redfiona99

Or why I have no such fear.

(A minor TMI warning - for those who wish to avoid the TMI, skip the first paragraph)

Then again my Friday the thirteenth started quite badly on Thursday when my bowels decided to try to escape without warning. Not good times. Worryingly, this is the second time in two months this has happened the day before my period starts. Dear body, we are 26, new symptoms are not required or expected.

Anyway, so I have maybe 3 hours of sleep the night before my final corrections, which I'm expecting to be horrible. I catch the train, a different one than the expected on because the trainline lies.

During this I get a Red Bull shot drink freebie. Now I still say that Red Bull tastes worse than anything you should ever consume, unless you're taking a medicine, and we know that they all taste terrible, however, at five to eight in the morning, when you've been ill all night and you cannot cope with the idea of food, but you need sugar and caffeine, it's a life saver.

So I get to Leicester, and internal examiner is not in yet so I have to sweet talk my way into the building. Not a problem.

I get the corrections, they're done in a couple of hours, and I'm printed out by three, and fully submitted by four.

Silly hat day is go.

(Or, for those who haven't seen the headwear that PhD graduands have to wear, graduation is go.)

~~~~

CSI:NY -

Can't really get to liking Hawkes's new girlfriend in CSI:NY because she reminds me so much of ex-housemate's girlfriend. You know, my-fun-is-more-important-than-your-work girl. Argh!! Then again Sheldon being all 'can't say no dude' is not helping either.

I see the idiot writers are back. Half the characters are acting like themselves, and half of them are totally wrong. And Not-Stella is still a judgemental know-it-all.

Dude, Mac is now a chilled person. It's freaking wierd. Good but weird.

Bonus:

No CSI: Miami, atomic force microscopy does not work like that.

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Mostly for Twig, but the TV adverts for Blitz are starting showing (it's out the 20th of May). I am mostly unimpressed. I have no idea how you do that given that I <3 one of the actors in it, and am v. fond of another one, but fail, TV advert maker, fail!

Still not sure whether or not to go and see it, part of me says yes, because how am I supposed to resist, part of me says no, not least of all because I have no idea where the local cinema is.

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In terms of TV that's caught my eye, my Sunday night sleep-plan is presently being wrecked by 'The Shadow Line' which is brewing up nice and slowly into something complex.

It features Chiwetel Ejiofor, Christopher Ecclestone, and five hundred different you know, that guys.

The opening scene with David Schofield (or creepy guy from Pirates 2 as you might know him) basically monologuing was a work of genius.

I spent the whole of the first episode hoping something horrible would happen to Jay Wratten, played by Rafe Spall. Partly it's that Rafe Spall has the most unfortunately punchable face. Partly it's that his character is a little Caligula thinks he's so tough when he's really not, and he keeps getting into confrontations with people who are far more dangerous and they're not smacking him, for their own reasons and I think not smacking him is only going to rebound badly on them later.

( Spoilers )
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Comedians - Dave Fulton is looking old. I remember when he had long black hair.

As a general point, since I no longer have the time to watch late night tv the way I used to, I have to rely on Mock the Week and the other stand up shows to find out about the new, upandcomers, and mostly I'm not impressed, with the exception of Andi Osha.

The problem is, the way I see it, half of them have only one schtick and that's 'look, I'm posh and yet I swear', which is not funny to me. The other half are funnier but not much, including a fair few who are poor re-treads of other people's stuff.

(Honourable exception is Tommy Flanagan, who is funny, but just has a really unfortunate voice. My issues with him are not his fault.)

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Motorbikes - oh BBC commentators, how I love you. Calling Simoncelli Side-Show Bob is naughty but funny.

The trouble is that much like Ruben Xaus, there's a lot of Simoncelli so occasionally he takes stupid lines. (And he now has a reputation.)

It looks like there's going to be a punch up between a team manager and the stewards. I have seen that walk before.

Dani Pedrosa has pulled an Uncle Ste - my Uncle broke one collarbone, had it fixed, then broke the other one. I hope Pedrosa doesn't finish the cycle, because my Uncle then broke the first collarbone again but it only fractured and healed really quickly because it was in exactly the same place.

Or Sunday at Summer Sundae

