Spent Sunday in Whitstable, half-expecting Bryn to come round. He didn't in the end, but I got a lot of writing done, and hung out with Sleeve and Emma for a few hours.

Much of Monday was lost to a few trivial tasks: getting insurance, posting my Oxford application, buying washing powder and trying to find out what happened to Russian prison camps once everyone had been released (for the benefit of the novel. Didn't get anywhere - any ideas?)

Then I went to London to see Napalm Death. I'm sure you'll be highly surprised to discover they were . . . mint! As were all their support bands (seemingly VVK, Cephalic Carnage and Mistress - beep! Mistress! I had no idea!) I got a longsleeve and the 235th copy of their limited edition Tsunami Benefit CD. I don't expect the majority of you to understand my newfound love of grindcore. But - for all I was one of the few females in the place - I had an enormous sense that I belonged there: in a dark room, full of people going mental, and having my ears destroyed by precisely that kind of music.

In honour of it being the officially most depressing day of the year, however, I had to miss seeing Teratoma (Dale, Matt and Matte's band), who were reputedly also mint. Also, the gig went on half an hour later than I'd anticipated. (Why? Napalm Death may be known for the length of their songs, but that's to say the lack of length. Surely they could play a shorter set than most bands without anyone feeling short-changed?) I then bore the brunt of some guy having a near-religious moment, which was understandable, so I excused myself slowly, only to miss a tube by seconds. Then the second tube I needed to get was out of service, so I missed the last train home, and had to spend £5.60 to crash chez Smill. Much as I enjoy her company, I only got about half an hour of it, as some of us have to go to work, you know.

Nah, I'm not a waster really - it would be foolhardy for me to get a job, because I probably won't be able to give a month's notice if I get this place in Oxford. Besides, it feels weird and bad not having any sort of work: I think I'm going to have to start treating writing more like a job and do a set number of hours a day. Especially after today. I had such good intentions, but I got distracted watching Buffy, eating chocolate digestives, biting my nailpolish off and fiddling with iTunes. Time to make some more New Year's resolutions, methinks.


Wednesday 26 January 2005

Ohhhhh Gooooood! Life is haaaaard! Actually, most of life is totally straightforward, but when it comes to doing self-motivated work without consuming my own weight in chocolate digestives in the space of a day, I just can't do it! Noooooo! Why does thinking have to make me so hungry? How on earth am I to become an academic / famous writer without exploding? I am going to try restricting myself to one biscuit for every 500 words I write (+ meals), which is generous enough since today was a bad day and I still wrote 3000 . . . but I really don't feel too confident about this working.

In other news, on my way to Ian's birthday sheningans last night, I got hooted at, only the horn played La Cuccaracha! How utterly, utterly terrifying!