this is the day, this is the hour.....

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:27:04 GMT

Should be heading to Black Planet tonight if anyone fancies a lift!

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:33:14 GMT

Last night was pretty cool - I didn't shit myself, and Paul scummyfred played his Sting impressions to rapturous applause and SWANK palyed and then we had a mishap when our drummer had to go to hospital with his Grandad at short notice and Paul stepped in (pretty bloody good for no practice with us ;) and then Craig came back so we carried on with him and then when we left the stage loads of random people got up and played with the instuments. I had fun drumming to them but then all the improvisation (we call it "Punk-Fusion" ;) got to me head because I wasn't drunk and I went to stand outside where an idiot drunken arse tried to grope me and instead of thumping him as I would have done if I was drunk I just grabbed Steve and stormed out of the pub. Steve wanted to go back "and kill him" for me but I deemed discretion the better part of valour and stomped home, bothered by the the story Carly'd told me of one of our mutual friends having his legs and arm broken on the kerb in High Town for refusing to give muggers his mobile phone last week. Luton seems very scary at night after something like that and I was jumping at shadows all the way home. He still has the phone though, I think it was a moral victory ;)

edit: Forgot to say thanks to the Huntingdon Contingent Representative ufilias for coming all the way out to see us :)

I am not sure I like going out much when I am sober. I feel brittle and don't find other people as amusing and convivial as I do when I'm drunk. I think this is probably why I drink socially - because secretly I'm a morose old bag who likes nothing better than her own company.

Today I got some good news - I'm now a secure tenant in my flat (as opposed to an Introductory one); this means I can have lodgers if I want, pass the tenancy onto somebody else in my family (ie Steve if I get ill), apply for an exchange property, make "modofications" to the flat (although I am not sure my planned modification of ripping up my ceiling and building extra rooms in the kickspace between my flat and the roof would be approved) and also cannot be kicked out without being rehomed unless i do something really awful like crucifying the neighbours. It's almost as good as owning it except i don't have to pay thousands of pounds every time they want to update the window frames or something. Am I really sad that this feels like an achievement? It's the most housing stability i have ever had, even when buying my own house (which turned out to be fairly fragile when I lost my job).

The Show Must Go On..

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:35:15 GMT

Well, I am now a bit better - as long as I don't eat or drink anything and don't sit down to provoke the stomach cramps it should all be fine for this evening. I can take my hot water bottle with me and get them to fill it up at the pub..

What could possibly go wrong?

(In a worst case scenario I suffer mortifying Explosive Diarhoea on stage and get banned from everything forever.. ho hum at least our set is only 15 mins long)

On the plus side I believe I've already gone down a dress size; perhaps I should nurture this ailment until I can look good in miniskirts again? Hmm)

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:11:07 GMT

Still ill. Had an amusing night getting up every 20 minutes. Steve kindly took the kids into school this morning because I was worried about the feasibility of a half hour walk.

I have a theory that all my recent little ailments are linked to the chest infection, which hasn't gone away and is probably spreading - could explain the backache, stomach upsets and mouth ulcer. I shall be visiting the doctor to demand antibiotics before my leg falls off or something. Whatever did people do before they had antibiotics? Just died, I suppose.

I am reading "The Grey King" by Susan Cooper; it's part of the Dark is Rising series I used to read when I was a kid - it's still very good. Yesterday I read Strandloper by Alan Garner (the guy who did the Owl Service etc) which is also brilliant - I would have said both books are too dark for children, but I remember adoring them when I was 8 or so, I must have just been a macabre child :)

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:19:39 GMT

Why is it that whenever I start getting ill I get loads of different illnesses all at once? Pft.

Appear to have given myself sunstroke walking to Matts yesterday; all night and today I have been up and down to the toilet and the stomach cramps are getting a bit past a joke. It's such a wierd ilnness, I wouldn't have thought stomach cramps would have anything to so with sunstroke but I looked them up and they do. Last time I got it I just sweated and hallucinated a lot, which was more fun. Still I have been rehydrating myself and having lots of baths and finished reading "utopia" ((not in the latin, obviously) - surprisingly good although I think patriarchialism was so ingrained in those times he was being pretty harsh to women even when he thought he was being right-on..)

