I had a superb week this week. I only went to work for two days, which is a good place to start. Better yet, I spent the other three days with Mum, Dad, Leavy and Pippa. We had lots of outdoor time: we looked at barges in Maldon, took a day-boat up the Thames from Datchet, and walked in Richmond Park. We had lots of quality time with the dogs, and they had such an adventure going on their first train, bus and tube. Pippa found it all a bit stressful but Leavy took to it all like a duck to water, sprawling across the floor of the tube, clambering around the bus and wagging her tail at everyone we met. I'd write more but I'm too hungry to type - maybe Tuesday I'll say more.

Ow, my legs hurt. We set out this morning for a 38-mile cycle around the Yorkshire Dales. 3 miles in we realised this was not going to be easy. We were cycling into what felt like a howling gale, and the route was an awful lot more hilly than it looked like on paper. So we wimped out a bit, and cycled 18 miles instead, taking a little detour to Malham Cove which was very lovely. I just mapped our route on MapMyRide - it says we climbed around 850 feet, which is quite a bit really.

Anyway now I'm hungry and I want to eat an entire cow or something. I think we're going to go get a curry which should fill that stomach hole, and eat it with a small bottle of champagne my work buddies gave me when I left on Friday. It's approximately Andy and I/my/mine/our (can't quite figure out which word fits here) four-year anniversary, so combining that with the cycling trip, I think we have a good excuse to drink champagne, stuff our faces and vegetate on the couch.

This weekend I made:

a picture of a camper van for Andy (quite cartoon-like now I've photographed it) and ...

... three cushion covers. I enjoyed making the cushion covers quite a bit (they're so jolly, and even better, machine washable), and am now looking forward to my pattern arriving so I can make myself this exciting dress:

I think I'm going to have to figure out a way to transport my sewing machine to Geneva. After a full, frustrating day's shopping on Saturday where I bought just one thing (and even that is a bit big), I need to  learn to make my own clothes a la Gran.

I think putting multiple pictures in is too complicated, so I won't do that too often. Here are other things I have done recently:

• gone to Thorpe Park with our neighbours Daniel and Nathalie
• took a tourist boat to Greenwich and pottered around the market
• took a Clipper to Greenwich and visited the Royal Observatory
• went to Wiltshire for a five-mile walk
• cycled to Woking, just because it was about the right distance away
• went to a clothes-swapping party where we agreed to start doing sewing/crafty stuff together regularly.

I've done lots of other stuff too, I'm sure, I just can't think of it yet. Here's Thorpe Park:

I thought that while we're sitting around waiting for anything interesting to happen, I'd take the opportunity to update you on what I've been up to lately.

A month or so ago now, I went to afternoon tea with Katy. We put on our posh frocks and ate fancy sandwiches and cakes, and drank fancy tea, at the Sanderson. It was such fun, even though it was raining very heavily. Look how pretty the cakes are.













I also went to the Lake District for some yomping. We were fortunate enough to have very lovely weather. In fact, we were also fortunate to be allowed to go outside in the lovely weather - I often find myself stuck indoors on sunny days in London. We were very energetic and walked Mountain No 2 (Helvellyn) on Sunday, and Mountain No 3 (Skiddaw) on Monday. We did Mountain No 1 (Scafell Pike) two years ago, so we're working our way through the list of England's highest mountains.

What was exciting about both mountains, but particularly Helvellyn, was that although it was very hot, the snow on the top hadn't melted. So we were wandering around in blazing hot sun, shorts, tshirts and lots of suncream, throwing snowballs at each other. Here's some pretty pictures:

 

Aren't elections funny? A bit like Christmas or birthdays, you look forward to it so much and then are rather taken by surprise when it turns out to be a day like any other. In fact, apart from the UKIP plane crash, there hasn't been very much election news.

I'm aiming to stay up until 3:30 as original predictions suggested loads of results around then, but turnout has been so high that I think it'll be later than that. I don't think I can stay up any later than 3:30 and still function tomorrow.

The whole people-not-being-able-to-vote thing is very disappointing, what an awful shame. But there's some happy news too: let's just take a moment to pause and reflect on the fact that at this very moment, the UK Parliament consists entirely of women. 100%. Okay, that's just three people, but isn't it exciting?

What I made during the leaders' debate

Leaders debate

That was fairly fun, and I drew some nice pictures of flowers while they were bickering. Aren't elections exciting?

22:01 Look at Nick go! He's learnt from Dara O'Briain, he's naming all the people he talked to during the evening, threading their stories into one nice little anecdote. "I spoke to a guy called Joel this evening, and he said ...."

21:57 I know what they're talking about, but the word 'carer' is a funny one. Nick is saying that those people who care the most, who care for the longest, should have respite. He makes it sound like some kind of competition - I totally care about, like, peace and shit, I've cared about it for a reeeeally long time, can I have a break from caring please?

21:50 Hang on, let me just check I've understood that, Dave. Stop the National Insurance rise, and use that money to buy cancer drugs. So, reduce the Government's tax income, and spend that decrease on cancer drugs ... nope, you've lost me. Why didn't the others pick that up? I must stop being less partial.

