hattiehattie

One of those nights

2009-11-04T00:03:00.000Z

I suppose this is part two of my Isn't autumn shit? post from a few weeks ago, and with that in mind you might just want to navigate off somewhere else without getting into it. I'm sure there will be others who've said what I'm about to say more eloquently, and made more sense of it, but I'm going to give it my best shot. So here's what has really hit home this autumn: that over the last five or ten years, I've become more and less certain at the same time. More and less certain that I can trust my instincts, and more and less certain of what decisions to make.

Things I'm more sure of now: that if you give me a map I can find anything; that I don't need to impress people I don't respect; that as a freelancer sometimes you have to accept jobs that you're terrified of, and turn down the ones you can do with your eyes closed. Things I'm less sure of: where to lay the blame when things go wrong, and how to cope if you can't lay it anywhere; how to 'fix' things for friends and family who are struggling; and where the hell I'm going.

Recently a male friend asked me out. We've known each other many years. Nothing has changed recently except that he has spent more time being single. I have no way of knowing, but I wonder whether he is experiencing what so many of my friends are going through. I wonder if he's started to question his own instincts, and make decisions based on a worry that he might've got things wrong before.

I might be projecting my own experiences onto him, because I've spent the last year or two questioning my feelings about some of the people closest to me - those I've loved and those I've wanted to love. As you settle into being an adult you find yourself becoming resigned to people's flaws, and being grateful and amazed that they can put up with yours. Things become more and more a mass of moral and emotional greys. When they go painfully wrong you muddle through the process of learning who you should and shouldn't forgive, and how the hell you go about that anyway.

Of course this isn't a new thing - I remember dealing with the same things as a teenager. But it just keeps getting more complicated. Things don't work out in the crystal-clear way we thought they did. Nowadays the closer I look at a problem, the more it expands and develops, and this autumn I've found myself surrounded by problems that don't have solutions. That's what's new: this total bafflement about what to do. I used to have a feeling, and trust it and act on it and never regret it. Now I have ten feelings, and they're totally inconsistent with each other, and I can't put my finger on any of them.

He wields that drill with such authority

2009-10-25T12:40:00.001Z

If you know me, know of me or have been within a ten metre radius of me at any point over the last month, you'll know I've been having some toothache. I've been pretty brave about the whole thing and you've probably only heard me mention it eight or nine times. I am terrified of the dentist. Something about having a total stranger fiddle about inside my face while I lie there totally helpless and unable to speak makes me uncomfortable. Call me crazy.

With this in mind, when I arrived for root canal on Wednesday I asked the dentist if I could listen to my iPod during the treatment, to take my mind off it. His head nodded politely but his eyes were full of disdain.

I think my dentist is very attractive. I can't be 100% certain - there's always the chance that he only seems attractive in contrast to the horrendous experience he inflicts on me. He's Polish, blonde, smiley and quietly charming. However, I'm not certain he actually passed any of his exams.

The problem is that I'm quite thick, and therefore going to the dentist for me is on a par with having brain surgery. What he is doing is so beyond my understanding that I would never be able to accuse him of doing it wrong. I mean he could tell me he needed to crush my teeth to a powder, and mix that with flour paste in order to rebuild them as one giant tooth-panel. He could suggest that we replace all my teeth with whistles. He could remove my tongue and send me away with a course of penicillin and an Etch-A-Sketch, and I would shrug and use it to scratch out a spidery message to friends: "I told him to do what he thought best. He's so handsome!"

The iPod did help with the anxiety though. I settled on In Rainbows by Radiohead, which is both calming and sort of involving, and made me feel weirdly detached. I started to imagine that instead of getting root canal, I was in a cinema watching a trippy feature-length arthouse film filmed from the point of view of a mouth, with In Rainbows as the score. Which weirdly, I later found out, is Thom Yorke's next solo project.* In some ways it was similar to how I felt while watching the Danish musical Dancer In The Dark at the cinema: trapped and hopeless about life. In a peaceful sort of way.

Drifting around on the music in my head and enjoying the local anaesthetic, I started to perceive my mouth as a big marshmallow cave rather than a house of pain. Which was quite pleasant. I also found that I'm so ignorant of what dental processes involve that I couldn't make any sense whatsoever of what the dentist and his assistant (or was she a dental nurse?) were doing. Mysterious implements were whipped quickly in and out of my sight and I couldn't turn my head to get a better look. At one point the dentist pulled out something that looked like my old Walkman headphones, but with a hand-pump on one end, and jammed that into my gums. Later his assistant produced a big metal spike and starting heating one end of it up using what looked, out of the corner of my eye, like a cigarette lighter. My eyes must have been wide with alarm under my stupid plastic goggles, but no one took any notice. Finally what I could have sworn was the mains lead for my flatmate's Toshiba laptop was produced and the dentist made me press it against my teeth while he and the assistant left the room. When they came back I was all ready for them to pull a six-foot floor lamp out of my gullet like in Mary Poppins, and then perhaps perform some sort of musical number about death. It felt like anything could happen.

They also had an unsettling habit of using my, er, chest area as a makeshift instrument table. The dentist would say, "I need two yellows and a purple," and the woman would wander off to a drawer, reappear with some coloured metal things, and casually line them up on my T-shirt, like that was the most appropriate thing in the world. More painfully, a couple of times some horrible chlorine-y tasting solution went down my throat, and at one point acid was spilt on the side of my mouth, and it really burned. I now have an attractive scab on my face, which is going to make a great impression when I start my new job tomorrow. ("Hi, I'm Hattie - I'm the new lifestyle producer. Before we start, let me clear the air: this thing on my face is not a sexually transmitted disease but rather an unfortunate dentistry mishap. Right - where's my desk?")

Throughout the procedure the dentist kept stopping what he was doing, leaning close in to my ear and bellowing "YOU OK?", while punching me jovially in the shoulder. Then when he finished he smiled charmingly at me and said in his lovely Polish accent, "There were many many complications." He explained that one of the menacing-looking spikes that he'd been jabbing into my tooth had snapped off. It is now forevermore living in my root canal. "It shouldn't bother you," he said shortly, before changing the subject.

In summary, I think my dentist may be a sort of Catch Me If You Can-style phoney, and I literally have no idea what he has done to my teeth. And yet, I sort of love him. We've been through so much together.

*The Thom Yorke thing is a lie, but if he wants to use the idea then I am, as always, 100% behind him.

