A number of weeks ago I found myself sucked into the miniseries of Cranford.
It’s about a small town in North England near Cheshire during the 1840’s.
I DVR’d it and watched the last episode tonight and was sitting here sobbing like a fucking sap.
It’s so so so sooooooo good. If it comes to the US, watch it. Is so funny and sad and I am about to weep thinking about certain parts (but I am PMTing (PMS) so bite me).
Heard a story last night that about Sir Richard Harris which might be apocryphal but it is repeated on wikipedia. . . so who knows.
He lived in a suite at the Savoy Hotel in London which is a famous 5 star on The Strand- When he collapsed the hotel didn’t have a way to take him out a back door on a stretcher- so they wheeled him through the lobby.
People recognized him and as they were pushing him toward the doors he yelled out, “It was the food!”
I’m staying at the Malmaison in Liverpool which is a really nice, swanky, modern hotel. Checking in, one of my colleagues points out a famous footballer in the corner of the lobby. I recognised him straight away.
Later on the phone to Stuart I say, “I saw Steve Gerrard.”
Stu says, “Who is Steve Gerrard.”
Went to the center with Stuart to do some shopping. It wasn’t bad when we went to Mark Sullivan’s on Cecil Court. It even wasn’t that bad in Soho.
Regent Street however was a nightmare. The biggest mistake came when we went into Hamleys. My blood pressure shot up and I suffered a brain aneurysm near the lego.
The rest of my shopping I am doing in America or online.
Jen is going through a break-up which is Grade A not fun in the best of times, but when you are living together and are suddenly homeless is a bit of a disaster.
She’s been staying with us for nearly a month and will prob be here until February and it’s been fun having her here but it also means that our living room is her bedroom at the moment.
Tonight Stu wanted to go to a pub near Wandsworth Common with Jen and Richard but after the marathon party session Wednesday and Graz on the weekend, sitting in a pub sounded like torture.
It doesn’t help that my period stated. I’m a crampy, grumpy, bitchy ball that wants to sit alone in sweet, sweet aloneness in her flat and enjoy feeling sorry and sad for herself. I’m even watching Dawson’s Creek. It’s that dire.
But they are in the pub and I have the whole entire place to myself for a few hours.
There is a certain pleasure in a good Friday night moping/suicide session with a side of pizza.
. . .went very well.
You can see pictures here and here. The only thing that went terribly wrong was the buses didn’t show up. 100 people waiting in the cold for an hour is always fun. We ended up taking the tube and cabbing it.
After, we ended up at a hotel lobby until the wee small hours of the morning. Thank god they threw us out at 4:30 otherwise we would have kept going until it was time to go to work.
I felt fine yesterday other than having two hours of sleep under my belt.
There was much gossip flying about from the evening all day. I also have good skuttlebutt regarding certain people but I can’t share it. Pesky friendship.
What I can share is that the General Manager at one point took off his shirt and another woman was wearing it for a bit (he was wearing a tee shirt) then someone bet that he wouldn’t drop his trousers.
They lost the bet.
It was a slightly wild evening. I can really see if we are like this, how Studio 54 was the way it was in the 70’s given all the drugs and everyone having so much cash. We’re all rather tame really. We just all get really drunk and watch our bosses, bosses, bosses boss drop trou.
Today I have no urge to do anything.
Sunday I have to go to Liverpool for work. Coming back late Tuesday night. Thursday I am having drinks with Al and Libby for gossip and whinging. Friday I go to Charleston for Christmas.
Somewhere in there I will pack and mail off Christmas presents and cards.
I wanted the invitations that people are going to look at for 2.5 seconds before they chuck them in the rubbish to be printed on a slightly thick paper. . . sort of like what you would print a CV or resume on. What they ordered for me was a glossy paper that was a touch too thick so the printer couldn’t take it.
Plan B. Print on regular paper but I get the bright idea to glue it on dark green paper. And trim the edges so there is a border around the invite. I’m not sure how many hours it took me to glue the stupid things on then cut the edges. Had a little help but I’m guessing 4 hours.
It looks ok if you glance at them quickly. If you look hard you can see that I can’t cut in a straight line.
I had wanted poinsettias for the centerpiece of each table and I bought them Saturday afternoon. Tonight I started to prep them to make them pretty but when you take the plastic Sainsbury’s wrap them in off they look pathetic and sad.
So scrap that. 30 quid down the drain.*
The problem is I was going to put the table number on the base of each plant. . . so now my plan B is to wrap a little box so it looks like a present and put the number on that.
Now I just have to find ten little boxes.
*If you want a free poinsettia plant, I got them coming out of my ears.
UPDATE
I made the decision to tell Martha to go fuck herself and we just printed the table number on a card tent and calling it good.
I’m working on the seating plan for the party. (Seating plan was not my idea. I wanted to people to sit wherever.)
I am trying to control an evil urge. I really want to put all the people that have had one night stands together at one table.
Cross group collaboration indeed. . .
people that don’t know how to walk down a crowded pavement holding an umbrella without nearly poking the eyes out of everyone around them should be shot.
People that carry big fuck off umbrellas that a Catholic family of twelve can fit under should have their arms and legs ripped off and then be beaten to death with them.
It falls on me to plan the EMEA party for my Department. The main challenge was that we only were given 9K USD for 100 people. When you convert that into pounds, you don’t go too far. One of the other challenges was that we wanted to find a venue that would let us have the area until midnight without sharing it with the masses and that it was a bit nice.
4,500 for 100 people covering food and drink in a space that is a bit nice in central London.
BAH HAH HAH HAHAHAHAHHA
Luckily back when I was thinking about getting involved in rowing I saw that they did weddings and parties in the clubhouse- we looked into it and it’s great. (One negative is we had to arrange buses to the venue because god forbid people hopped on the District line to Putney.) It’s a really lovely space built in the late 1800’s and is right on the Thames with beautiful vews.
We are having champagne and nibbles on arrival, a sit down meal and then dancing after (ex co-worker is doing the DJing).
I think it is coming together, but little things are driving me crazy because our team coordinator has been sorting all the hard work like making sure that people get paid -which I so appreciate but there have been a few things that I would have handled slightly differently and because I’m not the one that sorted it, I am having little panic attacks that it will all go to hell.
I have a wee bit of the control freak in me.
It doesn’t help that a bunch of head honchos are coming in from the US.
It will be fine. I know it will be fine. We have a little over a week to make sure everything is fine.
God I hope it’s fine.
At least I already have the dress I am going to wear.
Any donated funds are not tax deductable and will most likely be used to purchase something that is very bad for her.
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All words © Nicole Thomas unless otherwise credited.
Not that I think that anyone would be silly enough to steal my ramblings, but in case you may be thinking about it. . . the very act of my writing this means that I own the copyright. Really. Look it up.
So, please don't plagiarize. It just ain't cool. And what I say just isn't that interesting. Trust me. Most of my friends don't even read this.
That being said, I do subscribe to the T.S. Eliot philosophy of "Immature poets borrow, mature poets steal." There is a difference between Stealing and stealing. . . This is not to say that I am mature. If anything. . . I'm rambling aren't I? That's what I do. I ramble. So, yeah. I'll shut up now.
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