"Is that guy your boyfriend? Because if you're living here I don't want any couply stuff"

I got home at an acceptable hour this evening to find my bed had tripled in size. My 'bed' being a futon mattress, this upwards expansion signalled that although I might sleep comfortably this evening, it was going to be as means of a swansong in my current steal of a gorgeous, taxidermy-filled Williamsburg flat. Believe it or not (easily unbelieved, due to the poor blogging show), tomorrow will mark four weeks of having lived in New York. Four weeks also being the length of my current dream sublet.

Last weekend was a horrific blur of relentless flat-hunting. Like most things in New York, once you've done it here, it will seem an absolute breeze in most other English-speaking western countries. If I thought most aspects of my young adult life have been fraught with competition: surviving the UCAS lottery, battling it out for work experience and competition places, finding even summer jobs, let alone the graduate malarkey in the laughably competitive world of journalism - renting a nice, inexpensive apartment outside of a ghetto in New York is way up there.

It works like this: the weekend before you become homeless, you search frantically on a website called The Craigslist. Known for being riddled with scammers and people who will spam you forever more (my old email account answers only to people who say I've won a lottery or that I need to help them), The Craigslist is also the most effective means of finding accommodation in this insane city. So, up at 9am to check the darned thing, scouting for listings that are spelt correctly, aren't in BedStuy and are within my price range. Cue string of slightly desperate emails emphasising the fact that 'I'm a British intern at Nylon magazine, freshly graduated from university and a respectful, clean, laid-back and fun roommate'. Cue a handful of phone calls, followed by hurried appointments being made in moleskines. At 85% of the doors I turned up at, both myself and the renter had trusty moleskines in hand. The shame. Arguably, most of these places were in Williamsburg or Clinton Hill, but there's nothing like living up to a cliche.

So, on a totally beautiful freakishly hot weekend, when essentially all the trains that service Brooklyn were out of service, I entered strangers' (of varying weirdness, the title is a real-life quote from one of them) and nosed around making unnecessarily polite musing noises whilst thinking where the nearest exit was. Of course, I ended up taking the place I had first looked at. Because the extra sting in the tail of NY apartment hunting is that it is essentially a personality contest. One reasonably priced room in the heart of 'touristy Williamsburg' as New Yorker friend calls it, (rather than the Hispanic grubby outskirts) gained fifty responses within hours of the craigslist post. I had made the lucky first six to view it. If they like you, they call you. It's not even the case that if you like an apartment you can say 'yes please, here is my money'. It's like apartment speed-dating, except you're about a four on the hot scale and the person you're trying to pull is a ten. I was lucky -  all it took for me to find a match in a swish Bushwick penthouse was a weekend - albeit a hungover, sleep-deprived, sweaty weekend. On the plus side, I know a lot more about Brooklyn's geography now, having walked a cumulative 25 miles.

I also know a fair bit more about the Lower East Side's weekend nightlife, after a nocturnal two-on-a-bike jaunt around it last Saturday. The bike was called The Love Tycoon and belonged to fellow Nylon intern Caitlin Smith. To ease the pain of her fleeing New York on a rainy day to the bohemian lure of her native San Francisco, I've been taking the new-in-town graphic design zine intern Holly Black out to a series of  Williamsburg date places we didn't realise were quite so candlelit upon entering. As a result, we had to head to the grime of Monster Island to watch Kevin Morby play and for me to pretend to be a Nylon TV camerawoman, and renowned dive bar Levees for $10 pitchers - just to set the tone back comfortably. 

This week's discoveries include:
- SoHo's answer to Ben's Cookies in the form of Vesuvio Bakery. I fear now I've discovered their cookies, I won't be able to stop.
- That tbs is on channel 8 at breakfast time, which means SAVED BY THE BELL. The original crowd. ON TV. It's like I'm eight again, except now I can really appreciate the retro fashion and poor script-writing to the best level. From tomorrow I'm not going to live anywhere with a TV, but it was sweet while it lasted.
- That ridiculously posh SoHo deli Dean & Deluca may play classical music and force their staff to wear chef hats, but will serve up a mighty fine bagel a lot cheaper than any bagel cart in town.
- That you can buy blankets with faces of varying North American animals on (wolf, bear, lion - not strictly from America -stag) in K Mart for under $20.    

"MAKING ASSHOLE NEIGHBOR ENVY ME BY SHOWING HIM MY NEW PET HOLLY THE TURTLE"

"There's a storm a-coming!" That's what was shouted at me and a buddy as we braved our way through Williamsburg's less salubrious neighbourhoods to find haven in the kind of Mexican places that hipst-anic (hipster+hispanic) communities produce best: cheap tacos, good beer and all the latest underground tunes on the playlist. Despite making a return to summer today in NYC - hot pants were donned in SoHo and chiauauas shunned their tiny tapestry waistcoats due to the heat - I bore witness to an explosive lightning show in an overground train station in Bushwick this evening. Then the rain came. So it's a damp posting this evening.

