I'm miles high. I stellify.

So that pie I've been making for the second week in a row, yeah? People have been asking me for a recipe but I'm not someone to follow recipes or measurements. I guess I follow the Jamie Oliver school of cooking: buy fresh ingredients and get really, really ridiculously excited.

Anyway, for two small pies (I use small casserole dishes) you'll need the following. And, yeah, these are false pies because I haven't yet invested in the right dishes to make real ones (you know, pies you can take out of the mould and be really, really proud of awww yeahhhhh).

1 bunch of spring onions
leek (1 big one or 2 small ones, take your pick)
vegetable stock (around 500ml)
1x sweet potato
3x small potatoes
spinach (deep frozen, I use spinach & gorgonzola, actually)
cheddar (2 slices are enough imo)
salt, pepper, tarragon, garlic (paprika & chili - if you're so inclined)
double cream or crème légère (half a cup will do)
Guinness
1 pack of puff pastry
1 egg

0. take puff pastry out of the freezer (one layer of pastry definitely is enough, it all depends on the dish you're using - you shouldn't use dishes that are too big, though)
1. slice onions & leek thinly and let sear for a couple of minutes in frying pan
2. add veggie stock & 1tsp of tarragon (and believe me, you will want to - tarragon is amazing!)
3. add diced sweet potato & potatoes and a bit of spinach
4. add cheddar and wait for it to melt. by now the gravy should already begin to thicken as the stock simmers away (yeah that's right, all of this should definitely simmer).
5. add cream, stir & season to taste
6. let everything simmer until gravy becomes creamy and thick
7. add a good measure of Guinness. Drink the rest. Rejoice.
8. put everything in the dishes and cover with puff pastry.
9. beat egg (add salt!) and brush pastry (prick it with a knife or fork before you put it in the oven - you can also score the pastry. I usually make diagonal lines)
10. put in oven for half an hour at 200°C (don't take my word for it - check regularly!)
11. enjoy the hell out of your tasty veggie pie!



Yeah, alright, it's not very pretty but it's delicous!

Guys. Guys, guess what you guys! I just booked a flight. To London. Not exactly on my birthday because Whitsun might prove a bit of a problem and also money but I'll be going from Wednesday till Saturday and akdhgjhgasdgashdaghd!



Now for the cheapest hostel I can possibly find ...

EDIT: Oh. Crap. Maybe I should have kept it mind that it could be a slight problem to be arriving in London after midnight. Anyone here familiar with hostel/hotel/B&B policy or should I just suck it up and not sleep at all/at the airport?

The facts are as follows:
1 I'll be alone on my birthday.
2 I could get a flight to London for under a hundred quid.
3 I happen to know this brilliant hostel in Southwark.
4 I've never been to Britain when it wasn't freezing.
5 I still need to see Bath (day trip tiemz huzzay!). And the Maritime Museum. And maybe the National Portrait Gallery again because I haven't had much time to see it last October.
EDIT:
6 HOLY SHIT I COULD GO SEE PETER AND ALICE FOR THE HORRIBLY OVERPRICED SUM OF ONE DAY TICKET!

So what's keeping you?
1 I'll still be alone on my birthday. And far out of my comfort zone because this could be a huge disaster. I don't mind being alone all day but what the hell do I do during the evenings and nights? Hire an escort? Sit by myself and bathe in my rising levels of anxiety? Go to bed at 8?

I have until Monday to decide.

My cosplay for next week's Leipzig Book Fair is coming together nicely. Erm. I mean. Trust me, I'm the Doctor.*

______

* Haha, the thing about this is that I'm watching my way through all of season 5 and 6 so I can pick up some mannerisms and expressions. It always happens subconsciously, with everyone really. I pick up accents, intonation, mannerisms, everything. Too bad I'm currently emulating Ben Whishaw 'cause I'm watching so much of his stuff. It's embarrassing. Not because of Ben but because I can't control it at all.

1 So I bought this used volume of Keats' complete poems (and some of his letters but not all of them, aw) and because I'm an unapologetic book sniffer I did just that and ... this is the most lovely-smelling book I ever owned. Someone took this book from 1988 and perfumed it. This was before I accidentally fell asleep on it (a book of poems as a pillow, how very fitting) and dreamed I was Keats (minus the horrible illness, thank God). It explains things.

2 I'm thinking of painting my walls a light, warm green. I goes lovely with dark wood, whites, greys and reds.

3 I've never shown you a picture of this lovely piece of music I've acquired, have I?



I've been told that only a limited number of these have been made. No wonder I've never before heard of this Robert Frobisher.

4 And while we're already at it ...



It took me so long to hunt this down (a genuine version, anyway) for a reasonable price. You know what? I think I'll continue this art of filling the house with covertly geeky stuff that is only recognisable by like-minded people. To everyone else, I'm a hipster. Works for me.

