Learning This is just a short one. I’ve really decided that despite the fact I’m not even sure this is what I want to do, I really need to start making the effort.

Writing I’m always telling myself that I’m a writer, but just lately there has been very little evidence to support that theory. I’m too much of a perfectionist and every time I start to write something, I can’t get past the first chapter without thinking it’s absolutely useless and quitting right there and then. The new plan is to actually get things written. I’ve been writing a few things, and getting my mother to read them, and I think this second opinion is really starting to help me let go of the desire for perfection. If someone else is looking through it as well, then they can suggest any necessary changes, whilst I am writing the next part. And it seems to be working.

Theatre On my new 2006 calendar, I have marked down everything I want to see, and I am totally prepared to go and see everything I have noted. In one particular week, there are three different things on that I want to see!

Fitness I don’t think I have ever felt this uncomfortable in my own skin. Therefore the first of my New Year’s Resolutions is definitely to start doing something about this. My usual plan of action would be to stop any kind of food passing my lips for a week or so and then go back to normal. This time, I’m going to do it properly. Cut down on the biscuits, start doing some exercise (ugh) and try and be a lot healthier.

There’s a particular electronics retail outfit that starts with a PC and ends with a World and has rude staff. I was sent to the World today, and was very happy when I found exactly what I wanted straight away. I took it to the desk, where a man with a ginger beard took it and scanned it. “Is this for business or pleasure?” he guffawed, “need I ask.” How RUDE!! Why is it the funniest notion ever to think that I could be buying for business??

I was talking with someone recently about how quickly this year has gone. It seems like only five minutes ago, I was badmouthing Christmas for the first time and no one was listening. The whole year has gone where exactly? I don’t know about anybody else, but I don’t feel like I’ve achieved anything this year. Yes, I may have got a certificate up on the wall, but what about the rest?

I wasn’t the biggest fan of Doctor Who when it came back. I quite enjoyed the first episode, and watched any others if I was near a television at that time on a Saturday night, but I wasn’t really bothered if I missed any. Not so, this new series. Starring the delectable David Tennant, you are going to have to kidnap me and keep me locked away in a padded cell before I will miss an episode.

For ages, I’ve been wanting the new Monopoly Here & Now Limited Edition. Mr C wouldn’t let me buy it because he has some kind of ‘scarred for life’ childhood issues relating to Monopoly. As an act of kindness, he relented and said I could get it. We’re going to see my parents over the holiday, and I said I would take it to play with them, and he even said he might join in! (Somehow, I don’t see this happening.)

Overheard today: “Is it just me or are you completely bored about the whole George Best in hospital saga?” “I haven’t really heard that much about it, I don’t watch the news.” “I mean, honestly, he’s back in hospital, he’s on a life support machine, he’s in a coma. Aren’t there any real newsworthy stories to report on?” And that’s the thing. There aren’t. Not when you have to fill up an entire 24 hours of news. It’s easier for the hourly news programmes on the regular channels, because they can just pick the best of what their longer cousins on the 24 hour news channels have reported. But to have to think up news to fill every second of the day must be incredibly hard. It’s no wonder that things like George Best’s ailing condition, and Elaine Lorden collapsing in the jungle, get hours and hours of speculation and guest interviews with very little facts.

I’ve been looking into buying some more piano music. Every now and again I sit down at my keyboard and bash out some of the standard tunes that I have, but my music is the same it’s been for about three years. It’s about time I purchased something new, something I really want to play, something to get my teeth into. However, nothing is grabbing me. I’ve been to the best music shop in the world (which upon searching for the website for, I have discovered has been sold - my world has crashed down upon my shoulders…), I’ve even been searching on Amazon, but nothing is jumping out at me.

We have purchased a laptop, something Mr C has been talking about and thinking about for way too long now. We looked at one, we walked around a bit, looked at some more, and then went back to the one we first thought of. But either way, I was pretty excited about the new and shininess of it. So, because he would be playing on his new toy for the rest of the weekend, I was granted permission to purchase some new games for the Playstation. First on the list: The Sims 2. Although I have been bored of the game on the computer, this would mean a complete new wave of interest, and what I’ve seen so far is pretty impressive. My one concern is that I created a Sim and was just testing the waters, and somehow, within about three hours of knowing each other, she had married another Sim called Ossie. Hmmm.