Enough about the weather - evidently, I'm in the States now and people are far more likely to open a conversation about what their therapist said to them than what's happening with the climate. In the last few days since I posted various developments have taken place. I turned 22 in a wonderfully bizzare Indian restaurant in the East Village, complete with novelty thrift-store gifts and free candle-lit ice cream. Panna II prides itself on having look like a child with especially bad taste had been left to decorate a particularly naff Christmas tree in solely shiny and flashing things. They should have a sign warning epileptics off, except you can see it flashing from two blocks away. Having a birthday in a different time zone really is a win-win situation as you get a whole extra five hours of people wishing you a nice day. Therefore any fears of having it forgotten (a very real fear after spending my Sunday at the Lincoln Centre Film Society's John Hughes memorial day and watching Sixteen Candles) were dispersed as soon as I woke up to the ultimate of Maternal Inbox Treats: "you are probably asleep, but it's your birthday here, wakey-wakey!" and got into my office to find cake and post on my desk.

Last Friday I had my brain exploded a little bit twice. First by NY's American Museum Natural History, something which really does deserve its own post, but for which I will currently reference as 'GIANT SQUID SPERM WHALE BATTLE'. Secondly by Refresh, Refresh, Refresh - a relatively cultish comedy/storytelling night amongst funny media types in Chinatown. Headlining were New York's answer to a Twitter-happy Reeves and Mortimer, Wise and Cranky Kaplan, who were pretty hilaire in person, but whose tweet feeds continue to keep me LOL-ing inappropriately throughout the working day. Cranky's possibly my favourite, mainly because his sadistic tweets regarding tortoises remind me of similar boyhood antics that apparently went on between my late great uncle and my grandfather. Follow them both, though - American 'humor' never was so good.    

100th POST: ZOOTIME

ZOOTIME is the prog-rock effort of The Mystery Jets on their debut album Making Dens. As well as being a piece of useless mid-noughties indie trivia, ZOOTIME is also what I dubbed today's activities. Namely, going to Whipsnade Zoo with my parents for a full day-off childhood reversion and, as a result, Bowlface's 100th post.

Along with the moral and psychological crises that arise with seeing potentially damaged animals in enclosures that are clearly disproportionate to their native habitats, I underwent the natural glee, severe excitement and obligatory fanciful conversations that animals are clearly incapable of which accompany any good zoo trip. Well, any acceptable zoo trip at least - the previous one, to Belgrade Zoo, just brought mild amusement and increasing misery at witnessing the bizarre co habitations of animals that definitely were not designed to know one another.

First discovery of the day was that of a Mara, whose anonymity in the animal world is so great that when you googleimage it, the ratio of photos of the animal to photos of varying scantily clad women is 2 : 9,630,000. Here it is though:

As you may well observe, this is, as Daddy Bowlface exclaimed, a FREAK DEER. Identified as a wallaby and a muntjac before this clearly correct definition, Maras are dead cute and skipped around all over the place. I took a much better photo than this (especially of its bemusing white behind), so sit tight. After a cementing of childhood reversion by falling over and grazing my knee whilst witnessing a naughty sea lion during a rehearsal (total diva), a few more zoological discoveries were made:
- Rhinos like pedicures and enjoy eating floor-Sudocrem as an after-banana treat.
- Red Pandas are basically the Cheshire Cat.
- Dwarf Crocodiles look cuddly.
- Sloth Bears enjoy cardboard boxes.
- Wolverines are the ultimate ANIMAL FAIL.

This last discovery requires deeper analysis. Yes, Wolverine, the animal immortalised in cartoon and pop culture throughout the centuries for long claws, a ferocious attitude and fearsome teeth is a zoological WolverFAIL. Rather than a hefty king of mutant dogs, the Wolverine is actually the king of the weasels. Arguably, in Wind and The Willows, being King of the Weasels was a pretty big deal - but that's a kid's book, the ferocity levels are set at about 3.2. Instead, Whipsnade's Wolverine was a shy, fluffy little thing that refused to come out from under a tree. It wasn't even cute. In fact, I could have chucked a bit of fur fabric on a bush and more people would be interested. I would suggest that Mr. WolverFAIL changed his name to one of the others he goes by, but even 'glutton' sounds a bit too cool.

Even with the WolverFAIL, Whipsnade rocked. What rocked on an equal value was a sibling inbox treat with the subject heading of: BAKE OFFFFF. Yes, Mary Berry and her Great British Bake Off is spreading faster than a viral youtube vid. So far I'm averaging three baking-method conversations a day and, even more exciting, plans are afoot to get a Bowlface team in the bake off to show them how high a scone really should be...
  

