Back from Braaaaaziiiil !!!

Hey y'all...

I'm back, back, BACK!!

From Brazil that is.

How wonderful to be back in (relatively) cold England and at work.

NOT.

Nah it's not that bad. I feel suitably rested and happy after my break, for sure. The only downside was the horrendously bad journey home during the last couple of days, due to the ineptness of a certain Portuguese airline. Anyway enough about the bad, the holiday itself was muito bom.

Of course I've got lots of things to attend to now, but holiday reports are forthcoming...

Promise.

Ciao!! For now...

Well, my lovely fellow bloggers...

The time has come for me to say "Ciao!" In approximately six hours' time - i.e. 3am - I will be dragging myself out of bed and getting ready to go on HOLIDAY!!!

No more work for nearly three weeks!! Sunshine!! Sea!! Sand!!

Aaaah, bliss.

And the likelihood is I won't really have much time for blogging, folks. So you probably won't be getting many posts from me... Although I may well "drop in" and see what all of you have been up to! Must keep abreast of the news and the gossip!

....And I will return from my vacation refreshed and revitalised and bursting with even more creativity than normal. Not to mention tales of my Brazilian adventures with shedloads of fabulous accompanying photos.

Wishing you all a good few weeks in my absence ... take care now, my lovely people!!

PS And appropriately enough, I leave you with some Dr Who News, some of which comes as quite a surprise. Does the fact that David T has signed up to do "Hamlet" for Summer 2008 have anything to do with this? Does this also mean RTD and co will have departed by Season Five? And/or has this all been designed to give the "new" production team enough time to learn the ropes and come up with some "better" quality stories? Time will tell...

WHO are these divas??

We had some highly glamorous ladies staying in our flat over the weekend ....


... any takers??

Quote of the week...

.... is currently on sabbatical.

Or could that be because:

a) I couldn't think of any more quotes to post?
b) I was too frickin' lazy?

Answers on a postcard, please ...

The end...

And while we're about it, Here's a few choice highlights from last night's finale:

Jonty and Carole didn't quite make it to the finish. But they don't look too bothered, do they? And what IS Jonty clutching? Looks like a very gay accoutrement. Too bad the Dr Who fan wasn't the overall winner.

All I can say is that I hope Gerry finished off his Charley-strangulation job. Gezzer looks decidedly psychotic whilst there is a positively sheepish look in Charley's eyes, almost as if she knows her days are numbered. And what a hideous looking dress she's wearing. Oooh miaow.

Davina, on the other hand, looks pretty stunning and stylish in her red number. Very classy. WHAT a glamourpuss! Nice shoes too, click on the pic for a slightly bigger version...

Great group shot. Seaney has WEIRD dress sense, it has to be said. Chanelle looks like a bloody robot. What's the furry thing protruding from her bottom?

Waxtastic

Just had a very nice lady round to our flat to wax my shoulders and back, which were horribly hairy as it so happens. Yeeeuch. The main justification for this is me wishing to look gorgeous on the beach in Brazil, not like some kind of hirsute gorilla (okay I'm not quite that bad, but I was getting close...) The deed is now done and I am looking smooth and super-duper. I can stroll the boulevards of Rio with pride (whilst sucking in my stomach - but thanks to those of you who recently said the size of my tummy doesn't matter - a nice boost to one's esteem for sure).

Talking of which only THREE DAYS TO GO til Brazil!! And a mere ONE WORKING DAY!! YAAAAAAY!! I think it will only hit me that I'm actually going on holiday when I'm sitting on that plane as it lifts off from the runway. Talking of take-off, that's always been my least favourite part of flying. I think I've seen a few too many disaster movies. I also remember the first ever time I flew, when I went on a school skiing trip to Austria. We flew from the highly glamorous environs of Luton Airport on a Dan Air jet as I recall (no sign of Lorraine Chase I should add). I was quite nervous about that and it certainly didn't help with my so-called school mates saying: "Oh, as the plane takes off, you can see all the wreckages of past plane crashes next to the runway". Gullible teenage fool that I was, I believed it. Anyway, all will be fine I'm sure.

Had a nice night out last night with ex-work mates. Once again more people leaving my previous work place. Like rats deserting a sinking ship. Was fun and drunken, just for a change. On the way home I started straddling one of the poles in the tube train carriage where we were sitting. When one of the other passengers gave me a funny look I explained: "I'm just practising for my new job". She asked me what the job was, to which I replied: "I am a tax inspector". In case you hadn't guessed, I was a) lying b) rather inebriated at that point.

Talking of tax inspectors though, I watched a rather good film the other night, Stranger Than Fiction, all about, oddly enough, a tax auditor - played by a wonderfully dry Will Ferrell - who discovers that he is actually a fictional character in a book. He starts hearing the voice of the narrator - a nicely cynical performance from fruity yah-yah actress Emma Thompson - describing his every thought and move which becomes rather irritating and intrusive to say the very least. When he finds out that he is due to die at end of the "novel" he takes action... It was good stuff, to be recommended. Maggie Gyllenhal, sister of Jake, is also good as a baker who makes yummy cookies and gets p*ssed off when Will F comes to audit her shop. Go rent it out.

A few of my fellow bloggers like Minge and Dan have been commenting on Princess Diana recently. Probably because it's the tenth anniversary of her death. Like most people, I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news. I was staying at my Dad's flat in Amsterdam and was about to travel back to the UK. My Dad was actually staying at his partner's place and rang me up in his flat, first thing in the morning, to get me out of bed so I didn't miss the bus that would take me back to the cross-channel ferry. When he rang me up he said something like: "Oh by the way, it's just been on the news that Diana and Dodi-al-what's-his-face have both been killed in a car crash". (He wasn't being disrespectful, that's just my Dad's sometimes typical zany style). At the time I couldn't quite take it all in. When I arrived back in the UK I remember seeing The Sun with the highly subtle, alliterative headline "Diana Dead". Then the reality sunk in. But although it can't be denied that Diana's death WAS tragic it didn't have the massive impact on me that it did with so many others. Besides which, ordinary people die in car crashes every day and we never hear about them, do we? Equally tragic yet ignored. And when she moaned on about her loveless marriage to Charles, I thought Diana was being kind of hypocritical. If you marry someone you don't love, what do you expect? You made your bed love, now lie in it. It's not as if she came out of it badly either. I remember that Panorama interview vividly - Diana with her best "sad-panda-eyes" make-up - a classic piece of media manipulation if ever there was one. And I'm sick to death all of these Diana conspiracy theories. Give it a rest.

Meanwhile, the lovely Matty had a remarkably vivid, almost cinematographic dream about actress Ellen Burstyn recently. I totally love the dialogue. Go check it out.

Oh!! And the winner of Big Brother 2007 is now known. It's....drum roll...

BRIAN!!

The nice but dim young data entry clerk from Essex was the overall winner. I have to say I'm pretty surprised by the public's choice. My bets were on the Twins or Liam. Shows how much I know, eh?