21:43 Gosh David, that's a heartfelt thank you for that Indian NHS worker despite saying earlier that you didn't want any foreigners coming in.

21:24 Well done Nick, I agree, all these crazy waste savings are not going to sort out the economy. I don't know anyone else who isn't allowed free tea and coffee at work except me. In the last six months I have claimed precisely nothing on expenses. How much have they claimed?

21:15 Oh piss off Dave, he's being mean.

21:11 Heeeheeheee Dave nearly forgot he's got a new baby on the way ... "and hopefully another one ... another two on the way" (to school).

21:06 Nick should stop looking directly at the camera, he seems much more natural when he looks at the others.

21:02 Oh no wait hang on a second, Call-Me-Dave reckons that part of the apology for the expenses stuff is to cut the size of Whitehall by a third - really? What did we ever do?

21:00 I'm going to stop doing this and play arts and crafts for a while. The Guardian and Sam are going to have to live blog faster.

20:58 Third time lucky Gordon! His feeble joke about posters didn't get a laugh, his 'this is not question time, it's answer time' only got a laugh from him, but finally his 'airbrushing your posters but not your policies' joke struck home and got a little giggle. Sam's right, he's just not a funny man. At least he's trying though.

20:57 Weird camera shot there of Nick Clegg's leg.

20:55 Oh god Gordon, that's a very awkward joke about posters ...

20:52 Now I support Nick's policy on prison reform absolutely, but 9 out of 10 prisoners reoffend? I am pretty darn certain it's 7 out of 10 - get your facts straight, young man. Is Gordo plugging Dave's national service thingamy?

20:51 Nice clip of an audience member shaking his head at what Gordon was saying there. That's a thumbs down from Mr Curly Hair in the back row, Gordo.

20:50 "... my city of Sheffield where I'm an MP ..." - no you're not, Nick, you stopped being an MP on Monday.

20:48 18 minutes in and I don't think I can take another anecdote. "I was talking to a real person the other day and they said ..." - aaaaaaggghhhh. Dave is talking about prisoners reoffending. What an enlightened solution he has - lock them up for longer.

20:44 Nick Clegg was apparently saving lives in a paediatric hospital a few weeks ago - my hero.

20:42 A border police force? Did David just make that up on the spot? He is almost a parody of himself at this stage - it sounds like something the commenters on the Guardian article on Armando Ianucci's twitter post might say - they were busily coming up with things they were going to do to take part in Cameron's government. That was a very funny set of comments, my favourite was "I don't like my neighbour so I'm going to deport him."

20:40 I'm not sure I'm quite up for live blogging this thing, but I might just make a few observations as we go.

Does anyone else think the Labour manifesto looks quite like my blog
template? Copycats.

Geneva

I've got a new job in Geneva. I'm off to the Quaker United Nations
Office to spend a year working on human rights and refugees starting
in September, and it's terribly exciting.

The excitement is tempered by my sadness that it means living away
from Andy for a year, but he's being ever so wonderfully supportive -
this is something I really want to do, and I think I'd regret passing
up on the opportunity.

So I'm focussing on all the exciting things: living in a very
important city but one that's much smaller than London, living in the
clean fresh air of the Alps, living on the shore of Lake Geneva,
hanging around the United Nations and going to the Montreaux Jazz
Festival. Andy and I will just have to travel to and fro lots. Oh and
I found out yesterday that the other Programme Assistant is another
Irish Quaker I've known since I was very small, isn't that nice?

A lovely day

You've probably noticed the wonderful weather. The great news is that
this wonderful weather has arrived just on time for three days in the
Lake District. It is a rare and wonderful thing when you live in
London, looking out a window on a sunny day (in this case the window
of the train to Penrith) and knowing that you're actually going to get
to make the most of the weather. I'm going to be yomping in glorious
sunshine. I've brought sunglasses, suncream, light-weight walking
trousers and tshirts. I considered not bringing a warm coat but I
thought that might be pushing it a bit. So hooray for spending sunny
days in the great outdoors, exercising in the clean air.

Sam brought me some lovely icing tools for my birthday, and combined with my new food colouring and fancy icing knife and glitter and whatnot from Mum I have all the gizmos I could ever want for icing cakes, so yesterday we baked cupcakes and then decorated them. I'd show you a picture but my camera's in the other room - sad you're missing out, though, because they're all daintily arranged on my V&A cupcake stand. They're not beautiful (it's my first go) but they're quite cool. Next time I think I'll separate my icing into two or three and make several different colours - then I'll take some pictures. It was very good fun though, we all got a bit giddy with all the sugar and pink and squeezy fun.

Hello trees, hello sky, hello flowers

Some of the best news I've heard, well, today (it's only half nine so I suppose that's not saying much) is that we're going to have a spectacular spring. Now that the long, gloomy winter is over, doesn't that just cheer you up no end?

And I can feel it in the air – these last couple of weeks have been so much more wonderful than the miserable, cold, grey winter. The birds have suddenly appeared, and they're so loud I can even hear them over the traffic. In fact, I woke up early on Sunday morning and couldn't hear any traffic, just very loud birdsong. Even better, on Sunday afternoon I saw my first woodpecker this side of the Atlantic in a back garden in North London. And on Sunday night, a heron.