Preaching to the choir

2009-10-23T13:15:00.004+01:00

So, I've mentioned many times how much I love Twitter. And I really do: it's become a big part of my daily routine, and I feel like my online interactions - with friends, with strangers, with people from my industry, with experts in various fields, with comedians and journalists - bring me into contact with a lot of thought-provoking ideas and some great, interesting, funny online content. And 'content' really is just a silly 21st century word for ideas again, so there you go. I might be kidding myself, but I feel like for me, life is enriched by what I find on Twitter.

That said, over the past 24 hours I've become more aware of a possible drawback of Twitter, and I wanted to talk about it a little here. Yesterday I threw myself into some serious discussion and a lot of piss-taking on the subject of Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time. I supported the BBC's decision to invite him on, and then I made fun of the ridiculous comments he made. I was lucky enough to have one of my tweets 'retweeted' - copied and distributed further - by the comedian Iain Lee, and another by Charlie Brooker, and suddenly I was getting retweeted by dozens of total strangers, and getting some lovely and funny responses.

The atmosphere on Twitter - from where I was sitting - was great last night. We all seemed to be in agreement: Nick Griffin is a repellent, bigoted and ignorant man and his policies are so ill-thought out and unpleasant that no one with any sense would vote for him - and those who have voted for him before have surely now seen him for the racist buffoon he really is. People were triumphant that he'd been shown up on national TV.

When I woke up this morning I felt much more uneasy about the whole thing. Here's the problem: on Twitter you don't have to follow anyone whose ideas you disagree with. Also for that reason, it's likely that the majority of the people who follow you will be more or less coming from the same point of view. It's a nice set-up - it makes you feel as though you're among friends and kindred spirits, because essentially what you're doing is tuning out everyone whose views you don't agree with.

In that sense, we might call Twitter a community, but it's got to be one of the only communities in which you can surround yourself only by people you like. You don't have to listen to the people who are talking about how great it is that Nick Griffin wants to tackle immigration, or how poor Nick is being victimised by the "lefty" BBC. It can give a very skewed perspective of public opinion, and when I logged back on to Twitter this morning, I was disappointed but not shocked to see Iain Lee commenting "Depressing night listening to TalkSport. Turns out most people thought Griffin came across well and they'll vote for him."

Well of course they did, because the listeners of TalkSport are most likely not the people I've been paying attention to. But they have as much right to vote as any of us, and if as a nation we are going to stop the BNP from growing in power then these people's concerns need to be addressed. Tearing apart racism to a bunch of people who already hate it is about as much use as sitting around a dinner table with close friends and putting the world to rights. All we're really doing is preaching to the choir, and (I know from personal experience) it can be dangerously easy to feel smug when everyone agrees with you.

I still love Twitter, and I'm not going to stop using it. It's great to find that there are many, many others out there who share your point of view, and I had a really good laugh reading their comments last night. But as a political tool I don't think it's going to achieve much, because it cordons us off into groups of like-minded people. There's dialogue and sometimes debate, but our views are rarely strongly challenged, and we aren't required to make any effort to listen to the people on the other side of the fence. When it comes to achieving any serious cultural change, unfortunately it falls to the other political parties to win back the respect of the voters, and to all of us to actually vote.

I LOVE Liz Lemon

2009-10-19T20:07:00.001+01:00

So, as I told you last time, my flatmate and I now have cable TV. This is what has kept me going through the aforementioned shitty autumn of 2009.

When I was a kid it felt like we were the only family in Newcastle who didn't have Sky TV. My parents stubbornly refused to give in, however much I begged (and continued to beg, year after year after year). They said I watched "enough crap as it is". Well, parents, I can now confidently reveal that you were wrong. For now that I have all those extra channels, I know for certain that I have not been watching enough crap.

On Saturday my flatmate went away and left me alone with the cable, so this weekend I have done very little except (a) sleep, (b) carb-load and (c) watch multiple episodes of: True Blood, The Real Housewives Of Atlanta, Hung, Samantha Who?, 30 Rock, Buffy The Vampire Slayer (I don't care, I like it) and Sex And The City. I've also got a lot of America's Next Top Model waiting for me, and I'm toying with series-linking The Ellen Degeneres Show. I am starting to develop genuine emotion for the cable box. I think I'm in love with it.

Also, if it weren't for cable, I would not have learnt Liz Lemon's airtight technique for getting out of jury duty: just dress up as Princess Leia. I leave you with the evidence.

[Incidentally, when I started looking for a 30 Rock clip on YouTube to share with you, it popped up with a list of videos 'Recommended For You'. Apparently YouTube thinks that I need to watch a video about how to find a bra that fits. Because if your friends won't tell you that your breasts look like two puppies fighting in a sack, YouTube will.]

Autumn 09: Just no.

2009-10-15T17:09:00.000+01:00

I've noticed something over the past few weeks - something interesting and sinister. And now the time has come for me to share this information with you, dear reader, and see what your thoughts are. So this is what I've noticed: so far, autumn 2009 is awful.

Usually I love autumn: I get to wear boots and scarves again, everything smells autumny, there's Halloween and Bonfire Night (let's face it, very nearly as good as Christmas), I can fatten up because no one can tell, I can have a hot water bottle at night - it's brilliant. Not this year. This year I feel like I'm trapped in a cheap soap opera. All my nearest and dearest are going through heartache and stress, dilemmas and drama. I won't spill their woes on the internet, but as for mine: I broke up with my boyfriend. I have toothache. My hair is at an awkward stage. I spent my wages too quickly this month. There seems to be a plague of spiders going on. I did really badly in a pub quiz last night. Everything is shit.

OK, not everything. We all have jobs. We're all basically healthy. I got cable TV installed last week, which is amazing. Still though, I'd like for things to just get a bit generally better. I'd be interested to hear if other people's friends and family have been going through similar crap or if it's just people who know me.

Before I go let's perk things up a bit with a list of Five Things To Be Happy About.

We still haven't had Halloween or Bonfire Night. They could really put a different spin on this autumn. Also I have an American friend who's recently moved to London, and I'm not sure she even knows yet that we burn an effigy of a man on 5th November. She's going to love that!
I've got into Fleetwood Mac (the latter years). Amazing!
My 18-month-old nephew has learnt to say 'Hattie'.
I really like this nail varnish.
It surely can't be long until the third season of Mad Men starts on BBC4.

Sorry for this godawful post. Something more interesting soon.

