Diary of a Suburban Squeen

I have two little rants to share.

1. During my horrific day of horrible horror when I left my wallet at home and had to kill a quarter of an hour in the St Thomas' Hospital WHSmiths, I was incensed (further) to note that all the film and sci-fi-esque magazines were in the section labelled "Male Interest/Lifestyle". WTF? It really pisses me off when shops do that. Have I missed some unspoken societal rule whereby I am not permitted to take an interest in such things on account of my second poxy X chromosome?

2. OK, this one's not a rant, per se. I was reading this article about Nasa from this month's Prospect, which opened with: "Broadly speaking, there are two types of people on this planet. There are those who believe that the future of humanity lies here on earth, and there are those who believe it lies out in space. Stephen Hawking is one of the latter. One of the world's most celebrated scientists is certain that we have no alternative but to ship out. Life on earth, says Hawking, is at ever greater risk of being wiped out by threats like nuclear war or a genetically engineered virus."

With all respect to Professor Hawking, what bollocks. It's not our planet itself that's going to start a nuclear war or disseminating a virus. It's the people on it, and that's going to be the case whether we're on earth or a small planet that smells of cheese in a medium orbit around Alpha Centauri. By all means, plan to colonise space on account of the fact that our environment is likely to end up destablising completely, but not to get away from, well, um, ourselves.

The last couple of days have been characterised by my complete and utter stupidity. Due to going on holiday on Monday (yoicks!) I had to do my transport sums, as I didn’t want to pay for a month’s travelcard. Did my sums, came up with a plan, which involved saving about £35. Excellent, say we all. Not so excellent, say I, because I am stupid. I won’t go into details, because they make me furious with myself; suffice it to say that I have made today’s zone 1-3 travelcard cost £20 instead of £8. Rahhhh.

In other news, also rah. Now, I don’t want anyone to take this the wrong way. I am pro-freckles. I like freckles. However, when I go out in the sun in the summer and get freckly, mine aren’t cute little things. No, I get ugly brown splodges all over my face which, in combination with the predominantly vermilion shade of my complexion, make me look like A FUCKING LEPER. Or at least extremely dirty. So, boo, skin.

Went to see Mamma Mia with Katie and Kathye. It was FANTASTIC – the most enjoyable thing I’ve seen at the cinema for ages, even though it was completely ridiculous. The only downside was that we didn’t get into the cinema itself until the trailers, and we couldn’t sit together, which was tragic because it is the last film during which you want to be separated from your friends. Also, Katie and I are maybe going to see X-Files in Richmond on Sunday if we have time.

Have become slightly obsessed with Russian history since the tragic revelations about Anastasia. Currently reading the Royal Diary of Anastasia (yay children’s books, is all I have to say) and eagerly anticipating the arrival of The Curse of the Romanovs, which is, natch, about Alexei going forward to 2010 to try and save his family, where he meets a Romanov descendent who is trying to cure haemophilia. How awesome is that going to be?!

Anyway, have bought a load of books recently (very self-indulgently), mainly because the time is coming for Book Decisions for the holiday. I am definitely taking The Curse of the Romanovs, also Eclipse (the third Twilight book), which I have been saving as a special treat. Also, Katie got Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? out of the library for me, and I have vol 2 of Sandman, and got Eva Ibbotson’s A Song for Summer off Amazon.