Eurgh. Hungover and horrible. Accompanied one flatmate to a house party of no-one knows who last night as she fancies one of the boys who was going. Proceeded to play drinking games with people who's faces I can't even remember now, let alone names, this probably being due to the fact that said flatmate and I only took red wine along with us - guzzling red wine in time with twelve people clapping is a surefire hangover inducer. Don't do it kids. Did all this despite the fact that my other flatmate was out in town with Stuart from Big Brother, and an assortment of friends. Good friend that I am. Watching Classic FM TV in an attempt to soothe my head, accompanied with a bowl of milkless tea as we have no milk and the washing up hasn't been done. Ah the life of a student.

Worked again last night, this time to the tune of the Lost Prophets. Ear plugs were handed out to all bar staff - but ran out by the time they came to me, which was great. I'm not a huge fan of grunge rock (if that is even what they are - punk maybe? Correct me if you do know- I don't like to be unneccassarily ignorant about anything) but I did quite enjoy it. I even got to watch some of it, because once they (eventually) came on at 9.30, most of the audience were either in the moshpit or queueing up for tap water, so my services were in limited demand at one point. The moshers were very funny to watch, all red and sweaty, and a few of them were collapsing on the bar while asking for pints of Coke. It was mostly underage people there, so we had to ask nearly everyone for ID, and, having usually been on the other side of that conversation, I did quite enjoy being the one saying 'I'm sorry I can't serve you then.' I think the power went to my head a bit, as I was literally asking EVERYONE by the end of the night, regardless of how old they looked. It gave some of the older blokes a giggle anyway (35 year old moshers - why? Do you think anyone will employ you looking like that?) And I can now report, that I am officially good at bar work. Yep, that's right, a whole night with not one glitch. Must be a record.

Off to work now - 3 essays, thats 6000 words plus endless research, all in for next Friday, and I've done... one. Essay, not words, obviously.

 

Just finished watching North and South (new BBC Sunday night period adaptation of Mrs Gaskell novel) that I taped - watched Four Weddings instead at the time. Purely as a well-earned break from all my hard work and essay writing, obviously. I have to say, how very very sexy is that Richard Armitage?! He plays the mean and moody Mr Thornton. Definitely the best thing since Mr Darcy. See above if you're as yet oblivious. I like a tall, dark man in Victorian dress. Sucker for it.

I worked my first night as gig bar staff last night, to the tune of Embrace in the background. How scared was I? When I signed up, I may have lied about the fact that I've never done bar work before, which wasn't a good start. It was chaos right from the start, and I didn't really know what I was doing, or how to work the till. As a result, I messed up the till about 4 times in the first ten minutes. I think, nay I KNOW, that I slightly annoyed the other people working on my till, but it was all fine in the end when one of the boys who was particularly frustrated with me shook me by the shoulders and then showed me what to do (the shaking was to stop me from repeating sorry over and over again, rather than just random violence). After that, and the first wobbly half hour, I got into it and just did everything automatically. I did have a few glitches though. You see, we're not allowed to give out cans, it has to be poured into a plastic glass, and I was, shall we say, taking my time doing this. So a few men got a bit frustrated with me and reached across the bar and poured their own. The first bitter I poured went very cloudy and the bloke's face dropped as he saw it being poured. I said he could have it for free and just pay for his lagers, but when I came back from sorting out his change it had all settled out, was a perfect pint and he was standing there with a huge grin on his face. So I was duped. However, a few men were either dazzled by my beauty, or felt sorry for me, and gave me a tip. However, I didn't have any pockets so I put it in my shoe. I thought it was rather ingenius of me, but I did have several coins rolling around under my toes for 4 hours. How was the band, I hear you asking? I couldn't tell you. I was far too busy to pay any attention, unfortunately. I did have a bit of a sing along to Ashes and Gravity though.

Best recent search that ended up here: 'sexy dance girl and toggle'

On Thursday I signed up as a temp at the union's student job centre, and was promptly 'employed' as a temporary flyer for the Leeds marketing team of new Disney film 'The Incredibles.' Apparently we (me and my flatmate who also signed up) were supposed to do the flyer distribution dressed AS The Incredibles, in huge big superhero suites. Well, we weren't too eager to do that. Thankfully, we managed to talk ourselves out of it. We then proceeded to go flying around the pubs and take-aways in Headingley, the main student area just outside of Leeds. It was quite fun really. Although we were propositioned by more than a few fat, balding, middle-aged Asian men running Chinese (?) and Italian (?) take-aways, which wasn't quite so much fun. Next temp job: bar staff at the union for visiting gigs. Quite excited actually. The nights that I'm working the bands playing are; Embrace, Lost Prophets, Barenaked Ladies. So effectively, I'm getting paid to watch bands. I really don't know why I didn't think of this temping thing earlier.

