Lazy person post alert...

OK, I've just got around to filling this in on Facebook after being tagged by several other people, and thought it might inspire me to write a post. It hasn't yet. So I've cut and pasted in the hope that it will...and if you've already read it, well - you don't need to again. Bonus!

25 Random Things About Me

1. I love all my family and friends. Even though most of them are complete lunatics.
2. I wish I could become characters in books and films. I’d love to live in Harry Potter’s world. Or be Marty McFly’s sidekick. Or be a Goonie.
3. As well as being a shameless blogger, I'm also a brand new Twitterer. Look me up on Twitter (although I have no idea exactly how it works and what I'm supposed to do with it, yet): http://twitter.com/WitteringByGem
4. The worst job I did was promotional work – on one job I had to dress up as a reindeer (antlers, red nose and all) in supermarkets and sing Christmas carols.
5. I have had two ghostly experiences in my life!
6. I was once in Byker Grove but all you could see of me on screen were my elbow and shoe.
7. I love crap 80s films and music and can often be found dancing in my pjs in the kitchen.
8. I once got a part as Medusa in a school play because I was the girl who could remember lines and scream the loudest.
9. I really want to go to San Francisco, Oz and New Zealand. My favourite places I’ve been to so far are the Rockies, New York and New England.
10. I love cooking and experimenting in the kitchen (even when it all goes hideously wrong). Sometimes I wonder if I should have gone to chef school instead of uni.
11. I am allergic to red peppers and hate mayonnaise, boiled eggs and batter.
12. I have danced on stage with Keith from Boyzone, had a piggy back from Frank Bruno, and almost been run over by Michael Winner (who, despite those Esure car insurance adverts, is not a good driver, I assure you).
13. I have an MA in Film, and can’t decide what my favourite film is. It’s a very long list.
14. I cry all the time at anything – books, films (even pathetic ones), songs…and have even been known to sob over adverts.
15. I broke my toe 3 weeks before having to squeeze into wedding shoes, whilst intoxicated in my house with lots of friends playing giant Jenga.
16. I’m really good at coming up with one-liners and witty retorts about an hour after I needed them.
17. My family tree is nuts – I have an opera singer, the guy who played Tub in SuperGran, a drug baron and a woman who spontaneously combusted all on there.
18. My tipple of choice is the oh-so-70s Tia Maria and coke.
19. I’d love to have a dog but would feel too cruel leaving him in the house all day while I went out to work. I have a crazy cat instead.
20. I carry a notebook with me to jot down odd things I find, funny turns of phrase I hear and (seldom) good ideas I might have. I’d love to be a published author.
21. I would love to have a kitchen big enough to house an island in the middle. Where I could pretend to present my own cooking show.
22. I would quite happily let Gene Hunt give me a slap.
23. I would really love to have children one day but am absolutely terrified of being pregnant.
24. If I won the lottery I would open my own café with a proper deli inside (i.e. not a sandwich shop!). I have a name worked out and everything.
25. I seem to have a knack for hoarding trivia. Often useful in pub quizzes, always good for boring people to tears with.

Dammit, it still hasn't inspired me to write anything constructive yet.

Forget your troubles, c'mon get happy...

It may be a new year, but things seem to be looking pretty miserable at the minute with the economy collapsing ever more by the day and unemployment soaring. The predictions aren't too good for 2009. So, to counterbalance the doom and gloom we're fed by the news on a daily basis (and because I was a bit bored) I've made myself a happy forecast. All the things I'm looking forward to this year. Here are just a few:

• Feeling 15 again. One of my bestest friends in the whole wide world relocates from the Big Smoke this coming weekend and we'll be living in the same town again. I feel several teenage-homage sleepovers and drinking sessions are on the cards. Splendid.
• The inauguration. A fresh start for those across the pond in a week's time - although I think I along with many others will miss the ludicrous "Bushisms" we're so accustomed to hearing.
• Traveling a bit closer to home. I don't think I'll get away on a transatlantic jaunt or anything this year, but I'm looking forward to days out in places that are on my doorstep really yet I never have time to visit. Edinburgh, The Lakes, maybe a short hop over to Amsterdam or Barcelona, and my friend is getting married in Berlin this summer.
• Making the house our own. The foray into home decoration continues in 2009. Living room is done; porch, kitchen, dining room and bathroom to finish; bedroom and garden next on the list. We'll get there. Room by room, we'll get there.
  
• Vive la France. New Year can be such a let down - nothing magical ever happens when the clock strikes midnight. But I'll be ringing in 2010 with a group of chums in the middle of nowhere in Normandy. Good times lie ahead.
  
• Getting things in order at work. We're due a big office shift-around, and I'll be hopefully sitting with the rest of my team near a window instead of plonked on a row with The Most Annoyingly Voiced Coworker Ever Bar None. Good opportunity for me to get rid of the collapsing towers of paper that appear to have eaten my desk.
  
