ARRGHHHH! This weekend, for sure.

Recently we were sitting in the car out the front of my dear in-law's house. We were running late as usual, so Gareth had to write on the Mother's Day card before we went inside.

GARETH:  Sorry we're late.
MOTHER-IN-LAW-MARY:  Is everything alright!?
G:  Yes?
MILM:  Are you sure!?
G:  Yes!
MILM:  But you were just sitting there the car for ages! Were you two having a fight?
G:  No!
MILM: You were fighting, weren't you?
G:  Nooo! I was writing on your card!
MILM:  Are you sure you weren't fighting!?

I was somewhat miffed that we've reached a point of togetherness where if we sit in a car for a long time, people assume we're having an argument. As opposed to assuming we're desperately feeling each other up, just one more time before the soup is on the table.

Meanwhile, we're still fixing up the bloody flat. Gareth has spent all weekend painting the doors and skirting boards in the bedroom. My efforts with the gloss were crooked and shite, despite holding my breath. And I really tried hard, as I'm sort of bristling from that incident in January 1998 that I've only mentioned 72 times when The Mothership and Rhi were re-upholstering a chair and I asked could I bang in a few nails and The Mothership said No and I said Why not and she paused and said, Because you don't have practical skills.

Oh yeah? Then how did I come up with the Russian Remote Hat? I brought this fuzzy wonder back from Moscow for Gareth but the Scottish winter has never been cold enough for it. Now thanks to my Practical Skills it has found a noble purpose.

In other developments, my brain went fuzzy. It happened on 2 October when I began my New Job or perhaps it was as far back as 18 June when I handed in the book manuscript. All the clarity and zest absconded and I've been unable to focus ever since. New Job is almost six months old but I still call it New Job as that makes the constant panic still seem appropriate, and nothing to do with any rubbishness on my part. I've also done a lot of writing and talking to pimp Dietgirl and I don't know how I got through that without drooling on anyone. It's been a really mad, wonderful ride and I wanted to bore you with the details, all eleven of you. But whenever I've sat down at the screen I couldn't concentrate so I ended up Facebooking or twitting on Twitter. Result: brain cells further eroded. Witold wrote recently, Oh boy, there are so many places on the web now to say almost nothing in so many ways.

It feels like I'm trapped inside something, maybe a giant plastic ball. It's opaque so I can sort of see the world outside but not clearly and I'm poking and prodding the curvy walls, wanting to shout about my predicament but not being able to find the words. I think maybe I'm a little burned out, as much as I hate to use such a wanky phrase. But overall life is great, just really freaky busy; so sometimes it's hard to figure out what's important and what's to be done. Right now I am reading lots of books, to remind me that words are good and sexy and nice to be around. I hope to form proper sentences soon!

For those not in the know, it's basically American Idol with foie gras and fancy knives. It's hosted by two strangely endearing blokes who don't understand the concept of Inside Voices, so they constantly bark at the contestants, I WANNA SEE A NICE PLAYDA FOOD and NOW THAT'S BEWDIFULLY SEASONED!

The contestants are mostly earnest Former Bankers or Ex-Barristers who gave up high-flying careers to pursue their Passion for Food. This intrigues me as I don't think I could sacrifice even my low-flying career until I was 100% certain that the Passion was 100% secure and paid near enough to the low-flying career that I wouldn't need to live in a cardboard box. But on the telly, Passion RULES and people can chuck their jobs with gay abandon.

The final episode was both compelling and insane (and beautifully live blogged by Anna Pickard) Shouty Aussie was reduced to tears by Emily's beetroot tagliatelle and Shouty Bald insisted that EVERY YEAR THEY. JUST. GET. BEDDA AN BEDDA! Curly James was eventually declared the winner of the suitably curly Masterchef trophy.

It was so easy to be swept up in such culinary drama but Gareth brought some perspective to the table:

	"Whoever wins… IT WILL CHANGE. THEIR. LIVES"
	"It DOESN'T get any TOUGHER THAN THIS"
	"They're just COOKING THE DINNER!"

I should have thought of this weeks ago but forgot amidst the deaf and snottiness... I was wondering - you guys had so many brilliant ideas when we went to New York - has anyone been to the old one? Gareth's all geeked up for the air museum and the rail museum, but what's in it for me? Mwahaha.

Signs of old age and crotchety-ness:

• We booked our train tickets in the Quiet Coach. Shush, you kids!
• Gareth is bringing a thermos of tea coz we're too stingy to pay £1 for the pissweak on-board swill.
• Although Gareth will say it's more about environmental reasons - all them nasty plastic cups.

If he shows up with a tartan rug we're doomed.

As always, Mum had mummified the parcel with a kilometre of packing tape so we had to hack it open with a breadknife. But when I was finally in, I could almost smell home… traces of Bert the dog, Earl Grey tea and chilly Goulburn air, trapped in the fabrics and pages.

Reading the magazines was a strange mix of foreign and familiar. I gawked at a photo of a sheep for ten minutes, because I’d forgotten how beautifully beige and sturdy Aussie sheep look. And all those food brands… King Island Dairy, Devondale, Pauls. It’s pathetic when a yogurt pot makes you sigh with longing.

And that Bill Granger… bloody hell, he’s everywhere, isn’t he? Does he ever stop smiling? They had his show on the BBC but he hasn’t become the same level of culinary god as he seems to be in Oz. Maybe he’s just too smiley for Britain? All that sunshine and salad; we just can’t relate to that. Gareth reckons if he shot a series on a council estate and flipped the bird as he stirred the gravy, he’d be huge.

