Breakfast the Eighty-First

Doppelganger shreddies & Special K with blackberries.

It's not yet midnight, but surely, surely, this is the Guardian's April Fools' Day article:

"Western diners should get used to the idea of eating insects because by 2020 it is 'inevitable' they will form an important part of our diet, according to the entomologist who heads up the world's first university centre focusing on insects as a food source.

"He argues that consumers who have traditionally turned their noses up at six-legged food may have to change their minds as conventional meat becomes more expensive and scarce."

Wouldn't people just eat more vegetables instead?

My most triumphant April Fools' Day ruse came in my third year at university when I convinced my lovely flatmate that the ceiling in her bedroom had fallen down. There had been a small leak before she left for the Easter hols, so I called her up and told her a tall tale about a ferocious storm and lashings of wind and rain... I didn't string it out too long: didn't seem fair. Obviously though, I have nothing on the people of Panorma and the Spaghetti Harvest of 1957.

Breakfast the Eightieth

Honey & Oats Special K with yoghurt and blackberries.

I went ice skating this evening, for the first time in yonks and yonks. What larks. Isn't it funny though how everyone obligingly skates around in anti-clockwise circles without being told to. I suppose it's just we Brits are compelled to create order wherever we go.

This may explain why when I was in France with my Maman she joined a lane of cars simply because they were queueing. (She admitted as much when I asked her why we were in the right hand lane when the road signs clearly indicated we ought to be in the left. And she didn't even grow up in the U.K.)

Breakfast the Seventy-Ninth

Doppelganger shreddies and Honey & Oats Special K.

I'm slightly less annoyed at the noisy students in the courtyard now that they're playing Yann Teirsen. Never-the-less, it is a school night. And while I may be nocturnal, I'm pretty sure that most of the people in this block are not.

My flatmates and I were much more considerate of poor working-types when we were students. Though that didn't stop a downstairs neighbour calling the council mediators in because she felt genuinely aggreived by the sound of my flatmate's money falling out of her back-pocket when she took her trousers off at night time. (I kid you not, this really was her complaint.)

She also objected to the sound of our footsteps. (We had wooden floors, rather than sound muffling wall-to-wall shagpile.) I remember the mediators asking if we thought there was anything we could do to be a bit quieter... The moneybags flatmate promised to take her change out of her back pocket before removing her trousers, and the rest of us resolved to learn how to fly -- and failing that, to stop wearing shoes.

Breakfast the Seventy-Eighth

Honey & Oat Special K with yoghurt and banana.

Oh my. It seems to me that the Literary Review need look no further for the winner of their Bad Sex in Fiction award. Kay Burley -- of Sky News infamy -- has written a novel.  And with characters with alliterative names like Julian Jenson and Sally Simpson, I can't imagine this not being a work of great subtlety and depth. There's nothing like a spot of cunnilingus to enliven a literary debut:

"At that exact moment, Julian was expertly using his silver tongue to offer intense gratification to Sally as he held on firmly to her taut, tanned thighs, tightly gripped around his handsome face."

The Guardian's Media Monkey has promised more details (stamina dependent) soon.

Breakfasts Seventy-Six and Seven

Pecan and Honey Nut Crunch with yoghurt.

Croissants -- one with almonds. Nom nom.

I've been gadding about London this weekend, which was jolly, so there wasn't really time to post anything yesterday: thus, you have two breakfasts in one here.

I'd forgotten that in London, shampoo doesn't really lather. Another thing that does not lather -- in any locale I imagine -- is Immac hair removal cream. Many, many years ago, I lunged -- somewhat sleepy-eyed -- for the wrong bottle on the side of the bath. After I had squirted a generous helping of Immac on to my head, the lack of bubbles, and telltale smell, alerted me to my error -- much frantic rinsing followed...

On a completely unrelated note, I learned this evening that there is an annual World Pooh Sticks Championships. I can't believe I didn't know this!

Breakfast the Seventy-Fifth

Honey & Oats Special K and banana.

I'm sitting on the train rediscovering the delights of The Magnetic Fields. I've rather got out of the habit of taking my ipod along with me lately: partly because I decided I oughtn't to be drowning out birdsong, and other lovely things, along with the yucky street noise; and partly because I'm so suggestible that the wrong song can render me maudlin quicker than you can say something trite and cheering.

Anyway, here I am on the train, in first class -- because it was only £8.00 more expensive and I'm quite sure I can put away that much complimentary tea, to say nothing of the biscuits. There's a woman sitting nearby reading a magazine with an article titled 'I Need You Naked'. Curious.

It's been a while since typing the above; the lady with the dubious reading material is now snoring.

Breakfast the Seventy-Fourth

Yoghurt, banana and honey nut cornflakes again.

