Oh Tannenbaum, oh Tannenbaum, Wie glänzend sind deine Blätter! (Trans: O Christmas tree! How are thy leaves so shining!)

Hurrah, it's almost December! I've got my tree all up and prettily decorated, plain white fairy lights, chocolate and gold baubles, chocolate beads and glass snowflakes, all topped with a gold wire and bead star! I'm glad we chose the gold in the end, it does go so nicely against the cream and yellow wallpaper in here! The pelmet has a swag of chocolate and gold tinsel with matching baubles, ditto the clock, and He wanted a something to hang on a spare picture hook, so I made a little wreath with more of the tinsel and little baubles. Ky has her wire and baubles tree again, and Tsam has a cone of gold loop sequins and beads. They're both sat under their trees!

I also noticed another present has mysteriously appeared under the tree - I was a little puzzled, because I hadn't put it there, but it was done in my paper with my ribbons and very much in my style: I'll give credit to His artistic side, it nearly slipped my notice! Greatly amused me anyway. (He's happy.)

Madagascar: Escape to Africa! Well, blow me over with the draft from the fibres of a coconut shell! I'm impressed! For a sequel, this was pretty damn amazing, as most follow-on movies are often dismally poor (Garfield 2 is a perfect example of sellout-letdown). I mean, I loved the first Madagascar, but the second was just spot on for me. Alright, it was a little predictable, but then with kids films that's nice - you have an idea of what's happening, so you can just sit back and enjoy it. Hank has rated it as "up there on my list of this year's funnies." His Lordship's relatively high praise: "It was definitely a good chuckle, worthwhile." So yes, this one earns a "Yeah!" out of OK.

More good news, Ky has started eating a little on her own again, munching on one of her usual favourites, morio worms. She's also taken to stalking us around the house, up to following me into the kitchen, where I have a good laugh at lack of grip with claws on vinyl flooring. Bless her, I also forgot she was out and about when we went to the cinema, but she stayed happily fast asleep in their new hut. Fortunately, I thought it'd be a good idea to put a nice new heat mat in the bottom of it - she stayed toasty in there for about nine hours.... Tsam has had a look at the hut and decided it was a threat, so bobbed at it. I think the fairy lights spooked him. (Pic: Tsam's spiny scales and rich shades of grey, cream and brown.)

We also had the first sprinkle of snow down here today. Not that it lasted long, but still. Time for winter food! We had ostrich in mushroom sauce yesterday and today I have to stretch a chicken chasseur to three boys and me...

Quote of Today: "Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it." - heelarious.com

Fabulous Floors and Terrific Tanks

The lizards are very pleased this week! They've got lovely wall to wall carpetting in their tanks now, which is a whole lot healthier than sand. Well, remember how sand sticks to a wet finger? Now consider that the dragons lick just about everything on a minutely basis... So they've now got brown astroturfed tanks! Ky thought the whole process was fascinating, insisting on sitting on the pile of sand whilst I tried to sweep it up and chuck it in a bucket, and then running all over the carpet as I cut it to size. She licked it about a million and one times as I slid it into place - sat on it, sliding along the tank floor. Tsam was generally confused about the whole thing and sat UNDER it whilst I tried to fit his. But apparently, it's good for digging on. It's soft enough to sleep on, tough enough to resist digging, bouncy enough to jump from the highest object in the tank onto, and firm enough to run around like a lunatic. Hurray for brown astroturf and for eBay's mats-n-floors company for finding and measuring it, and the wonderfully good value!

Quote of the Day: My Nan made me chuckle this week; she was telling me about one of her best ever prize wins: she won a film camera, projector AND screen by writing off to Macleans. "I'm glad I didn't have to send in a label or anything - I HATED Macleans' toothpaste!"

Crazy for Cooking!

