plasticbag.org

It’s nearly midnight, and I have only one remaining day of holiday. It’s like some kind of torture, if you ask me. I’ve just got used to being relaxed and being able to fill up my day with whatever the hell I like (if only that didn’t involve quite so much day-time television), and now I’ve got to get ready to go back to work.

I’m kind of dreading it, for a variety of reasons. I’ve had some very sensible conversations with people during the last couple of weeks, and I’m feeling suddenly very professional – but with this professionalism comes a certain amount of resignation and a slightly jaded feeling that I didn’t expect.

Katy is still in America. Intelligent girl that she is, she has already been and seen five movies. Lucky kitsch… [Q: What did Katy see in America? A: High Fidelity, Keeping the Faith, Bring It On, Saving Grace and Whipped]

On [NEW SEX TOY]

• Acknowledged fact: Lance Arthur [glassdog.com] is a god.
• Acknowledged fact: Lancelog is great.
• Acknowledged fact: Lance has launched some new mini project. It is called: “[NEW SEX TOY]”
• Acknowledged fact: It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Momblog goes to Confession. My confession? I found her story hysterical. Here’s a couple of quotes:

“Now, as every good catholic knows, confession is something to be avoided at all costs. Never do you willingly go to confession, even if it means that the biggest sin you have to confess when you finally do end up “confessing” is that “it has been 25 years since my last confession.”

I was trapped! I was sitting in the middle of the pew. I would have to trip over Adam, Anna, Mark, and my mother if I tried to escape from my seat. Besides, what kind of an example would I make for the kids if I wimped out? What believable excuse could I give them for my mad dash to the door? Okay. Trapped!”

Big Brother UK:

Two slightly alarming new stories from the BBC: Big Brother climax watched by 10 million and Big Brother set to return.

Christ. I’ve started waking up at around midday. I don’t own an alarm clock because I just don’t normally need one, but the prospect of automatically waking up at 9am at the moment to get to work (on Wednesday) is seeming increasingly remote.

Thank God:

Taking advantage of my absence, timeout.com launches the London Shopping Guide. Also launched is the redesigned homepage and Travel, London, London Tickets, Shop sections. I’ve had a lot of involvement in this stuff – and I’ve really enjoyed working on it.

Sorry, old chap, but aibophphobia isn’t a palindrome…

Thoughts on the finalé of Big Brother UK:

• The Adverts
  All this week they have been playing adverts on the TV which have been trying to make it very (absurdly) clear that when you voted this time you were voting for the person you wanted to win, not the person you wanted to be evicted.

• The Sun
  Still not sure whether it’s true or not – does anyone know if The Sun and Big Brother had an arrangement to try to make Craig win?

• The Gay Press
  For the first time, I really saw a hell of a lot of support for Anna in the gay press over the last couple of weeks. It’s like the whole community finally realised that she was in with a chance of winning.

• Anna loses by 1%
  I know that there was a two percent gap between her and Craig, but if you think about it there couldn’t have been a 1% one and still keep to clean integers. If Anna had got one percent more, then they would have pretty much tied for the prize.

• The different edits
  The different edits between the episodes of the last week and the omnibus seem to me to have a less flattering view of Craig in the latter than in the former. Clearly there is different footage in the omnibus as a result of the extra time it has, but it seems much more pro-Anna than the earlier one.

• Speculation
  That the people behind big brother were surprised by the way the voting was turning out, believed it to be an error on the part of the general public, and put out strong adverts to try and rectify the situation. That the reason that they were surprised was because Anna was doing extremely well (possibly because of increasing interest within the gay community). That the final edits before the weekend were used to show Craig in as positive a fashion as possible, considering the situation.

Unfortunately, although the logic seems relatively clear to me at the moment, that could be because I thought that Anna was basically decent, normal, nice, fun and pleasant, while Craig had the wit and charm of a potato.

Where to start? I have so much I want to talk about again – it’s like this holiday has recharged my weblogging glands. Or maybe it’s just that I’m doing something other than work. And I don’t like writing about work.

Yesterday was another relaxing, mildly pointless day. I got up late, mucked around on the net and then went and met Pippa for lunch at Pizza Express off Soho Square. We talked a lot about her recent trip to Egypt, her love life, our various job situations, our friend Rachel in Bristol who we are going to be visiting next weekend, and a variety of other subjects.

We then went and saw O Brother, Where Art Thou? in Leicester Square, which we thoroughly enjoyed. And on the way back to the tube, we went into Virgin so I could pick up a copy of the soundtrack, which is a satisfyingly extreme change of pace for me.

An evening of Big Brother UK TV programs followed, and the day was capped off with a late-night conversation with Kate and Mella about professional matters, and men in America who taste funny.