Recently, Clem has been vey keen to watch the bedtime story on CBeebies, and y’know, so have I, particularly since John Barrowman (AKA Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood) is a regular. They’ve recruited the most incredibly eye-candilicious line-up of story tellers that are definitely for the parents. And I imagine that I’m not alone in feeling that Captain Jack could tuck me in anytime he likes.
For anyone who’s ever been photographed. Merci, Petite Pomme
I’d like to congratulate the utter idiots who came up with Westminster Council’s Parking By Phone system. It must be a very nice way of earning the council a pile of cash through parking fines, because it is the most opaque, time-wasting load of rubbish I’ve come across in a long time.
In certain parts of Westminster, namely Queen’s Park, they are trialling a Parking by Phone system which means that if you park on a meter, you can no longer stick in a quid, slap on a ticket and do whatever you have to. Oh no. You have to waste half an hour of your life registering for an account to pay and get an 11-digit number that you have to input and then pay by credit card.
The system is so badly designed that when you put in your car number plate, it backtracks after every three figures and becomes so confusing that you’ve no idea where you were, end up putting in the wrong bloody information and having to start again. Half an hour later, 10 years older and one parking ticket the poorer.
And the best bit is that if you try to talk to a human, there isn’t one, only some poor woman in customer services whose job it is to re-route irate callers back to the unusable payment line.
I know, I know. It’s just another way to try to part me with my car, but stuff like that just makes me militant. Give me a decent public transport system and I’ll use it. Give me buses that won’t let me on with a pram, and I’ll take my car, thank you very much.
Just want to say happy birthday to Carrie Fisher who is 50 today.
I can’t believe I’m actually writing a piece for Tesco Magazine.
I abhor Tesco so completely that I won’t shop there, much to Dug’s dismay. They are such a bunch of scumbags that I refuse to give them my money, and here I am taking the Tesco dollar. Now that I come to think of it, that is exactly how it should be.
I was pleased to meet a school mum the other day who hates Tesco even more unreasonably than I do, and whereas I do very occasionally darken their doors, flagelating myself and vowing never again, she won’t even do that. There’s nothing like nursing a grudge to keep you entertained.
The only good use for the word Tesco that I have come across recently was hearing Lily Allen rhyming it with ‘alfresco’ in her genius little song LDN.
It’s driving me crazy having to watch the West Wing on telly.
I’m a hopeless addict, even in thise poor, pale, post-Sorkin series (seven), and it kills me to have to wait a week to watch the next episode. I own series one to six on DVD, and once I watch one episode, I can’t resist watching another, then another. So it’s pretty frustrating seeing the credits roll and knowing I can’t just slip in another disc.
And then I went away for Easter and missed a critical episode, which means I’m going to have to wait until it comes out on DVD to find out just exactly how Donna ended up working for the Santos campaign after Josh had refused even to consider hiring her. Oh god.
But Rob Lowe makes a come-back which is worth the wait.
I hope.
So I’m back.
A lot has happened since my last post—this feels like a confession: Bless me, readers, for I have sinned. It has been several months since my last blog post… But not being of the confessing bent, this will have to do.
In short, I’ve moved house and had a baby. In that order.
The house move was partly out of necessity but partly one of those crazy things you do when you’re pregnant. Last time, or just shortly after having my now-almost-four-year-old daughter Clementine, I installed a new bathroom which is about the messiest, most disruptive thing doable on the home-improvement front. This move was motivated by a real need for more space—two kids in a two-bedroom flat would have been a challenge—but also by the fact that Clem is coming up to school age and the local schools in West Hampstead were either CofE or simply dreadful. Or both. And neither were an option. So we did what middle-class parents regularly get a slagging for, that is moved into the catchment of a couple of better schools.
And now I’m all settled in to my lovely new place, Clemmie will be going to a good local school and I’ve got a gorgeous little boy called Haldane, now 11 weeks and three days old. He’s a cutie, blossoming, gurgling away and adorable on every front. He even sleeps pretty well, although depsite my best efforts, he is refusing to be marshalled into the regime recommended by the Gruppenführer Gina Ford. And good for him. So I have to wake up in the middle of the night to feed him, but for god’s sake he’s only three months old. Less. There’s time enough to get all strict and rigid.
So all of this goes some way to explain my absence from the airwaves. But now I’m back, scoffing Omega 3s in an attempt to at least sound coherent. That’s where the medium of the internet comes in handy, because you readers don’t have to suffer the long pauses as I scramble for the word that will not come or simply lose the thread entirely. Fortunately my friends and family are all very patient, but I don’t know how women on short maternity leave do it. I would be screwed if I had to go into an office and perform.
Anyway. Enough. I’m wittering. Let’s just say, I’m glad to have my hands on a keyboard once again.
