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.

Tower Bridge, London

I love the UK, and I have ever since I set foot in the country all those years ago and walked through Customs in Heathrow without seeing a single person getting their luggage checked. That being said, there are some things I simply don’t understand about the UK and probably never will… but I’m willing to put up with these little eccentricities. Here is my list of the UK’s good, bad, and ugly.

The Good:

• The pubs. Australia may have great weather, but Australian pubs are simply not up to scratch. Here in the UK there’s a pub on every second corner, each with a good selection of beers on tap and any number of comfortable chairs and benches to stretch out on in front of the fire. If you’re lucky your local establishment will be the sort that lets people leave their muddy wellingtons at the door, and which makes the most of the local produce to provide some of the best pub food around.
• The clothes. It’s no secret I’m slightly obsessed with River Island, but there’s a huge number of other equally fantastic (but reasonably priced) brands - TopShop, H&M, Zara, Next, New Look, Monsoon, FCUK… the list goes on. What’s even better is the fact that you have to wear my two favourite clothing items - coats and boots - most of the year because of the weather. Which brings me to my next point…
• The weather. This falls into the ‘Good’ and the ‘Bad’ categories. On the plus side, it snows in the UK, something that is far more unusual in Australia (unless you live in the snow fields of Victoria or New South Wales) than it is here. Snow is still a novelty to me and I expect it always will be.
• The newspapers. How did I ever get by without the Guardian in my pre-UK life? The selection of papers here in the UK is enough to make your eyes water, and when you consider that capital cities in Australia really only have one paper of their own and share the national paper, ‘The Australian’, you really have to wonder how anyone in Australia manages to have anything other than a mainstream opinion about world affairs. Diversity is the key, and the UK certainly has that.
• The junk food. Crisp flavours in the UK are fantastic, as you may remember if you read my post about chips. Sweets (or as I refer to them, lollies) are great as well - Bassetts, wine gums, midget gems, Haribo, Galaxy… is it any wonder I manage to put on weight whenever I’m in the UK?

The Bad:

• The girls. Not all the girls, just some of them. In particular, the ones that coat themselves in fake tan, pluck their eyebrows into non-existence, wear skirts that show the world their choice of bikini waxing, and have super-long plastic nails that click-clack whenever they move their fingers. These same girls are the ones that get pissed on Stella and vodka mixers, over-exaggerate their regional accents, and want to be Katie Price ‘when they grow up’. Luckily they rarely inhabit the same haunts as I do, so I generally don’t have to put up with them.
• The weather. It’s bloody cold, and you rarely see the sun shine. Coming from the land of outdoor barbeques and days at the beach, adjusting to temperatures that freeze your ears and nose in seconds and your fingers and toes in minutes isn’t easy. Luckily I have come up with a remedy - whisky.
• Expensive everything. The food, the alcohol, the petrol, the clothes, the football tickets… you name it, it costs double what it does in Australia, and not just because of the dodgy exchange rate. Luckily I get paid in GBP or I’d really be struggling.

The Ugly:

• Rooney and Ronaldo. Why does the majority of the UK worship the ground these guys walk on? One loses his temper whenever he misses a goal and the other is more concerned about keeping his perfect hairstyle in place throughout the 90 minutes of the game than he is about the welfare of the rest of his team mates. Ridiculous!
• Fish and chips the British way. Instead of doing the civilized thing and having some lightly battered fish with some chips and slices of lemon, the Brits seem to be fascinated with curry sauce, mushy nuclear-coloured peas, and chips that are more liquid than solid. Disgusting.

I have to admit I find it oddly satisfying, as an Adelaide-born F1 fan, to see that the Melbourne Grand Prix may soon be no longer. As everyone (read: every Adelaide F1 fan) knows, Melbourne (under the leadership of the idiotic Jeff Kennett) unceremoniously stole the Australian Grand Prix from Adelaide a few years ago, and it simply has not been the same since. Having driven and walked both the Adelaide and Melbourne tracks and having been to the Adelaide Grand Prix once myself, I can’t understand how anyone would think Melbourne was the better venue. But I am clearly biased.

I am incredibly excited about the possibility of a Singapore Grand Prix, now officially going ahead in September of this year. Not only will it be held on the city streets of Singapore, but it will be the first night race in F1 history - how fantastic is that? If I thought Rob and I would be able to afford a holiday in Singapore in September (when I’m instead supposed to be starting my MSc Architecture at Edinburgh) we would already have our tickets booked. Anyone that can afford the time and the money to make it to the Singapore GP should jump at the chance to witness formula one history in the making.