Hi.  Further to my previous post, I am still working working working on Desirable.co.uk.  I’m also completely swamped with writing work which is A. Good. Thing., especially considering Rob and I were up in Edinburgh Wednesday and Thursday just gone looking at places to rent and we now have a better idea of our budget.

Here are some things you’ve missed since I’ve been ignoring you:

• I’ve decided that my musical heroines are Roisin Murphy, Nina from the Cardigans, and Debbie Harry (Blondie).  Also Fran from Travis, but Fran is a man with a female name, so I think he qualifies.
• I have so many books that I want to read and not enough time to do it in.  ‘World Without Us’ by Alan Weisman looks really interesting and if his interview on Radio Five Live is anything to go by it should be a great read.  Also, why can’t Philippa Gregory just release her new novel NOW ALREADY.
• I’m really bummed that Agathe from Style Bytes has decided to hang up her heels and stop blogging.  Or at least, that’s what I’m assuming she’s done - she didn’t blog for a month and then her site was taken down.  Perhaps she was a spy working for the Russian government or something, and she was discovered!  She certainly had the fashion sense of some wonderfully glamorous 1930s-40s spy.
• I’m not sure, but I think it’s quite bad that I like Tennents lager, the much-loved Scottish beer.  Rob gave me a look of disgust when I ordered a pint of it with a spritz of lime cordial.  I think living in Edinburgh will suit me just fine.
• I read the spoilers of the Sex and the City movie on Wikipedia.  Now I understand why reviewers were complaining that it tied the whole story up in a big bow and left nothing to the imagination.  I’ll still go and see it, but I won’t be impressed.
• Every now and then I think I don’t need to read PopJustice anymore, because there’s nothing new for me to learn about the wonderful world of pop music.  Then I realise that I don’t read PopJustice for the music news anyway, I read it for the completely irrelevant statements made by one of my heroes, Peter Robinson.  For example: PopJustice reviews Nelly’s new album, ‘Generally fairly jolly …Expect to see that on some billboard posters sometime soon,’ and then follows this review with the off-hand comment, ‘By the way, did we tell you about the man with five penises? His pants fit him like a glove.’  You just can’t fake such brilliance.
• Rob and I have watched the entire three series of Black Books in two weeks.  It makes me want to see Bill Bailey live, and to have lots of very hairy musically talented children with him.  Also, I’m very tempted to buy the Peep Show box set that’s sort of quite cheap on Amazon at the moment.
• I’m going back to Australia on the 10th of June (Tuesday week) sans Rob.  Rob is not upset about this, because the Euro 2008 Football Finals are starting on the 7th.  I am upset about this, because if I’m going to die in a plane crash I want my other half to die with me.  This may sound cruel but it’s really very romantic.
• I am currently wearing a pair of lemon-yellow socks that have brown, white and red sparkly cupcakes all over them.  A friend found them in TopShop the other day and instantly thought of me.  Am I that transparent?
• I sincerely hope that Sir Wogan doesn’t give up on his Eurovision commentary just yet.  It’s the only reason I watch the finals (well, that’s not really true, I watch it for the awful costumes and even worse songs), and it wouldn’t be the same without him.
• WHY IN GOD’S NAME DID PIM PUT HARRY ‘I’m Injured’ KEWELL AS CAPTAIN FOR THE AUSTRALIA V. IRAQ GAME, AND WHY DID KEWELL CHOOSE TO REMEMBER WHERE THE GOAL WAS AGAIN?  I’m all for Australia winning, but not at the hands of that traitor.

So, as you can see, you haven’t really been missing anything and I am living in a super-inflated bubble of my own self-importance.

Top: Menu mistakes - who serves an apricot tart with green beans and potatoes?

Bottom Left: The Victoria & Albert Museum

Bottom Right: Crockery on sale in the V&A Museum Shop

I’m finally improved from my strange virus which, as it turns out, school children all over North Wales have been suffering from as well. On Tuesday Rob and I journeyed down to London - he had a meeting and I wanted to go shopping and sight-seeing - and we came back late yesterday afternoon. I do dearly love London despite all her ugly quirks (the pollution, the crime, the crowds), but it was nice to hop back on the train yesterday and hear the lilt of Welsh accents.

Tuesday afternoon we caught the tube to Westminster in the vain hope that the Abbey would be open for visitors (it wasn’t). We decided instead to have a pint in a pub we know down the road, which was where we spotted the grave menu mistake you can see in the photo above. I don’t know about you, but when I have dessert it certainly doesn’t come served with vegetables!

Tuesday evening we met up with some old friends who took us to a funky Hungarian/Italian restaurant that had puppets hanging from the ceiling. I ordered the haloumi bruschette, only to be presented with some pieces of haloumi and vegetables on a shishkebab stick. I’m not sure how they came to the conclusion that a bruschette involved skewers.

Wednesday I was on my own as Rob had his meeting, so I caught the tube to Marble Arch and had a wander down the Primark-end of Oxford Street. Then I caught the tube to South Kensington and visited the V&A, one of my favourite museums. I spent a lovely few hours wandering around all the random bits and pieces they have on show there, and then sat out in the V&A courtyard (bottom left of the picture above). The V&A Museum shop is a sight to behold, I found so many things there I wanted including the tea accessories above (bottom right).

We then caught the train back up - it’s four hours from London to North Wales - and watched St Petersburg trounce Rangers in the UEFA final last night. I have so much work it’s coming out my ears and we’ve got a busy weekend ahead - help!

Although all my clothes still fit me I know I’ve managed to gain a tiny bit of weight while on holidays in Italy (and who wouldn’t, with all that gorgeous pastry and pasta?), so I’ve been pondering whether I should go on a diet. Jokingly, I emailed one of my best friends Kate (who is seemingly effortlessly thin) and asked her for her weight loss advice. Her response? To get a tapeworm. Kate went on holidays to Cambodia, Thailand and Laos over Christmas and came back thin but contiuously hungry. The possibility that she might have caught a tapeworm infection whilst in South East Asia quickly became a bit of a running joke which even her mother was in on. Fortunately, I don’t think Kate really has such an infection, although I’m not sure she’d get rid of it if she did.

Anyway, Kate’s advice to find myself my own resident tapeworm jogged my memory. I was sure I’d heard somewhere that people had once taken tablets that contained tapeworm larvae which would result in an infection and sudden weightloss. Once upon a time it had been thought of as a legitimate weight loss technique, and there are apparently rumours that models like Claudia Schiffer may have relied upon the nasty little fiends to keep the weight off. I decided Google would give me the definitive answer, and I (sadly) stumbled across this page, on which a fellow googler has commented, “I want to know where to get the tapeworm. you may think I’m crazy, but I really want to try it. if any one knows please let me know.” Perhaps if she is so keen to experiment with worm infections, I should contact her with a link to the Guinea Worm page on wikipedia. Seeing as she has no problem with having her body overrun with worms, she won’t mind the small discomfort the Guinea Worms cause the next time she’s having a bath and they decide to break free from their bodily shackles and escape into the water she’s sitting in. But I digress. When faced with the choice between eating raw meat in the hope of getting a tapeworm infection, or cutting back on my favourite roast chicken crisps from Walkers, I think I know what option I’ll be choosing.