Oops!

I've accidentally registered for a half marathon this Sunday. I thought I was filling in my details to register for more information but I then got a message telling me I had registered. It's the Cambridge boundary run - the full race is the 23 miles of the Cambridge boundary, but I've registered (I hope!) for the half marathon, where you run 13 miles and they bus you back afterwards. It's a small field of entrants, and when you pay your £1 registration fee, they give you a waterproof map and send you on your merry way. So there obviously aren't going to be any marshalls to offer directions, and no other runners to follow (they'll all be too fast for me). A MAP! Me! Imagine? I'm going to get soooooo lost. I'll probably end up in Oxford (but I'll be okay because they've got a Woooolfson College there too - I probably won't even notice the difference!).

How people find their way here

My shiny new site meter tells me not only how many people are reading my blog, but what searches they used to find their way here. Top 4 so far:

1. MSN search on "chez in stockings" - wtf mate?
2. Yahoo search on "how to put a coat on" - surely it can't be that difficult?
3. Google search on "Percy vanished old oak table" - hahahaaa!
4. My favourite so far: an MSN search on two words "Becky" and "spanking" - hurrah!

rAndy's new way of freaking me out...

... simply involves putting his gloves on his shoulders!

What happened on my Saturday

1. Tea and toast in bed, courtesy of the dreamiest of all boyfriends.
2. Hi-ho, hi-ho, off to work I went. No-one wanted to buy any clothes today. All quiet on the Rohan front.
3. I got to meet Heather (who is lovely!) and then got to listen to the wondrous news that Will hasn't managed to scare her off yet. Mike thinks it's only a matter of time. I think Mike fails to realise quite how wonderful Will is. Luckily, Will does realise how wonderful he is and has been telling Heather at regular intervals.
4. Back home for a frantic hour spent re-drafting my portfolio essays and yelling "fuck" at the top of my voice. I am a delight to be living with at the moment, I'm sure!
5. Red Bull burger for dinner with James and Ryan. Red Bull burgers rock.
6. A very quick visit to the Wolfson bar, which was full of strange undergraduates from other colleges who had been at a mock European Parliament meeting. Some of them were wearing orange clogs. Most were very drunk
7. Back to Ryan's room for Trailer Park Boys and Drawn Together. Both v funny.
8. Home before midnight, quick blog then I'm off to bed to watch classic Simpsons episodes. I am indeed a party animal!

Really rather knackered, actually!

I have spent today with Sir Philip Sidney, wrestling with his Defence of Poesy and attempting to punch the lights out of Astrophil and Stella. I'm not sure who has emerged most bruised but I suspect it maybe moi. So, the best way to deal with brain fatigue? Go for a 10 mile run! So now, I'm mentally and physically exhausted and Jamie's probably beginning to wonder what he has moved in with. The neighbours are probably also wondering what all the screaming was about: James tried to deny me some Cadbury's chocolate, believing (wrongly) that the penguin biscuit I was eating (shortly after second lunch) would suffice. Needless to say, he was wrong and will never make that mistake again. It's nearly time for first dinner now. Can't wait!

Not a Bogan Girl After all...

James has decided that Virginia is not, in fact, a bogan girl after all. He would like to offer his sincere apologies and promises to buy her several drinks next time he sees her at the bar.

Virginia IS: Bogan Girl

No explanation, just the fact that Virginia is, in fact, Bogan Girl!

NB. V's surname has been removed after someone in the US googled her and this was the first site that popped up!

You can call me Al

So, I used this photo of me on www.myheritage.com

You scan your photo in and they give you a selection of photos of celebrities whom you are supposed to resemble. Among my options were Kate Hudson (hurrah!) and Al Gore (boo!). James allegedly looks like David Beckham (pah! he's far more dreamy than David!) and Nicola Front Bottom looks like Cameron Diaz. But, whatever photo I put in, they offer a vast range of options from the flattering to the suicide-provoking.

Ryan! Here's your chance to use your complex wavelets for good instead of for the evil, world-domination-planning space monkeys! Invent a programme that doesn't accuse me of looking like Al Fucking Gore!!

Strange things happening in our flat...

Unusual activity is going on chez nous. The clicking of computer keyboards now has nothing to do with surfing obscure pages of the internet, or constantly refreshing our e-mails, but is the sound of both of us WORKING. Imagine! James has to produce many thousands of words for Junior Research Fellowship applications, and I have 3 weeks left to finish my portfolio whilst also trying to complete weekly essays, revision essays and my dissertation. The exams will be a relief after this!
Anyhoo, I guess it had to happen some time, but the holiday was fun for the year and a half that it lasted.

