Still here... Just about!

Hiya folks

Sorry I haven't updated for a while, I just don't seem to have managed to make the time. Since the power cut I've taken to reading more while at home (laptop gathering dust) and I've been in a constant state of annoyance at work recently which seems to take up all my time and energy. Gah! Workin' nine to five - what a way to make a living indeed!

What've I been up to? I went to the Bombay Sapphire Glass House exhibition and learnt all sorts of interesting stuff about yummy gin, that was definitely the highlight of last week. I must dig out some interesting facts and figures for my fans but I'll let you know right now that I thought the Tom Collins was the yummiest cocktail on offer at the event. Mmm... gin....

The old landline got installed as well but I'm currently in a massive huff with BT so I won't go into that. Gah! Effers! The lot of them. Hope they rot in their own excrement!

Calm. Deep breaths.... Look at the ocean lapping on the shores of Marj Island. Check that serenity*...

That's better. I think a Tom Collins courtesy of Juan will sort everything out. I'll just go and see where he's got to.....

*A shiny sixpence to whoever can name that movie.

Better to light a candle than curse Scottish Power? Ask Blow-up Doll Bruce!

So I was sitting on the couch last Tuesday evening, quietly degesting my dinner and ogling the goggle box. It's not a common occurence for me to be at home watching telly on a Tuesday evening and now I know why - there's nothing on! I do believe I was watching one of those shows about people trying to buy houses. Ugh, reality TV. What evil dick thought of that concept? Anyway, I was saved from the tedium by the TV suddenly going 'pop' and switching off. "Hunh," thought I "another power cut." There had been a thunder storm the week before which I think effected the electrics because my alarm clock had reset itself while I was out. I settled down with the new Jasper Fford book to wait for the electricity to come back on. It had been a while and I was starting to wonder if it was just me but I had to pop out to the shop and all the lights were off there as well so I was reassured. I went back to Jasper Fford and lit candles when the sun went down.

The next morning I still had no power so I phoned the Scottish Power emergency line and after telling it my address and postcode (I'm SO dubious of that technology!) the automated message lady told me they were aware of a fault in my area. This was after waking up with the horrible realisation that I have an electric shower in my flat. Waily! Blithely accepting that Scottish Power had everything in hand I packed a towel and some shampoo and toddled off to work. The shower at work isn't great but it was better than no wash at all so I could get on with my day without feeling too greasy and smelly. I phoned for regular updates throughout the day and at half past four in the afternoon was told that everyone's power was back on, except one customer who had agreed to have it kept off in the meantime.

However, when I got home it soon became apparent that I still did not have any power. When I phoned Scottish Power back the silly lassie on the line actually suggested I was the one that had agreed to have my power kept off. If that was the case why the Hell would I be phoning to complain??? Gah! Anyhoo, they said they'd log the fault and an engineer would contact me. Did they? Did they doodah! I probably should have phoned back earlier than I did but I was hacked off and went to Zoe's for sustenance and electric lighting. The upshot was that when I got home at about 11pm I still had no power. That was when I discovered that my supply of tea lights had been tidied and I had no idea where they were so the Bruce Lee candle that Barney gave me for Xmas a few years ago was finally lit. It's had a good run as The Most Tacktastic Piece of Tat I've Ever Been Given but finally it was useful!

Once I'd set fire to Bruce Lee's head I took a deep breath and called Scottish Power again. The lassie who answered my call sounded about 15 years old and had the customer service skills of a 15 year old too. She was so unhelpful that I ended up hanging up on her in tears. Although to give Scottish Power their due, they phoned me back 3 minutes later to say there was an engineer in the area who would pop in and have a look at it for me. Apparently you don't often get this kind of service - but I don't see why not after over 24 hours with no electricity, especially seeing as everyone in the call centre seemed to be utterly clueless.

