missprint

Joyeux anniversaire à moi! Yes dear readers, it's that time of the year. I am mourning the passing of yet another year of my existence. In truth, I'm not as melancholy as I have been about past birthdays, even though I did bake myself a birthday cake today. (Unfortunately the garishly tinted concoction you see adorning this entry isn't said cake. That was a cake I baked for someone else's birthday. I made an ill-advised foray into the world of flourless cakes today. I've never encountered a cake that is crisp on the outside and a mousse on the inside. I imagine that a Baked Alaska isn't far off.)

Anyway, perhaps my joyous demeanour can be attributed to a few things:

- I had an excellent time in Sheffield this weekend. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy long distance train journeys. Not only does it remind me of my backpacking exploits this summer but it gives me a chance for an hour or two of uninterrupted reading. I pretty much finished Maggie O'Farrell's The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox between the outbound and return journeys. I end up playing a game with myself on train journeys of trying to decide who I'd be friends with on the basis of their reading material. Anyone wielding a candy-coloured-gold-lettered novel is immediately ruled out. As are those who are reading classics (inevitably students who are furiously cramming). It's all a little silly anyway as I decided a long time ago that points of commonality (taste-wise at least) between people becomes increasingly irrelevent the longer you know them.
- Anyway, back to the point, staying with Steph in Sheffield allowed me to pretend I was a student proper for a weekend. A proper student union! A shared house! Campuses! (Campii?) Also, Lily Allen was fabulous from start to finish - even despite the dodgy Keane cover! Even despite the fact that I was stuck behind a ridiculously tall man for most of it! Even though my concert photography skills are still rather shoddy! I did get a few nice ones though:

- I was contemplating staying on an extra day in Sheffield as I had the day off work on Monday anyway but I decided that I'd better let Steph get on with her work. So I headed home late Sunday night and blissfully had a full day to myself on Monday. I managed to catch up with most of my blog reading in the morning. Then realising that it was Monday and it was £2.99 ticket day at Peckham Plex, I hurriedly got ready and headed out to see The History Boys. As I got there a little late, I spent the first twenty minutes trying to desperately figure out what was going on and the rest of the time thoroughly enjoying it and ogling the lovely Stephen Campbell Moore (who incidentally I think is the secret love child of Hugh Laurie and Toby Stephens.) As a film I think it could have strayed a little further from the stage, slapping a good soundtrack on top of the play does not a film make. Also, I think that perhaps using the original cast showed a little too much, there were a few moments of overemoting which aren't so noticeable from five rows back in the National Theatre, but ten feet high in Peckham, it becomes a little overegged. Anyway, all this doesn't detract from the fact that I desperately want to see the West End revival at the end of this year. Watching the scene where Posner recites Hardy to Hector reminded me of something Ted Hughes (my latest literary crush, even despite his status as a domestic despot) said about the lost art of learning poems off by heart. I've decided that I should at least learn Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress. Anyway, with this in mind, I headed to Borders and bought an anthology and also Why Don't Penguins Feet Freeze?, The End and Wicked. To top off a lovely day, I got given a free bar of Green & Black's milk chocolate by the nice lady in Borders. Slurp.
- I managed to win (on eBay that is) a pair of tickets for The Feeling on Friday. MOR-tastic!
- I'm going to a free preview screening of Sixty Six on Thursday. Even the presence of Catherine Tate in this film doesn't put me off. Although the plot hinging on the 1966 World Cup final does make me a little anxious.

I stupidly forgot to tape both The X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing this weekend, so I am feeling a little culturally deprived. So all I have to say on the subject is that I think that these two were separated at birth:

Also, general public, you are almost as moronic as Louis Walsh. I guess I shouldn't expect any less of you than to vote out Dionne who is the British Beyonce (by virtue alone of being possessed by the spirit of Tina Turner) but please please please don't vote out lovely Eton Road because that means that in all likelihood I will lose my X Factor sweepstake with my friends. Thank you and goodnight.

