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

Oh it was worth waiting to open the Sweeney board game a dear friend found and sent as a pressie. Rude, but worth waiting until I was well enough to rip it open with glee and get straight down to playing it - and beating the pants off the Peanut Gallery.

I think. The rules are somewhat obtuse, and written in faux Sweeney spea babble, but it's brilliant for all that. fun!
( more: yer nicked! )

"I think we're contractually obliged to use him." - Chris Chibnall, writer and executive producer of Law & Order UK, on John Munch aka Richard Belzer, BBC

Monday: Sigh. I was so happy this morning, the bus was only 15 years old, I had my book to read, and a dear friend had sent me piccies of my fave pretty blond boys. Especially the pretty blond boy I was drooling over all weekend.
( more: because he's drop dead gorgeous )

Apologies for the late running BNW again. What can I say? My path is strewn with cowpats from the devil's own satantic herd, etc, etc.

Meant to post it Friday but was kept back after school again (and this after being screamed at for all the unpaid overtime I clocked up - like it's my fault I don't get the urgent stuff until after 5pm). So I missed nearly everything bar Spooks. Mmmm...Adam. I forgot to mention that last week I was bemused to see the action seemed to revolve around a station coffee shop I knew intimately - grin.
( more: '...and I get paid for just bein' a freak' )

OTP quote of the day:
"There's a massive conflict but we wanted them to be a partnership. It does grow into a really lovely relationship. We lived next door to each other in Manchester - we were married for two years - and Phil came round to watch a rough cut of episode two. There's a bit at the end, and we stood up and hugged each other. It was really sweet." - MEN

But, from the same article comes the highly dusturbing:
"a nod to another famous double act - Morecambe and Wise."

Oh, please, no. Not the fighting international terrorism with flying fish from series four of The Sweeney? Oh dearie me. I said no M&W - weren't you lot listening? Good grief.

Compared to that, the news that Derek Jacobi will be chewing the cheap scenery in Doctor Who is a doddle.

No, cancel that. I'm in dire need of a Bex and a lie down.

And if they must stunt cast, then, in the name of all that is holy, can you please gimme some Brian Blessed lovin'? Ta. (I know he's been in Who before but I'm of the firm opinion that one can never have too much Brian).
( more: behold the budgie smugglers )

I know, I know, I'm supposed to be finishing that damn fic but I just can't find a spare minute. Re-writes have also muddied the waters, somewhat. Hence the lack of online progress as I'm scribbling out new bits as the relationship definitely starts to fray under pressure. Poor lads. Of course, right now it's nigh impossible to write anything without "They Wont Let My Girlfriend Talk To Me" playing in my head (sadly not on YouTube, alas, must rectify that).

But enough about me (and the lads). On to TV:

( more: He steals from the poor. And gives to the rich. Stupid bitch. )

No news really. Spent the weekend on the room project. Finally tore apart that pile of magazines in the corner. Literally tore apart. It was nearly all from 2004, which does not surprise. It was a very bad year. It was the year I damn nearly ended up redundant and they used every nasty trick to try and force me out. I found my diary from that year and every second page was a copy of a job application or a medical certificate. No wonder the housework suffered. Trying to catch up though, that's the trick of it.

Oh well. Four bookcases down, two to go (yup, every wall be bookcase, well, sorta, it's an odd atticy room that means half cases, alas, hence the mega culling of both crap and cool stuff).

Right now though, I'd kill for a wee radio that works. Mine has just decided to turn mute, and, of course, today's the day the co-worker who can't type without sounding out the words is driving me to near homicidal distraction. Argh. Need music to soothe the savage beast. Either that or a 2 by 4.

So, to tv. ( more: community policing )

Back at last. There is my chair and there is my cup. Bliss.

I know, completely barmy, me, but it really is like a holiday, being back. Even the firebreathing boss... well, okay, maybe not that. Apparently I missed the colleague we'd voted least likely to be up in the clock tower with automatic weapons, our rock, as it were, finally blowing up big time. He's cracked, he's completely broken. Such a shame.

Meanwhile, my horoscope said I'd be spending the next fortnight doing DIY jobs that can no longer be put off and assembling Swedish bookcases. If I had a gun, I'd be cocking it against my temple right about now. It has not been fun, let me tell you. At least it took only three trips to Ikea to get all the bits for the cheap, badly made and wobbly held together only by wishful thinking piece of tat I bought - but it was cheap, I s'pose. I'm just appalled that I bought such a thing when my gg-dad was apparently a master furniture maker. Sigh.