Hope everyone else is feeling better than I am!

tomorrow is the gig at the george - I hope i'm recovered by then or i will have to rush to the toilet after each song.

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:10:04 GMT

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:15:46 GMT

Does anyone here use GIMP2?

I love it to bits and once you know what you're doing it easily competes with photoshop etc, but it's not exactly user friendly.

I am trying to use the scissor tool to cut some people out of a photograph and put them somewhere else. It's very clever; it lets me select them intelligently and follows the lines of the clothes etc. However when I have finished, the tutorial says to click inside the perimeter to turn it into a selection, which I do, but then the whole thing vanishes leaving me with the unaltered picture, nothing on the selection popup, and nothing to paste into my new picture - almost as if nothing has happened. How on earth do I select it and get it into the clipboard to use?

It's also a complete bastard to draw circles with.

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:00:38 GMT

Room in Luton (x posted to gothhousing)

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 10:22:22 GMT

Hello,
I am posting this for my cute guitarist, who's been let down by the person who was going to move in.

Wanted: Easygoing outgoing alternative type to share 2 bedroom house with dishwasher, broadband, large bedroom, band room with lots of instruments.

House is a bit scruffy but nice with a garden big enough for bonfires, good kitchen, 10 minutes walk from the town centre and train station, £275 a month (plus bills). It's close to corner shops and offlicenses and parks and a big common. There will probably be a house kitten soon too :)

Matt's kindof sociable so there are usually people round at the weekends - nice people though! Would suit someone friendly who likes company, parties and messing about. DSS welcome IF your housing benefit is sorted out, we can't afford to pay your rent for you :( Move in as soon as you like, deposit does need to be paid but you can do that over a period of time if it's easier.

If you're interested, contact matt on facebook above or through here and i'll pass messages on.

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:54:19 GMT

Last week I went for an interview for a data analyst job, part time, at the council. I didn't mention it because I wasn't that sure getting the job would be a good idea (I am still quite busy with Sextoys) and was fairly sure I had fucked up the interview by being too self-depreciating (I'm always doing that). It would have been cool to get the job as it was quite a lot of money and walking distance from where I live, and I wanted to keep my hand in with "proper" technical jobs in case i needed to - if Sextoys ever decide they don't need me or I run out of stuff to write for them, I don't want to have to go back to customer service or admin jobs, I find them really frustrating.

Today I got the expected rejection letter, but on the bottom was scribbled - "But we do have some contract work for you to do if you're interested?"

Which is a pretty good result! They must have liked me even if they thought i was too much of a space cadet for a proper job (they were probably right).

Apparently I will be finding out what it is exactly later in the week :)

The power of the Mouse Butcher

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 08:40:36 GMT

Steve gave us a lift to school this morning (thus eliminating the necessity for me to walk up That Hill) and we got there half an hour early. I'd put a book in my bag (Dick King Smiths' The Mouse Butcher - I used to love it when i was little, it's very exciting) for just such an eventuality and we chose a shady spot (it's almost too hot for me to stand in the sun at 9.00am today, I had to plot my way home taking advantage of the shadows from buildings) and sat down to read, a child on each knee.

After the first chapter, I noticed an extra couple of pairs of shoes loitering near us but I carried on reading and didn't look up. At the second chapter I noticed an extra weight as a strange child perched on lillith, who was perching on me. By the time the bell rang I was surrounded with with about twelve uninvited little listeners, who kept stopping me to ask questions, and they all went "aawwww" in dissappointed voices when the bell rang for school. I feel a bit guilty I won't be dropping Lil and Harry off tomorrow morning so they can hear the end :)

Forget Dairylea, kids will do anything to have stories read to them :)

Two steps forward one step back

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:12:34 GMT

New anglican church schism - apparently Christianity isn't rightwing enough.. unless I've misunderstood this article, all these idiots want to reverse all the work the current Anglican church has done updating itself so that it's open to gay people (and women) and take things back to 1662.

