Smoked paprika and marinated anchovies

I really wish the bags that the Sainsburys delivery man had left in his van, after leaving my house, had been the ones containing the smoked paprika and marinated anchovies. It would have been nicer to have said that they were missing, when ringing the helpline, rather than 'Er, I seem to be missing some sanitary towels and corned beef'.

I haven't updated for about two weeks and in that time I have had several moments of 'ooh, I might put that on my blog' including: feeling like crying at the Bonnie Prince Billy concert; feeling like crying, for entirely different reasons, at Mordern Tower; feeling like crying seeing an old man with shaky hands; feeling like crying when I saw some sandwiches wrapped in clingfilm in the street (a token of love so callously discarded!); and, giggling, hearing a young man and his mother arguing in a restaurant - you could hear his eyes rolling from the other side of the room as he hissed 'I'll have a pint of vodka please' at the waiter.

Naturally I waited until something involving the word 'sanitary towels' cropped up.

Happy Birthday Grandma

That was cheaper than a card.

Cultural highlights of the past week:

1. Brick memories. While listening to Nev Clay performing in the Head of Steam, an enormously enthusiastic fan so irritated somebody that they muttered 'anyone got a brick?' This brought a flush of pride to my face because it reminded me that I was declared the queen of lateral thinking (unofficial title) at school for being able to come up with the most uses for a brick. I had not had 'stove somebody's head in to stop them shouting out excitedly' on my list but I still won. The activity was posed in careers week. I am still looking for a job finding alternative uses for the brick so if anyone knows of any openings...

2. Seven Stories. I visited this children's literature centre where I was delighted to see genuine manuscripts of genuine books I genuinely read when I was a genuine child. Danny Champion of the World! Yippee! Etc. There was a quite touching exhibition about Allan and Janet Ahlberg. I particularly enjoyed a video of Allan doing keepie ups in his back garden. Of all the children's authors alive today, he is surely the best at keepie ups. I was also excited to see a bit of Harry Potter manuscript. It featured lots of crossings out and some kind of greeny smudge which was either a snot or some kind of terribly sophisticated, exotic, spilt foodstuff. Like avocado.

Hair egg!

Oh! I nearly forgot! I saw a massive egg made out of human hair (well, it looked very much like human hair and, after all, who would make a massive egg out of dog hair?) in the street this week. It was huge! The sort of size I imagine a huge goose egg would be, or an easter egg (but just a cheap, Cadburys Buttons one, not a £24 Lindt one - the Lindt one would also be a bad example because it would be in the shape of a massive bunny - and the hair was definitely ovoid). I tried to take a picture of it, but every time I got near someone came out of the house it was sitting outside and sort of lingered about in a way that made me unsure about whether it was Granny's sacred hair-egg or something. I didn't want to commit a grave hair-egg faux pas so I was unable to capture it for your astonishment. I was doubly upset about that because someone had been kind enough to leave an empty can of Carling next to it, offering a perfect illustration of its scale.

Fame!

It's been a few days since I've written anything. I've been really busy with the band and my vigourous new exercise programme. Phew! Most of the band work has revolved around drinking tea and wondering if we can all play jangly percussion intsruments or if that's going 'a bit too far'. I'm still trying hard with the guitar so maybe we'll have a conventional instrument involved too. We'll just have to write songs with no f's in them. One nice result of our exciting debut on myspace is that I just accidentally found a nice girl band called The Pipettes. Pipette is a lovely word, isn't it? Almost lovely enough to make a career in science seem attractive. Or to make being in an all-girl, polka-dot-shod pop band attractive. Sadly, it has stymied our 'yeah, let's all wear polka dot dresses' plan.

Other music I have 'discovered' recently includes Mogwai. I put the word discovered in inverted commas to indicate my awareness that the rest of the world has been listening to Mogwai since they were in the womb. I first heard them last Wednesday when they played at Northumbria University.

When my giving-up-buying-stuff for Lent ends - next Sunday, it will be hard to choose between buying a Mogwai LP or the Pipettes debut album. I suspect that the Pipettes might win - simply because they've only got one album so they wouldn't present me with further dilemmas. Actually, considering I didn't buy the delight pictured below (as spotted in Windows of Newcastle, priced at £179.99, only yesterday) I think I might treat myself and buy two records.



Wow. she's a beauty, eh?

Olympics here I come!

Today sees the first day of my campaign to become an olympian. I thought it might be nice to do something for being thirty and, inspired by the snowboarders on the telly, have plumped for becoming an international sports star. There are four years to go so I think I'll take one year to get myself in shape while also researching potential sports. Apparently there's a sport that involves cross-country skiing and shooting, which sounds like fun. Then I'll have a couple of years to become brilliant at the sport and get the shell suits and stuff. Ace.

While thinking about how I am now a future olympian I realised what a lovely name for a band that would be. We had been thinking about calling it 'My So Called Wife' but audience surveys have suggested that is a 'rubbish' name. So, anyway, how about 'Future Olympians'? We've got a myspace so all we need to do now is learn to play some instruments, write some songs, that kind of stuff. It's great being in a band. Yesterday when I walked to the shops I was just plain old Helen Parker. Today I held my head up high, knowing that I was Helen Parker of the Future Olympians. Brilliant.