Seems we've developed an affinity for basic cooking in this house too! His Lordship and I were stumped for what to feed the Housemates on our Sunday - especially with a budget of not-what-you-might-call-a-lot-if-anything. But it seems you can make a bloody good stew out of roughly not much! We had a big chunk of cheap steak in the freezer (the butcher wanted to shut his stall for the afternoon, so we got it less than half price) and some frozen veg. A forage in the veggie cupboard revealed some slightly hairy carrots and some ought-to-be-used-so-discounted potatoes. A further dig in the big cupboard pulled up some stock cubes, half a bottle of red, some garlic bulbs, an old onion, going-cheap mushrooms and some jarred things like pepper. A quick foray into the garden pulled up some lovely thyme, rosemary and basil - chucked all in my massive bought-in-the-sales steel pot and left it for a few hours. Impressively, after a quick stir (and some more red wine, just in case) it was actually pretty good. Hank and George sufficiently impressed. I'm glad we used the wine in the stew, it was a bit vicious. Visual representation auf das Pixdaus.com.

I also make nice cake. After the lovely Lemon, we experimented with a few things, like using lime marmalade (great if the mix is a bit dry!), extra eggs and less marg (creates a souffle-ish effect, very light), and the top favourite so far: cupboard leftovers cake. Which was some Somerfield's cocoa (there hasn't been a Somerfields here for YEARS) and some old packeted ginger left over from the Days of Dan (ditto above). The remains of some old Bird's powder, the last of the "thin sugar" and some random banana-milkshake-maker-stuff, and we had a rather scrummy pud!

Quote of the Day: "I accidentally turned the devil into a hobo but I never intended to melt off a characters hand. And then they all communicate by magical toaster. I still don't know how that happened." - My mad sister, writing her new book.

A Worthwhile Week (?)

I think it's one of those sort of weeks already. I called up 118 to get a number, and said " I wonder if you can help me, I'm looking for Mr Wright." Cue uncomfortable pause, until he goes "Aren't we all, honey!" I suddenly realised and fell about laughing.

His Lordship has rediscovered an old love. And I tell you, He's going to be high on Es, Fs G, H and Is before long if he keeps munching all those sweets. Hes, he's rediscovered AlphaLetters. Mum says we ought to save all the letter e's for when we go out somewhere, go up to people and start offering them out to see how long it is before we get arrested. Ah, sadly, there's a lack of them. I think they may be making a point about their E numbers. He's been writing lots of sweet messages (oh dear, bad pun, sorry) for me, ooh, and He's just written another. Oh. He's written "D O U F A R T." Oh well, He's still wonderful and makes me laugh.

Is it weird to be carpeting my vivariums? Ah well. The dragons are getting soft new flooring in a lovely brown Astroturf. Think of it like this: have you ever stuck a damp finger in dry sand? Yeah. And these Dragons go round licking it every so often - I'm worried they'll get bellies full of sand, it can't do them any good. So they're getting some nice soft fake lawn to dance around on, pull up, sleep in etc. Will keep Tsam occupied for a while, trying to tear bits off.

Ah well, at least that warm weather I was promised has arrived. By which, I don't mean it's sunny glorious skies, but that it isn't chuffing it down with snow like it is back home. This Larry. Apparently there's hail and wind too. Just not here.

The Quote: "I accidentally turned the devil into a hobo but I never intended to melt off a characters hand. And then they all communicate by magical toaster. I still don't know how that happened." - Bogle, writing her new book.

Awaiting the Advent...

I have bought a Christmas tree! It is gold and sparkly and I'm so looking forwards to putting it up and making the room sparkle. I have got lovely chocolate and glittery baubles to go with my clear glass stars and snowflakes, and a big gold tree topper star. I look forward to getting the Dragon Trees out too, giving Ky her funky wire tree with acrylic drops again and amazing Tsam with his cone of large looped sequins. I look forwards to going home with presents and making my family smile. It's not even December yet, but I'm READY for my first PROPER Christmas. (Image: Marks and Sparks, where I got some of my baubles.)