• Family and friends stuff. Visiting my sister in London Town; a couple of 30th birthdays; a 50th wedding anniversary; a wedding; crazy-themed birthday parties...who knows what else the year has in store?
  
• The Oscars. I love them. Sad but true. I try to stay up late each year to watch them but inevitably fall asleep and end up watching the main winners on the news. Along with the bad red carpet outfits.Hey, I can judge if I want to. They can't hear me.
  
• The next Harry Potter flick. How gutted was I when they knocked the release date back to July '09? Very. And, The Other Half has finally got around to reading all the books - so when we settle down to watch The Half-Blood Prince, he can ask himself what bits they've left out, instead of me. Hurrah!
  
• The longest eclipse for a century. Spacey things have always fascinated me, and this total solar eclipse in July will be lasting over 6 minutes, apparently. I won't be going to Bhutan to witness the event, however - but the t'interweb is a wonderful thing.
• First aid course. I've always wanted to do one and have finally got a place on the big 4-day course through work in February. Tying knots has never been a forte though, so I think I'm going to have to practice slings and bandages otherwise my casualties will look like extras in a war film.

Not too shabby a year, I think.

New year, new resolutions...

I found a list of ten things in an old notebook from last New Year's Day which I promised myself I would complete in 2008. I've been able to tick one of them off. ONE. How depressing. And that one thing was to start a blog. At least I've kept it up, I suppose. So, this year, I hope I'm setting myself achievable targets and the fact that I've written them down publicly should mean they're easier to track (and have people bug me about).

1. To cook something new each week. I love tinkering in the kitchen, and am now armed with an head full of ideas thanks to all my recipe books from Christmas, so in theory this shouldn't be too hard. Famous last words.
2. Keep in touch better with all my friends and family. I'm rubbish at it in general. Facebook is good for getting an overview of what everyone is doing, but it's no substitute for the real thing. This year I promise to meet up with people more.
3. Eat healthier. No dieting (yeech, if ever there was a surefire way to put on weight, it's to mention the 'd' word), just eating better in general and taking lunches to work etc. instead of slinking off to the cafe every day and spending a fortune in the process.
4. Decorate my bedroom. We've lived in this house for well over a year now, and things are starting to feel more like home. The living room certainly does since we've redecorated. However, the bedroom does not. I am not a beige person and this needs to be rectified.
5. Make more of an effort with clothes. I always feel like a grotty student at work (even though I haven't been one for three years now) and need to invest in nicer work apparel. I feel the need for some posh shoes and underwear too. the only trouble is, I hate shopping.
6. Get organised. I have no idea what's in some of my cupboards at home. Likewise I have a lot of crap that I could pack off to a car boot sale/charity shop. Also, if I'm organised in my home - it might rub off in my life. I am constantly late for everything and it sickens me!
7. Enjoy Sundays. Instead of whinging about how boring they are and setting myself up with horrible Sunday night feelings before work on a Monday - actually do more with them. Spend some time with The Other Half. Go out for walks. Do things. Go new places.
   
8. Join in with something. Start a course - maybe pick up a language I left after GCSE, or do sign language. Or first aid. Anything. Take up a hobby or find more time for the hobbies I do have but never get around to. I feel this might be a good way to ease stress, too.
   
9. Write my ideas down. My head is jam-packed with ideas for all sorts of things like trivia books, short stories, full novels - but they're all jumbled up. I need to have a notebook on me at all time to write down weird dreams, funny turns of phrase, anecdotes and the like.
10. Read more. I've been better at this over the last year - I'm getting into a routine of reading a little bit each night. I also want to start a marathon movie-watching session with The Other Half - doing the A-Z of our DVD collection. That could take all year.
    

And there you have it. Achievable, I think. At least I don't have to wean myself off anything horrible like cigarettes...although weaning yourself of Christmas chocolate is a bummer.

Something wicked this way comes...

Okay, I have a bowl of mini-chocolaty things so tiny that if they weren't packaged, they'd be invisible; a carved pumpkin which may look like roadkill, but I've named him Eric and hope he's happy with my rubbish orange-scented tea light candles which actually smell more like petrol that anything citrussy; a black cat (who happens to be asleep, but never mind) and a pile of scary DVDs. I think I'm all set for Halloween. But what are these scary flicks, you may ask? (You may not be asking, of course, but I'm going to tell you anyway.) Well, some of them aren't so scary. But I class them as seasonal fun. And it wouldn't be Halloween without them.