Never Blue

2009-09-15T20:41:00.001+01:00

I don't see my lovely friend Darren much - in fact I think I've only met him three or four times, and not for a year or two. He lives in America so we don't bump into each other down the pub. But occasionally these emails pop into my inbox and inside them I find mp3s. He's responsible for introducing me to Bo Diddley, among others. This one arrived last week - it's one of Darren's own songs, and he has allowed me to post it up on the blog*. I think it's quite lovely and it has a definite ring of The Beach Boys to it. Also, for your information, that's Darren in the picture. If the music isn't your sort of thing, you can definitely still enjoy his beautiful facial hair.

*It's not a video. Annoyingly, Blogger won't allow me to post up an mp3, so I have to put a picture on it.

I got shot!

2009-09-13T19:05:00.001+01:00

I've been to a family reunion this weekend. We have one every two years. It features 80 descendants of my great-grandfather, and it tends to take place at slightly bizarre spots in the countryside. This year it was a hotel in Gillingham. If you're not familiar with Gillingham, it's one of the Medway towns in Kent. If you google it, you can't find much about anything except for the football team. I don't want to say that that's because Gillingham has nothing else going for it... so instead I'll just leave that idea hanging in the air while I look at my laptop with a raised eyebrow.

We took Milo (my nephew) out in his pram yesterday, walking grimly along the side of the motorway until we found a little park. Actually it wasn't so much a park as a field of dog turds and syringes, but let's not quibble. On the way back to the hotel we were just bellowing small talk at each other over the noise of the traffic when a car came past very fast and I felt myself being hit hard in the thigh by a small missile, which ricocheted into Milo's pram. I gasped and clutched my leg, and when I took my hand away, both dress and palm were covered in orange liquid.

"Oh my god!" said my sister dramatically, recoiling as we stared at each other, horrified.

"It's not blood," I pointed out, a bit unnecessarily. I lifted my dress to see orange all over my leg, and there was already a little bruise forming.

Pulling myself together, I retrieved the object from Milo's pram, and discovered it was a little plastic pellet.

Yes, dear reader: someone had leant out of the window of a moving car and shot me with a paintball gun.

I'll be honest - I wasn't really hurt, or phased, although it was a bit irritating. But if it had hit Milo, or my mother, I would have been beyond furious.

Riding high on the drama of my ordeal, I headed back to the hotel to wash my dress and mope about in my room, staring at my bruise in the mirror and wishing it was a bit worse. But no sooner had I got the orange paint off my hands than I started to hear a weird singing/shrieking noise.

At first I thought it was kids messing about outside. But no. These were repeated, operatic wails. It was only when this was joined by a second noise - the sound of bed springs creaking enthusiastically - that I realised that it was coming from whoever was in the room next door, and that they were having one hell of a Saturday afternoon in there. To make things worse, the wall was so thin that I actually had to double-check that they weren't in my room, perhaps having sex in the cupboard containing the ironing board, the coffee sachets and some UHT milk.

This scenario was disturbing enough, but as they embarked on the second round of moaning and panting mere inches away from my head, something even worse dawned on me. What if the noise was coming from some unidentified relative of mine? I jammed my fingers in my ears and went back to looking sadly at my leg.

On the plus side, when I headed down for dinner I had become a sort of war hero. People came up to me looking anxious and hugged me, telling me how disgusted they were that I'd been shot. "It's assault!" they said, outraged, and then, "How are you?" in concerned tones.

"Oh, I'll be alright," I said, in my bravest whispery voice. "It's just a little bruise." Truth is, it's a miniscule bruise. I'm just thankful it was under my clothes otherwise I would have had to beef it up with purple eye shadow.

To lighten the mood, I told a few people about the shagathon next door. They loved it. My cousins told me it was probably my parents. I said I reckoned I'd heard their parents' voices. Hilarity ensued. When I came down for breakfast this morning I was greeted by a cheerful "How's the mega-bonkers?!" from my own father.

Thankfully I never found out who it was. That's two crimes committed against me this weekend, and neither of the culprits were caught. My uncle had a bad time too - he got up for a wee at 5am and discovered 20 wasps having a party in his bathroom. I blame Gillingham. Really and truly, it's all Gillingham's fault.

And now it's Autumn again.

2009-09-11T12:55:00.004+01:00

Aaargh. Blog, I miss you. I think of you every day, but I haven't managed to write a post for almost three weeks.

So what have I been doing for the last 19 days? Well, the first few days, of course, were spent recovering from the wedding-crashing incident and trying to persuade my parents that I'm not an alcoholic. This is the problem with publishing your embarrassing stories on the internet.

I've been to see two of the films I mentioned in an earlier post - Coco Before Chanel and Mesrine: Killer Instinct. Neither, disappointingly, were as good as I'd hoped. Coco was lovely, but it barely touched on her career, which is sort of the reason I'm interested in her, and we didn't see many of her designs until the last thirty seconds of the film. Mesrine, though, baffled me. It wasn't a bad film, but from the reviews I'd read (especially in the Guardian), I thought it was going to be exceptional. Vincent Cassel is great to watch, but there was no character development and just as you started to get into a plotline, it would stop short, never to be mentioned again. Also, I'm not averse to a violent movie, but at one point it felt like every single scene featured Mesrine smashing a glass in someone's face or shooting off their kneecaps at close range. My dad was next to me guffawing at top volume at the ridiculousness of it all while I sat grimly with my hand over my eyes, waiting for the gunshots and screaming to die down.

Off to see Broken Embraces next week. I think I'm going to have to give up on The September Issue for now. Even though it's been promoted to death by papers, magazines and blogs, it seems to be showing a handful of times in London at about three obscure cinemas. I don't understand why the distribution is so bad. My theory is that the media have gone crazy over it because it's about the media. If you don't work in this industry, does it look boring as hell? I suspect maybe it does.

I went to Notting Hill Carnival at the end of August. I always have a great time, but this year was odd. I blame it on the weather, which was not nearly as beautiful as it usually is for Carnival. It was a day that included rum and dancing (standard) but also one of my friends getting in a fight after pinching someone's wig, Tony from Hollyoaks being spotted working in a bar, and later, me and Denis having to take a stranger with a head injury to the hospital (non-standard).

Big Brother 10 came to an end last week. I wrote for the website, as I did last year, and again it was sad to see it finish. I work with such nice, funny people, and the job is so silly and entertaining. Next year will be the last one, and I hope I get to work on it again. Should be a good one.

