Welp, Tony brought Monstrous Regiment home and I read it! And, well, it was a solid Discworld book, definitely better than Thief of Time, which I've always held to be the naffest instalment, but much more serious than the books mostly are, even the ones that had a point to make like Small Gods. I read beforehand that Pterry was very fond of the character Sergeant Jackrum, finding him hugely enjoyable to write; I have to say he didn't grab me that hard, although his style of language is a pleasure to read. To be honest, Jackrum felt a little like a retread of aspects of Darktan, the rat hero of The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. Okay, Pterry likes the gruff, coarsely witty sergeant archetype. Many things in the book never felt fully realised, whether it was the significance of Polly's thorough knowledge and constant awareness of birds in her environment, or Polly's sense of Jackrum as possibly demonic. The reformed vampire Maladict is built up for a crisis and then defused and shoved to one side anticlimactically. The fact that the Duchess has unwillingly been pressed into the role of a small god is not outlined with sufficient clarity for anyone whose first Discworld novel this is; the way godhead works there deserves a little explanation.

Maybe I'll like it better on a second reading, but I do have to say that it isn't as good as the last one, The Wee Free Men.

I felt very depressed this morning, for no particular reason I could find except for the beginning of my period - but that doesn't usually make me feel depressed. It was one of those real sudden dark cloud depressions that envelops your head and makes you think hard about how lonely and bored and pointless-feeling you are and how little prospect for improvement you see. Then you feel helpless and angry and weak on top of it. Since the usual effect of the beginning of my period is just to make me feel partly relieved that I'm getting it over with for another month, partly annoyed at the minor discomfort and inconvenience that will attend the next couple of days, I also felt confused.

I don't feel great this afternoon, but the bad part has passed off. Tonight there's Brassed Off! on TV... before that there's a screening of the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, which could be entertaining although I'm afraid it will feature George Michael. So quite a musical evening's viewing, I guess. Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody.

We had a successful day at Western Springs and MOTAT, despite Bryony and James deciding they wanted to kill swans. We told them they are not allowed to kill swans no matter how annoying the swans are, hanging around our picnic table looking hopefully at our sandwiches. One appeared to be debating putting its head on my knee and looking up at me with cocker spaniel eyes. You can't pull that off when you're a swan. Just so you're imagining this right, these were Australian black swans - here is a picture. They are nasty, aggressive birds. If you encourage them at all with food they will mob you and eat your smaller children. Speaking of smaller children, my arms have been aching and pulling all day from carrying Christopher for part of yesterday!

MOTAT is really a sad place. Everything looks tatty and dated. This is because it is all run on a donations and volunteers basis. Compared with the new Te Papa museum in Wellington or the superbly refurbished Auckland War Memorial Museum (which is a museum that's also a war memorial - it has displays about everything) it is particularly disappointing. I noticed a rocket from the early days of NASA, with a sign on it saying 'On loan from the Smithsonian Institution.' I wonder if the Smithsonian Institution knows we're keeping it outdoors? The big exhibit we were there to see, about electricity, was on loan from a museum in Melbourne, and looked tatty and dated too. The children thought it was all lovely and exciting. I suppose I have been spoilt by, well, the Smithsonian Institution. I went to Washington twice for the sake of museums.

Today has been a quiet day with dreadful weather. Thunder, lightning, hail, winds gusting up to 140 kph were all forecast. I had lunch at Picton Street with my mother and aunt, and when we got home and I'd written some more of my MLIS application essay, Wendy and I watched The Princess Diaries on Sky. Tony is in Wellington on a one-day business trip and we don't know if he'll even get back tonight - his flight may be cancelled. This is vexatious as he is bringing home a copy of the new Discworld book, Monstrous Regiment, and I can't wait.

Today we're taking Kate's nanny-children (odd phrase I just coined - reminds me structurally of 'baby-father') for a picnic in Western Springs park and then to MOTAT - the Museum of Transport and Technology. Which is right next to the Zoo. Where I've wanted to go for months. But for some reason we're not supposed to go to the Zoo. Kate has taken against it. Not the idea of going to the Zoo per se, but the idea of taking her nanny-children to the Zoo. How in the world is it supposed to be any harder than taking them round MOTAT? To be honest, I expect Bryony, who is four, to be bored and confused. Christopher is one, so it's all the same to him anyway, just so long as there are some shiny moving objects to track on. Since James is seven and a boy, okay, old cars and trains and interactive science exhibits, fine, great for him. But I want to see the ANIMALS! Grr.

