Tax does, it seems, have to be taxing

A couple of weeks ago I got notification, passed on to me via Tudor, that I needed to complete a tax return. I ignored it, obviously, because I'm PAYE and shouldn't need to complete one, plus they hadn't actually sent me a tax return. Then, a week or so ago, I decided to double check and found out that, low and behold, I do need to return one. As it was only a short time till the deadline, he suggested that I complete it online. So, a week ago I went to do just that but found I had to apply for a PIN code to register, which they had to send me in the post.

Today is 31st Jan. Deadline day and I risk a £100 fine I don't get it in. Didn't receive my PIN yet so couldn't do it online. Instead I had to print it off and complete it by hand, now I have to drive off to hand it in to the nearest tax office, which is Twickenham. There is, of course, industrial action today and I can't get hold of them by phone so I can't confirm with them that a) they're open and b) they can take receipt of my return. Fingers crossed I don't have a wasted (and therefore expensive) journey.

Add that to the fact that it's all bloody maths, which makes me stressed to the gills, and I'm pissed off with the fact that, despite £450 worth of expenses, the calculations say I'm only entitled to a £97 rebate. How the hell can that be right?! Bloody Inland bloody Revenue.

More bargains

I went shopping with Megan the other day in Kingston. It was a bumper day for the bargain hunter; the last dregs of the sale is always my favourite time to go a-looking. I got: three tops from Kew, two soft think jumper type things (one red, one charcoal) and one long blue t-shirt, which looks great with the turquoise belt I also picked up. In Gap, I was looking at a grey jumper which was not, of course, in the sale. I then spotted a different grey top in a very soft t-shirt-type material and decided that, since it was a bit cheaper at £14.50, I'd get that instead. Took it up to the counter and...you guessed it...they said 'That'll be £2.99 please". Fabulous. Uniqlo next, where I found a big thick warm cardigan with a fleecy lining for half price. Then over to Primark to get some new socks and spotted a plain black halterneck bikini for a bargain £5, which - I kid you not - makes me look like a Bond girl. I'm heading off to The Sanctuary tomorrow evening for an evening spa and Nourishing Kyphi Scrub and I bet that no one there will guess that I'm such a cheapskate.

Add this to that the fact that I had my hair done on Saturday at johnbaxterhill in Walton. I went as a model for the trainee again and had a full head of highlights and a cut & blowdry. It was a top job (I had some more red streaks put in and it now looks like the picture I have on my profile again!) and cost me the bargain price of £30 all in.

All in all, a very satisfying weekend.

Have just been forced to switch to Blogger Beta (new version) so am hoping that my blog doesn't disappear or do anything strange. Please let me know if it does.

The wonderful Marillion played a gig at Koko in Camden last night; I was there, of course. If you remember, the last time I went to Koko was to see The Buzzcocks with my friend Suzie and I discovered a 'secret' balcony right at the top where there was a row of comfy leather sofas. I thought then that a gig watched while sat on comfy sofas, with a practically private bar and a good view of the stage was almost perfect, and would indeed have been perfect, if the band had been Marillion. Well, last night, I had the opportunity to put this to the test and I am pleased to report that it was as good as expected. My friend Megan and I queued up early in the cold to make sure we were first up there (judging by the crowds that followed us later it seems it's not so secret after all) and managed to secured the centre sofa. Bliss.

The band were, as ever, musical genius incarnate, and I sang my little heart out start to finish. The only slight sticking point came when I noticed that, directly below us two floors down, stood Tudor and his girlfriend Lindsey (we haven't met), right in front of the sound mixing desk, naturally. I'd recognise that bald spot anywhere. Tudes spotted me too and we waved hello. I knew they'd be there because I know Lindsey knows the wife of Marillion's keyboard player Mark Kelly, but a bit of an odd feeling nonetheless. Still, fortunately there was plenty going on on the stage throughout the evening to distract me, so that was good at least. Tudes texted me later to say he'd met Mark Kelly. Lucky lucky bastard. Anyway, nuff said on that one.

Messing with my head

So - lookylikies. I was directed to the Fake Faces website by the wonderful Geoff Show and, not only does it have some of the loosest definitions of look-a-likes that I've yet seen, but I have also discovered a very odd chain of events.

