cornwall made me

it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. this week has truly been a mixed bag. monday i was very tired and not feeling too great so instead of seeing the amazing OXFORD COLLASPE gig i plumbed to stay in and read my SPLOTT BOOK GROUP book THEN WE CAME TO THE END by joshua ferris with the cat sleeping by my feet. i must admit i'm struggling with this one. i quite like the style, its all written in a sort of greek chorus with a first person narrator who talks in "we" as if the bitchy bunch are one collective, but there isn't much of a story and i think it is a bit overlong. however, i haven't finished it yet and maybe by the end i'll love it. i dunno. we'll see. i should finish it today with any luck. slog.

tuesday was a day of disaster and joy. i started work with an amazing migraine and as soon as i got into work heard that i'd be on my own until 10am then only two of us there all through lunchtime. the day got worse. a very nice lady ordered toast and i burnt it. burnt it and set off the smoke alarm. in front of almost all of the directors. great. i opened the doors and smiled and apologised as the alarm screeched urgently and impotently. this was only 9am. lunchtime we were full of a posh teenagers there for a drama workshop. i really like kids, i enjoy spending time with them but this lot i just wanted to smack on the bum, they were being very irritating and pushing all my class warrior buttons. but then i was distracted from them by a man asking for first aid. i called the site manager but two minutes later his friend asked me to call an ambulance. the customer (a lovely theatre type called james) was having trouble breathing. i did a first aid course and so knew what to do (its always times like this stuff you think you've forgotten reassuringly comes popping up from your subconscious) so called the ambulance, made him calm. the first aider came and took over and i was stuck talking to the ambulance service. they keep you on the phone whilst they send the car. this was in front of a queue that was big and getting bigger. i explained to the queue what was happening and people nodded solemnly. all except for one woman who said "well its on its way, isn't it?! i wanted to order!" stunned i just replied "sorry, i'm on the phone to the ambulance service" "a black coffee" she replied. i just turned around, to prevent some sort of customer service catastrophy, like me having to punch her in the face. i never get like this, i am generally a happy soul. shocking.

in the evening i did some usher training. since i've done this before it really only consisted of my friend cathy showing me how to work the stairlift (fun!) and sat down to watch THE WRESTLER. i have been looking forward to this for ages, i remember it being reviewed with pleasant surprise at the film festivals last year and have heard great things about mickey rouke's performance. to be honest, i was a bit disappointed. he is good in it, its a role that seems to have been created for him, but then i thought that about SIN CITY, that he was probably the best thing about it. i thought this movie was a bit like one of those things you watch on channel 5 with your nan on an afternoon before the kids telly comes on but with more tits and staples. the moments when he was on his own and looking tired and done in were incredible but i felt he had zero chemistry with marisa tomei's stripper character, i didn't believe that relationship at all and without coming over all daily mail, felt that i didn't need to see her naked so much. the daughter plotline too, felt a bit hollow. he will probably get an oscar for it and i think he deserves it, but it just wasn't good enough a movie for me to be interested past his performance.

after this i hot-footed it down to buffalo for the LOOSE gig WETDOG and CRYSTAL STILTS. this is the first time i've seen buffalo since its revamp upstairs. its been opened up a treat, more than 3 people can actually see the band now (not much of an exaggeration) and i really like the layout, with the bar at the back so the talky people can be cosseted off somewhere else and its painted red - excellent choice. but the buffalo branded wank interior design still reigns. there is a massive neon sign saying "what the fuck" as soon as you get upstairs. oh my heart sank. there are also black and white pictures of punks. how original. but like i siad, it is red so i just stared at the ed, doing his soundchecking stuff and the red wall behind him and tried to ignore the crass mess behind me. WETDOG were a little late and seemed to take a song or two to get into their stride but then were bloody amazing as ever. i saw them last at the PEPPERMINT PATTI gig with BETTY AND THE WAREWOLVES in august which was a great night and i think here they were even better. the album is good but great live and some of the songs just made me dance and dance and dance and yelp along with them. CRYSTAL STILTS were good but i was a little underwhelmed. the first few songs sounded like velvet underground verbatim. not necessarily a bad thing, it can be a lot worse, this they did very well, but uninspiringly. they did grab me a few songs in though and became quite endearing with their determined wall of sound drumming and shy mumbling singer. it all seemed quite short, due to buffalo having a hip hop club night on afterwards. we scarpered after saying goodbye to a very dapper-looking noel gardner who was very well dressed, right down to the newness of his trainers. i have to confess noel is one of my favourite people so i take a keen interest his state of dress.

