This weeks sociability/going out never ends!

Yesterday afternoon/evening I went to London to catch up with Vinod, who I haven't seen this year - how time has flown! He met me at King's Cross and rather than brave the Tube we decided to walk. It was a lovely sunny afternoon and it was a good opportunity to start gossiping, and miraculously my dodgy sense of direction took us straight to Chinatown.

We had a nice meal, although I can't remember the name of the restaurant. I had a chicken curry which was beautifully spicy and filling. We nipped into a Chinese supermarket afterwards so Vinod could stock up on ingredients and I stumbled across a shelf of tapioca and ended up coming home with a packet of it in rainbow colours. When I make it there'll be pictures.

Next stop Charing Cross Road for a book shop. Not to buy anything you understand, but to research things for me to buy secondhand online and for Vinod to order from the library. Borders were offering 'buy one get one half price' on everything - I'm not surprised with customer's like us!

Then we headed to Old Compton Street, not for the men but for Italian cake, but shockingly the cake shop was closed for refurbishment. So we wandered around looking for a coffee shop, which proved trickier than you would expect in London. But eventually there was coffee, cake and good gossip. Lovely to see you Vinod! xxx

Today I should have been sorting out the stuff that has piled up this week whilst I've been running round having fun, but it didn't quite go to plan. I've done some of it, but I've also had a headache that's been plaguing me all week which has made me feel too lazy to do much. It's not the brain tumour I suspected at the beginning of the week, or meningitis, but the muscles in my neck ache and are tense so I guess that's what's doing it. I may go to the osteopath in the week if it doesn't go away. Assuming I live that long. Joke!

Anyway, things are tidier, I'm full of scones, and I'm wondering if I can keep the going out momentum up for another night....

I'm clearly going through a sociable phase because last night I was out again. Ema & I joined lots of old ladies and mother/daughter duos to see The Young Victoria.

A film about Queen Victoria? I think we could classify that as "not my kind of thing" but Ema wanted to go and the trailer was full of nice costumes, so I thought, "what the hell!"

Amazingly I really liked it! It's about the year before she becomes Queen and the first few difficult years of her reign, as people try to manipulate her because of her youth, and try and fix her up with a husband. It's also the period when she meets and falls in love with Prince Albert.

Turns out I know nothing about Queen Victoria! I thought she was just a grumpy old woman who didn't like anything. Hah! Turns out she caused a constitutional crisis and people tried to shoot her!

But actually the film is just a big old love story about her and Albert. And quite right too! He's played by Keira Knightley's boyfriend, who in real life looks dreadful, but in this film he's so ridiculously handsome and charming you can see why his death caused her to grieve so badly.

So hurrah for historic love stories!

Last night I saw the best piece of theatre in years, so what follows may be slightly overexcited and a bit lengthy...

It was on as part of the annoyingly named Norfolk & Norwich Festival - annoying because more or less everything is on in Norwich, and whilst I understand that is still in Norfolk it seems to be taking the piss slightly.

Anyway, it was the only thing in the festival that I wanted to see, apart from Ute Lemper who I've been desperate to see for years but who clashes with Morrissey! It was by an Anglo-German company called Gob Squad and was called Gob Squad's Kitchen (You've never had it so good), which was a live recreation of Andy Warhol's film Kitchen.

Sounds potentially dreadful doesn't it. I know, I was scared too. When they let the audience into the auditorium you had to walk across the stage to get to your seat, so you could see how things were set up. The stage was divided into three separate areas: a bed, a kitchen and a chair, all of which were being filmed. There was a big black curtain dividing the stage from the audience, and on the audience side there was a big screen onto which each of the areas were projected.

So far so complicated. In the middle they show the kitchen - clearly Andy Warhol's film of the same name; on the right someone sitting in a chair doing nothing - his Self Portraits; and on the left someone sleeping - his Sleep. And the three screen business is very Chelsea Girls. Luckily I saw most of these at an exhibition in London in the autumn, so I was loving it on every level!

It begins in the kitchen, two actors being awkward, working out how to create the film as they've never seen it and they don't know what 1965 was like. Then the woman in the self-portrait gets bored and joins them in the kitchen, and the woman sleeping swaps with one of the men. But although both Sleep and Self Portrait involve doing nothing the men do it badly, so the women head off into the audience to find volunteers to do it for them.

This is where things get scary. Audience participation is a nightmare. The kind of person who would want to take part is invariably a show-off, which is not what you need. But they managed to find some people who were completely natural and absolute genius. I don't want to think it was a set up, I genuinely think it wasn't, I think they used the bit where the audience walked through the stage to select people carefully and did a bloody good job at it.

