katy of the royal race of katys

selfishlywarm — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 19:43:40 GMT

I am going to France, land (surprisingly enough) of the French, for a week. I am mainly telling you this because trust is an important part of every relationship, and I feel like it's important that you are able to differentiate between the extended periods when I do not update my journal because I am in foreign climes and the (even more) extended periods when I do not update my journal because I never update my journal. It's a fine line, but an important one!

Unfortunately, the weather in Paris at the moment is apparently basically the same as the weather over here (i.e. it is pissing it down, only with a silly accent). We can only hope that, if the floodwaters become dangerously substantial, I will be able to use the beret of a passing local as a makeshift dinghy and his baguette as a handy freshly-baked oar.

Clearly, if the French have stopped conforming to their stereotypes since the last time I was over there, then I'm fucked.

(It's a shame I did German and not French at school, really, or I might have some sort of communication option left other than 'REALLY LOUD ENGLISH')

why do we always get the useless terrorists?

selfishlywarm — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 16:39:38 GMT

Some people will do anything for an insurance claim...

"Oh, Stephen, you are an arse!"

selfishlywarm — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 19:00:03 GMT

Yesterday, I was in the same room (well, studio) as Stephen Fry and Alan Davies and Jeremy Clarkson, which was a bit exciting.

You may be interested to know (although, let's face, odds are you won't - in the history of the world, has anyone ever been interested in a sentence that started with "You may be interested to know"?*) that I have started doing preliminary research into whether I can now get away with starting anecdotes with, "As my close personal friend Stephen Fry once said...".

Obviously, I'll keep you updated.

* (You may be staggeringly uninterested to know that they have not).

strike another match, go start anew!

selfishlywarm — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 20:26:20 GMT

Lo! Fireworks!

It's Bonfire Night in a couple of days!

ME: But the bit I still have issues with is why we mark the anniversary of some bloke blowing up Parliament with joyous fun and merriment!
MUM: While this is naturally a valid point, I think we're meant to focus on the fact that he didn't actually succeed.
ME: So, essentially, the message of this whole thing is, ''Embrace failure, children! It's an age-old British tradition!''?
MUM: Well. Yes. Essentially.
ME: And now we are all filled with festivity because there was a man once and he didn't blow anything up at all?
MUM: Yes. I think you've grasped it now.
ME: But that's ridiculous! Millions of people don't blow up Parliament every single day! Just by sitting here talking to you, I am actively not blowing up Parliament! Where are my fireworks? Where are my burning effigies? Where is my justice?
MUM: Bob, where do you think we'd find some cheap effigies of Katy at eight o'clock on a Friday night?
DAD: Couldn't we just economise and pop her onto the bonfire instead?
ME: ...My justice is not quite so exciting or fulfilling as I had initially hoped.

selfishlywarm — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 21:01:20 GMT

I AM GOING ON HOLIDAY! For a week! To the Isle of Wight! No one should have to spend a week on the Isle of Wight!*

* I think that the Isle of Wight Tourist Board should take this line in their next set of island promotions, I really do.

While I'm gone, you will be able to contact me in the following ways:
1. Telepathy (make sure to leave your name and number, though, or you'll be redirected to my Spam Brain)
2. Smoke signals
3. Carrier pigeons
4. Symbolic crop circles ("This one is ever so slightly oval! SOMETHING IS AMISS!")

Or you could bring all four together, and send me a telepathic ten-a-day pigeon wearing a stylish jacket made of wheat (in which case I would know exactly what you meant, really). THE CHOICE IS YOURS.

RESULTS! OF THE EXAM VARIETY!

selfishlywarm — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 17:44:48 GMT

MATHS: A
GEOGRAPHY: A
LATIN: A
GERMAN: A
GENERAL STUDIES: A

GERMAN A-LEVEL: A

And hey, hey, remember the General Studies paper where I told Pete Doherty that he should Get His Act Together, And Don't You Dare Inject Yourself While I Am Improving You, Young Man? Well, apparently the examiner was either Pete's mum or Kate Moss, because... well. Somehow I managed to get full marks.

I say it was a fix.

(Ha! Fix! Drug addicts! Get it? Get it?)

For next year's exam, I'm thinking of branching out and handing out advice to the rest of the Libertines, and maybe Babyshambles if I am feeling particularly adventurous. Just think! By the time I'm done with university, I could have single-handedly dramatically reduced drug abuse across the entire British pop spectrum!

Blimey. I am practically Mother Theresa! Except more guitar-based.

selfishlywarm — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 18:27:28 GMT

Last night I had a nightmare where I messed up a whole question in my AS General Studies exam by rambling about how Pete Doherty is ruining his career and his life and his nose, and why won't he think of the puppies!!!!!.

And then I woke up and realised, actually, no, that really happened!

In other words: JASJIOSGJIASJOAG!. OIHIOGH!!!!!. AIOFHIASFAS FUCKASIOGH A!

In other, more English, words: Exam results tomorrow. The words "Oh", "arseing" and "Hell" spring cheerfully into my mind, like bouncy little minions of Satan. The kind of minions who are fun to shoot through the head. And then throw into the Thames, having been presented with stylish new concrete booties.

In some more words: I am really scared!

i have somehow offended my ginger beer and now it is trying to escape through my eyes

selfishlywarm — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 18:41:02 GMT

It rained today! Real water, and everything! I wept with joy!

Well. Almost. What happened was, I was at Sainsburys Homebase with my mother, who claimed that she needed me to go so that I could help her carry home some new human-devouring plants she thought might brighten up the living room a bit. To be honest, though, I have a strong suspicion that she was acting on my father's orders in a last-ditch attempt to turn me into the sort of person who gets excited by pneumatic drills. Or, if you like, a last-ditch attempt to turn me into my father.

I don't remember Freud mentioning anything about desiring your daughter to covet your power tools. BUT HE SHOULD HAVE DONE. And if he had, it probably would have been called the Electrica Complex.¹

Anyway, we were in Homebase, and the Weather Wizard pressed some buttons and suddenly it was raining and we were trapped in the plant bit of the store and -- why there aren't many horror movies with this plot, I will never know -- and then I started sneezing chronically and my mother neglected me to lavish attention on some leafery, lest it felt unloved. Never have I been more aware of my own mortality! Or of my own conspicuous lack of buds!

ME: I have pneumonia! I shall clearly die!
MUM: Either that, or you're afflicted by the Family Curse. You should be glad! Some families have webbed feet!
ME: Yes. Family curse. Which some people call hayfever.
MUM: (snorts) Peasants.
ME: And yet you are forcing me, your cursed daughter, to stand in a building constructed entirely of plants! I would phone Childline if I didn't think they might be offended by my exploding parts! (sneezes)
MUM: Yes, yes, I'm a terrible mother, now would you sniff this large plant for me, dear? What do you think? Is the odour pleasing?
ME: On my grave, it will say, Katy Humber. Died On This Fine Day With A Small Herbacious Perrenial Up Her Nose. You don't hear that very often, do you? Tony Blair probably hushes up all the tragic deaths by Excessive Foliage, doesn't he, the git.
MUM: Well, look on the bright side! This way, your father and I won't need to tend to your grave! It will already be blooming beautifully on its own! At least we'll save on train fares this way!
ME: (sniffs) Everyone's going to think I'm a pansy² now, aren't they?

1. I am quite terribly fantastic and hilariously punny! Really! I am!
2. Okay, yes, there is a tiny, tiny chance that I need to stop playing on words. BUT THAT'S NO REASON TO MAKE PUN OF ME.

(Groan.)

selfishlywarm — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 19:17:54 GMT

_lashingoutloud, IT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY! (in case you had managed to forget, which is actually quite easy to do if there are not ample Hey, Remember? It's Your Birthday! Balloons nearby to remind you).

I was in the process of making you a Thing for the occasion, as is tradition (for 'tradition', read: 'well, I did it once, didn't I?'), but, um, it's not quite done yet. It will be, though. (And it rhymes, which definitely makes it doubly worth the wait!)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I love you more than many things!

Also, in additional news, I have my Mechanics: Mathematics Strikes Back... With Forces And Stuff! exam tomorrow, and I am hideously unprepared.

If the examiner expects me to know what direction things are going in, then he is a greedy globule of arse-mustard and I shall have no more to do with him. Different directions? In my day, everyone went in exactly the same direction! We were not spoilt for choice and the world was generally a better place!

