Alien Spouse

Idea: Range of Exercise Clothes for Intellectuals.

Sometimes I have great ideas that I am just not in a position to actually implement, the oft quoted example being the lavish mini-series of "Mame" and the sequel "Around The World With Auntie Mame" starring Megan Mullally (I'm going to keep mentioning that one, until someone steals the concept.  Unless McG is reading this. In which case: Yikes).

It's mainly casting, which would have been my dream career, but I do also develop product lines in my head sometimes.  Most recently I've been mulling over an idea I came up with when I was a teenager that I still think would be a winner.
When I was studying "Hamlet" for my Eng. Lit. A-Level I thought that work-out gear that had the quote "Oh! that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew", would be great.  I'm sure I've seen that phrase on t-shirts before, but I am thinking of a whole range of clothes specifically designed for exercise with that and other appropriate literary quotations.  You know track suits or yoga gear with lines from Dostoyevsky on, that type of thing.

The market would be intellectuals, or just people with intellectual pretensions, to wear their brains on their sleeves whilst on the elliptical machine.  Of course the range would also accommodate those people who want their tracksuits to say more than "Just Do It" whilst they are slumped on the sofa watching telly.

It would be cool, right?

I am iBlogging!

The first application I downloaded? Typepad, naturally!

Even Though, Really, Blogging is It's Own Reward.

Just so you know I have signed up for this year's NaBloPoMo.

That means I will be blogging every day through out November.  Which is pretty much what I would have done anyway, so there should be no perceptible change to our scheduled programming; although I am hoping that being part of a big group blogging event like this inspires me to write about something other than cat poo, and I am reasonably confident that you are hoping that too.

You may already be aware of this, but you can do NaBloPoMo any month you like now, but November is still the big one with prizes for different categories.  I'll be brutally honest here and say I would absolutely love to win a prize for blogging, that would be brilliant! 

Actually I'd love to win something full stop; I spent ten minutes filling out a questionnaire for the University's library last week, even though I have yet to check out a book from it or use it to do anything except attend meetings.  I did it purely because they e-mailed the thing to me and said I would be entered into a prize draw for an iPod Touch if I graded their performance on a scale of one to ten. 

Alright then, I'd say you were, oooh, about an 8 as far as Libraries-that-I-don't-use go.  Could perhaps do a little bit better, but you're not bad at all really.  Carry on!

Breakfast with Champions.

It's Fall Break, so the faculty and students had yesterday and today off, unfortunately office staff aren't so lucky.  So Doc C dropped me off at work this morning and went to get something to eat at our favourite breakfast place.

Whilst he was there an enormous pink SUV pulled up and two guys got out, and came to get breakfast too.  As it happened they sat at the table next to Doc, so as the two of them were chatting to each other Doc realised that one was a former professional surfer, and the other was probably a writer for a magazine.  He was tipped off by their discussing surfing with Tom Cruise.

When he told me about it, I asked him to describe the surfer and all I got was "He was huge!  He was just this really muscly guy, so I didn't laugh at the car!", so I tried another tack "Was he bald?" and The Doc said yes he was.

As it happens I can only name one former professional surfer and that is Kelly Slater; which was why I asked if the guy was bald, so I found a picture of him on-line to show Doc.  And Doc was pretty sure that was the same guy he'd been sat next to at breakfast this morning.  He thinks.  Maybe.

No clue what a surfer is doing 3000 feet up a mountain though.

If the Presidential Debate Ends in a Walk Off, I will be KICKING Myself.

So the second presidential debate is on this evening, at the same time as the "Project Runway" season five finale. 
Obviously I'm going to be watching "Project Runway", and I thought I may as well live blog it!

If you haven't been watching the show and you want to play along at home you can go to the show's website here, or the Fug Girls attended the Bryan Park show and actually handicapped the contestants in New York Magazine.  They have pictures of the runway show, bless their coal black hearts.

If you'd rather follow the debate, may I direct you to Defective Yeti?  Matthew Baldwin is live blogging this debate, and I can virtually guarantee you will find him immensely entertaining.

