March Madness

Ah March.

Already it is nicer. The sun has got his hat on, the daffodil ls are making their annual joyful appearance and mums across the country are getting spoiled.

Here is a joke I made about that.

In the Tescos in the BBC media village they had a little stand with flowers and chocolates and teddy bears and a big sign saying 'Spoil Your Mum' and my suggestion as to how to spoil one's mum was to throw red wine on her. I'm pretty sure that would spoil her.

Anyway.

It's quite a nice start to the month. I sent my gran some flowers from the internet. They were pretty cheap (relatively, flowers are generally really expensive, especially if you have them delivered) but please don't tell her. I did quite a bit of internet research to find the bestest, cheapest ones.

I don't like actual real life florists much. Although the shops are lovely and smell like a delicious meadow based dream, I find them weird places to be in. The people who work there intimidate me. I realise I am making a huge generalisation about people who work in florists. Also, I don't mean people who sell flowers outside tube stations or in markets, that's a different kettle of freesias. I mean ones in shops, with big fancy displays and bows.

Additionally I worry that the cut flowers industry is contributing to the demise of planet Earth and that I shouldn't encourage it. At the same time, flowers are lovely aren't they?

I'm going to try growing some window boxes on my windowsill (where else can you have a window box?). Surely that's good for the environment. And pretty. And will deter burglars from my window as I will grow robber-eating plants.

Does anyone know where I can get these from?

Last Chance Saloon

Let's have a round up of events of this month -

- I got nominated for an award that I didn't win.

- I went on the London Eye for the first time, despite having lived in London for 3 years.

- I saw one play. It was OK.

- I performed live on stage 4 times with mixed results.

- I visited Leicester for the first (and probably last) time.

Other than that I have pretty much not left my house (except for working). And even though I have not left my house, I have NOT played on the Wii for almost the entire month. Surely this is something to celebrate.

Anyway, as mentioned in my previous post I can barely spend a penny (literally, in terms of cash, not in terms of having a wee, I can do that liberally). And so I am trying to save where I can and it occurs to me that I have not online grocery shopped for ages, and that is probably cheaper as I can get big heavy things that I can't haul all the way from Morrison's or Sainsbury's to my humble flat. Like 5 kg of pasta. So I think I will do that.

I have tried a few in my time, and I long for the days I can online shop with Waitrose or M&S. That surely will be a measure of success.

Pay Day and Not Pay Day

Money is such a difficult and awful thing, isn't it?

My income and spending would probably make a peaking and troughing graph, like a sine wave, with time of month on the horizontal line.

My rent comes out at the beginning of each month. This means that as of around the 2nd or 3rd I am exceptionally shy of funds and never leave the house excepting to earn money and buy cheap food.

As it gets  towards the middle of the month I have earned some more money and feel more ambitious with my spending and will indulge. For example, I will pop into and Itsu and pick up some sushi for lunch. I do love sushi, but goodness it's so much more expensive than Greggs.

Then I know at the end of the month that I need to have enough money to be able to pay the bills so I get back on the Greggs chicken mango soft bites (which are delicious, filling and affordable at £1.90) and dream of sashimi I might get in 2 weeks time.

So now it's getting to the end of the month and I've just realised that my landlord makes more money from me in February than in any other month as I pay a monthly rent and not a weekly one. All in all it confirms February as one of the worst months of the twelve on offer.

Roll on March and it's 31 days.

Lovely Lovely Rugby

What a lovely time I am having on the weekends.

Although I am still yet to find the ideal place to watch Wales beat all and sundry in this fantastic six nations, I am at least still getting to watch Wales beat all and sundry in this fantastic six nations.

I find generally, watching sport in England is a very different affair to the jovial, strong voiced adventure it is in Wales.

E.g. The atmosphere at Twickenham was similar to that of a rabies quarantine unit, I imagine. The atmosphere at the Millennium is incredible, in fact, the whole city of Cardiff on match days is awesome. Whereas I live within spitting distance (that's how you measure distance in football) of Loftus Road which is the home ground of QPR. Atmosphere in Shepherd's Bush on match days is just a bit more tense than usual. Of course cricket is a whole different ball game and Lord's is an experience not to be missed for any lover of either cricket, English summers, Pimms, extortionately priced strawberries or mild sunburn. This year I fully intend to encamp myself in Wimbledon for the eponymous sporting event of the English summer and I will be able to report how it goes on that front.