Oh, and you'll be pleased to know I'm not likely to suffer depression and neither am I unstable in any way. A couple of months ago, work pressure was giving me panic attacks, but it's all sorted out now. I saw a councellor this week that was "surprised by the way you handle things, you've got extremely good coping methods and a lot of strength." Nice to know! Even with the risk of genetic depression (bi-polar) it seems I've got an inbuilt coping tactic - if I have a problem, I look for the answer, except at times when I can't do anything right then, like bedtime. I have my family, my Blokey, my reptiles, my health and my books - i'm happy. Alright, so I don't curl up with a cat and a book, it's a lizard, but it works for me. Well, I've tried being rebellious, it's too much like hard work, especially when Mum thinks everything is great. Red hair: cool. Motorbike: cool. Tattoo: cool. Peh!

Tsam and Kyle have gone temporarily (I hope) insane, because thanks to Hank turning off the heating in the coldest point of this year so far, they think winter has been and done already and now they think it's breeding season. Tsam is pretty normal, but very confused that Ky no longer runs away when he bobs and dashes at her. He's also very baffled that she thumps him back, and will pointedly ignore him and breezily walk straight past him back into her tank. She seems to know what she's doing, even if she has no appetite. I don't mind syringing her chicken babyfood with calcium. Tsam'll eat anything. He especially likes chocolate cookie. (NOT recommended.)

Relevant QOTD: "I'm medicated. I cannot freak out." - Mum.

Caution: Cuisine!

His Lordship really makes me laugh sometimes. We were walking home from town and stopped into Monties to pick up some Swizzells lollies for Him and noticed the girl in front of us was buying two big bottles and four cans of cola. I was amused to notice they keep the coffee in the same lockup as the JDs she wanted and commented to Him on this; it's one of the most commonly stolen items from convenience stores - bacon, cheese and coffee. The till chappy nodded and I explained to His Lordship that the coffee was most stolen, because sniffer dogs can't pick up a scent through it. He laughed and said "Well, you don't need to tell him, he's a coke dealer! Look at the load he just shifted!" After a moment of befuddlement I realised. Coke. Coca cola. Oh dear. (Image: Corner. Corner Shop? Oh yeah, I made that joke.)

I have just been informed that a local store was actually done for dealing behind the scenes! There's one to go with the Dalmation burgers on Take Away Alley. Oh NASTY, I've just found out that the Dalmation burger place used to top up the mayonnaise. I won't explain for fear of truly grossing. Safe to say someone enjoyed it at least.

I HAD got 100 codestones. I sold them for a tidy 355k!
We did see the new James Bond, Quantum of Solace. If I'm being nice, I'd say it wasn't so much "Bond, James Bond!" as "Bland, very Bland." The girls were a little mediocre, the ripoffs just a little too obvious, the product placement too blatant, the effects just a little too much and the story just a little too bland.

Loathesome Last Week...

Not my finest weekend, I have to admit.

I'm in a bit of a way with a nasty cold. I can taste four things: warm, sweet, sour or snot - which is pretty much comprised of the first three I note. Hurray for the variety of flavours in modern day cardboard. It's got to the point where, when blowing my nose, the tissue is just spreading snot around my face. Not pretty.

It's a bit better on Day Three. Like two european eagle owls have gots stuck up my nose.
It's that fluffy, stuffed, tickly feeling with nasty scratchinessess... just like two owls.

His Lordship has been laughing at me. I got fed up of sneezing all over and went for a shower - reached out and pressed the button - for the button to come off. Do you remember ever playing with Smarties, licking your finger and trying to get them to your mouth before they fell off? It was one of those moments, realising it was stuck to my finger - and then it fell off. Oh dear.

And there's a bizarre movie on that I just DON'T get. There's a man painted metallic green with jewels stuck to him and silver glittered eyes in a white paper house tying rubber dolls in knots, with a another man in purple velvet platforms and lilac velvet leggings peeping in the window, short pink hair fluttering over grey-green eyeshadow... Let's just say it has quite a ZIggy Stardust feel to it. Thanks to Velvet Goldmine on Myspace for providing a somewhat rare image of Johnathan Rhys Meyers in glorious glitter!