Went to WINZ today to show them the documents I didn't have last time. I'm now registered for the unemployment benefit. I'm thinking of taking out an ad in the newspaper: GRADUATE GOING TO WASTE. DON'T MAKE ME GO BACK TO ENGLAND!

Why do we think Renée Zellweger is beautiful? She isn't. She has chipmunk cheeks, puffy, sly-looking eyes, there's just something wrong with her lips, and unless you fatten her to play Bridget Jones, she doesn't have breasts, only pectoral muscles. And yet she makes it work. Good on her. She still looks prettier at her Bridget weight - which is actually kinda average size, but she thinks of it as 'great that they show a heavier woman can be attractive and have romance.' (Okay, paraphrase. Can't locate actual quote.)

All this because my sister and I watched Chicago this evening. DVD, so we got to see the delightful cut number 'Class.' I had the strangest intertextual déja vu moment when Amos began to sing 'Mister Cellophane' because I swear that song was used in a Children's Television Workshop show that I saw when I was little. I don't remember whether it was The Electric Company or Sesame Street, but the song was used in a segment illustrating how some things in the world are see-through but still solid, like cellophane, glass, some kinds of plastic, etcetera. Isn't that strange, that they would use a song from Chicago in an educational children's programme.

I found the mere fact that the director felt he needed the 'concept' of the musical numbers happening in Roxie's fantasy world awfully telling. It's a musical, dude. You don't need to make excuses or allowances for the songs! The audience just accepts them. But you've forgotten that! Let Master Joss show you the way!

And then I found myself wondering if really he got that idea from Lipstick On Your Collar, the first thing I ever saw with Ewan McGregor in it, and absolutely glorious. The musical numbers are lip-synched, to original songs by Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, etcetera, but the whole concept of their inclusion is that Mickey Hopper, bored to tears as he works off the last of his National Service sentence in a desperately dull cranny of the War Office, choreographs these setpieces in his head to amuse himself. If it were now, he'd be making music videos on an Apple at home. Since it's 1956, he can't.

This coming Saturday at 9:30 PM, the TV channel Prime is going to play one of my favourite Ewan movies, Brassed Off. In this one he's gruff but sweet, quite naïve, and he plays the French horn. Really. His first television appearance, as a teenager, was on Opportunity Knocks playing the French horn. Now there's talent.

(puts on voice of Jesse from The Fast Show) This week I are bin mosely doin' too many Quizillas. I promise not to do it so much next week.

I see from Lizzard's blog that she has found a house that she wants to buy. It feels very freaking weird that someone I think of as being in my peer group is looking at buying a house. I still live with my parents and won't be able to live in a place of my own for at least another year. Since I am already twenty-five I hate the thought of this. It's not that I don't get on with my parents, or dislike their house, just that frankly, I have too much stuff to live in one room of someone else's house any more, and I need a place that I can make my own. But on the other hand I don't have a TV or computer of my own, which would make my putative flat or house a pretty entertainment-free zone. It seems as if this whole live-with-your-parents-forever pattern is becoming increasingly common in New Zealand's middle class, and it bothers me, because I think it traps people in rôles that they need to move on from, and means that young adults don't get the privacy and distance that they need to become emotionally as well as materially independent from their families. But so many people I know or hear about can't get into a first job that pays enough to cover accommodation as well as everything else, or are struggling to pay back an evil student loan, that there just isn't a choice. If you can scrape together enough for the plane ticket it can actually be cheaper to go and live in another country.