So the engineer came up and poked around and wandered about. Unfortunately he couldn't do anything about the power being off without access to the basement of the building, which is storerooms for the University. At least it put my mind at rest that it wasn't just me being a spakker or due to my refusing to risk life and limb balancing on a chair in the pitch black in a flat on my own to flick some switch which I'd flicked earlier that day to no effect. Apparently the University had agreed to have the power kept off down there in the meantime but I think the whole rest of the stair was cut off as well. Nobody else had complained but the Scottish Power engineer said he thought he saw candles in the flat next door to me as well. This could just have been my Italian gigolo neighbour entertaining a young lady though.

I eventually got power back on Thursday morning, in time to shower before work, but the stair lights are still out - almost a week later. I suppose I'll have to phone and complain about that too but I keep forgetting to note down the number for stair lighting complaints. In the meantime I'm carrying a torch about in my handbag. Sigh.


Oh, and PS
http://www.jasperfforde.com/
:oD

Mr David Keanrick and Mr Enoch Mossop present A Midsummer Night's Dream

I went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream in Princes Street Gardens at the first (and possibly last!) Edinburgh Shakespeare festival last Wednesday evening. Open air theatre is a lovely idea but not really for Scotland and not really for the Ross Bandstand. The weather was very weird all day last Wednesday for a start. It was overcast in the morning, then there was a heatwave at lunch time and by 5pm it was overcast again. Now, that doesn't sound all that strange for Scotland but it goes to show how unpredictable the weather can be. I had packed my cagoule just in case but in the end it didn't rain during the performance. The bloke 4 rows in front of us that got shat on by a dive-bombing seagull possibly wished he'd packed his cagoule though!

The other thing that I don't think the organisers of the event took into account was that the main railway line north out of Waverley station runs right at the back of the gardens and the Edinburgh - Glasgow shuttle goes by every 15 minutes. The London train was worse because, though it runs less frequently, it is longer and seemed to scrape the tracks a whole heck of a lot more. So the poor actors were having to contend with the noise of passing trains, the traffic on Princes Street and the odd passing ned shouting incoherent abuse (in that way that they do). For the most part they coped admirably, except for Hypolita/Titania - you couldn't hear a blinking word she said. We all agreed we recognised her from television so she's probably not as used to projecting.

So, apart from the iffy weather and the noise pollution, how was the show? Not too shabby actually. I was thinking that the noise was unfortunate seeing as so much of Shakespeare is in the language but we all laughed in the right places and that play does allow for a lot of physical comedy. One of the things that made me chuckle the most, though probably unintentionally on the part of the actor, was Oberon's acting. It reminded me of that episode of Blackadder the Third when George is being taught to act by messers Keanrick and Mossop. He basically stood with his legs as far apart as possible and shouted. Helena also seemed to have been at this acting school, and there was more than a little whiff of 'Bob' about her too. She didn't actually slap her thigh at any point but I suspect she was supressing the urge. I think my giggling at Helena and Oberon confused Zoe no end and made her worry she was missing something.

On the whole I enjoyed it but my ass was numb by the end. That's due to the chairs though and not the quality of the production. It's reminded me how much I enjoy the bard and got me more excited about the Festival. They're doing Romeo & Juliet and Cymbeline in the Botanic Gardens this year and I must, must, must go! I can't remember why I missed A Winter's Tale last year but I suspect it was either due to laziness or a hangover. D'oh!

Do Not Resist Hypno-Kitty

I had to pay homage to the fantastic mug that Kirsi got me for my birthday. It's a magnificent mug and the big, blue eyes of the moggy theron seem to urge you to drink more tea....

It was a Godsend on Saturday when I inexplicably woke up at half six in the morning. I managed to lie in bed for another hour but then I was flipping well wide awake so I got up. I haven't seen half seven on a Saturday morning since I worked full time in Tesco, it was very weird. I tried texting Bruce to get revenge for the previous week, and the text that had awoken me from a drunken stupor on the couch at 2:30am. It didn't work, he replied a few hours later extolling the wonders of silent mode. Bah! Anyhoo, Hypno-Kitty kept me company for the next few hours with gallons and gallons of lovely tea. Hoorah for Hypno-Kitty!

