of large fish (but at the same time I hope BNP and UKIP don't get any seats, but that's wishful thinking).

Saw a really depressing film last night about a Russian girl whose mother leaves her to run away to America with her boyfriend, leaving her on her own in a flat which her aunt then kicks her out of. So she's living in this hideous dump of a bedsit with no money and no electricity and only an 11 year old boy as her true friend (her other "real" friend made out that she was a prostitute so the whole community disowned her). At a loss of anything else to do (having no education and social services not looking out for her) she does prostitute herself a couple of times for some money. Then she meets a guy who says he is going to save her and take her to Sweden to live with him and get her a job, but he sends her off to Sweden on her own to be met by his boss who promptly locks her up in a flat day and night only to let her out in order to service his clients who are into young girls and take all the money. She tries to run away, he beats her up, you get the picture. And you know this is happening all over the world as we speak. As I say - thoroughly depressing.

And on that light note I am off to cook the boy some dinner. Not cook the boy for dinner - not like the story in the news of a guy finding the dismembered remains of his daughter-in-law whilst going to the fridge to get some milk when visiting his son's house and waiting for him to return. Ick.

Dang

I don't seem to have any time to write what I want in this thing at the moment. Keeping myself busy at work to avoid the boredom and also getting distracted by other things.

Had a good weekend. Went to see the Lion King at IMAX which was very cute. I hadn't seen the film in 5 or 6 years so there were a few surprises in there along with all the stuff I had remembered - it's THE definitive Disney old-style animated (ie not Pixar) film I think. The only film that comes close is Aladdin.

Made some food and had a picnic up on the Downs on Saturday evening. We ate and drank and talked and read and practically fell asleep in each others arms until it got to 10pm and the dew started to settle on us making us feel too cold to stay out any longer. On Sunday we had a big BBQ at Ade's house and ate like pigs the lot of us. Ade with his new girlfriend and rather drunk was a tad hyper. Well I think they are officially boyfriend and girlfriend now anyway. There was certainly a lot of canoodling going on!

The weather has been gorgeous - it's the hottest day of the year today and feeling a bit muggy out, so I am relieved that it will be cooling off but still staying above average temperature for the rest of the week. Add a nice breeze, I'll be happy!

Have just become a member of the forum on the new-style Michael Marshall Smith website so have been chatting with some like-minded fans. I've realised that he has brought out an extended selection of his short stories so I will be buying that at some point as I have nothing else of his left to read apart from those - and it's bound to be another couple of years at least before the next novel comes out.

I am distressed at how much I am enjoying Big Brother this year. I thought I would hate all of them, but it turns out I just hate half of them. Dang.

Ahhhhhchoo!

It's 3pm and I'm going home in a minute. Not because I am ill but because I have some lieu time to take. The title of this post is referring to the annoying world of hay fever suffering. My eyes are itching, my nose is tickling and I feel all stuffed up. But hey, I love summer and I don't mind so long as it's sunny. Antihistimines here I come.

Last night was OK - I didn't stop drinking after 3 drinks because I wasn't drunk. 6 drinks in 5 haunted pubs, I didn't see any ghosts, and went back home on the happy side of drunk. Found some nice pubs that we didn't know about and that we will certainly be visiting again.

I have served a total of 3 people today - really makes me feel needed! I have been on the Lonely Planet Thorntree most of the day, discussing literature and famous movie quotes, reminding myself how much I love Michael Marshall Smith and the film Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

We are not going anywhere this weekend. Well nowhere outside the locality anyway. We are in agreement that we don't want to sit around the house. We will probably go to The Tantric Jazz Cafe tonight for a meal and drinks and tunes, then tomorrow go for a walk around the Leigh Woods area, maybe go and see the Lion King at the IMAX with Graham's bro, maybe have a picnic on the Downs. I'm sure we'll find something interesting to do on Sunday as well. We were thinking of going to Bath but it will be busy because of the fringe festival that's on there at the moment.

Well, that's me off then. Have a good weekend, one and all.

Oh dear

I've been a bit awful at updating this again. Must try harder.

It's me Nan's birthday today. I would like everybody to join in on wishing her a happy birthday!

I've been in one of those bored trances all day - where you can't do anything to remedy the boredom because you've just gone over the edge into random staring-at-the-wall territory, thinking thoughts that you can't remember if you try to think of them a second later. Sort of like I've been dozing awake.

So what's new? Not a lot. Had a pleasant weekend - Saturday I worked in the morning, played Boules on the Downs with Graham and won, played Boules on the lawn outside our flat and lost (I obviously have a better aim in the rough when I can't actually see where the jack is but have to approximate its whereabouts). Graham was ill in the night, either from the curry we had for dinner or the houmous he had for a snack later on (greedy bugger).

Ade and Sheila came to visit on Sunday and we drank champers and went to The Clifton Sausage, where we ate sausage (unsurprisingly) and champ with onion gravy. Ade, Sheila and I shared ours so we had one each of Beef and ale, Pork, cider and mustard and Chicken, ginger and coconut - and they were all scrummy. Was good to see them, as we haven't seen them together since last November. They stayed over and we had a game of boules with them in the morning before they left. I think Sheila won but nobody remembered to keep score. When they left, Graham and I went out on the town, but Graham only lasted 2 and a bit pints and a cooked breakfast before he was tired and wanted to go home - which was OK by me as I was nackered as well.

Alex texted me from Thailand yesterday - it was good to hear from him, however brief. He was treating himself to a night in a hotel room and had seen the news for the first time since leaving in early May. It's a shame he can't get to email much as I'd love to hear about all his experiences.

As much as I like Doris downstairs, she doesn't seem to appreciate that I might be in a bit of a hurry sometimes and she always stands chatting to me for ages. Last night after a long conversation I offered to get her some things from the supermarket as we were going for a big shop. On returning at about 8pm I knocked on her door to give her her things and she made me go in and kept chatting and chatting and I felt bad that Graham was left taking all the shopping bags upstairs but I couldn't get away - I kept telling her that I'd better help, but every time I started walking off she would come after me and because she didn't have her stick she nearly fell over a couple of times and then I felt really guilty. By the time I had got upstairs, unpacked the shopping and cooked dinner it was gone 9pm. Ah well, she's not going to be around for ever so I suppose I should just appreciate her company whilst we have it.

Tomorrow night we are going out on a haunted Bristol pub crawl - visiting 8 supposedly haunted pubs in about 3 hours. I've got a feeling that we might not get to all of them, and I'm going to have to stop drinking after about 3 drinks anyway as it's part of mine and Graham's new agreement - when one of us gets drunk the other needs to cut back a bit and stay more sober, otherwise we tend to rub each other up the wrong way which leads to silly arguments that should never happen. Being one of Graham's work dos and a schoolnight anyway, I am quite happy to be the one not entering paraletic stage tomorrow.

We may be going to Devon this weekend but it hasn't been decided yet as although I have found 2 fairly cheap places to stay (1 in Torquay and 1 in Babbacombe) at last minute, I haven't been able to canvas Graham for his opinion as he left his mobile at home this morning and has been out on the road all day - he might decide he doesn't want to go after all if his worries about the price of petrol get any worse...

The new Big Brother is going to get on my nerves until someone tells that stupid Kitten to stop spouting so much crap unless there is a point to it all. Attention seeking little idiot. I feel sorry for her poor girlfriend - she must be so embarassed.