If you go to the Paris Hilton look-a-like, you will note that it is none other than Celebrity Big Brother 'non-celebrity turned real celebrity' winner Chantelle Houghton, who has apparently been a Paris Hilton look-a-like since before her CBB days. On her page, it suggests that you might like to hire her alongside Preston look-a-like Ben Edwards. What?! So, you hire someone to look like Paris Hilton, but then hire someone who looks like the look-a-like's real-life husband to have alongside her? Does that not suggest that you're hiring Chantelle and Preston look-a-likes instead? But with the REAL Chantelle and a FAKE Preston? But wait - there's more. On the Preston look-a-like's page, it suggests that you might like to hire him alongside Chantelle look-a-like Dani. So let me get this straight. You can hire the real Chantelle to impersonate Paris, a fake Preston to accompany her and a fake Chantelle for...spares?

Just weird.

Winter wonderland

It was very exciting to wake up to all that snow this morning - the view out of my window was second-to-none. I got up and went for a walk down by the lake and took about a hundred photos, some of which I've posted here for your delight and pleasure.

Do I live in one of the most beautiful spots or what?!?

A bit on the windy side

My dad's shed blew over!

Plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery

I bumped into my old tutor from uni yesterday at work and she looked rather bemused as she said she wanted to show me something. She opened up something in her hand and asked me if I recognised it. Well, yes I did, it was some work I'd done for my 'management portfolio' when I'd been doing my degree - several very dull pages about management theories which had been a bugger to read and summarise - and also some stuff my friend Claire had contributed. She asked me if I was sure it was mine, to which I replied I certainly was because you don't forget stuff that boring.

Turns out that it had been submitted by a current student as her own work, and what's more, apparently this piece of work has been plagiarised by TVU students several times before! This particular time, it's a girl they've suspected of plagiarism in the past, so wanted to have proof to confront her. Still, I'm rather flattered that my work is still doing the rounds...

Oh and I got the results of my Examination of the Newborn course (the course I did last year to enable me to do a detailed examination of babies once they're born to confirm they're healthy, usually done by paediatricians). I got 87%! Rather pleased with that, so In Your Face paediatricians of Queen Charlotte's. Now give me an opthalmoscope and I'm away...

Yorkshire festivities

Christmas! This year, my dad & step-mum rented a cottage in York, so everyone bundled round there for Christmas day. As you can see, I went as Widow Twanky in best panto tradition. There were 13 of us for Christmas lunch (Dad, Jackie, Jackie's mum, Jackie's sister Jenny, her husband David, their son Charles, my mum, my sister Jenny and her daughter Liddi, my sister Toni and her two sons Benj & Barney and...oh hang on, who have I forgotten? Oh yes, me) and we ate a veritable feast, including a goose stuffed with a chicken stuffed with a pheasant stuffed with stuffing. Pork I think. We opened an obscene amount of presents as usual, and I had organised a quiz: Family Not University Challenge. It were great. Then the kids and me settle down to watch Starsky & Hutch and then we all watched The Vicar of Dibley. So, your standard Christmas fayre, I suppose. The kids especially enjoyed it:

It wasn't my day today. A combination of traffic, slow tube trains and annoying dawdlers meant that I was four minutes late getting to BAFTA to meet my friend Sarah (she's a member - get her) to go and see The Holiday and BAFTA don't let you in if you're late. I ran hell-for-leather from Green Park tube, up the stairs to the BAFTA reception and asked the receptionist if I was too late. She confirmed I was, so I asked if I could sit on the stairs for a bit because I thought I was going to vomit*...at which point I received a text message from my sister. Let me explain: it's my nephew Barney's 18th Birthday today. He didn't want presents because he's saving for a computer so I sent a card with some £40 in it - probably should have sent a cheque but...well, I didn't. So the text from my sister was asking if I meant to put a cheque in with the card? Yes, you've guessed it, the cash was nicked in the post. The card had been re-sealed and apparently looked untampered with, no idea how do they did it. The fuckers.

After a few minutes of me sobbing on the stairs, the receptionist kindly told me there was a nearby toilet I could clean my face up in...

Anyway, I did what any sensible woman did when they are depressed. I went and had a hot chocolate and bought myself a small glass lobster.

