After a grotty weekend it cheered me up no end to find some posh ginger beer in the bottom of my filing cabinet at work. I bought two ages ago, drank one and completely forgot about the other one. Tomorrow it will be chilled and consumed with great enjoyment.

Has anyone had a built in electric oven installed lately? We need to get ours replaced. I know Argos do delivery and installation but other ideas most welcome. And phone numbers of reliable tradespeople also welcome.

It's led by John Constable, author / channel of the Southwark Mysteries. I'm going - let me know if you are too, especially if you fancy meeting before or after for a drink.

http://www.london-se1.co.uk/whatson/event/7776/ghost-walk

There's no rational explanation for why I like Dickinson's Real Deal. But I do. And if I am home on a weekday afternoon there's something cosy about having a coffee and a biscuit and watching The Duke. I was thinking it was getting on for 3pm so I checked the TV guide in happy anticipation and it's Alan bloody Titchmarsh instead! Boo!!!

Glastonbury Diary

( Glastonbury Diary )

Tigertailz are playing The Borderline in October, doing the whole of the Bezerk album (they were good with makeup but poor with spelling). Is the correct approach:

1) It was 20 years ago, get over it. I should do something more useful that night - the garden shed could do with a tidy.

2) Go out of curiosity, drink lemonade and hope it's not too loud.

3) Pretend its still 1989. Grab the hairspray in one hand and the eyeliner in the other, teeter out of the house in stilleto-heeled boots and come home pissed on cider at one in the morning.

Answers on a postcard please!

I Don't Want To Lose You Yet by Steve Earle is the most gorgeous love song ever and I'll BITE anyone who disagrees with me. And not in a good way.

Home by 8am this morning. Hurrah for English loo paper, doorstep bacon sarnies and my own bed!

More on the trip later.

In summer when the windows are open we often get invaded by several moths a night, but there's been a particularly pretty one hanging out recently. Steve ushered it out of the study window the other night and it made its way back in. I found it on the bathroom mirror. Steve made a successful eviction, but it didn't want to leave us so it flew round to the front of the house and spent several hours glued to the front room window until I disturbed it trying to get it to open its wings so I could make a positive ID. And I did - it's one of these http://www.bbc.co.uk/jersey/content/articles/2009/04/21/wonders_tigermoth_feature.shtml

Apparently they're common in South West England and the Channel Islands (hence the name Jersey Tiger Moth) but seem to be spreading in London now too.

All of this is just a preamble for one of my favourite jokes:

"Doctor, doctor, I think I'm a moth."
"I can't help you. I'm not a psychiatrist."
"I know, but I saw the light was on so I thought I'd come in."

Graham has given me five words to write about.

Feminism
Is important to me although I'm not as politically active as I was as a student. I've moved from radical to liberal feminist, I suppose. I don't think I sold out when I got married because I'm not in a relationship where a man treats me like property. And I don't think I could be in that kind of relationship.

Bunter
Ah, William George Bunter, my favourite anti-hero. I liked Bunter when I was a kid but didn't own any of the books. About six years ago I found a second-hand copy of Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School and the collection started from there. I now own over 100 Bunter books and Magnet comic reprints. I'm not sure what the charm is. Bunter is greedy, stupid, lazy and a liar. Perhaps his appeal is that he brings out the best in all who encounter him, or just that he's very funny.

Spiritualist
I'm not one. I've done some mediumship at the College of Psychic Studies, and got some OK results, but I'm not terribly interested in bringing through Aunty Nellie from the Other Side. I'm not convinced it's from the Other Side either. I think mediumship is probably a mix of telepathy and (unconcious, perhaps) cold reading. Some are just charlatans. I do believe in ghosts but they're just as likely to be trace memories as concious spiritual beings. Am I going off topic a bit here?

Roleplaying
I still like it, and occasionally dabble, but it doesn't really do it for me anymore. I use my time for folkloric, psychic and occult interests instead. Like maths, Steve does it for both of us.

Music
I love it and don't listen to enough of it. I like rock, metal, some country and some folk-rock. Favourite bands are The Georgia Satellites and Led Zeppelin. From the current crop I like Kings of Leon and The Killers. Going to see Dan Baird (ex Satellites) on Sunday night.

I heard this on the radio earlier and it totally cracked me up. Let's hear it for Christian Creationist Country & Western. Yeehah!

Been home since Tuesday with some kind of horribly lurgy. My voice went completely on Monday night, which tends to indicate a coming cold for me. I wouldn't have been too bothered about seeking medical attention but I'm still quite new in my job and I felt awkward about being off, even though you can't do guidance work if you can't talk. I was patronised to the extreme at the doctors. Just because I can't speak doesn't mean I have learning difficulties and even if I did you don't have to talk to me like I'm a naughty four year old. I'm not pretending to be ill and it's not my choice or my fault that my voice has gone! They did a swab for the lab anyway. Didn't tell me what for, but as this has never happened before I'm guessing they're testing for H1N1.