The last trip had the makings of a sitcom, though. The usual, I assume, from hearing other horror stories, case of being 3/4 of the way through assembly before discovering an insufficiency of screws and whatnots. As it's three hours, one way, via public transport and a death march to the seven circles of Hell that is the Ikea store, I desperately phoned a friend to see if they had the time and charity to take me. To my surprise they rang back and said they'd be round in under an hour. So there's me combing dust bunnies out of my hair and waiting for them when I realise that amongst all the bags and boxes of diabolical crap well-intentioned gifts I sadly no longer have room for, that are waiting for a run to the charity shop, are a fair whack of items from the very mate who is taking me to Ikea. So I met them at the gate in a flurry of urgency, no time for a cuppa, etc. I am so evil. No wonder I have precious few friends (though we bonded anew over Titus Pullo and Bertie Wooster).
( more: when 70s cop shows attack )

Every so often, a Monday feels it has to live up to the legend. First off, I've lost my notebook and disk with all of the fic I wrote yesterday, which was quite a bit as I had nothing else to do as the house shuddered and juddered in 100kph gusts. Hopefully it fell out of my bag at home and not on the bus, or I will be in tears.

Then there was the bus trip itself. I had the eye-watering garlic salami eater breathing down my neck from behind (I'll have to burn my clothes), and the OCD nail clipper in front. This is why I took out my book to read and why I'm panicking about having dropped the Sam pr0n on the bus. Gah. It was early and I was distracted.

Yesterday was not fun. It went from about 9.30 am to 6pm, at which time I braved outside to right pot plants and garden furniture, collect feral buckets and fallen branches. One huge branch (about 2m long) had contained a bird's nest in its crook. We searched on vain for baby birds. Oh well. I have a large pile of kindling now, for whatever purpose, I suppose. Anyone need anyone burnt at the stake?

But you don't want to hear about real life.

Right then, The Vice. Precious little Marc Warren but lots of S&M. British cop shows are so kinky these days - nobody ever uses handcuffs for arresting people.
( more: Dick goes Bollywood and why Bodie is butcher than Boba Fett )

Are we sitting comfortably?

Okay then. Friday's highlight was The Vice on UKTV, starring a young and cocky (what else?) Marc Warren. I never took to this series whe it played on the ABC but I have some fuzzy memory of coming to it halfway through for some reason, and thus missed all the introductory scenes, though the Brits, bless 'em, prefer to do this sort of thing on the run. I quite enjoyed it, and it wasn't at all as seedy as I remembered it, though I think in the few years since I saw it, the bar has been lowered re seedy, especially by Wire in the Blood, which really is nasty telly.

Saturday, ah Saturday. Where does one start? Okay, how about 4am when I woke up, because I only ever wake up on time on the weekend. Decided to indulge in some required viewing, and finally watched Blue/Orange, all the way through, nobody up and around to pester me. Okay, basically a three man one room screaming match of a play, which it was, a play (and like most modern theatre, has the characters say things for shock value), and pretty much was filmed as such, only the characters change rooms on occassion, and I don't know why they bothered as I would have thought the claustrophobia would have added to the piece on this occasion.

Anyway, it was basically just a game of spot the nutter, with a bit of 'just what the hell is normal anyway?' thrown in for good measure, and it did remind me of Life on Mars, with it's spot the nutter games. John was also very Sam like: same hair, same medal, rolled up sleeves and all the shouting and manipulation. Oh yes, John goes to town in this little piece, throws his complete portfolio down on the table here, and in the scene where he really blows up, I thought he was going to have a stroke.

It was a great performance, though and it was only lessened by three things: the Human Traffic cast reunion moment which amused me more than it should have, all the Sam moments, and an unfortunate segue when I popped the tv and the dvd came on. It was a mini Trek marathon on TV1 and it was the episode where Kirk was split into good and bad and it was very much a case of 'nice try, kid, but watch and learn from the master' as the Shatman when for the gold, howling and chewing up scenery like a starving man (no wonder he got so fat).

It's terrible, because you realise this means I am never going to be able to watch Sam throw a strop again without thinking of the Shatman. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. How unfortunate. But it's stuck in my head now, as I went from one screaming OTT thsep to another. Oh well....
( more: feverish outbreaks of Legionnaires )