Unfortunately, spring has also brought an infestation of greenfly in our beautiful herb garden. I think it might have got in on a bunch of daffodils. When I looked at it last night it was absolutely covered in little white things which, on closer inspection, turned out to be hundreds, or maybe thousands, of baby flies as well as some grown-ups. Our previous infestation (of ladybirds) seems so jolly and nice by comparison – in fact, Sam says the ladybirds are our allies in fighting off greenfly. But there were only two ladybirds around yesterday (I had evicted the others the night before) so I couldn't figure out how to get rid of the greenfly. We've ended up hacking the whole thing down. It's gone. Dead. Finished. It was about time anyway – the roots had grown so big they were pushing the top of the plant up and the smaller plants (dill, thyme) just weren't getting a look-in at all. We did salvage the herbs themselves though – we've washed the parsley and basil, chopped it up and stuck it in the freezer. I just need to figure out what to do with the chilli peppers and maybe make some mojitos with the mint.

You may also like to know that Sam is staying with us, and although I haven't brought him for any outdoorsy exercise yet, he has still managed to injure himself outdoors by falling over on the trolley ramp by Sainsburys. His knee is all swollen and cut, and he's having a good time complaining about it which is the important thing.

In which I have a birthday

Yesterday I turned 25. It's devastating, really. I'm not in my early twenties anymore. I've been around for a quarter of a century. And just to rub salt in the wounds, this is what Wikipedia says about the number 25:

"Under 25" provides a common cut-off point for designating youth.

(I'm sorry, if you've come here from Sam's blog you probably expected a more exciting fact. I feel like I've let you down)

So I am now officially old. My youth has been cut off. Wikipedia said so.

I did have a nice day though. Mum came to visit, and we jointly went to visit Ian in Bristol. We went to the zoo where they had lots of mini animals. There really was "a sort of a tiny potamus" (like in the poem, aka a pygmy hippo), and there were lions and flamingos and seals and penguins and butterflies and monkeys and stuff. My favourite bit was the Twilight Zone, where they had all sorts of twilighty creatures in a very dimly lit room, and you had to peer into the enclosures quite carefully to spot what was in there. There were some nice things in there, like sand cats and monkeys and tiny lemurs, but there were also giant jumping rats which are just not cool. They also had a fantastic glass-sided tunnel complex with naked mole rats running around inside. That was very cool.

On Friday Mum and I went to see Oliver. She amazingly arrived with one minute to spare, having landed in Heathrow an hour before. I forgot how many brilliant songs there are in Oliver. The little chappy who played the Artful Dodger was superb, he pranced around the place with a cockiness that was brilliant on stage, but I wouldn't like him as a little brother, he looked rather precocious. Griff Rhys Jones was great as Fagin too. The sets were amazing - they moved around to give the impression that people were running through streets or going underground or climbing or whatever. My favourite bit was Who Will Buy - the choreography and the costumes were just beautiful, all twirling around and cartwheeling and stuff. I could have sat watching that for hours.

I've just spent ages trying to reply to all my birthday wishes on Facebook. I've mostly caught up but I've run out of steam. There's only so many times I can come up with new ways to say the same thing, it's just too damn difficult.

I've just been to the cinema with Siobhan to see A Single Man. Andy's away this week, you see, so I'm doing things he wouldn't enjoy. That film is definitely one of those things, but I liked it very much. What a beautiful, beautiful film - beautiful clothes, beautiful buildings, beautiful music, beautifully shot. I left the cinema feeling like I'd just been to an art exhibition or something.

On the way I popped in to the Coliseum to book tickets for Satyagraha with my new Access All Arias card which gets me very cheap tickets to the opera because I'm under 30. The man at the ticket desk was extremely irritating, pompous and patronising. I asked for Upper Circle tickets, and he told me there were no AAA tickets left, explaining that there is only a limited allocation of AAA tickets for each performance. So I asked if there were tickets for other tiers, and he spoke to me very slowly, like I was stupid, saying, "That's what I'm trying to explain to you, there are no tickets." He 'helpfully' told me that if I turned up 3 hours before the performance, in person and with my student ID, then I could join the standby list. Thing is, right, it's not a bloody student privilege, it's for under-30s. There are people under the age of 30 who want to go to the opera who have JOBS. Which means we can't turn up at 4pm just on the offchance that there might be a ticket. You also can't book AAA tickets online, and nobody answers the phone if you ring. I thought he rather undermined ENO's efforts to make opera accessible and friendly to young people by being so patronising and making it so very difficult to actually purchase a ticket.

Do you think it's okay to only have popcorn for dinner? It's just, I ate so much of it at the cinema that I'm completely full. But it doesn't seem like very healthy sustenance. I do have some asparagus in the fridge, but I had asparagus soup for lunch and I don't want to turn into an asparagus.

I had a nice day yesterday. Andy and Katy and I went to a little place called Twyford near Henley to visit Aaron, Annabel and their little baby Finn. Although he's a lot bigger than last time I saw him. He's a very fun child - he doesn't cry much, he gets fascinated by everything, and he gets a major kick out of stick his hand in my mouth.