it is wednesday. to london! my friend james proudly announced a couple of months ago that BLACKBOX RECORDER were reforming for a couple of shows and we pretty much leapt on the puter to book tickets there and then and booked the megabus to boot. at the time i wasn't sure if i would still have a job so it was a very rash thing to have done. i'm very glad i can go to london and not have that hanging over my shoulder, chapter is a-ok. so some time for cat cwtching and a hearty breakfast before the long journey with a book and a doze and here we are! we got in about 3.30pm so headed straight for the TATE MODERN where they had a constructivist exhibition. this we sadly missed. £10 too much. but we did see the INVASION exhibition at the turpentine hall which is set 50 years in the future where a big brother-style screen flashed disturbing and beautiful images, an arresting set of sculptures in a huge scale (spiders, apple cored, mouse skeletons) and hundreds of bunk beds with books laying dogeared on the bases. it made me uneasy. there was a set of storybooks when i was little called STORYTELLER and one of the stories was about a family who lived on the moon. one day a dynamite blast opened up the surface crust of the moon and underneath were these giant sea creatures. the crust rapidly started to sink and the moon was taken over by the sea and these creatures, who had been sleeping underneath all along took over. i remember being terrified of this story and had dreams about it and the turpentine hall took me right back there. i am almost certain that DOMINIQUE GONZALEZ FOERSTER did not have this story in mind whilst working on this, in fact i have never met anyone else who collected the storyteller series, but the idea of humans deceiving themselves in their importance in the world is one that always surprises, we are so used to being the number one predator. after this we went upstairs to see "poetry and dream" the surrealist exhibition that i visit every time i'm in london (it slays me every time) and checked out the contemporary room to gaze at the CHRIS OFILI "no woman no cry" and note down some new artists.

next up, food and tube. we headed for kilburn to the LUMIERE to see BLACKBOX RECORDER. i was very impressed with the lumiere. only 4 doors down from the tube stop and a nice size (intimate without being cramped) and it had signs by the bar saying "shut up. if you want to talk to your pals go to the pub. this is a live music venue and no-one wants to hear you". at last! talking through gigs is a major irritant of mine and i was so happy to see someone take a stand. i'm such a fascist i would have people barred from talking through gigs if i could. i excitedly texted james to tell him that john moore from the 80s t-shirts were on sale and then set out to watch MADAM. apparently there are usually five but here were two: guitarist singer lady and a lady cellist. they sung songs of loss and disappointment and made the world seem like a heartbreaking place until the in-between song bit where the singer would uncharacteristically start giggling and saying how nervous and excited she was supporting blackbox recorder. i do like it when people arn't too cool. it was a very exciting thing. i used to love blackbox recorder when i was a teenager. in amongst all the bluster of britpop they were a cynical weary bunch. luke haines, who had already scared me a bit with his lyrics in the auteurs; john moore, thin and spikey; and sarah nixey, superior and clever posh totty. it was grown up music before i had grown up. i had been into the beautiful south since i was about 12 so i seemed to make a study of being old before my time at that age. i was never really into hedonistic young music, everything had an edge of regret at time served. odd child. i had a very good spot, right in front of the stage right in front of luke haines. steen pointed out that he is looking a bit like a victorian villain at the moment and amen for that. he leered right at me. they were really really good. the excitement in the crowd was palpable. me and steen were amongst the youngest there. there were a few under 30s there (probably riding on the back of his recent britpop memoir) but mainly it was blokes in their late 30s / early 40s who knew ALL THE WORDS. all the blokes in the band were wearing lord lucan ties and sarah nixey was looking very glam in a red dress, all hair and pout. they played everything i wanted them to but "england made me" was a triumphant snarl that was the best of the set. it begins with a verse about being a child and trapping a spider in a glass and watching it trying to get out. the spider looks at her, begging for escape but you know the outcome as the next line is "england MADE ME". you know she just sat there, watching it die conditioned by her culture to bully the weak. fucking fantastic. after all this time it hadn't lost its bite. the band all looked gleeful, having a great time playing together on stage for the first time in nearly 10 years. i had a grin on my face that lasted all the way home.