It’s new. I like things that are shiny and new. It has a TV guide within it that is actually correct. Our previous Freeview box kept losing the time and would show us a guide for the following day. Not very helpful. Within said TV Guide, you can schedule a recording with one click. It doesn’t always work and I’ve yet to figure out why it is so selective, but when it does, it’s pretty fabulous. You can rewind live television. As soon as you change channels, it begins recording what you are watching for up to half an hour. No more “What did she just say?” You can pause live television. You can pause live television whilst you are recording something else. Now that is clever. There’s no more worrying about only having three hours on a tape, or whether you are recording over something important. We’ve got 40ish hours before you even need to think about deleting anything. It completely revolutionises my evenings. Instead of scheduling things around my television guide, I can just record everything and watch it at my leisure. (Sometimes, when I write things down, I suddenly realise how much I really do need to get a life!) It had the facility for Top Up TV, which means we just had to get it. We can’t have potential being unfulfilled now, can we? I watched Entertainment Tonight! This has nothing to do with the PVR, but I was quite excited about it.

I think I might need to visit the optician. The obsessive compulsive in me cannot stand the optician. For a start, the optician must sit very close to you to look into your eyes, and it’s usually pretty dark. This makes me very uncomfortable. And then there’s the matter of all the questions. So many questions, and none of them with a correct answer. “Which colour is brighter, the red or the green?” they will ask me, and after a moment’s deliberation, I will pick one. They will hmm, make a note on their paper, and continue with another question.

I have recently finished reading the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? book. It was a memoir from Chris Tarrant about all the contestants that meant something special to him. It made me sick. All those people earning thousands just for answering a couple of questions correctly. Who wouldn’t love £500,000 for a half hours work? But if I went on there, you can guarantee the questions would be horrible and I would struggle to get to £1,000. And that’s assuming that I didn’t pass out from the fear of being on television first.

I used to believe in standard education. I thought that it was important to get your GCSE’s. They’re a standard qualification that everyone can recognise, and are necessary before you even apply for certain jobs. And that is true. Partly. This time last year, I was signed up for Key Skills classes to complete my qualification. I was annoyed. Why should I have to take lessons in numeracy (hello? I’m training to work with numbers here) and communication (I work for a living. I use the phone, I write letters, what more do you need from me?). So, I complained and there was a kerfuffle and they said with copies of my GCSE certificates, I could be exempt from the Key Skills part of the course.

The nights were drawing in closer, and the afternoons never really brightened up, leaving a dull mist over the entire town. But through the dingy weather, a brightness would spring up and make all the locals smile: It was carnival time. The streets were filled with flags, the local brass band was practicing every night, and the fair was setting up on the local rec field. For us kids, it was especially exciting, as it was half term.

I just watched The Hoobs (absolutely rubbish, potato printing is so not what kids these days want to do), and I realised that one of the Hoobs is voiced by the same guy that voices one of the Hyenas in Ministry of Mayhem. I need to get out more.

“So, do you export much out of there?” “Um, not really. I don’t think we do export anything really, most of the stuff gets exported inwards.” Ha.

Three things I need to admit to before I start this post: I didn’t know there was such a thing as the Stirling Prize before we caught the awards on television. We only watched two and a half out of the six entrants I am biased towards all things F1 So, flicking through the channels, we stumbled across Kevin McLoud. I got all excited, thinking a new series of Grand Designs had started without me knowing, but soon realised it was actually coverage of the Stirling Prize announcement. The Scottish Parliament building won.

I bought a new car. I didn’t mean to. It just happened. Mr C: So, which one would you have if you were going to get one? Me: Dunno. I don’t need a new car. Mr C: Hypothetically speaking. Me: I don’t need a new car. Mr C: Do you like this one? Me: It’s okay. Mr C: Let’s sit in it. Me: Why? Mr C: Just sit in it and see what you think.

Have you seen that sketch in Catherine Tate where the woman gets her colleague to guess something, and then gets really annoyed if she gets it straight away? I was reading somewhere about MiG Ayesa finishing in the top three to be the new lead singer of InXs. There was a programme or something, I think. I was quite upset about this because last I heard, MiG was still in We Will Rock You, trying to replace Tony Vincent and failing. This means that I am now officially out of date with news of the musical, and I can’t seem to find any new cast lists anywhere. (Not on any website does it tell me who’s in it at the moment. Even Google can’t help me. Although, it doesn’t help that the main website is about six months out of date as well.)

I’m obsessive about my windscreen wash in my car. I worry constantly that any second now it is going to run out. I fill it up regularly even when I’ve only used about a teaspoonful. You can imagine my displeasure, when I was driving down a misty, muddy road and thinking I would have to start using up some of the precious water. Then imagine my pleasure, when the car in front decided to clean its windscreen first, and the water cascaded in a beautiful arc over the top of his car and onto mine as well. Excellent. Clean windows, free water.

