Nightmare on Great Eastern Street.

If anyone says to me "gosh you are so clever" one more time, while not actually listening to what I'm saying I will kill them.

I'm not clever.

I have nightmares about people with long black witchy fingers reaching into my head and pulling bits of my brain out. Then they let the bits of brain slip and slide through their fingers and then suck their fingers clean.

I know....I do need to get out more.

I got stood up!

Oh dear - was supposed to have supper with my cousin tonight but she had work issues and couldn't make it..so I ate all alone in Shish on Old Street, poor me!!! *g* Nice enough food I think but not spectacular, and nothing on the Hoxton Grille last night - grilled rainbow trout with asparagus, now that was spectacular.

I've been such a good lawyer today - did my voice overs this morning, walked to the studio (Old Street, Clerkenwell Road, Holborn, Chancery Lane) took 45 minutes and I was quite impressed with myself. I suspect the rest of the world thought I was even more barking than usual as I bounced along with The Monkees Greatest Hits on my ipod!
Walked home, worked on a 5000 word paper that's got to be in tomorrow - tonight may be a late on luckily in a hotel room with very nice coffee! Then went for a swim. Good grief there is so much time in a day when you don't have a husband and child - I'm pretty sure I'm glad it's only temporoary!

To Do List

Things to do to this blog when I get home;

- add link to Banksy's site if only for the graffiti on the Israel "security" wall , the man is a genius!

- post the answer to the clients "if you were me would you run this case?" question and give a fuller explanation than "no"


- think of something really interesting to tell you!

WHAT?

Apparently The Champs blog has been removed by the powers that be at blogger.

How fucking ridiculous is that !! And what was supposed to be offensive anyway - no porn, no look how I beat my wife this week pics, no drug habit details....ok I never told him about my French grandmother but you know xenophobia is not a hanging offence last time I looked. It was fair - I didn't admit to him/her (the jury is still out) that I hate Americans either!

Where is the fair determination by an independent tribunal??? Oh yeah that's in the EUROPEAN Convention on Human Rights - probably doesn't apply to yanks. And probably wouldn't apply to us either if the likes of Dick Cheyney had their way.

Work stuff

Back to London tomorrow afternoon until either Thursday or Friday depending upon whether or not one particular client has got thier brain in gear and found their bits of paper.

Ego trip

I love it when the AB has mates round. 10 year olds are ridiculously easy to impress;

"You know how to make pizza?.......*awed intake of breath*..that's so COOL"

Life's Too Short

I learned this morning that my cousin (same age as me, kids the same age as mine) has breast cancer, already had emergency mastectomy and starting her chemo today.

So it's definatley time for the Life's Too Short, post here are my top 5 and I'd be really interested to hear your top 5 if you'd like to comment.

Life's too short to....

1. Say "I wish I could do that" - whether you are gazing through the door of the tap dancing studio or looking wistfully at an electric guitar, stop wishing and take a class!

2. Live somewhere horrible - buy paint, plant sunflowers, buy Pledge and a duster, really it's not that hard.

3.Be too embarassed to say "I love you" and mean it - I've embarassed the crap out of myself loads of times and I'm still here!

4. Not look after your friends - I have a couple that I need to phone this morning, bet you do too.

5. Stay in the same place - travel as far as the budget will allow! I must admit to a certain racist reluctance to go to the USA along the lines of "why should those bastards have my fingerprints I'm not a fucking criminal!" but I shall get over it, buy a ticket and explore. Although I'm still going to Morocco, Istanbul and Cambodia first!!! Oh and Germany- why have I never been to Germany??

You've seen me at my worst.......

It's 6.30am on the Thursday of my so called "week off" and I'm finishing writing the script for the DVD that we shot last week. It has to be done today so that the producer can mark up the tapes over the weekend ready for edits and voice overs on Monday. It was an interesting shoot last week, two new "presenter" skills got nailed, the "walk and talk" and using the autocue.

But now, having trailled to and from Suffolk and worked like a bastard all month, I'm knackered and have a sty in each of my eyelids (that's right all 4).... I look like a pug.

But this is the bit that matters isn't it, what you can achieve on your worst day, how nice you can be to the person you fucking hate....that's the mark of a person, that's who you are.