we stayed with our friend jack and the next day we went to the angel, islington (of monopoly fame) for an amazing breakfast at a place called THE BREAKFAST CLUB and then record shopping. jack is probably will's best mate, their friendship solidified in the weekly ritual of going down to divinyl and spillers on a saturday morning when they used to live together in cardiff so it was lovely to see them going out to play together again. luckily record shopping is one of my favourite things to do also so it was an enjoyable kid-in-a-candy shop hour in FLASHBACK RECORDS. i bought an anti folk compilation cd and a pink vinyl album "lovesick" by VVM. neither of which i've had time to listen to yet so still excited about those and kept the spend under a tenner, i could have spent up to a hundred without even noticing.

i got back to work work work but its CHAPTER so i don't mind it too much. a LGBTA do where 10% of the attendees got really bloody drunk but were loads of fun and then had to work through skelley and dc's first gig with STRANGLIN' BILLY and RIGHT HAND LEFT HAND which i was sad about, especially as will was djing. but then saturday night came and work was over for a few hours so i went to see the DIRTYFITGRANNIES do a performance of their excellent physical theatre piece MR AND MRS LAMPSHADE in the llofft in chapter. they had laid out tea and biscuits and the whole performance was an extended dance piece which reminded me of watching a cartoon, graceful and sad.

after that i dashed out to catch YELTZIN at barfly. god i hate barfly. it is a bloody hole and the sound is crap and i always end up with my ears ringing. now someone has put an ugly riot barrier on the stage which with the peeling paint and the stains on the floor make it look like a crack den-come-youth club. YELTZIN are not really my bag but very good at what they do. a tight band who make the most of the singer alex's screams and a big grungy sound. i liked it best when they upped tempo and played it fast and urgently, the slow bits seemed to chug along with no energy behind it. one of their songs in particular was very quick paced and made me dance my socks off. but i'm going to give it more thought cos i might review them for the joy collective since no-one else from "joy" was there.

tonight sees my first pedigree falcon gig for a while if i can keep awake. next week is less hectic, more cat less gadabouting.

there was a delay in writing of this edition. the delay being the temporary loss of my diary. i learnt some valuable lessons this week. lesson #1: i realised how completely dependant i am upon my diary. lesson #2 i have no hard drive keeping info like this in my brain. it is stored in the diary. lesson #3 i will endeavour never to take my diary out of my bag whilst rooting around for my purse / make up bag again to run the risk of losing this again.