From Fields to Field Day and Beyond (Retro).

Having just turned off Channel Five's Don't Stop Believing out of outrage that Essex's 'Original Talent' show choir - fine masters of both Gaga-inspired dancing and a Billy Jean meets Gnarls Barkley's 'Crazy' - was cruelly voted out in place of 'Swish' - teenage Robbie Williams' cheesemongering fankids - I decided that I'd put an end to a week-long Bowlface abstinence. It's what Sunday nights were made for. Or rather, the first of seven nights of roaming around in a parent-free house. Announcing a free house on the internet may in some cases cause myspace parties with thousands of teens high on Coca-Cola and the placebo-effects of WKDs. However, I celebrated freedom by eating a dinner comprising of a bit of pork pie, peanut butter on toast, cherry tomatoes and a microwaved doughnut; a myspace party would suck in comparison. Just in case, though, I've removed the 'location' tab from the bottom of the last few posts.

Over the weekend I left the fields of the Shire for the 'fields' of London's Victoria Park in a pseudo-village attempt of a 'chin-scratching music' festival that was Field Day. They won some 'Village Mentality' points with the pig roast and the sack races. However, had they hired in some inter-related country types (to preach sayings like "it's no use planting a cooked potato", rather than having them printed on sacks and hung up) I could almost have been in my native Shire given the high-middle-class level of expensive but scruffily dressed, fake mockney posh kids kicking about. Amongst the stripy shirts (which I too was slightly shamefully clad in) and overpriced cans of Stella I enjoyed a healthy amount of inte-lectro beats and euphoric sounds from the likes of Gold Panda, Pantha Du Prince, Hudson Mohawke and Moderat, amongst others on far too many stages for a festival of just over ten hours in length.

We hadn't had enough artful hair do's and ironic-dressing on Saturday, so we headed to Brick Lane today for the mega Sunday market and a cheap brunch. Where, amongst all the various unwanted crap being sold on the pavement - my favourite sight being a slogan T-shirt saying 'OH MY GOD, I'M SO RETRO' - I found a tote bag that could well provide me with more happiness than most things. That's because it falsely labels me as a member of the fictitious Hackney Guild of Taxidermists. Because it is technically an imaginary guild the fact I don't practice taxidermy in Hackney is irrelevant. I'm a massive stuffed-animal fan, and my Oxford Literary Festival 2008 freebie tote is being retired to occasional use due to getting tragically threadbare. You too can celebrate a love of canvas and double-headed swans here.

And now back to the Shire, which is free of continental dance music producers and more than twelve people within the age group of 18-24. Despite leaving an extensive note, the absence of parents probably means that there's going to be little to 'make blogs' about, as Daddy B would say. To compensate for this emotional whirlwind, I end on my favourite Shire-ism of the last week:

Daddy B on witnessing a police car siren past the house: 'alright, we're not in New York'.      

Mole-stuffing and Munich

Yeouch, evidently I've broken the two-posts-a-week rule. Bad times. As ever, this is due to:
a) not much happening, and
b) too much happening to get to blogspot.
Yes, that cruel paradox.

Last week pretty much comprised of slavery to high-end retail, minus the amount of customers which make such slavery bearable. As a result, we came up with means of entertainment including trying on all the ugliest clothes in the stock room (ok, so that was just me, but everyone else enjoyed it), discovering mutual love of Shakira and discussing the metaphysics of The Stray Cats' lead singer. What if he really was a cat? This is what infinite repeats of 100 Hits of the 80s CDs will do. I would embed the video but I fear that listening to it in a non-work context may result in my brain imploding.

Other highlights last week including STUFFING A MOLE. I know, it's a pretty big highlight for a taxidermy fan. A local rookie taxidermist friend is constantly on the hunt for mini furry victims of natural death and animal-suicide to give a second life to, and lo and behold, parentals Bowlface found a mole of such unfortunate circumstances in our garden! Everyone (me and local rookie taxidermist friend) was very excited. Anyway, it's been stuffed! and called after the real Bowlface familial name of Vincent! And we (see above generic plural) really want to dress him in tiny Victorian garb! Here's a pic, the squeamish may want to look away - despite his friendly giant-pawed gesture he's got a bit of a bloody jaw.

This week, however, has been enslaved to high-end retail for only the latter half. The former half I went to Munich on some super cheap flights for social reasons (getting out of the Shire). Cheap flights involved a fair amount of coach travel. However between Memmingem and Munich I really got into the Deutsch of things and cracked open Slaughterhouse Five and Kraftwerk's Trans-Europe Express to accompany me along the borderline Black Forest autobahn, which unavoidably caused images of Nazi propaganda (the prettier ones with fields in) to come to mind. Once in Munich, time was mainly spent getting excited over the taste sensation that is Weissbier and cycling around on 'rescued' (albiet by means of sawing off a chain, prior to my arrival) Holga, the prettiest once-abandoned bike in Munich.

