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Hey!!!!

Let's have another page of Clematis; hey, why not.

Sooooooo. I went to Turnmills last night with Steve and James to see MSTRKRFT. It was pretty goddamn awesome. Seeing as how I am used to Bath, where the closest thing they have to a nightclub is Caddies, or Babs; Turnmills was a bit of a shock to the system. It had five different rooms, and the price to get in was around five times as much as I'd like to pay. Yes! That's right! 5 rooms, for the price of five? Wow.

Standing in the queue there was a guy furtively asking people if they wanted any Es. Man, is this the big city or what? Of course, I'm far too poor and sensible to buy some Es (or whizz for that matter), but I felt quite cosmopolitan for being asked.

The music was a little too hardcore for me, but you could dance to it alright. And when MSTRKRFT came on it was super. I was quite starstruck. Everyone was dancing a-go-go, and when they played Easy Love the whole room cheered. I only wish that they had played some more of their remixes before we left. I actually prefer their remixes to their own tunes; let me explain in algebraic terms:

Handclaps + cowbell + a good bass-line = an awesome MSTRKRFT tune.

Sadly, we were in the MSTRKRFT room for most of the time so we missed DJ sets by Hot Chip, the Klaxons and Gossip. Shoot!

To summarise, I will describe how awesome MSTRKRFT were by using the means of poorly executed computer graphics; it was something like this:

In other news we went to Spitalfields market today and saw lots of cool art and bags and T-shirts and stuff. I didn't buy anything, but I did have a burrito, so it kind of evens out.

Also, oh god, I'm so tired today.

*sobs hysterically*

Oh guys. Oh guys! D:

My internet connection has been broken for the past month!

It was horrible! Oh, utterly horrible! I thought I might die of boredom and trash TV.

Quick quick! I've updated Clematis as soon as was possible. Over here. I had the time to work up a backlog of a few pages, so I'll probably put a new page up on Sunday or Monday.

So what on Earth did I do without the internets?

- I watched an ungodly amount of the Simpsons
- I watched Gillian McKeith look at fat people's poo
- I read all of Wish, which I had downloaded before
- I read plenty of Loveless (I'd had a lot of this downloaded too)

So, Wish was alright. But you could tell that the ending wasn't as CLAMP had originally planned. What was up with Shuichirou? Don't give me that. Also, since when was reincarnation a part of the christian dogma?

As for Loveless, I'm up to volume 5 now and I'm eager for more Soubi. Also, I love Yun Kouga's art THIS MUCH.

Oh man, but I've got loads of TRC and xxxHolic to catch up on. Tomorrow, tomorrow; I'm too sleepy today (I think I'll have to wean myself back onto the internets slowly).

So tomorrow Steve is visiting and we're going to go see MSTRKRFT. I'm well excited.

Wow. I didn't mean to be away for so long, I just kind of ran out of energy to write on my blog.

So, I wasn't around this weekend because I went to Luxembourg to visit Linda who lives there now (no, I don't know why either). But Luxembourg seems fun, and Linda seems happy, so it's all good. This trip was less sight-seeing-y than our last trip to Luxemboug, and more going-out-y. There was also cheese. Here follows a description of the trip in photographic form:

We saw a Razorlight concert, despite the fact that
none of us are huge Razorlight fans. We're so hardcore.

Steve got hugged by A STAG.

There was some standing around in holes.

...No reason for this photo, I just lkind of liked it.

I've suddenly realised the lack of photos of Linda that I have from this trip. I only have two, and they're both AWFUL. So, sorry Linda, if you're reading. I am a BAD friend.

Since I've been back I've been tired, and also cold, because my radiator chose the coldest time of the year to stop working.

I was also itching to make an AMV because I have finally jumped of the ledge of good upstanding citizen and into the pit of LOSER. I couldn't hold back any longer. I have spent so long trying to get windows movie maker to work this week, it's not funny. When I finally did get it working, it ran far too slow for my needs (God, why do I try to break my teeth on flamenco of all things? Why not an easy ballad?). Anyway, after around four hours I managed to come up with 15 (count 'em) 15 seconds of AMV that is almost not awful, but kind of is, because I commited the horror of all horrors, and used subtitled video clips.