Next week I'm going to New York, and I can't bloody wait. Also coming up this month are (possibly slightly less exciting) trips to Kent, Newcastle and Cheltenham. Actually Claire will be in Cheltenham and she's investigating a wedding we might be able to crash, so you never know.

The Newcastle trip is badly overdue. It's been a year since I was there. I feel very settled in London, but recently my heart is aching for Newcastle and my friends up there. Most of all I miss my honorary grandmother, Margaret, who is an angel. She sent me a letter yesterday with photos of her standing outside her house in Sunderland, and I burst into tears looking at them. Time to go home, Hattie. I'll try not to weep all over the blog when I get back.

Wedding crashers

2009-08-23T14:01:00.007+01:00

This morning, at 7.50am precisely, I woke up the way they do in films - sat bolt upright, eyes wide in utter confusion. Various things were on my mind: Why am I lying on sofa cushions on the living room floor, instead of in my bed? What happened last night? And why did I think it was acceptable to sleep in just my underwear while staying in the living room of my friend's parents' house?

I'm currently staying with Claire, her husband Hywel and her parents at their house in France. We all went out last night, and then Claire's parents went home to bed and the rest of us went out some more. I could remember the bare bones of what happened but nothing whatsoever about the last half an hour of the night. I wonder if we took any photos, I thought. Maybe if I can find my camera it will give me some clues.

I located it in my handbag, which was on the floor near my feet. I switched it on to find that we had indeed taken many, many photos. The first one I saw was Claire helping a strange man inflate a rubber ring round his waist. No recollection of that whatsoever. Also included were some of Claire and I with our arms round some French people I felt I'd never seen before in my life, laughing as though they were our oldest, dearest friends.

I decided the priority was to put some clothes on and clear away my 'bed' before Claire's parents appeared. As I bent to pick up the sofa cushions I got a sharp pain in my knee, which I noticed was mysteriously swollen.

I was definitely sober at some stage, around 6.30pm. That much is certain. Then we all went to a fête in a neighbouring village, where we had calamari and frites and much, much rosé. There was an oompah band and they played lots of French songs and then, weirdly, YMCA, and we all sung along.

Four bottles of wine later, we all came back to the house but then headed out for a nightcap at a little bar on the seafront. On our way there we passed a wedding party - the bride was wearing the sluttiest wedding dress the world has ever seen. It stopped just under her crotch at the front, with a huge ruffly train behind, and laced all the way up her bare back. It made Pamela Anderson's white bikini look a bit prudish. It looked like a really fun wedding.

At the bar we sank another bottle of wine or two before the grown-ups went home, and then Claire and I hatched the plan to get ourselves invited to the wedding. Walking back past it, we noticed the bride getting changed by her car. And when I say getting changed, I mean that she stripped down to her G-string and then rummaged casually through the boot of the car, looking for something else to put on. She didn't seem fussed by all the onlookers.

Claire, Hywel and I installed ourselves on the pavement opposite the wedding, and after that my memories of the night are as follows: Claire running towards us excitedly holding up a bottle of wine that she'd collected from the house (so that we could drink in the street outside the wedding. Like tramps); Hywel demonstrating that he could pick both of us up at once and hold us almost above his head, which is quite high because he's six foot seven; Claire giving the bride a balloon and telling her she looked beautiful in an attempt to bribe her way into the wedding; a load of guests coming out to join our party in the street; and that's about it.

What I do not remember, but Claire tells me did happen, is that we made friends with someone called Benoît; that we ripped all the celebratory ribbons off the bride and groom's car, brought them home and attached them to Claire's parents' car; that I fell flat on my face outside the house (hence the knee) and that she laughed at me and then tripped over me, and we couldn't get up for laughing so hard.

(Also, apparently I was begging for a cigarette, but mercifully no one had any. I haven't had a cigarette for eight months and if I'm going to have one now, I bloody want to remember it.)

All in all, perhaps one of the best nights ever, and I'd do it all again despite the ginormous hangover I am now suffering.

Claire and Hywel are moving away from London in a week, which half-breaks my little heart. This weekend has been perfect - spending time with them is effortlessly enjoyable. Claire and I have, in her words, got "the same soul, different colour schemes". I don't mean to be cheesy, but hers must be the colour of sunlight. Life is so bright with her around. Few people could create a night like that during one weekend in a sleepy French town like this, but I always know I can rely on Claire.

A shorty... but a goody

2009-08-16T23:58:00.000+01:00

I just rediscovered this clip from The Office. It may just be my favourite bit, and the IT guy, who frankly wasn't in the show nearly enough, is one of my favourite characters. Enjoy.

'Mantha has underestimated Lynne's knowledge of popular culture.

2009-08-10T19:27:00.000+01:00

I've already added George and Lynne Explained to my blog roll (right), but I've decided it deserves a bit of extra attention. The latest post, here, made me laugh out loud. It only has 15 followers, so I don't think enough people know about it.

Hey, since you brought up the subject of followers - have you noticed that my blog only has a paltry 27 followers? Maybe you might want to sign up? Or maybe I might want to improve the quality of the writing? If we all pull together I think we can crack this.

But I did enjoy Harry Potter.

2009-08-07T18:53:00.005+01:00

So it is in the world of cinema. Months and months of The Ugly Truth and Transformers 2 and Ice Age 3 go by, and just as I'm starting to forget why I love going to the pictures so much, autumn - or late summer - unleashes a whole load of exciting releases. I can't remember the last time I wanted to see so many things. In case anyone in the universe is remotely interested (and so that I don't forget), here is my list.

Coco Before Chanel

Claire pointed out that in some ways, this looks like it might be a bit boring. However, I hope it isn't. In any case, I can enjoy just about anything starring Audrey Tautou, and the costumes are bound to be amazing.

The September Issue

I spend a lot of my working life at magazines, and I cannot wait to see how things run at American Vogue. I sort of don't care whether Anna Wintour's a giant bitch or not - it's not unusual for talented, successful people to have hideous, unbearable personalities, and I don't think it takes away from the magazine. Having said that, it might add entertainment value to the film.

Mesrine: Killer Instinct

I have loved Gerard Depardieu ever since I saw Green Card at a birthday sleepover when I was 10. But this film doesn't just feature Gerard Depardieu - no, it features Gerard Depardieu, Vincent Cassel (of La Haine, one of my favourite films ever) and exciting gangster action! Joy, joy, joy.

Broken Embraces

Pedro Almodovar is brilliant. Penelope Cruz is completely hypnotic. I'VE GOT TO SEE IT I'VE GOT TO SEE IT I'VE GOT TO SEE IT!

