This is Fluffy the Destroyer. Kneel before your one true god.

Arrrghhhhhh!

I'm restless and bored. Monday night telly is so shite isn't it? I've got University Challenge to look forward to soon but that's about it. The thing is I'm trying to start my diet again in earnest but boredom makes me want to eat. I'm one short step away from putting on my trainers and nipping across to the corner shop for some goodies. I suspect Bill Oddie might be busy though so I'll probably have to settle for some chocolate instead.

If I could run away somewhere then it would be here. Lovely Sydney NSW. Photo by Craig Williamson.

Breakfast at Sainsbury's

When I get an attack of the mean reds, I like to go for breakfast at Sainsbury's. Today this also included window (or should that be shelf) shopping round the clothes and home-ware sections to look at what lovely items I can't afford to buy this week due to a cock up with my pay. I got all excited about a purple iron that was on offer. I love purple. I am obsessed with having purple things. This does not, however, include a certain purple dinosaur whoring himself around on TV these days. I hate him.

Gosh

Nary a week has gone by and I haven't posted anything. Well, what have I been doing you may ask. The show went surprisingly well despite some rather over enthusiastic middle-aged ladies heckling during Saturday's performance. Slagging them off backstage without a care in the world we were, chunnering on about how rude they were until our lovely make-up girl Lisa pointed out that they were the daughters of one of our cast members. Oops. Well, they should know better shouldn't they?

Most of the rest of this week has been spent recovering (some of us stayed for late drinkies Saturday night). Although I haven't managed to get an early night yet. My brother and I went to see the fabulous Sheryl Crow at the MEN arena last night. Wonderful she was, albeit tiny and wee from our vantage point about halfway down the arena. It is my tradition to buy a t-shirt at such events but perusing the merchandise on offer I was greatly disappointed. They were all so drab dahling. The only splash of colour on offer was from a Natasha B'dingfield tee but I'm damned if I'm going to have her on my chest. I do have standards. At least with the money we saved we could buy half a lager and a tub of Revels.

And I've been watching Most Haunted Live of course (when I could stay awake). What fun. Dear lovely, jumpy Yvette. Debenhams must be all out of black leather trousers and polo necks. And it took a possessed Derek Akorah to tell her she was pretty. Bless. I do wonder at the psychic powers of the people ringing/texting in though. Enter the mystery bayonet which we were supposed to ascertain the history of using psychometry. What did the audience come up with? "I think it may have a violent history" says Mr P Freely. Well we didn't need a psychic to tell us that was bleedin' obvious did we?

Silly things

Silly things I thought I'd share;

There is an Australian depilatory product in Boots called 'Nad's'.

My new doctor's surname is Healey.

Lunch today was in Morelli's cafe in Whittakers department store in Bolton. I had my fave - Steak and red onion ciabatta. Its very nice in there and there's a mouth watering display of cakes on offer but its a tad expensive. If you're in there and they offer you coleslaw, make like the Grange Hill gang and 'Just Say No'. They'll only charge you extra for it, the cheeky buggers. Anyway, my ciabatta arrived accompanied by fries and a side salad. Well, I say salad but today it was just a bit of lettuce with some strange black goo on it. What is it with cafes and restaurants these days who think salad means half a dozen different types of lettuce and bugger all else? (maybe half a cherry tomato hidden under the rocket if you're really lucky) They don't even have the decency to call it a green salad so at least you're prepared for your tastebuds to be bored to death. Come on you cheap bastards! Give us tomato and cucumber, yes, but slap on a bit of sweet pepper or celery, onion, grated carrot - that sort of thing.

Anyway, must stop ranting. I tasted the black goo but couldn't actually discern what it was made of, which aroused my suspicions. So if you see me wandering around town with black eyes and asking after a chap called Mulder then please feel free to stab me in the back of the neck with a pencil* or something.

(* for any Net weirdos reading - this is a joke. I don't actually want to be stabbed with a pencil. I may grumble about my life periodically but i'm actually quite attached to it thank you.)