Twyford's lovely (or whatever the nearby place that Aaron actually lives in is called). We went for a yomp in a forest with Finn in his rucksack carrier thing. Finn looked very comfortable and fell asleep straight away. The sun was shining and the air was much cleaner than it is here, and we had a nice big roast in a pub then went to another pub by the river. All in all it was a nice break from London life.

Devastating snub?

According to a politics.co.uk headline, during dinner last night Mr Zuma sought to recover from a 'devastating Sainsburys snub'. Goodness me, I thought, was it Lord Sainsbury? Did he refuse to shake hands or, perhaps, spit in his face? Did the local Sainsburys refuse him admission? Did they turn down his application for a Nectar card?

 

The reality is rather more mundane.

 

"South African president Jacob Zuma finished his state visit by attending a City dinner last night, as he sought to recover from a devastating snub at a local Sainsbury's.

 

Mr Zuma, who has stayed as a guest of the Queen at Buckingham Palace and engaged in high-level talks with Gordon Brown in Downing Street, was touring the local Sainsbury's in Greenwich, south-east London, when the incident occurred.

 

Despite being flanked by a coterie of bodyguards, as well as Sainsbury's chief executive Justin King and environment secretary Hilary Benn, one elderly couple utterly failed to acknowledge him.

 

John and Catherine Przeslawski, aged 92 and 86 respectively, were instead busily engaged in choosing which cheeses to select from the cheese-counter as the presidential swarm swept past.

 

''We didn't notice anybody, we were too busy choosing our cheese, we didn't see the president at all," Mr Przeslawski said afterwards."

 

I'm not even sure that needs further comment.

The Butcher and Grill

Today Andy and I are very full because we've been to the Butcher and Grill in Wimbledon Village for a mixed grill. The best mixed grill ever. We had delicious rump steak, lamb chop, sausage, bacon, calf's liver, kidney, duck egg, mushroom, sundried tomato, chips and bearnaise sauce. It was all such deliciously wonderful meat, so tender and beautiful. And then, when we were completely full, we found space in our dessert tummies for creme brulee. Yum yum yum yum yum.

This was all because Andy has been offered a new job at Sport England. He's not sure whether he wants it or not as it's not quite the one he applied for, but being offered a job is always something to celebrate, so we did.

And another thing ...

Do you have any suggestions of things for me to do in London? If so, let me know and I'll try do them.

Ireland v England at Twickenham

Last weekend (27 February) I went to my first international rugby match, Ireland vs England at Twickenham. Andy had managed to get tickets through work, so we went with his parents. Our seats were right at the very top of the stadium, very very high up, but with a fantastic view of the whole pitch. Only thing was everything looked a bit blurry and out of focus to me from up there - I'm going to have to get glasses for that kind of occasion it appears.
Although the place was mostly full of England fans, the Ireland fans definitely made our presence felt. England fans just wore normal clothes, but Ireland fans were bedecked in green. Puma, the new sponsor of the Irish team, had people giving out free flags, hats and inflatable bangy things to Irish fans, so we were quite visible. It was a little strange being there with three England fans though - every time I jumped up and down with glee they sat there looking a bit sad that their team was losing.

My favourite bit, though, was walking back to the train station after the match. The Irish people all around me were singing, in a way English people never do. They were singing the Fields of Athenry, Molly Malone and the Black Velvet Band, just snatches of songs coming up from different parts of the crowd. I think it's only on occasions like that, when I can see large groups of Irish people in contrast with large groups of English people, that I really notice how different the two countries are, and I start to understand the stereotype of Irish people being so much more relaxed and friendly than people from other countries.

Chinese New Year

The next day, we went into town for the Chinese New Year festivities (a week after Chinese New Year). It was odd, really. The crowds were huge, but there wasn't really enough to actually sustain our interest for very long. There was a big stage in Trafalgar Square where people did some fantastic dancing, but in between the dancing two girls spent a very long time reading out characteristics of people born in various years from pieces of paper to fill time. It got a little dull.

Chinatown itself was much more exciting. There were lanterns absolutely everywhere, and huge queues outside all the restaurants. The main street (Gerrard Street?) was impassable because there was a dragon dancing. I really wanted to see the dragon, but we couldn't see it properly because the crowds were so dense. Every now and again you'd see the dragon's head bouncing up but then we were hustled back out of harm's way.

All the children had those firecracker/banger/snaps things, those little twists of paper with gunpowder in them that you throw on the ground. I really like having them myself, there's something very satisfying about throwing them on the ground, but they're quite annoying when small children throw them at your feet. We did buy a paper dragon thing and a drum thing though - I'm not sure why, we just got caught up in the whimsy I think.

The disappointing bit, though, was the fireworks: we had timed it so we'd be there for the fireworks at 5pm. We checked with the information stand, who confirmed they'd be at 5pm. But it was a bit cold so we went and had a cup of tea at the Cafe in the Crypt, and reemerged at 4:45. We headed for Leicester Square, where the fireworks were due to be, only to find they weren't going to start until 6pm. Cold and bored, we headed for home.

