Taking the easy way out…

I’m tired today. And once again stupidly busy (flat viewing this morning… then home to laundry, dissertation. Now it’s almsot time to cook tea…). But I feel bad that I’ve been neglecting my poor blog again. So I’m taking the easy way out with a meme that I meant to steal from Hails ages ago. You know you’ve been busy when you haven”t even had time for a cheat’s post! Ah well, I’m doing it now…

A. Attached or single? Attached. Although I prefer to think of it as “in a relationship”

B. Best friend? I don’t think I have one. I used to have one, but then my sister moved up to my dad’s and most of my friends suddenly realised they liked her better. Anyway, I live too far away from most of my friends now. And the people I know here are mostly just that… people I know. Three of them I would refer to as friends, but best friends? No. They already have one.

C. Cake or pie? Right now definitely pie. Preferably meat pie. I miss pie! And pasties. Why do German bakers not do pasties?

D. Day of choice? Strangely I think right now it’s Monday. I love my job (even though it’s stressful and tiring at times), Monday is early enough in the week for exhaustion not to have kicked in yet, and it gets me away from the dreaded dissertation of doom which is currently taking up every minute of my weekend that isn’t spent on housework.

E. Essential item? Train ticket, to get to work.

F. Favorite color? Red. But don’t tell my family, or they’ll buy me so much red stuff I’ll get utterly sick of it and never want to see it again. That’s what happened with my old favourite colur (purple). My old bedroom at my dad’s is still full of purple candles, purple ornaments, purple items of clothing.  Aargh!

G. Gummy bears or worms? Sour worms.

H. Hometown? Mostly Karlsruhe. Although part of me still thinks of the North East of England as home (I know that’s not a town but I just can’t bring myself to call the actual town I spent my teenage years in “home”. I was too pleased to get away from the place!)

I. Favorite indulgence? Eating ice cream on a cold day.

J. January or July? July. I love the summer (despite that fact that it hates me) and January is all dark and cold. At least in July I still get to see some sunlight… in January I leave for work in the dark and by home time it’s dark again.

K. Kids? Love them. I always wanted three, but with each year that passes the chances get slimmer (and my Grandma’s pleas to be made a Great-Grandma get louder…)

L. Life isn’t complete without? Friends, love and travel.

M. Marriage date? Possibly never.

N. Number of brothers and sisters? One sister. Two half brothers (who are not related to one another). All younger, although in the sister’s case nobody believes it.

O. Oranges or apples? Oranges I guess, although I prefer satsumas… which you can’t get here.

P. Phobias? Moths. Ugh.

Q. Quotes? Lots. I collect them. In fact, I have a whole page of them. If you really want to see a quote go there.

R. Reasons to smile? I love my job and soon I’ll (finally) have a flat with the boyfriend. Once the dissertation is handed in the smile will get bigger.

S. Season of choice? Spring, if it’s warm. I love summer, but it hates me (I get sunstroke reeeally easily). Autumn is nice for about three days (when it’s still warm and the trees are pretty colours), before turning grey and miserable, and Winter means Christmas which is not the favourite holiday of my family.

T. Tag 5 people. No. Anyone who wants to do it may feel free to tag themselves.

U. Unknown fact about me? Umm… what haven’t I already told you? No idea. Tell you what… anything you want to know, ask and I’ll write a post with answers. (And now it’s going to be really embarrassing if nobody asks anything…)

V. Vegetable? I’m not good with vegetables. Most of them make me feel sick. But I LOVE aubergines. Which is probably strange when you think about it…

W. Worst habits? Biting my nails. I’ve been trying to stop for years! Also, sarcasm. And an inability to stop buying books (curse you Amazon!)

X. X-ray or ultrasound? Huh?

Y. Your favorite food? Potatoes! Mashed, roast, baked. As chips, in soup. Prepare them any way you like, I will eat them.

Z. Zodiac sign? Leo, the lion. Which makes my birth stone tiger’s eye. Much better than my month birth stone, which is peridot.

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Where I lay my head…

I promised Sleepyjane that I would post a photo of my new quilt cover once I got round to changing the bedding. Today was the day, and so here is the photo.