You know when you were at school and you used to go to the toilets and find the walls covered in graffiti? You know the sort of thing: “Jenny was ere” and “Paula 4 Mark” circled in a giant heart shape that went wrong at the top and was half scribbled out? You know when you go to a public toilet in a less than posh part of town and there are more grown up scribblings about sex and drugs and, well, not so much about rock and roll, but still with the badly drawn hearts?

There’s a blog thing doing the rounds, whereby you find your 23rd post, and read the 5th sentence of the 2nd paragraph. You post this to your blog and encourage others to do the same. I was sorely tempted to do this, although I usually try and stay away from the chain games that pop up everywhere. You can end up with nothing but them and I often think that no one’s really interested in them other than yourself. When I looked back into my archives, my sentence would be thus:

Firstly, the Sims Nightlife is not as good as I thought it was going to be. It’s alright, adds a little bit of colour to the game, and it’s always nice to get new wallpapers and clothes etc, but it’s a half-hearted attempt at an expansion pack. The only thing that makes it worth the money is that the Sims now get to own cars, the rest of it I could live without.

Jo Whiley on Radio 1 is starting a campaign to stop people watching television for one week. It’s part of her ‘I Have Never’ slot which is there to get people doing things they would never normally dream of, getting them to engage with other people (I have never given a flower to a stranger), getting them to embrace new things (I have never been to see a band I’ve never heard of) and that kind of life-enhancing thing.

I’m currently reading Don’t Eat This Book by Morgan Spurlock, the guy who made the film Super Size Me. It’s basically more of the same, talking about how bad McDonalds is for you, and full of facts that will scare you away from the Golden Arches forever. But apparently Subway are just as bad. If you don’t order one of those six healthy sandwiches, and instead order something off the menu, it’s packed with calories and not very good for you at all. You may as well stuff your face with a burger from the evil that is Ronald McDonald.

Obviously, this isn’t set in stone and could change at any moment, considering I haven’t seen every single musical under the sun. I haven’t included any songs from We Will Rock You, because that would just be called Top Ten Queen songs, and I’d be hard pushed to narrow that down to ten. The Epilogue - Les Miserables Seasons of Love - Rent Had to Be - Heathcliff The Sun - Metropolis This Is The Moment – Jekyll & Hyde Past the Point of No Return – Phantom of the Opera People Will Say We’re in Love - Oklahoma Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat – Guys & Dolls I Just Can’t Wait to Be King – The Lion King Tell Me It’s Not True – Blood Brothers

Two doors down from us, there used to live a big-nosed man and his girlfriend. I don’t mean anything horrible by that, but I didn’t know his name and he had a big nose. Every morning I would hear them slam the door at 3 minutes to 8 precisely, then I would watch as they exited the building. I would be stood at the sink doing the washing up, and smile as I saw him back the car out of the car parking space, so that his girlfriend could get in. Then they would set off for their days at work. I would be concerned if she didn’t join him, worried in case she was off sick that day, hoping she was alright. I thought it was incredibly sweet when one day it was raining particularly hard and he backed the car right up to the door so she wouldn’t need to get wet.

We decided to go to Swanage, which was incredibly busy, although there was surprisingly little traffic around, considering. I was a little disappointed that the beaches were so busy, because I wanted to build my sand castle. The last time we were at the beach, I felt like digging but was told that I couldn’t build a sandcastle without the proper equipment - a bucket and spade. So, when we got to Swanage, I made a beeline for the nearest beachside shop and purchased some. When we finally managed to pitch a spot on the crowded sand, Mr C sat down and said he would watch, I put my bucket and spade down and looked at the ground.

Extras I really liked this. Lots of people and a hell of a lot of critics have been whining about its similarities to The Office but it not being as funny. I think you have to take this show as it was intended. It’s similar to The Office, in that it makes you cringe and the people won’t shut up when they really should. But I think that’s where the similarities end.

I just Love This. It made me laugh so much, I almost spilled my Diet Coke. And yes, I know I shouldn’t be drinking Diet Coke at this time of night, but I’m addicted to it. Okay? The Brooklyn tea shop is playing an eclectic mix of ‘80s music. We’ve been there working for an hour or so when “Fame!” comes on, and the cashier turns it up. FAME! I’M GONNA LIVE FOREVER! BABY REMEMBER MY NAAAAAME. (Remember! Remember!)

