Moving Swiftly On

So I've finished the challenge and I didn't starve to death. My uncle owes me a fiver. I fully admit that I stayed up till midnight on Friday just so I could eat some cake. And yes, I realize that many people my age stay up much later than midnight on a Friday, but bugger them, I'll have good skin when I'm old. We raised £130 overall, which is so great. Feel free to keep donating, everything closes on the 30th of June, so there's a little way to go.
It's great to be able to eat normally again, although it's taking a little getting used to. Mum handed me a piece of chocolate earlier, and for a while I didn't know what to do with it. I had a very strong need to save it, and squirrel it away in case I needed it later. 

It's been a blissfully nice day, and I've spent most of it lounging in various garden, appreciating some real sunshine. For a while I attempted to revise outside, which didn't go too well.

Books do not make good pillows. The cats, at least, have been enjoying themselves, and spent most of the day treading on me in bid to find some nice shade.

I also got to go and see the lovely Henning Wehn tonight, a rather fab German stand up comedian  He is part of my effort to see everyone who has ever appeared on a BBC, left wing, news based, comedy panel show. He was very good. Although I found it interesting that the audience roared with laughter through joked about holocaust denial and racism  but as soon as he pretended to cry, everyone got a bit awkward. I think this proves that the British can cope with offensiveness quite well, but we shut down at the first sign of emotion.

How To Get Married

I get asked for relationship advice a lot. As an eighteen year old lesbian, who hasn't had a relationship in over a year, I can see exactly why people ask me. I am clearly an untapped well of dating wisdom, who is too kind and busy imparting my knowledge unto others, to have any time to work on the whole thing myself. “Ariane!” They cry, “You’re capable, witty and daring, will you help me win the heart/console/seduce my boyfriend/girlfriend/non-sexy friend/lizard?” 

Well, first off, if you ask me about your lizard then I will report you to the police, but only after laughing quite a lot, and quite possibly fleeing from you. Second, I have decided to make this all much easier for you, by scribing a list of some of my favorite dating tips. If these don’t work, they’re clearly not worth your time, darling, so I suggest that we go and get hammered on gin and ice cream.

1. Cook them a medieval banquet. This demonstrates many good qualities in a partner. First off, that you have the time and patience to go to a certain amount of effort for them. Also, that you can cook, an essential skill in any time period or location. I suggest braised boars head, quail curried in white sauce, and an oak tree crafted from marzipan for afters. If in doubt, I there’s a Chinese in Rhyl that does something pretty similar. 
2. Kidnap them. Quite an obvious choice I know, but one that’s regularly over looked. It gives you a chance to demonstrate that you wish to spend more time with them, and show them what it’s like to be around you. Find some fun, pro-kidnapping activities to do, such as racquet ball. If you’re looking to take the next step in your relationship, consider imprisoning them in a small dungeon to give them a feel for what married life could be like. Bonus points for decorating the dungeon like your future home - complete with photos of your children that you made on MorphThing.
3. Try to stand out from the crowd. Try to make yourself noticeable – this way you can remain aloof and mysterious, allowing them to come and talk to you. One method is wearing something a little unusual, such as a vintage scarf, block colour shoes, or an ostrich feather headdress made by a blind Italian man. 
4. Read their favorite books. This way you’ll feel closer to them emotionally, and you’ll have a good start for a conversation. Simply break into their house while they’re sleeping, and read as many books as you can before they wake up. If you like, you could make it into a sort of competition with yourself – try to read one more book each night than you did the night before. 
5. Take them out to dinner. Actually, don’t even bother with this one. The conversation will be awkward, and the food under cooked  Plus, halfway through the evening, someone will spill red wine on someone else, resulting in having to go home early. Waste of both time and money.

PS Yes hello it's been a while hasn't it. I've been to London, Berlin and Wales since we last spoke. I'll update with photos as soon as Papa Dean sends me my camera home. Also neon Frida Kahlo is now a thing.

Losing Touch With Reality Through Technology

I was having a brief catch up with Mum last night, since I've been away. I told her all about London, and my friends. She told me about the cats, and the snow, and then "Oh, I wrote a sonnet the other day. Do you want a cup of tea?"
Alarm bells went off. My mother wrote a sonnet. I assumed it was for her Open University course (she's studying Introduction To The Arts). What do I do now? Should I ask her if I can read it? I want to read it, certainly. But I don't want to read it while she's there - there's a chance that might lead to a talk about 'feelings', and 'what it really means'. I'm rubbish at both of these things. A better idea would be to try and read it slyly, behind her back. So all I'd have to do is hack her computer - easy, she told me her password ages ago and isn't yet suspicious of me enough to change it. 
No, wait, she's doing most of her OU work on paper. That means she's probably written it in a notebook. 
How do you hack notebooks?