Munich is made for cyclists; the cycle paths are as wide as the roads, they have their own traffic lights and pedestrians who walk in them tend not to out of shame (massive contrast to England where I feebly ring my bell before shouting CYCLE PATH in the face of whoever I nearly crash into as a last resort). Holga, naturally, had a basket which we shoved copies of German Vice magazine, Brot und Kase and other fun picnic stuff into, before embarking for the 'English' Garten to swim in fake rivers and giggle childishly at wierdly shaven old naked men.

Holga, I miss you so much.

I also listened to Belgian artist Michael Borremans in conversation with an undeniably critical German chap about his awesome paintings, how easy it was to find Nazi magazines in Belgium and how much he ripped off Caravaggio. I think it helped that he'd removed his brogues and sat happily in bare feet, or that he had a ginger beard, or that he retorted to the challenging philosophical art questions with lines like 'well, yes, she could just be sat in a bath of chocolate...or shit', but I fell a little bit in love with him. Here's one of my favourites:

Aaaand that just about takes us up to riight now. There's another big social event in the village tonight (the Shire is just one huge social whirlwind - should probably set up a new label for it), except this time it's in my parents' garden. I've been warned by Mummy Bowlface 'not to write anything nasty' about her on the blog -even though it stems from deep, deep affection and pride - so tomorrow's review may well be censored. I can, however, say this much: there has already been conversations both about and with the furniture this morning. As ever, I'm going to make a fashionably late entrance, not because I'm cool, but because I'm working. Exciting times.

G is for Grunions and Graduating

This Sesame Street-style means of titling posts has really popped out of nowhere, and indeed not only illogically starts on the seventh letter of the alphabet but seems there to stay. There is good reason, however, and that reason is the invention of the word GRUNION. I've relished that ol' Biblical nugget 'out of the mouths of babes and sucklings' many a time, including on Bowlface. But that's because time and time again it comes true! Grunions, as well as being a little-known eel-fish hybrid which are known for an 'unusual mating ritual', are also old people, according to the definition invented by an 8 year old Bowlface relation. More specifically than 'old','those who need a concession'. The fact it's been so well thought out really pleases me. Granted, if you look on urbandictionary.com there's a load of crude and frankly disgusting definitions of grunion, but using it to describe my Dad through his age alone is way more fun. Especially when it's used in a form of secret code.

So that was Sunday tea time, when I reverted to a happy childish place to deflect the academic pomp that was my graduation ceremony the next day. Yadda Yadda, multiclapping, wearing family heirlooms, not tripping up the step, being hooded by the 'hooding marshall', proceeding to wear the hood a bit like the Scottish Widow afterwards, eating a load of celebration food, making Mummy and Daddy Bowlface proud.

So, satisfied some Newcastle cravings and almost said a fairly comfortable cheerio to my student days before arriving back at the Shire to think that falling into the world of teenage style bloggers was a great progression. I really should know by now that putting even the smallest of toes into this giant talent pool only results in a state of misery and feeling I've failed in life. Tavi Gevinson, as practically any cult glossy magazine fan will know, shot to fame at 13 for her forward-thinking and ludicrously good blog. Ok, so she's 14 now, but at that age I was wearing dead people's jewellry and trying to grow boobs, meanwhile she's mastered the bowlcut/granny glasses combo that even at 19 I didn't wear as well. However, green is not a good colour for me, so I put the envy away and started following her on twitter. This resulted in a plethora of other teenage style 'rookies' (ha!) who all look like they should be on an American Apparel billboard, if only their mothers would let them out. Here's a couple of my faves:

http://ifthesokfitz.blogspot.com/
http://hipstermusings.blogspot.com/

For non-pet people, animals really love our house.

Unfortunately, due to the success of Justin (shitmydadsays) 's once-pathetic living at home existence which happily coincided with an elderly parent, this post isn't going to have quite the same pizzazz nor book-writing novelty. However, as my parents are not (yet) elderly and it has taken me three years of living away from them to realise the pure unadulterated and often worrying gold that leaves their mouths, I can be given this one as an epiphany.

For, in a mere two weeks, my parents could have aided numerous wannabe BBC 3 comedy writers with their bizarre and unwittingly amusing utterings. Arguably, that could be construed as not so many, but it's definitely something I've never really noticed before. Sure, there were always the classics; like when my mum dubbed a social networking site as 'myface', or referred to Radiohead circa '99 as 'that moany band your brother likes'. But it's reached a whole new level now. Particular favourites include:
- My Dad on hearing that yesterday was the anniversary of Micheal Jackson's death: 'that was all rather unfortunate, really'.
- and in general regard to the news: 'What are they doing wheeling that old dinosaur on?'
- My Mum on Australians: 'well, they're all descended from convicts anyway'.
- and on my graduation outfit: 'you better try that on again in case you've put on weight and you can't fit into it'
My favourite responses include: 'stop taking the piss out of the deaf presenter man, Mum'.