BBC pictures here - http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/leicester/hi/people_and_places/music/newsid_8921000/8921041.stm

I had a totally different day to the one described by the BBC photos, but I think that's what happens.

One of the nice things about Summer Sundae is that unlike most fests that claim to be family friendly, it actually is, so they basically set aside one half of DMH and the garden behind DMH as kiddie-friendly, no booze zones. Also really good for frazzled festival-goers to chill. One of the things was a 'learn how to knit' tent. I took advantage of this, so I can now cast on and cast off. At the minute I'm working on a scarf, but if any of you, as I know several of you knit, have a very easy pattern for anything else, I'd be pleased to look at it.

So I spent a couple of hours knitting. I could do that because the sun finally decided to shine, and so I could just lounge on the grass. Which is pretty much what everyone else was doing. While I was doing that Pete Molinari was on (www.petemolinari.co.uk). Nice semi-blues, if it's your kind of thing.

That was followed by Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit (www.johnny-flynn.com) who were folk blues, and again, reasonably fun.

The next band on were Junip who I was informed were good but they bored me to tears. Same general style, I think the organisers had gone for laid-back blues for the afternoon.

I wandered round, thinking I ought to have a look-see at the lastfm new bands tent. Ellen and the Escapades were getting ready while I was there. There were issues (they'd been banned from using bass and drums) and the soundcheck took forever. The lovely and adorable guitarist was lovely and adorable, and I'm sure they were perfectly wonderful if they're your kind of thing, but they were a bit too twee for me.

Next came the comedy tent, and I can now cross Milton Jones off my list of comedians I have to see. He was funny, even if, because I let other people in front of me, I couldn't catch everything. Lip reading is a very useful skill, once again, even if M declared it to be cheating.

After that I went to the Musician Tent. The act that was on David Ford (www.myspace.com/davidford) - apocalyptic folk, right down my alley. I recommend him highly, especially as, due to tech issues, he'd had to start with a mini-acoustic set.

This was followed by El Pussycat (www.myspace.com/elpussycatska). Trad ska. Great fun. Lots of dancing. Best bit - Neville Sharples from the Specials making a cameo appearance.

After that it was back outside, where it had suddenly gone awfully dark. I caught a couple of Mumford and Sons's songs. They're better live than expected, and managed to make their music carry. I was good and didn't yell 'Judas' when they played electrics.

However, no matter how good they were, I wanted to see the Futureheads. Who were even better than expected. One live set has turned them from a band I like into a band I love. Oh the adorable guitarist (who I was right in front of, oh he's so lovely), oh the lovely bass player, oh the wonderful drummer and the fantastic singer. Definitely my band of the festival. I recommend going seeing them if you have the chance.

Tickets to go see Ed Byrne in November and Henry Rollins (!!!!) in January. All for the princely sum of £32.

Eee!

I was trying to come up with a punchline about this election - I'm mostly going for '2008 - Making 1908 look progressive' which I don't want to use because hello, there's a black person and a woman standing for election to powerful positions and insofar as I am aware, neither of those groups could even vote in 1908 but apparently that was the last time religion wasn't a huge issue in an election (thanks to nhw for that info).

The line above, which I might use instead, comes from Frankie Boyle on 'Mock the Week'. A lot of his schtick is very similar to Bill Hicks, but he gives it his own spin so they're different enough that it's not a blatant copy. This brings me round to why I don't watch the Daily Show, even on those infrequent occasions when I'm back home in time to watch it. Every time I turn it on John Oliver is on, and he's not funny. Worse than that, he's not funny while stealing someone else's schtick. Now the person he's stolen from is Jeremy Hardy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Hardy) who would happen to be one of my favourite comedians. So he's stealing a schtick and doing it so badly that he's not even a poor man's version, he's a beggar's version of someone I like a lot, and being praised for it. I trust the italics convey my annoyance suitably.

BTW, I recommend clicking on that link about Jeremy Hardy, because it details his awesomeness.

On a secondary point, other than Ed Byrne slowly turning into a joyously bitter person in his later 30s, if even he can't carry off slightly too short suit and Converses, no wonder the Doctor can't.