5 Talking about hunting down things: I've been trying forever to get my hands on P.O.W. and The Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, both with James D'Arcy. Too bad the untimely demise of the uploader that shall not be named has left me with lots of dead links and out-of-print dvd sets that now cost an unreasonable fortune. The hunt shall continue.

6 For better or for worse I'll be cosplaying the Eleventh Doctor at LBM. I've even a wig and contacts (which as of yet haven't arrived), and I'm ever so slightly apprehensive because I don't know if I can successfully pull it off.

7 I'm reading The Perfume at the moment. I never did at school and because I'm a pretentious tool I bought the English translation. I like the book, I really do. There's just one thing that irks me: Süskind's description of Grenouille. I get that he's a remorseless murderer and portraying textbook sociopathic tendencies but to me there's a distinct discrepancy between the things Grenouille actually does and the way Süskind describes him. He's going on about how he's evil and an abominable tick and, apart from the fact that describing someone as 'evil' is rather silly (unless they're a Bond villain, I suppose), comparing someone to a tick is just plain offensive. Now, I don't know if Süskind did it on purpose. After all, Grenouille is met with contempt and dismissal his whole life - so why shouldn't the narrator chime in? Still, it rubs me the wrong way because there's this imbalance of show vs. tell (but I do suppose that's deliberate). Sure, G. is a right little arsehole but he's also been abused, neglected, exploited, he's not been socialised in the least, he displays autistic tendencies and is, apparently a savant of fabled proportions. It's like nature and nurture banded together to put him down all his life. I'm not exactly sympathising here but it pulls me out of the narrative. I really need to get my hands on secondary literature.

8 Thinking about another quick trip to London later this year. There's this restaurant I want to try out. Wow, I really am a hipster.

9 New layout, w00t!

... and a Happy New Year, in case you're Down Under. ^^

I'm just going to leave this here because it's amazing and Gotye and includes a NY countdown.



Luv ya, my flist. ♥

I shamelessly stole this from tumblr but shhhh!



A not quite so unexpected but nevertheless Merry Christmas to everyone yaaaaay! May dwarves never raid your pantry (except if you want them to and, let's face it, who wouldn't want to party hard with Durin's heirs?) and may the hair on your feet never fall out. Second breakfast for everyone wheee!

PS: Thank you, finglas, for your lovely Christmas card. ♥

"What is it about you?"
"... my eyes. That's what people have always said. I've never had compliments about anything except my eyes. I mean, I don't think I'm very good-looking but ... my eyes."

Heh.

Because for some reason I also really identify with John and his absolute inability to find himself or make decisions.

From a very brilliant BBC radio play starring Andrew Scott and Ben Whishaw.

Judge me all you want but I absolutely love this little number:



Incidentally (lol like I would have stumbled across this song otherwise) Gotye sampled pieces of it for Somebody That I Used To Know, stating that the duality of the chords inspired the duality of the song. Which is awesome.

And what's even more awesome is that Wally and his ingenious band played this live. I would have literally fainted from the sheer brilliance of it all. Make sure to watch until the transition to Somebody. It's amazing. God, I love this man's talent and creativity. I mean, if you watch him perform he just basically becomes music.

All right, now that that's out of the way I'm going back to listening to Little Red.

1 After an incredible couple of days my life suddenly feels empty and boring. This too shall pass, I know, but for the moment at least I feel like I'm caught between two states of mind. It's like a tiny piece of the puzzle that is me has shifted and changed and now I need some time to sort things out.

2 I like where I am going.

3 Sometimes it really hits me and I realise how fortunate I am to be surrounded by all these incredible people. Incredible people who I'm grateful to consider friends. Incredible people I'm so often amazed consider me a friend in return. I don't know where or who I'd be without these people. My life would be so much emptier without them. Thank you for sharing laughter and creativity and thoughts and, yeah, heartache, as well. You know who you are. ♥

4 It's gig loot time!



Look at this awesome shirt. It's not the same as in the online shop but it's got a back print and it's super comfy. I originally wanted to buy a second shirt but Jonti 's flawnessness got in the way and I had to buy his album. And the scarf, let me tell you about this scarf. There's been many a half-arsed joke about secretly buying the Gotye scarf. Either they're selling another version in the online shop (it looks to have different colours and is made from different, much coarser material?) or they're really bad at marketing. Anyway, the whole thing went something like this:

Me: So what else have you got?
Merch guy: We've got these scarves. They're super soft. Go ahead, have a feel!
Me: *feels a bit silly because it's that Gotye scarf but feels it anyway* Oh my God, you're right. I'm sold.

So now I've got a Gotye scarf. And let me tell you, it's super comfy and the colours are so nice and it actually goes with everything I'm wearing so now I've got a new favourite thing. No more joking about the scarf.