Therefore, when the aforementioned childhood-friends-come-of-age-village-parent-lunch-party was described as a 'champagne avalanche' at 11am today, I knew it was time to get involved. I was, however, mildly distracted by a small maternal shriek, which was immediately followed with 'THERE'S A SPARROW IN THE KITCHEN!' Even in the dual context of 'shire' and 'parental outbursts', this really was the stuff of fiction.

Whilst Mummy Bowlface has an irrational fear of cute newly-fledged sparrows under an all-encompassing feather fear, Daddy Bowlface has an entirely rational love and fascination of fowl. Especially buzzards. When driving. But I think that's just a Dad thing. Anyway, I walked in to the kitchen to find Mr. MiniSparrow (or Spuggy, as Kirsty Golightly so adorably calls him) perched happily on top of the antiquated toasting-grill above the aga, inside an inglenook. Add some alpine foliage and it could have been a Christmas card. I tried to take a photo of him, however, like most creatures I aim my early 80s SLR at, he swiftly flew off, settling for the microwave. After a bit of bemusement with a Jamie Oliver sugar jar, he found a bottle of vitamins as the next appropriate perch, before finally settling on his rightful place on Daddy Bowlface's shoulder. Never before has the Shire produced such a cutcopy of a Snow White and Zipedeedoodah video hybrid.

Library Tweets

It only took 48 hours for the library novelty to wear off. I knew there was a reason I had boycotted it for all this time. Even situated in a library-crew dominated part of the 'learning lounge', next to three large windows allowing sunshine and scenic views (of the Great North Road and some foliage, albeit) and a mere five metres from the cafe, it still only took me approximately five hours to crash and burn, groaning loudly in public and then banging my head into a copy of The Interpreter of Maladies.

A highlight of my day, however, (which really puts things into perspective), was the discovery that Newcastle's Robinson Library has its own Twitter account. Bearing in mind the recent Twitter addiction - new procrastinatory measures are essential in such times, and it's a fun way to find out news, and it's updated internationally so I can find out what's happening in other time zones when other people are having Sunday morning lie-ins - and the temporary love of the library, this was pretty epic stuff.

You can follow the library here, but for non-tweeters I can't help but feel it's necessary to share the wealth. @nulibrs has a lovely shot of the external 1970s brick delight that is the Robinson Library from its 'good side', i.e., near a tree, but also updates shockingly regularly on just how busy the library is. For example, on May 9th at 3.03pm, we learn that 'the library is very full at the moment. All the laptops are out on loan and the clusters are very busy' - pray tell, just what is the library tweeting on? Fret not, though, as @nulibrs does offer handy, thoughtful advice, such as: 'We are open til midnight tonight. Why not come along in the evening when the Library is quieter and you have a choice of desk space...' I love the use of elipses. It's like the library is asking you out on a date or something; "you can choose your own desk, library user".

Sometimes @nulibrs just takes it one step further, however. Granted, this was at around 3.45 yesterday, when the delirium was really setting in, but I did a proper not-suitable-for-public-use GUFFAW at this tweet: 'The student Nightbus service will not be running again until after the Bank Holiday - the bus has faulty gear stick.' The attention to detail is just beautiful. As is the sheer optimism in its followers, demonstrated in the following: 'For more info on how you can help keep the library clean and quiet during the exam period have a look at: http://bit.ly/9yfcPm.' There's procrastination and then means of failing a degree - desperation to the extent of wanting to look at that bit.ly probably falls into the latter. I can't imagine, nor am I going to stoop so low as to look at it to find out, what it says. Probably something along the lines of 'use a bin'. 

I am one of 28 proud @nulibrs followers. That's three more than how many follow it, which is significantly better ratio than on my account. What's really great, though, is the fact that it's following OTHER LIBRARIES' TWITTERS. There's this whole community of libraries-what-tweet, including the British Library, Sheffield, Liverpool and Leeds University Libraries, and, potentially my favourite, the 'gangsta' 'Toon Library' - being Newcastle's City Library. This could become a whole new flock of tweets to follow in these dark assessment days. 

In other news, I saw a crack fox in West Jesmond last night. I know, hard to believe in potentially the most salubrious student-dominated suburb ever, however, it did run out of a garage and along the metro line, so it gets some 'grit' points. Sad to say in the evening sunlight it was a beautifully glossy ginge colour, potentially over-large and certainly didn't offer me any 'blood from a cat's face'. Anyway, in celebration, here is one of my favourite bits of the Mighty Boosh about a crack fox. Enjoy. 