• 9.00 - I missed the first few seconds of the "Previously..." montage, but that's ok I'm up to speed.
• 9.03 - Tim Gunn's first appearance!  Hoorah!  Swiftly followed by Kenley-Disagrees-With-Tim shock.
• 9.17 - A model brought her puppy to a fitting and cleaned up the inevitable poop whilst wearing Leanne's evening gown.  It seemed a bit weirdly staged really.
• 9.20 - I would love to go accessory shopping with Korto, she has a great eye for a striking piece.
• 9.21 - Michelle Trachtenburg alert!
• 9.26 - Jennifer Lopez pulled out of judging the finale because of a foot injury.  When I first heard that I thought it was a joke, but, no, it's true.  Anyway Tim is doing it instead.  Kenley made a comment about how she should have worked on her attitude.  Umm, yeah, that might have been good.  Kenley starts the show.
• 9.28 - Shot of Rachel Zoe in the audience.  Nice product placement there Bravo!
• 9.34 - Korto's collection is a lot stronger with her new dresses.  Well played!
• 9.35 - Index tags!  That's what Leanne's collection reminds me of!  In a good way!
• 9.42 - Judging panel.  Let's hope Michael and Nina have been working out their bitchy muscles in preparation.
• 9.47 - Korto kicks off the crying for this evening with a few discreet tears, Leanne was completely self-possessed and under control but Kenley actually blubbered.
• 9.56 - Kenley's out. And crying again, and complaining about how unfair everything is.  Poor baby.
• 9.57 - Leanne wins Season Five!  And a hybrid car!  And Leanne's model wins her own magazine spread too, which is nice.
• 9.58 - Korto is the runner up, but we already know that she won the fan's favourite so she'll be getting $10 000 anyway and her little girl is super cute, so Korto's doing pretty well too.
• 9.59 - Is that it?  I feel like that was a bit of an anti-climax really.

Ok, well that's all for Alien Spouse's live coverage for tonight, but in real life I will now be watching "Top Design" with India Hicks.  I love Bravo...

Ngaio Marsh 34: Black Beech and Honeydew.

Here is the last book in our series.  This is Ngaio Marsh's autobiography and I have to say I think they did her proud with this cover.  I love that the white band in the middle, with the same typeface and layout has been used to integrate it with her novels; whilst the image in the oval is the only photograph in the range which I think subtly indicates that this is not a murder mystery.  I also think they chose a nice picture of her, and that it all works together really well.

I read the autobiography, which I like very much, after I read an incredibly boring biography.  I forget who wrote the biography now, all I remember is that it was a woman, but she was very scathing of "Black Beech and Honey Dew" as a source of hard facts whilst committing two unpardonable sins of her own which made me dispose of the book before I moved here.  First the biography is really boring (and that is definitly the fault of the author and not the subject) and long winded, secondly she gave away spoilers without any warning whatsoever!  By way of contrast the autobiography Miss Marsh writes about her own life is very interesting and has some great colourful stories, even though it's true she doesn't address all of the questions one would want answered.

The Political Satire of Doc C.

Doc C and I are at the supermarket on the way home, and as we wandering down the canned vegetables aisle Doc turned to me and said:

"Do you want to stock up on tins of beans in case the economy crumbles and the fabric of society splinters? Oooh! M&M's!"

He then zoomed off to grab a large bag of the peanut and chocolate treats.  Do you think that's what happens at script meetings for "The Daily Show, with John Stewart"?  Someone is right in the middle of an amusingly scathing riff about the current political situation, when they get distracted by sugary snacks?

Ngaio Marsh 20: Singing in the Shrouds.

So this is the cover that should have been on "Spinsters in Jeopardy", and the blurriness of the photo is nicely atmospheric I think.  It also has one of Miss Marsh's most enigmatic dedications; what looks to be a hand drawn triple X.

(Limited SPOILERS from this point - Killer not revealed.)

This book really encapsulates what I like about Ngaio Marsh mysteries (This particular plot is set in the ultimate in remote and secluded settings, a cruise ship), with one of the aspects of her writing that I find most difficult to read and almost impossible to defend:  blatant homophobia.  Several times in her books she has secondary characters who she specifically indicates are gay, and they are always described as having almost no redeeming features.  In this title a gay character is killed in a case of mistaken identity, and it's actually received as good news by the other characters when this plot twist is finally revealed.  I fully understand that an unpleasant side effect of reading vintage fiction is that it will necessarily feature vintage prejudices; however Miss Marsh was heavily involved in theatre and there is no way on earth that you are telling me that she didn't have contact with gay men and women in that sphere of her experience if in no other.  Of course another possibility is that she was gay herself, and is expressing her self-loathing through her work; but really homophobia is an ugly, ugly thing no matter what the reason for it.

So, I have issues with this one.

Ngaio Marsh 17: Spinsters in Jeopardy.

This is quite a fun cover I think; it's very much of it's time and it's just creepy enough without going overboard.  There is just one problem:  This image has absolutely nothing to do with the plot of "Spinsters in Jeopardy", and neither does the blurb on the back. 

It's not until you read the inside cover description that what you are reading has any relation at all to the plot of "Spinsters..." I found this very confusing the first time I read it and it didn't become clear until I read "Singing in the Shrouds" which is three books later on in the series, and is what this cover art should have been on. 

Oddly enough I have the edition of "Singing..." which fits into the same Fontana re-print run as this book, and that's where the cover art ended up for this one.  It's most odd.  It's not just that they put the wrong jackets on, because the titles are actually correct on the covers so it is just a major mistake on someone's part.  This pair are for that reason one of the prizes of my collection and I am so glad that I have both of them.

Ngaio Marsh 12: Colour Scheme.