Grease is the word

I have been given express instructions not to wash my hair today so that my best mate can style it properly for tonight's show. Coming home from work, I was set upon my a member of Greenpeace armed with Fairy Liquid who managed to rescue two seagulls and a puffin from my oily locks. And not a shag in sight.

No change there then.

Me neeeeerves

Ulp! Its the first night of our show at TLT tonight and I'm decidedly nervous. More so than I am with the usual shows. I'm not sure why this is - probably due to the singing which I am doing solo for a couple of numbers. Its not like you can fake anything when you go wrong with a song. You can't ad lib (unless you can rhyme at the same time) like a normal play. In the panto last year I forgot one line of 'Search for the Hero' and had to mumble as though the mic had broken until I remembered the last word of the line. Hopefully no-one noticed. People also tend to notice if your voice goes flat or wobbly, which wouldn't have been a problem with 'SFTH' - it would have lent it an air of authenticity.

Anyway, I intend to arm myself with a hip flask filled with Southern Comfort. Purely for mecidinal porpoises you understand.

Trying to take my mind off it by watching Richard and Judy, I was amused by a chap interviewed about his night terrors. A clip of a documentary he is in tonight showed one of those Star Trek collectable plates with a voice over saying he was a fan. Well, I think I'd be having night terrors too if i'd spent money on that tat.

Tea

Ooh, and dunked in tea! Just enough that the choccy melts and you can lick it off then eat the biccy.

I'm talking about food again aren't I?

Um

Er, hello. Nice weather we're having eh?

Biscuits.

They're nice aren't they?

Especially the chocolate ones.

Swing when you're minging

Just heard some rather disturbing news from a friend of mine about a mutual aquaintance. Apparently he hosts a swingers email list. Not in itself a bad thing - I'm a very open minded kind of person. Its just that he and particularly his girlfriend aren't exactly supermodel types if you know what I mean. It prompted me to ask, "Why are swingers always mingers?" which sounds like a cue for a song, I know. In fact right now I have an image of Rex Harrison singing such a ditty. Probably due to the fact that we've just been rehearsing our show in which I sing 'Wouldn't it be Loverly' from My Fair Lady.

Ho hum

First day back at work today. Booo! It went pretty quickly though. Thank God. It was the AGM at TLT last night (one of these days I'll put a link in there) which was a bit mind numbing. Copious amounts of cheese and wine followed, which I avoided like the plague after the events of Saturday. The sound 'engineer' asked me if I was a Lambrini Girl. I indignantly replied that I was not. I don't drink cheap plonk (unless its the £2 a bottle stuff at Aldi which is actually nice) and resent the implication that I'm some vacant little scrubber who can't tell a Merlot from meths. I'm a discerning drinker you know - I was tipsy on Mateus Rose when most other teenagers were getting blotto on Thunderbird and Woodpecker cider. But then you couldn't stick a candle in a bottle of Thunderbird and call it a lamp. Not unless you *wanted* to light yourself up like a Roman candle on Bonfire night.

Weasel Greasing

Hmmmmm, what shall I do today? It seems Russell Grant has an idea or two for me in my horoscope...

"You could inadvertently spill a secret, making others upset and even angry with you. The only thing you can do is apologise. Eventually, people will see you didn't mean any harm. In the meantime, occupy yourself with solitary activities that give you peace of mind. Working with your hands is enormously comforting. You won't have to worry about blurting out sensitive information, either."

Whatever can he mean?

In the pink

Oh dear. One of the hottest days of the year and I appear to be off work. Whatever is a girl to do? Well, in fact, what I did was to go out into deepest Lancashire for the day. I'd planned to go to Maaaaaaatloooooooock (as Grampa Simpson would say) but changed my mind at the last minute and made my way to Clitheroe. I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. I went for lunch first at the rather fab Apricot Meringue cafe - one of our favourite haunts - to munch on a ham sandwich (Mama Cass would be proud) and a piece of their custard tart, which is to-die-for. Then I caught a bus to a little village called Downham which, I found out later, is where they film 'Born and Bred'. It is a truly gorgeous place in the shadow of Pendle Hill with quaint, honey coloured cottages and the most stunning view from the churchyard. I whiled away a good couple of hours there doing absolutely nothing.

