Lard Arse. Well maybe.

New year, new beginnings?





Driven almost crazy with frustation at the slowness of the 59 bus I started cycling a few weeks ago. Since that point I've learnt





a) You need gloves in the winter. Always. Or your fingers fall off.


b) It colder once you are moving than you think.


c) You will run the risk of being a tiny bit smelly frequently.


d) It's way better than the bus, even in the rain.


e) Saddle bags hold more stuff than I believed.





This new found enthusiasm for cycling has somewhat screwed my ability to go to the gym (http://www.gymbox.co.uk/) because I can't manage the dressing/undresing thing so often in one day. Am thinking of cycling to work dirty which would force me to go directly to the gym for a shower at least. At which point almost certainly I'd go on the cross trainer because I'd be too embarrassed to just shower and leave.



Now I'm feeling a bit more active and enthused I'm thinking I might go all out and couple this exercise with a bit of Slimming World 'food optimising' action.

This is mostly driven by the graph to the left.

Current Weight 114kg.
Ideal Weight: 80ish kg

Fingers crossed.

Purity In One Easy Step

At least that is pretty much what it promised on the bottle. I've been using Philosophy's Purity cleanser. It promises 4 steps in 1 which for a lazy bones like me is pretty good.

I met my best friend for CD buying (www.frank-turner.com) and then we had a ridiculously expensive beer for her and G&T for me (£8.10) in Soho. We followed this with dinner at Satsuma on Wardour Street where we had very tasty beef and an alarmingly drinkable New Zealand white (I wanted the one that was described as 'racy' but couldn't quite screw my courage to the sticking place!) before decending on our old favourite matchbar.

We, by which I mean best friend and I, have been going to matchbar since we were impecunious students ten years ago. At the time £6 a cocktail seemed like a veritable inheritance and for the price of your granny at £7.50 you could have a hong kong fuey which was the 4 white spirits, chartreuse, midori, a splash of lemonade and a surefire way to happiness. In fact, we spent long enough in there that the chief of the floor/head man Faizal used to see us walking in, clear a table and arrange for our usual. I've never been able to work out whether this says more about us or the bar.

Anyway, over years, via several attractive, sometimes gay barmen matchbar has become a bit of an afterwork hangout. It still does great cocktails, uses fab booze and makes you feel like a trendy. No mean feat for a bar which is expanding faster than a pregnant J-Lo.

Nowadays a HKF (reloaded) will set you back a tenner but is still fun. Tonight we had cummulatively a dark and stormy, a Southside No 2, a shared Nicola six punch which is a giant laughable cocktail full of strawberries and cucumber and upsettingly tasty given its sleezy look before rounding off with a Pink Lady and an Ol' fashioned.

Clearly this kind of indulgance requires a sloughing of the evening upon return to home. Which I would have done if someone, whom I shall not name, had no virtually emptied the last of MY bottle of cleanser. How am I supposed to cultivate a face like a baby's butt now?

I ask you....

It Never Happens To The Waltons

Night Jim bob, Night Mary Jane...

I remember the Waltons, where seemingly 20 people lived in a house that you where close enough to everyone to say good night to. More importantly you wanted to say good night to them.

I'm currently living with my sister. She's nice. We are toying with the idea of buying a house together to avoid the financial death defying feat of having a single person mortgage. The main obstable to this is not, as one might think, the skyrocketing cost of homes for 'young professionals' like us, or if you are of a more suspicious nature, the collapse of the subprime mortgage market. The main issue is we don't really get on very well.

We get on best during the month's she is away on business. We talk on the phone. I tidy up, changes the beds etc. Currently, here all the time we are falling out a lot.

I'm actually in trouble right at this very minute, as I type, for failing to return a call within 80 mins of receiving it. Almost unforgiveable you might agree*.

Crucially though we are trying. Mostly each other's patience but somewhere in there there is a kernal of family love. My concern is that we are the sibling equivalent of those seeds that need a massive, destructive forest fire to rage before they bloom!




*if you are occasionally anally retentive, control loving trainee auditor.

Bored. And Stuff.

I don't know what to do. I'm expecting to hear from a friend who I haven't heard from in ages. I was kind of hoping he would call of his own accord but I haven't heard yet. It makes me pretty sad. We used to go out and now we barely even speak. I can't decide whether its better to square up and call him or whether to just let these things die.

Bollocks.

Life, Y'know.

I'm working lots and lots at the moment. I've changed drops and the pace is relentless. I managing more than one service in the hospital and barely have time to eat dinner, never mind lunch or breakfast!

I'm tired.

Also - i'd still quite like a boy...or more preferably a man. Tall, dark (probably), funny, clever...all that kind of thing.

Binking Shoe Ben

Luckily no one reads this page so I don't have to worry that you've all been hanging out on a limb for the next installment. Several things have happened:

1) My sisters friend has regained conciousness! She is able to open one eye, move her hand and fingers moreso on the left than the right, and even move her legs mariginally. What's even better is that she appears to remember people and also be able to follow questions.

2) I have date with a man called Ben. He is older (40!) and I suspect he might be quite serious. My flatemate tells me I'm over thinking - so we'll have to see. There are lots of positives:

• I don't mind the older man
• He has a very interesting job potentially
• He looks attractive enough in his pics
• He does lots of public speaking so hopefully can at least make good chat

But in my overthink way - I've also got a mental list I am trying to ignore:

• What if being good at public speaking means he is only able to make that banal one to one chat full of "yah" "Oh really, how interesting"?
• What if we don't get on - his chat was better at the start and is waning - then I'll have to leave and that might be awkward
• He is choosing the venue - I emailed yesterday saying "BTW - sure you know venue shouldn't involve dark alleys, unpopulated areas etc etc" to which he replied "are you joking. I'm tired and don't understand". Surely he knows you can't go on essentially a blind date down a dark alley in case your date is a bad man!

Oh the dilemmas - I've never had to go on a date before - I've always just met people through friends - but the time we agreed to meet for drinks we already knew each other if you know what I mean.

3) I have a new pair of shoes which I really like but have no idea what to wear them with. They were going to my date shoes...

So they are the most exciting things - I am sure there are other bits - just can't remember.

Any tips for my date?

Deadly Weekend

This last week has been a killer. Literally.

1) My next door neighbour who was my surrogate grandad died on Monday. I was supposed to go and visit last week and I didn't. I'm crap.

2) My boss' friends are the boys in the boat that got run over off the Isle of Wight.

3) My friend Alice told me her Dad died. Oesophageal cancer with mets. He died 3 months ago and I didn't know. See point 1.

4) My sister's porter at her Cambridge college had a heart attack. He was a single parent with 4 children.

5) Her best friend from school who used to stay at our house has been knocked off her bike. Currently in ITU at Kings. No one knows any more than the fact she has a clot on on the brain.

Why so many in a row.