We've also discovered Tesco do their own Cheapest, No Frills box of chocolates - for 98p! I have to say, there were quite a lot for under a pound - but they all needed altering slightly to make them properly good. The hazelnut praline was oddly lacking, it needed smashed hazel peices in to be convincing, there were too many yicky coffee ones and the "caramels" were far closer to fudges. Rename them Fudge and I'll believe you. The caramel cluster would have been good, but it needed a soft caramel, like the middle of a Rolo, whilst the hazelnut trio needed whole hazelnuts in. The apricot cream was good, if the flavour a bit too strong and still needed proper bits of dried apricot in for extra whumph. The nougat duo needed a proper SNAP to the chocolate, a simple treatment of cooling it so it cracks properly, whilst the chocolate coconut needed more coconut, less filler. But oh GOD, please, PLEASE fix the so called raspberry and orange creams. They're definitely FONDANTS, and I don't know WHAT you did to the raspberry, but it tastes like... perfumed ARSE. I shudder to recall.

Oh, and I told Him I brought Him home a present in my bag. He went to go get it and came charging back - "YAY! I LIKE BUNS." He was so enthusiastic about the bread rolls, I hadn't the heart to tell him I meant the cookies...

"All that glitters - is gay!" - headline quote from Velvet Goldmine.

Nice Day at Nine Springs.

Well, since time of last typage, my family have been down to visit again. All hell broke loose as per usual once my mother tried to combine a dubious concoction of Snekeh and Stepfather - but at least it stopped him using that annoying megadeathflashofdoom! It goes "kchkchkchkch-kuh-CHOOM" you know, if light was in an audiable form.

The dragons were perfectly happy once they'd discovered that my little brother had brought along his extensive range of electronic toy gadgetry. (Only joking, this is someone else's shot, but the resemblance to my two is stunning! Contact me for reference, not sure where it came from.) He was amazed at just how HUGE Tsam has grown, having confused him with Ky at first. But then he is a whopping 19 inches or so. Ought to measure him...

Shortly after wrestling Snekeh back into her tank (we never have all the animals out at the same time), we threw her in a defrosted mousey to yomp down. Mum was quite surprised when, having voraciously vanished said mouse, Snekeh charged round the tank looking for more. "Poor Snekeh!" - Stupid Snekeh more like, she only tried to attack the wiggling fingers and smacked her head on the glass. But then she always does that. Snekeh had her lunch, so we went out for ours. We headed into town somewhat late, and met His Lordship whom had gone before us to pay in a cheque. Except the silly man had forgotten his wallet, so we had to do that anyway.

So after a slight detour, we ended up in Mocha cafe. I know, I know, I've mentioned it on a few occasions, but their hazelnut hot chocolate is the BEST! Mum was a little apprehensive (not many things meet her high standards) but I was confident, and rightly so. The owner's loud and cheerful South African manners and impeccably swirled cream toppings won her over. Even picky brother ate most of his dinner! My sister and I split two paninis half and half, salami and mustard in one, ham and cheese in the other - we all dined well. Just as well really, as we all hared off into Nine Springs to hide from my Stepdad! ( -50 points if you spot Mum!)

We spent some considerable time amusing the locals by going "under cover" in our best disguises. Mostly so that my Stepdad wouldn't get a good photo with his insane megayougettheideaflash. My sister definitely had the best, His Lordship had a similar oak twig and a maple leaf on his head, my brother had three large leaves of various species attached around his glasses, Mum was hiding in some lovely spiny chestnut and laurel leaves, I wandered round for some time oblivious of the nut-leaf Mum deposited in my hair and a large ... bouquet isn't quite the right word (or the right spelling I fear) of various colourful Autumn leaves. Stepdad was boring, just blasting us with high levels of light pollution from his large camera.