You can download it if you like, in all it's 1MB glory. The file is a wmv though, so I apologise if you don't have windows and can't watch it, because I'm too tired to change it to anything else.

Download here.
Let's see, the video comes from Code Geass, episode 7, the only one I have that I could use. And the music is the intro to an awesome song by Rodrigo y Gabriela called Diablo Rojo (buy the album guys, it's super-duper).

Right, well, I give up with AMVs, they're just too difficult. *wipes hands free of the whole sorry mess*

In the world of everything non-AMV, I started off the day badly today by dreaming about cute little kittens, which DIED. Then at work, I had to deal with two researchers who had been double booked. I'm not sure if the double booking was my fault, or my bosses, but I felt awful for upsetting people, especially because one of the researchers was a kind-of famous old thesbian actor. Gah!

I'm still working my way through The Master and Margarita. I've just got to the part, mostly, where Margarita meets Woland. I like Behemoth, he's almost like the comic relief, aww. Also, I'm sure Woland is not supposed to be attractive, I'm sure (if I repeat that enough I might start believing it) asfhjkadgl.

Guys! Guys! Guys! Guys! Guys!

Do you want to listen to something hilarious? Of course you do. They are playing stand-up from cheeky geordie, Ross Noble, on the radio every Tuesday. You can listen to the show after it's aired by going here and clicking on 'listen' under where it says Ross Noble.
Ross Noble is one of my favourite stand-up comedians (I saw him live about a year ago); he is so random, and he makes almost everything up as he goes along, it's really quite amazing.

Re: my last post
Here's the Subaru fanart I told you about. (click for big yadda yadda)

I wanted to make ammends for my previous Subaru fanart, which was awful, truly awful. So this one is done in a different style. I think I made him look more girly than normal, which I really didn't think was actually possible, but what did I know. Also also, where on Earth are his gloves?! How can you draw Subaru and forget his gloves?! I think I must have passed out or something and missed them.

At work today I got a papercut (more like a card-cut)off of 1988. It was a right deep one too. And it keeps opening up everytime I do anything. Man, what good have the 80s ever done to anyone?

In other news, there'll be more Subaru fanart coming your way later. Aren't you lucky?

Here's a new page of Clematis.

I meant to draw this yesterday. But I ended up buying Kill Bill 1 and watching it instead. So, I didn't put as much effort into the new page as I would have liked, but I did get to watch Kill Bill again (I can never watch this film enough; it is just so cool), so the outcome was good for me.

I'm watching Final Destination 2 at the moment. It's quite fun to try and work out how everyone is going to die.

I used to watch this before I went up to uni in the mornings. As children's programmes go, this one is quite high up on the really really weird scale. I mean, come on, trying to motivate kids through sport and Euro pop? It is awesome. Also, Sporticus is great and I love him.

It turns out that I'm pretty slow on the bandwagon and that this is all over the internets. So I had some fun on YouTube (watch me jumping on that bandwagon Ma!):

THE definitive song. You knows it.

Possibly the best song ever. WOULD I LIE TO YOU?

Man, I don't think I ever grew out of children's TV. Something about it just holds my attention; it might be the surrealism that is just lacking in most adult TV shows (I think my brain is wired up to enjoy surreal things more than most people), or maybe it's just that I only respond to bright colours.

But of course, in my day, children's TV made a lot more sense, you know, like giant turtles fighting crime.

Hey guys.

I haven't really been up to much at all in the past few days.
Go to work
Come home
Sleep
And repeat

Mostly all I've been thinking about has been Seishirou/Subaru. The more time passes, the more I think this is becoming my OTP. Because, because! It has to be the most tragic romance ever created, ever. Seriously. It's kind of really beautiful, in a really really sad way. I could go on for longer, but I don't want to be flinging out any spoilers; it was only once I'd been through all of Tokyo Babylon and all of X that I realised how heart-breakingly beautiful their story is.

