Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Fame at last

Ha ha! My name was mentioned on Craig's blog yesterday... He's doing this new Minipops/Atlas thing and I made a suggestion about some Minipops for Monaco. Coooool.

Also, just checked out Cord's blog after the gig. Their press guy is the same guy who looks after the Arctic Monkeys. That must be very exciting for them considering the amount of publicity those guys are getting at the moment. Well, their music is great but you do need good people supporting you too. Coooool.

Today is going to be a productive day. It has to be. I have been seriously lacking in any kind of work-related motivation recently. It could have a little bit to do with the fact that not much is going on in my world at the moment, and when there isn't that much I tend to do even less. How does that work?

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Great gig!

Cord were really good. Some of the songs were a big 'heavy' for me, but I really enjoyed it. Very charismatic frontman - James. Quite fit actually! Married. Ah well! Ha ha. They are going to be successful. Sure of it. A famous band from Norwich. How exciting!

The support band were pretty good too - Tiny Dancers. From Sheffield (the place of the moment what with the Arctic Monkeys. Obviously I was way ahead of the times choosing to go to uni there...!).

The gig was at the Norwich Arts Centre and there was a really cool exhibition on at the same time. The Little White Art Show" by Mary-Colleen Rabb. Miniature white figurines in everyday places.


Monday, January 23, 2006

Cord

Going to a gig in Norwich tonight. Haven't been to a gig for ages. It's to see Cord. They're a Norwich band. I reckon they're going to be big. They're on Island records and will be releasing their first album soon. They're kind of Muse vs. Radiohead. Ish. I think! Not being very up on music-y stuff, I'm not sure if that makes sense. It's guitars and stuff. Anyway, tickets were only £6 and apparently the parents of one of them own the pub that's my local in Norwich! Maybe I'll know them before they're famous...!

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Art and stuff

So, newly discovered stuff I like via a post on Flip Flop Flying again directing me to a website... and found some super cool artists. I wish I could be an artist. Although, actually, I think everyone can be. So I don't know why I just said that. Some people have more to say I guess. More to express. Or at least can do it in a way that other people identify with.

Margaret Kilgallen
She's dead. She died from breast cancer when she was 33. Isn't that just the saddest thing. I love her designs, especially this one...












Anyway, there are loads of other cool people on there so check it out.

Hmmm, what other artists do I like? I have quite particular taste, but don't really remember the names. I just know what I do and don't like. Will try to think and give examples of people who do super stuff...

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Pack of dogs kill crocodile in Florida

Sometimes nature is cruel but there is also a beauty in that cruelty. The crocodile as one of the ultimate predators can fall victim to the kind of implemented 'team work' strategy which is possible due to the pack mentality and social structure of canines.

See the remarkable photograph courtesy of Nature Magazine:


Heart warming story


Am just trying to clear out my inbox at work and found a cute story...


NAIROBI (AFP) - A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise, in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa, officials said.

The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean, then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him.

"It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a 'mother'," ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park, told AFP.

"After it was swept and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and stablished a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together," the ecologist added.

"The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it follows its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother," Kahumbu added.

"The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years," he explained.



No DIY

Oops. So, I was kind of bored last night. My flat mate was out. Again. So I decided to be productive and do some jobs around the flat.

Task 1: Fix one of the sliding cupboard doors in the kitchen.
Result: I was trying to fix the cupboard door cos it doesn't slide very easily and so was trying to make it run a bit more smoothly... and I have no idea how I managed it but it's now a detached cupboard door. Somehow I got it out of the sliders and now I can't get it back in!

Task 2: Clean the bathroom.
Result: The bathroom is fully tiled from floor to ceiling and goodness knows when it was last cleaned. So I was scrubbing the walls. And then I cleaned the bath. And then I pulled the shower head down to rinse the bath and must've pulled it too hard cos now the hose leaks where it comes out of the shower unit thing and nothing comes out of the shower head. Oops.

I gave up after that and watched 'Lost'...

Monday, January 09, 2006

Cinema city

This past week I have been to the cinema THREE times. I can't afford it (I am in serious negative money at the moment... what went wrong?!) but I love it. Three very different films...

Jarhead
This hasn't even been released yet! There's a 'secret film' thing at the UCI in Norwich every two weeks where they show a film before it's release date to help create the buzz around it. You don't know what film you're going to see at all, not even the genre. It's a great idea. So, yeh, saw 'Jarhead' last Monday. I really enjoyed it. Not much happens, but that was kind of the point. Plus Jake Gyllenhaal is in it.

Brokeback Mountain
I had originally thought I didn't want to see this, but after reading some very good crits and weighing up the pros and cons of seeing Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger kissing, decided to go and see it with my friend Annabel. It was a really beautiful film. In terms of cinematography and scenery and setting. But also in terms of the love story. We both came out crying.