Later, Sarah & I went back into BAFTA to see Infamous, the as-yet unreleased film about Truman Capote which, although covers similar ground to the recent Capote, is by many accounts a better film. To be fair, I haven't seen Capote, but can confirm that Infamous is fabulous and the portrayal of Truman by English character actor Toby Jones is astounding (he was there for a Q&A after the film and was a very articulate and interesting bloke). Tragic that he won't win an Oscar for it, because Philip Seymour Hoffman already did. It has the most amazing cast and both Sandra Bullock and the terribly 'now' (and rather gorgeous) Daniel Craig deserve a most honourable mention. Oh do see it, really do.

*I had told Sarah to go in if I didn't get there in time so she hadn't just abandoned me

Spam with neighbours

I went to see Spamalot last night. Now, I've realised over the years that I'm really crap at writing reviews - they normally boil down to 'it was great' or 'it was rubbish' - but I'll have a go.

A re-working of the classic Monty Python & The Holy Grail, Spamalot has much to offer lovers of the original film as well as those who are coming to it with fresh eyes. A host of hilarious new songs sit alongside the more familiar 'Knights of the Round Table' and the inevitable 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life'....oh bugger this. Play = great. Tim Curry = excellent. Jokes = funny. View = bit rubbish, because we were quite literally up in the Gods. In fact I was sat between Thor and Zeus*. Anyway, highly recommended.

eBay has come up trumps again. Today I received my PVR - a 'personal video recorder' for those not technically-minded. Basically Sky+ without the Sky. Freeview+, if you like. I didn't exactly mean to buy it, but it's great nonetheless. The story goes like this: last week I got a bit carried away and ended up bidding on something that I thought was a DVD recorder, because, to be fair, it was in the DVD recorder category. The auction was about to end and it was going cheap...well, you know the rest. It was only after I won the auction in a flurry of excitement that I double-checked it and discovered that I had a PVR instead. Anyway, thems the breaks, and anyway, for a rather good price I've got a very nice bit of kit which enables me to pause live TV and will record Neighbours for me every day without having to be asked! What more can you ask for?

*I'm well aware that Thor is a Norse God and Zeus is of the Greek variety. I'm just hedging my bets.

Oh, meant to say, I also made stock from the chicken carcass. STOCK I tells you. I'll be making meringues with left over egg-whites next.

Inappropriate Cleaning

So picture the scene: you have your dad and über-clean step-mother coming round for Sunday lunch in 1 hour's time. The roast is in the oven but the rug has trails of cat litter on it and the piles of paperwork on the coffee table need sorting through. The washing up needs doing and then your face needs a bit of a re-work. This is the exact time you develop a compulsion to do a round of 'inappropriate cleaning'.

Girls will, I'm guessing, to be sexist for a moment, recognise this phenomenon more readily than my dear gentlemen readers. It is while getting the vacuum cleaner out that you realise you absolutely HAVE to reorganise the storage cupboard. And clean the shelves thoroughly to boot. Or you pop into the bathroom for a quick wee and discover that the inside of the window frame needs a good wipe down and BANG! Five minutes before they ring the doorbell you find yourself covered in mould and mildew remover with the cleanest inside bathroom window frame you could wish for...and a flat that still looks like the 'before' bit on How Clean is Your House? Or you go to create an ambient light-scape (a.k.a. switching on a few lights) and spot just how grubby the underside of the light switches are! Quick, get the vinegar and a j-cloth and let's tackle the top of the door frames whilst we're at it...

I find myself getting more and more 'Monica' as the years go by. But only - only - when I have guests coming round and don't have time.

Goodbye to the Normals

Who said English kids can't act? Well, me, to be fair, but I'm revising my opinion based on the impeccable performance of this little ginger.

Lights and action

Finally - finally - got to see Borat this evening. I have never found anything so painful to watch in all my life and actually only got to see half the film because I had to watch most of it through my fingers. Still, any film which has two naked men running into a Mortgage Advisors' Conference chasing each other with a fist-shaped dildo has to be purest genius. Even without putting Pamela Anderson in a sack.

In other news, the light fitting in my bedroom blew in a most spectacular fashion a few months ago and the metal part of the lightbulb remained firmly wedged in the apparently burnt out remains. Haven't got round to doing anything about it, obviously. Well, I returned from work today to find that David had fixed the whole thing using only a potato. Honestly, those Irish can do bloody anything with a tuber.