Why is it that most men on public transport, and seated in waiting rooms, seem to have no concept of personal space? Perhaps I'm just a magnet for men determined to slump down in their seats with their elbows out and their knees a minimum of a metre apart. Any time I'm on a train or bus, or in a waiting room, I end up precariously perched on one bum cheek on the side of my chair, with my legs crossed away from some pathologically relaxed chap's invading limbs.

Sometimes, if I'm in a bolshy mood, I attempt to regain some space by 'accidentally' kicking people while recrossing my legs. More often than not though, I sit there festering, wishing I was brave enough to let rip and tell them to sit up straight and flaming well keep their legs (and arms) to themselves.

Perhaps I'm being unrealistic here, but I think if you're sharing space with a room/bus/train full of strangers, you ought to do do your utmost to take up as little of it as possible.

Breakfast the Seventy-Third

Yoghurt, banana and Honey Nut Cornflakes.

It turns out even the Oxford English Dictionary has given up on spelling yog(h)urt with an 'h'. Never-the-less, that's the way I've been spelling it all along; so, in the interest of preserving a slightly outdated spelling mode, I shall continue to include the 'h'. (I thought the spell-checker was being bolshy about 'yoghurt' because it was speaking yank.)

You may (or most likely, may not) be interested to learn that other spellings include: yoghurd, yogourt, yahourt, yaghourt, yogurd, yoghourt, yooghort, yughard, yughurt, and yohourth. So there you go. Evelyn Waugh seems to have liked spelling it 'yoghourt.'

Spelling is not my strong suit. I almost invariably refer to the product of opium poppies as heroine. And I'm not sure I'll ever get 'lieu' right the first time.

Breakfast the Seventy-Second

Doppelganger shreddies and banana, and my lovely flowers.

I can't believe it's taken me this long to discover gnocchi. I don't imagine I'll be making them myself any time soon, but that's where Jamie Oliver comes in. And the Tesco up the road that I swore I wouldn't go to when it first opened... only the trouble is it's so damn convenient. Gah.

Anyway, back to gnocchi. Yum. Thank you to Jamie Oliver for making them for me so that I don't have to. (And a begrudging thank you to the evil empire up the road for selling them.)

Breakfast the Seventy-First

Jelly and sprite.

Jelly truly is a magical thing. I don't know why, but it's all I wanted to eat once I'd started to feel a little less green. Another magical thing, or person rather, is the incomparable Miss Girling who came round yesterday with sprite and daffodils to make me feel better. I had real food for supper this evening -- hurrah!

I'm currently half-watching The Great British Hairdresser. Half my attention is much more than it deserves. How can anyone take hair so seriously? I'm not sure I've ever seen anything more preposterous in my life. It actually reminds me a little of a visit from a hairdresser to our school for a PSE (Personal and Social Education) lesson. I don't know what the school was thinking. They imported some badger-haired stylist who berated us -- a bunch of twelve year olds -- for having hair not hairstyles...

Come to think of it, PSE lessons were pretty preposterous too. In addition to the hairdresser lesson, we were also taught how to pack a suitcase, and filled in on the wonders of the rhythm method by a woman pregnant with her 100th child. (Catholic school - what can you do?)

Breakfast the Seventieth

Toast & honey.

Actually only managed two bites of this particular breakfast... I've succumbed to a yucky vomiting bug.  Given that tales of upchucking do not make good reading, I shall leave it there.

Breakfast the Sixty-Ninth

Toast and walbut butter. (Unseen, toast and plum jam.)

It's been at least ten hours since my last square meal and I'm blogging under the influence, so I shall keep this brief as it's unlikely I'll write anything even remotely coherent...

I spent this afternoon putting the finishing touches on our stilly -- Illyria & The Andromeda.  I recommend following this link only if you have a healthy appreciation for the absurd.

Breakfast the Sixty-Eighth

Honey Nut Cornflakes and Blueberries.

I want to know what has happened to all my socks. They're not in my drawer and they're not in my laundry basket.  I don't even seem to have many odd socks kicking about. Even the sock I keep my camera in has gone missing. I feel like Prince George in Blackadder.

I'm writing this in a turret, which is pleasing. Equally pleasing is the fact that the keyboard I'm writing this on makes a sort of bubbling, splish-sploshy noise when you type. The drawback to turrets though, is that they're rather chilly; my fingers are cold, cold, cold. Especially my left index finger which, ever since I slammed it in a door a couple of years ago, is almost always colder than the others. I know not why. But it hasn't dropped off yet, so I suppose there mustn't be anything sinister in it: it's just a subpar sort of a digit.

Breakfast the Sixty-Seventh

Honey Nut Cornflakes and raspberries.

