Woe

Well that's my team out of the World Cup - I got Argentina in the office sweepstake I had been quietly cherishing the hope that they may well win it, but it was not to be they were knocked on penalties by Germany. The Italians are currently stuffing the Ukrainians which is only unexpected in that the Italians have scored more than one goal.

Tomorrow is England's match I don't think I can bear it, it's either going to be an orgy of over the top celebration as England beat Portugal or an orgy of frustration and blame as they fail to make it to the semis either way it's not going to be fun.

Say Cheese

Lifted from Becky's Blog

Let the Canons roar! (and the Nikons, Pentaxes...)

How dumb is this idea to have a Non Photography Day? I don't know about you but I find the idea that we should "Experience life in an unmediated fashion, without anything in front of your eyes. Live in the moment", as it's protagonist suggested in this BBC article, utterly abhorrent.

I like my life mediated. Living in the moment is pants, because (by definition) moments are too short. The world cries out to be captured, processed and the bad bits cropped out!

So, I'm launching a counter-campaign. Join me and let's make July 17th the most photographed day ever! :-)"

It's a work day which is a bit sad but I'll be carrying my camera, will you?

Manbags

Amusing article in the Guardian. I think manbags are a wonderful idea, a sensible solution for the amount of stuff men feel that they have to carry around with them at all times. Get the right bag and I don't think anyone could accuse the carrier of being "wussy". Plastic bags from Tescos do not count as man bags no matter how much some of my colleagues may think that they do.

Grrrrr

I've had one of those niggling annoying days. You know it is possible to injure yourself sneezing, I sneeze loudly and with some force, I've been known to scare birds from fields in adjoining counties. Last night I managed to pull a muscle in my diaphragm and it hurt every time I breathed, fortunately it eased up during the day. Anyhoo waiting at the bus stop this afternoon the bus which was already late, just whooshed past without even making a pretense of stopping. I was not a happy bunny.

And then when I got home the electricity was off! After reporting to electricity network people and double checking that I hadn't been inadvertently cut off all I could do was sit in the gathering gloom reading a book. I was robbed of blog reading time :-0 wonder if I could sue.

I also need a torch.

Sparkle

So yeah we went to Sparkle (website is down at the moment 21:23 25 June 06 so I can't link to it) it was fun if tiring. A lot of it was like any other tranny do in that we met up with friends and I got further along in my "tick off" list of "famous trannies" who I have met. I didn't get a proper chance to talk to every one I wanted to and I woke up with an exceptionally bad head.

Details? We had lunch with Jo Nicholls (her site is also down due to Fasthosts being borked) and Valerie S who came over from Helsinki for Sparkle on Canal Street by the Miss English Rose competition. This contest was looking for "real femininity" although what walking around with a book on your head has to do with femininity real or otherwise is a bit beyond me. Highlight for me was the confusion caused by a man jogging through the book balancing obstacle course wearing a neoprene wet suit and carrying a canoe on his shoulder.



The evening kicked off with Champagne courtesy of Valerie, I should also add that apart from excellent English, a dry and witty sense of humour she is also an excellent host!

Rather than talk here are some photos



On the way



Definitely worth viewing the large version this one.

To quote Ms Curran "I got drunk, it was fab"

And I was, if only for a brief moment of time a VIP


(Edited 27 June 06 to correct my awful English and insert links)

Portugal - Netherlands

It's still only 77 mins gone but we've got sendings off, handbags and bad reffing - fabulous match for the fans of spectacle like what I am.

Bet Alan Green is going puce with outrage if he's commentating on this match.

So Yeah

We are going to Sparkle, the second ever sparkle. The bars of Canal Street will have stocked up on the "girliest" drinks they can think of, the plastic straw merchants will have pocketed great big wodges of the folding stuff then called their wives "Mabel, we can afford that Caribbean Island now. And to think your dad said I would never amount to anything in plastics."

Becky and I are getting ready, well Becky is getting ready I am "tranny wallahing" this involves fetching carrying and scouring the shops of Liverpool for the finest make up wipes (failed - it started raining, I hadn't had my breakfast and anyways I bought makeup remover and cotton wool). Rather than follow the crowd and stay in Manchester on Friday night we stopped at Jess's place last night and we will make our way over shortly.

