Small hands, big stuff

My sister wants to start a blog called, "Small hands, big stuff". I think this is how it would look. She has freakishly small hands.

EDIT: These are all her hands. Just to be clear. 

WANT

Weekend

Things that have amused me this weekend:

1: The above photo as I have painfully realised this is what I want to look like. I've decided lipstick is my new thing as my glasses cover any crazy eyeshadow I wear anyway. And I ordered new glasses yesterday which are alarmingly similar to them. The orange hair is a pipe dream. No one wants legal advice from an oompa loompa (change green skin for whiter than the icecaps skin. Or alabaster as I believe people say when they're being polite.

2: My sister and our conversation

Her: I wonder what people think when they see us together

Me: Why?

Her: Well you're quirkily dressed and skinny and I'm not

Me: Well you say that, I've felt really bloated the last few days

Her: Oh.....piss off

3: My aunt and her use of facebook. She felt the need to comment on my wall about how proud my granddad would be of me and that in Ireland all the top legal jobs are women now. I'm not sure how to break to her that I'm not the Attorney General of the UK. Any suggestions greatly received. 

Sleeping Beauty

I saw this a few weeks ago. I was quite excited by the prospect but by the end I wasn't too sure what to think. I have now come down on, "meh". I definitely won't be buying it when it comes out on DVD. Read my review here though 

Drive

I'm a little obsessed with Ryan Gosling. A lot like the Hello Giggles blog but maybe not quite as much for me to write a blog about it (this isn't going to be about his beautiful, beautiful face. No siree). 

Last night I watched Drive. All I've heard in the ether is how great it is so I made the decision to not seek out any further review until I had watched it for myself. This meant only reading El Vez's great review last night at one o'clock in the morning. 

I was gripped from around thirty seconds in - and for once that isn't an Irish exaggeration - I remained gripped until the very end. The film is about a Driver. Who drives. As a stuntman, as a racing car driver, as a getaway driver. He gives criminals five minutes to do whatever they have to do and then he drives them away from the scene of the crime. As a day job he's a mechanic but some sort of prodigy mechanic when it comes to cars. The overall feeling is that he and cars are one. He knows what to do to make them work to the best of their ability and he can restore a car to its former glory with a few extra bells and whistles to do things like make it go backwards really, really fast. Which is important in a high speed car chase I imagine. 

Taking on a heist as a favour something goes terribly wrong. The rest of the film is spent with him trying to avoid any further casualties but save his own arse as well. Thrown in for good measure is Carey Mulligan who plays his 'love interest' (as one would say if they were Cosmo Landesman. I fucking hate Cosmo Landesman. So much). I've never really rated her much before now but then I've not seen An Education so I can't really talk. She is well able to play the downtrodden single-ish mum opposite my boyfriend - I mean Ryan Gosling. I also like that they never go at it like rabbits and everything between them is implied by looks. It is so much more believable. 

Anyway. The point is, go and see it. It's amazing even if you don't fancy Ryan Gosling.  Put it this way, 8.3 on IMDB and Mark Kermode sitting in a car reviewing it means it can't be bad. 

Work

This actually happened today:

So we get an email saying our case management system will be down between 13:00 and 14:00. The logical thing to do is take our lunch then. So a couple of us agree as it's a Wednesday we should go to the pub to lessen the monotony of the working day. And have a bitch (I am compelled to point out of three I was the only one with a lady garden).

However, there has to be some super stealth mission as basically you can't invite the whole team. Because the whole team are fucking boring. So everything gets arranged by email and people leave separately and 10 mins apart so we don't all rise up together and face inevitable, awkward questions.

Get to the pub and my ca padre and I are at the bar. The last of our number shuffles in having been to the bank to withdraw money only to find he needs photo ID which he does not have. We order our food and go upstairs with our alcohol.

We're golden. We're in the pub. Safe haven. Until our boss comes upstairs to go to the toilet. We're the only ones upstairs. We're rumbled. He comments on the massive lunches we're having (we had sandwiches. Fuck knows what he eats for lunch). He often comments on other people's eating habits. Whilst stuffing his face with chocolate. And saying it's okay as he cycles to and from work every day (he is lithe. Annoyingly). My response is, "It's okay, we're all cycling home!"