• Halloween - well, obviously this one has to make an appearance. It'd be rude not to invite the original and best stalk n slash (in my opinion) along. With its tinkly soundtrack and baddie with a spray-painted mask, it's creepy with a capital C. See if you can spot the director's cigarette smoke in the shot where Michael hides behind the hedge. Always makes me smile.
• Arsenic and Old Lace - an oldie, but a goodie. Newlywed Cary Grant takes his missus to meet his two kindly old spinster aunts, only to discover they are in fact homicidal maniacs and who have been bumping off their gentlemen callers and hiding the bodies around the house. Much screwball hilarity ensues.
• Sleepy Hollow - I *heart* Tim Burton. You can spot one of his movies at 50 paces - they're all so visually stunning and weird. A strange little village is being terrorised by The Headless Horseman, so Johnny Depp is sent to employ order to this nonsense and solve the mystery. Christopher Walken plays the Horseman, complete with delightful filed-into-points teeth. And there's a lovely not-for-the-squeamish autopsy scene.
• Carrie - a bit contrived it may be, but I love the Stephen King book and I love the film. Those girls were so evil to her! Carrie's mother is a truly terrifying religious nutcase and I won't spoil the ending for anyone who hasn't seen it, but my cousin almost wet herself when we stealthily watched this together as 10 year olds.
• Hocus Pocus - my last, and highly embarrassing entry to this list. The kid from Eerie, Indiana (remember that? It rocked) accidentally brings back three hanged Salem witches from the dead to the modern day, where they try to steal the souls of children on Halloween in order to stay alive. You couldn't get much camper than Bette Midler (complete with a token song and dance routine), pre-SATC Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy (the overtly happy nun from Sister Act) as the three witches, but it's lots of Disney fun.

Right, I'm armed with popcorn and off to the sofa. I just hope I get SOME little trick or treaters knocking on my door to take these sweets off my hands. Jeeezus, I sound like the gingerbread house witch in Hansel and Gretel.

Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble...

Well, how disappointing. Not one Halloween party to go to, after I'd planned a costume out and everything (in tribute to my recent hearing-Uma-Thurman-wee incident, I would have taken the guise of Pulp Fiction's Mia Wallace, complete with bloody nose, foaming mouth and foot-long hypodermic sticking out of my chest. I'd worked out how to get the needle to stick and the whole shebang). Oh, well. My razor sharp black bobbed wig and fake blood will just have to wait for an outing next year instead. Sigh. (Actually, I would have had an invite to the spookiest party in the world ever bar none, had the hosts not had the audacity to break up. Honestly, people can be so selfish. Didn't they know about my costume idea?!)

So, I've planned my annual film, pumpkin and chocolate fest for All Hallow's Eve in lieu of going out. I might not have the pumpkin carving down to a t yet (they somehow always end up looking a bit, well, retarded rather than scary) but I've nailed what to do with the leftover pumpkin flesh after I've carved my Jack O'Lantern. Some things I've tried and tested are:

Pumpkin Pie - this has gone down well whenever I've made it, and smells divine when its baking. Can be a bit squishy when first made, so let it cool and store overnight in the fridge before serving if you can, to firm it up. Chopped pecans make a very nice addition, as do mini marshmallows to decorate.

Risotto - looks so impressive and colourful, but is really simple to do. I've made this all year round using butternut squash if I couldn't get hold of a pumpkin (as you tend to see pumpkins for a period of about 3 weeks in October, they they mysteriously vanish). Extra nice if you stir in some chopped chestnuts.

Cheesecake - people often think that cheesecakes are really complicated affairs, but this is delicious and again, not difficult at all to do. You can often buy the bases ready made if you're apprehensive. Even more indulgent served with ice cream, and decorated with toffee sauce and pecan nuts.

Spicy seeds - great if you have tons of seeds leftover and really don't know what to do with them. Mix in some chunky nuts like cashews for some extra crunch, or you can jazz them up with different flavours - I found a chili and lemon spice mix which works well, or go for all-out volcanic heat and use jerk and Tabasco.

Pumpkin Soup - the easiest thing to make ever, and you can bulk it up with all sorts of things like sweet potato, parsnip, even garlic mashed potato or something. Or add a bit of orange juice and coriander for some zing. You can't go wrong. Sprinkle some toasted pumpkin seeds on top to serve, and you're done.

Yum indeed. I might sample some new recipes with my pumpkin scoops this year. Anyway, off to purchase some trick or treat sweets now in case I get some little ghouls knocking on my door tomorrow evening; here's hoping I get some callers and don't end up devouring the stash myself.

Hello, darkness my old friend...

The nights are drawing in and the clocks have gone back, and my office is full of people complaining about getting up in the dark and leaving work in the dark. The car needed de-icing this morning. The winter cometh. It's fantastic! Cosy nights in are the business. But I was thinking, you really don't realise just how much you rely upon electricity for mundane things, especially when it's dark all the time. The other night we had a power cut of epic proportions (well, I say epic - it lasted for all of two hours. But the Law of Sod descended upon us and clicked the power off just as we'd settled down to watch a DVD).