I know what I would be looking for in my new home. It doesn't matter to me whether it would be just mine or shared with flatmates, as long as they were people I could get along with and who were honest and pulled their weight. Finding flatmates like that can be as hard as finding the right home in the first place. Rule One Above All, of course, is No Junkies, and if you don't see why read He Died With A Felafel In His Hand by John Birmingham. Anyway, moving back to the place itself, my wish list would be:
- Some garden space where I can grow herbs. This is My Thing. When I have a whole garden of my own, I'm just going to divide it into beds with crushed-shell paths running between them, and grow herbs, that's it. I have no use for a lawn. If anyone else in the house wants one they can jolly well take care of it. The only other thing I would grow would be a lemon tree, because everyone knows you need lemons. (Gin and tonic garnishes, fresh lemonade, softening your elbow skin, spur-of-the-moment hair lightening, cleaning glass when you're out of Windolene... the list runs on.) I count lavender as a herb, incidentally.
- The toilet needs to be in its own little room separate from the bathroom. I simply do not want a toilet getting flushed in the same room where I keep my toothbrush and makeup. The cloud of micro-droplets of water and wee and stuff that it sends out doesn't bear thinking of. Having the toilet separate also makes life easier if people who don't want to see each other undressed want to have a shower and a wee at the same time as each other. It's terrible if everyone has to hang on just because one person's having a bath.
- The kitchen needs to be fairly well equipped. I do not want a stove with gas burners, they are not my friends. I definitely need a good, reliable, non-smoky oven. Plenty of benchtop space. Dishwasher not a necessity, but very bloody nice if available. I need space for my rice cooker! And having lived in a house where the microwave lived on top of the fridge and I lived in fear of lifting out a heavy dish and dropping it on my own head, the microwave (and I do need a microwave) must have a place to sit that is no higher than short person's eye level.
- Frankly, I need a big room. This is because I have a big bed. It is queen-sized and has a four-post canopy draped in romantic white mosquito netting. Lucky me. The room must be sufficiently broad and long so that you don't spend all your time just crawling and squeezing around the edges of the bed, as is the case in my current room. And in a perfect world one wall of the room will be built-in bookshelves. A really stonking big deep wardrobe would be handy too. And a chest of drawers, a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge mother of a chest of drawers. Might need to look for that in a second-hand shop. I need Places To Put My Stuff. It would be best if this big room also had a big window through which you could see something nice, like the herbs in the garden, or a park, or some healthy trees (not too close, please, let the sunlight in). I'm not bucking for panoramic sea views here but I don't wish to keep my blinds drawn all day in self-defence.
- The bathroom should have both a decent bathtub and a good shower. The shower can be over the bath, that's not a problem. One day when I am very rich I shall have a bathtub with the taps on one side in the middle, so you can sit and lean at either end. That's the sort of freedom of choice you get when you're very rich! But for now I would settle for a fairly ordinary sort of bath as long as it is structurally sound. There have got to be towel rails. There weren't any in the house in England and I didn't have anywhere to keep towels in my room so I had to hang them over the banisters to dry out between showers. Didn't make me feel very classy.

Very concrete for a castle in the air, isn't it?

Morpheus

?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??
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Bitchin'. Where do I pick up my black gown with flamey hem design?

You are Mihama Chiyo!

Which Azumanga Daioh Character are you?
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I'm *ten*?

Truly today is the Day of Tradesmen; I've just had the electrician in the house, replacing the extractor fan in the kitchen. I don't know if we do unusually smelly cooking or what, but we seem to kill a lot of kitchen fans.

BGM: 93.4 FM, Solid Gold, Auckland's home of the 60s and 70s. About as awful as it sounds.

Yesterday: saw Legally Blonde 2, for which I was slightly unfitted as an audience member by the thought 'I bet those animals couldn't really walk out of the facility. Most experimental animals have to be destroyed because their bodies are so trashed they couldn't live in 'retirement'.' It also kept pissing me off the way they constantly focused on dogs, as if these were the most worthy pets or the only animals used for cosmetics testing. I mean, okay, Elle herself has a dog so her dog focus is understandable, but had none of her helpers ever heard of cats or rabbits or anything? Reminded me a little of Puckoon in which the poacher Murphy (was it Murphy, or O'Meara? I know it wasn't Milligan) says that he thought the RSPCA sounded like a real fine idea, but he found most of the people who joined were dog lovers, that or cats, and the rest of the animal kingdom could go to hell.

But, okay, it was a cute, funny movie, and I especially liked it when Elle, reminded that the box in which you place a bill is called the hopper, said 'Of course! How could I forget - it's like a bunny.' (making bunny paws of her hands)

That was at the Berkeley in Mission Bay, so we went next door from there and had lunch at the very nice Italian/Dalmatian Riva Café, where Kate had the grilled chicken salad with honey-mustard dressing, my mother had a sweetcorn fritter and I had the warm scallop and bacon salad with sliced bananas. Our mother giving us 'school holiday treats' rocks. She's the only one who still has school holidays, being a teacher, but we still benefit!

Then we went to Newmarket where I had a job interview at two o'clock for a dead-end job receiving stock (the manageress who interviewed me as much as said it was dead-end) at the Dymocks bookstore. Should hear about that today or tomorrow. Here's hoping. I don't care if it's dead-end, it's work involving books and it only needs to be for a few months. Also went to Tofu Shop and got some tasty new furikake to dress up my onigiri. (Japanese jargon-busting: furikake = savoury sprinkles to serve with rice, made from ingredients like edible seaweed and dried fish flakes; onigiri = moulded shapes of cooked rice, often termed 'rice balls' although I have never seen any that were actually ball-shaped. Discs, triangles and capsule shapes are more usual.)