the loss of my diary caused a massive confusion and meltdown in my brain. can you work this shift? I DUNNO! can you come to my gig? I DUNNO! do you want to go for a cup of tea and a catch up? I DUNNO! you get the picture. very distressing. after a couple of days of phoning the two shops in town i'd been to and found them NOT in possession of my diary like i'd hoped and searching the house in vain i started to look around for another diary (or more specifically filofax, for i like to shove bits of paper and write notes for myself and find this the most satisfying bit of kit). i could not find anything that came up to scratch. they didn't make my style of filofax any more, since i've had it for about 5 years and fake filofaxes were either too boring or too big. ooh how vexing. i met my mate richard for a drink and we exhausted the subject of computerised watches, phone organisers, palmpilots, little diaries you get from smiths and both agreed there is nothing as useful as a brand named filofax. all i need is a massive suit and a flat in town and you may call me a yuppie. anyway, eventually it turned up, courtesy of CINEWORLD. i have been going to cineworld for the last 9 years. i have in this time donated £10 every month to their cause (not very worthy, i'll give you) with my cineworld card and left a few objects there before (umbrellas, gloves, keys) and got them all back. however, they do not have a direct line number, you cannot talk to a real person i cineworld and it took me a week to find time to get back over there, i'd asked staff who did not know a number for me to call in but said someone would call me back. i spoke to a nice security man called steve who called me back ON THE CINEWORLD LINE. i now have something they don't: their 02920 contact number. now diary is restored to my lap i can now look back on the week safe in the knowledge that there is a little bit of paper that contains my memories.

the beginning of the week was taken up with helping our friends casey and ewan with their shoot for the video for FUTURE OF THE LEFT's new single. i have no idea what it is called, or how it sounds cos i turned up after work which was well after the band were having their final shots and everyone had got sick of hearing the song in question. the lead singer has had a nice new haircut and a local groupie was trying to pull him on the shoot. that is all i can tell you about any gossip, its not very exciting, is it? what was exciting was spending time with old mates (casey, ewan, ed, carl, iain and leah) and some new ones (ryan, llyr, amy, rob, willy) and POLO THE DONKEY. yes. a donkey. in a pub. we got shouted at by some mad locals in the VULCAN PUB an unfancy place opposite the very fancy atrium in the city centre and watched a donkey shit on the floor and had to stare at some things. i think my friend percy the dead bird got utilised in a shot and we had to wear clothes that made us look like we were in the 1930s. steen even had to eat crisps with his thumb. it was lots and lots of fun. i hereby officially declare that i will help those boys out any old time they need (ewan and casey, not future of the left).

a quiet couple of days then ensued where we didn't really want to be outside in the cold rain any more and we rented out VENUS from the library. venus is a film staring peter o'toole as an old actor who is best mates with leslie phillips and falls in love with leslie phillips' great neice who comes to stay with him. when she arrives she is a bit vicki pollard and leslie phillips is disgusted with her but peter o'toole, the old devil, fancies his chances and takes her out to a bar. it is a strange story, unsurprisingly written by hanif kureshi. it had great reviews when it came out but i was a bit sceptical. i was in the cinema for THE MOTHER and hated it. hated it hated it hated it. i also thought INTIMACY was a pile of middle aged fantasy wank. however, i loved MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE when i saw it on channel 4 in the early 90s and taped every episode of BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA so have a prickly relationship with kureshi, i don't know if he's going to make me slap him or hug him. VENUS is a wonderful film. the performances are sparkling, they are having so much fun and its so meaty and sad. you have a real sense of them being real people with real histories, they are completely believable.

thursday was diary loss day, but i didn't know that at the time. i merely got paid and decided to go to town to get some supplies and go to the cinema. i went to see REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, the sam mendes film with leonardo di caprio and kate winslet. having seen THE READER the week before i was worried it would be a bit too much winslet for one month. but not true. i thought this was truly one of the best films i've seen. winslet and di caprio played a couple in the 1950s who were struggling with weighing up the comforts of suburbia with the emptiness they felt in this life when they felt they were destined for something else. these characters really penetrated me and i could not stop thinking about them for days. i felt like it was something we still have to make decisions about. i quit my job and dropped out of that comfort of 9-5 office work over a year ago and its been bloody hard but i am so much happier knowing that i'm finally being true to myself. i was thinking about them for days. the film will be in CHAPTER in march and i will be going to see it, probably about 3 more times.