I'm not religious, me. Because the people who run religions seem to me to be completely batshit insane.

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:58:06 GMT

Had a surprisingly amazing night... Sarah came over and Lillith made us go rollerskating in the park, which was hilariously awful (I blame the paths being uneven, although it didn't seem to bother Lil much). We went home and drank Cava (actually I can trace a lot of debauched nights out back to Cava) and then Sarah and I went out and did a quick circuit of Luton, ending up in the Wellington ("Lutons' Premier Gay Club" which was awesome, they had a pretty roof terrace and pool room and tiny little bars tucked in strange places and we danced and danced to cheesy music and drank apple sours and alcopops and fell over each other and everyone was lovely to us and the manager even came out and gave us some free drinks (as an award for being the drunkenest pewople in the club? Not sure exactly why) and we drank and danced and fell about and chatted to people we'd never met before and then when we wanted to go they called us a taxi so we wouldn't have to walk home alone. Really really lovely place. I felt a bit guilty I wasn't more gay though, although I suppose I was staring at Sarahs breasts lots in a sort of alcoholic daze. Which is almost the same thing.

When we got home we were trying to be very quiet so as not to wake Steve but apparently we were unsuccessful and talked for ages, as he was very cross with us this morning :)

Today we watched Doctor Who. What a swizz!

..and..

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 12:48:36 GMT

I feel fine again now! Will have to watch myself carefully but the glums seem to have lifted. The is a definite improvement on weeks of grump - i had it for a week and now it seems to have lifted.. Yeehaw etc. Perhaps behaving is good for me. This is a pity in a way because if drinking and being reprehensible wasn't making any difference i could have carried on doing it..

Took the kids to the cinema ended up watching Alvin and the Chipmunks. It's not aimed at adults. The kids liked it though. Had a brief argument with Harry over a Ben10 stickerbokk on the way home and now we're happily ensconsed back at home.

Steve has just spent over £500 on a new solid wood bed. I am going to tack saris up all round it and pretend to be a medieval princess.

And we have a surprise wiccabird! :D :D x

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:07:24 GMT

Argh.. I'm getting a gloom on again. It's wierd - now my life is a bit more settled and i'm not just lunging from crisis to crisis I can spot it coming. Lack of motivation, lethargy, sad thoughts creeping into my head at night stopping me sleeping, generally feeling a bit tearful all the time, questioning my friendships with people, inability to deal with burocracy, panic, physical symptoms like aching joints and mouth ulcers I get when I'm "run down".

Usually I blame it on my lifestyle but I've not been drinking, I havent taken drugs, I've cut down on smoking, been eating loads of fresh fruit and vegetables, getting out for a couple of miles walk a day except when my back stops me. Steve is lovely and supportive, I've been seeing a lot of my friends, the children are healthy and bright and happy.

I should really go back through my journal and figure out whether this is occurring at regular periods and - do what? I'm not willing to take anti-depressants for something that only affects me once every couple of months. I'm loathe to go to a doctor - having kept my depression off my medical record this long it seems silly to fold when I don't think they could really help me. I'd only go to get a doctors' note to explain to people why I don't function properly for short periods, but everyone knows that anyway - work don't press me when I can't work, cos I'm freelance, and I imagine they probably know why I chose that path.

I don't think the depression any longer has any roots in my life; things are great now, I can't think of anything I'd like to change about my situation - I barely think about things that damaged me in the past, and going over them again isn't going to help as I came to terms with them (painfully and at some length) at the time. There's not any repression going on there, it's all been acknowledged and shouldn't have any bearing on me now. Am I so used to this that I have to keep recreating it when there's no reason for it? Do I just naturally get seratonin-deficient for a couple of weeks every 2-3 months? I am beginning to come to terms with the fact that it is an illness rather than something i always bring on myself - with my self destructive habits in the past it's sometimes been difficult to tell the difference.

