Birthday Wishes

A big happy birthday to Meme and Tina (25th and 22th respectively). HARLO!!!! We all miss you over here in Londinium and we hope we'll see you soon :D Yay! Well, in the case of Tina, he'll be here any second now.

Here's a birthday cake I cooked up for you two.

Caplico and the London Marathon

It's evident that things are not good on the blogging front. I have almost halved the number the monthly entries and I am posting up pictures of food.

Brought to you by the makers of Pocky, here's an ice cream treat.Except it's not ice cream (I knew this already - it was on the shelf) but rather a sweet of sorts. It was kinda like eating the inside of a strawberry flavoured Aero bar with a chocolate Aero centre. Interesting but I don't think I'll be craving it again anytime soon.

Smee and I had to bypass those participating in the annual London Marathon on our way to eating out. People! So fit! I wish I was fit.

My not-so-inspired face.

Friday Night Out

Oh I'm such a disappointment..... The regularities of blogging Friday Night Drinks became interrupted upon leaving the alleyways of Melbourne and setting foot onshore the British Isles. The shame, the shame. However, last night, I managed to redeem myself and also establish Lil Miss J as Queens of Drinkies. Don't get the wrong impression - we didn't get smashed - just suitably happy enough to talk crap and magnify enjoyment of even the smallest things.

Drinking on an empty stomach is an excellent method of ensuring oneself a cheap night out and asking for a double shot of Zubrowka with our apple juice (girly drinks galore!) only accelerates the joy and light-headedness. Post work drinks were at Smith's of Smithfield. The actual decor is none too impressive - it's kinda doing the 'industrial' look - but it served it's purpose. I hear the steaks are good here though so I shall refrain from further pickiness. Here we met up with Mr. L (before he had to dash home to 'study') and also MShee, JunT and Jess' friends.

After walking around in a circle, we finally found our way to dinner at restaurant whose name I've forgotten. By then Jess and I had four standard drinks in a period of 1.5 hours. Happiness indeed. Here are some foolish photos:

Tee hee! Fun in the toilets! I wanted to catch Lil Miss J leaving the cubicle but she was far too prepared for my 'surprise'. Asian pose!


Lil Miss J still managed overcome her alcoholic state to take a create, hall-of-mirrors-oh-no-where's-the-exit shot. I'm not worried, cos that's my happy drinks face I got on.


Oh, this is somewhat familar.


Alright, here's the rest of the dinner party.


And another shot.


A vase looks mighty fascinating when mildly intoxicated.

Baoey looking very interested indeed.


Can anyone tell we swapped glasses?


Two serious ones.

Along came dessert.... and by then we were pretty happy snappy.

I think this was mine. A chocolate fondant.


Bao's? Or was it Leesh's? A tiramisu.


I think this was Lil Miss J's. A mousse? Trifle? With some pointy ice cream.


Not so pointy now are we?


Leesh's or Bao's. Ummm... passionfruit pannacotta me thinks.


And finally JunT's biscuit, truffle platter. Sorry for the blur.


The obligatory (but fake) boob grab.


I have no idea what is happening here. I think Bao is doing her scarecrow/creepy anime impersonation.

Muscle woman Lil Miss J taking Bao to the tube.

Baoey guiding an injured Lil Miss J to the tube.

Nothing Special

Just thought I should post an entry for the sake of it. I'm alive and well. No sir-ree, there's isn't much to report on. So here's a pic of me near Tower Bridge on the weekend.

Look! It's sunny! And I'm wearing a tshirt! The mercury cracked 23C. Hardly tshirt weather but hey, grab it while it lasts. I actually got cold and cursed myself for not bringing a cardigan.

Book Review: The Devil Wears Prada

I once was an avid reader. Well, that was way back in the days of the Baby-Sitters Club, The Gymnasts, Pen Pals, Judy Blume and other pre-teen/teenage crap. Terrible isn't it? I can't recall the last book I read. I think it was either 'My Legendary Girlfriend' (which Smee found in an airport lounge), 'Fight Club' or 'Japanese Women Don't Get Fat or Old'. Up until leaving for London, the most regular reading I had done back home was the monthly Instyle magazine. That's if you can call looking at clothes 'reading'. My subscription, I do sorely miss.

Inbetween work, chores, surfing the net (blogging!) and TV, I find I don't have much time for books. Given that the general consensus is that I'm getting dumber and my vocabulary is waning - "When did Pooey get so dumb?!?"- I've decided to utilise my work travel time as 'reading time'.