Is it not ironic that this cover has such a limited palette when it is for a book called "Colour Scheme"?  It also feels very nineties to me, in that it wants to have it's cake and eat it too by bunging a melodramatic cover illustration (which seems to have been nicked from a poster for a low budget zombie film) into a very stylised cover design.  Just pick one, and go with it!  Jeez!

This was written in 1943, and it's a great example of one of the things I find fascinating about the Queens of Crime; which is how they observed and recorded the period of history proceeding, during and following the Second World War.  Marsh set the majority of her mysteries in London, but clearly couldn't travel to the UK to do the necessary research during the war, her ingenious solution is to have Alleyn doing undercover secret service work in New Zealand.  It makes no sense that he would be doing that if you think about it for any period of time, but it is a very nifty fix to Marsh's real life problem. 

One other thing I would note is that this happened to be the first Ngaio Marsh mystery that I read when I was still at school, and I didn't like it at all.  Fortunately I completely forgot about it until I re-read it, having then read some other Alleyn mysteries.  Once you are familiar with Alleyn it is fascinating to see him out of context, but it's not the ideal book to kick off with.

Ngaio Marsh 6: Artists in Crime

Eh.

I'm not really a fan of bland TV tie-in covers for books. It's not that I don't like Simon Williams, or Belinda Lang and I thought they were very well cast actually; however I really don't see why we need exactly the same image of them on the front and back cover. It seems lazy.

This was actually the first title that the BBC filmed in the series, I assume mainly because they wanted to kick off with a story involving Troy (played by Miss Lang) and this is the first one in which that character plays a major role. The thing is though that Troy isn't in all of the novels, and by starting with this one they really made a rod for their own back in the later adaptations. I recently saw the adaptation of "A Man Lay Dead" which is the very first novel, and it had been shoe-horned in after this one very clumsily with Troy replacing a totally different character (Not to mention they had re-cast Alleyn with Patrick Mallahide of all people). Personally I hate that in a TV version of a novel I know well, and it loses my goodwill as a viewer.

Anyway, back to this cover. Umm, it's very blue isn't it?

Comment from Abby: Deleted.

Ooh!  I just had my first vaguely unpleasant comment!  That's a real right of passage for a blogger!

The details are that apparently I "suck" and Malteasers "rule", which as insults go isn't particularly stinging; especially as I happen to be very secure in my own opinions on confectionery.  So, thanks for that perspective Abby, but you'll notice that I have deleted your comment.  Why?  Because this is my blog and, as I already suck, I may as well be a controlling cow too. 

Alien Spouse is not a forum for random strangers to fling drive-by insults at me, or anyone else.  This is precisely why I have that convoluted sign-in set up for comments, and why I'm moderating comments before posting them.  Perhaps this particular comment was meant as a joke, but as I don't know Abby I really have no idea how she meant her comment to be taken; and frankly to be told you suck, even in jest, first thing on a Monday morning is a bit bloody much.

To be clear I do not have a problem with constructive criticism or debate, but I definitely reserve the right to delete any comments left on my blog.  What gives me the power to censor the comments section?  The fact that I am the one paying for the server space, and because I would never do that to someone else, so I don't see why I should have to put up with it here.

And for the record, if Abby had actually bothered to read the post she commented on she would have noticed that I was saying that I personally believe that Malteasers are vastly superior to Whoppers.  In actual fact I believe that pretty much all generic UK chocolate is superior to generic US chocolate, because US chocolate, particularly Hershey's, tastes to me as if it had large quantities of parmesan cheese in it.  This, fortunately, doesn't apply to the high-end stuff like Green & Blacks and Love Chocolate, otherwise I would not be able to live here.

There, I've said it.  I've insulted Hershey's Chocolate.

Let's see what comments I get now!

Skins on BBC America (Sundays 10/9c)

Something unusual happened on Thursday, I had an e-mail from a nice lady called Daphne who works for BBC America and wondered if I would be interested in writing a post about "Skins".  I hasten to add that I am not being paid to write this, and, although I did use to work for the BBC, I no longer have any professional connections with them. 

That out of the way, here is a thirty second trailer (with what sounds like a middle aged American man doing the voice-over, which I find odd):

 "Skins" is a drama about a group of friends aged between 16 to 18 who live in Bristol, and although it's about to begin it's third season in the UK, it has only just reached the US.

As it happens I was very pleased to see that the show was coming, because I didn't really get to see much of it when I was living in London and it's good to get a second chance to see it.  The only reason I didn't watch the first two seasons the first time around was frankly because Doc C didn't want to watch it.  I think he was put off by the marketing, which is weird because that was precisely what I found fascinating.  It had a fantastic poster campaign (despite one image being banned after complaints), and the website emulated an internet social network idea to introduce all the characters.  Very clever I thought.  The BBC have used the same Facebook-esque format on their website for the show, and you can see that here.