Except, that was, when we all got as far as Scotland in The One True Direction (which was Up) and realised there wasn't actually anywhere else to go not involving getting slightly wetter than was decent. Which was, to be honest, a bit of a bugger.

shoplifters of the world! unite and take over!

selfishlywarm — Sat, 20 May 2006 16:43:11 GMT

A PLEASANT FAMILY CONVERSATION (or: The "How Many Paul McCartney's Wife Has No Leg Jokes It Is Possible To Make In Five Minutes?" Game)

MUM: And, alas, Sir Paul and Lady Not-Linda McCartney are no more.
ME: Oh, he'll come to regret it. It's going to cost an arm and a leg. (unbecoming snigger)
DAD: Luckily, they've already made an advance deposit on the Leg Front.
ME: Quantity: one, second-hand (well, second-foot, anyway), condition: slightly worn?
DAD: Exactly. Very sensible of them.
MUM: Well, there you go, then, they're halfway there! And arms aren't too hard to come across, are they?
ME: Of course not. For a start, those manifold ones that people were up in when Not-Linda first started mining for gold-- um, eternal happiness. They should do!
MUM: I really don't know what the papers are making a fuss about - it's all worked out quite nicely!
ME: ...you know, Satan is preparing a spare family room as we speak.
DAD: Yes, but only for the bad puns. The rest was entirely justified.
ME: Oh, definitely! No limb about it.
DAD: Speaking of Lucifer--
ME: Doubt! No doubt about it! That's definitely what I said!

I am going to a Eurovision party on this evening, which will probably be fun because the Eurovision Song Contest is essentially less of a song contest and more of a collection of inordinately sparkly bits of Parmesan singing songs that probably made sense in their original language, but end up getting translated into things like "O, I are overly loving of my goat!" and "Softly he dips my cherry-red lips in the essence of hope on which my love can float!" (and that second one, brilliantly, is actually a real lyric from 2002).

Obviously, England aren't going to win, because we've got an old bloke rapping about teenagers and it's a bit naff, but if I were going to enter, my song would go like this and people would be so shocked at my Honesty And Political Relevance that they would all vote for me and I would win by a land-slide and it would be awesome:

Eurovision, Eurovision, Eurovision, what a lark!
You won't vote for us 'cos we invaded Iraq!
Eurovision, Eurovision, Eurovision, not a chance!
Only one thing we agree on: we all hate France!

You know it makes sense.

selfishlywarm — Wed, 03 May 2006 17:44:36 GMT

Wait, hang on.

FTW doesn't mean Fuck The What?

Oh, bugger.

P.S. Also, revision has eaten my face and now my neck has no friends.

the ant soup, my friend, is blowing in the wind

selfishlywarm — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 21:58:15 GMT

So, hey, I'm going to Wales for a week (not just any week! Next week! Tomorrow, actually! At some unearthly hour which completely negates the concept of God being kind and loving and not just poking us with his trident every now and then and smirking cruelly just by merely existing *!)

* Well, okay, some people also call it seven o'clock. Whatever.

Anyway, it's not like anyone would actually notice my absence, since, for all you know, I've spent the last couple of months tracking diamond-stealing mountain goats in Tibet for the M15, and – you know what? I think I'm going to tell people that's what I've been doing in the future when they ask me whether I had a nice weekend. Honestly, it's got to beat my usual fall-back, "Um. Well. Yes. I did lots of VERY IMPORTANT THINGS that ABSOLUTELY HAD TO BE DONE in the interest of PUBLIC SAFETY. For example, I gave all my CDs affectionate nicknames and arranged them in order of Who Mummy Loves Most. Next week, underwear!", right?

Apparently, according to the weatherman, the tropical climes of North Wales are currently… well, not as tropical as you might except, them being tropical climes and everything, in that a large majority of the sheep there are permanently migrating to their summer villas in Antarctica, where they are less likely to be mistaken for a snowdrift, divided into small balls, and thrown at little children. Fair enough, really.

Um, yeah. Wales. I'm not exactly clear on what we'll be doing there, but it's a Geography field trip, so, based on previous data, I can fairly safely guess that a reasonable segment of the week will be devoted to one of my favourite hobbies, Standing In Rivers. Rivers, obviously, which will freeze solid while I stand in them and gently weep, leaving me with a large ice cube in the region that was once called Katy's Legs. This will probably be useful for things like sliding down mountains at high velocity. Also, for freshening people's drinks.

But only if they have really big glasses.

in july, the sun is hot! is it shining? no, it's not!

selfishlywarm — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 19:31:52 GMT

So. I was going to buy every one of you something huge and exciting and expensive for Christmas. Because, well, I am a naturally generous and loving person, and I have a large amount of money. In buckets. Coming out of my ears. I have enough money to be able to afford ear enlargement surgery in order to make this actually physically possible in a way that doesn't result in some awkward questions that it would be very difficult for me to hear! And I still have industrial-sized containers of cash left over! Really!

Unfortunately, alas, alack, this is a huge great lie. I actually have huge great lies coming out of my ears in buckets. So, I figured, since I am neither generous, loving, nor rich, it's the thought that counts, right? Okay, great. I'm giving every one of you a thought for Christmas!

Well, sort of. I pretty much recorded every thought I had over a two-week period, thinking that I'd be able to pick and choose, but unfortunately, I appear to actually think a lot less than you might assume, and, in the time it's taken me to find this out, it appears to have stopped being Christmas. Without telling me.

1. You know how you can get pudding basin haircuts? Is there a festive variant called a Christmas Pudding basin, where they coiffe your follicles into holly-like sprigs, pour cream over your head and then set light to you?

2. If not yellow, then which end of the spectrum is recommended for snow consumption?

3. Frogs have ridiculously silly legs. This is presumably why they never wear mini-skirts and high heels.

4. Conor Oberst was probably asking for it when he decided that writing a song called I Won't Ever Be Happy Again might be fun.

5. Also, when he thought, "Hey, why not get them to graft all my pubic hair onto my lower chin region? Why not?".

6. There was an advert for the Marks & Spencer January sale on TV last night. The lady said, "The Marks & Spencer sale today! Don't be late!". So, I am starting to wonder, did the Head Of Adverts That Get Shown On ITV sit down and think, "Hey! Hey! Let's broadcast this at twenty past seven in the evening, at which time it is very difficult to not be late for anything, especially a sale at a shop that closed at least three hours ago! Ho! Ho! Ho!"?

7. Speaking of Ho! Ho! Ho!: is a valid alternative to "Santa came with a ho ho ho!", "Santa ejaculated with a triad of prostitutes!"?

8. The title of the intranet webpages at my school is "serving God and being cheerful!". I really hope that they are going to update this on a day-to-day basis, sort of like a weblog:

DAY ONE: Still serving God! Still being cheerful!
DAY TWO: Quite fond of Our Lord still, nice beard. We're all reasonably perky.
DAY THREE: Heard about this Satan chap! School suddenly inexplicably warmer without need for central heating. Brilliant. We're all thrilled.
DAY FOUR: Totally over God. Converted to Satanism, vastly decreased electricity bill. Spending money on black cloaks and new pointy hats instead. Still riding on a fire of devilish glee. Superb.
DAY FIVE: Sacrificing teachers on large open fire. Mass-ordered some glittery pink pitchforks. In other news, bit depressed that Christmas is over.

9. I am continually impressed by Emma Watson's ability to communicate emotion solely through the persistant wiggling of the top portion of her face. Admittedly, if she had to play Caps Lock Harry, there might be a problem or two because I'm not sure that eyebrows are actually designed to move that high, and I'm not sure how she'd be able to handle a long dramatic monologue, either, without cinemas worldwide having to reset their "___ Days Since A Movie-Related Suicide!" count, but. It's the most productive way of weeding out the Harry Potter fandom without reverting to ritualistic beheadings with scythes, so it's not all bad!

10. ljsecret should not be as cruelly addictive as it is. It goes against every natural order of things ever ordered in EVERY WAY IMAGINABLE. I would organise a boycott, I really would, if it weren't for the fact that it is so like crack, it actually is crack -- or, more specifically, it's like crack would be if crack handed out a free goodie bag of meth, heroin, speed and Skittles and a party hat with every purchase and did a little dance.

11. PRODUCT TO PATENT: The Washing Machine Gun. Because, really, how many times have you found yourself covered in unprofessional amounts of blood and an inconvenient distance away from the nearest laundrette after a killing spree? THIS IS THE ANSWER TO ALL YOUR PROBLEMS! (Well, possibly not all of them, but definitely the ones involving the current foolhardy separation of homicide and washing powder).