List of things to do today:

• Go to library and re-write my Sidney essay (cos it's crap)
• Go to Jesus college and buy many hundreds of ball tickets (hurrah for Irish people!)
• Look after James, cook him lunch and dinner etc, while he gets on with his work
• Go for a run (I'm doing 9 miles on my long runs now, nearly ready for a half marathon)
• Spend some quality time with Ryan and Trailer Park Boys

Oh, and I've discovered a knitting club at the university! They meet on Monday evenings and someone there has promised to teach me how to crochet! Family and friends, read this and despair (and imagine what you'll all be getting for Christmas this year - heheheee!).

Things we used to believe part 2

After an e-mail from Megan, I have two more things to add to the list:

1. If you go outside with wet hair you'll catch a cold (I still believe this, and it seems logical, but it may be another case of brainwashing - answers on a postcard please)

2. If you eat Brussels sprouts your hair will go curly. Well, it certainly worked for me.

Megan also pointed out that she is guilty of perpetuating the myth by instilling the same beliefs in her own children. I can't wait to have kids of my own so I can carry on the good work (and invent a few new ones to boot).

Feeling the Benefit

Something I forgot to blog about a week ago. We were in the pub (really! it's true!), and it was fecking freezing. James questioned why I hadn't put my coat back on if I was so cold and I told him in all seriousness that it would be unwise to put it back on, because it would mean I wouldn't feel the benefit of it once I was outside. This is something that has been ingrained since early childhood, but when you really think about it, it's a load of crap, isn't it? If you actually put your coat on, you heat up your core body temperature, trapping warm air between an extra layer of clothing that actually makes the cold more bearable when you go outside. But oh no, I was always told "don't put your coat on, Becky, you won't feel the benefit when you get outside". And I don't think it was just my parents, I think most of the friends I grew up with were told the same thing. Why do people lie to children about such things? And why did I believe it for 34 years?

Other lies I was told:

- if you bite on a bit of egg shell, all your teeth fall out (thanks, Nan!)
- if you wear stockings instead of tights you are in danger of catching a cold in your bottom (Nan again)
- the sound of thunder is really a giant falling down the stairs (I used to hide during storms)
- the sound of thunder is really God re-arranging his furniture in heaven (once my parents realised I used to hide during storms)
- If you don't eat the crusts of your toast at breakfast, Santa saves them all up and gives them to you for your Christmas present (it wasn't quite so funny when Dad revealed to us in adult life that his parents had, in fact, done that to him).

I'm sure there are plenty more. But I wonder if the 'feeling the benefit' one is the only one I still believed until recently??

Will Wins a Reprieve!

... but only for Heather's sake. You're a lucky man, Will. I think you should buy both of us chocolate cakes (preferably with chocolate butter icing in my case - thank you)!

http://spaces.msn.com/tingles-emynarnen/


On another note, someone reached this blog yesterday by googling Nicola Front Bottom (except they used her real surname!). Identify yourself - you can't just go around googling innocent young ladies, it's not polite!

Don't ever watch this stoned...

http://www.fat-pie.com/salad7.htm

The Lost Day

On Saturday night, James and I shared a perfectly pleasant bottle of white wine over dinner. Then we went out, and over the course of several hours drank 2 pints of beer. I spent all of yesterday wandering around aimlessly in my pyjamas like a confused and frightened old granny, clutching my head and wailing "owwww! Why meeeeee?". James felt like crap too, but was brave enough to escape the flat for a couple of hours in order to go for a pub lunch. This, my friends, is what marathon training does to you. Years and years of training, building up my immunity to alcohol, all ruined as soon as I start running and cut down on the booze. It's just not right.

Now I have rather a lot of acacemic work to catch up on. My dissertation supervisor is coming to see me today (and I have done nothing - NOTHING, I tell you!) and I've an essay on Middlemarch due in tomorrow. James, on the other hand, only has to produce a 20-30,000 work sample in the next couple of weeks...

Now I have to go and face the Faculty Library with a bunch of overdue books. I'm worried they're going to scold me: libraries are such scary places! It's really not easy being Becky sometimes.

Will says the most hurtful things!

Quote of the day today comes courtesy of Will: "Cambridge students are wankers!". When I questioned this philosophy, in light of the fact that he quite obviously adores me and I am in fact a Cambridge student, he said "Not you, sweetie, the undergraduates!". When I then pointed out that I was, in fact, an undergraduate too, he was stuck for words. I think he owes me rather a lot of chocolate now. Or a cake. Anyhoo, this to me serves as evidence that despite the fact that Will is Canadian, he has definitely become a townie. I propose a new towns verses gowns battle to be raged in the streets of Cambridge. I'm going to gather a posse together, wait outside Rohan, and duff him up big time.

Will - you have been warned!

Plagiarism Rocks! Especially at this time of night...