In order to get my lazy backside off the sofa and doing a bit of exercise, but not wanting to go into the big, bad world of outside, I purchased a fitness DVD. I already own the Hotpants Workout (let me tell you now though, I will never wear hotpants), but I was starting to get bored of it and fancied a change. Enter Angela Griffin and her Dance Mix Workout. It’s actually really good, and I don’t find myself getting breathless but feel myself being exercised, which is always a good thing. My only criticism is that the woman showing us the moves (that’s not Angela Griffin) is way too skinny, and she keeps saying “bootylicious”. I don’t need to hear that.

Referred to by some as the Devil’s Website, Blog Explosion is a way to generate more traffic to your blog. It’s a bit complicated and I’m not good at explaining things but I’ll give it a go. Basically, you register your website and then you start surfing others. You have to stay at each blog you visit for 30 seconds and for every two blogs you visit, you get one credit. A credit equals one visitor back to your own website. Every now and then, while you are surfing, you could win a mystery credit prize, which is an added 5, 10 or even 25 credits to your total.

I watched the first three episodes of LOST on E4 last night, and I just have a couple of questions. Given the acres and acres of ocean that they were flying over, what exactly are the odds of the plane crash landing on the island itself and not in the water? What are the programme makers going to do if the show is infinitely successful but people start leaving? There’s no way to bring in fresh blood on a deserted island. What, another plane just happens to crash? Or, a tribal village that no one spotted for the previous however many series'? Why does no one seem to care that a loved one has died? They were all either travelling alone or the person that matters to them has survived with them? How convenient. Why does whatever is making that noise in the forest, sound like it belongs on Jurassic Park?

Ms. Mac - I must place Ms Mac at the head of my list as I actually stole this Top Ten idea from her. Although a lot of Ms Mac’s entries are about domestic chores and walking up steep hills, she likes Big Brother, has an ever-changing Boyfriend of the Week and makes me laugh. (Link inactive) Dooce - I started reading Heather’s blog a long time ago, before she held the cult status that she does today. As I’ve mentioned before, when things become too popular I start to back away from them, but Dooce manages to keep me hooked. Joshua Called Me - Richard lives in Scotland and talks about computers, games and films. He’s often quite witty about life as well. (Link inactive) Jonny B’s Secret Diary - Very funny insights into living in the depths of the country.(Link inactive) A Girl With A [dot] Com - Pretty rude and outspoken but often with amusing results.(Link inactive) Suburban Bliss - I have no idea why I like this so much. It’s a mommy blog which means there’s a lot of talk of children and family and love and stuff. I think the writing is excellent and is probably what keeps me coming back for more.(Link inactive) Defective Yeti - This time it’s a Daddy blog, but one who doesn’t mention his son that often and refers to him as The Squirrelly when he does. Has some interesting insights on life and love.(Link inactive) Mighty Girl Blog - Actually a friend of Dooce’s (who isn’t?), this blog was created to note down overhead conversations that were interesting or just plain crazy. Yeah, But Is It Art? - Some of the more complex posts go over my head, but can be very funny. (Link inactive) Random Burblings - I often find the font on this blog too hard to read, and have to really be in the mood to do so, but when I make the effort, it’s usually worthwhile. (Link inactive) Disclaimer: This list is a current state of affairs and shouldn’t be taken as definitive or never-changing. It’s a snapshot of life right now and I don’t want it held against me in the future.

Peering out the window today, I saw sunshine. We were at Land’s End by ten o’clock. It was beautiful. Look at the beautiful blue sky. That photo was taken as proof that at least one day was sunny. Our next stop was Lizard Point. We’d done the furthest West and now wanted to do the furthest South, but as we were trundling along through the countryside, Mr C spotted a satellite: Goonhilly Earth Station. It was relatively cheap to get in and we stood taking loads of pictures of Arthur, the oldest satellite at the station.

Having got so close and yet so far away from Truro yesterday, I made sure we were up and awake early enough to beat the crowds and get a parking space. After months and months of talking about it, I finally plucked up the courage to shell out a bit of money and get a new phone. It’s not the one I dreamed about but it’s pretty close. It’s a bit more complicated than my ancient Nokia, and I still haven’t figured out how to put it on discreet or silent yet, and I don’t like the stupid noises it makes when I’m switching it on and off but that’s all I can find wrong with it.

Raining today. My indoor activity for a Wednesday was to head to the Cornish Indoor Market. It’s the largest indoor market in Britain and boasts stalls of all shapes and sizes selling all manner of things. Mr C likes a good market, so I thought this would be a good place to take him on a rainy Wednesday. Apparently, the entire population of Cornwall had the same idea. We are not ones for sitting in a queue. We decided to give up and head to Truro instead.