Why don’t you post a picture of your bed too? We could make a meme of it…

My Life According to Idlewild

Hails posted this as a note on Facebook and tagged me in it, so I decided to use it as today’s blog post. Yes, it’s another music meme.

The rules:
Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. You can’t use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It’s a lot harder than you think! Repost as “My Life According to (BAND NAME)”

Pick Your Artist: Idlewild
Are you a male or female? Queen of the troubled teens
Describe yourself: Younger than America
How do you feel: As if I hadn’t slept
Describe where you currently live: House alone
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Make another world
Your favourite form of transportation: When the ship comes in
Your best friends are: You and I are both away
Your favourite colour is: Actually it’s darkness
What’s the weather like: (The night will) bring you back to life
Favourite time of day: I’m happy to be here tonight
If your life was a T.V. show, what would it be called: Mistake Pageant
Your ideal Birthday Present would be: Tell me ten words
What is life to you: I don’t have the map
Your relationship: Pleasure and pain
Looking for: I understand it
Wouldn’t mind: A film for the future
Your fear: To be forgotten
What is the best advice you have to give: You just have to be who you are
If you could change your name it would be: Roseability
Thought for the Day: Listen to what you’ve got
How I would like to die: Safe and sound
Soul’s present condition: Theory of achievement
Biggest secret: It’ll take a long time
My motto: Forget to follow

Now it’s your turn. Have fun!

All that you never wanted to know

I went to Maifest yesterday at my old student residence. That’s the Fest where the ex residents are invited to come back to meet the new residents and bore entertain them with tales of how things were back in the day. It was my first Maifest as a former resident, but seeing as I only moved out 2 months ago I didn’t have any back in the day stories to tell. Not that I would tell them if I did, but y’know. Mostly I spent the day telling people that I do not, in fact, still live there. I’m now wondering whether anybody actually noticed I was gone. I had planned to come home fairly early, but instead ended up sitting up all night drinking beer, finally making it home at 8am. I then went to bed, but only for a few hours. Seriously need curtains for the bedroom – the whole bright sun shining in on me thing makes daytime napping difficult. And now it’s 3:45pm. I’m still in my pyjamas and I’ve just eaten a whole 200g packet of chocolate raisins. You may decide for yourself what that says about me.

Anyway, I spotted this meme over at Home Office Mum’s blog and in the absence of other inspiration decided to steal it for today’s post.
So, what I have to do is answer the following questions. Oh, and I also have to replace one question and add one question. Fair enough.

1. What are your current obsessions?
Taking photographs. I took one of a purple tree on my way home this morning. Why? Because I could. Chocolate raisins. Adding books to my huge list of things I want to read some day. Facebook. And my blog of course, but that kind of goes without saying.

2. Which item from your wardrobe do you wear most often?
Black trousers. I wear them for work. Work is all I do. therefore I wear my black trousers all the flipping time. I seriously need to get a life.

3.Tell me your current most played song.
A Long December by Counting Crows. I am listening to it on repeat even as I type. no idea why I’m so into it at the moment. I just love it. I’m also listening to All For You by Sister Hazel a lot. “Words can’t say and I can’t do enough to prove it’s all for you“. Was this song written about me?

4. Last thing you bought?
Food actually, but I’m guessing that isn’t what you want to know. Other than that I believe it was 4 champagne glasses from Nanu Nana. They were 95 cents each. How could I possibly resist?

5. What are you listening to?
A Long December by Counting Crows. Still.

6. Wine or chocolate?

What do you mean or? Surely it has to be wine and chocolate!

7. Favourite holiday spots?
Somewhere that isn’t here. Anywhere. Please, just take me away.
Seriously? I adored Rome. Really want to go back. Also Austria. I miss looking at snow capped mountains. Just don’t ask me to climb the bloody things.

8. Reading right now?
On the tram: A Dragon Lance book. In German. At home: Nothing actually. How is that possible?

9. Four words to describe yourself.
Pretty much permanently confused. (Hence the title of the blog)

10. Guilty pleasure?
Naturals crisps in Balsamic Vinegar flavour. If I carry on like this I’ll be the size of a house by June.

11. Who or what makes you laugh until you’re weak?
Katyboo‘s blog. Clue. Possibly the funniest film ever. Also Belgian Waffle. So two out of my three things are blogs. I’m sure that’s significant in some way.

