Fancy Things Friday: How To Guide on creating a fantasy celebrity friendship list: Jennifer Lawrence. If she's not on your list, you're clearly insane.

Welcome to Fancy Things Friday. Where I talk about things on a Friday that I think are fancy!

Today's fancy thing is Jennifer Lawrence. I've known her in the film capacity for a while, what with Hunger Games and the like, but just recently it has been brought to my attention that she is not only a kick arse actress, but also a kick arse person as well.

A couple of months ago, Younger-Brother-Daniel told me to check her out in the interview capacity as he was certain that I would then fall in love with her and add her to my list of people I will be making my best friend in the near future.

However, because I'm rubbish and completely forgot to check her out, also because I had seen her in Hunger Games and she had been so serious and shizzle in that, that I was convinced this obviously meant that this reflected her character in real life, I didn't look into it further. Before you say it, yes I know what the concept of acting is, and I'm also acutely aware of all the awards she has received for being amazing as an actor. But I also have a slight issue with differentiating fact from fiction and, as I haven't seen her in a great many other things, my brain had found a way to perceive her as Katniss Everdeen, rather than a person playing her... It's not like I went around thinking that Hunger Games actually happened or refusing to call her Jennifer, but Katniss instead, or anything... I just simply had no material to go on whereby I didn't associate her face with Katniss.

But then, I spent an evening with Film-Buddy-Kezia earlier in the month, and she started talking about how Jennifer Lawrence was the most down to earth actress she had heard of and how much she loved her and so on and so forth. By this point, I decided that I would check her out.

So I did. I went to youtube, typed in her name and then proceeded to lose about 4 hours of my life (no exaggeration) on watching interview after interview of this woman. What was my conclusion after this? Guys, I'm in love. Seriously, Jennifer Lawrence won me over with her weird words and awesomeness.

My favourite thing about her, and the thing that I think just sums her up in a nutshell, is that she appears to just be a fangirl who can also act. She seems to always be talking about how she had just met some famous person and she couldn't believe that they talked to her... or it occurs whilst being interviewed and this happens:

Guys, this was the clincher for me. Seriously, she is just awesome. I watched this and thought, 'yup, that's the girl for me.'

I went out recently for a meal with The-Brother's and New-To-The-Family-Amy, to celebrate Younger-Brother-Daniel's birthday. It must have been the day after I had had my four hour video fest of Ms Lawrence, and so naturally I was in gushing mode. Incidentally, it was also the weekend after Sherlock had finished. As such, apparently my contribution to the meal's conversation consisted of a Sherlock/Jennifer Lawrence Tourettes motif, whereby people would be talking about real life things, such as Older-Brother-Glyn and New-To-The-Family-Amy's upcoming wedding, and then I would suddenly just shout out something related to the Cumberbatch or Jennifer Lawrence and demand that everyone give their entire attention to the latest awesome gif I had found on tumblr. The-Brothers, being two people who have known me all their lives, know how to deal with me in these situations. Basically, it's just best to stop the conversation, give the statement/tumblr image their undivided attention for about 30 seconds, and then pick up where they left off, as my brain wanders off to find something new and awesome to shout out. I may be odd and weird to have around, but my oddness and weirdness can be easily managed, I find.

Anywho, Jennifer Lawrence has pretty much rocked my world in her "just not caring about what people think" attitude she has. Which means that now I have the most awesome new Fantasy List.

Yes, people have Fantasy Football lists, and "Famous people I'm allowed to have affairs with" lists. Me? I've created the Fantasy Celebrity Friend List. And can I just say, so far, this thing is awesome. Here it is:

Best Friend
Jennifer Lawrence, on account of being weird and fangirlish no matter how big she gets, which is exactly how I would be should I ever find myself in the Famous Way. Also Emma Stone, because I fancy her a little bit... Although that friendship might get complicated due to this reason.

People I would work with regularly and spend countless evenings with, talking about really geeky things 
Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, Joss Whedon and Neil Gaiman (to start off with). Nights with these people will consist of just talking about possible fictional projects and arguing over possible plot twists and character development and the concept of time travel and how paradoxes work and so on and so forth... If even one night with just one of those people ever happened, I would possibly cry with such happiness that I might just die right then, knowing life would never get any better from that moment.

Possible relationships that I would consider
Rupert Grint or Ed Sheeran, for just being so awesomely ginger. Benedict Cumberbatch... I don't need to insult you all with a reason for that.

Aaron Paul (Jesse from Breaking Bad) because who wouldn't want to spend all days looking into those eyes? (Same reason applies for the Cumberbatch)... and you know what? I'll leave that list open... purely because I don't like to discriminate by leaving anyone out...

