Okay television people, people who are really into reading a book do not hold it with both hands gripping over the top of the book. I know it looks really cute and earnest and all but it seriously slows down your page turning ability.

In other news, I have decided that my special talent is my ability to hold a book and turn the pages with one hand. It struck me today that it was a work of evolutionary genius on my part as I was brushing my teeth and I remembered how icky and wet my books used to get when I had to prop them behind the tap in the mornings. I also decided my specialist subject on Mastermind would be America's Next Top Model, I know a scary amount about it. I am not proud of this, but if it is what it takes for me to win Mastermind and get Magnus Whatshisname's respect I will take it.

I have the world's most giant coldsore. It is SO attractive people faint in the streets. It also may have made a small boy cry when his Mum told him to sit next to me on the bus. He called me a scary lady, oh how scarring.

I am frightened by how bad I am at accents when I pick them up so easily, I'm like a word sponge. People assume I am mocking them before they know me real well, but I'm not, it just happens, especially with the scouse accent. I spent about an hour in my friend Susanna's company this weekend and I came away sounding like John Lennon for a whole day. That's just not balanced.

So, I may have had an argument with my friend Ceri this Saturady. This same person I had a massive falling out with this time last year. Ceri is one of those people who I always love a lot, but sometimes I don't like very much. I think she feels the same way about me. Basically, we were at a party and she put my shoes out in the back garden. Several hours later I idly wondered where my shoes are gone and she's all 'oh, I put them out back' and I may have slightly over-reacted. Which, me being massively passive aggressive would have been fine as it involves me sulking about it but not saying anything. Sadly she may have overheard me complaining about it to mutual friend Fran later. Yikes. Not very classy, as my Mother pointed out. Not the least classy thing I've ever done, as I pointed out. My Mother decided she really didn't want to know what that was.

On Friday, I was at another party and we were talking about throwing up in awkward situations when drunk. I told the story of the time when my friend's very ocd Mum was giving us a ride home and we had told her we weren't drunk (we only had two drinks, honest! etc) and so when I felt the sudden need to vomit, instead of asking her to pull over I vomited into my lap, and then held said vomit in my skirt until I got out of the car. An experience which I think may list on the top ten least classy moments. Top twenty tops.

I am so happy to have today off, I have watched tv for six hours straight and feel a bit weird now though.
The

I have received further proof myself and David Mitchell should get married. The proof I already had mainly consisted of 1- he hates dating, I hate dating, so clearly we should go out with each other, we could both stay home and never see each other, it would be perfect. 2- he reminds me of a hamster.

Yesterday, he said on Mock The Week he wouldn't want to live through a natural disaster. Word. I mean his basis for this is he has no transferable skills as far as a decimated, technology free, post-nuclear society is concerned. As almost a doctor, I think I've got some transferable skills and I think it could be fun in that I once spent about a week considering what would I do if I was having an allergic reaction to peanuts, for example, but had no adrenaline or medical supplies to hand*. However, I would miss coffee and running water and television and I just don't think I'd enjoy it that much.

Having said that I did used to have daydreams where I was transported back to say Roman Britain. I was so involved in this fantasy adventure I used to carry around lots of hand mirrors in my handbag, I used to pull them out of the top of those coldsore patch boxes. This was because I thought good mirrors would be rare and valuable in the past and I could use them for trade.** The difference is in this imaginary time-travelling scenario, I would always eventually find my way home so one day I would again know the joys of coffee and what happened in Gossip Girl. In a post-nuclear society who knows how long it will take for them to reinvent America's Next Top Model.

So my husband David and I will not be building a bomb shelter in either of our homes in which we live, never seeing each other, and don't phone me after the end of the world because you'll probably go straight to answer phone (what? Telecommunication satellites are in space, they'll be alright, you'll just have to conserve your battery as you can never charge your phone again).

I'm also trying to sort my elective out at the moment, it is proving time consuming, this displeases me. On Thursday I am going to Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire to pretend I live in the 15th century.

* In the end I decided I would try to give myself a mild electrocution such as sticking the end of a phone charger on my tongue in an attempt to release my body's stores of adrenaline. Yeah, the solution to this problem is still being refined.

** This wasn't when I was 10 years old, this is when I was 21/22. I am more mature than that now.

So my exams have been over for nearly two weeks now and I am still having nightmares about them and I am still waking up suddenly in the early hours of the morning with my heart racing, thinking 'Fuck! You have to get up! You have to revise!' Luckily, I am now at least able to go back to sleep. The rest of the time I am developing obsessions that I really don't have time for when I'm at uni, like watching Gossip Girl and True Blood and letting my brain turn to mush. Good times.