Regent's Canal and Primrose Hill

I promised Dad I would do more fun stuff and then write about it, but I haven't been very good at keeping my promise so far. So here's what I've been up to (photos may follow).

Saturday week ago Andy and I went for a walk from Little Venice to Camden along Regent's Canal. It was lovely and sunny but still very cold in the shade, so lots of the canal had ice on top. There were two kayakers floating along, enjoying themselves sliding over icy bits and bashing it with their paddles. We passed lots of very lovely narrow boats (which I wouldn't want to live on, too narrow) and barges (which I would want to live on) with teensy tiny little garden spaces at the side of the towpath. People are so creative with garden spaces when they only have a tiny space and they spend lots of time outdoors. There were wheelbarrows and signs and benches and potted plants and things hanging off the walls and barbecues and it was just lovely. We scrutinised the huge canalside properties in Regent's Park, trying to understand why you would choose to live in London if you were rich enough to be able to afford one of those houses, and mocking the naff faux-Roman pillars several of them had glued on the front.

The canal walk takes you through the zoo, except you can't actually get into it. I learnt that Andy doesn't really like birds - why didn't I know that before? And we saw hyenas prowling up and down in their cage.

We stopped off at Primrose Hill, clambering up to get one of the best views of London. I expected the hill to be bigger - it's really not very big at all, but there is certainly a good view of London. It goes on and on and on and on, I don't think the scale of the place had ever really hit me before because it's so darn flat, you never get a true perspective of the size of it.

Then we went to Camden for a very good burger, and that was about it really.

I left work today full of the joys of spring. I left a bit early, you see (well, is it early? I work an hour extra every day, so leaving 15 minutes 'early' is really just less late), because I have a week's flexi time built up and things are quiet, so it's a good time to work fewer hours (I also arrived late, actually: I went to the post office to drop off Ian's box of brewing kit so got there at 10).
Anyway, I left work earlier than usual, and to my immense delight, it wasn't fully dark yet! I got some bonus daylight! Oh frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!

So full of joy was I that I rang Sam (Andy was driving back from Sheffield and it's illegal to drive and make phonecalls) to share my joy. He was quite good at sharing joy, although he quibbled with me over whether I could be full of the joys of spring or not. He says spring doesn't start until March. What a typical British thing to say, why do they insist on prolonging winter unnecessarily? Spring starts with St Brigid's Day, which was a whole three days ago now, and I'm not waiting until March for it. Otherwise, what's the use of February? Sam says November isn't winter, it's autumn, but I disagree. I know that makes August autumn, but otherwise the system fits quite well.

What we did agree on is that the whole world is nicer when the days start getting longer. Except for in January, what a rubbish month. I'm getting barely 20 minutes of daylight each day at the moment, and I don't even get any daylight through the windows as work because the buildings around are too tall and I'm too far from the window.

Tomorrow I'm off to Rome with Andy. I have to get up at 5am, well before the crack of dawn. I'm supposed to be packing for Andy, and I really did try, but it's so hard to anticipate what he might want to wear. He should be home any minute so hopefully he won't be too tired to cope with picking tshirts etc.

A very happy thing happened this morning. I like to listen to Magic FM in the morning - they don't blabber on like that annoying man on Radio 1, they play a variety of music unlike Capital FM, and they don't depress Andy by grilling all their interviewees about the world's woes like Radio 4. They've been running a mystery voice competition for 19 weeks. At first it was intriguing, then someone got the first of three voices, then I found it very tedious, then someone got the second voice, then since then I have been puzzling over who the third voice is. You see, the prize is £100,000, and I could have a lovely house if I won £100,000. But it was not to be (or Toby): this morning when I switched on the radio, an overjoyed and befuddled man was talking to the presenter, because he had just correctly guessed the third voice. I'm glad he won it, he seemed like a very nice man, and he said the first thing he was going to spend the money on was restoring a vintage tractor which seemed like a lovely thing to spend money on.

Oh, here's Andy, ttfn.

In which we cycle through poo

Andy and I have just been to Godstone for a cycle. It was the first
time we'd tried a route from our new Rough Rides guide to cycling in
the south east so we picked a 23 mile route with a short cut which
makes it 9 miles shorter if we felt it was going to get dark too soon.
Oh deary deary dear. We managed 3.5 miles.

We skipped the first little bit as there was a very steep narrow
descent down a muddy path. We rejoined the route at a downhill
bridleway through a farm. It was godawful. About a mile of cycling
through wet, gooey, thick, sticky cow poo, terrifed we'd lose momentum
and have to put a foot down into the horrible poo river.

By the time we got out the other side our bikes and our legs were
covered in poo and my rear brake had stopped working because poo and
disk brakes don't go well together. So we took a detour back to
Godstone to buy water to clean our bikes, and took the brave decision
to give up. What a lot of effort and time for an unpleasant 3.5 mile
cycle.

Today was an exciting day because we published a big document. My policies were the main ones being talked about in the news, which was nice because it could feel a bit disappointing spending months on something and nobody even mentioning what you'd done. And it also marks the end of a particularly busy period (although there is no such thing as a quiet period in my team). I've got lots of flexi time built up now, so I'm going to take Monday afternoon off next week to meet up with My Friend Sinead. We're going to Do London. I'll take pictures.