And that's my fantasy celebrity friend list... most of these people have been on the list for a while. Jennifer is my new addition, and I'll leave you with just a snippet of the reasons why.

... PS: Before you say it...Yes, I am aware that this whole post makes me seem like some crazed woman who lives outside of reality, but if you haven't realised that about me by now, then I don't know where you've been.

Peace out my lovelies.

How To Guide on making the best Facebook Status ever.

I sent myself into a mild panic yesterday. And then I became the happiest person ever.

I'm not Bipolar... that I'm aware of.

You see, at the end of last year, when I was considering the possibility of introducing features into this blog, I had been so excited at the prospect of Wind Back Wednesdays. For those of you who aren't aware what Wind Back Wednesdays is all about, it's when I delve into the deepest recesses of my memories and bring out a witty anecdote for all of you lovely people to read and enjoy/get offended over/throw things at.

Out of the two features I had settled on (the other being Fancy Things Friday; where I find something Fancy on a Friday and talk about it), Wind Back Wednesdays was the one that I was most excited about. I was certain that I had loads of stories to force onto you. My excitement over this probably came out of coming up with the idea over Christmas, when I was with The-Family, and reminiscing was the norm. This coupled with the fact that I had just completed a year's worth of podcasts from the X FM Josh Widdicombe show. X FM is a local radio station in England and Josh Widdicombe has a Saturday Breakfast show. On this show, a comedian (who is fast becoming one of my favourite comedians ever) James Acaster usually comes on and talks about his "Classic Scrapes." Which is basically a series of incidents where he has got himself into trouble in the past. They are hilarious and, by far, my favourite feature on that show.

After hearing what had to be his 30th Classic Scrape of the year, I became emboldened by the possibility that I might be able to do something similar. Not scrape wise, due to copyright reasons, and also because, quite simply, I haven't gotten myself into nearly as much trouble as this guy appears to have done over his life. But I was certain that my childhood/teenage years was littered with enough witty tales that I would be able to make it into a weekly feature for the entire year.

I thought nothing of it. I introduced the feature onto the blog and, on the whole, it appears to be going well. However, after writing my fourth story of this feature yesterday, I began to think on what I would talk about the following week, and then became acutely aware that I had no other story to tell. Seriously, it's as if my memory doesn't exist and I entered this world as a 28 year old, with no past at all. This alone was daunting, but then I had the thought that even if I managed to somehow find a memory somewhere for next week, I still had the more pressing issue of then having to come up with 47 other stories after that.

This is where the panic hit. Mainly because my OCDs have kicked in with this blog since starting it up properly again, and writing in this thing every weekday is now firmly in my routine at the exact same time, every day. It will not allow me to deviate from this. That, coupled with the competitive streak I have within myself that has now told me failure is not an option, I have thrown myself into the mindset of never deviating from this feature... ever. No excuses. I will have to find the memories from somewhere.

I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but the moment I am asked to think of a certain thing, such as my favourite film/song/food, all thoughts of any film/song/food tends to leave my brain, never to be seen again, until the person asking me the question has well and truly left my life. It's a very frustrating thing, especially when you know that you love a large amount of films/songs/food, and not only that, but that you have had many a conversation about your favourite film/song/food in the past, whereby you have given not only the answer to their question, but plenty of examples as to why you love said film/song/food. But in that moment? Nope. Nada. Apparently I have never even heard of a motion picture or the ability to make musical notes or even the very simple act of eating to survive. Instead, I just sit in a darkened room and do nothing. The mere fact that I am still living is a miracle and scientists should drag me into their labs for study.

This is what has happened since I have started this feature. I had a small amount of memories available as these memories had been what had sparked the idea of Wind Back Wednesdays. However, I have now used all these memories up and the plethora of other memories I was certain would then come flooding back on a week by week basis, in that really convenient way, have stayed locked firmly shut within my memory banks. I've attempted a Sherlock attempt of picturing it like a Mind Palace, but it appears that the door which holds the memories I need, is locked and no one can find the damn key.

So, in true "I'm-a-problem-solver-now" fashion, instead of doing myself an injury by trying to remember stuff that didn't want to be remembered, I decided I would just get other people to do the hard work for me. So I wrote a simple post on my Facebook, which holds the entire collection of my childhood friends. This post was:

"To all the people who have known me in my early years (Childhood to teenager), I need help! I need some good memories for my blog and for some reason I can't remember anything that happened! Any ideas?"