Then there's a new Poets of the Fall keychain, a broken drumstick (my first! I shall treasure it always ... and now I really want a set of drumsticks because of REASONS) and a ticket signed by Captain. And all that when I was actually going for a picture with Jani, the bassist, who played the most amazing of basslines but I never got to tell him and that was a bit disappointing. Oh well, with PotF there's always a next time.

With Wally there maybe isn't. I met up with some tumblr people afterwards and they all had backstage passes and they almost managed to get me one, as well, but there were none left and so I went home trying to be a brave little soldier about it. Truth be told, it really is all right. With me it's really mostly about the music and the Gotye gig on Monday was amazing. I had so much fun. I can hardly describe it. Seeing someone you admire so much as an artist play for the first time always feels a bit like a revelation to me. Seeing and hearing and feeling all my favourites being played live (The Only Way, Thanks For Your Time, Dig Your Own Hole, Save Me, NIGHT DRIVE omg!, Bronte, State of the Art, What Do You Want?, Seven Minutes With A Backseat Driver, Learnalil... ) was an incredible experience. I danced my heart out. No one around me was moving at all but I couldn't keep still. I think the guys even saw because I was in second row and I was having so much fun and I'm sure I'm pretty much making this up but I've got eye contact FEELS here, okay?

Thanks to redbossfan I even dared to take my bridge cam along (I showed it to the guys checking the bags and stuff and they said it's perfectly fine to take amateur cameras along, that was such a relief!) and I somehow managed to take so many pictures. Surprisingly good pictures I'm currently sorting through. Here's a bit of a preview:



( Thanks for your time! )

There was a bit of a downside, though, when during the opener two incredibly drunk and rude idiots decided to ruin everyone else's fun by behaving like the complete and utter arseholes they were. It was annoying, embarrassing an I've never ever seen something like that go down at a gig before. It's a good thing everyone around them (yeah, they were right behind me ugh) remained so calm and collected or there would have been a brawl. I'm not even kidding. One of those wankers threatened my friend. And I felt so sorry for Jonti whose show was amazing (and whose set was accompanied by drunken screaming. I sure hope he doesn't know what 'arschloch' means). And I'd looked forward so much to seeing him play live (they say his live performances are incredible and they're definitely right about that one) but I missed a good chunk of it. Luckily after another almost-brawl (where was security during all of this ugh) the drunks left and there weren't any interruptions during the main act.

I've also never seen such a mixed (as in: demographics) audience before haha. Seemed to me that a lot of people were there for 'Somebody' and didn't really know any of Wally's songs beyond Making Mirrors (the hall wasn't exactly packed, either, but that was cool). I don't have a problem with that at all. As far as I know no one left after Somebody (and he played that one relatively late into the night) and there was a good amount of Boardface and Like Drawing Blood stuff. Those were easily the best songs of the show, though, but I might be biased. :D

Anyway, as soon as the opportunity presents itself I'm going to see another of his gigs. During the past six months Gotye has become just as important as PotF to me (with only The Basics outranking them both by now). And how incredible was that gig on Sunday (and the Prowlers meetup afterwards)? The venue was packed! It's so amazing to see a band go from playing mini clubs to selling out their own solo tours in Germany? I'm so proud, haha! I mean, I randomly mentioned the band to an acquaintance (a women in her 40s) on Tuesday and even she had heard from them via the radio. Apparently having a German management really does help, even if some of the things they do seem a bit questionable. That being said, they played the bossa nova version of Sorry Go 'Round again. This is the only acceptable version to me now. Plus, a wonderful version of Late Goodye with a busy bassline. I like. There was also some amazing improv going on during the encore and that, to me, easily was the most exciting moment of the whole set. I love it when bands just let loose. And I love it when bassists are allowed to come out to play. :D

5 Ahem. Is anyone still reading this? No? Yeah? On with the show. This waited for me when I got home on Tuesday:



Look at these trading cards! I was laughing so hard. They come with stats on the back (like, weight and height and DOB woah lol). Best. Thing. Ever. I might have to scan these and share. "Give me the keys! ... PLEASE!" Haha!

It's just. I ... I ordered two albums and only received one. So what to do? Wait in case they split the order (the envelope easily would have held another cd) or write a mail (to whom, though)? Hm.

Until then, have I already shown you this beautiful EP cover?



Ugh. Stop it with your everything. Seriously though, if I'd missed out on meeting this flawless human being because they were short one backstage pass I would have ... I don't even know ... died of dehydration from all the gross sobbing. Which would have been very awkward and degrading so it's all for the best, I guess.

6 Remember when I bought 4000 individual chainmal rings? IT IS DONE. Well, it has been done for about three weeks now and it's heavy as fuck (dear game developers, pls create clothing that is actually POSSIBLE to recreate in real-life. love, a disgruntled cosplayer) so I couldn't wear it to animaco but it's finished. I did this. With my own two hands. 4000 rings. ( BOOMSHAKALAKA! )