Fizzy grape juice

Yet again I have failed to post for a few days on the basis that, now that I am engaged, I have to spend more time with my fiance making conversation and NOT spend half the night tip-tapping away my deepest thoughts into the electronic ether. Talk about not reading the instructions - someone could have warned me about this before!

A most enjoyable weekend, although it did not go the way that I expected.

Best laid plans of attending a gig fell through as the drummer had to fly home due to family crisis. We all stayed inside instead and I continued to hit the bubbly transparent stuff that, in the past few weeks, I have come to regard as "merely expensive water".

(Champagne, not Perrier. That IS merely expensive water).

Anyway, I had rather too many ales and seemed to spend much of the night trying to avoid conversations about musical instruments (of which I know nothing beyond which end you blow in a recorder) and watching Spanglepuss' new man shake his hips to the beat in a way that came dangerously close to 'turning' me .

As a result (of the booze, and not Spanglepuss' new man's hips) my head was thumping a merry tune on Sunday morning and so I stayed in bead drinking tea and reading about the Olmecs... I'll admit that's not much of a hangover cure but it works about as well as any other that I've heard about - you can take your oysters and 'hair of the dog', I'll take a hot cup of tea and some Central American civilisations any day.

Sunday was spent travelling around looking for somewhere that was cheap to go into but served tea (this is apparently impossible in Yorkshire - the attractively bluff Yorkshire manner seems eternally married to the less attractive trait of attempting to fleece all visitors for the heinous crime of not being from Yorkshire).

Monday was spent at the Doctor Who exhibition at which Tallulah (that's Tallulah and NOT ME you understand) got very excited at seeing David Tennant's long coat and I was forced to stop playing and get out of the walk-in Dalek after a rather long line of children formed behind me waiting for a go (wasted on kids, wasted...).

At which point I feel I should include a link to a website devoted to cats that look like Hitler

http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com/cgi-bin/seigmiaow.pl

Champagne with eggs

Champagne with chocolate eggs can make a violent concoction as I've learnt to my cost this Easter weekend - the chocolate eggs give me the energy while the champagne took away the inclination to do anything with said energy other than sit in Tallulah's parent's conservatory and watch her nephew indulge in an egg hunt in the garden.

Much to my dismay there _were_ actually eggs to be found in the garden, thus squandering a perfect chance to teach the child some hard life lessons in disappointment and the lies adults tell. Wasted opportunity there, I feel.

Big weekend. Much discussion was had over impending wedding and Tallulah and I now have the wedding venue and registrar booked. Suggestions of a Las Vegas Drive-In wedding and my idea for a wedding meal centred around Turkey Twizzlers met with a somewhat frosty reception from the prospective in laws, but Tallulah and I have managed to choose a venue that lets us do what we want and run the day how we want it. (This appears to be a freakishly rare concept in terms of wedding venues).

To catch up in terms of geekish news from the past few weeks - Primeval has slunk away with it's tail between it's legs like a dog that knows it's master is home because Doctor Who has returned. Hurrah!

Liking the new series so far - David Tennant has cut back on the (very occasional) pantomime lapses of the last series and new assistant Martha is a confidant and energetic replacement for Rose. The series - always more of a science fantasy rather than science fiction - seems to be blurring the line between science fiction and fantasy even further (I've been fighting the urge to point this out for over a week now, but in episode one why does no-one even try to explain why a hospital transported to the moon has electrical power and full earth gravity? - I suppose it might explain it on the commentary).

Speaking of fantasy, last night I watched the final episode of 'Life on Mars'. Can I just say that I think this was the most fitting ending for a series that I have ever seen and satisfied me in a way that the ending of Buffy, Angel and the various Star Trek series never did. All the questions were answered (although, if you look at it another way, none of them were). I'm slightly concerned about the news that the BBC are making a 1980s spin off - the show was very much a one off story that had a distinct beginning , middle and end (not necessarily in that order) and a spin off could well dilute and detract from the strength of the original.

Oh, and I got a quote from my review of 'Shadow of the Torturer' published in the latest edition of SFX. (Only a sentence though).

Looking forward to this weekend as Tallulah and I are off to see a Spanglepuss' new beau's band with Whiskey Murrell and her significant other. I've been told to bring ear plugs and I've yet to work out whether that is a good thing.....