What happened after this was the most beautiful thing that has happened to me all year. My so-awesome-I-can't-even-stand-it friends, from all periods of my life, started commenting on all their own memories of past times with me. So much so, that I have now lined up stories that should at least get me to March.

One thing I will say however... After reading these memories, I have also remembered that I was a very odd girl, especially in my teenage years. I mean, "Pretending for 6 months that I was Luke Skywalker's mother" odd. So, when I do eventually start delving into the teenage period of my life, there is a chance that you all might change your opinion of me drastically... I'd apologise for it, but to be honest, I'm kinda proud of the weirdness involved... and it was the 90s. People did weird things in the 90s.

So my How To Guide to writing the best Facebook status ever consists of this: Just type in the above status... Sure, there might be a period of about 6 hours where no one replies and you start to hate yourself a little, but eventually it will pick up and soon endless fun and reminiscing with people you haven't spoken to in years will ensue. Enjoy it. Try not to think about how slightly egotistical the whole post sounds... especially as it's basically just you asking other people to talk about you... If you say it's for a valid thing like a blog or something similar, it makes it less "attention-grabbing" and people might tolerate it more.

You're welcome.

Peace out my lovelies.

Wind Back Wednesdays: How To Guide on running away effectively

Wind Back Wednesdays, where I choose a memory from my childhood and talk about it. 

Being a child who had been known to lean towards the more dramatic ideations in life, I have several memories that consist of my disapproval in my parents, leading in my attempts to run away from home. 

As you can see, by the fact that I am not homeless, I did not succeed on these attempts. Most of the time it was because I would get to half way down the street and then decide that it was too cold or I was too hungry, and I would scutter home before The-Parents had even noticed I had gone. My reasons for running away can be pretty much summed up in the below video from BBC's TV show 'Outnumbered.'

I'm not kidding, when I watched this for the first time, I called Marmie straight away and was all "It's like they were spying on me as a child and filmed one of our conversations word for word!" And Marmie was all "I know! This is exactly how I remember it!" 

I never really had a very good reason for running away. It usually was because The-Parents had asked me to clean my room or had told me I couldn't go out and play, or something similar. Most of the time, it would begin with an announcement to The-Parents, as in the video, but occasionally my over-dramatic side would win out and I would attempt the running away with as much flourish and anguish as I could muster. 

I would scream and cry and tell The-Parents that I hated them, and then go ahead and write the most distressing "I'm running away" note of all time, all the while shouting from my room how I hated everyone and life was so unfair. An example of the notes I would leave would be something like: 

Dear Mummy and Daddy, 

I am leaving home and never coming back. You clearly don't love me as you just shouted at me really loudly and I hadn't even done anything wrong. You won't ever learn how to treat me nicely, so I'm going to leave home and live on the streets in the rain, where I will probably catch something and die, and it will be all your fault! I hope you're happy with yourself. Maybe when I'm dead, you will realise that you should have treated me better.

From Lisa

Whilst writing this, I would usually be crying at the top of my lungs, making the most noise I possibly could, and shouting sentences like "You don't even care about me" and "You are so horrible!" And then, when one of The-Parents attempt to come into my room to try and sort it out, I would scream at them to get out of my room and leave me alone. Mainly because I didn't want them to see the letter before I left the house. 

There was one time when Father managed to sneak into my room whilst I was in the throes of a temper tantrum and scrawling my letter in amongst the tear stains on the page. I hadn't heard him on account of all the crying and tears, and so he had managed to get as far as coming up behind me and glancing over my shoulder whilst I was writing. Once I had noticed however, I shut the exercise book I was using closed, and screamed at him to leave. To which he complied. 

Once I was happy that he wasn't anywhere near my room anymore, I then finished the letter, hid it under my pillow so as to give me plenty enough time to get away before The-Parents found it, and prepared my Running Away kit, which always consisted of my stuffed blue elephant "Nelly" and a coat. 

At the time, we lived in a flat on the ground floor. As such, I had a bedroom window  that led right outside the front of the house. Most of the time, I would use this window to run away. However, on this occasion, I had no shoes on and so knew I would need to run away via the front door, where all my shoes were stored.

Now, sense would say that if you want to sneak out the house, it would probably be a good idea to stop crying, wait a bit for The-Parents to be distracted by something else, and then sneak out that way. However, I was 7, so that thought hadn't occurred to me. Instead, I thought the best option would be to run as fast as I could to the door, put my shoes on and then leave. 

This is what I did. I slammed open my door and ran to the front door. However, as I sat down in the lobby area to put on my shoes, Father approached me and watched me for a while, before eventually asking: 

"And where exactly are you going to go?"