Dead Zoo

This actually happened.

Bizarrely enough, a whole four weeks has passed and tomorrow I'm back on the National Express to northern civilization. How better to celebrate one final Shire weekend for a while than walking up a ludicrously steep hill, eating a burger made out of deer and visiting a Dead Zoo (Natural History Museum, Tring branch), all of which accompanied by beautiful weather?

The aforementioned weather resulted in some jogging inspiration this morning, and I'm happy to say that it seems the sheep and I may have come to a treaty of peace. No fearful bleats (apart from a stranded lamb; not my fault), no evil stares, and definitely no charging. Score.

Tring's Natural History museum is King of Victorian taxidermy. The Rothschild Family pretty much ruled this area of the Shire, and Walter was a big fan of killing and stuffing animals. All in the name of science, natch - they are arranged in zoological categories and squished into gloomy glass cages. It's ace. On the walls there is evidence of what ol' Walty did with those he chose to keep alive; like attach them to carts, let them roam in his vast estate, or take them to university with him in Cambridge (Kiwis only).

So, after checking up on another of my deceased Kakapo friends, saying yo to his buddy Mr. Kea and then discovering a load of other cool animal stuff I never knew (Elephant Seals are terrifyingly large, there's a cute sea thing called a Topknot, tiny birds were given amazing names and 100-year old Dachsunds are relatively stoutd hunt badgers)I had an informal chat with a smart pin-striped chap who was poking a mangy camel. He did work there.

Apparently, the camel was a potential victim of carpet lice, which like eating dead stuffed creatures as much as they do carpets. The camel might have to go into a giant freezer. This caused a line of questioning about where a new stuffed camel would come from, and apparently underneath the proper Natural History Museum in London there's a sub-world of back-up dead stuffed stuff. Like the less fluffy or cute-faced ones. I bet they just sit there, waiting for the carpet lice to bite so they can have their moment of glory. Whatever, I want to go, it sounds amazing.

In other news, Great Horwood reached local TV news fame this week for an armed siege in the village. There were helicopters and everything. However, judging by the fact that three police cars arrived when someone nicked a bottle of moisturiser off the reduced shelf in Buckingham Tesco Express a while back this isn't wholly representative.

Also, Nigel Farage, smarmy leader of UKIP who is challenging little speaker Bercow to Shire constituency came to our house. Daddy Bowlface refused to see him after Farage's nasty attack on the loveable President of the European Council 'Haiku Herman' Van Rompuy. Remember Nikki off Big Brother? He's pretty reminiscent of her in it.



Mummy Bowlface, however, quizzed him on how he was personally going to reduce her class sizes whilst telling him about her imaginary Polish friends. He didn't seem to understand that her village school is oversubscribed from inbreeds, rather than illegal immigrants. Arguably, if he had, he would have been wasting his breath. It's what isolation from Europe would result in eventually, after all.

Bowlday Sweat

.

Believe it or not, it's a year today since the first ever bowlpost. I know, gone fast, huh? No better way to celebrate, I thought, than reporting from the front line of post-run sweat. Mmmm. Birthday sweat for Bowlface, in honour of guilty pleasure song extreme Jeremih, 'Birthday Sex'. I think I'm pretty much the only person who's not fourteen and potentially 'gangsta' who wishes this was my ringtone, but hey, it's Bowlface's birthday and I can make it cry if I want to.

So, up-to-the-minute reportage on the Shire sheep front. I'd say unnervingly placid, but also present were a couple tractors and farmers. So maybe they were on good behaviour. Otherwise, there have been some lamb reshufflings, with new tiny baby lambs in field number three, and bleaty mcbleat lambs having mysteriously enlarged since Monday in field number six. The story continues.

Yesterday, however, saw my feelings to such livestock weaken as a gatecrashing of Stowe (stately home/mega public school) gardens resulted in some suitably posh lamb activity. They were fluffy, apparently innocent and did all the right kind of bleating, as in for their mums, rather than at me. Fortunately, when it came to scrambling over the Ha-Ha (if in doubt, there's an appropriate wiki entry here) there were no sheep nor official National Trust-looking types about to bleat, so a shred of dignity was maintained.

In a similar mode of 'days out', a.k.a, how best to avoid urgent deadlines in the name of family quality time, today the Bowlface family embarked upon Fulham Palace Gardens. Sad to say, no ancient wall activity was involved as it is entirely free and legal to enter the aforementioned, apart from perhaps those doing community service in the flowerbeds. Lambs replaced with small mini-Boden babies, and a fancy cup of tea in an oversized Georgian room later and I was all set for being Jane Austen in a breton top for the rest of the afternoon.