Phew. Sorry about that, I got a bit overwhelmed by all the cinema joy. I'll stop now. Is anyone else looking forward to seeing these, or has anyone seen them already? I'd love to hear your thoughts - unless you thought any of them were really really awful, in which case Shhhhhh.

Chess. Ice skating. Radio 4.

2009-08-03T19:35:00.001+01:00

I've always had a tendency to immediately abandon anything that feels daunting. This is why, afraid of grazed knees and humiliation, I never learnt to ride a bike. And that wasn't all. Year after year, challenges have fallen by the wayside. Hockey. Physics. Telling jokes. High heels. Skiing. Cryptic crosswords. Karaoke. Hosting dinner parties. Eyeshadow. As soon as I noticed my pitiful lack of natural ability in these important areas, I gave up trying.

I've always thought that I've got a sort of an instinct for what I can and can't do, and I'm a strong believer in listening to it. (Deep down, I sort of think I usually know best. Don't tell anyone.) So as soon as I get that feeling of dread in my tummy that says No, no, I'm not going to be able to do this, it's going to be AWFUL, I attempt to retain as much of my dignity as possible by walking away, changing the subject or leaving the country.

Recently I was commissioned to write something that took me wildly out of my comfort zone. I can't go into detail here, but it's something fictional and funny. This is not the kind of writing I do. I don't do laugh-out-loud character-based narrative. I do pointless observational chatter, or sometimes PR fluff in various forms. Nevertheless, I accepted the commission because I thought it sounded like something I would want to read. I didn't think much beyond that.

That's right - I'm stupid.

When I sat down to write it, I went from jaunty excitement to full-scale horror within about fifteen panicky minutes. I attempted to draft a couple of sentences. The room started to feel like a humour vacuum. I couldn't think of anything funny at all. Not only was it not funny, it wasn't even plausible, and something implausible has to be pretty fucking funny in order to make the reader suspend disbelief. I began to feel sick. I put it off for days. I asked the opinions of the many funny writers I know. All of their reasoned advice was blanked out by my own inner voice saying They can do it just because they can do it. They were born with it. You weren't.

I came really, really close to calling up and telling my employers I was going to have to pull out of the project. It would have been really humiliating and unprofessional, and I've never done it before, but I felt I'd rather do that than send them something cringingly bad. I thought about this for days, and then I sat down and forced myself to write a first draft.

It wasn't hilarious. That's not going to be the tidy and uplifting ending to the story. But it wasn't awful. When I sent it in to give them an initial direction of where I was going with it, they said they'd laughed out loud. Possibly they were exaggerating to be pleasant, but that's ok. The point is, so far it's not a disaster. I had anticipated awkward silences, and perhaps a rebrief or some firm suggestions as to how to improve it. But they don't seem worried at all.

I haven't finished it yet, and I'm probably putting a curse on myself by writing this before the work is successfully complete. But I'm weirdly not scared about it any more. What it appears to have proved is that sometimes, we shouldn't listen to our fearful gut instinct - the one that says, leave it, you're going to mess it up. Sometimes it might be holding us back. The project may not end up a roaring success, but I don't think I'm going to do a terrible job. And if I get offered this kind of work again, it won't keep me awake in a panic every night.

Maybe I'm being boring and sanctimonious in this post - sorry if so. I'm writing it as a sort of reminder to myself, because this small experience has been an eye-opener for me. It means that maybe I can do the other kinds of writing I've ruled out too. Maybe I can write proper fiction if I wanted to. Maybe I could master eyeshadow, or learn how to tell a joke without killing the punchline. The world is my oyster.

However I'm not going back to skiing. Maybe I'm a bit more confident now, but I'm not insane.

My eyes! My eyes!

2009-08-01T17:21:00.004+01:00

I'm at work. On a Saturday. Yep, true story.

Anyway for that reason I have to keep this brief, but I did want to pop by and say hello. Also I wanted to share this optical illusion with you that I saw in New York magazine. First of all (Part One) I'm going to show you a picture, and then (Part Two) I'm going to blow your mind.

*clears throat*

Part One:

Part Two: the 'blue' and the 'green' in the above picture are in fact exactly the same colour.

I know! But it's true. There's an explanation here.*

*Unfortunately there is no explanation for why I am such a huge geek.

And don't get me started on kids

2009-07-27T12:34:00.002+01:00

A faintly embarrassing truth about me: invite me to a wedding and I am guaranteed to weep sentimental tears of joy during the ceremony. I don't care if I've never met the couple before in my life, or if I'm secretly running a sweepstake on when they'll divorce (I've never done that, honest. I definitely didn't do it at your wedding). Something about a couple standing up there in front of everyone forces emotion from my wizened old heart. In a wedding situation involving me, there is always a 99% chance of precipitation.

On the other hand, attempt a conversation about the possibility of me getting married, and there's quite a strong chance of me vomiting or slapping you in the face. Sign a contract that requires me to commit to something for the rest of my life? Why in the name of jumping Jehovah would I want to do something like that? I don't even want to commit to myself for that long.

Having said that, I had a moment of 'getting it' on Saturday at a wedding reception. I'm going to try and explain what dawned on me.

I may have written this here before, but I often have a bit of a problem with going to bed. I find myself staying up late for no reason whatsoever, literally doing nothing except feeling faintly uneasy. I do it because to go to bed feels to me like saying "OK, I accept it. I have given up all hope on this day getting better. Nothing else of worth is going to happen today so I might as well just throw the towel in." And that's just depressing.

I tend to view marriage in the same way. "Fine. My years of being single and free and having an exciting and adventurous life are over. The happy years are behind me. I may as well just bloody get married and give up on life." The phrase 'to settle down' doesn't help. I think of getting married as an ending - hopefully a happy one but let's face it, you rarely know for certain (except, I say confidently, in the case of Claire and Hywel, who I envy hugely because they've each found the perfect person). I don't want an ending. I love my life as it is, and the thought of giving up now depresses the hell out of me.

(Of course you'll have realised by now that I'm mental, and you'll be wondering what the hell my parents put me through to result in this dysfunctional view of relationships. Well actually they've been happily married for 38 years, so unfortunately I can't lay the blame at their door. Which is irritating.)

What I realised in a moment of clarity, while my friend James was telling the wedding party that his new wife is "the sunshine of my world", is that getting married doesn't actually signal the end of your life.