So far I've seen two episodes that I hadn't seen previously, and I honestly enjoyed them both (Doc C, however, left the room).  Whilst I wouldn't say that it's my new favourite show, I would be interested to know what is going to happen next to the characters and I will try to see it again.  I particularly liked hearing the Bristol accent, and the fact that some, but not all, of the dialogue has been deemed in need of subtitles!  I can understand all of it perfectly, so to me it seems to be pretty much at random, but I'm sure it is just the thicker accents, or perhaps a more regional use of slang, that's being picked up on.

(Click on image to go to the Skins Flickr set)

If you are at all easily shocked by teenage sex, drugs and bad language than probably you won't like "Skins", (for example Doc C doesn't like it, because he doesn't think the characters have any moral sensibilty and seem unaware of how selfish their actions are).  However if you think you might enjoy watching a group of articulate intelligent teenagers who are definitely not the saccharine, boring, cardboard cut-outs of the "High School Musical" type, than just maybe this is a show you would like.  At the very least, it's nice to see a drama not set in London and the fine city of Bristol is most definitely worth a look.

"Skins" is showing on Sunday nights at 10pm/9c on BBC America, and/or is available to purchase on iTunes

Three Dozen Mini Cookies and An Astounding Piece of Information.

This afternoon I was in the local bakery buying cookies for an event for work (I got to use my University credit card for the first time!  I have never had a credit card for work before, it's thrilling!)  On the counter they had displayed a copy of "Walter the Baker" by Eric Carle.  Being a former children's bookseller and, indeed, a former child, I love Eric Carle, so I picked up the book and flipped through it.

On the fly leaf I noticed it had been signed by Eric Carle himself, and the signature was dated 2008.  I mentioned this to the guy serving me, and he said off-handedly "Hmm? Oh yeah.  He's a regular here."

Wait, Eric Carle is a regular in the bakery across the road from my office?

Oh. My. God!

The man who wrote "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" buys slices of focaccia from the same place I do.  "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" has to be one of the most iconic children's picture books of the last forty years, and I remember it very clearly from my own childhood.   This may well be one of the most exciting things I've heard since I moved to North Carolina.

I blurted this astounding news out to Doc C, and then rushed back to the office to tell my colleagues.  No one knew what I was talking about, until I spoke to the department Director and she was just as thrilled as I was.  We may have to get one of the staff to tip us off next time he's in, and, Mum, if you still have my childhood copy of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", now would be the time to un-earth it!

Kid's Book Idea.

I had an idea for a children's book today, I don't want to write it but I would really like to read it - So if you know Diana Wynne Jones, or a writer of her caliber, please pass it along.  Or if someone has already written this, please let me know!

The basic idea is a business that specialises in covering up ghosts, by providing something that would provide a rational explanation for the phenomenon, to prevent staff and customers from getting spooked.  So if an office were haunted the ghost cover business would supply a particularly noisy photocopy machine to cover a clanking of chains.  That sounds pretty dull, but that's just the maguffin I'm sure there is some potential in there for some interesting plot development.

British readers of a certain age are encouraged to imagine a reverse "Rentaghost" but with far fewer corny jokes.

Ixnay on the Objay

Just to keep you in the loop, I thought I'd confirm that I will be maintaining radio silence about the day-to-day details of my new job, which has been my general policy on the subject since I started blogging; because I don't think it's an appropriate subject for me to be cracking jokes about. 

Plus I discovered yesterday that my manager and colleagues knew all about Alien Spouse before I even interviewed for the job (they hadn't read it though), which is, you know, something to bear in mind. 

I will say that everyone has been lovely, and although there is a lot of information for me still to process about the job, I can quite confidently say they will be keeping me busy.  For example this morning I had some accounting training, then I helped choose a cake (Lemon Poppyseed Pound Cake, with the department's name in dark yellow icing) for an event next week, and in the afternoon I sat in on a branding meeting, which was fascinating.

So it's all good, and that is the last I shall say on the matter.

Preliminary to Our City Break.

We are all packed and the bags are in the back of the mini ready for us to go to Washington DC.  I've packed the laptop, the Skype headset, the camera leads and every single recharger cable I could lay my hands on.  I have the technology and I will be blogging whilst we are away, but I can't commit to my usual two posts a day because I may well be having too much fun!

At the moment I'm blogging from Doc's office while I wait for The Doc to finish teaching his last class and then we will leave town for the weekend.  In the meantime I nipped back to my old desk to do one or two things that I had forgotten about that I felt needed to be taken care of.  You see?  I am a very responsible employee!

I was planning to leave you with a nice picture to look at whilst we are on the road. Unfortunately the pictures I was going to post were all out of focus, which is annoying.  You will just have to see pictures of the fabulous, framed, Day-of-the-Dead wedding diorama (which includes an adorable skeleton dog) that Randy and Laura brought back from Mexico for us.  I think it was the reflections on the glass that confused my poor little point and shoot, so I'm confident that I can get a good picture once I fiddle around with some lighting.