Also, the other day I went to Edinburgh to see Amanda Fucking Palmer and The Indelicates (who are amazing) with Jess. Neil Gaiman was there, he read us a story. One thing I loved about the gig was Amanda Palmer's ability when it comes to showmanship, she's got such a great rapport with the audience and it just makes the whole experience something special and unique. In a very weird coincidence a friend of mine who didn't know I had just been to see her sent me a text yesterday saying Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman were in her bookstore in London and had given her a hug. I have informed her she is never allowed to wash again, that is standard behaviour, right?

So, now I'm back home and getting a little bored, and I still haven't seen the new Harry Potter film and for some reason my Mother will not go with me. Anyway, I'm going to go to Ireland for the weekend if I ever get my passport back, if not it will have to just be more episodes of America's Next Top Model, I can handle that.

Last night I managed to get locked in a graveyard. Shamefully this is not the first time this has happened to me. Though it is the first time for that particular cemetery. I am particularly annoyed though because I saw two of the groundskeepers and one of them looked right at me before they drove off. So I thought, 'oh, if they are going to lock the gates they will give me a shout. They won't want to lock me in'.

Clearly the bastards did.

It was not a total disaster, mind. The gates weren't too high so I hitched up my skirt and resigned myself to flashing my knickers to half of London Road as I climbed over. I am still quite annoyed though, because if I was shorter I'd have been in real trouble.

For lunch I had steak, grain mustard, coleslaw and tomato on ciabatta. It was amazing and made me incredibly happy for the five minutes before it was finished. Probably the best sandwich in the world.

I am getting a bit scared about my exams, which is good as it makes me work more efficiently. On the down side it turns me into a gibbering wreck. I guess you can't have everything.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that working hard on anything important usually turns your brain. I am no exception, revision makes me very odd, writing essays usually results in me leaving notes and cartoons on my flatmates doors at very odd hours. I have actually been very calm and not talked like a squirrel on helium once this revision period. This is an achievement.

I'm using an online question bank as part of my revision. When I started it was quite rare for me to get every part of a question right*, so whilst my correct responses stats were alright, my questions correct stats were dreadful. This did not bother me overly as my marks will also be on responses, not whole questions correct. It did mean it felt quite special when I did get a question all correct. Special in a way that involves 'I'm awesome' songs and dances, usually in my head, sometimes not. It is a good job I am no longer working in the library.

Most of the songs aren't songs I particularly love and are kind of annoying to get stuck in your head. I generally have the same song for a few days. Thus far we have had:

Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me,
I am the one and only,
My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard,
That's the way (I like it),
We will rock you,
Do ya think I'm sexy.

This last one always makes me think of the bartender sketch in the muppets.

The point of all this being, last night I got several questions completely right, in a row (yes, I am awesome, why thank you) and wandered downstairs to have some celebratory chocolate milk singing 'if you want my body... rather loudly, with booty shaking and everything. And ran into my flatmates Mother who I've met like twice. Later my flatmate told me, 'My Mother said you seem to be a very unique kind of person earlier, I said if by unique she meant strange than yes, yes you were'.

I feel I should command more respect than this, I am a whole year older than her.

I am going to have kfc for lunch, so life is not all bad.

*It is still rarer than I'd like, come on brain! Think sponge!

Oh dear lord, American spellings! I know the writer is American, but I was given what I thought were UK editions (they may not be) and they are set in Georgian England. As such I get highly distracted every time I read 'color' or 'savior'. I would love to pretend to be fair and say 'it's set in the UK use English spelling!' and leave it at that. However, if I am honest if I wrote something set in the USA I would still use English spellings no matter what because to me colour without a 'u' is akin to someone leaving the house without putting any trousers on, weird distracting and inappropriate.

Having said all this I do think the books need to be more carefully edited, on the whole the author avoids using patently American terms but every so often someone will walk a few 'blocks' which makes me want to tell the other passengers on the train 'London does not have blocks, it's not built that way, and anyway the term block only started being used in the 1810's!' and then I get kicked off public transport, again. The same goes for anachronisms, for instance 'smashing' is a lovely word and is clearly used because it sounds very English, problem is it isn't a word that was really used prior to the twentieth century so it seems a bit wrong.

Anyway, in the last 24 hours I have read The Viscount who Loved Me, Romancing Mr Bridgerton, To Sir Phillip, With Loved and When He Was Wicked. Which is probably also the order in which I liked them, possibly reflecting me getting a little bored of the same basic 'do we love each other, everyone else in the world (or at least the reader) knows that we do, how more chapters till we admit it?' angsting of the characters. They are basically like Georgette Heyer's with sex scenes...and also not as delightful. None of the girls have yet shot anyone, in both my favourite Georgette Heyers the heroines totally do because they are awesome and capable.