Speaking of pictures, Andy's digital SLR he got for Christmas has just arrived. It's very light and lovely, and he's got that boy-with-a-new-toy air about him. The frustrating thing about electronic toys, of course, is that you have to wait for the battery to charge before you can play with it, so he's busying himself cutting an iphone screen protector down to size so he has created a screen protector for the back of the camera. He's gone for a Canon, and it is very light. It's got a posh Canon strap, too, which makes it look very professional.

And speaking of electronics, I got a new phone yesterday because I lost mine at the weekend. I don't usually lose things, and I always feel very irresponsible and scatty when I do lose things. Thankfully it was insured, so although I spent a long time on hold to O2's customer service people calling from an Irish mobile phone, once the planets aligned correctly they did send me a new phone very quickly - we got it all sorted at 7pm on Monday and the new phone had arrived by lunchtime on Tuesday. So that was nice. My new phone is the same as my old phone except shinier because it's newer. That's about it.

Oh and the other news is that I finally sent my thank you card to Aunt Anne. At least it's still January ... 

It's getting warmer! Hurrah! To celebrate, here's a picture:

Sometimes it gets hot like this, remember?

Which reminds me. Reasons not to like London no. 2: there aren't any snowdrops, daffodils or bluebells.

In which Carolan deserves a medal

So. Following last night's complaint to EDF, by 9:30 the charges had
been wiped from my account. And by 1pm a bunch of flowers had been
delivered to me from EDF to apologise for any inconvenience caused.
Dad, I'm convinced, writing is the way forward.

If Which? were hiring, this evidence alone would win me the job. I am good at complaining.

Today I got fed up with EDF because they sent us a letter telling us
off for not paying the bill they invented for us (basically inventing
a new meter reading for 13 months ago which meant we'd owe them £100).
I tried to phone but staff had gone home early because of the weather
(fair enough really). So instead I guessed what the director of
customer service's direct email address would be and sent my complaint
to him, because the letter purported to be from him.

And I got a reply from him, at 11pm on a Thursday, which was very
apologetic and sincere. And suddenly I feel a whole lot happier about
EDF, and even feel a little guilty for complaining. And also
forwarding my email to Which?.

So there you are now.

Reasons not to like London #1

It doesn't snow properly here. The rest of the country is having an unofficial holiday, and I'm not.

After a day watching the rest of the country playing in the snow, it has finally started snowing in London. It's due to snow heavily overnight, so I'm rather hoping I'll get my snow day I missed out on last year. I've still got work to do at home, but it'll still feel more fun working from home than being in the office. Maybe we'll make some soup.

We had a long journey back to London - got here at 8pm on Sunday night, having set off from Holyhead at about 9:30. Mostly our fault, though, for spending 3 hours in Cheshire Oaks and an hour in Coventry. The actual journey was fine, apart from some heavy traffic on the M6. We were glad we took Sam and Melanie's advice and took the M40, not the M1 - it was completely clear, an absolute joy of a journey. And when we got back to our (freezing) flat we had reheated pie and roasted veg, which was very possibly even better than the first time round because it was so wonderfully warming and tasty.

What other news ... I'm fed up at work and shopping for new things - suggestions welcome. Speaking of shopping, I bought a wonderful new coat, 1/3 of its full price, in Kildare Village. It's so cosy and warm and waterproof and breathable and green, I'm glad I bought it. Oh and I bought ski gloves too, which are also lovely and warm and very pretty and they have a sort of wiper blade thing on the thumb for wiping your glasses.

Anywho, I'm off to bed - two duvets and a blanket tonight, it's so cosy. Just a shame the flat is so cold in the morning.

Did you see Three Men in Ireland last night and on Wednesday? That was the best one so far I thought because it's our hunting ground. Apart from the train to Athlone and the trip to the Aran Islands, there wasn't a bit of that journey we haven't been on, and it was very exciting identifying people and places as we watched it. I was a bit sad Castleconnell wasn't specifically featured - they missed a trick there - but otherwise I liked it a lot. Also the bit about Dara being fine with Gryff and Rory teasing the LDYC people. I learnt to sail there, and I don't really like them, so I'm fine with it too.

By the way, that post below isn't an anti-religion post, it's just anti-blasphemy laws. They're silly.

We're packing to leave home so we can get to Dublin on time for our ferry. It's very very icy so we're leaving lots and lots of time to get there, it's a bit worrying. But we'll just go very slowly. It's annoying though to have to give up a whole afternoon at home so we can spend it going very slowly in a small car for hours and hours!

From blasphemy.ie:
From today, 1 January 2010, the new Irish blasphemy law becomes operational, and we begin our campaign to have it repealed. Blasphemy is now a crime punishable by a €25,000 fine. The new law defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted.

This new law is both silly and dangerous. It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentives religious outrage, and because Islamic States led by Pakistan are already using the wording of this Irish law to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level.