12. Favourite spring thing to do?
Eat icecream. Spend time outdoors before it becomes too hot for me to cope.

13. Planning to travel to next?
England. In July. For a friend’s wedding.

14. Best thing you ate or drank lately?
Baked potato with lashings of cheddar cheese. I rarely get to eat any cheddar cheese here so when I do it’s as if Christmas, Easter and my birthday have all come and once.

15. When did you last get tipsy?
Last night. First time in months.

16. Favourite ever film?
Usually I say A League of Their Own, but really it’s a toss up between that and Edward Scissorhands.

17. Care to share some wisdom?
I have no wisdom of my own to impart so instead I give you a quote from the Dragonlance Chronicles, Volume 2. “If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear the pain of loss, then our lives will be emptier, our loss greater“. Or, in other words, take a chance people. At least if it all goes wrong you’ll still have the memories.

18. Song you can’t get out of your head?
Before I chased it away with Counting crows I had that Umberella (ella ella) song in my head. It was playing in a shop the other day and it’s been haunting me ever since. I don’t even like the bloody song!

19. One thing you’d really like to do this year
Ugh. Why must you asked such difficult questions?
If you’d asked me three months ago I’d have said get a flat, but I’ve done that now and I can’t think of anything else.

20. What or who makes you irrationally rage and totally not proud of yourself at the same time?
Old people on trams. I hate the way they expect you to give up your seat for them, even if they’re only going one stop. And if you fail to stand up they just glare at you until you do. It drives me mad! And then I feel guilty because they are old people after all.

If you could have chosen your own name what would you be called?
When I was younger I always wanted my name to be Abigail. I’ve no idea why, or where I even got the name from, but I always thought it sounded so much more interesting than Beverley.

OK, now it’s over to you. I’m not actually going to name specific bloggers,  so anyone who wishes may consider themselves tagged.

My red letter is…

Ages and ages ago Hails over at Coffee Helps was giving away letters for a memey type thing. It’s quite simple really – you take your assigned letter and write a blog post based around it. The idea is to think of ten things beginning with that letter that are meaningful to you.

My letter is T. Here are my ten things…

TRAVELING.
I ♥ traveling. Getting to see new places, learn new customs, hear new languages. How could anybody not love it? I’m not sure if it’s because I was brought up in an army family or what, but staying on one place all the time just sounds incredibly boring to me. As does going on holiday to the same place every year. I want to go everywhere. See everything. Experience as much as I can. And I love the fact that I’m actually living in an era where this is possible. No more 3 days donkey ride to get to the next village. No, I simple hop on a plane (or even a train) and within hours I’m wherever I want to go. It’s fabulous!

TOFFIFEE
Does anybody not know these sweets? They’re little cups of toffee with a hazelnut buried in nougat in the middle and a then a thick disk of chocolate over the top. I could eat them all day! It’s actually a good job there are only about 12 in a pack otherwise I could seriously make myself sick eating them. They were invented in Germany by the way. I knew there was a reason I liked this country…

THUNDERSTORMS
I adore thunderstorms. They’re exciting and awesome and slightly scary all at once. I especially love it when there’s forked lighting. Forked lightning is probably the coolest weather phenomenon. I also find thunderstorms strangely erotic. I always want sex when it’s thundering outside.
Wow, I can’t believe I just said that. On the internet!

TIGER’S EYE
Tiger’s eye is the birthstone for Leo, which is my star sign. It’s much, much nicer than the birthstone for August (my birth month), which is peridot. Peridot is green. A really strange pale green that reminds me of snot. Awful. Tiger’s Eye on the other hand is a kind of orangey brown. It has light bits and darker streaks, so it looks stripy like a tiger. You can also get red tiger’s eye, whch -as the name suggests – is a reddish version of tiger’s eye. Below you can see a photo of my red tiger’s eye necklace. It was a Christmas present from Jan and is my second favourite piece of jewellery. (My absolute favourite is a necklace of golden leaves that I inherited from my step-mum).

