Some non-work things to look forward to over the next busy month:

• Jan-jan's (the mother creature) bday weekend
  
• The Jeremy Deller exhibition at the De La Warr Pavillion
• Armando Iannucci's new tv show Time Trumpet
• A floatation centre visit (still debating with my self about the colonic irrigation visit!)
  
• Avenue Q
• A free personal creative coaching session
  

Saturday was spent in Shoeburyness - didn't spend long there but it was a lovely train journey there and back along the Essex coast. I left my swimming costume at work with under used gym kit, so couldn't jump into the sea but enjoyed watching kids jumping off rusting framework and the windsurfers. I did fulfill some seaside requirements and received an odd sunburn on leg due to placement of shells and stones and ate fish and chips and ice cream.

I do love a day trip.

Yesterday was spent working in the production office on a Sikh festival out in Hounslow, it went well I think...certainly a learning curve of a day!

A busy week ahead...no, a busy couple of weeks...actually a busy month. Once August is over I'll have a little time to breathe until it starts again with meetings and arranging fireworks.

Bloody funny!

Lovebox - we braved the on/off rain to see strippers, insect circus museums, Coldcut - who rocked as always but we had to evacuate from the tent midway as it had become a roasting hot sauna, various DJ's (I have no idea who!), fine burgers, hugs from random pill'd up strangers, bumping into boyfs New Zealander relatives, teepee tents (unfortunately occupied by Secret Sundaze - good music but why oh why do all the fashionable wankers end up there?)

Sunday was spent chilling out, playing with the new pocket PC (oooohhhhhing and arrrhhhing at every new thing it does!), walking in Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park and generally being dismayed at my current lack of available friends to play with...

I finish working most weekends by September by which time most of them will be away getting married, moving, planning their around the world trips...the last 6/7 months have been strange. I moved out from living with my 3 best mates, then my dad died and it's been difficult to reconnect with those and other friends. Not to say that they weren't amazing and supportive but that I didn't and couldn't have the same priorities as them while I was 'healing myself'. I assumed that once I was 'better', I would go back to being the same 'me' but the whole process has changed 'me' dramatically - perhaps not on the outside but certainly on the inside. I suppose it's all part of the process of growing up (and as a certain person in my life keeps saying "Boudicca, you are almost 30").

Note to self: must plan well in advance more outings and visits with friends.

In the last 24hrs I have:

Taken an hour to travel from Paddington to Marble Arch (damn TFL and emergency tube closures)

Bought a HP iPAQ rx 1950 series (Wi-fi, one of the joys of the modern age!)

Laid in bed and been bathed with ice cubes by a drunk boyf
Moved bedding to front room with its large open windows to try and escape the heat (no such luck)
Been locked out my office for 2hrs (cue sunburnt cleavage)

London isn't made for weather this hot; all are rude and impatient including me...

This evening will be spent under a cold shower and tomorrow will be spent getting horribly drunk at Lovebox

I've just bought an unazukin and I've become so obsessed with her that I've:

• taken to reading through my work to do list and seeing what she says I should do and shouldn't do...
• put her by my speakers to find out what radio station I should be listening to (she likes 6 Music by the way)
• allowed her to control my food intake all day - she says a diet of biscuits and I follow like a fool...
  

Yesterday evening I went to see Fuerzabruta at the Roundhouse (after pre-theatre catch up, drinkies and snacks with the Fairy Uncle - thank you!). Umm, well I went expecting a spectacle and that's what I got but for all the exciting, beautiful, striking images within the show; I was still left slightly disappointed by it. The more I think about it the more parts of it I felt didn't work. I wanted more...I'd liken it to a ghost train. Ghost trains are exciting and funny while you're in there but the minute you come out nothing remains with you apart from "oooh, I liked that bit when the cobweb fell on my face"...and another thing, using African chats within upbeat (did I really just say upbeat???) ravey music doesn't work. On anything. Especially women in their pants throwing themselves through water above the audiences’ heads.

Yet another amazing gig from James Dean Bradfield at ULU last night. Beautiful,

Boyf got chatting to David Quantick (only of course after I'd said don't talk to David Quantick!) . He bought us pints and we chatted about the Manics and their solo careers. The consensus was "thoroughly nice bloke" - even took the time to take the piss out of the cure t-shirt on one of our party...