Oh, I think I forgot to mention where we will be staying.  Doc C is great at finding on-line deals on travel and accommodation, so he was clicking around and found a four star hotel for $90 a night.  Bargain.  So we will be in the Hilton, which is two blocks away from the White House!  We looked at their website and it looks really nice; the only thing I was slightly confused by was why they had a Presidential Suite when they are only two blocks away from the White House.  Is that where the President goes when he has a row with the First Lady and is sent to sleep in the spare room?

Another Twelve Months of Alien Spouse: Paid For!

I was paying some bills on-line, and I decided to pay my Typepad bill for the next year.  Previously I was paying month to month, but as I'm pretty certain I'll be blogging for a while to come, I thought I may as well pay for the year and get two months for free.

Hoorah for bulk buying!

I Blame Online Poker.

I'm sorry that I'm posting so late in the day, but you see Doc C played on-line poker for 16 hours straight, and out-right refused to let me have internet access.

Ok, that's not strictly true.  In fact he was writing a lecture about feminism, and he refused to let me have the computer.

Well, I suppose it's probably more accurate to say that he was writing a lecture on feminism and occasionally interrupted my enjoyment of "Law and Order" to check whether I was feeling oppressed and to ask for my opinions on the education of women and some snippets of appropriate celebrity gossip.

And if I'd asked he actually would have let me use the computer, because he is a sweetheart like that, but crocheting got away with me again.  What can I tell you?  It's absorbing, especially when paired with a good detective drama.

 

Remove the Ginger Cat and Voila!

Garfield Minus Garfield is being turned into a book!  And apparently Jim Davis who created Garfield really likes it!

I feel all warm and fuzzy.  I love when things I like become more successful then one would have thought and I was so worried that Jim Davis might lawyer up and do to GWG what Hasbro have done to Scrabulous.

The Breakfast Rant.

I woke up this morning with the thought that Ferris Bueller is married to Carrie Bradshaw.  Isn't that weird, but in a good way?

That then lead me to ponder the films of John Hughes and be mildly annoyed that he still hasn't made a sequel to "The Breakfast Club".  I have a great idea for a plot and it's not like the original cast is doing much of anything these days.  I'm sure Molly, Ally, Emilio, Judd and Anthony would love to get a call.  Yes, I know they are all firmly in their forties now.  That's perfect!  It'll be like an American fictional version of the "Seven Up" films.

The time is definitely ripe too, particularly as we've just got the sucky looking straight to DVD follow up to "Lost Boys" and it already feels like "Breakfast Club" imagery is everywhere right now.  Just watch this advert for JC Penney and then compare this promo shot for "American Teen" (Click the photo for the trailer, I just watched it and it looks like quite a sweet documentary) to the original poster and then tell me John should not be revving up the word processor already.  It would be all zietgeisty and everything.

Twits.

I've added a Twitter widget, because all the cool kids have got one and, you know, I was bored at work.

It's in the right hand sidebar, which is the official sidebar of externally sourced widgetry.  If you really wanted to you could follow Alien Spouse's Twitters, just click where it says "Follow Me on Twitter", but really it's going to be exactly the same type of thing as the blog but in 160 characters or less.  Which could be an improvement.

Don't Look at Me, I'm Shy.

Yesterday was quite exciting in that Alien Spouse had it's largest ever number of hits (all looking for that post about the underskirt!), but the only problem with that is that today I have stage fright.

There are several subjects I was considering writing about:

• How excited I am that someone particularly lovely is planning to visit us in September.  Hoorah!
• Why I'm not going to hear anything until August about that job I interviewed for last week, and how waiting for news like that makes me a little bit anxious.
• The inappropriateness of wearing a tartan mini-skirt to a career networking thingy, however informal it may indeed be. Which led me to ponder how very glad I am that I own a nice knee-length pencil skirt or two. 
• The appalling customer service of certain credit card company that rhymes with Gnarklycard
• A good old fashioned "Aren't Friday's the best thing ever?"

All of which certainly do deserve a nice post in their own right, but I just can't seem to make them funny enough today!

Even more frustratingly, the one really funny thing I did think of is a story I reluctantly came to realise is one I should not fling out onto the web to fend for itself, because it would undoubtedly wander off with completely the wrong person.  Which would be bad, although potentially hilarious.

sigh.

Sometimes it's not easy writing a semi-anonymous blog about living in a small American town where not a lot happens, but, damn it, that's the task I've set myself and I shall simply struggle on bravely.  I am British, you know.

Technical Issues.

I love blogging with Typepad, I really do, and I appreciate that right now they are in the midst of some upgrades and that can mean some technical issues.  However: Why is it when I suddenly get a lot of traffic that the spell check closes up shop entirely?  I clearly have no idea how to spell maraschino (Marischino?) for starters, and that might be the straw that breaks the camel's back for a new visitor.  Although what a camel with internet access is doing reading blogs I really don't know.

Anyway...

Hi New People!  Usually things are spelt correctly round here, I promise!  Please come again!