We believe in the golden rule: that we have a right to be treated justly, and that we have a responsibility to treat other people justly. Blasphemy laws are unjust: they silence people in order to protect ideas. In a civilised society, people have a right to to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous.


Publication of 25 blasphemous quotes

In this context we now publish a list of 25 blasphemous quotes, which have previously been published by or uttered by or attributed to Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Mark Twain, Tom Lehrer, Randy Newman, James Kirkup, Monty Python, Rev Ian Paisley, Conor Cruise O’Brien, Frank Zappa, Salman Rushdie, Bjork, Amanda Donohoe, George Carlin, Paul Woodfull, Jerry Springer the Opera, Tim Minchin, Richard Dawkins, Pope Benedict XVI, Christopher Hitchens, PZ Myers, Ian O’Doherty, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Dermot Ahern.

Despite these quotes being abusive and insulting in relation to matters held sacred by various religions, we unreservedly support the right of these people to have published or uttered them, and we unreservedly support the right of any Irish citizen to make comparable statements about matters held sacred by any religion without fear of being criminalised, and without having to prove to a court that a reasonable person would find any particular value in the statement.

Campaign begins to repeal the Irish blasphemy law

We ask Fianna Fail and the Green Party to repeal their anachronistic blasphemy law, as part of the revision of the Defamation Act that is included within the Act. We ask them to hold a referendum to remove the reference to blasphemy from the Irish Constitution.

We also ask all TDs and Senators to support a referendum to remove references to God from the Irish Constitution, including the clauses that prevent atheists from being appointed as President of Ireland or as a Judge without swearing a religious oath asking God to direct them in their work.

If you run a website, blog or other media publication, please feel free to republish this statement and the list of quotes yourself, in order to show your support for the campaign to repeal the Irish blasphemy law and to promote a rational, ethical, secular Ireland.


List of 25 Blasphemous Quotes Published by Atheist Ireland

1. Jesus Christ, when asked if he was the son of God, in Matthew 26:64: “Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” According to the Christian Bible, the Jewish chief priests and elders and council deemed this statement by Jesus to be blasphemous, and they sentenced Jesus to death for saying it.

2. Jesus Christ, talking to Jews about their God, in John 8:44: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” This is one of several chapters in the Christian Bible that can give a scriptural foundation to Christian anti-Semitism. The first part of John 8, the story of “whoever is without sin cast the first stone”, was not in the original version, but was added centuries later. The original John 8 is a debate between Jesus and some Jews. In brief, Jesus calls the Jews who disbelieve him sons of the Devil, the Jews try to stone him, and Jesus runs away and hides.

3. Muhammad, quoted in Hadith of Bukhari, Vol 1 Book 8 Hadith 427: “May Allah curse the Jews and Christians for they built the places of worship at the graves of their prophets.” This quote is attributed to Muhammad on his death-bed as a warning to Muslims not to copy this practice of the Jews and Christians. It is one of several passages in the Koran and in Hadith that can give a scriptural foundation to Islamic anti-Semitism, including the assertion in Sura 5:60 that Allah cursed Jews and turned some of them into apes and swine.

4. Mark Twain, describing the Christian Bible in Letters from the Earth, 1909: “Also it has another name - The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy - he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.” Twain’s book was published posthumously in 1939. His daughter, Clara Clemens, at first objected to it being published, but later changed her mind in 1960 when she believed that public opinion had grown more tolerant of the expression of such ideas. That was half a century before Fianna Fail and the Green Party imposed a new blasphemy law on the people of Ireland.

5. Tom Lehrer, The Vatican Rag, 1963: “Get in line in that processional, step into that small confessional. There, the guy who’s got religion’ll tell you if your sin’s original. If it is, try playing it safer, drink the wine and chew the wafer. Two, four, six, eight, time to transubstantiate!”

6. Randy Newman, God’s Song, 1972: “And the Lord said: I burn down your cities - how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That’s why I love mankind.”

7. James Kirkup, The Love That Dares to Speak its Name, 1976: “While they prepared the tomb I kept guard over him. His mother and the Magdalen had gone to fetch clean linen to shroud his nakedness. I was alone with him… I laid my lips around the tip of that great cock, the instrument of our salvation, our eternal joy. The shaft, still throbbed, anointed with death’s final ejaculation.” This extract is from a poem that led to the last successful blasphemy prosecution in Britain, when Denis Lemon was given a suspended prison sentence after he published it in the now-defunct magazine Gay News. In 2002, a public reading of the poem, on the steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square, failed to lead to any prosecution. In 2008, the British Parliament abolished the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.

8. Matthias, son of Deuteronomy of Gath, in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979: “Look, I had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.”

9. Rev Ian Paisley MEP to the Pope in the European Parliament, 1988: “I denounce you as the Antichrist.” Paisley’s website describes the Antichrist as being “a liar, the true son of the father of lies, the original liar from the beginning… he will imitate Christ, a diabolical imitation, Satan transformed into an angel of light, which will deceive the world.”

10. Conor Cruise O’Brien, 1989: “In the last century the Arab thinker Jamal al-Afghani wrote: ‘Every Muslim is sick and his only remedy is in the Koran.’ Unfortunately the sickness gets worse the more the remedy is taken.”