Quote of the night:

"I'd turn up to see the Manic Street Preachers shit" David Quantick

Nicky Wire - pink suited, middle-aged parent teachers evening ranter, poet, shambollix
James Dean Bradfield - beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, when someone uses a guitar to take you to another place, it literally leaves me breathless...also having a parent that has recently died, Ocean Spray meant more to me than anything last night - thank you (I try hard to refrain from bursting into Thank you for the music by ABBA!)
Sean Moore - what's the next step? Industrial hardcore? Freeform jazz? Electro soundscape? Come Mooro pull it out the bag boy!

'Zid Vicious' - what a marvellous headline!

Much better than the 'wash me' variety!

During the last 7 days

Bad Things:
Work, work, work...bloody work
This bloody weather - veering from blood-boiling hot to thunder storm central!
Slipping back into caffine drinking (naughty Boo)

Good Things:
Visits to Winchester to see Bollywood Steps
Horniman's Museum for stunning music and dance from Yemen with traditional instruments and full Sanaani costume.
Drunken weekends with brother and mates - too much vodka!

Things to look forward to next week:
James Dean Bradfield at ULU
Fuerzabruta at The Roundhouse
The Now Show at Greenwich Theatre

So I didn't get to see Nicky Wire but after a day in the heatwave sunshine at Europride and then watching the football and eating ice creams and drinking beer, I could barely move from Carla's bed let alone pull myself together to go to a gig! There'll be another time I'm sure.

Yesterday was great fun - we got down to Hyde Park Calling made all the more better by the fact that my brother and mates weren't working so we all proceeded to get horribly drunk and stoned and lie in the sun all day. I'm feeling a little delicate today...



*vomits in lap*

During the last 7 days

Bad Things:
Temper tantrums
Finance quagmires (VAT)
Too many chocolate biscuits
Floods of unexplained tears
Lack of gym visits
Crap eyesight (that's getting much much worse)

Good Things:
Cooing at babies
Receiving a strawberry tart from my work mate - afternoon tea rocks
Pink butterfly filofax and notebook covers
Visits (short but sweet or should that be drunken?) from brother
New phone/MP3 player
New contact lenses
Dreaming of tattoos
A moment of pure enlightenment during my last counseling session (I 'got' how and why and wherefore now I just have to do something positive with it)

Inbetween:
Finding Russell Brand increasingly attractive - wrong!

I've been blogtagged by Jessie

Here are my 8 “interesting” things about myself.

8. I have a filthy temper, but I now am ok at repressing it (generally).

7. I self-published my first book of poetry at the age of 8 (I still dream of writing poems, plays and novels - but never really get around to it!).

6. When I'm nervous I bite and/or touch my lower lip.

5. I have met a number of celebrities:

a) The Beautiful South and Eddi Reader in the same evening at a Womad - Paul Heaton said some very rude things that I didn't 'get' at the time but as I've grown up I have realised they totally inapproaiate to say to an 9 year old girl. Eddi Reader was lovely and spent ages with me and my brother telling us silly jokes and doing impressions of other pop stars.

b) I've met all the Manic Street Preachers (a couple of times). Richie was really lovely and spent ages chatting with me and a friend about all the bands, music, writers we were into. Nicky was a bit of a twat but kept my brother entertained for ages - Nicky still owes my brother his pink sparkly shirt!

c) Neil from The Divine Comedy once actually asked me "do you know who I am?" I replied "yes I do and I'm never going to buy one of your records again" - TWAT!

d) I worked at a nightclub and I was in the toilet backstage once and Brian from Placebo started banging on the door and swearing at me - I came out in a right mood - it turned out that he thought his bass player in there. (for information - I'm 5' 8" and pretty big, Brian is 4" and legally classed as a dwarf, he was shit scared)

e) I once had the chance to meet David Bowie backstage but I had to walk past him instead - I could bearly breathe let alone talk...

f) Lauren Laverne is lovely but is very boring on stage.

4. As I grow older I become more interested in things like murder mystery novels, board (bored?) games, visiting museums, taking an interest in flowers, etc...I'm 29 going on 80 plus. It worries me...