"Dollhouse" - Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I was already looking forward to "Dollhouse" which is scheduled to premiere on Fox in January, but now I'm super excited for the following reasons.

1. It's a new series created, and written by Joss Wheedon.  Hello! 
2. It's about a shadowy organisation with ambiguous motivations.  I love shadowy organisations with ambiguous motivations!
3. All of the agents are sans surname, and have totally ridiculous first names based on that police alphabet thingy.  So will we soon be learning to love people called Echo, Victor and November.  Genius!
4. There is some sort of mind control and/or brain washing involved.  Ooh!  Sciencey!
5. It's got Eliza Dushku in it.
6. It's got Olivia Williams in it.
7. It's got Amy Acker in it.

Any single one of those elements would be enough for me to interest me; put them all together and I am practically buying the action figures already.

But that wasn't enough for this show, oh no, it had to pull out the big guns and add the Magic Ingredient that was bound to make this a Must-See-TV event for me.

That's right.

8. It's got a former Australian Soap Star in it!  Yay!

In the role of Sierra is Dichen Lachman who may be more familiar to you as Katya Kinski, the character she played on "Neighbours" for three years.

On paper this series could not be any more perfect.  What's the betting Fox cancels the thing before it even starts?

Trailer after the jump...

Dear Diary...

I was reading on the BBC News website a report which included a graph showing people's happiness levels through out their life times.  The graph is, conveniently enough, smile-shaped; it begins at a high point when people were in their teens, curves downwards to a low point indicating that most people were at their most miserable at around forty, and then curves back up as people became steadily happier again.

I have only one question: What the hell kind of teenagers were they interviewing for this?  Seriously, aren't teenagers supposed to be lurking in their darkened bedrooms listening to dirge-like music and writing lots of whiny entries in their diaries about how nobody understands them and life is totally unfair.

I know I did, very briefly.

To be honest I was always terrible at diary keeping, because I only ever seemed to actually write an entry when I was feeling mopey; and I never really did anything, so they were pretty dull too.  I think I mainly kept a diary as an excuse to buy the note books, because I covet lovely fresh notepads so much that I would otherwise just buy them and never do anything with them for fear of spoiling them**.  Don't worry though, you can rest assured that there will be no Cringe type shenanigans here, because I destroyed my teenage diaries a few years ago when I was about to move house and couldn't bear to pack them.  I do not regret doing so for a moment, they were awfully self-indulgent records of events that I realised later I really had no need to be reminded of.  It's sort of a pity there wasn't someway I could have just bleached out all the writing and kept the notebooks, but in the end I had to go with old fashioned ripping out of pages and I think there was also some burning of particularly awful bits.

Personally I think my happiness graph would be pretty level, and I would even say it's probably improved as I've grown older and understood myself better.  I'm much clearer these days about what I consider fun, and so that means I actually have more fun then I used to.  I definitely know I would not want to be a teenager again. 

The mere thought...

shudder.

**I've tried to ween myself off buying blank note books, but if I see a particularly nice one and I can justify it somehow, then it's mine.  The last note book I bought was a tiny Sara Fanelli note pad from the Tate Britain gift shop.  I'd long since stopped keeping a diary, so what was the excuse for buying this one?  Well I'd just read one of those books about personal finance that recommend you note down everything you spend to keep track of where all your money actually went, so that way you could budget more effectively.  it's a very sensible idea, but I really should have known that my money-out ledger would end up reading:

1. This note pad: 1 pound 50 pence 
2. No Further Entries

Actually I don't think that's true, I think the second entry would have been a cup of tea and a slice of cake in the Tate Britain tea room, don't you?  That sounds much more likely to me.  Point being though, that I didn't keep track of my spending for very long and I don't know where that note pad is right now.  Pity; it was super cute, with a little bit of red elastic to keep it closed, it was a really good little note pad.

Congratulations! You Are Alien Spouse's 1000th Post!

You know Alien Spouse is over a year old now, and I've actually just written my thousandth post.  To be honest I'm not exactly sure which one was the 1000th, because I have a few unpublished posts floating around that are screwing up my numbers.  For the sake of simplicity, let's just say it's this one!

That is a lot of talking isn't it?  Wow, I hope at least some of that verbiage was entertaining!

I think I need a nap.

That's My Excuse, And I'm Sticking To It.

Typepad recently rolled out a new compose editor which I've been using for a few days now, and it is generally an improvement to the blogging experience.

However the spell check sometimes flatly refuses to stop running the spell check to report back to me which words are actually incorrect, which means I sometimes I'm forced to simply close the page without the spelling having been corrected.

Also, now when the spell checker works it tries to change all the correct UK English spellings to the US English spellings.  Which means a lot more "Z"s and far fewer "U"s.  Naturally I'm trying to resist this, but one or two may slide through occasionally.

So if you notice any glaring errors, that would be why.

Handwriting Analysis.

I don't have very nice joined-up handwriting.  There I've said it.  And breathe.

