I bought some new shoes. Yay.

The film festival is over. I must say I'm quite relieved. Post-mortems later, but I'm quite keen just to sit quietly at home for a bit instead of dashing hither and yon from movie to movie all the time. Not tonight, however, because it's Franz Ferdinand! Everybody sing! 'I know I won't be leaving here... with you...'

The other day, The Philadelphia Story was on TCM again and I was partially watching it. It occurred to me that I think Mike Connor (Jimmy Stewart) saying 'dost thou have a washroom?' to the librarian may be one of the funniest deliveries of a line... ever. Hee! I don't know what it is about it, really. It just tickles me. :)

Shake That Cola Drag. Bringing you the news, as it happens.

We came home from the bank to find a burgundy Nissan Skyline smashed through our fence. We're westies, no doubt!

Last night, I went to my friend Cathy's house for a book club meeting. Her partner had this album framed on the wall of the home recording studio. Such joy!

My teasmade looks nice on the china display cabinet, I think.

D.I. McDonald writes in the New Zealand Medical Journal 100, 1987, p. 465: 'Is there life after genital numbness?'

It's a question that needs answering.

'You are the exception danzig apricot'. Best spam ever!

The current film festival booking tally stands at 13 over a two week period. This is nowhere near the dizzying heights of my nineties film-going, in which I thought little of seeing three a day, and often over thirty throughout the festival. (The years of my MA were particularly profligate. Procrastinate? Me?) I have now whittled things down using several simple guidelines: nothing available on DVD (Michel Gondry Retrospective, I'm looking at you!); unless it will kill me not to see it ASAP, nothing which is bound to come back for general release within a few weeks (Fahrenheit 911, helloooo); and no indie films well-reviewed at Sundance unless they were also well-reviewed somewhere less kindly disposed to coming-of-age stories about white middle class 20-30somethings. There are also a lot of films which are guaranteed winners for me: new prints of anything older (The Battle of Algiers!); live cinema with orchestra (Buster Keaton!); rereleased schlock (lesbian kung fu movies!); music and pop culture documentaries (Festival Express!); basically, documentaries full stop. I fucking LOVE documentaries.

Thank god we've made it to July. July is a nice bustling sort of winter month with lots going on. June is mostly just rainy and dire after Queen's Birthday. And it's all dark in the mornings and evenings. Meh.

The teamaker arrived. It works!

I'm not the only one who's noticed dog toy dodginess. Dog Toy or Marital Aid? (Note: Ellie's favourite toy is on the first page.)

Supergrass is 10! And that's our latest DVD purchase. We watched most of the two hour documentary last night. They all came across so nice and well adjusted and funny that I was almost suspicious. Musicians so heavily influenced by mods, punk and glam shouldn't be charmingly self-deprecating. It goes against everything I've come to expect! And I'm sure there were a lot more delusions of grandeur and arguments and dodginess than the film lets on, but basically I just felt warm and fuzzy throughout the entire thing, with regular bouts of hysterical laughter at all the wacky antics. Yay. I hope this retrospective thing doesn't inspire them to record two utterly naff decline-and-fall albums and break up and then do lots of utterly naff solo work. Fingers crossed, as I have been a fan since 1995 and spent many many evenings in Texas blasting them at enormous volume because Brent and Gary also loved them so much. I have a lot invested!

(Afterwards Brent and I were trying to think of members of other bands who came out of the Britpop era who come across well in interviews, and decided it all came down to senses of humour. Damon Albarn: a tosser, frankly. (Did you see Live Forever? Ack.) Louise from Sleeper and Justine from Elastica: both overserious wankers. Richard Ashcroft: oh dear. Oasis have some glimmerings, particularly Noel, but Liam is just unintentionally funny. We came up with Jarvis Cocker in the end.)