saturday was LOVE DAY. neither me nor steen really believe in the falsity of valentines day. i got him a present but not because it was valentines day, just cos there were some cameras for sale in the CHAPTER shop and it was a good excuse. i made it clear that it was NOT A VALENTINES PRESENT. instead we planned to make a nice tea, get drunk and go dancing. only two thirds of this plan came to fruition. we both got back from work about 6pm-ish and the plan was to make a main course (spinach and soft cheese omlette - steen) and a dessert (chocolate cake - vaughan). both took the same amount of time to bake (30 mins) so the cake could cool whilst we were eating then we could decorate. well, that was the plan. the cake in the end took over an hour (why? i cannot say) so by the time it was finally ready we were VERY DRUNK on cava and red wine. rather than leave it to cool we decided to ice it straight away. the icing was to be melted chocolate mix then writing icing. we spilt half the melted chocolate over the floor when the bowl flew off the cooker. we put the rest on the cake. i'd forgotten to bulk it up with icing sugar so it just melted into the still-very-warm cake. by this point we were just convulsed with giggles so got the writing icing and drew a big yellow cock on the cake. nothing says valentines day like a big yellow cock, right? we force fed each other cake and more wine. we realised it was 10.30pm, we were covered in chocolate like kids and very drunk and not going to make it to twisted. happy love day.

lord have mercy

this week i actually managed to see some gigs! sunday i didn't make it to zonderhoof, which i was annoyed at myself about but instead steen and i watched HAROLD AND MAUDE, my favourite ever ever film. steen had not seen it so i was curious to know what he would say. when cathryn, alison and i were in university we used to test potential playthings out by making them watch THE LAST UNICORN and TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME, as these were our "friday night after going out" films. if they stayed the distance and watched them they passed. this is a pretty hefty sized task as one is a cartoon and not necessarily a late night movie and the other is a very disturbing look inside the heart of darkness. HAROLD AND MAUDE is one of those films for me. if someone doesn't like this film i won't necessarily give up on them but a bit of me will die inside, not to be too overdramatic about it. it is very special to me. i heavily identify with maude (apart from the petty theft) and hope that i stay pure enough to be like her as i get older. i didn't see this till i was about 20, jamie and erin showed it to me astounded i'd not seen it. everything about it is perfect: the cat stevens soundtrack, the oddly lingering shots, the casting (i think harold looks like steven black by the way, and told him so every week when i used to go to barfly, i don't think he ever really understood)... its just great. steen loved it. phew! i wouldn't have dumped him if he didn't but i'm very relieved. someone once made me harold and maude coasters, it remains one of the best presents i've ever received. anyway, enough of my fandom.

monday we went to see BRAKES and GINDRINKER. unusually for a forecast gig it was in tommy's bar. it was great. i hadn't been to a gig for ages and i bloody love gindrinker and had heard good things of brakes. dc was on top form, i worship at his lace ups. graf climbing things and playing the guitar on the lighting rig was a shot of genius. there were people who hadn't seen gindrinker before and they were full of bemused grins. job well done. brakes came on and had a little guy who looked a bit like my friend john in barcelona wearing a silver spacesuit which glittered in the light carrying a pineapple. the songs went from brilliant twiddly freak out to 5 second long rants "cheney cheney cheney cheney... don't be such a dick!". again, excellent stage banter. if only all band nights were unpretentious, clever and amusing like this. i danced around a lot and tried to avoid the blinding stage light that was in my eyes and tried not to jump on john rostron who was skulking behind me with a camera taking pictures. ahh, love those forecast boys. they do good things and are nice people. i am so glad they're back. last year when forecast folded for a bit i was gutted, i spent that month looking around cardiff for good gigs like an orphaned animal. luckily cardiff has so many good promoters (loose, peppermint patti, skelley etc) that i was easily entertained but it did leave a hole. hooray for forecast!

we were also forecast for snow (boodoom tshk) and it was magic walking in the snow back from tommy's bar on monday night. less magic was the fact that the rest of britain had dramatic, dangerous weather,whereas we only had a sprinkling. it was just a bit crap in cardiff, not scary or record breaking, just a bit shit. that was irritating.