Nine Springs is truly quite beautiful, even at this time of the year, when the water has turned a chilly crystal clear and the spiralling bracken waves damp curls amongst the colourful leaflitter. The fish had converged in the main lake in a large, slowly shifting mass, something akin to watching a silver lava lamp. The smaller pond had a group of fish leaping out to snatch the small flies skittering across the surface - it kept us quite distracted for a while. Even when the kids threw in little pebbles, the big group of gently shifting fish paid it little heed, barring a slow, almost un-noticable slide further to the depths.

It was at this point the youngsters pegging in the pebbles noticed our "disguises", but sadly my brother had already wiped off his pen moustache. Talking of moustaches, the presentation of the fruit still continues; we were the proud owners of a large green watermelon called Sanchez. With a moustache. Of course.

I have been really good - I haven't opened my early Christmas presents yet!

Cakecakecakettycake!

Finally, I am a NeoMillionaire! Still a long way to go before I reach the best bank account, but then I am enjoying spending some of my hard earned neopoints! I've only been playing this game for the last seven and a half years... Selling off some of those codestones helped.

I seem to have developed a rather nice recipe for lemon cake. I'd give you the recipe, but it doesn't have one. I take a big glass pyrex dish, marg it up. Throw about a mug and a half of selfraising in a bowl, three eggs, a splash of milk, some lemon zest, about half a mug of marg and equivalent of sugar in, and mix. Splat some lemon curd in margy dish, throw in mix. Bung dish in microwave, give it about 10 mins or so, and mix some lemon juice, water, syrup and cornflour in a hot pan until it turns slightly jellyish. "I loved your cake. I like cake!" Pretty much the best review one could want. Hurray! We also tried a syrup version, and I intend to do a raspberry one next year. Thanks to Himself for the raspberry tree sketch.

Film: Mirrors. Quote: "ding ding ding ding ding" I liked it, especially the first boo. I can't believe everyone else fell for the second boo. You all should be embarrassed - I laugh at you.

HouseBunny: Sadly, not as funny as some previous Happy Madison films, and draws the attention of large groups of noisy, rustly women. "Better than I expected, quite humorous. Wasn't quite the normal thing I'd go and see." Well, it was a girly film. A case of, rather than stick it in the fruity, gamble your money on the film. It might be worth it, or alternatively, you've just lost a couple of quid.

Dragon Update: Tsammy Dragon is 18.5" long now, and loves his baths. I did him a fresh, slightly warm bath and he threw himself in. Sloshed water everywhere, scooching about with his head underwater, happily blinking and coming up to blow bubbles. Kuleana is her usual demure self, lounging comfortably in the soft dig of sand she's made in her tunnel, quietly observing the world. She can be tempted out with morios, but if she's in a real sulk, all a morio will do is tempt out a nose and a long sticky tongue... BLAT!

His "word" of the week: "Ucluxium - the stalky bit that snaps off a leaf." Disclaimer: NOT a real word. Yet.

Quote of the Day: "summon the seven dragons of reggae" - scientology quote from an IAB clip.

Un-civil thinking from a civil servant...

I'm technically a civil servant now! My company is heavily owned by the gvt, and we hit an all time low of 50p per share. Just to think, it was at 189p just before I left for holidays. I don't know, I take a week's holiday to do nothing, and the whole industry falls apart without me! My nan says "Serves you right for taking holidays!" Never mind, a nut doughnut is enough to make it better for me! (Image not actually my building, but a very cool building in London nearby my company HQ. They do the world window cleaning championships at this site by the way!)

I had to laugh when I went to visit my local petstore; I stopped to look at the adverts in the window, the usual puppies, kittens, small furry animals, when I noticed there was one proclaiming the merits of a rabbit. An Anne Summers rabbit! Another personal favourite when it comes to local shop signs has to be at the "Real China", a big Chinese style buffet house, with a slightly modified sign outside reading: "We Hop To See You!"