12. And, Harry Potter? ACCIO EGG, you twat.

I was also going to do the Thank God It's Finally Over survey that I've done at the end of every year for at least three years, but it was rubbish and I couldn't be bothered, and I also really needed the loo, so I only answered 10 of the 40 questions:

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I resolved not to resolve anything. Unfortunately, by successfully not resolving anything, I resolved the resolution, which means that the resolving was -- oh, look! My head has exploded. How lovely!

5. What ~~countries~~ counties did you visit?
Sussex! Possibly! I am spectacularly well travelled!

6. What would you like to have in 2006 that you lacked in 2005?
A 6 in the year name.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Into my money box, where it will be held captive for the foreseeable future.

16. What song will always remind you of 2005?
The "Hey, Look, It's 2005!" Song By Two-Thousand and the Fives.

22. Did you fall in love in 2005?
No. Not even with myself! This is most tragic.

23. How many one-night stands?
None. I always lasted for about five hours before my legs gave way and I had to sit down. Unfortunately.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I can't for the life of me remember. I was probably not old enough to be senile, but a) the evidence would point otherwise, and b) I CAN'T REMEMBER.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2005?
I remembered to put clothes on, most days, so it was something of an improvement on '04.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The pronunciation of the word 'politics'. I temporarily forgot how to say it for about a month in summer, and that was quite stirring. And then I remembered again. It was great.

P.S.¹ Happy New Year in about four hours and forty-one minutes! (This is, of course, assuming that I can count, which is a fairly large assumption these days)
P.S.² Can someone do me a tiny favour? Go to this website and tell me whether the rollovers on the navigation buttons work or not. And tell me which browser you're using. And, if the answer's Internet Explorer, you can skip the bit about telling me whether they work or not and spend it doing something productive instead, like writing a several page thesis explaining exactly why the answer's Internet Explorer. Preferably entitled 'O WHY? WHY?'. Thanks!

i got static in my head

selfishlywarm — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 19:20:26 GMT

INSTRUCTIONS:

1) Rearrange this group of words so that it resembles a sentence, containing a) one contracted pronoun-and-verb-combo, b) one definite article, c) one proper noun, d) one plural noun, and e) one mark of exclamatory purpose, that actually makes sense when you consider that a holiday demanding a certain level of festive spirit began today:

holidays! the It's Christmas

2) Insert "AND IT'S ABOUT BLOODY TIME, TOO.".

3) Congratulations! You now have a full enough grasp of the English language to pass at least seven GCSEs!

our bodies will make the raspberries grow

selfishlywarm — Sat, 17 Dec 2005 18:33:52 GMT

1. An announcement:

I am done with long Livejournal entries. Done. Forthwith, I will be castrating any excess bits of enspeakment (except this one, which doesn't count).

You are looking at selfishlywarm-lite! Diet selfishlywarm! selfishlywarm max! Decaf selfishlywarm! Vanilla selfishlywarm! Lemon selfishlywarm! Lime selfishlywarm! selfishlywarm with extract of cyanide!

(In other news, apparently I've become a can of soft drink in my absence. Stephen Fry should totally give up the tea thing and advertise me)

2. Item two:

I'm ill. It's probably a cold, or something mildly flu-like, but it could, naturally, just as easily be something much more exciting. Probably not the Black Death, because buboes are so 1347, but maybe smallpox or over-caffeination or possession-by-an-evil-spirit or maybe just a mild case of Death. Or even the bends, because I think it would be really cool to die of a Radiohead album.

I've been not-quite-watching a lot of films over the last couple of days, because my mum is on a merciless VHS-dictator kick, and the TV remote's broken, so she keeps putting things on and then cackling when I flail helplessly. I watched Garden State the day before yesterday. I've got to admit, it's got to be one of the best films I've ever seen entirely in Livejournal icons before actually watching it, which makes the actual viewing experience impressively time-effective, allowing me to do other Important Things (like banging my head repeatedly on a reasonably hard surface) while still retaining a full understanding of the plot, and I don't think that enough movie-makers take that into consideration nowadays. (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mindless Waste Of Time also scrapes the list, if you're interested).

I fell asleep during the opening credits of one film and then woke up during the ending sequence. There were some fairly merry people dancing a bit and smiling, so it probably wasn't a slasher movie (unless they were actually zombies, and not just a bit under the weather). In the end, though, identifying it was easy, since my mum was paying huge amounts of attention: apparently, it was a hard-hitting and emotional story about Colin Firth dancing in front of a mirror in tight leather trousers. There was also some sort of completely irrelevant sub-plot about some girl and her internal conflict, or whatever but, really, The Trousers were the important bit.

ME: Do you think that there might've been some sort of correlation between your enjoyment of the film and Mr Firth's extended movement in tight leather legwear?
MUM: Absolutely not!
ME: Oh. Really.
MUM: Of course! I would have accepted a whole range of different fabrics! Lycra, for instance.

3. Item the third:

Also, if you're interested, Katy's Christmas Spirit Level:

Or, alternatively:

If you want me, I'll be outside shooting reindeer and telling little children that Santa's a registered sex offender.

underneath that joy division poster

selfishlywarm — Sun, 04 Dec 2005 19:06:36 GMT

"I stooped to pick a buttercup. Why people leave buttocks lying around, I've no idea."

- A Bit Of Fry And Laurie

You know when you write something that's really good?

We're not talking just your day-to-day fairly fantastic or moderately mind-blowing here, but really, really, supremely "Oh, would you look at that, my limbs appear to have fallen off as some sort of reaction to how fabulous this is, isn't that nice?" good. So good that, after wondering why your chair appears to have morphed into a big chunk of air, you realise that you are in fact falling down an enormous cavernous hole in the floor. And so you think to yourself, "Honestly! Men! Always leaving the lid to the infinite pit up!", because this thing that you've written is actually literally ground-breaking. *

* Go ahead. Cringe. Hit me over the head! Currently, I'm doing both. With gusto.

Something really, really good. Something so blindingly brilliant, in fact, that its mere existence makes the Universe simultaneously implode and explode (and it's quite hard for your average space-time continuum to do both at the same time without taking a breather in between, because imploding involves sort of combusting inwardly since you don't want to get anything on the carpet in case you have visitors for tea, and exploding is more of a case of, "Ah, sod it, they can just circumnavigate my splattered remains.", and the two don't coexist easily).

And so you think to yourself that, well, you need to share this with the world quite promptly, by whatever means possible (like, oh, I don't know, off the top of my head, a Livejournal entry), because not doing so would mean ridding the world of the chance to read something beautiful, and this would probably lower your chances of decent non-standing seats in Heaven.

But, then, you start to mull the whole thing over, and you suddenly think, is this really good thing really a good thing (I mean, its name would probably suggest that there's a certain quotient of really good in there somewhere, but...)? Is the never-ending fame and wealth that will undoubtedly accompany this REALLY AWESOME THING worth it?

Because, first of all, you're going to lose all your old friends! They only liked you when you were poor and feeble and had to polish their shoes with your own spit and ragged clothes in return for their generous friendship! "Never mind," you say to yourself, "never mind! I'll just use my limitless cash to buy some new friends! Friends who have discovered shoe polish!". But they're not going to stick around, are they? The truth is, you will end up sad! And alone. Also, sad.

So, of course (of course), you come to the conclusion that it's really not worth it. You have foreseen the future! You must destroy all evidence of the LJ entr-- nameless bit of writing! And then, you can't update your journal for just over two months (which, funnily enough, happens to be about how long it's been since I last updated properly), during which time, you will find yourself drafting an entry that is so mind-numbingly mind-numbing (similarly to this one, purely coincidentally) that you have effectively developed an exciting new strain of anaesthetic! That is how it works.

You know, it's funny that I should happen to mention this sublimely crafted excuse for not updating one's journal since September the 28th, isn't it, because... well, as a matter of fact, nothing of the sort happened and I'm just a lazy arse who isn't prepared to deal with the muscle expenditure caused by moving your fingers backward and forward in a keyboard-formation, but I thought that slaughtering as many of you with the longest explanation in the history of the world might make it harder for anyone to ask me questions like, "Hey, where've you been?".

But, hey, you'll never guess what (well, okay, if you own a calendar, have some notion of time, and aren't wearing a tinfoil hat at the moment, the amount of actual guessing involved might be quite minimal)! It's 21 days until Christmas! Last year, I didn't get excited about Christmas until about April, by which point it was, conceivably, slightly too late for tinsel-related merriment -- but, this year, I fear I might actually be too Christmassy! I can only possibly uphold this level of festivity until about next Tuesday at the latest!