There was only one thing I could bring myself to draw yesterday. Click for big (warning, words can't explain how truly awful this picture is. I apologise):

TRC version! The reason that I'm excited about TRC!Seishirou and TRC!Subaru is the same reason why it was so difficult to draw this fanart: in TRC there is still everything to play for. Let me reiterate: there is still everything to play for! I am filled with some kind of ridiculous hope that CLAMP will humour the fangirls and give these two a happy ending. This hope is ridiculous because even though anything goes in TRC (see: giant worms!), I very much doubt that any incarnation of Subaru is going to get a happy ending. That poor boy is doomed; he'd even be doomed if he was a magical pony, or a rainbow (and I'm sure that in some CLAMPverse, there really is a magical pony!Subaru). But! I'm still going to keep my hopes up! Because we still have no idea what the situation is; I repeat, there is still everything to play for!

What have I been watching recently? Round-up!

- Code Geass 12 - Hellooo uncomfortable fan service! Hellooo heterosexual Lulu! (where on Earth did you come from?)

- Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto - episode 10 and I still have no idea what's going on. I really think I need to know my Japanese history much more (read: at all) to follow this plot. But the fight scenes are just so good that I can't stop watching. But why oh why does Okita Souji always have to be dying in every series he's in? It makes me sad T_T

- Celebrity Big Brother - Brilliant. I love the way that the housemates keep doing Bo Selecta impersontations of Michael Jackson, even though Germaine looks really uncomfortable every time they do.

Today I went traipsing through the pouring rain to buy myself a frame for the batik that Mariya so kindly made me. Take a look:

My wall doesn't look so empty any more! I couldn't place the frame very centrally on my wall because I'm not alowed to put any nails in, so I had to work with the nails that are already in the wall. It's so pretty (the batik, I mean, not the frame)! It's based on Kimono patterns and xxxHolic; the rich colours are certainly very Yuuko, as are the butterflies now I come to think of it. Anway, what I mean to say is THANK YOU MARIYA <3

I had wanted a white frame, but this was the lightest colour (and weight) that I could find in Habitat; it was either this or beech or black (I don't like black outlines on pictures at the moment, I don't know why, I think it may be fashion). Also, annoyingly, Habitat only have paper bags, which is cool and all (and they can be recycled), but completely useless in heavy rain. By the time I'd reached the tube station (maybe 3 minutes walk from the shop) the bag had fallen apart! I had to carry it the rest of the way home under my arm.

I also went to Waterstones and bought myself a copy of Master and Margarita. The girls at the till were very enthusiastic about the book when I was buying it, so it bodes well that this will be a good read.

I'm watching The Sixth Sense at the moment. I've never seen it before. It's quite scary. I can't help thinking that this is what it must have been like for a poor young Watanuki, only without anybody to help him.

There's a new page of Clematis!

Today I decided to try my hand at drawing in a realistic style (I've not actualy tried it before). And what better way to start than with a self portrait (click for big):

I'm pretty sure it's, at best, rubbish; but that's forgivable seeing as it's a first attempt. I went a bit mental with the colouring of the lips (my lips aren't black I swear), and colouring in nostrils, I have decided, is a no-no. And crikey I have a lot of moles on my face.

I go back to work tomorrow @_@
At least I've had a lovely time off, and it's the weekend soon anyway.

I went to Norwich to visit Theresa for New Year's eve. It was fun; there was quiche and chipolatas and twister and bongos.

Upon retrning to London I went to see Rock 'n' Roll, the new Tom Stoppard play. It was alright, but seeing as I don't know much at all about 70s rock music or communist Czechoslovakia, most of the plot passed me by.
Also, I had the most disgusting garlic bread I've ever had, ever (it tasted like death and poo).

My final days of freedom are being passed by not doing anything at all, and gladly. Also, I've started watching celebrity big brother; I think I have some sort of illness that forces me to watch big brother every year.

Here's the new page.

I drew it all this evening. This page was brought to you by:

Lack of food
Lack of sleep
CSS and Rodrigo y Gabriela albums (both awesome) on repeat

I haven't stayed up late drawing in ages. Also, it turns out that skipping dinner gives you more time to draw. I'm all tanked up on adrenaline and sugar at the moment.
I'm so hardcore.

Deborah was visiting yesterday and today. Yesterday we went to a meal in a Thai restaurant in Stoke Newington of all places. I KNOW.

My haul from the January sales:

- 1 (one) bag, Accessorize, half price
- 1 (one) pair of trainers, Office, 15 squids

Then there was cake in Soho.