Word of the week: Gratisfaction. Self explanatory.

I also have an impressive collection of 59 codestones now!


Quote of the Day: "Oh, this looks quite good. Oh, that was quite good. Length of review directionally proportional to game." His Review of Jericho the Game.

(Non-) Working Week.

Sods law for you, I get a weeks worth of holiday to relax and do little to nothing, and I get His cold. Oh well. I'm just glad not to be at work this week - the financial sector are in a bit of a flap. D'ya think this will be the "recession age"? I mean, we've had "Roaring Twenties, Turbulent Thirties, Swinging Forties, Nifty Fifties, Swinging Sixties, Super Seventies, Big Eighties, the Decade of Decadence"... Is this the "Niggling Noughties"?
M'fishies have got a nice new tank layout - someone was getting rid of some tunnels for hamsters, so I bagsied them. The fish have now got a funky, brightly coloured pair of joined, slopy tubes and bends to swish around, sit on and sleep in. Erwin thinks they're great and has being going round and round and round as is his wont. He likes going in circles! Snekeh has a shiny new heatbulb (which I promptly burnt myself on "psssssht!") and is sleeping under her waterbowl. The dragons are just getting bigger.

Films:
Taken: "About as scary as hiccups" sums it up nicely in His Lordship's words. Everybody was raving about it, I didn't think much to it. A bit too James-Bondey for me. Don't get me wrong, I like 007, but this was a bit... meh. An action flick with a predictable outcome. I liked the outfits in the sales scene though.

Righteous Kill: Al Pacino and Whatsisname - very good. It was a good laugh, a little predictable, but a worthy watcher. Considering it was free, it was nice for a bit of escapism, however His Lordship sums it up well: "It was... highly forgettable really. The kind of movie that I've watched, forgotten and not going to start raving to Joe Bloggs down the pub - it's just not worth the effort. It was a well directed, well acted peice of movistry, just something to watch."

Death Race: WooYEAH, NOW you're talking. Crammed full of special effects and enough C4 to knock me sideways (visually speaking) this was a proper treat. I was expecting something a bit cheesy, a bit 1980s, but this stomps all over such expectations and leaves you breathless. Please, please don't try to compare it to the original movie "Death Race 2000" - it's nothing as poor, nothing as tame. I was suitably marvelled and gobsmacked. Kudos. "Although there were more boobies in Death Race 2000. Just a statement of fact in comparison of the two." HL.

I have however prepared some of my Christmas presents and have started to design some cards; yes folks, this year you're getting home made ones! Talking of Christmas, I also started shopping for presents - so family, email me and let me know what you/who wants. I have a nice stack of things, but nowhere near finished. That includes you Mum! Whilst shopping, I did have a nice surprise however; I nipped into a charity shop to look for books and discovered a brooch identical to the one I already own. Bearing in mind I bought mine at an antiques store a year ago in Bath for £4, I thought it quite extraordinary to find the exact same design for the same price!

Linkage: Remember the freezer-soup incident a few weeks back? Here's some folk trying something similar for science: http://www.gloriousstench.blogspot.com/ Also, see the original: http://www.stinkymeat.net/

Quote of the week: "Tkk nnnnhh" - some politician failing repeatedly on the News. Well said, sir!

At the Aquarium!

We got a reputed five years worth of good luck today, as returning on the boat, we waved up at the London Bridge and people waved back. (He and I were the only ones to try, so we get luck! Woot!) I did think the bridge sign was just a little obvious all considering, but then I suppose if you're not paying much attention to your surroundings or you're a disaster at directions like me, it could be handy. He thought the tour was quite cool, and came up with a lot of good facts. He does say: "London Bridge. Well, the sign's just a statement really. Why else would you need two bricks that tell you what it is? London. Almost a shame you have to spend money to actually get there."