(I'll just pause briefly in case any of you are like me and need to let this revelation sink in for a moment. I am also going to sit and stare agog out of the window.)

...

Apparently when you get married you continue your life, and your adventures, but you just commit to doing that alongside someone else - generally someone you're pretty fond of. It's not like being glued down, static, to Married Life. It's like holding hands with someone and travelling along together.

I'm still slightly struggling with my new perspective on marriage but I'm going to try and hold on to my mini-epiphany. To summarise: going to sleep is usually not the end of things; you generally wake up to a fresh new day. Marriage is a fresh new day too. At least I believe that to be the theory.

With an eraser and everything.

2009-07-23T23:27:00.003+01:00

Good evening, readers, and may I start by saying how attractive you look tonight? Haircut, is it?

I'm writing this on my iPhone from my bed, which is a bit like blogging for the new millennium if it weren't for the fact that blogging itself is quite new millennium. It's been a lowkey week, dominated mainly by trying to work my way through the tub of houmus I bought on Monday, trying out different spellings of hummus, and trying not to think about swine flu.

I'm now completely addicted to the book I mentioned, Valley Of The Dolls. I don't want to spoil it for you but let's just say I'm halfway through and already there've been some very risqué antics, some illicit drug taking and some shockingly implausible dialogue. Deep joy. It also entertains me by featuring lots of references to a sad old middle-aged woman who turns out to be 34. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that if a man doesn't buy me a mink and a diamond ring in the next year or two I might as well be dead.

I wish I had an exciting tale from my own life to share, but it's been a bit short on adventure recently. At a party on Saturday I did the limbo under a giant pencil (yes, an actual pencil). Is that any good?

Oh! There goes a lung

2009-07-13T23:40:00.000+01:00

So, I'm ill again. The most probable culprit is Milo, now aged 16 months. He was a bit sick for a day or two last week, then made a quick recovery. Since then, both his parents, three of his grandparents, his great uncle, his aunt (me) and his grandparents' lovely neighbours have all come down with it. Cue much vomiting in and around London (although I escaped the actual chundering this time and just felt like it was about to happen all day). The boy brought down at least nine adults.

Milo has a special skill for this. My sister described him today as a "crawling biological weapon". You spend an hour or two with him speeding around your ankles on a mission, occasionally looking up to adorably try one of his new words ("brush" is my personal favourite) and to point at something meaningfully before abruptly losing interest. The following day you're doing what my dad referred to as a "yodel royale", retching up some of your internal organs into the nearest bin. It's sweet really. In a way. Bless him.

And no wonder!

2009-07-11T11:57:00.001+01:00

My lovely friend and sometimes-colleague Cat (she hasn't updated her blog since February. I think if you click on that link and read it you will agree that this is a crying shame. Do leave her some comments to persuade her) has lent me her copy of Valley Of The Dolls by Jacqueline Susann. It is her favourite-avourite book. She loves it so much that her copy has been reinforced with sellotape, and frankly I'm in a constant state of anxiety in case I accidentally leave it on the tube/drop it in the bath/leave my one-year-old nephew alone with it and return to find paragraphs all over the floor.

I wanted to share with you the not-at-all-melodramatic blurb written on the inside cover of the book. Ha-hem.

From Broadway to Hollywood, this is one of the fastest-selling, most whispered-about novels ever. And no wonder! It reveals more about the secret, drug-filled, love-starved, sex-satiated, nightmare world of show business than any book ever published.

It is about the world where sex is a success weapon, where love is the smiling mask of hate, where slipping youth and fading beauty are ever-present spectres. It is a world where the magic tickets to peace or oblivion are "dolls" - the insider's word for pills - pep pills, sleeping pills, red pills, blue pills . . . and pills to chase the truth away.

VALLEY OF THE DOLLS is the story of three of the most exciting women you'll ever meet; women who were too tough or too talented not to reach the top . . . and unable to enjoy it once they were there!

ANNE WELLES: the icy New England beauty who melted for the wrong Mr Right . . . an Adonis famous for his infidelity.

NEELY O'HARA: the lovable kid from vaudeville who became a star and a monster.

JENNIFER NORTH: the blonde goddess who survived every betrayal committed against her magnificent body except the last.

Each of them was bred in the Babylons of Broadway and Hollywood. Each of them learned about making love, making money, and making believe. Each of them rode the crest of the wave. And each of them came finally to the Valley of the Dolls.

This novel - big, brilliant, savage and sensational - tells its inside story . . . the shockingly true story behind those headlines . . . knowingly, compellingly and intimately.

Don't miss it. And don't lend it to a friend. You'll never get it back.

Clearly Cat hasn't read the inside cover carefully enough.

I'm about 30 pages in and so far I've only met Anne and Neely - but I'm very intrigued as to what betrayals are due to be committed against Jennifer North's magnificent body. I am going to try to imagine myself a star of the book. Perhaps something like:

HATTIE CRISELL: the naive northerner who found her feet in the Big City - only to be brought to her knees by the cruel world of romance.

Or:

HATTIE CRISELL: the sensitive writer who made it big in digital media - but lost her soul along the way.

Or:

HATTIE CRISELL: the promising talent who got dragged into a world of after-work boozing in seedy London dives.

It's a work in progress.

By the way, gang - I'm in the process of planning a website for myself. Nothing exciting, just somewhere that will link to my blog etc, for work purposes. I have a very talented designer who is going to help me out but I think I'm going to go for something very simple. Having said that, it would be great to hear anyone's thoughts on what should go up there - whether I should go completely minimalistic or try something a little bit cleverer. Any ideas, stick 'em in the comments section. Thank you.

Jeff Goldblum: "He was not only a friend and a mentor, but he was also me."

2009-07-02T14:46:00.002+01:00

Last Thursday, as you all know, Michael Jackson died. I heard about it on Twitter just after TMZ broke the news, and I sat in front of my computer and the TV for two hours, looking for more information. Twitter comes into its own in these situations - if there's a latest development, you can be sure that someone you're following will tweet it. It's a bit like having 100 people to gossip with - which maybe doesn't sound that appealing to some of you, but considering my line of work, I'm in my element.

Anyway. During all the Michael Jackson Twitter flurry, some hilarious joker set up a fake news page announcing that the actor Jeff Goldblum had also died that night, which turned out to be utter bollocks. And this morning I saw this clip from The Colbert Report, which really tickled me.

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Jeff Goldblum Will Be Missed

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Jeff Goldblum

I love Jeff Goldblum. Apparently he's dating this very lucky 21-year-old actress. Humph.