For Christmas this year, I would like one of those video iPods -- I truly believe that there is no feeling quite as beautiful as being mugged while watching one's favourite television programme in crystal-clear 24-bit colour. Unless, of course, one's favourite television programme happens to be one of those reality shows where supposed celebrities eat bugs (read: people who appeared on TV holding a "Hello, Mum!" sign in 1985, and now plan to broaden their Irritating Greeting range to assorted members of the extended family in a jungle setting), in which case no one would want to come near you, let alone nick your possessions.

I actually employ a fail-safe security system along these lines on my own iPodular device. Whenever it's unattended, I leave a lethal cocktail of songs playing on a continuous loop: Coldplay remixed by James Blunt and the entire musical repertoire of the Cheeky Girls generally does the trick. First, Chris Martin's dulcet tones lull your average mugger into a deep, coma-like sleep, the likes of which can normally only be obtained by swigging a large mug of cyanide. Then, if they ever wake up, then it'll be to the sweet sound of civilisation crumbling (affectionately called Cheeky Girl 1 and Cheeky Girl 2 by their parents). By which point, they're generally too busy gently weeping to actually nick anything other than a Kleenex.

(No offence intended, obviously, to fans of either of these vapid piles of tripe-- er, musicians).

(Unless, of course, by 'offence', you mean 'offence', in which case, lots of it intended. With knobs on).

Someone had one of those speck-of-dust-with-mp3-capability-sized iPods at school the other day, though, and I've realised, to my shame, just how much mine has let itself go. I mean, seriously, over the last few months, it has piled on the pounds! I'll be getting it an iBeat Anorexia t-shirt for That Thing That Happens In 21 Days. Really.

Anyway. What's happened since I last updated? Very little.

There was this Speech Day at school thing about a month ago, where I discovered that a lot fewer people had left the school than I'd previously thought. I kept almost asking people who are apparently still in several of my classes whether they were enjoying their new schools. And my dad took a camera, which allowed me to collect evidence for the project I tentatively call Wherin I Prove That My Father Probably Has Some Kind Of Camera-Holding-Still Gene Deficiency (Perhaps No One Ever Told Him That It Is Traditional To Shake A Polaroid Picture Like A Polaroid Picture After The Polaroid Picture Has Actually Been Taken). Well, actually, that's the abridged version of the title -- the original involved turnips and Yemen -- but I wanted to go for something a bit snappy.

Here you go (helpfully annotated):

And, here, some fireworks that look a bit like boobies:

Hee.

In the last months, I have mostly: been grumpy, visited Goethe (well, his institute), written House fanfiction, been slightly grumpier, discovered a few enemy spies, been even more devastatingly grumpier, and devised full and intricate plans for the immediate invasion of Poland. You haven't missed much.

That should be all. If you managed to reach this point, then send up a flare (like in Harry Potter! Harry said, "Periculum!", and I said to Kelly, "Hey, that means 'danger'!", and she gave me the most spectacular 'So, that's what the point of four-and-a-half years of Latin was, eh?' look I've ever seen in dim lighting), and someone should be with you in a minute.

See you all in another two months!

P.S. glitterfaeiry! Are you okay?

selfishlywarm — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 18:56:56 GMT

Hello! It's been at least fifty years since I last made an update, but I actually have an excuse and I will post it later, and it will probably involve me swearing at my computer a lot, so that should be fun. Anyway. If you haven't seen the Harry Potter film yet, then here is a summary of about two of the scenes that's just as good as actually watching it! *

* If, when you say, "just as good as actually watching it!", you are referring to the suspiciously similar Norse phrase, which happens to mean "really quite crap". Naturally.

HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF IMMENSELY FAST SCENE CHANGES

SETTING: Quite dark room.

Voldemort: Blah. Blah. Death. Blah. Blah. Curses. Blah. Blah. Hee.
Barty Crouch The Not Meant To Be There: Nice one, mate.
Wormtail: Oh, hey, Doctor Who. What's up?
Muggle Outside Door: HEY! It's the new Doctor Who! OH MY GOD, I LOVE THAT SHOW, WHAT'S IT CALLED --
Barty Crouch: ...Doctor Who.
Muggle Outside Door: Have you met DALEKS? What are they LIKE? What do they SAY? Can I have your AUTOGRAPH?
Voldemort: *head in hands* Every time. Every. Single. Time. CUT!

Things that happen next:
1. Cedric Diggory falls out of a tree. One hundred teenage girls sigh and cry, "So, did it hurt when you fell out of heaven?", because sometimes teenage girls are stupid and can't tell the difference between heaven and a tree.

SETTING: Portkey-ville. Some people are standing around... er, a shoe.

Harry: What's with the manky old boot?
Ron: *staring, dumbfounded*
Harry: What?
Ron: Manky? Manky? You did not just say that. TELL ME YOU DID NOT JUST SAY THAT.
Harry: Oh, Christ. You and your gang of cracked out arsemonkeys worship the boot, don't you? The woman who lived in a shoe is your prophet, isn't she? You're going to accost me with one of those scented insoles the second I turn away from you, aren't you, you freaking weirdo?
Ron: I was actually just going to say that the word 'manky', similar to the word 'hip', has never been hip and that you sound like a prat. But, now that you mention it, actually, we do worship it, yeah. Twice an hour. And, mate, the customer service? Way better than all that God crap. The Sacred Boot doesn't disappear for thousands of years on end! It is kindly and just! It buys me treats every now and then! It talks to me! *listening to the boot* It says it thinks you smell.
Harry: I am devastated. Devastated.

A giant pair of Converse High-Tops sails through the sky, whacking Harry on the head and killing him dead.

Ron: God bless your sole, Harry Potter.

Things that happen next:
1. The Harry Potter Clan visit a car-boot sale not-entirely-cunningly disguised as the Quidditch World Cup.
2. Harry Potter says, "I love Patrick!", and I stare at the screen thinking, "Um. What." for the next two and a half hours, until, finally: "Oh! Magic!".
3. There is a gaping hole where a Quidditch match should be.

SETTING: After resisting Voldemort's clutches at least seventy-three times, Harry Potter finds himself, lost in the mists of the Quidditch World Cup, finally conquered by... um, some feet.

Harry: Hey. Did Doctor Who just conjure the Dark Mark? Is he allowed to do that?
JK Rowling: *weeps pound coins*

(At which point, I get bored, and skip out almost all of the film.)

SETTING: The Gryffindor common room. A creature vaguely resembling Sirius Black if you close your eyes is in the fireplace.

Gary Oldman: Well. At least I can add "uncanny ability to resemble lump of coal" onto my CV, eh?

SETTING: Some point in the film.

Dumbledore uses a large stick to extract some silvery-white stuff from his person

Harry: Dude. NOT IN PUBLIC.

Things That Happen Next:
1. The... er, entire Triwizard cup. Harry wins stuff. It's very exciting.
2. The Maze Creatures in the final task are replaced with... some really scary grass. Oo-er.
3. Harry and Cedric arrive in a large area filled with graves. Cedric: "Where are we?". I wonder.
4. Cedric combusts spontaneously (everyone else seems to think it's somehow connected to that bloke with the stick and the green burst of light, but I call coincidence).

SETTING: Graveyard. Wormtail is dropping various bits into large pot.

Wormtail: Bone of the father, unknowingly taken! Flesh of the servant, willingly given! Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken! *turns to camera* And then, just a pinch of coriander will really set your Dark Lord Rising off with a bang! And, if you're feeling a bit naughty, then how about adding a smidgen of double cream here -- because, remember, just because you're bad doesn't mean your food has to be!
Voldemort: That looks lovely, that really does.
Wormtail: Here, Vold, give this a sniff!
Voldemort: *conspicuously noseless* ...Is that your idea of a joke?
Wormtail: Come on, Sir Off-With-His-Hand, give it a try. Really, it's divine.
Voldemort: Well, I shouldn't really -- moment on the lips, lifetime on the hips, all that, but -- *takes a sip* oh, Lord Me, that is -- gosh, isn't that lovely?
Wormtail: And, sadly, that's the end of today's Cooking With Evil - but join us tomorrow for more gently menacing fun! We'll show you the neatest way to fold your tablecloth while massacring a field of non-believers with your other hand!
Voldemort: Okay. Where was I? Avadra Ke -- gosh, that really is exquisite, isn't it? -- dabra!

SETTING: Graveyard. Still. Harry and Voldemort are joined at the wand, which could be potentially very embarrassing, were they discovered by someone with immediate access to a camera.