The Aquarium has a lot of weird and wonderful animals to show, His Lordship discovered Indian Leaf fish and miniature bumblebee shrimp, jellyfish tumbler tanks and adored the rays as usual. I loved the big river tanks, complete with Stone Loaches (one of the Dojo family line). We had to agree, our joint favourite is the Heteroconger cobra. These sweet little fish are very nervous - we had to wait quite some time for them to be relaxed enough to come right out. When they are worried, they hide in their little tunnels, so it's very funny to see these little fish sliding up and down out of the sand!

Some fish clearly didn't appreciate their photo being taken, as these fellas prove; resolutely turning their backs to the camera and quietly focussing on the opposite direction. Although you can't tell from this direction, these guys are quite a metallic green and have big blue spots down their sides... "Oh, the sulky fish! I suppose they were quite nice, but they were just big fish. Big fish that ignored me." They're probably far too used to putting up with tourists with flash cameras. I don't use them round animals if I can help it, either that or I use a constant light so it doesn't scare them.

Quote of the Day: "YOU! Lizard with the beard! I seeeee you!" - Hank and the dragons.

Looking Over London...

We did go on the London Eye (and pay £8 for the privilege of owning a mass produced "personal memory" photo), then went to explore the London Aquarium (where they tried the same thing.)

Once you reach the vantagepoint at the top, the view from the Eye is quite spectacular: a grubby sprawl of buildings, hiding the treasures of ancient monuments and the diamond flashes of the tourist cameras, jewel moments among the kimberlite if you will... But I'm still disappointed that it isn't like it is on TV; the News and Documentaries show everything as so polished, so shiny, so close together - look here at St Pauls, here at Ben, here at yaddayaddayou get it. But it's not, it's scattered amongst grotty grey hulks of concrete and glass, even the greatest towers are subdued and overshadowed by scaffold and crane.

The tube experience is quite, quite unique. I had it in mind of something akin to your standard public transport train, your SouthWest Trains journey. However, even at it's busiest point, the rush-hour to Weymouth on a Friday evening, the SouthWest would still be beaten into submission in a head-to-head battle with the Underground. It's like a cattlevan, pink fleshy livestock crammed in willynilly, hurryhurry to get there fast. I'll give it that, it's a whole lot cheaper and a damn sight more efficient than the bus systems, and a lot more reliable than the black cabs (I won't even consider mentioning the charges for those!) but you really do have to take a deep breath.


Even as laid back as I am, I found myself swept up in the urgent nature of the city when trying to traverse the tube and on a couple of occasions, Himself and I almost ended up seperated by trains. It got to the point where we had to agree beforehand where we were going, and for the first one to arrive to wait for the second! His view on the whole thing: "Slow doooown!" At least you don't need to say that with the Eye.

Quote of the day: "Oh, this 3is3 si3lly!" Laptop seizures produce 3s.

Natural History

I cannot believe just how BIG the place is. You couldn't do it in a couple of hours like so many people say you could. We spent about six hours there in all, and still we didn't see all of it! My feet hurt, but I didn't notice until much later, because it was just so breathtaking, so much to take in, so much to consider and converse upon. His Lordship noticed some lovely roundels set into the walls through some of the halls, and thought the silvery cubes of natural pyrite were the best, "like transformers" in its angularity. To give you an idea of the size of this rather fabulous cluster, each of those cubes are roughly... I'd say about fist-sized. So yes, it was a big, big chunk of raw, unprocessed beauty. I love the way Nature manages to give it such perfect angles and sleek, shimmery sides!

His Lordship still has a wonder for the bigger reptiles, so we spent a while peering at the marvellous remains of the dinosaurs. I never realised just how huge, or how small, the variety in general. I mean, I liked dinosaurs when I was little, but WOW! The triceratops's horns are wider than my calf, and the beak of this prehistoric bird thing we saw was longer than His arm and a about the same again deep. He liked "all the skeletons they had there and stuff in the giant rahhh section, it was cool to see all the skeletamanons and the coolness and stuff. It was cool, just all the ewrrrrr and aaaaauuuuurrrr, you know." Complete with claw-hand gesture-suggestions.