In other news, Claire and Hywel's wonderful wedding (did I mention Claire got married?) has been featured on the very well-known (if you're into that kind of thing) wedding blog, Style Me Pretty - here, here, here and here (look out for me looking a bit awkward in the bridesmaid picture). They've described it as a "sweet, sophisticated British wedding" with "chic style" (they add, "Doesn’t it just kill you that even the guests are chic!" - a-thank-you-very-much). The photos are gorgeous, and are by the talented photographer Marianne Taylor. If you're getting married (well, you might be) I know Claire can't recommend her highly enough.

I'm still alive.

2009-06-30T16:41:00.004+01:00

Hi, long-gone readers! It's your friendly-but-incompetent blogger here. It's been 20 days since I last blogged. Twenty. I feel thoroughly ashamed of myself.

I'm blogging in my underwear at present. Not in a saucy way, but in more of a holy-cats-it's-hot-today-and-I-refuse-to-sweat-through-another-T-shirt-especially-when-the-washing-machine-is-broken sort of way. It's only 32º (that's 90º, to those of you who work in Fahrenheit). I know that's not very hot if you're from Egypt, or India, or Oklahoma (hi, friends from Oklahoma). But it's enough to turn me into an irritable, sweaty, lethargic bore with a clammy tomato face.

Now that you have that attractive image in mind, let me proceed with the blog post.

So, I haven't done much blogging this June. This is what I have done:

worked very hard. OK, quite hard. I'm not a miner or anything. However I have returned to work on Big Brother, which involves sitting in a grubby portacabin for nine hours a day with no natural light. So not completely dissimilar to mining.
gone to three gigs: Britney Spears (free ticket, much fun), Kings Of Leon (we got told off by the woman behind us for standing up, to which Jenni replied "Do you think we're at the ballet?") and Bruce Springsteen (brilliant brilliant brilliant).
been to the dentist for the first time in a few years. Terrifying.
been to the theatre twice: Hamlet (starring Mr Jude Law. He wasn't bad... he was just a bit too... Jude Law) and Jewels, which is a Balanchine ballet and reminded me of a magical sparkly Christmas.
been a bridesmaid for the third time. You know what they say: 'Three times a bridesmaid... obviously a loser'. It was Claire and Hywel's wedding, so let's blame them if I end up a miserable spinster. Although actually I see myself more as a jolly spinster.

So, to the matter at hand. I read a couple of articles the other day about what is apparently a downward trend in blogging. It seems people are abandoning their blogs left, right and centre. I don't want to be one of those undedicated bastards, but I fear I'm heading that way.

According to this article, 95% of blogs have been abandoned. One of the reasons it cites is that bloggers have moved on to Twitter, where they can express a thought quickly and get an instant response. I think that's the issue with me. I love Twitter. I use it to ask people's advice, make stupid jokes, get information, share music, see what the funny people are saying and occasionally vent my rage. It's made me lazy with the blog, which takes much more effort and provides me with much less feedback and interaction.

But I don't want to give up on hattiehattie. I feel it's part of who I am now and I'm determined not to let another month pass with only three entries. Please shout at me if I don't stick to my word. Shout gently, though.

Piling and re-piling: the secret of my success

2009-06-10T21:19:00.000+01:00

When I was 18 and working as a barmaid in Newcastle, I once went to a party in a squat.

It had all the ideal features of a party: it started at 3am, it was full of 'cool' people, it felt vaguely dangerous, and my parents would have been horrified if they'd known I was there.

The squat was not a pleasant place. There was no furniture, only dirty bedding in the corners of the rooms. There was no electricity. Every aspect of it was manky. It wasn't a place where you wanted to touch anything or anybody.

I was reminded of that squat when I got home from work tonight and walked into my bedroom. In fact, the current state of my bedroom makes that squat look like the white, flower-filled waiting room that Mother Theresa probably sat in before they opened the gates of heaven.

I don't know why I'm such a slob. Considering I had daily "Tidy your room!" bollockings throughout my childhood and adolescence, you'd think I'd have OCD by now. In fact, I think my parents owed me that, and have let me down. Forget unconditional love and a private education - an obsessive compulsive disorder is the practical gift that just keeps giving.

But no. Their continued, shouty efforts to make me into a tidy human being failed to have any impact whatsoever. I never have any urge to put things away as soon as I receive them/take them off/get them back from the laundry. Instead, I have a highly developed filing system based around a structure you'll be familiar with: the pile. By organising letters, receipts, magazines, postcards, tickets and books into piles all over my bedroom floor, I can store them vertically instead of horizontally. This creates the psychological illusion of tidiness. It's only when the system begins to overflow, piles merging with each other, clean clothes scrumpled under dirty clothes, and I find that I'm using widely spaced stepping stones of carpet to reach my bedroom door, that something needs to be done. This something usually involves a quick sift through about 30% of the stuff, a chucking away of 80% of that, and a re-piling. Then I'm good to go for another five to six weeks.

The weird thing is, outside my flat I'm not a disorganised person. In fact, especially in my professional life, I'd say I'm a highly organised and efficient person (any friend or family member who wants to leave a sarky comment about this, on yer bike). There are never bills hidden in the piles - I pay all my bills as soon as they come in. My life is planned weeks in advance. I always have clean clothes and a fully charged phone and enough money in my bank account and all that everyday jazz. Those who haven't been to my flat probably think I'm quite a 'together' sort of person, not someone who they would imagine living in squalor. And yet, behind closed doors, I'm the kind of girl who has six dusty old glasses of water - or worse, cups of tea - positioned in random spots around her bedroom.

My room is like the portrait of Dorian Gray. The more shambolic it gets, the greater my power. Or something.

Awkward...

2009-06-09T18:00:00.008+01:00

Hi kids. Sorry I'm late. It's been a somewhat hectic couple of weeks, with friends staying, odd work hours, preparations for Claire's WEDDING!!, and photo shoots.

Yes, you heard. Photo shoots. OK, there's been a photo shoot, and there's another one on Thursday. Neither of them are glamorous or count as real photo shoots.

Check out my new profile picture. Yes, that's me, smiling coquettishly at someone sitting on your right. On Saturday my family all had our photos taken, separately and together, at the request of my dad. Up until now we've only ever had pictures of us all looking a bit tipsy at Christmas, with party hats on, but now we have proper professional photos to put on the wall.