11. Frank Zappa, 1989: “If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine - but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good - and cares about any of it - to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.”

12. Salman Rushdie, 1990: “The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.” In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie because of blasphemous passages in Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses.

13. Bjork, 1995: “I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men… I’ve been reading about reincarnation, and the Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just like us. So I say fuck the Buddhists.”

14. Amanda Donohoe on her role in the Ken Russell movie Lair of the White Worm, 1995: “Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun. I can’t embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages, and that persecution still goes on today all over the world.”

15. George Carlin, 1999: “Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!”

16. Paul Woodfull as Ding Dong Denny O’Reilly, The Ballad of Jaysus Christ, 2000: “He said me ma’s a virgin and sure no one disagreed, Cause they knew a lad who walks on water’s handy with his feet… Jaysus oh Jaysus, as cool as bleedin’ ice, With all the scrubbers in Israel he could not be enticed, Jaysus oh Jaysus, it’s funny you never rode, Cause it’s you I do be shoutin’ for each time I shoot me load.”

17. Jesus Christ, in Jerry Springer The Opera, 2003: “Actually, I’m a bit gay.” In 2005, the Christian Institute tried to bring a prosecution against the BBC for screening Jerry Springer the Opera, but the UK courts refused to issue a summons.

18. Tim Minchin, Ten-foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins, 2005: “So you’re gonna live in paradise, With a ten-foot cock and a few hundred virgins, So you’re gonna sacrifice your life, For a shot at the greener grass, And when the Lord comes down with his shiny rod of judgment, He’s gonna kick my heathen ass.”

19. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, 2006: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” In 2007 Turkish publisher Erol Karaaslan was charged with the crime of insulting believers for publishing a Turkish translation of The God Delusion. He was acquitted in 2008, but another charge was brought in 2009. Karaaslan told the court that “it is a right to criticise religions and beliefs as part of the freedom of thought and expression.”

20. Pope Benedict XVI quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor, 2006: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” This statement has already led to both outrage and condemnation of the outrage. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the world’s largest Muslim body, said it was a “character assassination of the prophet Muhammad”. The Malaysian Prime Minister said that “the Pope must not take lightly the spread of outrage that has been created.” Pakistan’s foreign Ministry spokesperson said that “anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence”. The European Commission said that “reactions which are disproportionate and which are tantamount to rejecting freedom of speech are unacceptable.”

21. Christopher Hitchens in God is not Great, 2007: “There is some question as to whether Islam is a separate religion at all… Islam when examined is not much more than a rather obvious and ill-arranged set of plagiarisms, helping itself from earlier books and traditions as occasion appeared to require… It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or ‘surrender’ as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing-absolutely nothing-in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption.”

22. PZ Myers, on the Roman Catholic communion host, 2008: “You would not believe how many people are writing to me, insisting that these horrible little crackers (they look like flattened bits of styrofoam) are literally pieces of their god, and that this omnipotent being who created the universe can actually be seriously harmed by some third-rate liberal intellectual at a third-rate university… However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel.”

23. Ian O’Doherty, 2009: “(If defamation of religion was illegal) it would be a crime for me to say that the notion of transubstantiation is so ridiculous that even a small child should be able to see the insanity and utter physical impossibility of a piece of bread and some wine somehow taking on corporeal form. It would be a crime for me to say that Islam is a backward desert superstition that has no place in modern, enlightened Europe and it would be a crime to point out that Jewish settlers in Israel who believe they have a God given right to take the land are, frankly, mad. All the above assertions will, no doubt, offend someone or other.”

24. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, 2009: “Whether a person is atheist or any other, there is in fact in my view something not totally human if they leave out the transcendent… we call it God… I think that if you leave that out you are not fully human.” Because atheism is not a religion, the Irish blasphemy law does not protect atheists from abusive and insulting statements about their fundamental beliefs. While atheists are not seeking such protection, we include the statement here to point out that it is discriminatory that this law does not hold all citizens equal.

25. Dermot Ahern, Irish Minister for Justice, introducing his blasphemy law at an Oireachtas Justice Committee meeting, 2009, and referring to comments made about him personally: “They are blasphemous.” Deputy Pat Rabbitte replied: “Given the Minister’s self-image, it could very well be that we are blaspheming,” and Minister Ahern replied: “Deputy Rabbitte says that I am close to the baby Jesus, I am so pure.” So here we have an Irish Justice Minister joking about himself being blasphemed, at a parliamentary Justice Committee discussing his own blasphemy law, that could make his own jokes illegal.

Finally, as a bonus, Micheal Martin, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, opposing attempts by Islamic States to make defamation of religion a crime at UN level, 2009: “We believe that the concept of defamation of religion is not consistent with the promotion and protection of human rights. It can be used to justify arbitrary limitations on, or the denial of, freedom of expression. Indeed, Ireland considers that freedom of expression is a key and inherent element in the manifestation of freedom of thought and conscience and as such is complementary to freedom of religion or belief.” Just months after Minister Martin made this comment, his colleague Dermot Ahern introduced Ireland’s new blasphemy law.