The modern day reptiles collection was a little small, and the poor old beardie they had on display wasn't the finest of it's kind, but then I suppose that's understandable. I prefer mine alive and interactive really! Talking of lizards, Kyle didn't half sulk when we got home, she doesn't like it when we leave her for a few days, even when she has Hank for company. However, the shingle skink was a nice example, it's head and tail were the same size - to confuse predators. (Sadly the camera went flat, so here's a nice Mesolite crystalform for you. He says it's a very "cute" peice.) There were all kinds of animals, birds, crustaceans... He liked the Alaskan King Crab, I felt sorry for the Griffin Hawk and we both had a chuckle when He stood next to one bird and asked "So which one's the Dodo?"

We also spent some time having a good poke about in the sparklies section, for all of you know my love of true gems. My personal favourite is Hope; the cursed dark blue diamond, she brings fever, death and destruction. At 45.52 carats, she's said to be the biggest of her kind, however the curse isn't truly accepted. Said to be stolen from a great Hindi statue, but the other eye has never been found. Sadly, the photo didn't work out as it was such a dark blue, so here's an amazing HUGE opal boulder.

Talking of colours, I recently discovered they used more C4 explosives in the Dulux paint explosion advert than they did on that "Saving Private Ryan" film, which is quite impressive! "Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways." - Oscar Wilde. Here's a question for Mr Wilde, would the C4 spoil the colour, or doesn't that count? In the meantime, as we wait for time travel to be developed, here's a nice little shot of some unusual pink, white and black metamorphic granite... P.S, it's about six foot tall. That's some rock!

I also adored the Pain collection of Burmese sapphires and Pigeon rubies, as shown in all their funky brights in this clip.
"Abra-ca-duh!" Amy Wong as the Cute Fairy Of The North, Futurama.

Totally Tourists.

A touristy day round London, two very poor people looking at very expensive things mostly, Bentley's driving down the road silky-quiet, a stroll round Tiffanys to discover an entire year of my life is worth roughly one Spessartite ring. (Image of similar cut gem thanks to crystalscrystals.com) We watched Porsches glittering like airbourne fish, had a look at some marvellous frilled boots in Jimmy Choos, looked at bespoke suits in Saville Row, leaned on a superbly squishy Diesel store (honest!) and admired ridiculously high heels in Yves St Laurent. All of which were probably similarily expensive. And you know what? London is grubby.

On the other hand, I was delighted to find a touch of either Olde England, or blatant sci-fi tourism attraction. Sadly, it wasn't decked out inside, so no, he wasn't in - but why would I need an alien when I have a man JUST as weird to travel around with? Actually, it made me laugh, inside was painted plain white, empty bar for a little sink in the corner. I'm still not sure what all that was about. Did you know, last year, Doctor Who was classed as "classically English", just below tea with scones or crumpets, and just above Cricket. I did notice an awful lot of cranes and scaffolding around - a lot of the underground stations are having huge rejuvination plans in process, as well as most of the monuments being cleaned up.

I was most amused to discover the name of the to-be-biggest building in the UK: Shard of Glass. I thought that was brilliant, because with the local accent, it sounds just like "Shard of Arse"- anyone who knows my family will know this is a colloquialism for a particular type of flatulence! Turns out that "Darth Vader's Helmet", another odd glass building, leaks through the roof and that the "Glass Gerkin", designed by the same man, regularly used to drop panes out onto the streets...

However, what made me laugh most might well have been the set up to a classic joke: "How many Londoners does it take to change a lightbulb?" In this case, literally two and a cherrypicker. Health and safety gone mad?

Quote of the Day: "Oh NO! I think I've STOPPED!" - His Lordship, when a tube train pulled away at the same speed as he was walking at.