TREGARRICK
Tregarrick is a book by Keith Chatfield. It’s not my favourite book nor has it ever been my favourite, but my copy is special to me because it’s signed. My Auntie, who knew my ambition was to be a writer, had it signed for me and gave me it for my tenth birthday. The dedication that the write wrote in the book is wishing me luck with my dream. I haven’t achieved my ambition of becoming a writer yet (a couple of poems published by Forward Press doesn’t really count)but maybe I shall one day. And it’s nice to know my Auntie believed in me back then.

THIRTEEN
I’ve always loved the number thirteen. Not only because I was born on the 13th, although that is part of the reason. I’ve just always been fascinated with the fact that people believe it to be unlucky. As a child I remember wondering how a number could be unlucky. I mean, it’s just a number, right? Any anyway, obviously it must have been lucky for me. After all, I did come into existence on that day. The 13th is still my favourite number even now, and Friday 13th my favourite day. If it was up to me every Friday 13th would be a holiday. (And employers around the world breathe huge sighs of relief at the fact that I am not in charge…)

TERRY PRATCHETT
What can I say, the man’s a flipping genius! How could you not like the guy that invented Death of Rats? And Granny Weatherwax. And the luggage. At least three of my favourite books were written by him. He’s just so funny, and all of his observations are absolutely spot on. Plus, how could you not love somebody who describes being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s as “an embuggerance”?

TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU
There are so many things I like about this film. The soundtrack (Letters to Cleo! Semisonic! Sister Hazel!) The fact that Heath Ledger looks pretty darn fine in it. (I still can’t believe he’s dead. The guy was only a few years older than me. People my age aren’t supposed to die!). The poem. The bit where Bianca punches Joey. Yes it is probably a chick flick and yes it is cheesy in places but I really don’t care. I love it.

TOMI UNGERER
He is a French artist. He illustrated the Flat Stanley books, among other things. He also wrote and illustrated some children’s books of his very own. He also does political and erotic art. The erotic art makes me laugh – a lot. Here‘s a picture by Tomi Ungerer. And here‘s another one. They are good, no?

TEA
I always have lots of teabags in the house. Both ordinary black tea and the fruity kinds (which are technically infusions because they don’t actually contain any tea). There’s nothing quite like curling up on the sofa with a good book and a nice hot drink when it’s cold, rainy and windy outside. Coffee is good too, but it takes so long to make (unless you use instant which sort of defeats the point of a nice hot drink) and in my world hot chocolate is only for bed time – or for drinking in cafes where you can get them to put a mountain of cream on the top. So a nice hot cup of tea it is, or even a pot if I feel that way inclined.

OK, I think that’s 10. Phew. That was hard.
Now it’s over to you lot. If you want a letter just leave me a comment and I shall assign one to you. Let the memeing begin…

My life in music

I’m feeling rather uninspired today after working ridiculously hard on a translation that has to be sent out tomorrow (I have sooo much work this week!), so instead of a proper blog post here’s another music meme stolen from Sleepyjane.

How it works:

Each “question” you have to answer with a song

1. Open your iPod/iPhone/iTunes music library
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For the first question, type title of the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button twice

My Life Soundtrack

Opening Credits: She Is (by The Fray)
Waking Up: Be Like That (by 3 Doors Down)
First Day at School: Live in a Hiding Place (by Idlewild)
Falling in Love: Perfect One (by Lit)
Losing Virginity: Look What Happened (by Less Than Jake)
Fight Song: My Own Worst Enemy (by Lit)
Breaking Up: Falls Apart (by Sugar Ray – well that one fits!)
Matric farewell / Prom: Worry Rock (by Green Day)
Life: How to Save a Life (by The Fray)
Mental Breakdown: You’re Dead (by Alkaline Trio)
Driving: Gainsville Rock City (by Less Than Jake)
Flashback: Like A Monkey in a Zoo (Kathy McCarty)
Getting Back Together: New Beginnings (by Finch)
Wedding: For Me This is Heaven (by Jimmy Eat World)
Birth of Child: Love Steals Us From Loneliness (by Idlewild)
Final Battle: Bloodied Up (by Alkaline Trio)
Death Scene: Like I Never Loved You At All (by Take That)

If anyone else would like to have a go please leave me a comment so I can come and look 🙂

