Five (5) Things. OSCAR NITE

1. John Travola Lego hair.
2. Michelle Obama, what a smasher.
3. Very proud of English ladies winning prizes for costume design and makeup and barely bothering to dress up at all. Makeup and hair ladies looked like they had got their outfits and hairdos at Debenhams.
4. See Jack Nicholson, start laughing immediately.
5. Sets, out of the 70s, designed by Siegfried and Roy, j'en suis convaincu.

Five (5) Things, Thursday 21 February

1. Americans who clap themselves. Why?
2. Extreme Home Makeover. Mawkish drivel run by a man with hair product. In it, people run and clap at the same time and everyone does high-fives. I hate it, and yet it makes me cry. Sometimes the people go 'WOOOOO' and every 12th word is 'community'. Then everyone hugs each other.
3. Accidental biscuits. The last box of Dorset Cereals Muesli in the Four Brothers shop of a type I cannot remember, but it was not eat-able as a cereal because it was 80% nuts and dried fruits inc. dates. I made Australian biscuit things out them off their website but: olive oil instead of butter, 2/3 of the sugar, maple syrup instead of treacle, chopped up crystallised ginger, self raising flour instead of plain flour and fuck me if they weren't delicious.  The odd thing is that despite their pretty packaging and claims to be 'green' (yawn) etc etc I am not really that interested in Dorset Cereals and I am not any more likely to buy their product again (the porridge in a pouch stuff is vile) but this time it was good. 
4. If Cadbury dropped a bubbly bar on my head attached to a parachute, however, I'd snap it up.
5. I just don't understand why I haven't got a dog. It doesn't make any sense. 

Five (5) Things. Wednesday 20 February

1. Am extravagantly rude to downstairs neighbour, who I dislike. Spend some time wondering if I regret it (sinking to his level, future relationship, wall we both need to pay for, etc), and realise, no, I do not regret it one jot, for he is a cock and the broken wall is bigger than the both of us.
2. Wash Parka. Parka comes out of tumbler-dryer (as I wish it were called) and the zip has fallen off, plus the hoodhair (raccoon I think - washing rat, as it is known in French Canada) has gone stiff round the edge. It is no good to me anymore, but it is too late in the winter to justify another one, so I am going around in an old one that is tight looking like a fat centipede with all his legs tucked in (apart from the 2 back ones he is walking on).
3. Conversation with a man who does not blink for 43 minutes. Can't work out why he is so strange, then realise he has an MBA. 
4. Wonder out loud when House of Throne Cards is on.
5. Tell someone I have been to 'the Two Brothers supermarket'. It is actually called the 'Four Brothers Supermarket'. 
6. Read a lot about British supermarkets. Feel like I am there. Talk a lot about Britain with some Canadians (for my job) and then think about it a lot for the rest of the day, i.e. do we want to live there or not. Sometimes I feel like this, then I think about how it's nearly Spring in the England now, and in the Canada there is still snowstorms and even when it melts, the papers and telly will still be rubbish.

Five (5) Things. Sunday 17th February

1. I like "Real Housewives" programmes a lot. I am confused, though, about the surgery. If you look at Beverley Hills housewives, their facial 'attentions' are relatively subtle. If you look at the Vancouver ladies, you wonder if they have eyes in their heads. Their faces are still, so still and glossy, and their little puffy mouths move in the stillness. They surely do not watch back the episodes of "Real Housewives" that they are in, for if they did, they would notice it - unless they are all blind. 
2. Taking of Vancouver, watched a programme in which some people from Vancouver were preparing to take up a job offer in the Isle of Man. The programme was about moving houses. I watched a bit of it (for nothing is funnier than watching North Americans looking at British style houses - "is that the walk-in closet?" when looking at the withdrawing room, for e.g.), but it seemed inconclusive and they moved into a house with a stiff window.
3. Talking of Vancouver (again), I went there last year for a bit. All the people say 'thank you' to the bus drivers. It rains a lot. The setting is strange, when you can see it (when it's not raining), for there are mountains at the end of the road. I saw an old friend who I could have talked to all night, and rented an apartment from a tiny English man in a polyester mix suit who had "a position in an IT business".  I wasn't sure about it at all, but we got drunk at the Christmas fair and ate a huge sausage in an arm-length roll.
4. Listened to 1984 on the radio on the train (on my Apple Macintosh "Walkman") and shrieked when Winston and Julia got caught 'at it'. All the people on the train looked at me. I was not ashamed. 
5. Had a nice scone with oats it for breakfast and a bit of bread with hazelnuts and cranberries in it. I think the scone was from the man out of the Guardian. The other one is a recipe by Sybil Kapoor, who is a genius, and who wrote a book for the National Trust called Simply Baking.  This is a book that is owned by everyone who shops in Waitrose a lot.  People who own dogs index at 189 against it.  Do not ask me how they work out Indexes. I have never understood it. 
6. Finally (6), here is a product that allows you to have a nice little sleep at your desk undetected and undisturbed. Where this product has been all my life I couldn't tell you, but no matter - it is here, and I shall use it.  Nighty night ! (Or not!)

Five (5) Things. Friday 15th February (+1)

1. Didn't realise it is the week it is. Thought the big thing was a week away. It is on Monday. Thought for a long time along the lines of 'just as well' etc (while leaning back in chair and bouncing) as am hopeless without some small bit of pressure due to imminent deadline. All those people who plan ahead and have their presentation done 4 days early are weird. 
2. Read a bit of a book about industrial psychology. I like this behavioural economics malarkey. You know, don't worry about the price of things it is if someone says 'hello' that is important. Very good. Carry on. 
3. Not sure about sweet potato in soup if it's not blended. Strange. Not sure why I don't like it. 
4. Phoned someone up and sang "I just called to say I love you".
5. Got train. Surprised by man opposite, hugely tall, face like a cottage loaf with eyes made of tiny currants and feet like the pointy shoes in Vic 'n' Bob, talking proudly with the voice of a young girl.