EUROVISION

I invited some people around to my house to watch the Eurovision final the other week. I've never seen Eurovision before, but have heard tales of gloriously tacky costumes and fabulously crap performances. I figured it sounded like my kind of thing, and it definitely was. There were 24 European countries competing, only one or two I had never heard of, and it was accompanied by the commentary of an Irish guy called Terry Wogan. He basically pays out everyone and everything the whole way through, it's hilarious.

For those who care about such things, my favourites were the groups from the Ukraine and Greece. The saddest, most pathetic entries were definitely those from Ireland and England. Scootch were total rubbish. Somehow I knew all the words to their song, though. Must be some type of cultural osmosis.

It was a really good night. In what I can only assume is typical of Eurovision parties the world over, I was drunk by the end of the program and couldn't even remember who won when asked the next day. I'm thinking of doing the Eurovision 2007 Finalists tour of European countries. Anyone else want to come along?

CLIMBING LADDERS AND SLIDING DOWN POLES

Just realised I didn't write the promised entry about my adventures in Bournemouth (FIVE weeks ago now, I really need to get online more often). Bournemouth is a seaside town about two and a half hours from London, renowned for its long sandy beaches. Bournemouth is apparently also popular for stag/hens nights; three people at work told me that while they couldn't actually remember much about when they were there, they knew that it was fun. I headed down to the seaside to spend time with a fabulous friend I met in Vietnam. Because she's equally as paranoid about internet psychos as me, perhaps even more so if that's possible, I'll just call her R.

I arrived on a Friday and night and thankfully, we had a quiet night in. This had followed the almost endless procession of boozy nights that I wrote about in my last entry, so I was a bit knackered. Saturday we were racing around madly buying costumes and party decorations for a 30^th birthday party that evening. The theme was 1960s/1970s, and oddly we were able to buy brand new dresses right off the rack that matched the 60s theme perfectly. Fashion is weird.

The reason we were so pressed for time on Saturday is because we spent the middle part of the day at the local fire station. Here's the story: the previous weekend, R and the birthday girl had been walking home during the wee hours of the morning having imbibed one too many alcoholic concoctions and decided it would be a good idea to ring the intercom at the local fire station and invite the firemen along to the upcoming party. After undoubtedly providing amusement for the sober fire-chaps, the gals were invited over for a tour of the fire station the next weekend. So when I arrived, I became one of five giggling girlies buzzing the intercom at the fire station at lunch time.

It was very cool. I think there were about seven firemen there: tall, well-built, the usual deal. They were cooking up a barbecue and had some seriously gourmet salad and pasta dishes as well. The lunch time conversation was suitably ribald, as you would expect with five single gals sitting around a table with seven somewhat star-struck firemen. The best part came after lunch, where we got a tour of the station and all had the chance to slide down the fireman pole. By the time it was my turn the firemen were all down the bottom, and I was picturing a Bridget Jones-type moment with my fat behind landing on someone's head. As it was I squeaked down the pole sooo slowly it was embarrassing. It looked much higher from the top than it actually was, I probably could have jumped down faster than I slid.

Next we all dressed up in fireman safety overalls, helmet, and harness in preparation for a trip on that huge extendable ladder thing that they use to fight fires that are ten floors up from the ground. It's like a cherry-picker, but it goes much much higher in the air. We were clipped on to the side of the 'basket' bit and went up for a look around. It was really cold that high up, and I got to see more of Bournemouth than I ever had before (or have since). I also got to peek at the neighbours who thought they were having a private barbie in their fully-enclosed back yard. Hehe.

After that it was time to bid farewell to our friendly fire-fighters. In the end a couple of them did actually turn up at the 30^th birthday party, which was a fabulous evening of drinking, daggy music and disco dancing. R tells me the party was filmed, and apparently I'm in pretty much every shot. Great.

LIVING IT UP IN THE BIG CITY

I've had a very crazy couple of weeks over here. Disco Steve had two friends visiting on their way home from a year in south america, and lo and behold they turned out to be as amazing, fun and fantastic as all the other friends I've made since moving to London. So naturally we went out every night of the week to celebrate that fact.

I literally went out every night for about 8 days straight, getting home after 2am and dragging my tired and sorry self out of bed at 7am to go to work. Then on the weekend I went down to Bournemouth for a 60s/70s themed 30th birthday and had enough adventures there to warrant a separate blog entry. Hopefully I'll get around to writing that memory down before the brain cells storing it are wiped out by a huge binge-fest.

I suspected that I might be pushing myself a bit hard when I fell asleep through the first half of a play. It was The Hound of the Baskervilles, a comedy at the Duchess Theatre, and it was actually really funny. The reason I know it was funny, apart from a vague recollection of laughter floating through my tired brain as I napped, was that they started the second half of the play with a 5-minute condensed version of the first half. That was very cool, I laughed so much that I stayed awake.

I've slowed down a little since those heady days of two weeks ago - I think I had one night home last week, and I've already had one this week too (see Mum, I'm looking after myself!).

Interestingly, I've become intimately acquainted with the effects of sleep deprivation on my mood and I think I've actually reduced the amount of hours I need to sleep each night. So really, you could say that what I've been doing over here is of scientific value. I could write a thesis on how the effects of sleep deprivation and alcohol consumption are moderated by social interaction across various environments.

Or I could just go to the pub.