Back home and flipping channels on the TV - is there a Doctor Who fan working on the Sharon Osborne show? I was greeted by the sight of some skit Sharon was performing with a guest and Hank Azaria as a camp Hispanic man called Aggedor. Unfortunately there were no renditions of 'Parkleda parthin menin klatch' which was a shame.

And from there it was off to rehearsal at Tyldesley Little Theatre where we're doing a variety show. Of course everyone had been regaled with my drunken exploits at the party on Saturday. What fun. The amount of people who came up to me saying "Oooh, we heard about you and the party..." as if I'd stripped naked and danced round the room singing Roll out the Barrel or something. Tch. Fortunately the director and the sound 'engineer' kindly deflected attention away from me by having the most spectacular slanging match I've ever seen there. Nice of them wasn't it?

Her Yumminess, Amanda Tapping. Pic from a DVD extra - a Stargate SG1 behind the scenes thingy.

Me with some lorikeets at Busch Gardens on hols last year.

The best laid plans

Well that weekend didn't turn out how I'd planned. I was meant to be trolling down to Nottingham for my optitian's appointment (long story - don't ask). I got up at dawn's crack (not a pleasant sight I can tell you) and got to the station only for my train to be cancelled. Which meant that I had to cancel my appointment. I was bloody furious but it did mean that I was in Manchester at my favourite time of day - early morning when there's not too many people about but still a nice, buzzy atmosphere. I sat in Albert Square and nonchalantly munched on a pain-au-chocolat where I was then set upon by some European tourists asking me to take their photo. "Ah", I thought, "its only one photo. Can't hurt." 30 seconds later I had half a dozen cameras at my feet waiting for my chocolatey finger to caress their buttons. Bugger. That done, I tootled off to look round the shops and buy some underwear from M&S - a pair of hold-me-in knickers and a mind boggling bra to conceal my weapons of mass distraction under a new dress I'd bought. Mind boggling because it was one of those new-fangled ones with detachable straps that you can wear 5 different ways. I think even Prof Steven Hawking would have had trouble figuring it out. "The nature of the universe and time? No problem! 5 way bra? Nope, no idea mate." Not to mention fumbling with the straps but I suspect I'm straying into bad taste here so I'll move on.

Popped over to a party at a friend's in the evening, enjoying the company of my compatriots from the theatre and quaffing some Ernest & Julio White Grenache. So quaffable that you feel like you're drinking pop - until the giddyness sets in. And my role as unintentional comedienne was fulfilled as I sat in a garden chair next to Hazel, speculating on the colour of a chap's eyebrows. You see, he has grey hair and a grey beard but dark eyebrows. My view of him was blocked so I leaned to one side in the chair, not realising that one of the legs was only precariously balanced on the edge of a flower bed. Down I go accompanied by much laughter - most of it from me (I told you that wine was good). I live to entertain. I had a good night, with our hostess topping up my glass every five minutes, up until approx 1am when I felt very ill. Needless to say, the entirety of yesterday was spent trying not to throw up the water I was trying to drink. I'm still a bit rough today but at least I'm off for a couple of days so I can recover whilst watching daytime TV. Or should that be in spite of watching daytime TV?

Virgin territory

Well here I am jumping on the blogging bandwagon. Very nerve-wracking for a computer novice like myself. I was inspired to do this by that guru of glitter (and ruler of the known universe) Lee.

But he doesn't know it yet. Muahahahahahaha!

You find me as mistress of the house just for tonight. Later I will partake of some Will and Grace and Patrick Stewart on the Jonathan Ross show and I have an M&S profiterole dessert on standby. A Friday night to leave you all envious. It's not that I don't have a social life....honest! I had an evening of laydee-lovin, booze swilling and dance-yer-tits-off shenanigans planned but it got cancelled. Thus I console myself with M&S's desserty goodness.