World MS Day

Nothing to say

I've been keeping a list of all the things that I want to blog about. But I've lost it. Sorry.

Proud hausfrau

I managed to get a tomato-based stain out of a white top. I'm so chuffed with myself it's a little ridiculous. And I only damaged myself a little - a scrubbed the top of my index finger raw.

PATTOTE: Better living through washing powder.

Tackling Tetley

I really dislike this advert - it's just so patronising, and twee, and wrong.
Why must they resort to such blatantly wrong stereotypes, especially when it's done so badly that no joke results? If you're going to be insulting, at least be funny.

There's been a suggestion that this is some sort of homage to Alexander McCall Smith's Mma Ramotshwe. But...that's in Botswana.

PATTOTE: Better living through Nando's adverts, which you don't get here to my disgust.

Tartle

A Scottish verb meaning to hesitate while introducing someone due to having forgotten his/her name.

Deeper underground

I'm rather sadly obsessed with things that happen undergound. Love tubes and subways, would love to do a sewer tour. etc etc.

So I was thrilled to see this article in the Guardian. Books and the underground. What's not to love!

PATTOTE: Better living deeper underground, there's too much terror in this town, going deeper underground...

Sunday obits

It's weird, but for the last couple of months, as soon as I check the news on a Sunday morning, someone reasonablly famous has pegged it. Why do people die over weekends? It's convenient, but it's also a little odd.

Lovefilm anticipation

On their way - The Accidental Husband and Jane Eyre!

Two very good ones. Love this adaptation of Jane, because it has the always wonderful Toby Stephens in it. I was never as obsessed with Mr Rochester as some other fans of the book because, let's face it, he's a jackass. But he has a certain charm.

PATTOTE: Better living through Netflix lookalikes.

Eyes right

It never fails - as you take the DLR from West Silvertown to Pontoon Dock, and then on to London City Airport, everybody's eyes are immediately drawn to the Thames Barrier. It sits solidly over the river, inviting photographs and questions that nobody can answer. Why is the barrier there mummy? Um, to stop London from flooding. But how mummy? Um, um, look, an aeroplane. And we're still no closer to an answer.

PATTOTE: Better living through googling, I know, but going to the visitors' centre would be more fun I think.

Hurt

I've been listening to the Johnny Cash cover, because I was watching a really good documentary. It's so..sad.

Here's a video, so that you can all be sad with me.

Click here.

PATTOTE: Better living through the man in black.

You've got mail

I love this movie, it's one of my standbys. When it first came out I went to see it three times in a row - one of the first times I picked a movie and went to it by myself. Today though four things strike me:

1) The cleverly modern computer graphics in the opening scene - really, really dated.

2) The dial up sound makes me giggle so hard. As does the 'you've got mail'.

3) Wait a minute, a movie that came out when I was a teenager is looking dated. Shit, I got old!

4) I was suddenly really taken aback by the fact that Joe was as eager to hear from Kathleen as she was to hear from him. Am I really so stuck in my view that I'm always going to be more interested in them than they are in me?

PATTOTE: Better living through romcom realisations

Scene at South Bank Centre

Love Poem

You remind me
define me
incline me.

If you died I'd.

PATTOTE: better living through love poems and margharitas.

Dear Cecelia Ahern

I must insist that you cease and desist writing novels forthwith.

Having just completed PS I love you and Where rainbows end, I am honour-bound to inform you that necessary parts of my brain leaked from my ears. Your wanton disregard for pronouns caused my face to twitch so badly, doctors believe I will never smile again. And the dialogue. The stilted dialogue. The...stilted, dialogue.

No.

No, no, no, no, no.

yours respectfully

Me

PATTOTE: Better living through half-way decent chicklit, which this is not

I see

Relative afferent pupillary defect (RAPD): An indication of damage to the visual system which is greater on one side than the other. The presence of a relative afferent pupillary defect (RAPD) means that the pupils constrict less when a light is directed into the affected eye than they do when the same light is directed into the normal (or less affected) eye . The presence of an RAPD usually indicates damage to the retina or optic nerve that results in diminished light impulses being transmitted from the eye to the brain on the affected side.

PATTOTE: Better living through wikipedia, even though mostly it generates more questions than answers.

Such excitement!

Dark, very dark

Alas, poor Darcy, I knew you well

I've been watching Lost in Austen on DVD. It's a rather random mini-series about a woman in London who changes places with Elizabeth Bennett and proceeds to muck up Pride and Prejudice, while trying to get the story moving. I have loved Darcy since the minute I picked Pride and Prejudice. But alas, I have realised that he is a twat. I'm distressed.

PATTOTE: Better living through fictional heroes, cause real heroes are thin on the ground.

A burning question

So I'm waiting for a letter from my neurologist, informing my GP that it's all stations go on the disease modifying drugs so that my disease can, y'know, be modified. Finally today I got a response from the neuro's secretary. Apparently the hospital in Reading outsources their letter writing. To India. No, really.

They send them the dictaphone tapes (how exactly - because if they upload to email and email it, surely it would just be easier to type it here?) and then they transcribe them and send them back here for posting.

So my letter has been written, but some vital details have been left out ("Maybe the tape was broken," she said. "Or maybe they didn't understand something."). So now I have to wait. For my letter. To come all the way from India. Instead of all the way from Reading.

PATTOTE: Better living through carrier pigeons, which I'm seriously considering investing in.

The Book Thief

At first Liesel could not talk. Perhaps it was the sudden bumpiness of love she felt for him. Or had she always loved him? It's likely. Restricted as she was from speaking, she wanted him to kiss her. She wanted him to drag her hand across and pull her over. It didn't matter where. Her mouth, her neck, her cheek. Her skin was empty for it, waiting.

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

Outrage

Today I got a letter from a debt collector.

On behalf of the library.

I have an outstanding fine.

Pay or else.

WTF???