Reading time is rather limited given that I only spend about 20 minutes on public transport per trip and approximately 10 minutes of that trip is devoted to the pages of free newspapers in the style of Mx. My routine is as such:

• AM: Metro. I don't read City AM because it's full of commerce talk.
• PM: The London Paper (preferred) or London Lite, depending on who won the 'shove a newspaper into my face' competition.

Until I find another valid reason, this will suffice as to why there will be long intervals between book reviews. Hehe

I couldn't resist a 3 for 2 special at Books Etc which included the best selling novel 'The Devil Wears Prada'.

What is the big deal about this book? There is nothing wrong with chick-lit but I have never been a huge fan. I'll read it if it's recommended - it's innocuous enough but I certainly don't go out of my way. Funnily, what "inspired" me to read this book was the movie and I wanted to see how the book compared. The movie was enjoyable - Anne Hathaway strutting in her designer wear and perfect make up - a bit of lightweight girly entertainment. Nothing deep and meaningful.

My my, how the book differs! It's common knowledge that Hollywood rarely stays true to the books that movies and so I'll highlight a few differences in the case of the TDWP:

• Andy's boyfriend is called Alex.

- In the movie, he's called Nate. Huh!?! Why?

• In the book, the boyfriend is a teacher

- He's a chef in the movie

• Andy lives with her best friend who features heavily in the book.

- Movie: lives with boyfriend. Best friend is almost non existent. I can't even remember the best friend in the movie

• Miranda Priestly (the Devil herself) has a nice husband.

- She has marriage problems, which I guess is a Hollywood attempt at humanising her

• Andy only ever flirts with Christian the writer.

- She does the slutty thing and sleep with him after a drunken episode

• Andy goes to Paris because her colleague has Mononucleosis.

- She goes to Paris at Miranda's preference

• Andy quits because her best friend is comatose after a car accident

- She quits because she doesn't want to be one of 'those people'.

• Andy finds a new job on her own

- Movie: She lands a job at Miranda's recommendation.

I should remain faithful to the purpose of this blog entry and review the book, rather than trundle on about the movie/novel differences. I do feel a bit stupid about wanting to read books to assist mental development but instead, I just read some fluff. The protagonist and her best friend verges on annoying and Miranda Priestly's character is exaggerated. Only the boyfriend was remotely likable. I kept on reading because the words weren't hard (hahahahaha) and I wanted to know how it all concluded.

This sounds bizarre but I actually preferred the MOVIE over the book! If the movie remained faithful to the book, it would have flopped. The plot would have been too drawn out. Movies of such content need visuals to keep one interested and yes, the clothes, make up and pretty women kept me interested indeed. Do I sound vacuous or what??? Hehehe.

Would I recommend others to read this book? No. Well, yes if you want some holiday-sitting-by-the-pool-reading that requires little concentration. I don't quite understand how other people claim to 'love' this book. It's not lovable. Maybe I haven't read enough chick lit, but I'll give it credit as being one of better ones of it's genre? I once read a Maggie Alderson book (HATED it!) and I wondered how it managed to be published.

Should I rate this book? It's hard to establish a rating scale without reading more books, so I'll leave it as a Yes/No rating for the time being. So...

NO.

(man, I surely wrote a lot eh?)

The Circle is Almost Complete.....

Aaaah, the joy.... the elation..... the pure pleasure that is savoured when one enters the cult of the Circle. We are nearing completion with the arrival of one of the founding members, Grand Empress Kt, fresh from her sabbatical in NYC. Soon, we can perform ritual sacrifices, cast voodoo spells and eat foetuses.

Ok, I'm starting to get a bit weird here but I have been the recipient of such accusations, however, I should clarify that I only eat babies and not foetuses. YUM!!

I haven't seen Kt in the flesh since December 2005. TWO THOUSAND AND FIVE! Ages!!! Due to my addiction to MSN, we managed to chitty-chat regularly, hence it didn't feel like 15 months.

It's a shame I didn't ask any of the waiting staff to take a group shot, but here are some photos at Artisan, a very over-staffed restaurant:

Baoey playing the Eye-to-Tit Laser game.


Lil Miss J takes on the challenge.

Kt's stopover is only a week long but she will be back in May/June with Tina and hopefully J too :) Yay!!