Sparkle is the biggest transgendered event in Britain there will be literally lots of trannies of all styles in Manchester today if you were to lay them end to end you would get a load of trannies complaining that their outfits are getting muddy.

Right, Becky is almost ready so back to the wallahing.

Micheal Owen and other World Cup Related Stuff.

I feel extremely sorry for Michael Owen, Owen ruptures anterior cruciate knee ligament, a nasty painful injury and it takes time to recover from. His World Cup is over and he's possibly out for months. I don't feel sorry for Newcastle though, that's a club I've never been able to warm to, that's partially due to an ex boyfriend supported them he was an extremely nasty manipulative person which unfortunately I did not see properly until after I dumped him. It's all a long time ago however there is still a thought process that happens whenever I see or hear of NUFC: Newcastle = Geordie Andy = twat. I do have to add that I have since met Newcastle fans who are delightful but it's ingrained now.

I thought England were fairly dismal yesterday against Sweden, although they played relatively well in the first half their performance in the second half was not so nice. It wouldn't surprise me if the Ecuadorian team are quietly fancying their chances given a bit of luck and a following wind.

I am glad though that England have avoided Germany. I'm glad because I don't think I could have borne the jingoistic fervour that the tabloids would have whipped themselves into. Wars would have most definitely being mentioned and all sorts of rash declarations being made about how invincible England are (my arse) and 20 reasons why England is better than Germany, I can think of 1 we don't have pigs knuckles as a regional dish but I run out after that.

It is the English tabloid press and their ugly over the top reactions that make it virtually impossible for me to wish England well. I hate their cocksure overconfidence, I hate the over statement, I am seriously disturbed that anyone could have thought that this was a suitable image for football, he looks more like he is being tortured through crucifixion than celebrating his joy and pride in being English.

I am a Scotland fan I know that I support a shite team, I'm used to that - it's good for the character, honest, any success is eagerly accepted and appreciated and defeat is taken stoically. But then again I don't live in Scotland and I don't read the Scottish press so I can say that. For all I know the Daily Record could be putting the Sun to shame when it comes to borderline xenophobic sports coverage but the important part here is - I don't get to see it and so I don't have to confront it. I do get to see the English versions of the different media and it makes me uncomfortable. It's a sport not a war and yes it is damn important but it is actually fun, well it's supposed to be fun, you wouldn't think that reading the red tops.

The perfect world cup would a) have Scotland qualifying and getting out of their group and b) no contentious opponents for any of the home nations before being knocked out. Definition of non contentious is - we must not have gone to war with them, married into their royal family, be in a semi political union with them, once been their colonial masters, they were once our colonial overlords have had a spat with them in the last 2000 years which leaves just about nobody.

Football A Bit Boring?

Then why not try out Billy's new google game?

And The Prize For 20,000th Visitor Goes To...

a regular visitor, and I'm pretty sure I've linked host name and IP address to the correct reader, fellow blogger Dr Who fan Selina Morse. Come on down Selina to collect your cyber Champagne - nothing but the best unreal stuff here.

In other news the weather has turned a bit nippy and I'm back at work after a week's leave. My colleagues are asking me work questions: the fools don't they realise that I barely remember where I work after a week of holiday let alone what I'm supposed to do!

Duxford

Simon and I went to Duxford today it's a bit expensive but it's marvellous, I have a bit of a thing for aircraft and machinery so I was in my element.
They have the restoration hangers open to the public, even on a Sunday there were engineers working on restoring the old aircraft. The smell of engine grease, oil and ball bearings takes me back to when I was a small girl when my friends and I would go to the local mechanics go get ball bearings that we could use as steelers in marbles,

The American Hanger is stunning but too crowded with aircraft I couldn't get a clear sense of their shapes, I think they have two hangers worth of material in one space which is a pity. They had Soviet SAMs hard under the wings of an American bomber, on the other side there was a small section of the "supergun" that Saddam Hussein was trying to have constructed.