More meditation more exercise more vitamins more writing more painting more time with the kids and steve. It usually goes away on it's own if I just try to keep my head up. Historically I drink to get over the bad feelings but I'm not going to let myself anymore. I suppose that at least is something to be encouraged by - that my first response is no longer to bury myself in a bottle of whiskey. I suppose another encouraging thing is that I am not running away and hiding anymore, I don't flinch when steve touches me, I can still hug the children. I couldnt always when I felt like this. Perhaps I am getting better, it will just take a long time.

But arrghggh/ Frustration. It feels like carrying weights around in my heart. Everything seems grey, to have lost colour, people's faces look hostile when they glance towards me, their motives seem clouded and suspicious, simple tasks seem to tower epically over me so that I can't even get started - easy things seem so difficult. - it's like stepping out of the world into a bad dream.

I have worked hard to have self knowledge about this rather than just reacting blindly to it by cutting my wrists or burning myself or getting drunk or taking drugs or any of my other myriad shit distraction techniques I tried when I was younger. But it seems awfully hard that having made this huge and mostly successful effort to straighten myself out this is still fucking happening.

Edit: perhaps it was the Gin truffles? ;)

bekki the cheapskate chocolatiere presents:

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:45:09 GMT

The gin truffles are a success! £1.50 maximum for loads (like about 50)

Gin Truffles

200g) cheap dark chocolate (tescos does 100g for 28p!)chopped/grated into little bits
1/4 cup pure cocoa powder
1/3 cup cream
knob of butter
Teaspoon ground ginger or icing sugar or hundreds and thousands for coating
Gin! (about 3 capfulls)
Zest of one lemon

You're supposed to make this in a Ban Marie (pot suspended over boiling water) but I just did it in the saucepan really quickly.

Mostly melt butter in saucepan, pour in cream, mix well; when cream is bubbling round edge of pan add chocolate, mix in (it should melt really quickly if the bits are small enough), take off heat, fold in cocoa powder (this is how you make your cheap chocolate taste more expensive).

You should be left with a really thick creamy chocolatey paste which is apparently called a ganache.(it's also nice on top of cheesecake). Add your gin and lemon zest (or whiskey or cointreaux and orange or whatever) and beat in thoroughly, adding more cocoa powder if it looks too runny. This needs to be left to cool down and then chilled in the fridge or by standing in cold water.

About an hour later your ganache should be hard enough for a spoon to stick up in it, although still disconcertingly soft. Get a saucer and put your coating in it (ginger mixed with cocoa powder is really nice) then take a teaspoon full of your ganache, drop it in the coating, and gently roll it about until it's all covered, rolling between the palms of your hands to make it round. There is a bit of a knack to this and the chocolate does tend to go everywhere at first as it is still quite soft. Put your truffle onto a plate lined with clingfilm. When you've done all the truffles, pop them back in the fridge to harden. Voila!

I think they may have to be kept in the fridge in this weather although in the winter they'd be fine to box up and leave out.

I am going to try dipping some in melted white chocolate later which should be interesting :)

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:53:45 GMT

Today I am mostly making Gin truffles.

video

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:41:58 GMT

This is one of the videos Roger did for us

He's really cool, he's done amateur videos for the statics and people as well. Nice of him to do us!

Most amusing is the comment under the video:i'm a big fan of punk and all that, but this is just terrible. punk is dead, has been for years and years. it's time to move on now. i'm sorry, but the adenoids are just terrible.

That made our afternoon ;)

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:44:02 GMT

I have finally found a way of sitting comfortably at the computer (which is at a low desk and was hurting my back) - perching on one of the childrens carseats! It's not very glamorous - I hope nobody comes over ;)

Watched Time Bandits for the first time with Matt last night, it was good :)

Don't use Barclays for personal accounts!

