What's one thing you regret not doing? 
Submitted by Mr. Nice.

Hmmm. Serious post? 
I regret not having the strength of character to stand out from the crowd when I was at school. I went to a really rough school, kids brought in knives as a matter of routine, and this was in the early 80's. I didn't fit in at all, I sounded "posh" I was too "clever" and I was too "nice". After the first year I learned that you should look & talk like everyone else if you didn't want to get into a fight every day.  The gangs of bad girls liked me because I looked cool, the nerds liked me because I was in their class for everything (oh, except maths. I was in the bad girls class for maths!). I lived a double life, half pretending I wasn't in class with the "bad" girls because I'd bunked off (when really, I was in the nerdy class with the clever kids). I had some "secret" friends among the nerds. I even took one of them on holiday with me & my parents two years running & I really enjoyed her company. But at school I had this rule that she should never talk to me. And for that, I am truely ashamed at my lack of backbone. If I had to do it all over again, I'd embrace my inner nerd and fight the bad girls every day.

This has been playing on my mind since the weekend. It's taken me these last 4 days to come to the conclusion that I'm a gullible idiot.
After the football game on Saturday, we had a War Council Meeting in Soho with the two Gomez sisters to discuss plans for the in-law invasion at Christmas. We met up in an expensive, but very cool and hip restaurant (the Gomez sisters do not eat in lesser places). But I digress (as Ronnie would say, but then you'll only get that if you're British!)

Having spent £45.00 per head ($89) on an exquisite (but quite small) meal, with no wine (argh!) I made my way home feeling very decandent. At Oxford Circus tube station a guy approached us (well, me really) with this very plausable story that he'd had his bike stolen and needed just £5.00 more to get the train fare home to somewhere in Berkshire. He was well dressed, well spoken and said he'd been asking people all evening to help and had only managed to get £4.00 in change so far. I'm usually a good judge of character, he sounded a little pissed, but hey, he was on a night out in London. Can't hold a bit of drinking against him. I felt bad for him, poor guy stuck in London just for the sake of a fiver. So I gave him £5. I thought that as I'd just spent £45 on a meal & was still a bit hungry, it would be better to do some good with a bit of money. The guy was very grateful & skipped off. MrG, however, still had his mouth hanging open, he couldn't believe I'd given him £5. He was so stunned that I'd "fallen for it" that he'd been left speachless. I went home with a self -righeous glow, thinking I'd helped some poor sod out of a tight spot & that MrG is just a hard hearted tight wad. But the more I think about his story, the more I think it was a pile of shite. Why would having his bike stolen in central London mean that he needed to get the tube & train home? He was wearing a suit, I assumed he meant a push bike. But thinking about it, the only way he could get home from there would mean a motorbike. So where were his leathers?  And, he didn't say anything about having his wallet stolen. Why did he need money?

I must have SUCKER written all over my face. Grrrrr. I bet he's there every night. In fact, I've a mind to go into London just to check if he is. And I'll ask him for my £5 back.  Oooh, I don't envy his karma.

I must surely be the last person in the western world who has never used a microwave oven or seen an iPod ?

I worry that technology is passing me by, so I need to take the plunge before it's too far gone for me to catch up. So, I just bought my first iPod, and some speaker things to keep it company. I've been good all year, merry Christmas to me. They'll be delivered later in the week, you should all expect emails from me asking how the hell to use them.

Still nothing can make me do the microwave thing though.

I have to confess a guilty pleasure. Every other Saturday (because it can only be when my football team aren't playing at home, otherwise I'm there), I have a decadant routine. It doesn't work any other day than a Saturday. It has to be a day when I know there are a million things I ought to be doing. But I don't. About 2pm, I have a bubble bath while drinking a glass (or so) of wine and listen to the afternoon play for an hour on BBC Radio 4. Having achieved a nice mix of fuzzy head from the wine & steaming skin from the bath (I know, I have it way too hot), I go to bed for a nap.
How naughty is that? (OK, not very!) There's a ton of stuff to be done, but I go to bed and have a nice snooze for half an hour. Bliss. In the summer I like to lie on the bed, look at the blue sky out of the window & drift off listening to the birds and people mowing their lawns. In the winter, I like to listen to the wind and rain against the window. That 30 minute Saturday nap is the highlight of my week. Hehe, I'm getting old :O)

Edited to add a linky for all those who are either too cool to listen to Radio 4, or who don't live in jolly old Blighty
Radio 4

The completely fabulous Mazz has made me a new site The poor guy had to put up with much indecision and mind-changing on my part, but I bet he secretly likes the end result almost as much as I do.

Hell, even my Mum likes it & was able to navigate her elderly way around the site ;o)  Let's hope her old lady gang get spending their pension on there! LOL

Here's the long story of why I can't walk today.

I have a funky little hat which I think is cute & kooky but which MrG thinks looks like something the Tetley Tea Folk wear. As we were going into London to see a Twilight Photography Exhibition at the Victoria and Albert yesterday, I thought it was the perfect time to wear the hat. If you can't wear a kooky hat in London, where can you?  However, mindful of MrG's snickering, I dedcided that the whole outfit would have to be funky, in order to avoid the Gaffer or Syndey look. My ususal flat footwear would not cut any ice. So I wore my high-heeled, lace up knee length boots over a pair of skinny jeans (ladies, you're with me, right?). Here they are...