One last birthday treat for Bowlface regulars (because I'm guessing you can't get Jeremih's greatness out of your head) is another fantastically off-the-wall video launch from VBS's Vice Guide To Film.
Basically, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia's film-makers went freedom crazy after 60 years of state-approved Socialist Realism. Now known as Parallel Cinema, VBS's Shane Smith travelled to Moscow to interview its founders. There's a lot of pretending to be animals (probably what I've been doing for the last week, judging by the high sheep content) and booze, and as well as being a nice way to pass the time you can impress film geeks in the pub with all your new found knowledge.

Good News: no more groundhog day. Bad News: sheep will be my downfall

out. to. get. me.

So, it's almost a week on from when I feared my life had sunk into a inescapable cycle of repetition. I am glad to say that I don't think I will be stuck experiencing exactly the same situations over and over and over again. This also thankfully means that anyone reading this blog won't either. Phew.

Non-repetitive activities have involved American Apparel frequenting; slightly terrifying current affairs exams; trying to learn about current affairs for current affairs exams; hosting wild parent-free shire house shindigs; spending too much time standing up in Bicester Village and other more life affirming activities like first-time shopping for 'pants-magique' in a necessary Mother-Daughter ritual. With the exception of mentioning that QVC lies and that my podge did not disappear along with the capacity of my lungs, the less said about over sized, brutally lycrastic cycling shorts, the better.

Other evidence that my life has not turned into groundhog day comes in the changing forms of anxiety I cause amongst livestock during cross-country runs. For one, the aforementioned bleating has got considerably louder, to the extent it can be heard two fields away from the location of the sheep. But secondly, I seriously think they're onto me. On Tuesday there were six large ewes banked up in a wall of farmy fluff against the gate I had to move to get into the next field. After staring them out to no success I dived in amongst them. They reluctantly shuffled about, but they'll be plotting their next move, you wait. The lambs have started ganging up too. They may only be a foot and a half high but en masse I could be trampled to minor injury.

It is mainly this increasingly threatening behaviour that has resulted in me sitting here in 'sportswear' (next to the onesie, my second favourite house-confined outfit. Oh god, so comfy), listening to a running playlist, blogging, rather than actually taking to the fields. My reasoning being that darkness would fall by the time I returned, but that is clearly not going to happen, and it is evidently a beautiful evening. Secretly, however, I'm scared of what the sheep might be upto at night time. Evening-sleepy sheep are arguably more threatening than dozy morning sheep, they might have constructed a trap or something.

Maybe it's because I LOLled at roadkill earlier. It was, naturally, a pheasant. However, unlike most, which have mangled wings and blood etc etc, this one was lying dead straight (ha) looking skywards. Like he was sunbathing. He totally died for laughs.

In the meantime, I'm going to make like a gothy Sue Sylvester. (All my 'sportswear' is black so I can pretend I'm a ninja). Tomorrow, sheep, just you wait.

Also, anybody noticed something new? Hell yeah! The Shire has been officially located on Bowlface. Within the happy vagueness of a 'Vale' however - don't want any cyber-savvy woolly things to start uniting forces.

David Attenborough Live

Prime example of your normal hardcore 'horny pigeon' inner city stalking. Not, apparently, how they do it in the country.

Despite having little else but village life, parents and the internet as educative tools during my formative years, Shire experiences never cease to amaze me. Like, for instance, how right outside my window pigeons are performing a distinctly feeble version of Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On'.

As if Facebook, twitter, urban outfitter's newly-announced mid-season sale and green tea weren't distractions enough.

It's like a lame version of David Attenborough's Life down here. Except it's raining, and not super-heavy-monkeys-make-umbrellas-out-of-leaves rain, but thoroughly unwelcome grey not-yet-April showers. Furthermore, instead of close-ups, slow-downs and microshots (totes technical), I have a grubby window covered in intriguingly unidentifiable white stuff and a cut out silhouette of a hawk to stop fellow pigeons committing suicide by flying into it. This happened two Easters ago, leaving three All Saints-esque Gothic perfect pigeon prints with a collection of splayed wing/feet shots and, in one case, some poo.

It all started innocently enough with a bit of friendly grooming nestled inside the boughs of a Yew tree. Not dissimilar to that you'd see in the opening scene of Disney's animated classic Cinderella. Before I knew it, the dirty buggers were balancing on top of each other - scaly pigeon feet carefully placed into fluffy Shire-pigeon back plumage - and shaking whilst sliding down the lower one's back. Pretty weird. Mr Pigeon (I presume he was on top) was getting seriously puffed out by this point, in fact probably to the extent that lady pigeon flew away. That was it. Talk about anti climatic. He's been sat cooing miserably on the same branch ever since. He's still there, all the time I've been writing this. Loser.

