Grace's Christmas Message

That bugger that is my brother has got the heinous crime against humanity that is Mistletoe & Wine by Cliff Richard stuck in my head. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH. I'm sure the Queen doesn't have to put up with this rubbish.

Anyway, time for my Christmas message. This is the time for reflection upon the year past; what has been loved, treasured, relished, reviled and abhorred. In fact, why not do Heroes & Villains? The tragic thing is, this reveals a lot about my psyche because I find it easier to come up with people I loathe than people who have inspired me. So I won't do that. It's going to be hard enough coming up with a top ten for albums of the year... it's just not been that inspiring this year, and last year was a bit of a stonker in that department.

My message to everyone is that you need kittens. Kittens bring joy. Reading and crosswords are also good. End of year quizzes are fun. But the best thing you can get yourself is a kitten.

MERRY NEW YEAR!

Done and Dusted

The beast is slain!

It's been a bit of a rollercoaster of a week. Three finals (finished!); Paper that essentially became a behemoth (finished!); flat in NYC packed up, Christmas shopping done... all in the past seven days.

Plus, I had my teeth tightened yesterday. It's not every day you get to say that.

Oh, and my mum got two new kittens and kept it a secret! Hence the behemoth was somewhat interfered with by the hooligans that are Mabel and Stelling charging around the front room and knocking my laptop plug out of its socket, clambering up my legs and scratching the bejesus out of them, and generally treading on the keyboard and writing amusingly incoherent things. Much like my good self.

I also, along with my beloved other half, seem to have developed a weird manifestation of jetlag which involves me waking up at around five in the morning. Every morning thus far. Why I would normally wake up at midnight I don't know. Maybe it really is the witching hour...

AND IT'S FREEZING HERE. FOGGY.

Brilliant. I love being home...

Give and Take

I lost the lid to my very pretty pink coffee commuter mug thingy the other day, which was highly annoying. It had a habit of flying off as I hurled my rucksack around, and the other night it did just that. I watched in slow motion as I realised what the noise was, as it fell onto the tracks uptown at 66th street. DAMN YOU FLASK LID! The next day I asked for someone to recover it, but it was already 9pm and I would have had to wait an hour for the crew to turn up, and they wouldn't hand it into the booth at that station (don't be crazy woman, that would make sense!). Therefore I went back the next day and horror of horrors - it wasn't there anymore! But luckily for me, having to cross over to the uptown side to check meant that as the next train came in, I FINALLY got to see a celebrity. A bona fide, true, full on ***STAR***. Which then FINALLY got me on Gawker Stalker, which has been an ambition for a very, very long time. That it turns out that half my friends here have also seen him (including one on a regular basis because his girlfriend plays football for her club) is NOT THE POINT.

Anyway, my point is, I lost a lid, but achieved an ambition thanks to that loss. I wonder if losing my very sweet green and black Marc Jacobs fingerless gloves will be equally worthwhile in the long run...

In all seriousness...

I am not, generally, a big fan of Polly Toynbee, but she puts her finger on something in this article on the Tories' social survey that they've just published that bothers me immensely about the Tory party and the Bush Administration. This is that for a party supposedly big on small government, that is not part of their concern when it comes to moral matters. So the Bush government will cut taxes, give power "back to the States" but when it comes to abortion, will pass through as much federal legislation as is possible. There was a really good letter in AM New York (surely not!) recently making just this point - this is not a true, old school values Republican Party...

My, how the Republican Party of today has corrupted the party of not only President Lincoln but also that of Barry Goldwater, the epitome of conservative politics: big government, burgeoning deficits, instilling religion into our political system, governmental involvement in the personal lives of citizens (including but not exclusive to telling women what they can or cannot do with their very own bodies).

On more exciting news, I lazed in this morning and watched the last ever episode of Dawson's Crevice, which was immensely enjoyable, it must be said. I love slobbing when I know that I'm going to have to work all day today...

By the way, if you've not read this, you really, really, really should...

Febrile

That is the word to describe me this sunny but cold afternoon in NYC.

There could be several reasons - the extremely exciting and scintillating Chelsea-Arsenal match, which has just finished and, for the final fifteen minutes or so, was utterly brilliant.

It could be me getting worked up about looking over my notes on CEDAW... and seeing the "there is no heart to this treaty" comment which riled me so much at the time...

It could be me reading this utterly gorgeous article about civil partnerships in Britain, which brought more than one tear to my eye, it must be said.

However, it's none of these things but the incredible realisation that on 2nd January, 2007 will start off with a bang and make me incredibly, incredibly happy because THIS LIFE IS BACK!!!!! And it's going to be so, so, so, so good - bringing out the inner Anna in me (watch out, Mark - sorry honey, but it's NECESSARY) and reawakening my ENORMOUS crush on Jack Davenport. Yippeeeeeeeeee!