Following my friends in Canada (see www.lemmiwinks14.blogspot.com for more info):

4 jobs that I have had:

1. Horse-shit shoveller at oppressive stableyard
2. Riding instructor at less oppressive regime, Riding for the Disabled. Someone tried to stab me once because I didn't give them the horse they asked for. I never told my mum. I was 14.
3. Sainsbury's produce assitant.
4. HM Diplomatic Service. Ouch.

4 Films I can watch over and over:

1. Bladerunner
2. Life of Brian
3. Moulin Rouge
4. Fight Club

Places I have lived

1. Geneva
2. Beijing
3. Kuwait
4. Berne

Things to do before I die

1. Cage dive with great white sharks
2. Go to Ryan's wedding
3. Have James's babies
4. Sky-dive dressed as Wonder Woman

4 Foods I love:

1. Rocket: inna salad
2. A really good roast dinner. Any meat. Just has to be a good'un.
3. Toast and marmite - it's the simple things in life
4. Mini jelly babies from the sweet stall in Cambridge market. Oh yes.

4 places I'd rather be

1. Nowhere
2. Nowhere
3. Really: nowhere
4. Nowhere - honest!

Of course, I might feel differently in the morning, when I'm sober!!

Ah, the good old days of culinary genius!

One of my stranger Christmas presents this year was a set of 1970's recipe cards. Among the gems were these two Canadian cakes. Those crazy Canadians - what
WON'T they get up to?!







My British cakes must seem so boring to Ryan, seeing as he obviously grew up with fruity. colourful numbers like these ....


Or did he? There was also this wondrous Australian cake among the "family favourites", but James swears he has never seen a cake even vaguely representing this one in all the years he spent growing up in Australia:


Which is understandable, seeing as I've never (thankfully!) encountered this British cake:

Ladies and Gentlemen: Mr Blumenthal

I have finally found someone who is more of a scatterbrain than moi. This is what Mark has been up to recently:

(a) Before going on holiday, Mark lost his credit card, reported it missing and requested a new card. He had to call the credit card company shortly after returning from holiday. The conversation went something like this:

Mark: Hello, I'm calling to report a lost credit card

Credit card company: Yes, Mr Blumenthal, we've already noted the loss and have sent you a replacement card.

Mark: That's exactly the problem. I've already received the replacement card and I've lost that one too.

(b) He then lost his mobile while he was in a shop somewhere, and was convinced someone had nicked it. He went outside the shop and heard his phone ringing. He said "The bastard that stole my phone is in the vicinity: I can hear it ringing". It turned out to be in his pocket.

(c) Whilst cycling to the station, a route he cycles every day, he saw an i-pod lead lying in the road. Ever the dutiful citizen, he picked it up and hung it from the branch of a nearby tree, figuring that whoever had lost it would probably re-trace their tracks and would see it there, where it would would also be safe from traffic. Cycling past on the way home, he noticed it was gone. Good, he thought: it has been restored to its rightful owner. Only a few days later he realises he couldn't find his own ipod cable. And then it dawned on him - he had probably dropped the cable himself the day before he found it. So he had in fact hung his own ipod cable on the branch of a tree for someone else to chav.

Mark is younger than me. He should be worried, very worried indeed!

Busted!

My blog has been busted by my colleagues, mainly as a result of my busting Heather's blog (hello Heather!). So now everyone knows:

(a) When I first started work, Mike allowed us to play noughts and crosses on the tiles on the shop floor during a particularly slack period;

(b) I used to go for a pee even when I didn't need one, just to pass the time;

(c) to what extent I loathed and detested Chris (but surely this means my lack of whinging about working under the new management is a glowing recommendation, no?); and

(d) I used to take 4 hour extended lunch breaks in my old job.

Ah well. On a related subject, new stock is expected in soon. The managers have been told that the new products are aimed at eliciting both an emotional and a technical response from the customers. Can't wait to see them in action: I want excitement, anger, ecstasy, outrage, tears of joy and vows of revenge!

E-baylicious!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6033055666&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:UK:1

Also look also at seller's other items...

Bulking Up

This is James pretty much as he looks now, weighing in at 90 kilos. After a drunken conversation in the pub with Ryan, it all looks set to change. Ryan wants to lose weight so that he can drop to 80 kilos; James has decided he wants to bulk up to 110 kilos. The result? James should be able to bench press Ryan.

James has done his research through the source of all knowledge, the internet. and has discovered that all he needs to do is eat about 8 meals a day and lift lots of heavy weights.

Seeing as I'm marathon training again, and am therefore permanently starving, I think I may join him on this quest. But, unlike James, I may allow my excess weight to be pure lard rather than bulking muscle! Watch this space!