It's true though,  all the way through school I had teachers complaining about my handwriting and sometimes they would suggest I change my pen to make my scrawl more legible.  So I would try, for example, a medium width fountain pen and it would actually work for about a fortnight and then my handwriting would adapt to the new pen and become illegible again.  At which point another teacher would suggest a fine tipped roller ball pen or something, and the cycle would begin again.

It's also quite strange that I can't write neatly because my Mum has beautiful hand-writing and can do calligraphy, so I had an excellent role model at home. 

I decided eventually it was because I wrote too fast in an effort to get all of the words of genius out of my head before they evaporated, and accepted it.  Since university I've tried to keep all correspondence to e-mail, or word processed letters, to avoid having to write in block capitals to that the recipient could read it.

Clearly somewhere along the line in primary school or high school I got it firmly into my head that grown-up people join their letters up, and have been trying to write like a grown-up ever since.  It has literally only been in the past six months or so that I realised it is far more important that what I write is easy to read.  I mean really if I want people to think I'm a grown-up maybe I should worry more about my tendancy to get over-excited about cartoons and kittens, and less about whether my Ss join neatly to my Es.

Whilst filling in the many many visa forms I knew I couldn't use block capitals, because that can look like you are doing the written equivalent of shouting.  So I've tried writing in lower case but not joining the letters up.  And that works beautifully, my handwriting is legible and appears to have been done by a sane and sober person, not a drunkard in a hurry.

Eastenders: Goodbye and Good Luck to Gus!

I keep up with the news via the BBC website, (which, by the way, I really hate the new re-design), and I also keep an eye on "Eastenders". I'm finding that reading a two page synopsis with photos is obviously much less time consuming than watching the show, and that means it's considerably less irritating when they have a spectacularly stupid storyline (Tania burying Max alive?  Then digging him back up again? And he's fine? Whoever wrote that, I'm looking at you).

This week Gus Smith is leaving the Square and I have to say that I'm pleased about this.  Not because I didn't like the character of Gus, but actually because I felt that character was woefully underused and that the actor who plays him, Mohammed George, could do a lot better.  The poor guy has been there for six years, and I don't think he's ever had a decent storyline he could really call his own. 

He started off as an articulate, sensitive young man who used poetry to woo Sonia and got his heart broken, but since then he's mainly been sweeping up around the market whilst wearing that hideous fluorescent yellow jacket, or he's been walking Wellard.  True, there was a period where his brother Juley turned up and was a nightmare; but even then I got the distinct impression that the script writers found rakish Juley more fun to write for, so poor old Gus was positioned as a boring goody-two-shoes.

It's especially weird when you consider how much that character could have been developed over that time period.  Why keep any character around for so long, if you're not going to do anything with them?

Anyway, maybe it's because I used to live in the Square in Dalston that is supposed to have been the basis for Albert Square, but I could never understand why Gus didn't just pick himself up and go somewhere more interesting.  All you have to do is catch the 38 bus, or the 242.

I'm glad he finally is.

The First Year.

I just realised that yesterday was the first anniversary of Alien Spouse.  That's weird!

Post Horror Movie Pillow Talk

Another thing that Doc did the night that he dreamt of bibliographies was something that I think of as a classic Doc C moment. 

To set this up I should explain that I used to love watching horror films, but I have learnt that watching them with the Doc is problematic because nothing supernatural scares him at all.  The Doc will just think it's silly, and then can't understand why I'm so jumpy afterwards.  He's asked me several times why an atheist gets so very freaked out by ghost stories, to which I have no answer deemed reasonable.

We had watched "White Noise Two: The Light" for two main reasons, firstly I'd heard it wasn't quite as silly as the original (which was the first film I reviewed on Alien Spouse, aaah!) and secondly Nathan Fillion is on screen for approximately ninety two minutes of the ninety nine minute running time.  And we love Captain Mal in this house, so that's recommendation enough for us.

This particular film really wasn't that scary, in fact upon reflection it seemed really short and far too simple.  I get the very distinct impression that a lot of stuff was cut out, and the story became a lot more linear and a lot less interesting.  Afterwards we watched some of the special features (unfortunately Doc wouldn't go for the deleted scenes), but there was a little mini-documentary on the filming, and one of the locations was an old insane asylum which had the reputation of being haunted.  So Nathan Fillion was walking around hamming it with a goth-lite member of the crew and it was all quite funny.

Then we went to bed and the Doc turned off the light, snuggled up to me and said:

"So you know that haunted insane asylum..."

I'm going to have to stop you right there Sweetheart, because I know what's going to happen next.  I'm going to be left lying awake thinking far too much about haunted insane asylums for hours whilst you drift off into a peaceful sleep and, funnily enough, that doesn't really work for me.

Enigmatic F'Real!

Sometimes I'm just not sure what the message is that someone is trying to get across to me. This photo is an excellent example, because whilst I get the official meaning of this sign, the additional graffiti note throws me.