Not just our house or even the street - it felt like the whole village had been knocked out when we stood outside and stared over a dark valley. The total blackness and rolling valley mist were quite creepy and atmospherical, and it would have been eerily quiet had it not been for the house alarms going off on their emergency power and the regulars in the pub down the road making their opinions on the matter known to all most profusely. None of this would have been so much of an issue in the summer - we'd have just gone outside and carried on as normal or lit the barbecue or something. But as it's October, I had to make do with trying to read a book by candlelight, which didn't last long. I got as far as three pages and gave up and went to bed - spilling my Ribena in the process. (Yes, I drink Ribena. No, I am not a five year old. Hey, it tastes nice.)

So, instead of counting sheep, I attempted to recall games you can play in the dark. And here they are (clean ones, people!):

• Murder in the Dark - I can't remember exactly how to play this; but remember it at birthday parties in dark rooms. It involved some sort of murderer, detective and suspect shenanigans, but the rules escape me. I seem to recall testing out several 'death poses' and fake fainting, however.
• Sardines - a version of hide and seek in the dark. One person hides and seekers move around in the dark whispering "sardines" and listening for a whispered response from the hidden person. Fairly boring, but there's the added danger of falling over something.
• Pimped-up hide and seek - use glow sticks, those stupid fibre optic pen things you get at firework displays and torches to play hide and seek indoors or out. Again, could be interesting if your garden is filled with exciting things like ponds. Mine is not.
• Ghost stories - a staple of pre-teen sleepovers, usually resulting in weaker members of the herd crying to go home for fear of the serial killer with a hook. Usually involved sitting in a circle taking turns to pass a torch around and tell a story. Many sweets were consumed.
• Twister in the dark - does what it says on the tin. Things could potentially get a bit risque and you should really be careful where you put your foot. Ooh er.
• Glow-in-the-dark cocktail party - not really a game, but this idea is wearing thin and I'm clutching at straws now. Use glow-in-the-dark martini glasses and provide glow-in-the-dark accessories for guests to wear. This sounds like more fun than games anyway. I'd happily swig a cocktail anytime, day-glo or otherwise.

Oh, I can't remember anything else. The power surge must have shorted out my head as well as my house. Perhaps that's why this working week is so supremely awful.

Teenage kicks (and twenty-something time-wasting)...

I worshipped Ewan McGregor when I was 15. Oh, who am I kidding? I still do. But today, I don't have little Ewan pictures stuck all around my bedroom mirror and his face adorning my walls on giant posters. But I might if only my Other Half would let me. I think I've always had crushes on famous boys; the first one was probably Corey Feldman in The Goonies. My friend preferred Mikey, but it was Mouth and his rude Spanish all the way for me. Then there was David Bowie. Bit of an peculiar choice you might think - but when I was 10, all I wanted to do was run away to the Goblin City and live in the castle with Jareth the Goblin King. If you don't know what I'm on about, shame on you - read all about it here.

My celebrity crushes dissipated in my later teens - but have since returned with a vengeance. Perhaps it's the boredom of my working day. Which brings me to a recent topic of discussion at work... the freebie list. We have very philosophical conversations and emails at work, as you can see. Made famous by Friends (I think Ross laminated his choices?!), the freebie list is the select group of celebrities you have crushes on who you're allowed to, er, have relations with, shall we say - should the opportunity ever present itself and your significant other can't say anything about it. My list resulted in several confused faces and I'm sure a couple of my choices were googled by my puzzled onlookers. Anyway:

1. Ewan McGregor. The afore-mentioned Mr. McGregor still holds the #1 spot on my list. He might be married and a bit beardy by now, but I don't care. I've even forgiven him for that ridiculous hair-do and facial wig in the gawd-awful Star Wars prequels.

2. David Tennant. And I don't even watch Dr. Who. I think it's his hair that does it.

3. Kyle Reese/Michael Biehn. The year would HAVE to be 1984 and I would need to be Sarah Connor, though. Oh, come on! He went through time for her! But if fictional characters don't apply, I'll take the very sweet John Simm as my #3 contestant.

4. Brett Anderson. I've loved him ever since I bought my first Suede single aged 13.

5. Andrew Lincoln. A forgotten teenage crush recently rediscovered upon repeat viewings of This Life. Damn that Milly woman; she didn't deserve him.

Honourable mention: I know I can't really choose fictional characters but if I could, Gene Hunt and his one-liners would be up there. It's so very politically incorrect and against the rules of feminism - but I'd quite happily let him give me a slap. That's really quite wrong.

So there you have it. I stand by my choices. They're liable to change, however, but they're not as odd as some - one of my friends had crushes on both Sean Connery (not so odd really; I suppose he could be considered as a bit of a silver fox) and Captain Von Trapp. Yes, you read that right. The Sound of Music dude. Each to their own!