Photo meme

Katyboo tagged me for this meme days ago, but as you can see I’m only getting round to doing it now.
The idea is that you open the fourth folder of photos on your PC, take the fourth photo from that album and post it on your blog. Then I suppose you’re meant to talk about it – at least that’s what everyone else has done.
I was a little afraid I might have to cheat on this one. You see, most of my photos are of people I know – family, friends, people from my student residence… that sort of thing. And while I don’t mind writing about my own life I do draw the line at posting photos of people on the internet without their knowledge (I don’t even use people’s full first names on my blog, unless they’re really, really common names meaning they could be anybody). As it turned out I didn’t even have to do any cheating. Photo four from album number four was this:

I’m sure none of you need me to tell you that “this” is a photo of a skull and cross bones necklace. What you may, however, be wondering is why.

It’s part of my Halloween costume from 2007. I went as Susan Sto Helit. I had a half black, half white wig that I rearranged a bit to make look white with a black streak. I wore a long black skirt, long sleeved black top and a lacy kind of cardigan, black lipstick and lots of black mascara. This necklace was something I had discovered that very day in a one euro shop and decided it would be the perfect accessory for my costume. I thought I did a good job. Unfortunately nobody managed to figure out who I was. Most of you are probably asking yourselves who Susan Sto Helit is as well**. *Sigh*. Where, oh where have all the Terry Pratchett readers gone?
I’m not entirely sure why I took a photo of the random euro shop necklace part of my costume. But for some reason I did. Maybe I knew even back then I would one day be called upon to find a fourth photo in a fourth album that was hopefully not a picture of one of my friends…

** Just in case any of you actually is wondering who Susan Sto helit is, she’s Death’s granddaughter in the Discworld novels. Yes, I said Death. Huge skeleton, walks around with a scythe, that Death. Obviously she’s not his real granddaughter. She can walk through walls though. Look, you’ll just have to read the books. It will all make perfect sense then.

I promise to tell the truth…

So I’ve been given an award by the lovely Welsh Girl whose blog you can get to by clicking the link. It’s a very cool award. Just look at it:

Cool no?

However, this is not an award that’s made purely for the purpose of decorating your blog. Oh no. It comes with strings attached. You see, as part of the deal I’m supposed to tell you 10 honest things about myself, then pass it on to other unsuspecting bloggers whose days I want to ruin.
I’m a little worried about this whole “honesty” thing though. Something tells me what the award is actually asking for is a bunch of embarrassing secrets that I never had any intention of sharing with the world.

Oh well, it’s not like I have that much to hide.
Here goes…

1. When I was younger I desperately wanted a twin sister. So desperately in fact that a friend and I went around telling everyone at school we were twins but had been adopted by different families at birth. Nobody believed us of course. My friend is two days older than me and at the time our mothers were best friends, so for our 6th birthday the two of them arranged for us to have a joint birthday party at the Family’s Bar (it’s an army thing). We even had a birthday cake with both of our names on it. After that everyone believed us.
2. I once snogged a girl for a pound and a bottle of Reef. I was at uni at the time. When you’re a student you don’t turn down free alcohol! (I did know the girl in question by the way – she was my housemate at the time). A few years later I snogged one of my best (female) friends because she thought it would be a good way to impress a guy she fancied. It worked – he went home with her that night.
3. When I was 17 I dumped a boy by posting a letter through his door. I know, awful right? I was too much of a wimp to do it in person. I don’t feel too guilty about it though – a few months later he got with a friend of mine. They’re now living together and are apparantly getting married in 2010.
4. I had my first real kiss when I was 6 years old, behind the garages on our estate in Northern Ireland. I no longer remember what the boy’s name was but I do know he was 9. After that I wasn’t kissed again until I was 16.
5. When I was about 12 I sat on some broken glass while at the park with my sister and my friend. My friend had to pull the aforementioned piece of glass out of my bum. My mum was out at the time and we weren’t supposed to leave the house so I hid my blood-covered knickers in a bush so she wouldn’t find out. (I can’t believe I just admitted that. On the internet! Eeek!)
6. I have a scar on my chin from falling down the loft ladder when I was 14. I bled everywhere and had to be taken to hospital to have it stitched up (actually I only got steri strips). My friend insisted on coming to hospital with me and was given a card with the symptoms of concussion on it just in case.
7. I cry really easily. If I know a book is going to be sad I won’t read it on the tram in case it makes me cry in front of everybody. I also cry when I have arguments with Jan, even when it was me who started it.
8. I have incredibly long toes. The three in the middle actually remind me of fingers. I find this quite disturbing.
9. I have completely forgotten all my times tables. I have to use a calculator or my fingers to work them out. My year 6 teacher would be disgusted.
10. Part way through year 3, when I was 7 years old, my family was posted from Northern Ireland back to England. Shortly after starting at my new school I wet myself in the playground at lunch time because I was too scared to ask the prefects on duty (big scary year sixes!) to go to the toilet. Later, when we were back in class, the teacher asked me if I had wet myself and I completely denied it.