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:15:24 GMT

Due to recent woe with Barclays, Steves just closed his account. I would close mine too but haven't got another one yet. They are really, really crap - they've charged us both for things we cancelled ages ago, added unfair charges, had loads of trouble migrating my old account (they transferred it without asking from a current account with switch to a savings account where i can only get money out of their own machines, which almost never work), ignored emails, when you try to ring them they insist on taking all your details and then pass you to another person who takes all your details again and then pass you on to another person who takes all your details and passes you to another person - who then hangs up on you. If you do get to talk to somebody they generally say they can't help you, in a snotty voice, and then hang up on you. They obfuscate about the extra charges they've put on (I'm talking about ones that were added illegally without us going overdrawn). Basically, they're shit. I'd have been better off putting my money under the fucking mattress.

There's a saying that if you're nice to a customer they tell a couple of their friends and you get one or two new customers. If you piss them off they tell everyone they know!

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:33:41 GMT

I am an idiot. After getting my back under control yesterday I then went shopping and lugged lots of heavy things around and set it off again. Today has mostly been spent writhing on the floor with a hot water bottle balanced precariously on my back like an epileptic snail.

Edit: I think I'm also going to have top bite the bullet and get my teeth on the right sorted out - after spending four or five days recovering from having the last wisdom teeth out I'm not keen, but it keeps getting infected and i can feel shards of the tooth moving about inside my gum. Its hard to make the decision to do something KNOWING exactly how painful it's going to be but probably best not to put it off much longer.. Abi whats the address of your dentist? ;)

I have added more songs to Last FM, if people who use last fm wouldn't mind playing it so we can get some more interesting stats and similar artists that would be cool. So far according to last fm we apparently sound like a cross between new model army, deathboy and all about eve..

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:06:20 GMT

I am in the middle of putting up a lot of our songs and stuff on ilike for facebook people.. the link should take you there...

Question for other people who make music, what are good (free!) places to upload songs to? We don't want to charge for stuff (anybody who wants to pay will buy the CD),but we don't want to have to pay for it either.

Scooty Nimbus, the fastest pigeon in the west

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:40:37 GMT

I was playing my guitar and Scooty started dancing in circles with his tail puffed out and burbling along.. I may have discovered the first pigeon punk singer..

For people who have not seen Scooty Nimbus, here is an example of His Magnificence..

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:11:24 GMT

Heh - apparently we're playing this years LUTONAID as well - I don't remember signing up for it but it's nice that they thought of us! We always dress up like spastics and play really badly so I am looking forward to it.. Last year we were Pirates and Vikings and the year before we were Transgender Adenoids so I think this year should be either Clown Adenoids or Zombie Adenoids.

(EDIT: LutonAid is a rock/punk/indie festival held on 26th July at Luton SU for charity (I'm not sure what its for this year) - with 20+ bands and Djs and two bars and a garden to piss about in. All for the princely sum of not-very-much (I think it was 6 quid last year). You should all come and go to it (if you do we will provide crash space!)

I have been practicing on Steve

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 17:16:00 GMT

~~Undying~~undead love ;)

Yesterday we watched Zombie Strippers with Matt (destined to become a cult classic I'd say) and had our first audition with our new drummer Craig and were treated to a rather interesting Death Metal "White Rabbit".. then Steve and I went to a Zombie Party with his friends from uni where we ate eyeballs and decaying flesh until I got unexpected back ache and we had to go home.

Spent the first few hours of this morning completely incapacitated (to the extent of having to crawl to get anywhere and not being able to straighten up at all, cue lots of wheezing and moaning trying to do anything, I felt and looked like an old lady, but with more zombie makeup on) but I refused to be defeated and kept trying and now it's manageable. I'd be less concerned if I knew what had set it off, because i have literally never had any problems with my back before, although I do slouch terribly. Steve pointed out that throwing Kelly's alsation around the garden at the longest day party probably didn't help (she was enjoying it!). I think some combination of losing weight, stretches, attention to my posture and not throwing dogs should sort it out though, because I don't intend on putting up with this much more often.

Today we watched a film called Idiocracy, which was very amusing.

Here is a very small photo of me being a goth for those who missed it..