For Self Portrait they got a skinny boy with big eyes who it turned out was 23. He was beautiful and shy and just amazing to watch. I can't have been the only person to have fallen in love with him. For Sleep they got a cool skinny girl who very very impressively kissed one of the actresses for three minutes in recreation of a film called Kiss.

But there's more. One of the men decided he didn't like himself in the play, so he found a woman to take his place and sat in the audience watching. She had a set of headphones on and was obviously being fed the lines, but was incredibly good at it. At one point she sat seductively on the table rubbing her thigh, then she gave an actor a haircut and finally appears to give an actor a blow-job, because there's a film called that too.

Finally the last of the original actors had enough and grabbed a woman from the audience to play him. So the piece ended with four strangers in a kitchen looking awkward, just like the original film, and just like the beginning of the play.

It may all sound a bit conceptual, possibly a little bit up its own arse, but it was genius. The most inventive and original piece of theatre I've seen in years! How they pulled it off is a complete mystery but it was a joyful thing. People laughed loudly and screamed and cheered at the ended. Quite right too, it was amazing!

I feel slightly changed by it. My mind feels open. I feel hopeful. Perhaps I've let 1965 into my brain....

Last night I went out with the 24 year old. He had wanted to stay over on Saturday night, but I find his sleepovers a bit disruptive even if they are enjoyable so I made an excuse not to. Instead we went out last night and did the things young people do.

We started the evening in Nandos. There was a bit of a buzz when they first came to town, although to be honest I didn't realise what they were. I thought they were a Mexican restaurant, when actually it turns out they're just chicken. It looks like a restaurant but you have to order your food at a till, just like a canteen, which put me off slightly, but actually that was just a silly complaint.

The food turned out to be really nice. I had a chicken burger and chips, because that was just what I was in the mood for, and it was nice. Good chicken. Strange shaped bun. Nice chips. The chicken reminded me of KFC to be honest, but without the batter, which isn't a bad thing. I had a proper lemonade, which was lovely, and a lemon pudding which I could easily have eaten two of. So a good start to the evening, even if the place wasn't exactly overrun with young people as I was expecting.

Next stop the cinema, to see Wolverine. Grrr. I've recently been watching the X-men films in preparation for this so I was quite excited, although the excitement was dampened by some very average reviews. Well, what do reviewers know, it was fun!

It's a prequel and tells the story of how Wolverine became Wolverine, filling in the story that is hinted at in the X-men films. This means there are less of the other X-men in it, which worked for me as the one thing I didn't like about the films was that by the end of them there seemed to be hundreds of characters to remember and care about. Not this time, just Wolverine battling against his brother.

It starts off a bit slowly, then suddenly it all falls into place and starts to work. The X-men films felt a bit cartoon-like to me - not surprisingly - but somehow this is darker and more believable, if a man with strange metal claws can be believable. Sure it was silly, but never silly enough to laugh at. There was one bit at the end that takes place on a very high building. Now I'm afraid of heights so when it looked like two characters were going to plunge off the edge I thought I was going to be sick! You can't ask for more from a film, can you?

And Hugh Jackman? Well they clearly realise people just want to see his chest, because there are slightly more topless scenes than are necessary for the plot. Not that I'm complaining, although during one scene his right nipple was centre screen and I was so distracted by it that I paid no attention to the dialogue that was going on at the time! Which seems like a perfect excuse for another photo:



Yummy!

I think that may be the end of my X-men adventure though. If they make more films I'm not sure I want to see them. I have no real love for the other X-men, it was all about Hugh to be honest.

And the 24 year old? Well, he's found himself a 19 year old to play with, which surprisingly I'm not jealous about at all! More astonishingly his boyfriend offered him £20 if he slept with the 19 year old. How much madness can you fit in one house/relationship?!

Well the Bank Holiday weekend was a bit rubbish. I'm not going to blame the weather, it was all my fault. You can't have three days off work, plan nothing and expect something to come up! I live in the middle of nowhere, the only thing that will come up is someone's tractor breaking down! Hopefully I've learnt my lesson and won't repeat this mistake next Bank Holiday weekend.

I spent yesterday afternoon dozing in bed. I was tired and on the verge of a coldy thing. Lemsip sorted that out. Then I watched Brothers & Sisters and Rob Lowe's character had a heart attack, so I managed to convince myself I was too. Astonishingly a packet of Doritos sorted that out.

So it's back to work today, which will be whatever it is, but it's also the start of a very busy week of going out. Thank God!

I don't really like Bank Holiday weekends and never really know what to do with them, so I made no plans for this weekend and left it to Fate.

Yesterday Fate delivered me a gentleman caller. An American - my first. And a pilot! There is a God! How very Top Gun.



Today Fate delivered me nothing so exciting. Footman and Boyfriend were supposed to pay a visit but they overdid it last night so stayed home to recover. I've whiled away the afternoon in front of the TV. In truth I'm a bit bored.