Harry: *clinging onto wand for dear life and writhing a lot. Dramatically.* AARRFGGHH.
Voldemort: *idly dreaming about buying a house in the country and taking Wormtail to see Cats once all of this has blown over* Dum. Dum de dum.
Harry: You beast! The pain! The pain! *weeps*
Voldemort: *holding on with little finger* *does his nails*
Harry: How... *pant* did your wrist... *pant* get so strong... *pant*?
Voldemort: Well. You know. Single man. Live alone. No nose. Sometimes I get lonely.

Things That Happen Next:
1. A lot of wailing.
2. That's about it.

SETTING: The Moody Office (by which, I mean the office in which Professor Moody resides - for all I know, the actual office itself could be quite fair-tempered. Or, you know, it could be an inanimate object.).

Harry: LORD VOLDEMORT HAS NO NOSE!
Moody: *vaguely interested* Really? How does he smell?
Harry: I'm not really sure, actually; presumably his nasal passages are still there, so there is a possibility that --
Moody: *whispering in Harry's ear*
Harry: Oh. Sorry. Apparently, the punchline I was looking for there was 'dreadful'.
Moody: Oh, come on, don't be hard on yourself! It wasn't dreadful! It wasn't all that bad at all!

Things That Happen Next:
1. Moody is really Barty Crouch, Real Moody is really in an implausibly small box (probably courtesy of Patrick, there).
2. That sort of thing.

SETTING: The Grand Hall.

Dumbledore: We are gathered here today, friends, Romans and countrymen, to witness the joining together of these two people in holy matri--
McGonagall: *surrepticiously hands him a note*
Dumbledore: Sorry, yeah. What I meant to say is: we are gathered here today to say goodbye to a kind student. A good student. A nice student. And other such synonyms of the word NICE, just in case you don't get the point. A hard-working student. We will all miss Harry Potter very dear--
McGonagall: *surrepticiously throws a note at his nose*
Dumbledore: What? Harry Potter's not dead? Then who -- God, please tell me we didn't bury another one who was just having a snooze, I --
McGonagall: Cedric Diggory, professor.
Dumbledore: Um. Who?

*five minutes later*

Dumbledore: Cedric Diggory was a good boy. A kind boy. A generous boy. And, more importantly, a really useful plot device!

THE END.

And, in case your pain is not yet sufficient, here's a snippet (unless there is a word-limit for the term 'snippet', in which case, my snippet is definitely not a snippet, and more like a medium-length shittet) of a conversation that really took place between the Harry Potter producer types. No, really. It did.

CAST:

1. Various nondescript people
2. High-Flying Businessman Type #1: Chad Arm-Pihtt VI
3. High-Flying Businessman Type #2: Clint Londonopolis Jr.
4. Slightly Lower-Flying Businessman*: Sid.

* In fact, so low-flying that he keeps accidentally crashing into trees.

Chad: So! Guys! Welcome to the first World (except France) Domination Conference! Now, as you're probably all aware, Stage One - tentatively titled Operation Bang-Bang for security reasons - goes into--
Man In Suit: *mutters into Chad's ear*
Chad: Right. So, apparently, we're being bugged, which means that we all need to *lowers voice* keep our mouths shut about the you-know-what.
Member Of Crowd: The what-what-what?
Chad: *raises voice* Operation Blow-Up Russia, you prick--
Man In Suit: *mutters into Chad's ear*
Chad: Right. The Harry Potter Producers Meeting. Which, I think you'll find, is what I said. Okay, shoot.

A cannon fires in the distance.

Chad: The film! Shoot the film!
Clint: Um. Yes. So, anyway, Sod here --
Sid: Sid. My name is Sid.
Clint: -- came to me yesterday with, ah, with a rather novel idea. Basically, basically, he reckons we should perhaps consider including some sort of a - *chortling* some sort of a plot with this... whatsit.
Chad: Movie.
Clint: With this movie.
Uproarious Laughter: *echoes around room*.
Chad: Oh, Sod!
Sid: Sid. SID.
Chad: You're refreshingly naive, aren't you? You see, the general viewing public? Have no need whatsoever for -- thingies --
Clint: Plots.
Chad: No need for plots!
Clint: None at all. Quite. We took a poll, didn't we, Chad, and -- what was it, 100%?
Chad: 100.6%, yeah.
Clint: 100.6% of people asked said, no, no plot necessary!
Sid: Who did you ask, exactly?
Chad: Well, there was myself, wasn't there? Obviously. And Clint. And then myself again, because I wanted a second opinion, and then there was my doctor. Dr Kuntenbert.
Sid: Dr Kuntenbert? Didn't he die during the Cold War?
Chad: I like to think he got the gist.
Clint: The majority have spoken, Sid.
Sid: Sod! No, wait -- I mean, couldn't we include the plot on the DVD, at least? For, uh, the minus 0.6% who wanted it?
Chad: Excellent idea, Sod.
Clint: Splendid!
Chad: As an extra.
Clint: A hidden extra!
Chad: A hidden extra on a sub-sub-sub-vice-deputy-sub-menu only accessible after entering an easy-to-remember 754-digit code!
Clint: Yes! After which, a message pops up saying, "O GOD NO DON'T DO IT!"!
Chad: Fantastic. And, then, to access the next screen, you have to throw your DVD player out of the window!
Clint: Before setting light to it.
Chad: And then dousing it in Holy Water.
Clint: Blessed by the Pope!
Chad: And not this new German bloke. I'm talking the REAL Pope.
Clint: The dead one.
Chad: That's it.
Clint: Yeah. And then, once they've done that, God will come down from -- where is it? That place up north.
Chad: Newcastle.
Clint: Newcastle. And then God comes down from Newcastle and says to you, very kindly, well, yes, you can watch the plot of the film if you really, REALLY want to. As long as you don't mind a bit of old-fashioned smiting!
Chad: Before casting thunderbolts from up high!
Clint: Carlisle?
Chad: Yep. *turning to Sid* That's what the public wants, Sod. Easily accessible bonus features!
Sid: ...Fair enough.

You're a beard with an idiot hanging off it!

selfishlywarm — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 17:26:46 GMT

My hands are about to fall off.

Summer is, evidently, over. It was on the 22nd of August this year and, having come to a rather abrupt end about four hours after it started, was... er, a particularly short one. Even by our standards, which is pleasantly impressive! But, there you go, I suppose. I'm expecting Tony Blair to make a speech about it any minute now, actually! He'll probably claim that the blame for Britain's ever-shortening summers lies entirely on the shoulders (well, head) of Charles Kennedy (leader of the Lib Dems, the party which will never win the election, but turns up every time in the hope of getting a shiny "Well Done For Trying!" certificate), because his hair has clearly absorbed all of the Sun's energy and is not leaving any for the rest of us. It would, by the by, be really awesome if Labour's new campaign slogan were "Vote for us! WE'RE NOT GINGER!" (how do I contact Tony to make this suggestion? Email total@wanker.com?).

Then, once the whole nation's stopped laughing, the Conservatives will probably have some sort of nice press conference, wherein it'll be revealed that Blair's been giving away all our excess sunlight to George Bush, ~~so he doesn't get his lunch money nicked~~ so that the rest of the free world never happens to stumble across the whopping great weapons of mass destruction the Queen's been secretly hoarding at Buckingham Palace for the last fifty-odd years (we affectionately refer to them as Prince Charles' ears - no one would ever guess). And then, not to be outdone, the Monster Raving Loonies (don't laugh! They're a real party!) will probably make some sort of a statement explaining that national dewarming is clearly being caused by a shortage of decent inverted pineapples in Outer Space. While standing on their heads.

It will all probably seem worryingly plausible.

Anyway. Summer is over, and it is now winter, because we skip autumn in this country. And spring, actually. SPRING AND AUTUMN ARE FOR PANSIES! The thing is, one of our biggest (and, hugely ironically, most successful) hobbies over here is failing miserably at stuff (well, deferring success, anyway) - and, after years of hard practice, we've discovered that it's infinitely easier to feel sorry for yourself when there are troops of three hundred pound polar bears committing mass suicide outside your front door because they're so bloody cold. We've never really got the hang of snow, but we're awfully good at rain, so winter basically comprises of huge buckets of freezing cold rain being emptied on people's heads when they're looking too happy about things.

It's beautiful this time of year. You should totally visit!

And, as everyone knows, winter is a time for new beginnings and change and little lambs being born, and... actually, it's not like that at all, but I've just alienated spring, and I needed a decent link.