Adults who wear military fatigues and DPMs when a) they are not in the military or a re-enactment society or b) are off duty worry me, and there were quite a few adults decked out in all manner of pseudo military outfits today with their little kiddies dressed up like miniature action men too. Weirdos.

Reflected

I think this photo is rather good so I thought I would inflict it on yous. It was taken at Tate Modern on Sunday.

Gone Down to London.

I went to see a West End musical last night first time, it was great. Mind you it was "The Producers" which as it was based on a film first was guaranteed to have some form of plot and boy what a plot that was, and not just be a show where you come out humming the sets. It was impressive, exceptionally funny in places, the sets looked smashing, the cast gave it some welly, the chap who played Fritz the German would have been in danger for stealing the show had his part been any bigger.

Anyhoo I wasn't intending to go into a full blown review of the show, no what I had intended mentioning was this.



As we were enjoying our pre show drinks in the grand circle saloon of the theatre we became mesmerised by the rather dodgy triptych above the bar. We could recognise some of the faces, but why was something so amateurish hanging up in Drury Lane Theatre? You'd have thought that they could afford to get a few works in by real artists. Hell most artists would happily exhibit there for free if they thought there was a chance of sales.

It wasn't until we were enjoying our interval drinks, that we realised after taking a gander at a few more of the poor paintings on display that they were all by Ronnie Wood, he of The Rolling Stones, the one who fancies himself as a bit of an artist.

Bit of a shame he's not very good.



And that is one of the better ones too.

The theatre was full of them, I guess he's "mates" with Andrew Lloyd Webber such is the way of show business I guess.

Flickr Fusbol

Never watch a Telly programme which is presented by an ex Python in the same room as someone who can quote the entire script to "The Life Of Brian" The screeches of "Homage! You're all drunk, it's disgusting..." almost made me spill my drink.

Meanwhile back in cyberland - I was idly looking at flickr earlier when I came across these photos from the world cup I think they are rather good.

Too Hot Too Blog

And I'm going to London this weekend. It looks like it's gonna be hot next week as well, I'm feeling rather smug now because I've got the week off work and my office becomes unbearable when summer gets warm.

State Funeral For Thatcher?

First things first: I can't believe that I'm linking to the Express along with the Mail the most evil unpleasant paper in this otherwise fair land.

But I saw that linked to whilst flicking through the MailWatch forum, my immediate reaction was "The old bag is dead and nobody told me?" but it turns out that it is only Blair making plans for the funeral. On paper, this is of course deeply wrong the evil bat doesn't deserve a state funeral (the Falklands war was caused by her government ignoring Navy intelligence, that is not something to celebrate.) but then again I'd watch it just to ensure that she was actually dead and to that garlic, wooden stakes and a lot of concrete are involved. It is also exceptionally canny of Labour as the Guardian news blog points out.

1 Year and a Few Days

So, well I've been blogging for over a year now, so yay me! I had planned to do a 12 month retrospective, was going to get the Tate Modern to curate it, but then I got the actual anniversary wrong. For some reason I thought it was 4th June 2005 when it was actually the 2nd, D'oh. It seemed a bit pointless going to all that effort for the wrong day so I haven't bothered.

I love Morrisons

This is the Morrisons in King's Lynn

Simon doesn't he describes it as "That Chavvy Northern shop where they sell lard" I think this is most unfair. True the clientele when we shopped there last night were not mostly ABC1's but you can say the same for any Tesco round here.

When I was a poor student and then a very poor unemployed person in Sheffield it was Morrisons (and Netto) that helped me keep body and soul together and the threat of scurvy away. Morrisons is cheap and good quality, I think it's great. Yes it does do northern specialties such as Stones Bitter and many types of mushy peas, but only selling lard? Au contraire Simon I think not, it had fresh meat, fish and deli counters long before the local Tesco's did.

As for Chavviness? Well we were walking through the delightful centre of King's Lynn this lunchtime when we overheard, well we could hardly miss him as he was bellowing, a father call for his small daughter, "Oi Chicago, git yourself 'ere" I think that the town has more to answer for that than the shop.

This afternoon we took a look at the ruined church of Bawsey photos are here