How about this?!

I met with Linds at St Pauls this lunchtime for some inspirational peptalking, planning, budgeting and general excitement building.

Of course, there's a lot of toot on the market, and then there's the likes of this....within our budget, in Shoreditch, impossibly cool. I can see Lindsey and I now, sitting on our uber balcony, looking over the city, sipping Sancerre, discussing our busy media days on our comfy outside furniture. Equally I can see us hanging our crazy pants out on the balcony to dry and spewing off the edge of it....9 floors up, we could create quite a mess!

Fingers and toes crossed please. I'm going to have a proper sulk if this one's gone!

The emotional upheaval of change

Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about the prospect of moving to London, especially with such an uber cool chick as Lindsey, but the actual reality of the admin of moving is gradually dawning on me.

Packing my belongings into boxes never fails to generate a whole jumble of emotions and thoughts which on a normal day won't ever cross my mind. I'm not sure if it's just me, but each time I pack my (fairly limited) belongings into boxes I am flooded with a whole load of....

Random memories

My clock which I keep by my bed. Normally I never consider its history, but here is the only physical remaining evidence of a relationship I had with a guy called Dan Porter, when I was 18 years old. His mum bought me the clock. Its pretty naff, but it always gets wrapped and taken and unwrapped and put by my bed.

My picture of Lotte, my dog, who was put to sleep at the beginning of 2006, sleeping on the old sofa at the house where I was bought up in Reading until I was 17.

The fat little buddha which has sat by my bed for 7 years since Clare first gave him to me. I remember rubbing his tummy for luck before sitting various exams. He has lost a little part of his head, but he keeps on smiling.

Guilt

Why have I accumulated so little of any value. My most precious items in my life are as follows:

1) Dog collar and 'Grrrrrr' pendant which my dog wore around her neck for 14 years
2) A gold sovereign coin given to me in a will by a cousin of my grandparents up north....when I say Sovereign, I don't mean a nasty, argos one which might be made into a ring, I mean like a dubloon or something. It's lovely, and has a horse engraved on it.
3) My Charles and Diana sterling silver napkin rings...one day these might be worth something, but for now, they just make me chuckle and that's their value.
4) My passport sized picture of me aged 2, wide eyed, scruffy haired, immeasurably cute and innocent. My mum kept this in her wallet as her most treasured possession until a recent bout of depression when she cleansed herself of the emotional burden of her children (as kids) by returning to us all pictures, school reports, toys, drawings, poems we'd written. At this time, she gave the picture to me. One day I suspect she might want it back, but for now, I love it dearly.
5)A picture of me and my school friends: Clare, Julia, Emma, Liz and me at my oldest friend in the world, Jen's wedding. Jen was there at hospital on the day I was born.

Ok, so they mean the world to me. But if I left any one of them in my will to someone, I can't imagine they'd be thrilled!

What it boils down to is that at least 90% of my belongings are worthless and disposable and as much as I do love them now, this is only temporary. Shoes, clothes, boots, accessories, most of which aren't 'classics' and will be culled and replenished systematically in one of my ruthless tri-monthly binges...binliner upon binliner are filled to the brim with ill thought through purchases and colours which would never have worked on one so fair.

And with the impending move, I have this melancholy process to go through. Anyone want any of last season's French Connection? I think this time I could well break a record of bags of rubbish to throw away... the pictures and clock and the gold coin are staying close by my side.

Tomorrow- I plan to master the art of cockney rhyming slang....anyone have any pointers?

Magic FM

In a rage against the corporate law machine, me and my wayward colleague Katherine have decided to have the radio blaring at work....even though it's against all work protocols...ohhhhhhh, what are they going to do? Fire me! We are SUCH rebels.

However, the last laugh is most certainly on me as the only station we can get without a hint of interference is Magic. I've never listened to it before, but it appears to be a 'greatest hits from the movies' compilation. It's truly awful. At the moment, 'I knew you were waiting for me' is on. Before this, the soundtrack from that miserable film 'Beaches'. Michael Bolton is surely only a matter of minutes away....no I was wrong...Snow Patrol. Sorry, dan, Snore Patrol. Grrrrrrrrrrr.

This weekend was a good one, in so much as I basically did nothing, except relax. On Saturday night, Steve and I had his mum and sister over for dinner, and in the absence of alcohol, we amused ourselves by watching the 100 greatest sex symbols of all time, on Channel 4, the results of which were compiled using an internet poll.

