13 June 2006

World Cup Madness

This is from an email I got at work today:

In preparation for the World Cup, the "offside rule" explained for women:

You're in a shoe shop, second in the queue for the till. Behind the shop assistant on the till is a pair of shoes which you have seen and whichyou must have. The female shopper in front of you has seen them also and is eyeing them with desire. Both of you have forgotten your purses.

It would be rude to push in front of the first woman if you had no money to pay for the shoes. The shop assistant remains at the till waiting. Your friend is trying on another pair of shoes at the back of the shop and sees your dilemma. She prepares to throw her purse to you.

If she does so, you can catch the purse, then walk round the other shopper and buy the shoes! At a pinch she could throw the purse ahead of the other shopper and "whilst it is in flight" you could nip around the other shopper, catch the purse and buy the shoes!

BUT, you must always remember that until the purse has "actually been thrown", it would be plain wrong for you to be in front of the othershopper and you would be OFFSIDE!

(Sadly, I still don't understand)

12 June 2006

getting into the spirit of this now...

In the true spirit of blogging, I have decided to review things I like. And things I don't, if I don't like them.

Things I like at the moment:

  • Sandi Thom "I wish I was a punk rocker (with flowers in my hair)" - great voice, could be a real summer hit I think.
  • José Gonzalez's album Veneer. The song Heartbeats from this album is the lovely guitary one on the Sony Bravia advert with the bouncy balls. Really good chill out music.
  • The West Wing. I am a newbie at this, having only just started watching it, but am slowly catching up by watching Phil's DVDs. I'm half wy through season 4, but keep seeing trailers for season 7 on More 4...
  • Holidays, and organising things for them. I'm off to Madeira in 2 weeks and have today sorted out my travel insurance and a hire car for 3 days of the week we're there. Exciting stuff.
  • My new camera: Casio Exilim ez750. I'm becoming a right camera geek, but it takes amazing photos (I take no credit for them!). Check out my flickr pages on the link to the right.
  • Birthdays: nuff said...

Things I don't like:
  • The heat, and there being no breeze. We have 2 fans and two open windows in my office, and all thats happening is that all the papers on my desk keep making a break for freedom.
  • Working when the weather is nice - it sucks.
  • Feeling ill. ME isn't much fun, especially not in the heat (see above) as you can't sleep.
  • Football fans with flags on their cars - it's not going to make them win!!

There, that's better, and I've used up some valuable time of the day, and it's almost home time!

On getting older...

Yes, this weekend I had a birthday, and not for the first time either!! My mother has taken to telling people I'm younger than I am, which is either because she is suffering from early onset Alzheimer's or because she doesn't think she's old enough to have a 23 year old daughter...

Thankfully my birthday fell on a weekend, since there can be little more depressing than working on your birthday. Unfortunately, it also fell on the same day as the first England match in the World Cup. Now, not being a football fan (in fact, I would describe myself as the opposite), this was more than slightly irritating. To combat football fever, I decided to organise the opposite of hot sweaty men in a pub: an afternoon in a spa! Anne Marie and I went off up to London to the Athenaeum Hotel & Apartments on Picadilly, and had a lovely afternoon being pampered! I found a cheapy deal on lastminute.com so for about £32 each we had a massage, a manicure and full use of the spa facilites! We skipped the gym, it being somewhat too hot, and lounged around in our bikinis and dressing gowns, mooching between the jacuzzi, the massage room and the very posh dressing room. It was a glorious way to spend the afternoon, and not a football hooligan in sight!

After lovely dinner with Phil at the Inn on the Lake in Godalming, on the Sunday I held a barbecue at my house. Little did I know how stressful hosting stuff is! So much running around and mingling! It was fun, although far too hot, and I got lots of lovely presents. There is a definite "travelling" theme in my presents, in that I got an Italy DK guide, a "Europe by Rail" book and a Greek Phrasebook (kalispera!), so I'm all set for my travels in Europe in August. The money from the aborted Kenya trip has just reached my account, so I'm almost back to where I started...Just need to hassle the flight people into giving me my money back and I'll be done. Quite weird really, but I'm really excited about going to Italy and Greece with AM and Caroline. Although, if it continues to be this hot..... definitely going to purchase a floppy straw hat!

08 June 2006

Another busy week...

Well, I didn't die in Newcastle (hoorah!).

Kate and I completed the Race for Life in a slightly less than respectable time, but never mind, at least we did it. I ran 1k, walked 1k, for the whole thing, thus running about 3k of the 5. The course was round Newcastle Racecourse in Gosforth, which we were initially pleased about as we assumed it would be flat... Sadly not, and the ground was really rocky and uneven to boot. At one point we all (all 4,000 of us...) had to cross a "bridge", or at least, a few planks of wood across a stream. Needless to say, this held up the proceedings some what, as you could only get 2 people on the bridge at one time... Anyway, we finished it, and got our medals at the end! Then it was back on the train to London, with a number of tremendously drunk people, one of whom fell asleep whilst clasping a glass of beer, which he proceeded to throw over the woman next to me...

As a consequence of my incredibly busy weekend (I was at Brownie Pack Holiday on the Friday night and Saturday morning), I was ill on Monday andTuesday, which at least gave me a chance to breathe, and sit out and enjoy the sunshine. It's amazing the properties of Vitamin D... But that's probably a blog all of its own. So yesterday I was back at work, still as boring as ever (my brain is atrophying as I type), but hey, its money, and it's only until September!