Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

Weird dream: We all had to stop everything and sit in the darkness for twenty minutes while they closed the flood barrier.

Clearly wasn't a very long dream. Just the type of dream must-be-published-by-thirty* novels are made of.

* My brother and his friends had a competition to see who would be the first to get their novel published. I scoffed at his inability to write a book. Whereas I merely forget how old I am or am nearly and that exempts me. Anyway, I've tried writing stories. I have a habit of neglecting to include any likeable characters. Or making it like that awful blazing tsunami of doom book which wipes out London (yes, I know that's pretty much par for the course in the first 45 seconds of the disaster any disaster film is built around [God, villians, sacrificial English-speakers], but this book made the waltzing tornadoes of Day After Tomorrow look sane). Just because one's found out what could happen and how it could happen does not mean it all will happen especially not at the same time.

But it might. Right about the point the quick brown pig jumps over the lazy shark while building up the speed to take off.

There was some other dream as well, but it wasn't of Twitterable length so I can't remember it.

Speaking of which, just noticed Desert Island Discs trending. How not very 2.0 is that?

Speaking of music [albeit blatantly nicked from Stephen Fry's Twitter]:

[/easily amused]

Anyhoo,

Have you walked into a church on a winter's day?

Not just me, is it?

Although having listened again much later it may well be.

Anyway, something else. How should one respond to the following sic text?
I find pleasure in your company for the following reasons.. Your articulate ,humourous sensitive ,strong minded and why would I not want to buy you a meal . Oh and on a more personal note ... Well you'll just have to wait till our next meeting... If there is to be one ?

The hills are alive with the sound of people running to them? Apart from anything else: Your articulate... What? Cousin? Eyebrows? Lorry?

And there other things that never got worked out beyond the précis:
- Stomach making noises like Skype.
- Bus. Oyster out. Dripping ceiling. The Waters of Mars. The joys of the 29 and living up to the stereotype and therefore having watched it live and on iPlayer. Water always wins. Though you'd think something called Oyster would be able to cope with it.
- The joys of subliminal Facebook messages:
-- X Y and K Y are now friends.
-- X Y is all signed up for her first course in counselling!

Anyhoo,

Musical swears: when the music stops the last one to say the most popular swear word loses.

This thought brought to you by letters M and, er, M. Because HWSNBN was aghast that Lily Allen runs to perky swearing, his friends give warnings if a song has a single swear word in one line, and the other M, who is really a Mr M and not an M at all, warned me that lambs swear a lot.

So, through a mix of cajoling and that which kills cats (best described as mostly oh-what-the-hell and a dash of WTF?) on Saturday I found myself in a dungeon. beer cellar. black box theatre, although that's not true as it's got a proscenium arch, actually two of them, except one is also exit stage left. Anyway, a vaulted undercroft type thing.

And in this VUTT we were promised very emphatic silence. By the way, don't sit in the end seat of the front row of the emptier second bay of seating because, while it's got most leg room of anywhere (it would have seemed rude to have them sticking too far on to the stage) it also happens to be one of two exits from the stage. Not only does one have to sit side-saddle whenever the scenes change but that position also benefits from assorted pats and strokes and occasionally outright flirting (complete with a theatrical wink; well, it was in a theatre). I haven't had that much unsolicited contact since I was six (if we ignore the bits where contact came wrapped in Clark's best). And I've still no idea what the thanks were for.

Anyway, I went to see Mooglee in Silence!, the of-the-lambs musical. And now I don't need to watch Silence of the Lambs because I know what happens. Although possibly it might have helped to have seen it before. But I can't know that either way. And wasn't the only person picking it up as it went (the laugh was too).

So in the normal manner of my reviews it was MBTIWWIMB. And Mooglee is much less fearsomely intimidating than I was expecting him to be. Though that's possibly because I equate horrifically talented as meaning it'll have gone to his head. Which I expected to be about 150% of life-size and made of weathered bronze (he does look like he ought to be in some Olympian prequel--Zeus: the Halcyon Days).

Basically the one bit I think they could have improved one probably ought not do (it involves a triangle and an royal attribute of an actor).

Anyway, so now I know Mooglee has many strings to his bow (well, there's a red one, an orange one, a yellow...).

So yeah, nice guy I don't really know.

In other news orders for Christmas cards, um, actually exist. Which is weird. But cool. Somehow managing to have the usual doubts along the lines of "are they only saying 'yes' because I asked them" or "are they only saying yes because a mutual contact mentioned it and they liked the options and no, this is nothing like that much--ok, so 'vaunted' doesn't mean what I've always assumed it to mean--praised word-of-mouth".

Anyway, for the London cohort (i.e. those who won't need things posted*), order this weekend for collection from the 21st. A6, blank inside, 5 for 10GBP or 1.50GBP each for ten or more. What others have already chosen. To order, until I work out how to make a website work, email me the links followed by the number desired of each image, so something like (or leave it in the comments, provided I can trace you):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/anyhoo/379211708/ 6
http://www.flickr.com/photos/anyhoo/2478231673/ 5
http://www.flickr.com/photos/anyhoo/4006688268/ 1

* I can post them on, but given the current state of the system it's probably better by other means, and then there's the ambiguity and irrationality of postage costs (meaning I can't even get a consistent price for a postcard to America let alone anything thicker or heavier. I could just Amazonise it and just say P+P = 5 quid, but that doesn't feel fair).

Oh, and it doesn't just have to be Christmas cards. Basically anything on my branch of Flickr can be made into a card. But clearly Christmas is dominating at the moment.

And in other news I've just noticed the counter at the bottom of my Flickr page shows I've 15,000 images on there. The -th is at the top. But it's only an edit of a previously posted shot because I didn't realise I was near the threshold. Although at least it saves me trying to pick one. Yet it isn't fifteen-thousandth in the stream because it's next to the one it amends. Probably best to just ignore the milestone then, because all it's really celebrating is my indecisiveness, which is more of a millstone.

While on numbers, Mr A-bit-over-a-third [5500] links something I found via Spotify and much like that song from the era of the original, it made me go "ooh".

[Um, can we just pretend I didn't try to check the dates and so find I get lyrics wrong? I think I'll be running away now]

Anyhoo,