Getting my picture taken is not my ideal way to spend an afternoon, as I've explained before on this blog. Point a camera at me and I either grin like a moron or start awkwardly looking for the nearest exit. It's a credit to the photographer we used that only about 20% of the images feature my special trademark awkward facial expression: one eye closed, the other half open.

Then the day after tomorrow I've got to pose for some photos for a magazine I sometimes work on. They needed someone desperately and my boss emailed me saying "You will never work here again if you don't do it". So you might say she charmed me into it.

Now seems as good a time as any to point you to AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com. You've probably seen it before, but it bears looking at again. Just look at this lovely portrait, brimming with the fun and affection of family life:
It in no way reminds me of my relationship with my parents.

There's my face, there's my face!

2009-05-28T12:23:00.012+01:00

Many of you don't know me in real life. To you, dear strangers, I dedicate this post.

That little photo to the right, and these black and white words on the page, give you a glimpse into my character. But it is merely that: a glimpse. And who is the real Hattie Crisell?

Let me paint you a picture. I'm the kind of lady who likes to lounge around her palatial apartment in a gold lamé dress with huge puff shoulders. I wear orange lipstick and backcomb my hair. I wear tan tights. I am not afraid to dress like a figure skater.

Let's get on to my beauty regime. When I take all my make-up off, I look suspiciously like I'm still wearing huge amounts of eyeliner and mascara. But I powder very very good. I'm very dramatic.*

Well hello! Welcome to my blog. Now please sit back and enjoy this video** of my new lifestyle inspiration, Brenda Dickson (thank you Miss Catriona).

Brenda Dickson is real. She is a real treat from 1987. After you've enjoyed that fabulously informative documentary, you may like to watch this very very funny spoof by Deven Green. Go on.

Welcome To My Home Part 1 - A Comedy Parody by Deven Green

*Some or all of this information about myself may be false.

**Nooooo! Since I posted this, Ms Dickson herself has forced Youtube to take it down. Words cannot express my disappointment that you won't all be able to see the video - it's hilarious. My apologies on behalf of her nonexistent sense of humour.

The hattiehattie playlist returns

2009-05-20T14:19:00.005+01:00

Last week I posted a link to a Spotify playlist. Later that day, Spotify went down and my playlist became inaccessible (cheers for making me look like an idiot, Spotify). BUT, it seems to be back today. And I've added another song (Multiply by Mobius Band). Give it a go.

Of course if nobody comments on it again, I can just assume Spotify's still not working. So at least that's like a nice protective hug for my ego.

Batman in my bedroom

2009-05-19T19:36:00.003+01:00

On Sunday morning I woke up in Paris with a feeling sometimes known as... The Fear. It was that abstract unease that often accompanies a bad hangover, when you wonder exactly how obvious it was to all your friends that you had one too many shandies last night (or in my case, caipirinhas), and exactly what you were conversing with the taxi driver about. In French. When you don't speak French.

It all started well. On Saturday night, after a lovely afternoon with Barry and Marion, I headed out to meet my old university friends Sarah and Alex in a shabby but irresistible sci-fi themed bar called UFO, on Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud. One fast caipirinha later, we were skipping off to a cheap and cheerful pizzeria (not very French, I realise) where Sarah (who had been drinking for a few hours) kept saying "You've got to catch up!" and topping my glass up with vinegary red wine.

Then we got to the main event: Eurovision. For those lucky enough not to know what I'm referring to, the Eurovision Song Contest is an annual celebration of Eurotrash in the form of a music competition. Every country in the continent (or most of them) submits a song, and then everyone votes for a winner. A good Eurovision song must meet at least most of the following criteria:

As Alex sagely pointed out early on in proceedings, it must have someone playing gypsy violin.
Everyone on the stage must be wearing a hideously tacky costume, featuring sequins, cleavage, lycra and feathers.
Wherever it comes from, at least part of the musical number must be sung in heavily accented English.
Any male who features in the performance must be unbelievably camp.
Each song must feature some sort of faintly disturbing dance routine. If a skirt or two gets ripped off, so much the better.

Then when it comes to the voting bit, each country has its own (debatably) good-looking TV presenter to come and announce the points awarded. This presenter will usually attempt a series of crap jokes and puns before getting to the points, perhaps in the hope that this could launch an international career for them. Also, it is a given that every country will give the highest points to the countries nearest them. It's all political. It's fabulous.

So the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 was on Saturday night, and Alex insisted we find somewhere to watch it. Disappointingly, it turns out that the French couldn't be less interested in Eurovision, so we ended up in a tiny English pub which had three other customers: two silent English blokes and one incredibly drunk Irish man. We'll call him Pat, because I think that was his name.

While Sarah, Alex and I sat in a corner, knocking back rum and cokes and shouting at Norway, Pat kept stumbling over to our table, asking us where we were all from, shouting about Ireland, spilling his Guinness and then trying to give us all hugs. Charmer. The reason we were shouting at Norway was that Norway won. By a landslide. Their song heavily featured a virtuoso gypsy violinist.

By the end of the contest, I was in such a good and patriotic (and drunk) mood that I was on the verge of doing my own performance of God Save The Queen.

I was just about to ask the others how they were getting home when Sarah cheerfully announced that we were going to meet her friends back at UFO. My head said no, but by this point my heart was driving.

So off we tottered to the bar, which was now overflowing with Parisian hipsters. At least that's my hazy memory. I also remember having a conversation with a very good-looking and arrogant French boy on the stairs. I have literally no idea what was said or whether I even managed to string a sentence together.

It was at this point that I turned to Sarah with a look of panic in my eyes and said firmly, "I'm really drunk." I remember turning down the last caipirinha. That was probably a good choice. Soon afterwards I headed back to the hotel, which is where I awoke eight hours later feeling a bit sheepish.

To sum up, I had a fucking great time in Paris.

Also, I thoroughly recommend the hotel I stayed in, which was one of the cheapest I could find (apart from hostels) and couldn't have been more comfortable and stylish. It's called Mama Shelter; it's a Philippe Starck designed hotel and you can check it out here.

Here's me in my lovely room (snapped in the mirror):

The only slightly creepy (or cool, depending on your perspective) thing about the hotel is that there are Bruce Wayne masks hanging in the rooms. You can imagine how I felt when I opened my eyes on Sunday and was confronted by Bruce peering at me, his face inches from mine.

Paris, I shall miss you. London, I'm still happy to be back.

IMPORTANT P.S.: There's an excellent breakdown of Eurovision - with photos! - here. Thank you Fug Girls!