but now for a fulsome hip hip hooray for liz of the loves, the school and more importantly LOOSE fame. liz does not get the recognition she deserves for all her hard work. i have loose gigs in my diary up to may and all of them look good. she has brought some amazing things to cardiff (daniel johnson ferfucksake!), always has a loose record stall (very important for picking things up you might have missed or not had money for on the gig night), always has sweets (tangfastic!) and is a bloody nice lady. her pardner ryan also had on a very good dirty mac. this week she was putting on EMMY THE GREAT. first up is YOUNG HUSBANDS who are made up of some of emmy's backing band. i liked them. no-one else i was with them did. they reminded me of TEENAGE FANCLUB and that band who were popular a few years ago but then sunk without a trace THE THRILLS (i once saw the lead singer all alone in my local cinema, which is entirely irrelevant but on my mind that night). they need stronger melodies but i thought it was a good start, they were doing things i rather liked. EX LOVERS were on next and one of their singers had my friend david's tongue on the floor. he liked her a lot. he was fascinated by her tattoo. boys are always agog by pretty innocent looking types with tattoos. she was indeed very pretty and had a sadness about her eyes and mouth that made her beguiling. the songs were quite good too, sad and pretty and beguiling like their singer. then we chatted with some friends for a bit and suddenly struck by the million people who were upstairs in clwb. it was a sell out and full of young uns. i was chatting to my friend ash later who said she thought it was "something to do with the internet". it made us feel quite old. emmy the great was also quite young, as the songs made you aware. i didn't know much about her music (she was at the first swn i think but i didn't catch her) but it seems like a first love break up album. some songs sound like plath-inspired 6th form poetry but not necessarily in a bad way, they reminded me of being that age and having unfulfilled crushes and relationships which neither of us were ready for. i was really tired by the end of the gig but soothed by the atmosphere, everything was hushed for her solid, clear vocals. her voice was refreshing, like a cascade of water, i'll be interested to see how her voice develops and what she does next.

wednesday was a lovely, domestic day. i had to sweep up everything in benny's main bedroom and put it in his little room for we have our friend jon staying with us whilst ben's in essex. i hate essex for its overpowering sway upon our lovely benny. we miss him loads and taking the stuff out of his room was sad. there was a picture of ben with his nephew maximillion* (*not his real name) and i put it in the sewing room so i can pretend ben is still around. then i made a veg soup and mixed fruit crumble, which was darned tasty, if i do say so myself. that evening we went over to our friends anne and helen's to see if crumble cures a poorly foot. we had cups of tea and amused ourselves with gossip and had a bloody lovely time.

thursday we both had off again and decided to go charity shopping to get some gear for the video that we're helping our friend out with this week. the theme is "1930s sunday best" and i instantly found a white button up dress that i think'll do and steen found a great jacket (that made him look a bit like graham coxon when he adopted the correct stance) on cowbridge road east. i didn't have enough money to go mad with shopping but i also bought myself some boots for £3 which feel like slippers and are amazingly a million times more comfortable than the pair i bought for £35 in the janurary sales. i set myself a goal to try not to buy new clothes to try and cause less waste, only stuff from charity shops and so far its working, i got some great things. after a much needed hot chocolate (i was being very grumpy due to the cold) we headed for JACOBS MARKET. i love antiqueing. i have always collected stuff from charity shops and antiques places as a treat. when i was a kid i used to collect old photographs so would ask in every shop i found myself in. you do see some tat but there is also great great treasure. i found a record player i desperately want but can't afford as well as some random niknaks that i really don't need but think i can give them a home, like stray animals. in the end steen bought two badges, a seahorse and one that says "jesus loved me" with a bible number quote. Loved? in the past tense? intriuging. maybe this bit in the bible is when jesus found mary magdalene in bed with one of his mates.