I happened upon some Burt's Bees Hand Salve yesterday – one of many Christmas stocking thingamajigs that I've been carting about for years. In the interest of having one fewer thing to cart next time I move, I thought I ought to start using it up, so I slathered some on. This was something of an error.

My keyboard got all sticky and my mouse got rather too well lubricated for easy use. (Now there's lewd word.) Then, when I got up to forage some lunch, I found I couldn't open my bedroom door. It's always been somewhat tricky to open, but particularly so with overly-salved hands... Happily, with the help of a co-op bag (cloth, not plastic), I freed myself and found some munchables.

This isn't the first time I've inadvertently trapped myself. When I was little, I wanted to know exactly how dark the coal hole was if the door as completely closed: very, very dark indeed as it turns out... I wasn't much of a one for considering possible outcomes when I was small so it hadn't occurred to me that if it was as dark as I thought it might be, I wouldn't be able to find something to stand on in order to reach the lock and let myself back out again. I forget how long I was in there; but I do remember that the cat was there too.

(I've cheated and back-posted this so that my breakfast appears on the relevant day -- just in case any one's confused by the sudden materialisation of this post.)

Breakfast the Sixty-Sixth

Oaty cluster thingys, yoghurt and raspberries.

I saw The Adjustment Bureau this evening, which I loved. What I didn't love though is the Vodafone "people depend on our network" advert beforehand with the fighting couple sending each other pictures of cows and spanners.

"Join us, so that you too can be a passive aggressive lunatic who doesn't communicate with their partner"... Weirdly, fighting couples seem to be rather de rigeur in advertising these days. There's a car advert with a rowing pair and some tarot cards... And then there's the flaming BT pair (who actually have been rather quiet of late). Fighting people don't make me want to buy things. Nor for that matter do dancing babies. Or skateboarding babies. Or babies doing anything that requires computer animation.

Breakfast the Sixty-Fifth

Oaty cluster thingys with yoghurt and blueberries.

I'd entirely forgotten, until today, that Winnie-the-Pooh, is also a great lover of condensed milk:

When rabbit said "Honey or condensed milk with your bread?" he was so excited that he said, "Both," and then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, "but don't bother about the bread, please."

I think this particular binge may have been the one that led to Pooh getting stuck in Rabbit's doorway (burrow-way?).  I suppose the human equivalent to this would be not fitting into an aeroplane seat, or having to be crane-lifted out of of your house.

Perhaps I ought to rein in my condensed milk consumption before my metabolism catches up with me and I go the way of Pooh...

Breakfast the Sixty-Fourth

Toast with peanutbutter and jam. 

Woopsy. I entirely forgot that the latest batch of pink horse pills are in in fact 400mg of ibuprofen, not 200.... which means that in the last 24 hours I've had twice as many as I ought to have. Oops. They don't seem to have had any adverse effects yet.

Other than relating news of overdosing, today I can but sing the praises of lovely Edinburgh taxi drivers who wait to see you are safely indoors before driving off. (Though I must say, I often feel rather ashamed about how long it takes me to dig my keys out of my handbag...)

Breakfast the Sixty-Third

Oaty cluster thingys, banana and yoghurt.

Oh Scotland. I'm not much of a rugby follower really; but I do so like it when we win the Calcutta cup. Especially when we lose all the other games and win against England. It really seemed like a possibility today too (well, for half of the match at least.) Oh well. The wooden spoon it is.

Breakfast the Sixty-Second

Toast with Pear & Apple Spread and Mango & Passion Fruit smoothie.

Today I have been mostly drinking tea. And wishing I lived in the tropics.

Also, a lady with a broken personal alarm delivered the census to fill in (happily it was ringing at reduced volume...). I'm rather sad to see that despite the best efforts of students all over the country in 2001, Jedi Knight has not made it on to the tick box list of religions you belong to. I'm sure I remember hearing that enough people said they were Jedi Knights it would make it on to the list for the next census...

Breakfast the Sixty-First

Honey Nut Cornflakes and Banana again.

I wonder if I'll ever grow out of enjoying sitting at the front of the top deck of double-decker buses? I feel genuinely miffed if a six-year-old beats me to the spot immediately above the driver. (That's the best place -- it's like you're actually driving the bus.)

It's just as well I enjoy the simple pleasures in life. I got a letter from the student loans company today. By my calculations, at my current rate of contribution, I'll have paid it off by the time I am 83.

Breakfast the Sixtieth

Doppelgänger shreddies and banana.

The only reason I drink chamomile tea is Peter Rabbit. I was always so desperate to try it when I was small. When I finally did, I confess it was something of an anticlimax. Even so, my love of Peter Rabbit keeps me drinking it -- from time to time.