Voice came back enough today for me to phone work, but nose and eyes streaming and sinuses ache. I'm on strict orders from my boss to stay at home until at least Monday, which is reassuring, but a bit pissed off at missing a visit to City University tomorrow. Visits are always interesting and a bit of a jolly - you normally get a nice lunch.

I've found it very hard to concentrate on anything, but I read the whole of Bryan Talbot's Alice in Sunderland yesterday and it was fantastic. Good if you like psychogeography, as was the Align talk recommended on Badwitchblog, which took place on Tuesday evening, just before I started to feel really rough. Three hours long, including intervals, but a wonderful mad gallop through ley lines, tumuli, churches, urban decay, crop circles, Australia, fairies and all manner of other Forteana. It's on again this coming Tuesday at The George inn on Borough High Street. If you can, you should go.

Among the Apes on Channel Five tonight graphically illustrated why everyone should avoid buying products containing palm oil. In order to reach orangutan territory Charlotte Uhlenbroek drove through miles of oil palm plantations, all of which had until recently been forest. Orangs have been driven out of China and other parts of the Far East and now live in small pockets of forest on Sumatra and Borneo. Apparently, when the loggers come the orangs sit in trees and cover their faces, possibly because they believe that if they can't see the loggers then the loggers can't see them. Many orangs are shot by hunters and the babies, if they are lucky, end up in rehabilitation units. Despite the best intentions of their keepers, few are ever able to return to the wild. Without learning how to forage from their mothers they would starve to death if not provided with food by humans.

And all of this happens because palm oil is a cheap fat for food and soap production. It's hard to avoid - many companies, for example Cadburys, list it on their products as vegetable fat. And it turns up in organic health foods just as much as in high street products. It would be helpful if companies were more open about where they sourced their palm oil. Some oil palms grow in Africa and the Canaries and have a far smaller environmental impact while providing a good source of income for the countries. Until this information is available I'm trying to avoid palm oil. I don't want to be part of orangutan extinction.

The Pudding v Dessert question last week reminded me of a rather posh woman I met at the retreat centre earlier this year. The tables had been laid with spoons with which to eat fruit tart and she hastily dispatched her husband to the cutlery drawer to get them both forks. She said her teacher at boarding school insisted it was "fork and spoon or just a fork, but NEVER just a spoon" and she couldn't bear the thought of eating pudding with a spoon to this day.

So, today's question is How Do You Eat Yours? I'm OK with just a spoon.

To all men in London -

I know it's hot, but please could you keep your shirts on in public places unless you've had at least three people tell you - in writing - that you look fabulous naked. My half-hour in the park is the highlight of my working day and I have no wish to be put off my lunch.

Apologies for any sexism that may be inferred from this message. Thank you for your attention.

Wednesday will be my first gig this year. It's a nostalgia trip time for retired 80s rock chicks, with Eddie Spaghetti and Ricky Warwick (less hair these days, boo!) at the Underworld, where I spent more time than I probably should have as a student.
But I have a tooth infection, so no cider. It won't be quite 1988 revisited, then.

From Steve:

Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

1. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
2. Our Noise - Jeff Gomez
3. The Books of Blood (can they count as one?)- Clive Barker
4. Europe's Inner Demons - Norman Cohn
5. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
6. Albion - Jennifer Westwood
7. A Bear Called Paddington - Michael Bond
8. Ludo and the Starhorse - Mary Stewart
9. The Magic Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
10. Riders - Jilly Cooper
11. Promethea - Alan Moore
12. Hammer of the Gods - Stephen Davis
13. Collected Poetry - WB Yeats
14. Strange Angel - George Pendle
15. The Complete Book of Tarot - Juliet Sharman-Burke

On a training course today. Had lunch with two very pleasant women from British Columbia who were on a part-working, part-holiday trip to London. One of them turned to me and said "May I ask a silly question? Why do the English call dessert "pudding"? " I drew upon my exhaustive reading of Jilly Cooper to reply that, strictly speaking, dessert was fruit served as part of a meal, after the main course. Someone across the table opined that pudding was anything you ate with custard.

I wonder if whether you call it pudding or dessert is related to social class. The Headmaster of a posh independent school I used to work in always called it pudding. In my working class family it was called "afters" or pudding. At school it was afters, too. Perhaps "dessert" belongs to the middle classes, especially those who've spent time in the US, or see it as a more modern term?

I throw this one open to comment. Are you "pudding" or "dessert"?

In other news, I celebrated payday with an Indian Head Massage. It was lovely, and I will go back. Feeling very relaxed at the moment.

Any Supersuckers fans or anyone that remembers The Al-fuckin'-Mighty may want to know that Ricky Warwick and Eddie Spaghetti are playing a gig at The Underworld on 1st July. Not sure if they're doing a set each or something jointly, but could be fun.