What are they trying to say?

What does "F'REAL!" mean in this context?  I'm assuming it is a contraction of the popular phrase "For Real", but that still doesn't help me decipher the message.  Does this note mean that they, the scrawler, personally support the zero tolerance policy and will enforce it vigilante style? Or did they speed on this road, felt the long hand of the law on their collar and are attesting to it's lack of tolerance? It could be either, but then the crossing out of the "ing" of speeding adds a whole other possible layer of meaning.

Ultimately it is somewhat tragic. Another human being has made an effort to communicate, and yet I do not understand their message.

McG - Leave "Spaced" Alone.

Clearly I am way behind on my TV/Film news and gossip, because I have only just heard about the travesty that would be the McG re-make of "Spaced" for the American market.

Yes, that McG. 

The five-second-attention-span director behind the "Charlie's Angels" films (which in all honesty I quite enjoyed in a bubblegum way), but more to the horrific point, the producer behind "The Pussycat Dolls Present..." also known as the most manipulative reality TV series ever.  In my opinion that show took the good names of burlesque and pop music, and made them unclean.

Can you imagine the horror?

I'd suggest reading the article on "Ain't It Cool" if you want to get really quite cross about the whole thing, they have included links to official statements from Pegg and Hynes.  I also read the review of the pilot script, and was equally as horrifed as the reviewer by the fact the Daisy character is now called Apryl.  Yep, they've chosen to spell it with a "Y", and it's that "Y" that horrifies me.

What really makes my blood boil is that the American production team have decided not to involve, or even contact, Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg or Jessica Hynes but they feel perfectly free to use Pegg and Wright's names on the promo material. 

Now hear this McG, you can have any BBC sitcom you want, but leave "Spaced" alone, or I shall write numerous vituperative complaint e-mails. 

And I think we all know what happens when I get my complaining hat on.

There is Facebook protest group link after the jump:

Kinetic Week Nine: Complete

Three quarters of the way now, this week my overall score was a B, which breaks down as follows:

1. B - Three combat games, and a mind/body game.  For some reason the difficulty levels have been dropped on the cardio and mind/body games but are still on the hard setting for combat.  Have they not noticed that I am really not very good at the combat games?  I'd have said cardio was my best zone personally, maybe the results say different.  I did break one of my previous high scores but on a game that I had previously been really bad at.  I forgot to swap back to Anna at the beginning of the session, but I did at the end of the days work out.  I like how the trainer you are "leaving" pops up to reassure you that they don't mind you swapping, and that the other trainer is really good.  Those avatars are so sweet.
2. A - Two cardio, one combat, one mind/body and some abs toning, with a few push-ups just for fun.  I am really pleased to have got an A, after a week and a bit of Bs.
3. B - 1 Cardio, 1 Combat and 1 Mind/Body.  It was my very least favourite of the combat games, and I did extraordinarily badly at it.  However I rocked the other two games, so that's not so bad.
4. B - 1 Cardio, 2 Combat, 1 Mind/Body and some abs toning.  My proudest achievement of the day was completing the plank section of the toning, my arms are killing me but it was particularly pleasing to finally manage that.

And the measurements for this week are:

• Bust - 40.5 Inches (No change from last week)
• Bicep - 12 Inches (No change from last week)
• Waist - 36.5 Inches (Down by 0.25 Inches from last week)
• Hips - 43.75 Inches (No change from last week)
• Thigh - 24.00 Inches (No change from last week)

I think we can put the static nature of the measurements this week down to Spring Break Madness, I've been so busy trying to keep the Doc entertained (he gets bored very easily) that I skipped toning twice this week, because it doubles the length of the work out and I really only had time to fit in some cardio.  I also have to admit I fell off the salad waggon a bit.  No problem though, at least my waist ignored the trend and shed a bit more, plus no quarter inches were actually added anywhere!

On a side topic, I know I'm not the first person to point out that Alanis Morissette's huge hit "Ironic" (that video is really odd, is there an underlying subtext that is completely eluding me?) is mainly in fact ironic because none of the examples she uses actually are ironic.  They are mainly unfortunate.  Ed Byrne used to do a great stand up routine about this song, he is very funny. 

Actually let's embed a lovely YouTube screen right underneath the jump here, so you can fully appreciate both of these points:

Blogging A Local News Event.

After fully covering Monday's totally unnecessary, as it happily turned out, campus lock-down, it's a bit hard to know what to say today.

I'll re-iterate that I am really pleased to know that sort of incident is taken seriously and that the university have good solid protocols in order, in some ways it's better than London for that.  I was once on a bus which was forced to stop by a police road block on Rosebery Avenue because of a bomb scare.  All the other passengers got off my bus, and proceeded with their journey by walking straight towards the alleged bomb site.  And no one stopped them.  I, sensibly, gave the whole area a nice wide berth and walked as far away as possible whilst still heading in roughly the right direction.

Anyway, it has been qu