In other news, my home girl Nikki has restarted her photography blog. I like it because she talks about me a lot.

All I Want Is A Female Brian Cox

I love Brian Cox. I think he’s great. Properly, honestly great. He sort of vaguely wondered into our lives with the force of a Sherman tank, and then refused to leave. He sat down on the living room sofa of England and said “You need some science. Here, here is some science, delivered from the top of a gorgeous mountain which you too will want to stand on, but only after I’ve finished with it. And trust me; you’ll be able to, because after I’ve finished with it, this mountain won’t be able to walk for three weeks. Stand on my mountain, and love science.” And all of England immediately made him a cup of tea and cried “Of course we shall stand on this lovely mountain, you insanely beautiful man! What fools we have been, to believe in homeopathy and the apocalypse before we gazed upon your lovely face.” And then Brian Cox nodded, and wondered off to drink his tea, and play a bit of dodgy piano. 
I’m really glad we have Brian Cox. He’s bought science to the normal people, made physics cool, and worn an All Saints polo shirt while doing it. Really, very cool. 
But I’m greedy, and now I want a female version. As a raging feminist, I think women need a female Brian Cox. The closest thing we have is Mary Beard, lovely, quirky and interesting, but still not science, and still not shaggable. I don’t mean that in a way that want Scarlett Johnson running around in a lab coat, pointing at the sky and screaming “Wow! Gravity!”, but more in the way that I want a woman who you can fancy, and is still really, profoundly clever. 
Watching any program at the moment that has a bit of a science-y segment, and that has a female presenter, it is guaranteed that she will end up in a lab, looking a little bit lost, asking an actual scientist what the hell is going on, before turning to look doe-eyed into the camera, and announcing it’s time to go back to the studio. 
Nope. Defo not what’s needed. No seems to have yet managed to bridge the divide between ‘female scientist’, and ‘female presenter’. I want someone who a ten year old girl will look at and go “Wow! I bet loads of boys fancy her, and she knows the theory of relativity inside out. I wish I could be like her when I grow up.” I want a bird who throws on a McQueen sports bra to go inside an anti-gravity chamber – which she helped build. If she climbs up a mountain to observe the Northern Hemisphere in winter, I want her to snow board back down, without first having to get a bloke to strap her into her ski boots, and give her a push. 
Is that too much to ask? I like to think it isn’t. If a bloke can do it, why can’t we? Maybe, out there somewhere, there are thousands of women with PhDs and big hair, jostling to host their own physics show, on prime time BBC. Maybe the media think that no one would watch it, it would be a novelty for all of five seconds, before burning out like an asteroid entering the atmosphere. And of course it wouldn’t. Loads of people would watch it, and it would be wonderful. A wonderful new role model to sit our daughters down and say “You can be feminine, and love science, and you should, because you’ll be able to actually work out which face creams will work just by reading the ingredients.”  A lovely, big haired chick in walking boots and kaftan climbing up hills, and knowing stuff, and wanting to tell everyone about it, because science is just so incredibly wonderful that the only rational thing to do is to scream it from the top of a mountain. 
And if she just so happened to play keyboard in a series of truly alarming bands in the 80s, well, that would just be a bonus. 

You Should Probably Avoid Me On Trains

I go visit my Dad once a month, and he lives roughly a four hour a train ride away from my house in Derbyshire. I spend a lot of my time on trains. I do three things while I'm traveling, and they are reading, looking out of the window, and staring at my fellow passengers like a massive creep, and generally being terrified, because I have to spend four hours inside a moving tin can with these people, and, oh my God, what if one of them's a murderer.
Last time I went up, I spent my train journey organizing my fellow passengers into neat little packages; I have finally come up with five sub-categories.

1. The confused, creepy one. Can be spotted by the cheap shirt, anorak  and overall kicked-puppy look. Usually hasn't shaved for a few days, and smells like vodka cheese. Will probably attempt to watch porn on his phone, before getting too nervous and calling his mother instead. Will sit close enough to you that he can look down your top, but not close enough that you can actually call the police.
2. The loud, child bearing one. Hard to miss, due to the amount of noise she's making. Will have one or more screaming children sitting on her lap, which she occasionally drops into one of the (many) Primark bags at her feet. Will, at some point call her friends to gossip about last weeks party. Big earrings, questionable colour of fake tan.
3. The knitted one. Doesn't actually know how to knit, but dressed from head to toe in knitwear and denim. Boys have fringes bigger than their faces, and converse with holes in. Girls have cheap, black eye shadow, and are wearing very uncomfortable looking shorts.  The ones that you irrationally hate for being skinny. also the only group that refuses to travel alone. 
4. The quirky one. Usually Japanese fashion students. Have manicured crew cuts, designer purses and nice shoes. Could be male, female, both or neither, but you fancy them anyway. Will go the entire journey without saying a word, and but will instead read on their iPad, while listening to foreign hip hop.
5. The nervous one. Will stand right next to the door, ready to jump out at a moments notice. Also doesn't want to take up seat room for other passengers, because he's the type you want to bring home to your mum. Will wear a well cut shirt, carry a computer bag, and have cuff links you can only dream of. Looks as scared as you feel.