On Saturday evening I dragged my ass out to Hannah's flat warming, fully expecting to be face down snoring in the potato salad before midnight. And guess what? Yep, I didn't end up leaving until 5am. What? How did that happen? I guess we just spend the whole evening gassing away, after all the middle aged teachers from Dunfermline left. Oooh, they were scary. I wasn't feeling particularly sociable and hadn't had a drop of Dutch courage to fortify me so I didn't really know how to interact with them. They all seemed lovely though and Hannah had lots of good things to say about them.

Anyhoo, at 5am Barney, Cat and I decided to walk home because it was light outside and we were all feeling in need of some fresh air. The walk was quite uneventful until I left my companions at the bottom of North Bridge. Between the bottom of NB and home I met a drag queen/transvestite (I'm a little hazy on the distinction - sorry), was offered a toke on a dooby and finally managed to wake Bruceyboy up with a drunken text. Sweeeeet! Revenge is mine! Mwah hah hah hah hah!

Last week I are mostly was having a birthday.

It was my birthday precioussssss. Last Saturday (24th June) to be precise, and it was a good day. I had started the celebrations early with a drink or twelve on Thursday evening with a few esteemed colleagues. Needless to say, I felt rough as feck on Friday. Bleeurgh. I made it through most of the working day with the judicious application of coffee and carbohydrates until I could decently crawl back to the pit from whence I came. A few hours later I was soothing the pain with dinner at Phenecia with Helen and Emily. The hummus there is surprisingly good for hangovers by the way, or maybe that’s just because it’s yummylicious at any time?

My first birthday greeting on the big day itself came in the form of a text from Bruce, at freaking half past seven in the morning! My text alert at the moment is a sound clip of Podge and Rodge so I was woken by a screech of “Are ye making the teeeeeeeeeeee?” I suppose I have nobody to blame but myself for that. Bah. The upside is that I got to spend the rest of the morning blissfully drifting in and out of sleep and really spending some quality time appreciating the wonderfulness of my bed. Mmmmm! (Oh, and if you’re worried about Mr Hadden it’s ok kids – he was on his way to bed, not getting up.)

After an afternoon of pottering and lazing about I went out for dinner again. Well, it was my birthday :oD

As I couldn’t get booked into Phenecia this year (I’d been meaning to book for weeks but hadn’t got round to it. Curses!) so I picked another interesting-sounding BYO in the area – Fenwick’s on Salisbury Place. The List Guide review appeared favourable, citing it as a favourite haunt of the fictional detective, Inspector Rebus. “Well,” I thought “if it’s good enough for a fictional character then it must be good enough for me!” Another odd thing about the review was that the minus point listed was that the bread was a tad tedious. If that was the worst thing they could think of to comment on then that seemed promising.

The staff were very friendly but the chairs were a little too high, or the table a little too low, and our starters took a noticeably long time to arrive. When they did they were a little underwhelming and the bread (that we had to ask for) was, indeed tedious. The main courses and desserts more than made up for these deficiencies though. I had pan-fried duck breast with roast parsnips on a bed of balsamic vinegary puy lentils. That duck breast was gorgeous! It was moist and slightly pink in the middle and utterly delicious. The red berries crème brulee that I had for dessert was absolutely beautiful as well, though I did fancy the champagne jelly with melon accompanied by blackcurrant sorbet. I think the fact that nobody offered anyone else a taste of their pudding is testament to how darn tasty it all was. By the end of the meal everyone seemed impressed with the place and any restaurant that has jelly and ice cream on the menu is ok in my book.

Then it was back to Marj Towers for drinkiepoos and intelligent conversation… well drinkiepoos anyway. We had a fine old time but, fear not gentle reader, it didn’t get too out of hand. That bottle of Absinthe remains, untouched and dusty, upon the fridge still. Mind you, how different things might have been if Barney hadn’t been on call that evening...