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.