An internet pole of randy teenagers and equally horny pensioners it seems, what with the featuring of those such as Jenna Jamieson (Steve's mum: 'Who is THAT?' Steve: 'Just about the best, sorry, most popular female porn star', Ali hides amused grin, and glances towards porn stash)

And this was the top ten:

1. Angelina Jolie

2. Elvis Presley

3. Marilyn Monroe

4. Beyonce Knowles

5. Brad Pitt

6. Lara Croft

7. George Clooney

8. Kylie Minogue

9. Johnny Depp

10. Scarlett Johansson

I feel this requires some discussion. I'm not sure this is a good representation at all of the best sex symbols. Sure some of these people are attractive, but this doesn't mean they are sexy. And anyway, how can a games character be number 6, when her living incarnation is number one. Surely this is double counting? Or do the boys who voted for Lara Croft genuinely prefer a women created from some fancy HTML programming? Maybe they know something older men don't.

Jonhny Depp does nothing for me, and Scarlett Johansson with her overpainted lips in those shit maybelline adverts, she has lost it. Granted she looked hot in her pants in Lost in Translation, but she is DULL. Brad, since being with Ange has lost all sex appeal as he is clearly just brow beaten into submission over everything, and that is about as sexy as being made to watch your mum doing a strip tease. And Elvis? I'm sorry Anita, but nothing kills sex appeal like the vision of someone popping their clogs whilst attempting to take a dump.

Lets create our own:

My personal favourite: Jared Leto. Also, Penelope Cruz must SURELY be in the top 5?

Bright orange man.

This afternoon on the northern line, I amused myself by watching a very orange man.

This bloke had clearly felt the need to tango himself for some special occasion and the net result was that he had an orange face, patchy orange fingers and looked very embarrassed. The worst thing was that he had very thinning hair and you could see just how pale he really was beneath the dye....what would possess a man to do such a thing? In the winter as well.

Do you think he was gay? Is this a prejudice? Why would a straight man want to have a tan in the winter....especially a fake one.

Give me and steve 3 weeks, and we'll be laughing in everyone's faces with our tans! hehehehehe.

Infact, speaking of my lovely boyfriend we have had a great night together. spent the first part of the evening in a bar called Exhibit in Balham, and then went on to have big old fillet steaks with fried eggs at La Pampa Grill....anyone visiting Clapham...these steaks are a must. We're now sitting watching re-runs of pop idol and getting hammered! What possible better night could there be? (unless of course I stopped typing and paid Steve the attention he deserved...)

Not sexual favours though. Pop idol is too addictive!

Have happy weekends you lovely people. Dan, I'm only moderatly offended by the slating of Isle of Wight. One of these days, you'll get me to Womad.....in 2067.

Laughed out loud!

I love it when something makes you laugh out loud at work. When this happens to me, it tends to actually be more of a 'snort' or a 'shriek'. The picture of the duck playing a piano from my post yesterday achieved a snort of sorts just moments ago. and everyone looks at you as if to say,

"Well you're clearly not doing ANY work"

And you feel slightly smug that you have friends that are soo amazing, they can make you snort from afar...and even smugger that you are clearly flouting all of your work responsibilities.

Yesterday I booked tickets to go to the Isle of Wight festival (8th, 9th, 10th, June). The line up looks pretty good, but then I do love my Snow Patrol. I can practically sense Jonathan and Dan shuddering and breaking out into a cold sweat. BUT, there are rumours of the Stones putting in an appearance this year, so surely that must be worth the £125. Anyone from Brighton fancy coming and slumming it for a few days?

Awww, come on! I'm not hardcore enough to do Glastonbury, and last year washing with baby wipes in 30 degrees was pushing my limits...but it is fun to be earthy for a couple of days and not worry about wearing make-up (apart from the obligatory eye liner, lip gloss, bronzer and eyebrow pencil of course....lets not be too silly!).

Can I just say that today is the official 'Ange-Fest' day, yes, it's Anita's birthday. I'm sure you all know anyway, but of course, texts with messages of love, good wishes, and happy returns wouldn't go a miss. I've done mine so can sleep easy tonight. I also bought her some GREAT soft porn to read in-between working so I'm maxed out on brownie points. Happy 30th Anita!

Ok Jonathan, if we MUST

bye bye posting

I've just posted an uber blog all about work, and Britney's suicide attempt and it's all just disapeered when I hit publish.

I take this as an omen that what I wrote was a load of old tosh and not worth reading, and so will settle for letting you look at this and seeing what you think.

Well, it was either that or a picture of an elephant playing basketball.

Can you tell I'm bored, lethargic, hungover and tender, and just want this day to be over.....

Oh MY GOD. it's underneath this one....look down a bit....there! It didn't fall into the black e-hole of cyber space. Apologies for the multiple Britney links, I'm not obsessed with her, I just admire the girl for cutting off her locks to remove any evidence of drug taking. I wonder if anyone has told her about certain drugs remaining in the blood stream for many many months. Perhaps the next thing will be a liver and kidney bypass complete with a 100% transfusion.