It's funny actually, because Georgette Heyer tried to write books which are strictly free of anachronisms and so whilst the women by warrant of being the heroines are usually not perfectly behaved they do behave very conventionally. Julia Quinn's heroines do not, they often do all the things their brothers do. But they are often very, very similar in personality (I'm not sure they are meant to be, but they do all feel the same). You would think I'd get sick of the conventional females and prefer Julia Quinn's ladies with agency. I don't. I love Georgette Heyer because sure they are ridiculous but they also feel real, and when someone does something shocking it actually shocking (and is also it's different shocking things, not just clandestine, pre-marital foreplay).

This isn't to say I didn't enjoy The Bridgertons, they are awesome, and very funny and being even a little bit of a Georgette Heyer is still enough to make something awesome, and who knows there are four more books, maybe the heroine will shoot someone in one of them.


PS I find it hilarious that I started readin Georgette Heyer because there are only six Jane Austen novels and there's only a certain number of times you can actually re-read them* and now I've started to read Julia Quinn because there are only a finite number of Georgette Heyers in existance.

Exam revision, you ask? Yes, that is around here somewhere.


*(especially as Mansfield Park is hilarious from a distance, but very boring to actually read)

I have just finished reading Overtures and Origins by Mary Borsellino. It was my present to myself for getting through my OSCEs without swearing once in the presence of a patient.

First, before I get into what I like and did not like about it, I have to state this book was good. Really good, I ripped my way through it and it kept my attention focused on what was happening then. Seriously I did not cheat and skip to look at the end once, I was just reading so fast that I was at the end on my own (and I’m glad I didn’t it would have spoilt things for me).

( Thoughts on Overtures and Origins )

In short, like punk does Anne Rice. I cannot wait for book two. Why not read it, it’s online http://thewolfhouse.net/ and it’s less than five dollars. Score.

Also the cover art makes my blood sing.

I finished Ethan of Athos like a week ago and would tell you about the ensuing conversations with the person who rec'd it, but it involves the capslock key and I quite frankly can't be bother with that manys e's at this time of night.

In the week since I have read (amongst other things) Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu. I wanted to love this like crazy, mainly because I thought the cover was beautiful (why yes, I am incredibly shallow), but in the end I only liked it. I liked it a lot but it just isn't the love of my life. And I was expecting to love it like crazy because it is a teenage girl going off to face danger for someone she loves and I am a sucker for that. The thing is, it was a little boring. It shouldn't have been because in some ways it was so imaginative. There are all these discriptions of the weird and wonderful animals which were weird even in a world that was already very odd, and the plant based world was fascinating and sounded beautiful. The author is clearly very imaginative and has some wonderful ideas, but there's ideas and ideas you know? And whilst she is excellent at world building ideas I'm afraid I wasn't really blown away with her plot ideas. It was all a bit simple, I think.

Part of the problem is the fact I like a real enemy not just a mindlessly evil/generally destructive antagonist.
Basically what I want is
the main character:'why are you doing this?'
evil antagonist: You killed my mother/I am your mother/have you met my mother? This what we do in our family/I don't know! Shut up! Your Mother!

something you know, I want motivations. Maybe I missed the point but you've got this world that I was so excited about because it was amazing and anything could happen and then not a lot really did.

Still you should read it though, if just for the beautiful plant building descriptions.

I was on plastic surgery this last week which was disgusting and not in the gory, awesome way I like, in the gory 'oh God, oh God, I can't look but I can't look away' toes curling kind of way.

But it was really good because the whole team were lovely and really, really wanted to teach me stuff and were doing good work which is heartening as it is not what I think when I think plastic surgery. And it is nice to think that even though the consultant spends a day a week re-modeling people's bodies when there is nothing wrong with them, another day he is repairing someone's burnt skin or cutting out their skin cancer or giving someone the ability to use their hands again. That's not what I thought of when someone said plastic surgery, but it will be now.

The downside of them wanting to teach me is I'm really bad at things like hand anatomy because I have never been particularly interested, so everytime I come to learn it I go 'yech' and just skim it. And the registrar (ie 2nd in command) could sort of tell when I went, 'it's the proximal joints instead of the distal joint' and he asked proximal what joints and I looked at him blankly.

'It's okay,' he told me, 'you don't want to do plastics, you want to do gynaecology'
'Yes!' I said, amazed he'd guessed right.
'Yeah, I could tell from your face,' he said, 'oh well, at least it's still surgery'

I was kind of delighted that I looked like someone who would do obs/gynae in the same way when you're always absolutely thrilled when people do the 'which actor/book/song etc makes me think of you' game and they happen to pick your favourite.

Until I got home and told Sarah, who laughed at me and said Ha! He told you had a face like a vagina! And you were pleased! Well when she puts it like that I'm slightly less thrilled.

She wants to be a urologist, in her own words 'not because I have a face like a penis, but because I have balls of STEEL' (said with her hands on her hips, legs apart looking off into the middle distance with a expression of unholy glory).