The Far East...

It may well be that in the spring tribe Lippy is moving base camp from the Wild West Midlands to the Far East....ok well Bury St Edmunds. So it being half term the TB and I have been over to investigate and find out what visa's we need and whether the natives are friendly.

And it's very nice, we could afford a house we like I think, I would have the possibility of striking out on my own as Lippy Inc, in a couple of possible incarnations and TB is quite excited about the new challenge.

But we both have the monster guilts about moving the baby's school. She is at such a lovely school now and stupid idiot here thought I could move her to a sister school over there on virtually an internal transfer. But not only is it far too far away, but they have no after school provision...what????? So only people with nanny's or stay at home mum's are allowed to send their daughter's there obviously....

I will find a happy solution for all of us, but for now frankly, I'm a bit gutted.

As close as I'll ever come to lit crit;

You'd want to take me to a desert island, I can clean and gut fish, pluck and clean birds and then I can cook them so they taste really nice. I know how to shear a sheep and milk a cow, and I've even butchered a sheep so you wouldn't starve. And although any shelter would be a bit jerry built, the vegetable garden would be good and everywhere would be tidy....in short I'm a fan of self reliance. If you can cook you can cook what you like, my gran who was a tailoress could make herself a suit that she had seen in a picture in Vogue overnight. Skill = independence. Which is, when you think of it, why the Prince of Wales cuts such a pathetic figure, the skill less man, requiring a servant to clean his boots and squeeze his toothpaste.

So I should agree with the thesis in the book, "How to be Free" which puts forward the same proposition at length. But I can't, I seethe with irritation as I read. Well for a start anyone who proposes Keith Allen as any sort of a role model has to be a few prawns short of a barbie. And the proposal of disengagement from the world, of ignoring it I just can't swallow. If you fail to engage with the world someone else will do it for you - and are they making a better job?

I agree that small scale endeavour can work brilliantly. I shared a taxi from Euston to the City with a lady who had given up research on tropical diseases in order to promote African music. African people needed to stop looking useless and in need of help to westerners she said, and one way to do it was to show the world their art and music. Fantastic I thought - that's small endeavour, but that's not disengaging from the world, that's taking the world on on your own terms. Very different, very different indeed.

Rabbit..

I am working away from home far too much ! And when I'm not it seems the TB is. So peeps it's time for a rabbit, but which? I've narrowed it down to either , the Thriller, the Thruster or the Platinum.

Any views?

I LOVE the Hoxton

Oh yes I do ...mwah...real milk in the fridge, a whole half pint and no charge, and two bottles of mineral water, no extra charge, and clean Egyptian Frette cotton sheets every day and free wi-fi...I shouldn't be telling you this you will all book and I want be able to get a room.

And added bonus, it's not scary walking home from the tube late as you just follow all the pissed up clubbers heading for Hoxton Square ...they still wear bondage trousers you know and they still look terrible. I used to have a pair of those , pink leopard print ones, well it was 1977. I thought they were well cool as they matched the pink streaks in my hair - oh dear, the photographic evidence I am grateful to say has largely been destroyed!


Anyway - Wicked the musical is wonderful. The thunderous sound of hundreds of gay boys shouting their approval to the spiffy new show tunes can be heard all over Victoria. And in an added "fag hags together" bonus, I tripped over Geri Halliwell on the way to the ladies...she is teeny teeny tiny, like a big doll. Home tomorrow yay - tribal belly dance workshop awaits.

Robin Hood

The new Robin Hood has been cast with the same degree of sexist cynicism as was deployed in forming Take That, viz;

Generational lust objects set up as follows;
Robin for the teenagers
Will Scarlet for the tweenies
Guy of Gisborne for the mums
and The Sherrif for Granny

Oh and Marion for Dad and Grandad who are a much easier audience to please.

Why Take That - because they put Mark in for the gays and Jason Orange for the thirty somethings, got that wrong didn't they!!

The last post was pants but I was very tired.

Why did I hate the Holiday Inn?

1. Reception Staff with REALLY bad English; it's late and I'm tired and I really don't want to have to cope with people who have to write down the room number before I have the first clue where it is.

2. Tatty Bathrrom; either clean the taps or buy new ones, I don't care which, but at £135 a night they really shouldn't be in that state.