friday and saturday i was working in CHAPTER and lord lummy, it was busy. this makes me everso everso happy. we have survived through the redevelopment and business seems to be eerily picking up despite record bankrupcies and national debt. i am very excited about the reopening this summer and gives working there a real fizz. in the box office we had 3 sell outs yesterday, which i think might be unprecedented. friday was the 2nd birthday of the DRONES comedy club, which is ran by a lovely bunch who i am always happy to see. due to the nature of my working life i never get to go to the drones apart from topping up the money in the till or something boring like that but from what i can see its a really good night and we even had complaints cos that was a sell out too! afterwards i had a nice chat with all the lovely cardiff comedy lot and their mates and stuck around to have a half with my colleagues. a good night. on saturday we went to a full cinema to see FROST / NIXON in the evening, eschewing a good line up at clwb but i was pretty tired and anticipating a busy week helping out our friend in the evenings. richard nixon has always been my favourite president to study. as a man and his place in history he is absolutely fascinating. when i was doing my degree i would just gobble up anything related to nixon and his rise and fall. the man is like richard III or lear! so flawed and insecure, so disgustingly pitiful. he was so full of self hatred and hatred of other people and tried desperately to fight against his nature, he wanted to be good and civic minded but was destroyed by his own internal battles. i think oliver stone's best film is NIXON, it begins with a storm at night in the white house and nixon pulling kissinger down to pray with him, sweaty and shaking, kissinger looks visibly afraid. obviously that was fiction, as was this movie, but the man was a frightening character. the way he spoke to people and the things he did to solidify his power was astonishing. this film was good, it did have ron howard touches (obligatory appearance by clint howard, overly-dramatic close ups, slow pace until the denouement) but wasn't cheesy like a lot of his films can be. one aspect of the film that i expect was intentional was the parallels between nixon's presidency and that of dubya. here was a man who brought the country to its knees, destroyed faith in democracy and committed atrocious war crimes. ring a bell? the big difference here is that nixon was a smart man. flawed and unattractively vicious but fiercely intelligent. he was haunted for the rest of his days about what he had done to the country, his quaker guilt not giving him peace for a second, which seemed only fitting. bush is now playing golf and going for his runs in the morning with the sweet smell of two terms behind him, unbothered by his actions. i suppose that is why obama's election was so important and his speech needed to be a stinging attack on bush, we needed it to carry on and believe in america once again. heavens knows if obama will succeed but at least america has come good in bringing some intelligence and strength back into the office rather than a frat boy idiot. what was it bush said to sum up his 8 years? "hey, we had fun!" a fucking disgrace. this is the week my wife lost her job at the architecture firm and the world is worried about its future. 8 years of inertia in environmental matters and making the rich richer. we will a close up of bush in a tv interview realising the implication of his actions and coming to terms with a damned eternity, people are too media savvy to be caught out like this nowadays and i'm not sure he even has the emotional and mental capacity to weigh up all that he has done.

well, thats a sad note to end on. today i'm looking forward to some lovely food from the market and helping our friend casey make his video, which is sure to be fun and will distract me from these dark days.

till next week, dear diary!

quiet is the new loud

oh dearie, i seem to be turning into some sort of hibernating creature obsessed with my cat. i am working at getting this winter out of my system somehow, maybe by going to some good gigs... by all accounts the pedigree falcon gigs this month have been good but i've not been able to attend due to too much bloody work on a sunday but this week sees loose and forecast putting stuff on midweek: hooray for february!

on saturday 24th i was an usher at the mr and mrs clarke production CABBA HEY! which was a big load of pretentious fun. how to describe mr and mrs clarke? have you ever seen that bit in chitty chitty bang bang when dick van dyke and his girlfriend pretend to be dolls for the king? mr and mrs clarke are like the raggy doll version of that. childish, sexual, extroverted, they perform dance pieces and sing songs and tell jokes like those dirty kids from down the estate who were cleverer than they let on. with a fantastic turn from jayde adams as a post-christmas christmas tree it was a great show that didn't let itself get taken too seriously.

