My hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody.

Well, it finally rained, and rained, and rained on the weekend. At least the tadpoles were happy, out in their rapidly filling to the brim bucket. I wish I could say I did more than to tend to the welfare of tadpoles, but alas not. The interwebs were denied (down to 1.4kbps again, which most sites uncharitably regard as 'disconnected'), and I'm afraid I chose sloth again (despite wearing the faded workpants of industry). I'm still getting over this lurgy, and it's been a rough week, especially when everyone just thinks you just have a little cold and not great hacking pneumonia because how can you possibly get pneumonia in the driest summer on record?

That's what you get for Bunburying, snarks the Peanut Gallery with prim glee. True, one lie does beget others, but I'm rather addicted to Bunburying. Nothing like running away for a bit to restore the spirits (except for the dratted pneumonia, but it can't be helped).
( more: potrait of a cheese maker as a young man )

Or when extraordinarily crap actors happen to good shows, or shows I was watching, in any case.

Monday: I've been travelling via train a lot lately (effing transport) and I noticed the no boozing sign was a crossed out martini glass, ala Ghostbusters. So I had to wonder, who is this phantom martini swiller who clinks the martini glasses on grotty cityrail trains? Because it's so not the place where anyone would ever pour themselves a martini, either shaken or stirred.

I am, of course, imagining some desperate version of Jason King, having lost the Bentley in the GFC, and now drowning his sorrows in suitable fashion every time he boards those vile carriages. Poor Jason, that it has come to this?

Yes, I am easily distracted by unreality.

Meanwhile, we stayed up late on Friday night to discover why there was a disturbance in the force as 7 million voices cried out in dismay. In other words, I watched the last episode of Sherlock.
( more: Get Mozzie, too )

I spent all weekend in bed with the Leverage gang. I should do that more often. That was fun. Even though the plots did tend to get a touch repetitive when viewed in a block, it's the characters that make it. I love that show. It makes me smile.
( more: this guy's in love )

It's still one of my favourite statements, ever. It was a sign, stuck to a door in NYC, and clearly, the frogs, which are both dwarf and African, have arrived, but is this a good thing? Something I should be worried about? Should I be heading to the nearest bunker? Or is it code for something? Something that has arrived? Something that has arrived and is watching us even now, with its cold beady eyes? Who can say? It's just one of those odd signs that capture the imagination, or mine at least.

I know, way too much ITC telly as a child, but there you go.

Meanwhile, the office klepto is back. I've lost a stapler I'd carried through eight different offices, assorted pens and my spoon, which I was also attached to, because pens and spoons are personal items (to some of us) and, well, harumph. It's what I get for being tired and accidentally leaving my desk drawer unlocked but my gosh, they were in like Flynn. I think they've taken more but it was the spoon I missed most as I was feeling rather unwell and had been thinking on the freezing cold and overcrowded bus that a little warm museli might set me to rights. Museli denied.

I'm so glad I'm here and not in New York this week, it's been so much fun. You should see all the nasty emails and notes I have from my boss. Oh yeah, it was so worth giving up the chance to see the boys from White Collar for this. Whimper.
( more: slippers, sinking of )

I have decided that the chances of getting a document that went something of the lines of "Penis, penis, penis, penis, penis...etc" rubber stamped all the way up the chain of command without any body actually bothering to look and the ruddy thing extraordinarly good (see also the Brits and their papal visit doc).

In other words, the cretins good gentlemen are out in force today and that coffee I've had has just made me jittery and crankier still. It all started with a stupid dream/nightmare about what a crap day I was going to have (not terribly prescient, given the odds) and it's just gone downhill from there, really.

And somebody went and beheaded my dragon. It was a ceramic dragon given as a gift from a friend for my garden. Not the sort of thing I'd pick normally (I couldn't even show you a photo of the fresco that'd make a Pompeii brothel owner weep in envy that proudly adorns my garden trellis) but I grew attached to his ugly mug, sadly now detached. The corellas were playing soccer with it but I'm not sure if they did the deed 'cause he was looking at 'em funny or just having convenient sport with the head. Not sure who did it. Certainly the cockatoos were so infuriated that the local shops ran out of their preferred brand of seed brick that they utterly destroyed and shredded three of my prized geraniums that used to ornament the veranda into two centimetre/inch long pieces, just the other day, just so as I knew it just would not do, so they're definitely in the frame, as are the feral cats (who are just evil). Harumph.
( more: retreating behind the sofa )

I have finally found an online version of that review of last week's White Collar which provided a titter or two as I read it (and, frankly, there's been barely a breath about poor old White Collar down here so any mention, no matter how brief or silly, is a thrill). It begins thus:

"Matt Bomer, who plays him, is a gorgeous man, fabulous hair, blue eyes, he's like an Armani model. Probably was. Tim DeKay, his FBI straight man, looks like a bag of hammers next to him, which is annoying because on his own he was Jonesy in Carnivale with absolutely no problem."

It then continues onto:

"White Collar is all about the two main guys. They have more chemistry than Terry White. Tiffani Thiessen from the original Beverly Hills 90210 (she was Tiffani-Amber Thiessen) plays Tim DeKay's wife and she's hardly ever in it, they just don't need a woman coming between them."

( more: feeling blue )