So, after a few hours I realised that not only did I look cool, but that I also had huge blisters on the ball of each foot that stretch from the big toe right across the pad of the foot to the little toe. Not cool to hobble & shuffle about for the next 3 hours looking like a lunatic in a silly hat.

I thought the exhibition was erm, mixed. I went because I like Gregory Crewdson I still like his work, but I fell in love with this stuff from Bill Henson Just stunning. He uses teenagers, available light and suburbia to create a"no-man's land, meanings, morals & behaviours shift. Figures on the cusp of adulthood seem to inhabit a twilight, perhaps bacchanalian world". Really awe inspiring work. 

However, as much as I liked the Henson & Crewdson images, some of the other photographers work just left me wondering how it is you can convince the art world that your under-exposed snap shots are high art.  It seems to me that if you're famous you can declare that it is your intention to take snap shots, and that you're doing it knowlingly, and so everyone will clap their hands at your witty cleverness and you'll have your work shown at the V&A.

Honest to goodness, I walked around the Liang Yue exhibit and thought, ok, I get it. You've got a bloke with a torch in each shot, so what? And the same in the Crystel Lebas. I was thinking the ideas are great, but the shadows in the woodland are underexposed so there is no detail, and the highlights are so blown they dominate the image. And the "twighlight" snow just looked like a  50% grey exposure thing going on to me. I have some like that, can I say it was intentional and sell them, do you think? Bah, maybe I'm just a philistine. There were huddles of earnest looking young things talking in reverential whispers in the Yue & Lebas exhibits. I've read the rave critical reviews about these two. Everyone seems to love them. Is it the Emperors New Clothes, or am I just too low brow?

My vegan sister in law is coming for dinner. I'm sorted for first and main course, but I'm stumped on a vegan dessert. She doesn't like fruit, and is, of course, vegan. Any suggestions for a yummy non-fruit vegan-friendly pud?

I absolutely stink of cigarette smoke. I got talked into playing in a poker tournament last night and everyone smoked (apart from me & MrG). The guy playing in the seat next to me didn't take the fag out of his mouth once, just left it dangling there as he breathed through it like some kind of lung appendage. As soon as one was finished, he'd light the next. Even though the venue was huge (Chicago Rock Cafe), there didn't seem to be any air extraction and within an hour I could hardly see my cards through the dirty fug. You know how bad it was? It was so bad, and my eyes were stinging so much, that I decided to go all in on a crap hand just to get away!

How is it that the smell of stale smoke permeates every layer? Feck, even my underwear stinks. All last night's clothes were quarantined in the bath. Ugh, I can't wait until the smoking ban comes into effect here and I'm able to go out & enjoy myself.

Those of you who know me as the shallow woman I am now, will be surprised to learn that I used to be a bit of a political activist when I was a student. No, really.

Before the age of 17 I had no real interest in politics. Having grown up with a working class father who was a fierce member of the Communist Party, and a Liberal middle class mother, I was a political blank canvas. I loved The Clash and their anti-facist lyrics seemed so cool. I was looking for my own political identity & so the far Left got to me first. I became a (very small time) activist for the Socialist Party, went on anti-facist rallies and Young Socialist weekend seminars. Actually, the weekend seminars were pretty good, free booze if you could make it through a few lectures during the day. The last weekend I went to was in a flea ridden hotel in Bournemouth. I shared a tiny room with 3 other girls. It was winter & the window didn't shut. I slept fully clothed and with my coat on, but I was still freezing and I woke up with flea bites. Yay, socialism, brothers and sisters.  The last political straw for me was the promised disco on Saturday night. It turned out to be about 50 gangly spotty youths talking earnestly about how they wanted to bring down the system. But what really did it was this song (below), that consituted the entire disco. Over and over again. That's right, no other song. Just this. It still makes me shudder when I hear it, all those flea bites and "right on" teens who were going to change the world. Bet they're all bank managers now :O)

stranglers - no more heroes

What are some of your favorite, forgotten albums that have stood the test of time?
Submitted by PeterGibbons.

Parallel Lines - Blondie

I was 9 years old when this came out, it was the first album I ever bought and I still listen to it at least once a month. I remember being blown away by Debbie Harry on the front cover. She was just so gorgeously cool, I wanted to be her. She was wearing high heeled mules that I fell in love with. I begged my Mum to buy me a pair and I remember having lots of 9 year old strops when she wouldn't.

I played the album to death, even now my poor old Mum doesn't like getting in my car if I have it on the CD player. She says she heard it enough times in 1978 to last her a life time. She also says it brings back unpleasant memories of me whining on and on and on about how uncool she was because she thought I was too young for a pair of those shoes. And how I thought that if Debbie Harry had been my Mum, she would've bought me a pair.

Parallel Lines: Remastered

Blondie