I suppose these days Peter would be slapped with an ASBO quicker than you can say "delinquent." He does, after all, trespass in Mr McGregor's garden; steal some lettuce and French beans and radishes; and, I think, breaks a couple of flowerpots in attempting to make his escape.

Then there are the Two Bad Mice (my other favourites): a couple of breaking-and-entering miscreants who vandalise a house...

Does the Daily Mail know about these furry hoodlums?!

Breakfast the Fifty-Ninth

Honey Nut Cornflakes and banana.

I had infuriatingly dull dreams last night –– about computer hacking, and banking fraud. In Wales I dreamt about hot air balloons and foxes and bears and picnics. Oh, and searching for a loo with a friend I haven't seen in yonks.

I think I probably would have thought the loo searching part had actually happened in real life if it weren't for the fact that immediately after we found a loo, we watched a bear chase a woman up a tree. The bear was moving so fast it actually climbed over the top of the woman -- who only made it half way up the trunk -- and scampered up to the top, causing the tree to bend right over. The tree then snapped back upright, sending the hapless creature arcing across the sky. Incredibly, the woman managed to hold on.

You can see why, after this, I'm miffed to have dreamt about online identity fraud. Though I suppose this is preferable to being menaced by my lampshade again.

Breakfast the Fifty-Eighth

Oaty cluster thingys and yoghurt.

One of the pitfalls of working from home, I find, is that you take to wearing some pretty idiosyncratic get-ups. Today was definitely a low in the sartorial stakes. I'd forgotten how oddly attired I was until I ventured out in search of lunch and garnered some baffled looks. It seems the good people of Edinburgh expect rather more than navy blue leggings (clean trousers in short supply) teamed with thick purple socks, brown boat shoes, a fleece in an odd air-force blue shade, a grey coat and a red-wine stained bobbly hat...

The only other thing I have to say is hurrah for shrove Tuesday (the pancake part of it at least). Nom, nom, nom.

Breakfasts Fifty-Four, Five, Six and Seven

No 54: Coco Pops. No 55: Scrambled Eggs and Smoked Salmon.
No 56: Toast and Nutella. No 57: Banoffee Pie.

I've been on ever-so-jolly a jaunt to Wales, where all sorts of high jinx were had. There was no t'internet though, hence the lack of posts -- though, no breakfasts were missed. I was there with Miss Shelley of the Peculiar Presents, and a couple of Messrs. The weather was glorious; the beaches were perfect. It was so sunny, in fact, that ice cream was necessary. In March. (Sun in Wales, much as in Scotland, is a fairly seismic sort of a happening, so I consider myself very fortunate indeed.)

I learned to play Yahtzee, was beaten miserably in San Franciso-opoly, and used up all my letters in Scrabble with "treating." And in one of life's odder coincidences, I bumped into my godmother's husband -- who lives in London -- at Portmerion, an Italianate Village in North Wales.

Now I'm back in grey Edinburgh, and my bedroom smells of hops. I left my window open when I left and it seems the beer brewing smell has wafted my way... Gah.

Breakfast the Fifty-Third

No photo today, I can't connect my camera to the extremely tiny device that I'm writing this on. I had doppelgänger shreddies and banana.

I'll have to be brief. Firstly because I'm too ham-fisted for touch technology and secondly, because I'm travelling backwards on the train and am in danger of losing my supper.

I got ID'd buying wine this evening, which rather made my day. Until I couldn't find my ID. Happily, the shop assistant realized, after my exhaustive search of my handbag, that I probably wasn't 17 and let me have my vino.

Breakfast the Fifty-Second

Oat cluster things, yoghurt and raspberry again.

The fingers on my left hand are numb from practising the cello, and I'm still not Yo-Yo Ma. Gah. I wish I could fast forward to playing Boccherini.

I remember going to see "Master and Commander" at the cinema (or Maaaaster and Comaaaander as the voice in my head renders it). I went with my Pater. I thought he could admire the boat and I could admire Paul Bettany. In fact, I rather liked the boat too. Though if I had to choose between a square-rigged frigate and Mr Bettany, I'd plump for the latter.

Breakfast the Fifty-First

Oaty cluster thingys, yoghurt and raspberries.

I saw stars this evening, proper spinning round your head ones like in cartoons. They were brought on by a combination of hunger, and standing up too fast after running to yoga class. Probably this is the closest I shall ever come to a swoon.

We Macdonalds are not the fainting type. Especially not me. I am relentlessly robust: a hopeless candidate as a damsel in distress, and indeed a romantic heroine. Although... an early Austen heroine did counsel "Beware of Swoons ... Run mad as often as you chuse; but do not faint" -- so perhaps there is scope for non-fainting romantic heroines.

My Mama, on the other hand, is a champion fainter. So much so that she can't do Pilates, and has to sleep propped up on a mound of pillows.