3. Inclusive breakfast rip - off ; I can't eat breakfast when I'm working, in fact I can't eat when I'm working full stop. And I do really resent paying to not eat.

4. Piles of exchange students from somewhere or other - yes I'm a snob, sorry.

5. No cabs!! - well eventually cabs but I have piles of books and papers to carry and the tube isn't an option.


So Lippys guide to the alternatives (all east end or city so you can get a cab home after the pub - the cabbies are all heading home to the east end so they don't mind giving you a lift!)

The Novotel Tower Bridge - does the same job as the Holiday Inn but much better and with a nice understandable French accent.

The Grange Holborn - for when someone else is paying, the BEST swimming pool in town and huge huge rooms.

The Ibis Commercial Street - nice clean minimalist plastic pod. And really convenient for the S&M cafe in Spitalfields. (that's sausage and mash actually!)

Dispatches from the Hectic Front!

Home for a night - yay!

So far on the London trip - 260 people at my lecture today , well lectures actually I gave 2 one hour papers. But bloody hell that's a lot of people!!

The Holiday Inn Kings' Cross is yuk - not my choice btw. Staying at the Hoxton the rest of the week where I hope for MUCH metter things.

And my dear dear friend the senior lawyer who wrote a novel on her day off has pitched said novel to Universal studios - but you will be relieved to know she's a lousy cook.

Off for a bath and a kip in my own bed!

Bright Lights Big City

I'm still in love with London - other people hate it I know , but I've never lived there for long enough to be bored or be bothered with the irritations it inevitably throws up in every day life. I love that there is always somewhere new to explore, new places to discover and the fact that my friends all want to see me so I always feel insanely popular while I'm there.

So I'm off this afternoon - lecturing at a conference tomorrow , dinner with friends tonight, back here to work Tuesday, back down Wednesday for a meeting dinner with cousins Wednesday night, Filming Thursday and Friday - drink with unrequited lust object Thursday night and then off to see Wicked on Friday. Loved Wicked the book - fascinated to see how it turns into a musical!

Also I'm staying at the Hoxton - I will be the oldest, fattest, least trendy person there but I don't care!

Sort your life out!

The trouble with months like these when work is so difficult and time consuming is that you miss stuff. Two deadlines have been missed where either letters have gone missing or people didn't respond to me and I didn't chase them. Not the end of the world, but it doesn't look good..especially when people are spending the sort of money they spend on me.

Still now the help has arrived things should be getting better.

And I have a weeks holiday soon - not going anywhere but might manage some fresh air and exercise, both of which are sorely needed. I've become hypnotised by my computer and there are books to be read out there you know!

What's to tell?

Very little....

Filming again next week, for the training DVD people. Which means uptight interviewees to be soothed, prima donna producers to placate and the sound man fircling about with his hands down my jumper!

Rrrarrrr.........

Chinese Horoscopes

I'm ridiculously pleased to find that I was born in the year of the Tiger (1962 to save Frobisher looking it up). However on checking on compatability with other signs neither the rat nor the snake that I currently knock about with are the reccomended companions for a tiger.

No, in fact the Chinese horoscope confirms what I've always thought, what I actually need is a horse!! And I'm thinking that the four legged variety probably scores extra points over any human incarnation.

Links

I know that my links section in this blog is woeful, and doesn't begin to contain all the blogs I read. So it's up for an update - joining the gay corner will be glitter for brains (natch - we love lee) and Gertie's Blog - because he is so naughty and wonderful.

The ladies who rule - will of course have the phlegmfatale added and Alice's wonderland (although I do worry about her with you lot - be nice she's only a baby!)

The World Champ will get a link - even though nobody voted for me in his femme fatale poll, it was noted, do not think you are forgiven even slightly!

So who have I forgotten or missed, who should I be reading that I'm not???

You can't make me go!

As soon as I qualified and was allowed to determine the cases I wanted to take I stopped doing family law. For two reasons; I had no sympathy at all with the parents and I wanted to take all of the children home with me.

