zoetrope

Sitting in French Girl's flat in Camden (bizarrely, where Dylan Thomas used to live!), having dinner cooked for me. Listening to the best of Jelly Roll Morton - crackly jazz - drinking wine, sitting in the window seat with the cool breeze drifting in, wireless access.

I'm not sure life actually gets better than this.

Afternoon, all.

I had a freaky morning, in which I think I was stalked by a strange guy on the bus. He spoke to me at a bus stop, followed me onto the bus, got off where I got off, followed me to a different bus stop, ran for the bus after I started running and followed me to work, although he didn't get off the bus when I did again (luckily I ran into French Girl on the bus, so that may have scared him off). Pretty horrible, I was a bit shaky afterwards.

However, I had a lovely weekend, the highlight of which was triumphantly creating a Chocolate Cheesecake, never having made one before. I used a Nigella recipe, and added Nutella to it - strengthening my theory that all recipes can be improved with the liberal use of Nutella. Yes, including *insert savoury food item here*.

Actually, maybe the highlight of the weekend was sitting in front of the open balcony window with divine_miss_j, dipping digestives in the remaining Nutella and enjoying a cool breeze in the afternoon sunlight.

Also, divine_miss_j, your pesto was great. And! Ollie left us money to buy ourselves "a bottle of wine or something". What a gracious house-guest, eh?!

Last week divine_miss_j and I went out with a bunch of friends - none of whom are fandom-based at all - and we were sitting in a bar on Brick Lane when someone Set Us Off. I know that the only other people able to appreciate that are you online folks:

French Girl: So, Tara, what is your ideal job after this?
Me: Oh, I don't know... Well, if we're talking absolute ideal jobs, I guess my perfect next role would be as CKR's fluffer.
French Girl: Who is--
Jane: What, on his next movie?
Me: Yeah! Wait, no! On "Wilby Wonderful" the outtakes!
Jane: "Wilby Wonderful, X-rated"!
Me: "Wilby Wonderful, behind-the-scenes!"
Jane: No! On Daniel MacIvor's soon-to-be-released sequel "Duck and Dan Finally Get Some Action".
Me: Duck and Dan Do Dallas!
Jane: Duck and Dan Do Each Other!

It was at that point that we realised that our friends were looking at us with completely blank expressions.

I also went to see D.E.B.S. last week as part of the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. It was funny and sexy, I would most definitely recommend it to anyone with access to relatively obscure Lesbian cinema resources.

You know, I think I'm reading too many fandoms. It's just occurred to me that you could do an interesting HP AU in which Draco Malfoy is Joe Dick and Harry Potter is Billy Tallent. Or should it be the other way around? Man, I really think I need some kind of fandom detox.

My new website is now up and running. You can find me at www.notapainter.co.uk, as well as This Is Where We'll End It in its entirety (I am going to friends-lock the posts now). Maps is also up there, so I'm going to email round soon to all the writers who offered their inimitable services.

Brief sexist anecdote of the day:
Mel Gibson on why women are underused in storytelling in Hollywood:
"I just think that storytelling has always been kind of a male medium, from the start. Women just think differently to us. And that's a good thing. There are things about the way women think and the way they look at things that we cannot possibly understand. But I think the male of the species is more adept at the telling of a story. That's why, you go to any bar – it's not women telling jokes, it's guys. Women are notoriously bad joke tellers – most of them. Some of them have the capacity for it. But generally I think men are better at that. There's a successful producer I know, I will not mention names, but his take on this matter is very brief. He says, 'Women on film? Either naked or dead. Both is better.'"

Isn't he gracious about us dumb, differently-abled women?

And, finally, some This Is Where We'll End It icons, as I had a moment.

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