I guess what my point is, is that rugby and football are not as fun to watch here as they are back in Wales. This becomes very apparent when I am in a pub supporting Wales and I am involuntarily vociferous and the other patrons can do nothing but laugh at me. The only place this didn't happen was the Famous Three kings but it gets so damned busy in there it becomes unpleasant.

So I still looking for my ideal spot and I welcome any suggestions.

I would also like somewhere to watch late night cricket which is not a pub but a sort of living room for losers like me who stay up all night following inconsistent English cricket, that serves tea and toast 24 hours a day with big sofas and possibly blankets. Or am I on my own there and should I just pay for Sky Sports?

Leap Years

February is always the month of Valentine's day but it is sometimes the month of mild misogyny.

I am of course referring to the fact that a woman is 'allowed' to propose to her partner during a leap year. I'm not sure if it specifically has to be on February 29th or can be any date as long as it's one in a year that is divisible by 4. Either way, it's one of those quaint things, like St Swithin's day which people know about, some take seriously and others worry are damning of people's intelligence and principals.

I think it's silly. And slightly perpetuates the idea that women have to be given permission before making a powerful gesture of any sort.

Of course, when Friday comes about I will be getting down on both knees to propose my lover, just before scrubbing the floor and cooking dinner.

The question is: where is the best place to do such a contrived and awful thing?

Apparently the London Eye is the 2nd most popular place in THE WHOLE WORLD for proposals, after the Eiffel Tower. My boyfriend and I have been to both recently and there was not a whiff of a ring, so I can't say my experience backs up this data. I also think it would be terrifically corny to actually ask someone to marry you in either of those two places and in the case of the Eye, if you haven't hired out the entire capsule you will probably get 'no' as your answer. I would never accept a proposal that cost £15 and a minimum of 45 minutes of queing.

Ideally it should be somewhere where you can make a scene, whether offering, accepting or refusing. No one should be allowed to get away with it quietly (unless it's one of those rather unseemly shotgun marriages).

A park or something might be nice. Or a palace. With dinner. Something extravagant and/or extrordinarily expensive. Not Wormwood Scrubs. Or Wormholt Park. In fact, not anywhere that has 'worm' as part of its name. The only exception being if you first met there or some other such romantic nonsense.

If you are insisting on Shepherd's Bush though, I would suggest Eroma because you can do it at any time of day, and with a bagel if you haven't managed a ring yet.

Romance and Cylinders

Valentine's week is hilarious isn't it?

There is a shop on the Uxbridge Road that i have never been in but I always enjoy. It is called Group B and sells light fittings. If I ever need a light fitting then I will certainly pay Group B a visit, but I haven't so far, so I've never been in.

Firtly I enjoy Group B for its name. Why would you ever give your shop a name that suggests it is less than the best? Maybe Group B in the lighting world is the best kind of group to be in, maybe it is some weird pun on 'be'. Maybe they just didn't realise. Much like a chicken shop I passed called "3 Star Chicken".

The other reason I like Group B is that they go all out on window decorations depending on the season or upcoming event. So for Valentine's they had up a bunch of hearts and pink things and what have you. I do wonder if this sells more lights.

"Ooh, what a romantic desklamp, I simply must buy it for my lover."

"How christmassy that freestanding reading lamp is, what a marvellous gift it would make for my son."

NardiD2

So, if you hadn't already realised, my computer is really nudged up. I'm using the one at work to write up anything I need to write up and it's made me realise how much I do with my computer. I am so dependant on my laptop that I am almost an android. I plan my journeys, pay my bills, book my tickets, buy food (sometimes) and communicate with everyone I know via my laptop.

Here is a translation of the blog I tried to write with my broken laptop:

This blog post is written in code, the code is one I am forced to write in because my computer has gone barmy. If you can decode the code, then please, read on....

Evidently, my keyboard on my laptop has gone completey bonkers. I believe this is because I spilt some orange juice on it about a month ago. It worked well enough for a month but now has given up half of the ghost and has paralyzed the right side of my keyboard, eliminating the use of great letters ike 'l' and 'o' and 'p', and punctuation ike '.' and '?' and ';' and even '#' I swear to you I pressed the buttons, but the delicious strokes did not appear. Obviously, I'm now in the market for a new computer and this has put me in mind of how you just don't get independant computer retailers these days, places like PC World, Dixons, Currys and even supermarkets selling computers have ousted the small scale businessman from dabbling in electronics. This is a bit of a shame. However at the same time it makes it much cheaper for me to buy my next computer, so it's difficult to decide where my loyalties and opinions lie. I think, ultimately, I want a cheap but working computer. And I think after this blog post that you will heartily agree.