I had a slightly strange start to the day today. At just before 7am I heard some banging which woke me up, but I wasn't sure at first if it was the kittens knocking something over. Then I heard the doorbell going and some more furious banging, so I got up and went to the door and it was my neighbour from downstairs, Rachael, who was in a real state. Her boyfriend had just collapsed outside the front of the flats, fallen backwards down a few steps, and was lying in a pool of blood outside, having cut his head open. I called an ambulance and grabbed a clean flannel to stem the bleeding till the ambulance arrived, all the while trying to reassure them both. He has cancer and I suspect that was the reason for the fall. The ambulance arrived very quickly and they were great. Once they'd gone I got a bucket of water and cleaned away the blood outside, so the neighbours weren't greeted with the sight of it when they got up (mind you, with the hailstorm that came a few hours later I probably needn't have bothered), fed the kittens and then slumped back into bed...

When I woke up a few hours later I wasn't sure if I'd dreamt it!

I'm a famous tranny

Last night the fabulous Geoff Show on Virgin Radio gave me an honourable mention. I had entered a competition to win a Sony Bravia HD ready LCD tv and Sky HD package - well, who wouldn't? In order to do so I had to submit an invention - the feasibility of which was irrelevant incidentally - which went as follows:

Remember when you were a kid and you used to collect fake tattoos from bubblegum wrappers? You placed them on your arm, rubbed it, and it tranferred onto your skin? Well my idea is to update this idea for the busy modern woman. Why not have make-up transfers? You could have a whole face shaped mask which you placed over your face, give it a gentle rub, and it would transfer the ready-blended eyeshadow, rouged cheeks and even lipstick to your face in a matter of seconds!

Well, this went down VERY well on the show, with my use of the word 'rouge' (carefully chosen I hasten to add) leading to much speculation about whether I was a transvestite. I think Geoff thought I was a clear winner but sadly the listeners' vote put me at joint last place! Damn their unGodly eyes. Even Geoff asked what was wrong with them?

Anyway if you want to hear the whole encounter then you can listen to it here or download the podcast for Thursday 16th November. It's about 25 minutes in... But be quick! Podcasts aren't available for ever!

Please be seated

In order to avoid those terribly embarrassing everyone-standing-around-
the-table-and-bending-their-
knees-to-eat moments, I decided to buy some folding chairs to go with my lovely folding table. I managed to pick up four of these little babies from eBay for £21.01. So now my guests no longer have to brush up on their pilates in preparation for my dinner parties...

A creative period

Stuck for a gift? Want to make good use of what you have lying around the house and utilise your creative talents? Here's your solution. Make me something nice for Christmas, won't you...?

Jen? I want to see your Christmas tree covered in these little gems.

Bargain of the Month #3

Because everyone who's been to my flat for dinner has had to eat off their knees, I've been looking for a dining room table but, as those of you who have been to my flat for said dinner will know, I have sod all space to put one. I have therefore been looking for a fold-up/gateleg table but had yet to see one that was a) small enough or b) cheap enough for the task. Then I spotted Habitat had quite a nice one (I've been trying to upload a couple of pictures but blogger is being 'gay', as the young people would say, and won't bloody do it) which folded up really small. It was £119, which frankly I don't have at the moment, but pretty reasonable for a table so I put it on the back burner for when I have a windfall (haha). Then, whilst browsing on eBay the other day I spotted just such a table, 2 years old but in good condition. The auction finished last night and, after persuading my dad to do the bidding for me because I was at Ruedawang, I managed to secure the table for the bargain price of £26.01. I thank you. Just need to find some cheap eBay chairs now...

Ah, can upload piccies now:



By the way, these are the pictures from eBay so no, this is not my kitchen!

Oh and I just had my bedroom carpet cleaned and the clever chap managed to remove the mysterious stains that have been there since I moved in. Hurrah!

Pumptastic

Happy Hallowe'en! For those who haven't seen the pumpkin I usually carve, here's this year's efforts:



Doesn't look too impressive, huh? But when you turn the lights off it gets much much better:



Oh and Liddi? In your face...