Today I have made a quite successful batch of chocolate chip and walnut oatmeal cookies. I was going to fire up the rice cooker and make onigiri in advance for tonight's dinner, but we only have enough rice for one person, pout. Will have to wait until next supermarket run. Burly men have been working outside our house tearing up old cracked concrete from our path and parking pad and laying the groundwork for nice new smooth concrete.

Molly and Sarah have gone back to Napier - they gave Kate and me very nice thank-you cards before they went. Molly told me that for her place in dreamland, her castle in the air if you will, she would just like a garden where a big oak tree drops its leaves into a pond, and a nice dog, and she'll sit under the tree writing stories. She's such a cool little girl.

BGM: just changed to Channel Z on 93.8 FM.

Gee, I've kind of run through my resources for today. I guess I'll go back to reading about kimono.

At the WINZ office, typically enough, they told me I had not brought the right paperwork. Because I have been out of New Zealand and come back they are very suspicious of me and want proof that I actually came back to New Zealand (!? I'm not proof!?) in the form of the passport I had stamped then (I have two, as I hold dual citizenship in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and can't remember which one it was) or my boarding pass, and who saves boarding passes? Also, even though the application forms require you to write out all the information contained in your CV, you have to provide your CV as well. There seems to be a lot of redundancy in the application process, just to make you feel small and chivvied.

We are supposed to go back on Thursday with the right things, but as I have a job interview tomorrow I am hoping I will be able to ring and cancel, saying ha ha, I got a job. This is Dymock's in Newmarket again, but a different position. They want to interview me again. I hope they will not jerk me around.

My mother has been reorganising her big filing cabinet and showing me where to find the life insurance and investment papers, 'should Daddy pop off.' Cheerful thought!

I'm making teriyaki chicken thighs tonight. I've been having this ongoing saga with chicken thighs, because I really like making this recipe and the family really like eating it, but the trick is, it calls for de-boned chicken thighs with the skin on, and the supermarket poultry sections round here offer either skinless de-boned chicken thighs, or full monty bony skin-on chicken thighs. There is no happy medium. I ordered the right kind from our local butcher shop once, and this time tried buying the full monty thighs and deboning them myself. Gosh that was a hard job.

It didn't help that, although defrosted, the thighs were still very, VERY cold near the bone and my fingers and thumbs started to feel semi-numb, semi-painful, making me wonder whether I would even know if I cut off the tip of one of them until I saw the floods of blood. I managed it in the end, without, I think, wasting too much meat left on the bone, but the results are quite ragged and stretched-looking, so it's a good thing you slice the fillets up before you toss them in the marinade as you reduce it to a glaze before serving - shape won't matter. I have a new respect for the work of butchers. My mother and I were making silly jokes about Fred and Ashley from Coronation Street the whole time - a father and son, my American friends, who are both butchers by trade. They are sharing the childcare of Ashley's infant son Joshua since Joshua's mother, Maxine, was murdered by Evil Richard, and are finding it a bit of a job, as expressed by Fred: 'Ow many butchers do it tek to tek care o' one babby? I say it's more than two!' For some reason Wend and I started referring to the chicken thighs as 't'babby' and talking about cutting it up and marinating it. We are dreadful. Talking in Fred's voice is just too much fun.

I can never remember Fred's surname. It is different from Ashley's (Peacock) because Ash was illegitimate. (looks up Coronation Street homepage) That's pathetic! It doesn't give a cast list or any archive information, just teasers about upcoming storylines. (stumps off to look for the Listener) Their cast list doesn't mention Fred and only gives people's first names anyway! Gough! Argyle! (I like using Scottish words as cusses.) (thinks hard) It's not 'Dinsdale' is it? Hold on. I'm obsessed with it now. Tekin' it to t'Google. (click click)

ELLIOT!

I found this information on a page which offers the priceless sentence, 'We first met butcher Fred Elliot in the summer of 1994 when he involved the usually respectable Alf Roberts in an international black pudding scandal.' That's the essence of Coronation Street's brand of soap opera right there.

