J is for Jackass
CRACK ME UP! I was watching this new TV show on channel 7 called
The Rich List with the fam tonight, and one of the lists was
Names Used in the Nato Phonetic Alphabet. My mother suggested "J for... Jackass, right?"
I seriously couldn't stop laughing for a good five minutes. I didn't even know jackass was in my mother's vocabulary.
(aside: I've only been gone for 6 months and suddenly everything on TV has been replaced by a reality/quiz show??)
A disaster coming on in slow motion
I've just tried to check into my flights with Singapore Airlines and have been given the rather ominous message:
This passenger cannot be found in the PNR. Please check the passenger details.
What exactly is a PNR, and
WHY am I not in it? I knew this was trouble as soon as I wanted to change my flights and couldn't find anywhere on their website to submit a request. What kind of crazy airline doesn't have an online request form? Anyway, so I tried to call Singapore Airlines, and waited for 20 rings before a machine picked up and shoved me on the end of a queue that I wasn't the front of after 30 minutes, so I hung up in frustration. In the end I emailed some random customer service department to have my flights changed, and nobody replied to the email, so I went through the whole charade of calling them again only to be told that someone read the email and booked me on the flight already. The only thing is, I had to call Air Canada to get the eticket reissued, because I started my ticket with Air Canada, and they're now apparently ruler of everything that is My Ticket. So I called Air Canada and spoke to a lovely lady who picked up after 3 rings and told me that she couldn't reissue it because I wasn't appearing in her passenger list, but she kindly offered to call Singapore and sort it out, and then called me back and said that yes, I was booked on the flight, but no, I can't get my ticket reissued because I'm not in some mysterious list of passengers (I'm guessing a PNR) but I'm most certainly booked on the flight, I just need to go to the airport to get my tickets sorted out.
*deep breath*
You know it: the Disaster Waiting To Happen feeling, when it starts tingling at the base of your neck and creeps up slowly into your headspace before exploding in a myriad of colours and pain when you realise with dismay that the airline have f!#@ed up and you are left standing at Heathrow with a suitcase full of Friends DVDs and Harrods foodstuffs and it will be another seven hours before the next flight has a seat for you by which time you will be transiting in Singapore for 13 hours because of the wacky flight curfew rules in Sydney and the next two flights being full.
Please, please, please don't let that happen to me.
stop press!
ohmygod!
Niall updated his blog!that is all I have to say. hehehehe :)
nothing to poker stick at!
(haha, I make pun in title!)
I hosted my first poker night on Saturday. You would probably know that I'm not a huge drinker, which is a terrible thing to be in London, because that's all that people do here. But to counteract the non-drinking thing, I've been trying to organise activities that don't involve just "going to a bar" or "going to a pub" as the main focus of the evening. Hence: poker.
Poker is good because it's wholesome fun for all the family, you don't smell like smoke at the end of the evening, and it still lets people drink. You just drink while playing poker! Ingenious.
There were seven people squished around my living room table, and once everyone was seated there was no room to squeeze through to the kitchen or the hallway without climbing over furniture or some such thing. Not quite the poker-table-in-the-middle-of-a-dramatically-lighted-boxing-ring scenario, but we make do with what we have.
We had a 35 pound winnings pot, which I came close to winning, but tragically didn't. Kudos to Phil (I'll get you next time. ;) It was lots of fun, reminded me of the heydeys back in Alexandria when there were ten people around the table and the games frequently ran into the tiny hours of the morning. Ah, memories :)
Can't wait till the next poker night!
the sound of music
I took Gabs to the London production of The Sound of Music as a thank-you for letting me stay at her place last year. (the local term is to "doss", but urban dictionary has all all sorts of frightful definitions of that word, none of which is the one I'm after, so I'll just leave it be.)
Anyway, coming out of that performance, my reaction was:
best musical ever!! I've never had so much fun in a musical before. The sets are fantastic, and so elaborate - you never see any stage helpers because all the props are wheeled in on a conveyor belt. The kids are terribly cute, and all the performers are top-notch; Maria especially. I think they did every single song from the movie, and a couple more that I hadn't heard before. The costumes were wonderful, and I was frequently surprised by the number of quick changes they did in the wings of the stage. Sometimes there would be about 30 seconds between someone going off and coming back on wearing something completely different. (How, I ask you?!)
If you're going to be in London, I definitely recommend this. Don't worry about Tina Arena in Chicago, just go and see this musical. Right now. Yes, even if you're in Australia. You really have to see this thing.
Thanks again for everything, Gabs :)
australia vs denmark
And so it was: thousands of Australian fans and about three Danish people convened on Shepherd's Bush to watch the Socceroos play Denmark on Tuesday 6th February 2007. It was one in a series of friendly matches being played around London that night, but it was the only one that counted ;)
Unfortunately we ended up losing 1-3, with Denmark scoring their first goal about four minutes into it, and it all going downhill from there... but this was my first football match experience in London and it was fun. There wasn't much leg room - anyone over about 5'5 was smushed up against the seat in front - and it was absolutely freezing, but we got a mexican wave going during the game, AND I purchased my first item of patriotic green and gold coloured clothing, which economically doubles up as a Brazil scarf (if, hypothetically, I was a Brazil supporter).
When the game ended, the only pub on the way to the tube was completely empty. If we'd won that night, I'm sure it would have been a different story.
muffins
I made muffins tonight, the first time I've done in 6 months. They're banana, oat and raspberry muffins, adapted from
this recipe.
I'm currently enjoying the fruits of my labour with a nice mug of earl grey tea. There's nothing in your life that a spot of baking won't fix :)
Also, due to popular* demand, I've enabled comments on the blog. So if it takes your fancy, you can comment your little hearts out, and I will even reply! what a deal!
*a popular person demanded it, and so it was done.
