alexsarll | The guys don't go steady 'cos it wouldn't be right

The Polar Bear is not a converted church, meaning Poptimism didn't feel like quite as much of a religious experience as my previous Club Popular. Still a corking night out, though, hampered only slightly by house wine being a fiver a bottle, and consequent drunken spazdom. Having earlier decided that

atommickbrane might not be in my Cabinet after all once I come to power, simply because she is SO WRONG on the subject of beverages, I later relent and decide that she can be Minister of Beatles. My main memory of the night is that whenever they played Billie, I shouted "She can't fight Autons!" Oh dear.

Friday never really gets started; I'm often listless or ill on Crucifixionmas, for reasons I've yet to fathom. Alas, I don't even really get into gear for Robin's birthday in the evening. Randomly,

nicklocking and party are in the fairly obscure restaurant where the celebrations have their middle stage. I discover that NIN are soon to appear on CD:UK, which seems somehow Against Nature.

On Saturday I get a haircut and listen to John Moore's Half Awake, deciding that it would be the perfect musical accompaniment to The Filth. But mainly I keep checking the listings and my watch, and then just in case they're all lying to me I still turn on the TV half an hour early. 'Rose' was pretty good. Not quite as great as a lot of people seem to think, but promising. Eccleston totally confounded my fears of thuggishness, combining a little of Troughton's clowning with the potential violence and misanthropy of Hartnell, yet still already coming across as very much his own Doctor. Billie was no Sophie Aldred, but still probably in the top half of the companions. And all those references to the War...if they're making the books canon then I applaud them, but even if they aren't, I always love a bit of portentous back-story. But I was unsure of the website stuff (some mention of the other Doctors, even an aside, would have made sense), and there were a few little frays in the plot (Why does the mum never mention her broken table? Why doesn't Rose notice that her boyfriend has turned into Craig David?). Word is that this is the weakest episode; if so, then we're sorted. Then it's out to

kiss_me_quick's little-publicised birthday* where it seems like half my friendslist are making concerted efforts to drink All The Booze In The World. The pub chosen is generally ace, and has a kitten. More of this sort of thing, please. Then back to the birthday girl's for illegal booze and puzzlement.

missfrancesca complains that she doesn't have a stalker - would any of my readers like the position?

Sunday was scheduled for a picnic round

marnameow's neck of the woods - so inevitably it was one of the days when the weather rendered picnicking totally non-viable. We still make a thoroughly British attempt at sitting outside in the pub's garden-cum-wharf, before realising that we are in imminent danger of being swept away and moving indoors. The pub sits in the very spot from which the Puritans fvcked off to the new world; what an appropriate place to site a boozeria. Thence to Thai food, and after that a return to the civilised side of the river for absinthe and another viewing of Doctor Who.

Karaoke at

dr_shatterhand's is a very different experience to karaoke with the SBClique. The standards not being quite so high, and the West Country cider flowing freely, I am even talked into singing, initially as back-up on 'Take Me Out'. But then I notice that 'Big In Japan' is on offer, and after that there's no stopping me. 'All The Things She Said' needs another lesbian, and 'Come On Eileen' won't sing itself, though if it knew what my version would be like then it might have done. I let my fringe Kapranos where my voice cannot for 'Matinee', drown out the man who actually had a Catholic childhood on 'It's A Sin', and do terrible things to 'Together In Electric Dreams'. But it's on 'Celebrity Skin' that I'm really in my element, because while I can't sing, I can scream.
I'm not entirely clear on the time-zone equivalance, but I'm fairly sure that some or all of the above was responsible for that earthquake, and I'm very sorry.

*It was a brilliant idea of the Beeb's to show it just before people go out, thereby guaranteeing it will be the nation's chief topic of Saturday night pub conversation and obliging everyone to watch it or else feel excluded. Now you non-geek b@st@rds will know how it feels for those of us who loathe sport.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Sport (The Odd Boy) - The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band