Occasionally disputes between unmarried couples fall out of the domain of the family court and into commercial litigation - where there is property, businesses and so on. And strangley enough I feel just the same about it. He or she may be a complete bastard/bitch but sorry and all that, it's not my fault and I didn't force you to live with him/her. Why do you care who gets the washing machine ? They are £250 at Scottish Power, I'm £158 per hour and you have been arguing about this for a week - do the maths!!!!

Such a case goes to trial today. If I get through today without stabbing myself in the throat with an HB pencil it will only be because none of my pencils are sharp enough to have any effect.Or because self mutilation to avoid unpleasantness is childish.

Ancient History

I'm sure that I've mentioned this before but my first proper job after leaving college was teaching in a boys boarding school in Western Australia. It was interesting, 60 miles to the pub,but only 50 yards to the best beach I have ever seen.

The kids entertained themselves by shooting kangaroos and growing dope. The fall out from the badly tanned kangaroo skins that they insisted on having on their beds as trophies was actually worse than the dope problem....the whole town was smoking the dope but the flies found the roo skins and the smell was something else.

I was given a horse, which was fun - horses are cheap in those kinds of places, keeping horses is not so cheap, so the day after by visa expired my horse was shot.

I cried all the way home and vowed to go straight back and 22 years later I still haven't managed it!

Fat and Forty v Ms size 00

After years of dieting I'm starting to feel quite reactionary about the whole thing.

So I'm fat and forty you got a problem with that?

True I wouldn't want to be any fatter - size 16 (US 12) is plenty round enough, but I no longer have any unfulfilled desire to be skinny.

Apparently I'm still sexy enough to be getting plenty.
And the brain is working well enough to be earning plenty.
And the clothes from my favourite shop fit and look good.

So I'll do the exercise I enjoy because I like being fit and leave it at that....and keep doing the splits for as long as I'm able!

The truth the whole truth ..

Occasionally and just for fun you get a witness on the stand who couldn't, to use a cliche, lie straight in bed.

They are stupidly, very definatley certain about facts that don't matter and which are absolutley clearly provable lies.

For example - "So you gave up work after 30 years did you?"
"Yes"

"And you have said that in both of your statements?"
"Yes I loved that job and I worked there 30 years."

"Well that's just not true is it?"
"Yes it is , I worked there 30 years."

"No it isn't Mr X because you didn't start work when you were 3!"

Any offers?

I've always risen up with proper feminist fury to the phrase "she needs a good seeing to", but bloody hell, since my secretary split up with her boyfriend and is hence no longer getting the regular supply she has become impossible. Moody, mardy, bitchy and clearly in dire need of shagging all ways round into next Tuesday.

So my options are clear - I can either find her a willing bloke with a stiff willy or I can just cut through the crap and stab her to death with the nearest pair of scissors.

If I find any more little love notes on my filing tray saying "single sheets of paper only please no files" then the scissors may just slide into my hand and from thence into her jugular of their own accord.

So gents if any of you feel you could oblige her (39, blonde, looks like Jackie out of Dr Who) then I will pass it on and hopefully save myself from murder, life imprisionment and fighting off bull dykes in the shower block.

Lippy Lives

Worked all weekend and then until ten last night and the pile is still not getting any smaller...relentless doesn't begin to cover it....argghh.

One day I will have the time and inspiration to write a post that is vaugley informative and perhaps even, *Shock! Horror!* entertaining. But today is not that day.

So this is basically just to confrim that I'm not dead.

Don't tell the kids at school your mother bakes her own bread

they will think we're hippies" - advice from TB to the child.

I work in a profession that reveres and is at the same time terrified of time. We measeure what we do in units of "chargable time", I account for the way I spend my day on a time sheet in units of six minutes. I know what I am doing at work every minute of the day and so does everyone else in the office. At the end of a job I review the time spent and wonder "can I really charge for that 24 minutes of research? should I have known the point? will the file stand it?" If the client is unhappy with the bill he can ask the court to "Tax" it so the judge reviews the time spent; "It took far too long to settle those witness statements an hour and a half would have been more than adequate!"

So I don't find it strange that in my "spare time" I like to do things that require disproportionatley large amounts of time for the result - yoga, knitting, baking, reading, all activities for the time rich , which I'm not, and therefore all luxuries to me.

And anyway - I don't care if everyone thinks I'm an old hippy!