I think I have to sleep now. Linda and Steve are visiting tomorrow morning and I'm going to have to wake up before 10am D:

I'm going back to London tomorrow. I must make a fond farewell of all the Christmas food that my parents have at home, this may take some time.

I am trying to start on the next page of Clematis, but I feel there is going to be a steep learning curve for this one. Stay tuned.

Right, I shall be entertaining guests for the next few days, and then it's New Year's eve, so I might not be able to post for a bit.

I shall leave you with the most recent images from CLAMP's private boards: found at this site. Hahaha! Everybody in maid costumes! You know, sometimes I get the feeling that CLAMP aren't taking things seriously at all (I get this feeling a lot of the time). Also of note is kitty!Lelouch down in the slightly older pictures. Thank you CLAMP!

Secondly: Clematis update!

I would have finished this page earlier, but Christmas got in the way a little. I have a Christmas themed Clematis picture on the way to make up for it.

So, how was my christmas?

1. My wrapping paper was awesome:

2. James' party had rather a low turnout, but plenty fun was had anyway. We visited Hampstead, which I've never been to before. It's a really nice area, and really posh too. It seemed just like the sort of place to set a winter romcom, and as much as I despise the genre, I found myself caught up in the atmosphere (things soured slightly, when I was relegated to the role of 'Fanny', the comic relief). We also walked upon Hampstead Heath and tried not to get caught up in some accidental cottaging; it was getting dark, but luckily surprise bumsex was avoided by all. Phew.

3. I came home to a parcel that had come all the way from Mariya in the New of York. Thank you Mariya, I loved the presents! Not only was there an I <3 NY coktail shaker, but also an amazing T-shirt:

I think I spy some Engrish! The T-shirt reads

It gathers with all, and has a party
Cookie
The time of the snack is happy

Wise words indeed. The batik is really pretty, I'll take photos as soon as I can frame it and put it up on my wall <3

4. The present I was most excited about was a knife sharpener. You have no idea how useful this will be (my knives are rubbish, I doubt they'd even cut butter).

5. The highlight of visiting my relatives yesterday: my Mum shouting out of the kitchen,

Anyone for a chocolate log?

My cousin, ever the fan of innuendo, laughed until he was red in the face.

6. I just watched 4 Disney movies in 2 days.

So, aside from Christmas, I just finished reading The Ladies of Grace Adieu. I really do like the universe that they are set in. Partly this is due to the versatility of the universe and the similarity to our own; I think a great many pieces of fiction could be made to cross-over with these stories with very little trouble (I love that The Duke of Wellington Misplaces His Horse is actually a cross-over itself). I also like it because I get the feeling that Susanna Clarke has done quite a lot of world-building. It seems like there is a lot going on that isn't actually told in the stories (for example, I love that entirely ficticious quotes are cited properly, with Susanna Clarke even going as far as to name the publisher). Stories with good world-building always have a lot more depth, and are subsequently a lot more interesting, than stories that have been placed in 'generic fantasy world'. Take The Lord of the Rings for example, that had the whole of the Silmarillion behind it, and more besides, which makes the whole thing seem a lot more real. In short, I think the world of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell has a lot of mileage.

Going on a very slight tandem to that; I just watched the first Pirates of the Caribbean again. I love this film, it is such a feel-good romp. Now that I've watched the second film, I seem to be picking up on a lot more Jack/Elizabeth (and also Jack/Elizabeth/Will, OT3! OT3!), but that is all by the by. The conclusion I come to time and again, whenever I watch Pirates of the Caribbean, is that Johnny Depp is amazing; he steals the whole show, every time.
So, coming back to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, I have come to the realisation that, in the up-coming movie, no-one would be better suited to play the gentleman with the thistle-down hair than Mr Johnny Depp himself. I think the gentleman with the thistle-down hair is verging on my favourite character from the book; he is so animated! I think that Johnny Depp would be able to bring the amount of energy to the role that is required (also, he is pretty enough to play a fairy). But please, on no account must Orlando Bloom be let anywhere near the gentleman with the thistle-down hair; in every film I've seen him in, he's managed to make the characters he plays completely and utterly boring.