Looked out the window in the morning, grey skies. Oh well. Today we were scheduled to visit the Eden Project, something I’d been keen to see since it was created. Unfortunately, it’s not worth the entrance fee. The guidebook, however, is really good value. At £4, it was absolutely bursting with information and I have yet had time to read more than the first few pages. I really like the idea of taking an old used quarry (read that in the guidebook) and turning it into something beautiful. I think the recycling image that the Eden Project gives out is perfect. Did you know that the rainwater that collects in the quarry is used to water the outside plants and flush the loos? (Again, the guidebook.) And the bubbles are the biggest greenhouses in the world. (Good god, is there anything this guidebook can’t tell me?) All of that stuff is brilliant, but when it comes down to it, we were there only a couple of hours before we got bored.

Day One was the only day that I really cared about the weather, although, of course, I was praying for it not to rain for the rest of the week. Day One was a surprise, something I’d been planning for a while, since I was at this particular place last. While Mr C was packing, I popped out to collect some bits and bobs for the journey. He guessed that I was planning a picnic.

I’m considering doing Blogathon this year. I’m tempted, I really am. The problem is, who’s going to sponsor me? As a kid, I loved to do sponsored things. I did 24 hour famines (these were tough at the time cos I was always munching, but nowadays it would be a doddle) and silences and anything else you could think of. I loved having a reason to do something, and the sense of achievement at the end was always fantastic.

Mr C and I had a bit of a barney last night. He’s been sorting out the categories on my website, making it possible to stick entries in more than one. So, actually, I think these are tags. But he was adamant that they’re the same thing. Category = Tag. Tag = Category. Well, actually, Dictionary.Com says: Category = A specifically defined division in a system of classification; a class. Tag = To label, identify, or recognise with or as if with a tag.

According to the introduction of the book that came free with The Times, Number Place is the rough translation of Sudoku. In case you live under a bridge and don’t know what this is, it’s a square number puzzle involving placing the numbers from 1 to 9 in the correct places. You know that I’m not one for faddy trends that come and go, and I try and stay away from things if the the rest of the country is going mad for it (Harry Potter? Pah, I’ll wait for the paperback). But Mr C brought this book home and settled down to do it, and I had pretty soon hijacked the pencil and was calculating late into the night. I recommend it, although the puzzles I’m working on now are supposed to be just mild ones and I’m already stuck.

Last year, the Technophobe and I gossiped at the water cooler about Big Brother. That’s right, he knows how to use a television. Actually, we didn’t do that because the water cooler is the other side of the office and we sit next to each other anyway, so that would have been silly. We would predict nominations and evictions, gossip about the housemates and bitch about those that were driving us crazy. It was always a race in the morning to see who could say “Did you see it last night?” first. And whoever did would then launch into an over-zealous opinion of the previous nights events.

It’s rare that I write about the big things on my blog. It’s not very often that I have anything worthwhile to say about something important. Ask me who my favourite pop star is or whether I like cheese and you’ll get a ten-page essay, but ask me what I think about the horrors of yesterday, and I don’t know what to say. Last night, I just sat and thought about what was going on. I couldn’t get my head around it. What kind of a world do we live in where planting bombs is the way to get things done?

This DVD Day featured Sideways but I got bored with that halfway through and switched it off. I did rent Ocean’s Twelve but had to return the films before I could watch it, so look out for that one in another DVD day soon. The main film I watched this time was Closer and I really liked it. I thought the dialogue was brilliant, witty and smart and it kept the whole film moving along nicely. Julia Roberts wasn’t annoying like she usually is and Natalie Portman was good too, although I wasn’t really sure about all the different wigs. Originally being a play, I’m not sure that the story translates to a film very well, but I liked the end result.

Seeing that there is fantabulous progress on the new Tomb Raider game. I’m a bit annoyed that they’re not carrying on from the previous one, and I’m a bit stunned at how much Lara has changed. I’m all for making the graphics better and making her look more realistic, but you’d think she still needs the same basic bone structure. I’m starting to wonder if this isn’t actually an imposter - Louise Croft or something like that.

First I would like to make it clear that I support the cause. You’ve seen the wristband, you’ve seen the banner, you know I do. But I strongly believe that they shouldn’t have repeated the Live Aid gigs. First time round was so special (I mean, okay, I was only 1 at the time but I still know there was magic on the stage that day), the it shouldn’t and couldn’t be repeated.

I’m disappointed. My television has disappointed me. I’ve been watching the new series of Cutting It with interest as the writing has been superb and the acting first class. The storyline with Allie finding out she has cancer was done brilliantly. I read an interview with her in a TV guide and she said she was leaving so I said to Mr C “She’s definitely dying of the cancer.” He said: “How do you know?”