Running Scared
Not a good one to end the week on. Saw this last night. Violent, graphic and a bit weird. Only saving grace was Paul Walker. Not sure he's the sharpest knife in the block, but he sure is pretty.

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Interesting things

I think I need to put more photos in here. Makes it more interesting. Craig at Flip Flop Flying is always putting loads of photos in his blog.

Here's one...


Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Photo Scavenger Hunt

Am trying to organise a Photo Scavenger Hunt for a friend's birthday on Friday. Found a great website called 26 Things that posts a list of words every year. People have to take a photo to represent each photo and send in their entries. Cool idea! I'll let you know how I get on with mine. Can't decide whether to tell people what to do, e.g. get a photo of someone doing a star jump, or the random word thing for people to then get a bit more creative about?! Hmmm...

Some things I didn't know this time last year...

I like lists. There's a list on the BBC website of 100 things we didn't know this time last year.

Here are some of my favourites from the list:

3. While it's an offence to drop litter on the pavement, it's not an offence to throw it over someone's garden wall.
9. The energy used to build an average Victorian terrace house would be enough to send a car round the Earth five times, says English Heritage. [Why do we knock them down then and not just renovate?]
11. One in 10 Europeans is allegedly conceived in an Ikea bed. [Ha ha ha! Sweden is taking over the world...]
12. Until the 1940s rhubarb was considered a vegetable. It became a fruit when US customs officials, baffled by the foreign food, decided it should be classified according to the way it was eaten. [I disagree with the current classification then! Rhubarb should be a vegetable, like a tomato is a fruit... I thought it was classified according to seeds and pips, or not.]
14. It's possible for a human to blow up balloons via the ear. A 55-year-old factory worker from China reportedly discovered 20 years ago that air leaked from his ears, and he can now inflate balloons and blow out candles. [How do you discover that?!]
18. If all the Smarties eaten in one year were laid end to end it would equal almost 63,380 miles, more than two-and-a-half times around the Earth's equator. [Mmmm, Smarties! Shame they got rid of the tubes. I used to collect the lids with the letters on.]
34. The Little Britain wheelchair sketch with Lou and Andy was inspired by Lou Reed and Andy Warhol. [Random.]
35. The name Lego came from two Danish words "leg godt", meaning "play well". It also means "I put together" in Latin. [Clever! Apparently the word for 'Volvo' - another Swedish brand as my friend Christina tells me - comes from the Latin meaning 'I roll'. So there.]
36. The average employee spends 14 working days a year on personal e-mails, phone calls and web browsing, outside official breaks, according to employment analysts Captor. [Oops, I am definitely one of them!]
38. Nasa boss Michael Griffin has seven university degrees: a bachelor's degree, a PhD, and five masters degrees. [That's just ridiculous.]
53. It takes 75kg of raw materials to make a mobile phone. [Obscene.]
59. Oliver Twist is very popular in China, where its title is translated as Foggy City Orphan. [Tee hee!]
63. It takes less energy to import a tomato from Spain than to grow them in this country because of the artificial heat needed, according to Defra. [So many moral dilemmas in the modern world.]
68. The Very Hungry Caterpillar has sold one copy every minute since its 1969 publication. [Maybe my children's book will too!! Ha ha ha.]
78. One in 18 people has a third nipple. [Have you ever met a person with a third nipple? The probability is that I have now!]
81. George Bernard Shaw named his shed after the UK capital so that when visitors called they could be told he was away in London. [Like the pub called 'Walk the dog'...]
100. Musical instrument shops must pay an annual royalty to cover shoppers who perform a recognisable riff before they buy, thereby making a "public performance". [I definitely didn't know that!]

So there you go!

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Happy New Year

Not that it's been a particularly happy one for me thus far... I have been a fool again re: boys. It always happens. Beginning to think there is something wrong with me! Am I really ugly? Or really horrible? Or really stupid? I think I'm ok. Oh well, fingers crossed 2006 will be a better year...

So, the plan for 2006. There are lots of things I need to decide about my life. And I'll probably decide nothing. I didn't last year.

The vague 'over-arching' resolutions are:

1. Be strong (in mind)
2. Stay fit (get fitter)
3. Drink lots of water (to stay young looking!)
4. Be positive and optimistic

Things I want to do (possibly) or sort out:

1. Actually write the text for the children's books I've been thinking about for months
2. Write the synopsis for the 'Place Called Victoria' TV documentary to sell-in with Mille in May
3. Start my first ever screenplay, i.e. get beyond the initial idea and actually start writing it! However bad it might be... got to start somewhere!
4. Start my own website - e-commerce or otherwise
5. Work out what I actually want to do - or at least sort out my 'career', cos it's not going anywhere at the moment
6. Have regular facials! Ooh, and do a reflexology or Indian head massage course...
7. Find a man of my own.

That'll do for now. At least I've written something down so I can read it back. If I remember, I'll keep this blog updated with progress. Just for me to read again. I can't imagine anyone actually reads this.