Hey, talking of which (see, Mr Sides? My signpost language is IMPECCABLE!): in other (but equally scintillating) news, we've finally ditched our NTL cable TV, and invested in one of those rather nifty Sky+ boxes... which, if my wild stab in the dark is right (and they're normally not, which leads to some rather awkward situations and a worryingly large pile of bodies in the spare room), is our version of TiVo. Except with a less jaunty name.

We didn't really want to desert NTL for pastures shiny, because... well, it wasn't really so much that the service was bad - I mean, it was bad, and you'd get better reception on your TV if you sent a hamster with Parkinson's disease onto the roof and got it to hold the aerial still while doing the YMCA and snorting speed - but you could get used to that! There was a sort of reliability there, because you knew that, whatever you did, your TV would still implode every fifteen to twenty seconds! There was consistency. But then my father, fool that he is, managed to get himself assaulted by the Sky man in Epsom, and came home with the look of a gutter cat who has just mauled your prize-winning rodent in the street and knows that he's going to be on the receiving end of a really pointy stick because of this, but is blinded by the pride and excitement, and WOULD YOU LOOK AT THE TAIL ON THAT THING?

(My dad, incidentally, is going to be really flattered by this comparison).

As soon as he slunk home, though, tail between his legs (metaphorical tail! METAPHORICAL TAIL!) and waving the contract excitedly, my mother and I started shaking in fear of what we knew was coming next: the unbelievable guilt! The NTL salesman on the phone started crying over our lost souls and threatened to smite my our firstborns dead for making the company lose their only customer. About three hours later, we managed to calm him down enough to promise to tell his boss that the destruction of the company wasn't entirely his fault, and ensure him that we'd go over to his for tea some time, and hang up the phone before he could ask us why we actually wanted to leave.

Seriously, though, we did have to leave! For four long years, in order to get the TV to work, we had to sacrifice a chicken. Every single time. We weren't really sure why. And it's harder to find chickens for the sacrificing than you'd think! It all got a bit awkward when the RSPCA started sending us decapitated Quorn burgers through the post; we had to start downgrading to turkey nuggets before they moved on to the big guns (a rather menacing herb-filled sausage up the backside, I'd assume)! And then, by the time we'd been banned from Sainsbury's for man-handling their poultry one time too many ("Never again covet our giblets!", they cried), things were getting decidedly complicated. The man who came round to remove the box was probably wondering why it was lightly covered in bread-crumbs and marinated in a spicy tomato sauce.

We've got rid of it now, though, and we've got our nice new Sky+ box (although the day of the installation was not without its problems, what with my mother in the background mourning the loss of her video recorder, and the NTL rep weeping and reciting bad emo poetry that went along the lines of, 'Leaving Our Service Left A Footprint On My Aortic Valves And I Am So Blue And You Are So Red And Red Rhymes With Dead Which Incidentally I Am Also (And The British Are All Bastards)' (he was Irish), but I hid in my room, and it was over a few days later)! It's hugely exciting, because it records programmes as if at will, and it does so while being very white and flashing like a pinball machine! My mother keeps trying to persuade me that the point isn't actually to tape every single show that's shown on every channel at every single second on the day just because I can, but there's nothing she can do! Okay. Admittedly, when I ignored her, she did ban me from touching the remote control if I enjoyed having fingers. And then chopped a couple off, as a deposit. And locked me out of the house. In my underwear. All night.

But, point is, she'll be laughing on the other side of her face when the revolution comes, and anyone who hasn't got 14 hours straight of the Christmas Channel recorded is sentenced to an untimely doom!

We'll all be laughing!

P.S. Remind me to never accidentally tune into This Morning while they're performing a live vasectomy again. Cheers.

P.P.S. Who watched No Direction Home?

P.P.P.S. I'm ill. (glitterfaeiry - the Open Evening thing was a LUCKY COINCIDENCE).

selfishlywarm — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 17:51:21 GMT

And so, the Ashes are ours! The air is rife with the scent of success (which, considering they've been playing for at least seven hundred bazillion years straight, probably smells suspiciously similar to The Sweet Stench Of Sweat And Decay (which, incidentally, is also the name of Paris Hilton's new perfume))!

Every face in the country is smiling! Joy! Happiness!

There's a man being indecently assaulted by five angry Australians with bats, and he's still laughing!

You can't survive on the mushrooms in your hair!

selfishlywarm — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 16:35:17 GMT

I think I just cracked my tooth. Which is slightly odd, because I was eating a piece of lettuce.

So, school starts again on Tuesday (...er, I think). You could probably say that I'm not really hugely looking forward to it - but, if you did, you'd be the kind of person who enjoys flirting with facts so hugely understated, that they might actually make Tony Blair consider purchasing a conscience (off the Black Market, obviously, because no one's perfect).

I spent most of last week trying to hurl myself into a Really Big Infinite Pit Of Really Big Infinite Doom (the infinite doom part kind of goes with the territory, I believe) at the prospect - of school, mind, not Tony Blair acquiring a conscience (because that would be like living in fear of hairless super-monkeys from Uranus invading Earth, force-feeding us all rotten watermelons, and shouting, "Take that, you fruity wench-guzzlers!". Except less plausible).

But, the thing was, I was on the Isle Of Wight all week (which I evidently forgot to mention to you; I'm going on holiday from last Saturday to yesterday, by the way), and it's one of those awfully nice (read: sinfully upper middle-class) areas (all the gun crimes happen between locked doors, are suffixed by formal letters of apology, and broken up by Silly Twit #1 saying to Silly Twit #2, "Oh, that's a frightfully nice bullet you've got there - British, is it? Well, of course, what-what! I must tell you the name of my diamond shoe manufacturer - it is very important, isn't it, for one to have pleasantly jewel-encrusted shoes, don't you think, pip-pip? What-ho!") - so, when there's even a 3.5cm deep pothole in the road, the whole island is cordoned off, everyone within a 70-mile radius is given compensation and a free complimentary halibut, and we all live happily ever after - which is all very well and good, but WHAT ABOUT MY PAINFUL FIERY, BRIMSTONEY DOOM?

Selfish twats, the lot of them.

But, anyway. School. Bizarrely, it's wearing a uniform that I'm going to miss the most. Admittedly, it did give us all a rather unwanted shove on our way to becoming impressively accurate Vegetable Impersonators - but it made us all look like spectacularly lumpy root vegetables together! It was reassuring! It was companionable! It was like a really big, happy potato salad, that's what it was!

And it wasn't even that bad! Yes, the jumpers (well, 'sweaters, and would you like fries with that?', if you want our free American translation service there) did have a bewildering tendency to spew golfball-sized chunks of fluff onto your shirt for the first 5 years of wearing them - but we're past that stage now, and us not reaping the benefits of perpetually defluffed shirts is like being lost in a desert, finding a large pool of water - and, instead of falling upon it with eager glee and offering it to your parched companions... using it as your own personal lavatory, shooting your parched companions with a machine gun, and screaming racist slurs (well, maybe not exactly like that...). Not On.

And, okay, the kilts were a bit of a pain (they were kilts for a start - there is something intrinsically wrong there), in that it was impossible to make any kind of movement in them without some kind of large cast-iron device to stop them from flying upwards and displaying your wares - and then, it did get a bit awkward when you ended up in Casualty for the thirteenth time that week (twelve times for large cast-iron device inflicted injuries, and once because you got punched in the face after accidentally flashing a skinhead), and found yourself on first-name terms with all the nurses and promising to add Dr Spifflewattle to your Christmas card list - but, well, that's life, isn't it? Perfectly normal.

But now, Epsom Hospital's patient intake is going to drastically fall by about three hundred thousand percent, I am going to sink into a huge and unrelenting bout of depression and end up writing five Livejournal posts a day with titles like 'Wherein I Hate Life, And All Her Cruel Mistresses', and 'O! Forsooth, The Crimson Despair! Leave Me Alone, Prithee, Prithee!'... but, more worryingly, everyone is going to discover that I actually look like a turnip all the time!

Life as we know it is effectively over.

On a school-related note, by the way, I've got a day and a bit to decide what subject I want to do instead of German next (well, this) year - and, since we're running a democracy here (not an actual democracy, because this is the Internet and that would be plain silly), if you'd all just vote for the one that you reckon would cause me the least amount of physical pain, that'd be great.

Art
~~Business Studies~~
Chemistry
~~Drama~~
English Lit.
~~Geography~~
ICT
~~History~~
PE
Psychology
Religious Studies
~~Ancient Greek~~

(The ones with the lines through them are the ones they won't let me do, and if you pick Art, then I'll chop your head off with a saucepan lid, and it will probably cause you some level of intense, writhing agony, just so you know).