3. I love to cook almost as much as I like to eat.

2. I verge on OCD constantly, in everything I do.

1. My name really is Boudicca, my mother named me after looking out of the window of the hospital were I was born over the Thames after I was born and saw the statue and it stuck. I've grown into my name over the years - I am a warrior queen through and through.

"She was huge of frame, terrifying of aspect, and with a harsh voice. A great mass of bright red hair fell to her knees: she wore a twisted torc, and a tunic of many colours, over which was a thick mantle, fastened by a brooch. Now she grasped a spear, to strike fear into all who watched her." Dio Cassius

I've realised that I lurk on lots of people's blogs but don't make contact with a lot of them - so I have no one to tag that hasn't already been done by my extend linkage...if there are any lurkers out there, you're welcome to accept a blogtag from me!

I probably won’t be able to go because it's a date of the show I'm working on down in Winchester *cries a river* (and causes nationwide floods). I literally can't imagine doing anything more perfect with my time...

*TOTALLY WIRED*

You've read the rumours. You've heard the hints. And we can now officially confirm the extremely exciting news: NICKY WIRE'S SECRET SOCIETY will be performing live at Stay Beautiful on SATURDAY 1st JULY. Following his triumphant debut at the Hay On Wye literary festival, this will be the first London solo show from the MANIC STREET PREACHERS bassist, lyricist and motormouth. Wire's first solo album, I KILLED THE ZEITGEIST, is due for release in September, and downloads are being posted occasionally at http://www.nickyssecretsociety.com. The Manics were a vital formative influence upon Stay Beautiful (obviously, since we're named after one of their songs), so it's a great honour to be hosting this show. There are NO ADVANCE TICKETS, and we're anticipating an incredibly busy night, so please ARRIVE EARLY to avoid disappointment. Doors open at 9.00pm, and Nicky and his band will be onstage at approximately 10.30pm. Be there. It's gonna be unforgettable.

Feeling slightly better today, spent yesterday clearing those pesky 'to dos' from my list. By the end of this week my aim is to cut my 'to do list' to 1/2 a page of a4 rather than usual 2 sides!

Then I spent the evening with Jessie, we forced ourselves to go the gym and then back to hers for pre-pay day fodder (which was damn yummy!). I got overtired quite quickly so had to retire early but enjoyable nethertheless.

Tonight, we're visiting Lucy, Kev and the kids - which I'm really looking forward to. There's nothing better for the soul than playing with toddlers and snuggling cute, fat babies.

Song Lyrics of the Day: Together by The Raconteurs

"You want everything to be just like
The stories that you read but never write
You gotta learn to live and live and learn
You gotta learn to give and wait your turn
Or you'll get burned"

I'm veering from one extreme to the other. I've spent some of today looking for anger management classes, starting a psychology of high performance course, ticking off my 'to do' list and working out ways of sorting out my life...

There are a number of things missing from my life - motivation, energy, self control. I don't know who I am anymore. All the things that I have used to measure my 'self' are in disarray and don't mean anything...My likes have turned into dislikes and I see myself reflected in the tantrum tempers of the Big Brother wankers for fucks sake!

I feel

overstressed, out of control, nervous, overwhelmed, uneasy, tense, confused, unwanted, unappreciated, powerless, victimised, frightened, infuriated, spiteful, listless, unoccupied, restless...

How on earth can I get out of this hole?

Today I have mainly:

~ cried at my desk (general darkness, nothing in particular).
~ shouted at artistic directors.
~ slammed about the photocopier.
~ perved on clearly gay dancers during rehearsals (shake that ass in a bollywood way for me boy, etc!).
~ had a rushed telephone conversation with Janimal to welcome her back to the UK - she's currently nursing midge bites and feeling much happier to be home.
~ wished my brother a great big "Happy Birthday"

basically...I can't wait for the weekend!!!

I should go to the gym this evening but all I want to do is go home and chill out. Take advantage of the peace and quiet while the match is on...take a long bath with lots of goodies and get an early night. Mind you, early nights is all I seem to be doing at the moment. I feel in some ways that I should mourn the loss of my 'wild side' but I'm pretty sure that it isn't gone completely. I mean, after all, I even drank some real caffeinated coffee this afternoon (mistake - just force of habit during a meeting!). Rock on! Living on the edge!