While watching Charmed on Five last night, I noticed that Robyn, the evil hippy watch from back in time, was played by none other than Sunset Beach's Caitlin. Not the one who's on at the moment, the Caitlin who replaces the muppet-Caitlin in about six months time. So, there was life after Sunset Beach for the muppets, I mean cast memebers, after it was cancelled. Other SB exes who I've come across since its demise: Eddie Cibrian (Cole mark 2) as a fireman in Sabrina the Teenage Witch; Susan Ward (Meg) as a 'beautiful girl' in Hercules: the Legendary Journeys and as a 'beautiful bitch' in B-film The In Crowd. Other more 'successful' SB exes: Lesley-Ann Downe (Olivia) in The Bold and The Beautiful; Sarah Buxton (Annie) in The Bold and The Beautiful; the girl who played Tiffany in The Bold and the Beautiful (noticing a pattern emerging here). Come to think of it, The B and the B did turn into a bit of a dumping ground for SB rejects. Yet it was never as good as SB itself. Funny.

Well those lovely little Google-bots are doing their job properly, as people seem to be coming across this blog of mine through all manner of random and amusing searches. The best so far have been; "Call girl in Leeds", "Sudanese wrestlers and toggles"(?), "Sexy Manchester Girl", and "Laura Welsh Bush". Unfortunately, these don't appear to be the sort of visitors who will become regular readers. Flash in the pan visitors. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all traffic of any kind, but I am attempting to cultivate some regulars. Until then, though, I shall continue to be amused by what other 'types' of 'girls' people will look for through Google and Yahoo.

On another note, I don't really have too much to report on my day to day life. Unfortunately, I have spent all day every day since last Wednesday in the library, and I can't see the time I'm going to spend in my newfound second home decreasing any in the near future. So much bloody work to do! Its not all bad though. At the moment I'm reading about Henry II and Thomas Becket and researching for an essay on Henry I, the 'Lion of Justice'. Very exciting! And note, that wasn't said with any sarcasm whatsoever. Honestly. No I'm serious. Yes, it seems there are no ends to my boringness in the face of historical knowledge. If there are any other hsitory buffs out there (unlikely) there's a programme on Channel 4 tonight at 9 about possibly one of my favourite kings of England, Henry II. If you're not as enthusiastic as me, Corrie is also looking entertaining tonight. A continuation of last night's hysterical Family Fortunes looks like to be quality entertainment. Only Corrie could get away with it. If Eastenders had done it, how much would they be torn apart for it? The injustice of the world of soap, hey?

So Bush is president. Again. I think I knew, psychically of course, that he would be, but I still thought it might have been cool if Kerry suprised us all and won. Me and one of my flatmates tried to stay up all night to watch the result, but we couldn't take the pace. The boyf managed to stay up until half six, but they still didn't know then, so he gave up and went to bed. We were ticking the states off on our map from The Independent as they came in. It was quite amusing really. My flatmates are very anti-Bush and really wanted Kerry to win, but to be honest, as far as I'm concerned they're probably as bad as each other. I wanted Kerry to win as it would have been interesting to see how, and if, things would have been different. But at the same time at least we knew what we had with Bush, better the devil you know and all that. We shall see, anyway. I was going to post this yesterday so it would seem more 'topical' but I was doing work all day and didn't have the time to fit it in.

So, went out at home on Saturday night. Interesting story. I went out with a 20 pound note, paid 6 pounds to get in (extortionate) with the very same note, and then proceeded to forget about it. I then went to the bar upstairs, bought a round for me and my friend with the note (?) but only got change from a tenner. I said, 'Sorry love, I gave you 20.' She said 'No you gave me ten.' I wasn't backing down; she'd cheated me out of ten pounds! So the manager got called up, and then the bar manager. The bar manager closed the bar, took all the money out of the till, counted it twice, and then said that sorry, but the till was balanced; my money wasn't there. At this time, an hour had gone past, and I still didn't have my money. The manager gave us free drinks vouchers and said if we gave him our details then we would get given the money back on Monday. My friend wasn't happy; vouchers were fine while we were in there, but how were we supposed to pay to get home with vouchers? Were we supposed to stay in the club all weekend until Monday and then go home? We got more vouchers, and my friend wrote her details down. But as she was doing so, she looked up at me and said, 'Hang on, how did you pay to get in?' And then the mists cleared. I had paid with the elusive 20 pound note to get and had in fact handed over a ten pound note the the girl at the bar. The best bit though, was that we even had a witness who hung around the whole time to tell the manager that he'd seen me hand over a 20 pound note. ?? Luckily, the clocks went back so we had an extra hour in the club. All this just seemed to confirm to the boyf that I am in fact turning into Jessica Simpson.