Okay. Vote!

P.S. I took somewhere in the region of 600 photos on holiday last week (my computer wishes that this were an exaggeration, and keeps whirring and beeping ominously to register its displeasure, which is a sort of technologically advanced way of saying, "The fuck is your fucking problem, you fucking arsebiscuit? Maybe I'll accidentally PRINT OUT ALL THE ~~VAGUELY~~ PORNOGRAPHIC FANFICTION YOU'VE WRITTEN OVER THE YEARS AND ACCIDENTALLY WALLPAPER YOUR PARENTS' BEDROOM WITH IT, SHALL I? SHALL I? See how you like it THEN, Miss 'And-Then-He-Slid-His-Lovestick-Into-Third-Gear', SHALL WE?").

I... probably won't be posting all of them.

They're finally over!

selfishlywarm — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 13:57:33 GMT

Got my GCSE results this morning!

Art - A (An A! In ART! ART!)
English Language - A*
English Literature - A*
Geography - A*
I.T. - A*
Latin - A*
Maths - A*
R.S. - A* (I got 95%. I am no longer welcome in my own house.)
Science - A* A* (There are two grades, for one silly reason or another)

Which, with my German mark from last year, comes to a nice grade average of 7.9.

I didn't notice any of the grades except the first one for about ten minutes, because I was so shocked. Art! A! She told me I was going to flipping FAIL (can I sue her for that? Can I? Please?)!

So, what've I learnt from this experience? ~~Don't eat yellow snow~~. That revision is effectively pointless! THIS IS THE BEST LIFE LESSON EVER! Seriously, way better than all that don't-kill-people-because-sometimes-they-don't-like-it, and putting-Jaffa-Cakes-inside-a-VCR-doesn't-actually-give-it-a-pleasant-orangey-zest crap!

Life is GOOD. I was smiling on the train today. People shielded themselves from me with their newspapers. It was lovely.

(I really should have gone in for that money-for-grades thing, though. I would've made a killing!)

practically perpendicular, sir.

selfishlywarm — Sat, 20 Aug 2005 17:25:48 GMT

Hello, chaps.

Quick question (which may or may not be entirely unrelated to anything): what are tights called in America?

Of course, if you're American (and the answer to my question isn't "we speak the same language as you! They're called tights, you prat!"), you might be thinking, "What the hell are tights? Has Katy got into some kind of kinky bondage business?!". Well, yes. But that really doesn't have anything to do with the matter in hand. Which is... tights. Which are... er, tights. As in the clothing garment worn on one's legs (traditionally underneath clothing, but... whatever floats your boat, kid), available in a vast variety of opacities and colours (including skin-coloured, which I've never really seen the point of, but then I'm just a Tightistine), and annoyingly prone to falling apart in the groin area (or... er, maybe that's just mine). They're also fairly tight (in order, I presume, to avoid any inconvenient 'false advertising' lawsuits).

I have this horrible feeling that the word I'm looking for here is 'pantyhose'. If it is, then this is clearly a Very Very Bad Indeed answer of the highest order - because this will mean that I'll have to finally let go of my happy belief that a pantyhose is a highly sophisticated underwear irrigation device (much like they used on the River Nile, except on a (hopefully) notably smaller scale, and with (hopefully) less silt and small aquatic mammals involved). God, my lifetime ambition to patent the Big Panty Hose will be destroyed!

My life will, evidently, be rendered absolutely pointless, and I'll probably end up dying sad and alone.

Um, you might want to break this one to me gently...

(Of course, if Google Images is anything to go by, 'pantyhose' is actually a synonym for 'certain long, cucumber-esque (but generally less green, unless there's something rather worrying going on down there) part of male anatomy making acquaintance with certain female orifice South of the bellybutton'. How do I know who to trust?)

P.S. I got my German AS-Level result in the post today (I'm very, very sorry, __diciembre, for misleading you about when we'd get them! I swear it wasn't ~~entirely~~ deliberate!). I got a grade that shouldn't have been disappointing, but kind of was, and now I feel hugely guilty. I blame Mr Sides, dammit. And the French. (And maybe the Catholic church, because apparently they're quite fond of the guilt thing, too).

P.P.S. Rory Gilmore can't pronounce Wodehouse. She says it 'woadhouse'. I jeer!

selfishlywarm — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 18:44:38 GMT

A General Announcement To The Entire Bird Population Of The Earth:
(or, at least, the ones who choose to take the express route through my back garden)

Hello, chaps. It's me. You know, as in... me. Well, you don't actually know me yet, but once I've single-handedly exterminated every last one of you, then... well, I suppose my name might strike you as sort of vaguely familiar. (It's Katy, by the way. Hi, hello, nice to meet you, let's do lunch some time.).

This is really nothing to be alarmed over - just a friendly message! Something to mull over on a quiet night in the nest! Here we go: I (Katy, She Who Shall Bring Forth The Almighty Destruction Of Your Kingdom While Giggling Manically) do not really like it much* when one of you mistakes my back door for a sign saying "Hey! Come on in, fellas!" (this is not sexual innuendo, honestly, because you are little and fluffy and I am not), crashes into my house, bounces off the radiator, thus propelling itself in the general direction of the window, before slamming with an audible sqquiiiiishfippple (seriously, that's the noise it makes) onto the carpet (which is light, and therefore shows squidgy bird bits like you wouldn't believe).

(* When I say I don't like it much, what I actually mean is that it drives me birdicidal with unbridled fury. Same diff.)

Furthermore, when said member of species decides to add insult to (admittedly, its own) injury by climbing onto the shoulder of my blue stuffed penguin (affectionately named Ploppy, for reasons we cannot remember but still fear) and sort of flopping there while contemplating whether or not it feels like expiring at this precise moment or time, or whether it fancies dangling and looking at me for a bit instead, I find myself similarly unimpressed**.

(** Again with the unbridled fury thing.)

Add to that the fact that this little fluffball of Evil has decided to become the world's first suicide-bombing-bloody-sparrow while my parents are out, so that I can't just yell, "DAD! A WINGED BEAST HAS PENETRATED OUR RESISTANCE!" (like I normally do in these circumstances), and this is shaping up to be Not A Splendid Idea on your front there.

Consequently, this bird will find itself being sworn at repeatedly with words I didn't actually know I knew before (generally because I tend to make them up as I go along), and be told that, if anything happens to the penguin, then its whole family's going to get it. It will then discover, to its alarm, that it is being prodded repeatedly with an ingenious Long-Distance Poking Device made of a mop sellotaped to a ruler, three pencils, and a small cocktail sausage (you know, for luck, as is traditional). RELENTLESSLY. FOREVER. (Which, strangely enough, is about the same length of time you people like to squawk for in your lovely dawn wake-up call. Funny coincidence, that).

Okay. Now, here's the deal - as you know, I have been remarkably restrained in the past (well, except for that one time with the elastic bands and that bathroom, but THAT DOESN'T COUNT). But, seriously, the ceasefire is over! It's bloody war! If you come into my house ONE MORE TIME, you've got it coming to you, you BIG FEATHERY BASTARDS!!

Love and kisses,
Katy.

P.S. If you could use your highly attuned and sophisticated Powers Of Evil on the (frankly, quite terrifying) cat two doors up instead, it'd be much appreciated. Ta.

On a completely unrelated note: new layout! I don't really like it much, but it took about two years (er, hours) to make, so I'm going to pretend to. Isn't it fantastic?!

"Oh! It's a SCYTHE!"

selfishlywarm — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 16:51:40 GMT

I haven't updated this in an awfully long time. But, since I told moonlite_fading that I was NEVER GOING TO UPDATE AGAIN EVER, I felt that I should follow that hugely sweeping and melodramatic statement in the only way I know how: by contradicting it completely. Because that is how it works.

On Thursday, in a bizarre (and totally unfounded, unprecedented, unexpected, and other-words-starting-with-"un"-ed) personality shift, I appear to have developed a rather odd love for humanity. I spent the whole day feeling uncharacteristically fuzzy and warm (but not selfishly warm, mind, because having a username that actually made sense would render my life not worth living). If I were a cynic (which, of course, I am not; never having believed in Santa Claus, and having spent a sizeable chunk of infant school convincing all my 5-year-old peers that he, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Noel Edmonds were all EVIL GOVERNMENT LIES does not make me a cynic - it just makes me endearingly mean and evil), I would have credited this to my father "accidentally" dropping five extra whole chillis into the chilli-con-carne the night before. I am, however, clearly not even a little bit cynical, so the weird bubbling inside must have been because of the love thing.

