Acceptable in the 80s...

Carnage, cocktails and costumes - the three Cs of a successful party! I feel surprisingly fine today. Maybe it's because we've only just finished clearing up the residual crap so have had something else to concentrate on all day - or maybe it's down to the fact that I gave up on the Del Boy cocktails and started drinking the non-alcoholic plain pineapple juice when it all became too much round about 11:30pm when the 80s dancing competition ended? Hmmm. Anyway, it was like, so totally awesome.

Fashion Wheel, Kerplunk, Spirograph, Screwball
Scramble, Operation, cocktail umbrellas, armbands,
neon...how many 80s relics do you remember?

Everybody made the effort to dress up which was brilliant. Neon Barbie and Ken (matching sun visors and vests!), Madonna (more bracelets and lace than you could shake a stick at), The Hoff (with curly wig, chest hair, leathers and orange skin), Alex Drake (Ashes to Ashes), the 1984 LA Olympics, many generic 80s costumes in varying neon colours featuring legwarmers and awful make-up - and we had two iconic 80s doctors in our presence - Ghostbuster Dr. Egon Spengler and Doc Emmett Brown, to bring a bit of science to the proceedings. Egon's proton pack was made from a cereal box wrapped in a bin liner with a vacuum hose poking out of it. Genius.

All you need for a DIY 80s party:

Food
Anything full of sugar, colourings, and leftover from primary school birthday parties - fairy cakes and crispy cakes, crisps (Space Invaders and Monster Munch), party rings, jammie dodgers, rocket lollies, pickled onions and cheese on sticks. I topped it off with a Mr. Men birthday cake.

Cocktails
'Del Boys' - pineapple and coconut juice, Malibu and pineapple slices (from a can of course). 'Club Tropicanas' - orange and mango juice, peach schnapps and lemonade. Decorate both to the hilt with mini umbrellas, those plastic monkeys, glittery streamers on sticks and fruit in the glass.

Music
My crap 80s iPod playlist came in VERY handy. Gather up as much electro-pop and synth as you can. Think Wham!, Cyndi Lauper, MJ, The Boss, A-ha, Kylie, one hit wonders plus film soundtracks. And make sure you have an 80s dancing competition.

Costumes
Several people picked an 80s character or icon, but most dressed in general 80s attire. Armbands, legwarmers, off-the-shoulder tops, big hair, crimped hair, lace, bangles, stilettos, and - would you believe it - as much neon as you could possibly wear.

Games
We all raided our garages to procure such relics as Fashion Wheel (still with its original coloured pencils!), Operation, Rubik's cubes, Kerplunk, Spirograph and Screwball Scramble. I also found a bag of Trolls. The drunken Kerplunk tournament was a particular highlight, however.

Decorations
Afore-mentioned bag of trolls came in handy to decorate the room. As did streamers and balloons in as garish-as-possible colours, luminous table confetti, Barbies, My Little Pony, (I think someone may have brought a Care Bear?) and just general neon-ness.

Dude. It was like, so totally tubular.

The Fairytale of New York...

Afternoon all, I’m back from my travels and suffering! Not only are my poor worn out soles recovering from marathon Manhattan walking sessions, I’ve rediscovered that jet lag is not a pleasant thing (my good self and lack of sleep do not mix well, as The Other Half will testify vehemently). Yesterday was my first day back at work, which ordinarily is a dire thing anyway but after only 4 hours sleep (when my head is still five hours behind laughing at me and my body feels like it’s somewhere over the Atlantic in protest) and contending with what may or may not have been carried out from my handover list, it’s really badly rubbish.

It was all worth it though. New York was fantastic and we managed to get through so much I don’t even know where to begin. Since we’d been before we skipped a lot of the mega-touristy things like the Statue of Liberty and going up the Empire State building – but still indulged our sightseeing sides and donned our visitor hats with gusto admiring the views from the Top of the Rock and tracking down as many movie locations as we could find. I’d forgotten that the whole city is like a giant film set – every corner you turn you see something you recognise. Hence I spent pretty much the entire time saying things like ‘Ooh, that was in Ghostbusters/Home Alone 2/Enchanted/insert your favourite New York-set flick here’ and embarrassed myself by acting out scenes. Acting which, I might add, The Other Half often participated in. He makes a very good Dr. Venkman.

Anyway, I’m finding my eyelids very heavy today and I’m wishing that my chair was made of fleecy blankets and that my desk comprised of soft pillows instead of piles of post-its, manky coffee cups and the remnants of Hershey Kisses wrappers (the standard office fare whenever anyone has been Stateside). More reporting on the Big Apple adventures later – busy counting down the hours until I can go to bed!

Maybe after a repeat viewing of Crocodile Dundee though?

Dear Diary...

How do.

I'm new to this whole blogging malarkey and not entirely sure why I set one up or who it's for, to be perfectly honest. I used to keep a diary when I was a teenager - and recently rediscovered what a huge mess of angst and calamity they were - but gave up on it all when I hit my twenties and became too lazy (and started my working life properly, which sometimes equates to the same thing). I suppose this will be the new-improved version of those diaries. But of course, down the line I may decide that this is all a bit too egotistical for me and never write another post again.

So, why am I feeling the need to document my so-called life now, then? Well, my reasons are three-fold:

1. I'm growing more forgetful as I approach the dreaded late-twenties.
2. My life becomes more like a car-crash or bad BBC sitcom every day and if I don't laugh about it, I'll cry.
3. By writing things down I can hopefully get stuff straight in my head because, as you may come to see, I'm one of the most indecisive people I know and change my mind constantly about everything.

That's something you should know about me straight off. My indecisiveness. Don't be surprised if the next time you visit this blog it looks completely different (if I haven't bored you enough already, that is). Hmm, what else do you need to know about me? The main bits are up in my profile box. Ooh, another thing though - I ramble on a lot. Turn back now while you still have the chance if you're adverse to witterers. And I rant. Often about nothing.

As well as wittering on about my daily mundanities I think I'll be including some posts about the flicks I've been watching. Which can be a lot. I'm a film graduate and have been in love with film since the age of 3 when I first saw Ghostbusters and decided I wanted to catch ghosts for a living. Consequently, there's a library of film twaddle and trivia in my head so I may infer some of that on here too. Oh, and lists. I like lists. We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, as a first post this is pretty rubbish so I'll leave it at that and get back to my pjs. What a rock n roll Saturday night.