Once the hilarity had died down we continued. Our boss is okay. He wouldn't have wanted to sit with us anyway. Then another round is got in. The schmuck who is nominated to go downstairs and order comes up white faced. We've been rumbled. Again. By someone in our team. Who left BEFORE us to go and have lunch with SOMEONE else. Luckily, he is "so thin that I could hide behind the pillar".

Turns out the whole fucking team is in the pub - just separately - because obviously we hate each other.

THEN we get back to the office and the girl who we left out is in a strop because we left her out. Even though we left AFTER her and she DIDN'T invite us.

We should have just stuck to the plan once we found out we'd been rumbled. One of us jumped out the window, the other zip line back to the office and the final individual stroll back in like nothing had happened.

Ambush/Party

I think this party photo thing stops here. Otherwise you'll know just what complete degenerates I hang out with. People shouldn't encourage others to down spirits in one. Bottles of spirits. But people should always bring lovely, lovely cakes.

Monday

I have spent this evening in the following way:

1: Trying to log in remotely to work from home but the gash network is being gash so I can not.

2: Trying not to think about my sore throat and wondering if you can OD on Strepsils

3: Googling how to make a cape as I now have some gold lame knocking around the place

4: Looking at Gordon Joseph Levitt's Tumblr

5: Reading the above and trying not to write FML

Oh Land

The Oh Land site is amazing. The songs seem quite good too. I shall confirm this once I've given the album a proper listen...

Director's Notes - Tyrannosaur Review

My review is up at Director's Notes...keep an eye on the site and twitter as MarBelle is at the BFF for the next 2 weeks. Nice.

Tyrannosaur

Last night I saw this followed by a Q&A with Paddy Considine and Olivia Colman. I won't go off on one as I've written a review for Director's Notes. When it goes up I'll link it.

All I will say is;

1: Go and see it; and

2: Prepare yourself, it is brutal.

From feeling like shit to a day of fun topped off with excitement...

So you may have noticed from the above photographs that I had a party. It was kind of a joint party as MonsieurB turned 30 the day after I officially became an Adult with an Occupation.

The photos mainly show my sister making a speech and me being embarrassed, various good friends and a really shit boy boy band that turned up half way though to give One Direction a run for their money.

I didn't plan the party. The Two Monicas in my life did all the hard work from planning the colours to making an epic cake (more photos are to follow). I basically turned up to a balloon/sequin/sparkle explosion which couldn't be more what I'm about. Love it.

The only sadface part was that it went too quick and now it's over. For a week I couldn't listen to the playlist that I made as it reminded me too much of how good a time I had and how I wasn't having that good a time right then on the train listening to my iPod.

And with the passing of that weekend was the passing of any weekends that MonsieurB has off until November. Work have been really cool and allowed me to take every Friday off until he has weekends free again. Whilst you can always moan about your employer I am a firm believer of what you put in is what you get out. And if you don't get out then leave.

And so Friday was a day of fun (save for a glasses frame wobble that culminated in me sat in the gayest restaurant in London [I mean actually gay not a derogatory use of the word to mean rubbish] drinking Passionfruit Daiquiris nearly crying about not being able to make a decision). I'm not sure how fun it was for him indoors but I had fun.

And then I came in and checked my work email. Turns out my email had had a melt down around midday and all the partners were going fucking bananas. About me. I've been shortlisted for Young Achiever of the Year in our industry awards. Well I say I have. I've not yet seen the official email so until then I'm not getting too excited. But then here I am blogging about it so I must be a little bit excited. I'm more excited for my family. They are finally seeing some return on the money pit that has been their daughter. And I'm excited because it's always nice to be recognised for working hard. What I am not excited about is buying a new dress. It is black tie and looking at last year's ceremony photos the Oscars ain't got nothing on these ladies. I am seriously talking sequin maxi dresses, up do's, sequin shoes to go with the maxi dresses and so many false eyelashes that people are finding it hard to keep their eyes open. My good friend Maddison has come up with a solution to this problem though - "Just be shit at your job". That is why I love her.

And as if there wasn't enough good fortune in my life MonsieurB has been shortlisted for a job at a really big TV company that you probably watch a lot. Basically he is very clever. And modest.