A Conversation I Never Had About Hammers

Shop Assistant (hereby known as SA): Good afternoon madam, do you need any help?

Me: So, yeah, I need to buy a hammer?

SA: Right, what sort if hammer are you looking for, madam?

Me: I don't know, just one that, y'know, hammers things.

SA: Right... what sort of things do you need to.. um, hammer, madam?

Me: Uh, nails, I guess. Like, not the nails on my fingers, cause that would just be stupid. Just regular, metal nails into wood. I don't really know what else people would ever actually need to hammer. I mean, I don't need a fancy hammer, just a regular hammer. Also, the cheaper the better. But not at that point of cheapness that it works once, then breaks, because that could be unfortunate. I don't want to be hammering something, and then just have the head fall off, and wow, that sounds weird. But yeah, I totally saw that happen to a guy once. He was just hammering the floor, and then the head just fell off. Actually, it wasn't even a hammer. It was a spade. And he was digging a ditch. But it's basically the same thing, amiright?

SA: ...Um.

And then he left. Possibly forever. And no, I don't know what that means either.


Disclaimer: This conversation never happened, apart from in my head. Please don't ask me why I had an imaginary conversation with myself about hammers, but it probably has something to do with the fact that I am going to be terrible at living alone. 

Hipsters and Holli (I Never Said The Two Were Mutually Exclusive)

I had a moment the other day. One of those moments where your first thought is I have to blog about this. 
I was in Starbucks with my Mum, because we were in town and she was hungry, and I needed a wee. We were sat drinking tea and sharing a sandwich, when these two boys walked in. The first was wearing a tan frock coat, knitted scarf, winkle picker shoes, and that adorable hairstyle, where its all short at the sides, and longer and slicked back at the top. The second boy was taller, and dressed identically to the first one, only with a black coat. 
So these two kids walk in, and the first one instantly goes, "Ugh, so many hipsters."
I contemplated this statement after I had finished braining myself on the table due to the fact that I was laughing too hard, and I came up with this:

1. Those boys were the most hipster kids I had seen all day.
2. It's a Starbucks. That's like walking into a prison and going "Ugh, so many murderers." 
3. The only people apart from me and Mum were hundreds of very harassed parents with toddlers.

So, honey, I think you might be a little confused. I don't know, maybe they'd just walked in and accidently glimpsed a mirror.

I'd just like to take a chance to say best wishes to HB on her 18th. Baby, you will realize why I chose this post to mention it when you see your present tomorrow. I hope you like it. (4/4)

Why I Would Make A Terrible Bond Girl

So I act, right? I love it. Which means that quite often, after I've seen a film, I imagine what it would be like if it was real, and I put myself in different character roles, and different scenes, and it's great. So, of course, I tried doing this with some of the Bond Girls, and, um, it came out a little differently...

Bond walks into a bathroom, dropping his shirt on the way. Sévérine is already in the shower, running her hands through her hair. Bond steps in behind her, moving his hands around her waist. 
Sévérine: Hold up, bitch. The hell do you think you're doing? You can't just wander in here and get all touchy feely. When did we ever agree to that? What if I was on my period, huh? Then we'd both be screwed. Plus, I haven't shaved my legs in like, three months. I mean, I dunno, maybe you're a feminist and you're cool with that, or whatever, but I'm just saying it's something to be aware of. 

Bond and Sévérine are sat at a bar together, the latter drinking champagne  the former, a martini (shaken, not stirred).
Sévérine: What do you know? 
Bond: Well, it takes a certain type of woman to wear a backless dress with a Beretta 70 strapped to her thigh. 
Sévérine: Yes. A boring one. I prefer a shotgun stuck down the cleavage. 
Bond: Wha- 
Sévérine: Also I have throwing knives tied to my elbows.
Bond: I- 
Sévérine: And a machete on my shin.
Bond: But- 
Sévérine: Also I'm not 100% sure what the structure of my dress has to do with my weaponry. 

Bond and Moneypenny stand together in an office of MI6. Bond turns to walk away, as Moneypenny watches him go. 
Bond: In your defense, a moving target is much harder to hit.
Moneypenny: Who says I missed, motherfucker?


Or, you know, just maybe...
Bond walks into a bathroom, dropping his shirt on the way. Sévérine is already in the shower, running her hands through her hair. Bond steps in behind her, moving his hands around her waist. 
Sévérine: The hell did you get on my boat?