A few things:

- I have my beloved broadband connection back!
- Well, technically I had it back ages ago. Other technological issues arose which meant me having to completely wipe my hard drive without being able to back anything up.
- Which meant I lost my beloved monkey photos from Longleat. I no longer have any evidence that I once had a Rhesus monkey perched on my wing mirror.
- I got my hair cut.
- I wanted it to look like this:

- Instead it looks like this*:

Anyway, onto more pressing matters, namely pop. Not only does November herald my birthday but also The Sound of Girls Aloud (complete with endearingly shoddy cover art) and Overloaded: The Singles Collection. Hurrah! To celebrate my (whisper it) 23rd this year, I am attending more gigs that I have done in the past five years. Tomorrow, it's Lily Allen in Sheffield, next week, everybody's favourite 70s MOR rockers, The Feeling and the week after that, the Winehouse. Expect to find me bellowing "no! no! no!" during Rehab (surely if there is any modern pop song that is designed to be a call and response song, it's Rehab??)

I went to see Bent tonight. Being somewhat vertically challenged, I was pleased to discover that I had third row centre tickets and then within the opening five minutes of the play, Alan Cumming proceeds to bare his rump to an imaginary mirror and the audience. Anyway, naked camp frolicking aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the play, despite the fact that the transitions between high camp comedy and the more harrowing moments. I can't decide what was more disturbing - the fact that the Stormtroopers had more than a whiff of The Producers about them or the fact that I found one of them rather attractive. Nevermind. It's bedtime for me now so I can direct my mind towards more inane and innocuous matters such as the book about the history of shoes that I'm reading. Expect an update soon either raving or slating Lily Allen. Pip pip.

* This may have something to do with the fact that I don't have Anne Hathaway's face.

A contender for Pop Lyric of the Year I think you'll agree dear readers.
Perhaps only to be rivalled by Amy Winehouse's new material which includes
"crying on the kitchen floor" and alcoholic girlband soul about rehab.
Fabulous. Anyway, I was rather hoping that my next blog entry was going to
be from home but alas it isn't meant to be. As soon as I wriggle free from
the dastardly clutches of Orange and into bed with BT, my eMac decides to
die on me. Perhaps die is a bit of an exaggeration because it's just moving
v-e-r-y slowly. Nevertheless, last night found me slumped across the desk,
head resting against monitor, moaning softly to myself. Rather fortuitously,
I had the foresight to buy AppleCare so I shall be darkening their helpline
shortly demanding that my iTunes library be restored to its former glory.

Anyway, seeing as I'm writing from work, I sadly don't have the time to go
into why the references to kitchens in pop lyrics constitute an amazing
track but there is time to say the following:

- Even though the newest Girls Aloud ode has made it into my subject line
for this entry, I have only grown to love it in the past 72 hours. I
absolutely hated it for the previous two weeks. I still think that the new
Sugababes single beats it. With a brick wrapped in a batwing jumper. Not
only does it cram the most sexual euphemisms into any pop song known to man
but it's a welcome move away from the pop-electro Xenomania sound which was
become far too common. (You know it's dead when Hilary Duff jumps on the
bandwagon.)
- It has been said before but I think it is worth saying again that the new
Amy Winehouse material from her forthcoming album, "Back to Black", firmly
trounces La Aguilera's "old-school" sound. I know that 2006 is going to be
touted as Timbaland's year but I have loved all of Mark Ronson's productions
this year. (Insert your own joke about me loving Mark Ronson's horns.)
- "That Mitchell and Webb look" has been vaguely disappointing. There are
some excellent sketches ("That's Numberwang!" "You hold your ladle like a
pen!") and some terrible ones that should have seen the cutting room floor
(the snooker commentators, I mean you.)
- "Extras" has been vaguely disappointing. There are some excellent moments
("I've done it with a girl. Intercourse-wise" - a line worthy of Alan
Partridge I think you'll agree dear readers) and some terrible moments (all
of episode two).

Anyway, I have been on my lunch break for an hour and a half so I think it's
time to finish my tuna and sweetcorn sesame sub and bid you adieu. And also
shoutout to Lawrence who stumbled across me recently. Damn you and your wily
internet black magic ways. Pip pip.