This is interesting, too, a news snippet about the actor who plays him, John Savident: 'Schizophrenic Michael Smith was jailed for seven years yesterday for knifing Mr Savident after the actor - known to millions as telly butcher Fred Elliot - "met him at a gay bar and invited him home at 2.30am." The Sun, which insists it did not pay Smith for the interview, says the attacker claimed self defence after "Savident became poofy coming over feminine, leaning over me in a chair."'

He met him at a gay bar, he went home with him at 2:30 AM, and it bothered him that he acted poofy? Bloody schizophrenics, they don't make any sense. Actually, from further reading (see here for example) it sounds as if Mr Stabby was not so much a startled schizophrenic as a thoroughly bad lot with a history of this type of thing. If you are just defending yourself against unwelcome advances you do not hang around the fellow's flat for an hour poking at him with a knife and trying to make him tell you his credit card PIN codes.

Mr Savident used to be a police officer, but evidently a life on the boards has rendered him soft and vulnerable to being surprised with stabby things. Fortunately, he survived the unpleasantness. (follows another link from Google) Oh, how delightful! Apparently he hosted a millennium countdown TV special in costume as Henry VIII!

Now I had better go and see about cooking the chook.

Don't worry, no more scary big Quizilla result pictures for a bit. RRUGH! Today was such a washout! The weather has sucked, the twins were going to come round and then didn't (just as well, perhaps, since I fell asleep while we were expecting them), my dad has been petulant and annoying (threw a block of instant ramen across the kitchen when he couldn't break it up to his satisfaction), it is SO HOSING DOWN outside (yes, I already mentioned the weather sucking, but this is rain of truly startling intensity) - I suppose I should feel glad I managed to fit a good nap in there, and really, that was good chiefly by virtue of being time out from experiencing the day in reality. ARGYLE!

Okay, Argyle is a place in Scotland and a pattern for cloth related to tartan... WOO! Just saw blue lightning, and here's the thunder! I like the weather better now. Okay, Argyle is a Scottish textile pattern, and a place, and stuff, but I use the word as an utterance of vexation. I'm not sure why. It just expresses how I feel.

The rain is tapering off. What, no more thunder and lightning? Didja blow your wad right then and there? (waits) No, rain's surging again and I just heard another horizon-rumble. I'm in a room where one wall is a glass ranchslider door and associated windows, so I've got a pretty clear view.

I had a fight with my mother about Asian soup, I still don't understand how, but somehow the suggestion of making an Asian soup for my lunch tapped into my continuing resentment and frustration with the way what I've done and what I am are never what's needed, I'm always being told there's more I should be doing (or should have done and now I've missed my chance). Always 'too hot' or 'too cold.' Never 'just right.' I can't just find something to eat, I have to learn to make a whole new kind of soup? When I'm hungry? I can't concentrate when I'm hungry. Well, it blew over, and in the end I ate porridge.

My parents are out food shopping now. More lightning and thunder! I'm not sure where Kate is. If she's in the house she's being vewy quiet, as if hunting wabbits. I suppose I should not have let my mother go with my father, because I know shopping with him is an ordeal for her, but I had just woken up when they were leaving so I wasn't thinking quickly enough to take the bullet for her.

My mother is trying, with good intentions, to 'fix' me these school holidays. I would like to find a new job. But I do not want to start eating salads for lunch. I do not want to eat all that mixed-together quiche pasta salad crap she and my sister like. If the ingredients aren't discrete, if it would be impossible to separate them or discern what they all are in cross-section, I don't like eating it. That is what it boils down to. I don't like cottage cheese, I don't like cream cheese for that matter, I don't like hummus or raita or any of that stuff that is supposed to make a salad 'filling.' It all falls into a category that I call 'lady food' and it is not for me.

You are Rin Kobayashi from "Please Save My
Earth"! You are CUTESY-POO evil.

ANIME QUIZ - Which Evil Anime Badass Are You?
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'Cutesy-poo' evil. *sigh* Should've seen *that* coming.

You are SYLIA STINGRAY! Lingerie saleswoman!

ANIME QUIZ - Which Bubblegum Crisis Character Are You?
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You know, I do like frilly underpants.

You are D from "Vampire Hunter D :
Bloodlust"!

ANIME QUIZ - Which Anime Vampire Are You?
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I honestly don't know what to make of this. Still, I'm glad I smell like a girl. The curious part is, the results did not include Shidou and Cain from NightWalker, who I would've thought were shoo-ins. I think the moral of the story is: Too many Quizilla tests make Homer go crazy.

Duh. You are "But WHY's the rum gone?!"
You're not the smartest one in the bunch, but
you're sweetly appealing and you don't let
disappointment get to you. Everybody
identifies with you, because let's face it, why
IS the rum gone?