In other news, I've found another reason why Heston Blumenthal and I should hang out. He writes today about his surprise at the lack of people getting excited about the asparagus season that's due to start in a month. I'M EXCITED, HESTON, I'M REALLY REALLY EXCITED. Furthermore, I've been really excited since February. Best kind of food spear around.

e-mails my family send me

yes, I am aware this isn't the first time a picture of a human dressed in an animal-inspired babygro has made it onto this site.

Slight step up from retro Bowl-post 'Notes my Mum leaves me.' I was actually hanging out with Kirsty Golightly today, in an attempt to make that prophesy come true. We wandered around the Quayside and it's many 'Heugh's in the sunshine for a stupidly long time trying to find a couple of speakers reverberating in the North Tower of the Tyne Bridge. When we found it, we left after about three minutes. Then it went silent and we thought we'd broken it. (We hadn't).

Anyway, I came home to two amazing bits of information thanks to Bowlface family members. Number one, from Mummy Bowlface, is that my link from my facebook page didn't lead to Bowlface, but here: http://www.bowlface.blogspot.com/. Rather than the self-indulgent witterings of a bored aspirant journalist, this, as you will discover by clicking, is actually a site offering Bible tours. Unfortunate, no? You can imagine my distress when I find an email with the subject heading of 'Have you got religion ????????!!!!!!!!!!!' (not least because of the superfluous punctuation)

The superfluous punctuation is, however, somewhat understandable. Although it is pretty hard to imagine me offering 14 and 15 day package tours around Egypt, Jordan and Israel, three countries to which I have unfortunately not been, it is apparently a 'Mega site of Bible studies and information'. That 'mega' is highly suspicious.

Fortunately, after that little shock the next familial e-mail was far more comforting, in more way than one. Since the onesie obsession started, was fulfilled, and subsequently brought whole new issues in where I can and cannot wear it (essentially just the house, and certainly not when entertaining), like an addict, I've been on the hunt for the next onesie-equivalent obsession. Bro Bowlface suggested this little site. Verdict: oh-so cosy but somewhat over warm, and perhaps unnecessary given my relative lack of camping holidays. It was superceded today, and I can't stop thinking about how much I want a Kigu.

If I thought the opportunities for onesie-related fun were numerous, those for Kigu-related fun have taken it into a whole new realm. Imagine you're just chilling at home, pretending to be a flying squirrel/tiger/red panda/kitty and then your buddy rings and announces you're missing a 'totally rad' fancy dress party? No need to change! Or, say, you fancy going to the zoo and get trapped in one of the cages - you can just whip out a Kigu and assimilate with the animals.

Maybe this is why I haven't written any of my dissertation today. I bet if I was dressed as a red panda I would have pumped out two in this time, though.

Isotopically Heavier: I want to emigrate.

I think the fact that this brings me so much joy is indicative of what institutionalised education can do to people.

If this had a bowl on its face people wouldn't be able to tell us apart.

Fun fact for you: a millionaire lecturer in the Marine Biology department of Newcastle University discovered that if you starve yourself, you become isotopically heavier.

I don't really know what this means, but it's what my flatmate just said because she's actually doing some revision, and I opened Bowlface out of procrastination at the same time. What are the chances?

As well as fun science facts I pretend to understand, my brain is also full of racist children's literature from 1930 and (woah, another fun science fact, bone structure can tell you what you've been eating for the past fifteen years) the fact I want to be where all my friends are right now which is both Canada and New Zealand. Canada more so.

This is mainly because four of my friends are wandering around there in varying amounts of plaid, but still enough that people keep thinking they're in a band, and because it's doing fun snow, rather than lame snow, and it's really pretty and there are no exams on racist children's literature. They've got a really great blog about how much of a really great time they're having here. I think it might become like the Julia Childs one, except people won't send them food because they've clearly got far too much of that already.

NZ is where fellow Bowlface sibling is kicking around. It looks lush. But one particular attraction is that they're going to forests where Lord of The Rings was filmed and it looks mega ethereal and another slightly racist children's book I'm being examined on is The Hobbit.

The main attraction, however, is these grumpy looking superbirds that are apparently related to my favourite endangered animal THE KAKAPO (the brains behind fourplayincanada.blogspot also have a Kakapo-dedicated blog) and they eat loads of stuff apparently. Plus look at that face. Amazing. The sibling was kind enough to send me a trans-hemispheric text message saying "guess what I'm 2ft away from? The waddling flightless parrot! So cute and fat!" and then, the best bit, an educational fact: "they are called Keas".

The aforementioned blog has some fairly Kea-abusive stuff to say along the lines of them being preppy try-hard varieties of Kakapo. But then it's coming from a self-referential man-child who thinks he's a bird. That's the state of zoology graduates these days. Hootface, I say bring it on.

Oh, and another fun fact to end on: Starfish reject their limbs in a squidgy fleshy pink kinda way when they're cross at you. My science flatmate had a dream her dog's head did it.