BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music

I went to this concert at the Barbican yesterday, presented by the lovely Verity Sharp and Kwame Kwei Amah. I have to say the music was top notch, go see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/worldmusic/a4wm2007/index.shtml

Anyway we started with lunch at Tamarind.

a delightful red

potato cake thingies

tandoori paneer

dhal, morel mushrooms and snow peas, okra

in yoghurt (delicious), rice, potatoes.

rasberry sorbet

masala tea

the awards show

The System

Today I stuck it to 'The Man'.

I was in the petrol station buying lunch with the music guy, (let's call him Robbie), and proceeded to select an ice-cream from the Walls freezer. Now's about the right time to start having ice-cream for lunch. (This is a throwback from my uni days when two of my friends used to have a magnum double caramel for lunch almost every day).

Anyways, I wanted something creamy, perhaps minty, definitely chocolatey. And there it was...a mint 99 flake.

I took it to the pay desk.

The cashier (Sultana Begum) scanned my other items. These were two packs of chocolate caramel digestives (2 for £1.50). She scanned my other item - the ice-cream. Something was amiss. Up popped the price: £2.99. It had scanned as a "Lord of the Rings top trump" pack. This wouldn't do.

"How much is this?" said I, pointing to the 99.

"Oh sorry mister, I will make adjustment".

She tapped away at the screen, and I left after paying £2.49 in total. Robbie and I exited the petrol station, turning our mobile phones back on. I glanced down at my receipt and, low and behold:

I had paid 99p for my 99 Flake!

Bookshop Bloke = 1
"The Man" = 0

Murder Death Kill etc etc

Last night I saw Zodiac in the cinema. It was excellent. It's about 3 hours long, but directed by David Fincher and with a great ensemble cast starring all those good looking fellas (Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Dermot Mulroney). Man, they are good looking. If I had to chose [to be] one, it'd be Dermot, but that's more down to Julia Roberts and My Best Friend's Wedding than anything else.

It's the best film I've seen this year (ahead of Amazing Grace and 300). But I do need to go and watch a few more films. After the film, I went home and immediately wikipediad the film and everything to do with the Zodiac killings. [Did you know that the lead detective in the case used to send fanmail to himself?]

Anyway I have just watched Hostel, so I have serial killers on the brain.
I might watch something a bit more sedate tomorrow - perhaps The Wicker Man.

...

P.S. Poor poor Cutty Sark :(

(I read this somewhere)

When i was a little girl some other girls in school told me that I was nothing. I ran home crying to my grandmother. My grandmother said, "You tell them to Fuck off!" Then think to yourself, "kiss my entire ass."

You spin me right round, baby right round.

I did the Spinner class at the gym today. For anyone not in the loop, it was the craze of two years ago, after celebrities like Cameron Diaz, Tara Reid and Jennifer Aniston all started doing it in the gym. It's basically a group cycling exercise, but it's quite fantasy based in that the intructor constructs a narrative in which you immerse yourself. You competitively cycle to thumpingly grandiose music, all the while the instructor 'encourages' you along.

Anyway, it was quite a good class, but he chose to narrate a 'Gladiator' fantasy, in which we imagined we were riding along with Russell Crowe and had to cross some bridges. We rode along with Maximus Decimus Meridius, dodging the Spartans (or whoever they were), and after a lungbusting ride made it across the bridge to safety, with a few casualities along the way.

Now, I'm not one to complain when it comes to fantasy roleplaying, however, this one wasn't exactly to my tastes.

When you're cycling along the Seven Hills of Rome, and the only thing you can see in front of you are the rotating buttocks of a Janet Street Porter lookalike, the last thing you want to visualise is Russell Crowe in a metallic thong.

Then it just gets confusing.

You want some, do ya?

I passed me theory test today, yay!

I got 34/35 in the theory part (I got an 'Attitude' question wrong), and 58 out of 75 in the Hazard Perception bit. [Thanks for the stuff you leant me Lou.]

On another note, a lot of nice people are moving on from the bookshop, and I'm angry coz it's making me a bit sad. I hate being angry-sad...it's worse than being sad-sad. The last time I was angry-sad was when I had my phone snatched as I lay on a bench chatting away in Fitzroy Square at dusk. I was having an important conversation, and reclining on a bench in one of the poshest squares in Nodnol, when all of a sudden it was wrenched from my hand and ear.

In the commotion, my glasses flew off, and I jumped off the bench. I saw two blurry cackling figures disappearing away in the distance and shouted 'Not my fucking glasses as well!!" (I thought I was perhaps a victim of the latest mugging phenomenon: 'speccy slapping'). I was furious and intensely scared, and it was a weird mix. I needed a brandy to calm my nerves.

Anyway, I'm currently very tired, coz my test was at 8:30am, and I was up til 2am working out stopping distances (of which I didn't get a question on).

So, I'm tired, angry and sad.

But I'm happy I passed my test, yay!

Unpleasantness

A worried looking man in an orange fleece came up to me at work today. Here's our following exchange:

"mumble mumble mumble.....there appears to be what can only be described as an 'accident' in the Gent's toilets."

"oh dear...I'll alert the manager".

I told the shop floor boss, who'd had certain reports about it, and told me he'd tell his boss to go take a look. Moments later, the boss boss paged me:

"so Bookshop Bloke, you know the quickest way to move up within the store..."

"I'm not cleaning the toilet."

"well, can you stand guard while I do, and make sure no one comes in?"

I stood around in front of the door, to make sure no one stumbled in. The boss, (a nice guy, laid back stoner type) had yet to emerge from the office.

Curiosity started to rear it's head. 'Don't look, there's no reason to look, why do you need to look, he'll just come in and clean it up' ran my thoughts.

Still no boss.

'Come on...where are you....?'.

So...

I peeped.


Yep, it was bad.

_________________

A few moments later, the hot blonde from the stationary stand ambles in my direction:

"Hey, how are you...why are you standing like that?"

"Oh no reason, no reason"

"It looks really odd, why you're standing there."

"Oh no reason.....how are you....I like your charm bracelet."

"Thanks. So why are you standing there?"

"Oh...there was like an 'accident' in the toilets, so I have to make sure no one goes in."

"Oh.

Is it bad?"

"Yeah...

it's bad."

______________________________

After he'd finished cleaning, the boss emerged and looked me in the eyes. We shared a glance. Mine was reassuring yet pitiful. His eyes turned downwards, ashamed.

"I feel all dirty and used."

"Just go home, go home."


All this got me thinking about cleaners. It's basically the worst job you can get in society, it pays the least, is disgusting and no one wants to do it. Of course, everyone know's it's essential, but it's never valued as much.

However, in store, whenever some kids pukes over the stairs, or does something else in the toilets, the people that clean up the mess are the managers. Our (bookseller's) opinons are that they don't pay us enough to clean it up, so why should we. If we got manager's salaries, we'd happily clean the stuff up. So the true value of a cleaner is £30K a year or so.

I suppose that's why plumbers cost so much.