Which one of Captain Jack Sparrow's bizarre sayings from Pirates of the Caribbean are you?
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Because I know you were wondering.

Congratulations!! You're a strawberry daquiri!!

What Drink Are You?
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A drink made with RUM. Coincidence? *spooky chords*

Okay, I should REALLY be in bed.

Not only Robbie Williams in concert at Knebworth (wherever), but also the Melanie Lynskey movie Snakeskin - not a bad evening's teev at all. Golly, I hope something happens tomorrow. I don't want to go on the road in the South Island in a red Valiant with Dean O'Gorman and a mysterious Yankee stranger in snakeskin boots, pursued by sexually repressed skinheads and bickering stoners, but I sympathise with Alice's yearning for adventure. *sighandpout*

I suppose I could go and do something but I only have fifty dollars and no-one to do something with. I have gotten into one of those stagnant periods of life that just makes everything seem like wasted effort. There is so much inertia. I can't see how anything is going to change unless I get a job that is actually interesting, or unless/until I begin the MLIS down in Wellington. Oh, memo, memo, need to send a copy of my transcript to Sophie so she can write me the reference.

Better bugger off to bed.

Oooooooooooooh I don't like skating. But Molly, who had never done it on ice before, has decided she loves it. So that's nice! After the skating we called in on my grandmother, at whose home my parents also were, and while Joan (grandmother) was carrying the lemon loaf from afternoon tea out of the conservatory she tripped and came an absolute gutser, opening her shin on the metal lip of the ranchslider door's track in the floor. It is alarming to see a person that old fall over! But she was basically okay, and fortunately everyone there knew the appropriate first aid. Except, apparently, my grandmother who used to be a nurse. Tsk. Also, I fixed the head on my sister's nodding dog. So he is once more a nodding dog.

Tonight Kate is going out with her mates and I suppose I'll watch the Robbie Williams concert on TV.

I especially like getting to know Molly and Sarah now because we never had any interesting or enjoyable cousins before. Paul and David were a wash-out; we had to wait for David to spawn. I mean, sorry, but. They were never interested in us and we were never interested in them. Once when I was very young my mother told me 'Paul is sick' and I said 'Oh good' because I thought she'd said 'Paul is six' and he'd somehow been rewound to a more congenial age. Older, boy cousins are absolutely useless to a little girl, except for the off-chance that they might get married and then their fiancées might think of asking you to be a bridesmaid. But probably not, because they've got cousins of their own and can't be expected to look out for you.

I am trying gamely to read The Gunslinger by Stephen King because my friend Kevin reckons it's awesome, but I'm sorry, I hate it. Kevin is not often this wrong about whether I'll like things; the other example I can think of is Gunbuster, so maybe it is just things with Gun in the title. Some sort of specific blind spot. I like Stephen King. And the references to the Dark Tower books that pepper a lot of his other novels (the whole first half of Hearts in Atlantis is just a damn teaser for the Dark Tower) made me considerably curious. But ugh. Vanity project. Saucy Jack.

This afternoon Kate and I are going to take Molly and Sarah ice-skating. This will be my first visit to the Paradice rink out at Botany, so although it's been there a couple of years and won't have the exciting new look any more I am still quite amped. I just hope the skates aren't as scungy as the old ones at the original Paradice out in the wild west of Auckland. I confidently expect to skate very badly, as I always do. I hope, however, to avoid actually falling on my head as I have the last two times I attempted any form of skating. The second time was on roller skates and I performed an impressive but involuntary sideways split which concluded with my chin hitting the rink quite hard. I am just plain not good at these things. Please do not try to 'help' me; I'm quite happy just picking my way round the perimeter, not moving very fast but, here's the thing, not falling on my head. The odd novelty of sliding on blades over ice is sufficient for me. I don't need to be going fast or moving gracefully to enjoy it. Thank goodness!

The difficulty here, of course, is that I won't be able to give much useful help or guidance to the twins, and I hope that won't spoil things for them. I also hope they are not better than me, because then I would go off them a bit.

What color are you? (Anime Pictures)
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This makes me laugh because the Lizzard did the same quiz and got Black. I like white. It contains all the other colours in potentia. It's the colour of paper and snow and whipped cream, three of my favourite things.

I would just like to say, on behalf of all the children in Auckland, the weather these school holidays so far sucks. There had better be some sunshine in the second week or a lot of people will be going back to their classrooms seriously disgruntled.