It all started when I needed to catch the train, and the train was early and I was late, and the ticket machine decided that this would be the ideal time for me to have an aneurysm, and there were several blood vessels threatening to explode, and I wasn't sure if all of them were even mine, and so I put 5p into the permit-to-travel machine and the train doors were closing and I have this thing about closing train doors, in that I don't want to be chopped in half by one, if it's all the same, and so I was just giving my innards my humble permission to go ahead and explode, when a tall bloke with an impressively large amount of hair self-sacrificingly (is that a word? I'm making it a word.) stuck his foot in the door so that I could get on!

Such chivalry! Such bravery in the face of South West Trains! My heart swelled several sizes, such was my joy!

Unfortunately, though, I didn't get round to thanking him, because I was too busy trying to think of a polite way of asking him whether his hair was, in fact, a wig. Apparently it's not physically possible to come up with such a high-sensitivity question in the space between Ewell West and Epsom train stations (although this is hardly surprising, when you consider that they're a maximum of about three metres apart). People with hair resembling several large (and very shaggy) mammoths making little mammoth-babies should only stand in train doors for me on long-haul journeys.

In future, I should probably wear a sandwich board informing commuters of this fact (and I'll probably just go the whole hog and not wear anything else underneath... you know, just in case I haven't filled up my Weird Looks On Public Transport quota enough as it is...).

There were hundreds (well, about three) of policemen at Epsom station, all swarming (well, slumping onto the concrete with their eyes half-closed) around the underground bit with their dogs (well, only the one dog, actually, and I'm fairly certain he only had one eye). They were quite intimidating, actually, because they were glaring at everyone coming down the steps, and their eyes were clearly saying "Oh, God! We've been sitting in this tunnel for the last three days! It stinks of piss, and I don't even want to think about that bloke decomposing in the corner over there! The only human contact I've had is this bloody dog, who has an UNNATURAL INTEREST IN MY GROIN. For the LOVE OF GOD, CONFESS SOMETHING! I WANT TO LIVE!".

And so I had that feeling - the same one that you get when you're sitting in Assembly, and the headteacher says "Okay, someone has stolen my Very Special Mug. This was a wanton act of unforgivable vandalism, and I WANT NAMES, DAMMIT", and you just want to jump to your feet and cry "It was me! It was me!". I had a huge urge to walk up to them, and say, "Okay, look. I don't want to blow my own trumpet here, or anything, but... well, remember that Great Train Robbery thing? ...Yeah. That was me."

(Un)fortunately, though, they weren't actually interested in me, because they were clearly following this set of instructions as to who to arrest and glare at and who to hand lollipops to:

VERY FOOLPROOF POLICE INSTRUCTIONS.

AT FIRST GLANCE, DOES THE SUSPECT... (tick as applicable)

1. Have dodgy facial hair?
2. Look shifty?
3. Not look shifty, but look like he might be about to look shifty?
4. Seem disillusioned, disenfranchised and other 'dis' words?
5. Have a large sign round their neck that reads "Large Threat To National Security, Ner-Ner-Ner, You Can't Catch Me, Hee-Hee-Hee!"?
6. Have a really ugly tracksuit?
7. Look a bit foreign?
8. Regularly play truant from school?
9. Seem depressed with their lives and unhappy with their parents?
10. Have regular meetings with a religious extremist who wants us all dead?

IF 1-4 OF THE ABOVE APPLY:
Let sniffer dog, who has been carefully trained for situations such as these, gnaw gently on Suspect's crotch for a few minutes, before fining them fifty quid on charges of being either a) a terrorist, or b) a prat. If suspicion incorrect, offer single jellybean (colour of choice) as compensation for any inconvenience caused.

IF 5-7 OF THE ABOVE APPLY:
Take Suspect to nearest police station. Shine light in eyes (Suspect's, not yours). Drip water in background (for insurance purposes, claim that this is a modern water sculpture that you got after Changing Rooms re-did the station, rather than Chinese Water Torture). In background, rub some rusty metal together, and say, "Oh, don't worry, Sid's just warming up The Rack - it's a bit temperamental sometimes, but... well, that just adds to the fun, doesn't it?". Hold gun to head (again, Suspect's, not yours). Let hand accidentally twitch a few times (yours this time, not Suspect's). If no confession exacted, assume Suspect probably not actually a terrorist. If suspicion incorrect, offer choice of lollipop (red, yellow or green) as compensation for any inconvenience caused.

IF 8+ OF THE ABOVE APPLY:
Shoot Suspect in head repeatedly until heinous crime of choice is admitted to. If Suspect happens to die, assume that this is because he was a traitorous bastard who realised he was being questioned by one of the country's Great Minds, and thought that expiring would be preferable to Fate Worse Than Death. Clearly, chap is Custard of the Cowardy-Cowardy variety. If suspicion incorrect, offer choice of either Terry's Chocolate Orange or box of Cadbury's Dairy Milk (not both - this would be inappropriate) as compensation for any inconvenience caused.

Well, quite.

10 Fun Things To Do When Lying Awake In Bed:

1. Calmly and rationally determine whether the suspicious banging noises emanating from behind your bedroom wall are a) your neighbours At It again, or b) a fairly lax burglar stealing all your worldly possessions. Realise that it's unlikely to be the neighbours themselves, because she's pregnant and he's at work, and you've heard that people have to actually be in the same room to do the bouncy stuff (although, long-distance sperm - there's a thought!), which means that it's either the burglar or your neighbours' hugely elderly (and apparently very noisy) parents. Pray for that burglar thing.

2. Wonder, if it is the burglar thing, whether a bona fide intruder would react in the same way as your father did that one time when you thought he was a Government spy checking what webpages you'd been on recently in the middle of the night (they do that a lot, the Government... bastards.) and you, naturally, went for the self-defence option and pelted him with stale bread rolls until he proved his identity by saying the secret password (which was, incidentally, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, KATHRYN?"). After contemplating this for a while, looking at the scars and gulping, hope that it will be less painful this time.

3. Turn the hall light on and off repeatedly until your parents threaten to go down to the nearest street corner, find a dog who's foaming at the mouth and nibbling on some dirty needles, and get him to gnaw your arms off repeatedly until you've Learnt Your Lesson. Surmise that pointing out that, after two bouts of gnawing, there really wouldn't be any arms left to chew, and so the threat would be effectively gone, probably wouldn't be the cleverest idea.

4. Try to remember where you last saw that Chewit you've been keeping in your bedroom ever since you were six and a half, and Rosanna Kuit said that she didn't believe that you actually had an invisible sweetshop hidden in the roof of your bedroom. Wonder if it would still taste nice. Realise that this is completely irrelevant, since Chewits have never actually tasted of anything, but everyone's too scared to point this out. Give a long-suffering sigh, because this is exactly what makes people go crazy and eat their own toes.

5. Give toes an experimental nibble, just to see.

6. Think about how cool it would be to actually have an invisible sweetshop hidden in the roof of your bedroom that had a yield higher than one 1p chew per decade.

7. Develop a sudden fear that your children will grow up to marry very attractive people, and have very attractive children, who will not let you visit at Christmas when you're sad and alone, because their highly attuned attractive-barrier won't let you through (thus carefully sidestepping the "Oh my God, I'm going to die a virgin" thing, because there really aren't enough hours in a day).

8. Accidentally touch on the "Oh my God, I'm going to die a virgin" thing. Attempt to slit wrists with nearest sharp object.

9. Discover, after several minutes of wrist-sawing to no avail, that nearest sharp object appears to, on further inspection, actually be a... piece of paper. Realise that you don't want Death By Exceptionally Large Papercut on your death certificate. Choose life.

10. Hope that, in your sweet-related expeditions, you happen to come across the Yellow Pages. Because, hey, counselling sounds like fun, right?

(These didn't all happen last night, I swear. One of them was on Saturday.)

TWO RANDOM QUOTES:

Me: Would you all please just stop EJACULATING SO LOUDLY?

Kelly: (to a carousel horse, as you do) I'm a very gentle lover, you know...
Surrounding kids (and there were many): Er...

Goodnight, God bless, that kind of thing.

P.S. sinceiwasnine, do you REALISE how racist your username is? WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER AGES?!

SIDENOTE: From now on, my journal is public. I can't be bothered to change the little droppy-down thing to "Friends" every time. It is too much effort.