OK, that’s your lot. Phew, that was hard! Now it’s time to pass it on…
Soo… Sleepyjane, Hails and Lauren, over to you…

A happy meme

Katyboo has tagged me for another meme. I’m supposed to list six things that are essentially unimportant but make me happy. Quite a difficult task for the person whose own boyfriend calls her a pessimist, but I shall give it my best shot. Deep breath and here goes…

1. People watching. I like to do this from my bedroom window or while sitting outside a cafe in summer. Even if the people I’m watching aren’t doing anything interesting it’s somehow fun. And I get to make comments about what they’re wearing and stuff – “oooh, I like her dress!” “Look at that woman’s top – could that pink be any brighter?!?”. Good times!

2. Mashed potatoes with gravy. It’s the ultimate comfort food and never fails to make me happy. Most of the time I don’t even bother with a proper meal – who needs meat and veg? Just give me a huge bowl of mashed potatoes with gravy. Now I just need to figure out a way to get my comfort food without having to peel, cook and mash the potatoes first…

3. Curling up in bed with a good book… in the middle of the day. This is especially good on cold, rainy days. To make it even better get someone to make you a nice cup (or pot) of tea and bring it to the bedroom. It’s like a little piece of heaven.

4. Looking at kitchen things in Karstadt. I do not own a kitchen and neither do I earn anywhere near enough to buy Karstadt kitchen stuff, but looking at it and imagining how my kitchen will look one day makes me happy. Although I do get a little sad when I go in to find the crockery set I’ve been drooling over for months has been taken out of circulation and they’re almost sold out. I’m never going to get my beautiful square plates with the olives on now – they only have the round ones left and even they are almost all gone. I also like looking at kitchen things on the internet, but it’s even more fun in Karstadt cos I get to actually touch them.

5. Blogs. Blogs make me very happy. The first thing I do when I come in from work is log in to wordpress and read my way through my blogroll. I do this before i even write my own blog. Some evenings when I’m at a loose end (or trying to avoid studying) I’ll even look through my blogging friends’ blog rolls for new reading material. Reading about other people’s lives is almost like having one of my own.

6. Clean bedding. I love, love, love slipping into a nice clean bed at night. Unfortunately I hate doing washing (and it’s almost impossible to get an appointment here) and am not a big fan of actually changing the sheets either, so it doesn’t happen very often. But when it does I love it. I always make sure to put clean pyjamas on too on those nights. It’s fabulous.

And that’s six. Woo-hoo, made it to the end. Now to tag some people…
OK, I choose Hails, Sleepyjane, Lauren and anyone else who feels like having a go…

On a desert island in December

Well, I’m still ill, although my voice had come back slightly this morning. I still can’t stop coughing though. *sigh*
But this post isn’t meant to be another moany pity-me one. Instead I’m finally going to get round to doing that meme I’ve been going on about for days.

So, I was tagged by Katyboo and the meme is based on Desert island Discs.
For those that don’t know Desert Island Discs is a BBC radio programme in which guests have to imagine they are castaways on a desert island and choose 8 pieces of music to take with them. Then they can choose one book, anything but the Bible or Shakespeare, both of which are already on the island (strange island this). And finally, they can choose one luxury item, nothing to help them escape from the island though.

So, here goes. First my eight pieces of music.
This is quite difficult actually. I have favourite pieces of music for every mood, and what I feel like listening to sometimes changes within hours never mind days, but I shall do my best.