Recently I sent a parcel to Hollie and James, my wee brother and sister. It cost £30 to send about £5 worth of British sweets and crisps. But that’s the grand tradition of the long distance care package - the postage is always at least five times the value of the contents. The ratio may have been higher for Mum’s parcel - she sent me a bagful of loose change left over from her last visit. I could just hear her voice as I pawed through the pennies, They’re no good to me now, you might as well use them! This 2p coin has had an exciting life - from Scotland to Australia and back again.

- Lucy Tartan on an incredible day.

• What Sorry Looks, Sounds, Feels Like - Beth at Sarsaparilla
• He Didn't Fuck It Up - Ampersand Duck
• Some BBC background if you don't know what I'm banging on about!

What I have been wondering for many years is, why do Men of Rock always have such skinny legs? When I think of the Beatles I think of their twig-like pins in those natty grey suits. Mick Jagger, AC/DC, Johnny Rotten, every boofheaded hipster in the NME. All of ‘em!

Which comes first - the body or the rock? Do blokes hit the age of 16 or so and look in the mirror, Right. I’ve got no arse and tiny legs, I’d better join a band! Or do the legs come later; a product of the rock lifestyle - sex, drugs and malnourishment. Are there heaps of really talented bottom-heavy blokes sulking in their bedrooms, not even trying because they know they won’t look good in drainpipe jeans?

If you can think of someone truly rockin’ with chunky thighs let me know!

Spent a bookwhorin’ day in sunny Dublin yesterday… how bloody cool is Dublin? And Helen the Publicist bought me a Guinness, my very first. Tasted like Vegemite and chocolate. It was lovely, but I only managed to drink an inch of it. I just cannae get beer down, no matter what kind it is.

I really really really want to go back. Ireland has been right next door for nearly five years and I’ve totally ignored it! And what of WALES!?

In other news, my job is making me mental. The Slowest Computer In The World isn’t helping. It took 85 seconds for it to paste a 5k .gif from one folder into another. I ask it to do something, it just lights another fag and smirkss, “I’ll do it when I’m good and ready.” I’ve developed a habit of grabbing the monitor and shaking it violently while screaming C’MONNNNN Lleyton Hewitt style.

Happy Haggis Day, comrades! And Happy Australia Day for tomorrow!

My favourite moment was seeing Gareth gazing up at the stage with a dopey smile, bathed in the green laser light - clearly he’d been transported back to his bedroom, aged 15 with the headphones on. I’ve never seen him look so happy!

FAVOURITE RECORDS:  White Chalk, PJ Harvey and In Rainbows, Radiohead. Predictable, I know!

FAVOURITE FILLUMS:  I didn’t see much at the cinema but 2007 was the Year of the Clint. Gareth was horrified that I’d never seen any Clint Eastwood westerns so set out to give me an education. We started with A Fistful of Dollars then moved through classics like Pale Rider, Two Mules For Sister Sarah, Unforgiven and The Good The Bad and the Ugly. I had just assumed it would be boring shoot-em-up stuff but they were witty, subtle and stylish. And Clint Eastwood in his prime? SEXAY!

My favourite was The Outlaw Josey Wales because it’s basically Clint Spits On Many Things - he gobs tobacco on dead folk, a dog, a beetle, a scorpion - cinematic gold!

FAVOURITE BLOKE ON THE TELLY:  Bruce Parry of Tribe. I’m a sucker for any thoughtful, articulate bloke with a mellow voice and a wild passion for their chosen subject. Kevin McCloud of Grand Designs is the runner-up, but Bruce gets bonus points for all that shirtless running-around-in-jungles.

FAVOURITE ACCENT:  By a mile… KIWI! I’d never pondered its devastating hotness until I became addicted to the Flight of the Conchords’ HBO series. Their songs were great as always, but I doubt the non-song bits would have been half as funny if not for those accents (and Murray, of course). The dialogue seemed crafted purely to showcase the words that sound the most hilarious in Kiwi. The scene below from the Racism episode was my favourite, for the brilliant pisstaking of Australians and the way Jemaine says “person”.

. . .

Fun With Amazon Rankings
DR G:  Oh my god. You're NUMBER ONE!
SHAUNA:  What?!
DR G:  Number one in.... Books most likely to be pulped by April!
SHAUNA:  Books most likely to prop up wonky bookshelves!
DR G:  Books most likely to be used as emergency loo paper!

Etc etc etc.

I've weaned myself off the lunchtime pilgrimage to the wee local WH Smith, as it's just too soul-destroying seeing the same four copies there day after day and fighting the urge to scream to all the shoppers, "SOMEBODY. PLEASE!"

. . .

Call it OCD or call it being an idiot, but for the past few years I've been enslaved to a Heading Off To Work ritual of 1) kissing Dr G three times then 2) grabbing a tissue from the box on the shelf in the hallway and putting it in my right pocket.

Once you start these things it is hard to stop. I wasn't even conscious of the routine until one day I turned back halfway down the road because I'd forgotten The Tissue, convinced that without it I'd be mown down by a garbage truck or Gareth would leave his lunchtime beans on the stove and perish in flames. It's not even that dramatic, really. It's just that - my days have been okay while ever I've had three kisses and a tissue... so why mess with the formula?

We've been painting the (evil, bastard, neverending) hallway lately, so The Shelf has been moved to the living room. Today I was running late and huffed in the manner of a martyred corporate slave, I just don't have TIME to take another three steps to the living room! So I left without the tissue.

The old heart was clattering as I slinked down the street, wondering which speeding car would leap off the road and into my arms. I regarded every tree suspiciously, waiting for the falling branch. But then I arrived safely at work and I felt quite exhilarated and devil-may-care. I might try it again tomorrow.