monday is pub quiz day in our 'ouse. i am not naturally competitive or ambitious until it comes to board games and quizzes. we do the pub quiz in the halfway on cathedral road with our friends gary, markie, liam, ol and lyns. every week i aim to win and it was looking good for the first few rounds until we came to the always-tricky round 4, where the questions are toughies and the sinking feeling of loserdom comes creeping in. happily, however, the only really important thing at the pub quiz is if there are too many people and we have to split into two teams, that i beat gary. and gary was beat HA! this all depended pretty much on me remembering the names of the children of jr and bobby ewing in dallas, who sat impishly on the tip of my tongue, a very difficult task and the pressure was on since i LOVED dallas and had public expressed so on facebook this week. all eyes on me for those names. i didn't get em all but my friend anna's gibb spotting won us the round. woohoo!

wednesday was an exciting day. chapter arts centre is having a refurb, which is painfully obvious to the freezing staff who work there and have to listen to drilling through most of the day. but a part of it has been completed: cinema 2! the staff had a free screening to test out the new seats and very nice it is too. it has twinkly fairy lights that look like stars and very comfy seats, a big contrast to what went before. but it has less capacity, which i was slightly disappointed with, but it does make for a more intimate feel. we saw les liens du sang - rivals, a french film about two brothers in the 1970s. it was all right but i wouldn't have seeked it out myself. the nicest thing was sitting there with my colleagues and feeling all warm and fuzzy that SOMETHING was finished and that the end of the project was in sight. lovely.

it was also book group day! the STAR centre in splott does an excellent little book group in the library at 7pm the last wednesday of the month. its a good way of getting into some things i wouldn't normally read. this month was the woman in black by susan hill. i read this on new year's day and bloody scary it was too. its quite deftly written, fantastic descriptions of the weather and she builds the tension to make it really creepy. apparently its been on the stage for 20 years and on the tv lots but i've never seen it so didn't know what to expect, just that it was a classic ghost story. happily most people in the book group loved it and we had a nice little discussion about it and the recent guardian "books you must read" list.

after that we dashed like lightening over to clwb to see max tundra. as the group didn't finish till 8pm we missed pagan wanderer lu's set, which was a shame but we caught ben butler and mousepad's fantastic synth jibes. close your eyes and you'll feel like you're riding a chopper in an 80s kids movie. my friends were insanely happy since it was joe from gay against you's new project and they are massive fans. i was feeling a bit unwell and stuck to water which was quite a good thing since i got horribly ill all the way through max tundra's set. £8 in clwb (bloody expensive too!) and i heard it from the toilet. never mind. what i did see was a very good little mix of yelps and squelchy electro and it was very good. he told a few good jokes too. but hey ho, home for me and my stupid belly.

luckily i got over my illness by.... going to newport, not everyone's ideal cure-all. we wanted to check out the museum and art gallery. the museum was ok, bits of it were shut and the art gallery was in change over period so no art. harumph. it was odd for me as i was a teenager in newport and found it difficult to get my bearings. this was never more apparent than when i proudly took my boyfriend to diverse record shop. well, tried to. i bought many albums in diverse with my babysitting money and haven't been there for about 13 years. i marched determinedly up to where it should be, then spent the good part of an hour trudging around newport confused and lost. diverse has MOVED. i asked the man in a music shop nearby and he told me it moved 10 years previous. has it been that long since i've been back? evidently. we had a good time talking to the very lovely matt and scanning the racks for treasure. i was overjoyed to see the sale rack, where i purchased my first throwing muses album and got all kinds of flashbacks about shyly asking the man at the counter his opinion about pavement and tom waits albums, it was really nice to go back there. i bought the kitty, daisy and lewis album and had a punt on a tom verlaine cd i hadn't heard of and an art of noise lp, as well as buying a big selection of vinyl for the wife. a good day all in. and dodgy tum seems to have calmed down.

this week promises much. gigs! matinees in cinema 2! unfortunately no scrabble sunday, as i'm working again but i will try and play some at home instead once i've finished. word!