1. Wind Beneath My Wings by Bette Midler – This is my all time favourite song, although it also makes me a little sad. You see, it was also one of my step mam’s favourite songs. I like to listen to it on days when I find myself wishing she was still around (she died when I was 12 those who are wondering). So clearly it would have to come to the desert island with me for her sake. Also it’s on the soundtrack to the film Beaches, which makes it pretty appropriate for a desert island don’t ya think?

2. Bad Day by Daniel Powter – For those days when I’m feeling all hormonal and miserable. Who doesn’t like screaming “cos you’ve had a bad day” at the top of their lungs on days like that?

3. Carnival of Rust by Poets of the Fall – It took me aaages to decide on this one. I knew I had to have something b y Poets, them being my new favourite band and everything, but it was so unbelievable difficult to decide which one. I’ve gone for this one because it’s kind of loud and rocky, perfect for jumping around a desert island too, and plus my boyfriend can play it on guitar so it would be something to remind me of him.

4. World by Five for Fighting – It was a toss up between this one and Devil in the Wishing Well. This one won out, but only just. I would put it on full blast, close my eyes and imagine myself a new world, just like the song says. The perfect way to forget about being stuck on a desert island.

5. Miserable by Lit – Another one for horrible days when everything seems to be going wrong. I’ll never forget the first time I heard this song. I was 18 and I’d just had a fight with my boyfriend of the time. A guitarist friend of mine offered to play a song for me, so I told him to “play something miserable”, which he did. This was that miserable song. I’ve loved it ever since.

6. Ha Ha You’re Dead by Green Day – Not Green day’s best song and not even my favourite, but perfect for a desert island. Another great one for turning up to full volume and screaming out while jumping around like a loony.

7. Tribute by Tenacious D – This song is hilarious! It never fails to cheer me up. Also, it reminds me of my group of friends from uni. The DJ would play it for us every week and at some point it became our anthem. It’s nice to have something to remind of those times now we’re all spread across the world.

8. Keep on Loving You by REO Speedwagon – My first ever favourite song! Obviously I had no idea what it was about back then. I would just sing along to the chorus and imagine how it would be to have someone telling me he was going to love me forever. There are other REO Speedwagon songs that I like, but for my desert island it would obviously have to be this one that came along for the sake of my six year old self.

Phew. That was hard! I just hope I’ve got all the links right. Now for the book…
Well, obviously it would have to be something long otherwise I’d be finished with it way too soon and end up having to read and re-read the bible until rescue came. The obvious one would probably be War and Peace. I’m a quick reader and every time I finish yet another book my boyfriend threatens to buy me that one for Christmas! I think that one would be too obvious a choice though so I’ve decided to go with Gone With the Wind. I’ve heard so much about it but never actually got round to reading it (or watching the film) and I feel like I should. A desert island would be the perfect opportunity. And it 960 pages for this edition it should take me a few weeks to get through it…

And finally, my luxury item.
Now I know people are probably going to laugh at this but I think I would want my cuddly Eeyore.
This Eeyore was a birthday present from my mum this year. (Yes I got a stuffed toy for my 25th birthday. And your point would be?). He’s some kind of bedtime Eeyore, which means he’s dressed in a blue dressing gown and night cap thing and, depending on which way you look at him, either looks unbelievably exhausted or as if he’s just woken up. One day, not long after Eeyore arrived in Germany, Jan decided he felt sorry for him sitting on the table looking like he hadn’t slept in days, so before we left for work he tucked Eeyore up under my quilt. By the time I arrived home I’d forgotten he was there. I’d had a bad day and all I wanted was to get into my room and relax. Upon opening the door I saw Eeyore snuggled up waiting for me and my heart just melted. He looked so cute lying there, and of course knowing my boyfriend had put him there made it even cuter. So if I was going to be trapped on a desert island I would definitely have to tajk Eeyore with me so I could leave him tucked up in my bed waiting to greet me when I returned from a hard day of gathering cocunts and stuff. I’m sure he’d be a great comfort when I got sunstroke as well, which I most definitely would. If I can get sunstroke in Karlsruhe I’ve got no chance on a desert island!

OK, that’s it. Now I think I’m supposed to tag people. Unfortunately just about everyone I would have tagged has already done it though, so I pick sleepyjane and anyone else who wants to have a go…