"I'm leaving!" I shouted back. "You've really upset me this time."

"Okay." Father said. "But where are you going to?"

"To the streets, where I'll die!"

"You're not going anywhere."

It was at this point that I realised Father had somehow  worked out I was going to run away before he had come to speak to me. I couldn't understand this as I knew that he wouldn't have had the time to find the letter yet and, as far as I was concerned, I had done nothing to give myself away. I was flabbergasted. He had worked it out somehow and I realised that he was clearly a force to be reckoned with. It was then that I realised Father wasn't going to let me leave, so I untied my laces and dragged myself back into the house. 

I had been genuinely perplexed for weeks after as to how he had guessed it...

Looking back at all the memories I have shared so far, I've realised I spent most of my childhood completely confused and amazed by what happened around me... I was also really stupid.

How was this a How To Guide? Basically, if running away, just do the opposite of everything I have done... Unless you are doing this for attention purposes (which, let's face it, is pretty much why I was doing it), then do it exactly the same. 

Peace out my lovelies.

How To Guide on making good first impressions: IRA and IRS; those are two organisations you don't want to get mixed up

I've been making attempts to talk to new people recently. I find that it keeps me from becoming a hermit quite effectively. Over the weekend, I was emailing a new person and he started asking questions about my book. Naturally, I got all excited and began to tell him all about it. The emails were going well, there was amusement and general chattiness. He then inquired about whether this was available on paperback, or just via ebook. I told him that, at the moment, it only existed on ebook because there was a lot of red tape involved in turning it into a paperback copy.

This is because the company that works with Amazon to publish books for self-publishing authors is an American company, and I am very much British. Due to this, there are all these forms that I need to fill in to do with ensuring that the taxes from the book are paid to England and not to America. I have to apply for stuff and answer questions I have no clue about and also fight that little part within me that shuts down and states "I can't be arsed" whenever anything too complicated or long winded presents itself to me.

Naturally, in my email, I did not go into this in so much detail. I simply explained that I had some work to do before I could make it into a paperback, which involved signing forms... and then went on to state that the organisation I needed to sort things out with, was the IRA...

I genuinely didn't think anything else of it. There had been a niggling thought in the back of my mind that I hadn't meant to use the initials IRA upon typing them, but I was 83% certain I did mean to use those initials, so just went ahead and sent it.

However, after this conversation, I was watching Sherlock: The Empty Hearse (yes, again, I know. It's reached obsessive, I don't need to be told). In a list of possible terrorists, John Watson mentions the IRA, in the context of the Irish IRA, who have been known to cause a spot of bother or two within our little island in terms of bombs and the such, particularly in my youth.

It was at this point that I paused my TV and allowed the penny to drop that I had, perhaps, not used the correct term in my previous email. It had been about half a day since I had sent this email, and needless to say, I had not received a reply from my new friend. I went back to the email, checked what I had written and saw confirmation on the fact that I had said the following words:

"Working at getting it into paperback, but it involves all sorts of things being worked out with the IRA and all that jazz."

Well shizzle. Suddenly the lack of response was completely understandable. Apparently if you do something as simple as exchange one little letter like an S for an A in the above context, you go from being a mildly interesting person who has written a book, to someone who is relying on the funding of this book by a terrorist organisation. Of all the impressions that I am trying to make or have tried to make in my past, this is not one that is high on my list.

I mean yes, I now have the added edge of being dangerous and exciting. But this also comes at the cost of possible incarceration when the police turn up at my door with hard evidence, in the form of an email, that I am affiliated with the IRA. Also, apparently the "bad-girl" impression was not what my new acquaintance liked, as I have not heard from him since.

I have considered emailing him back and correcting my mistake. However, I fear that this might come across as me desperately trying to cover my tracks. Especially as I have this nasty habit of, when apologising for a mistake, making myself sound even more suspicious than I had in the first place.

So far, it has been three days since I had sent the email. And I have yet to be dragged into a police station for questioning, so I am taking this to be a good thing. No news is good news, and all that. However, given that I wrote a post last week about possibly being involved in a Mafia organisation without realising it, I felt I should probably voice my mistake on this blog in case the email was reported and the police are building a case against me as we speak.

So, to be clear:

IRA; Irish Republican Army: An Irish organisation known for bombing things
IRS; International Revenue Service: An American organisation used for taxing things

The forms that I have been avoiding filling out for the past year are for the IRS, not the IRA. I have no known affiliations with the IRA, and am not currently in the process of using their organisation for the purpose of publishing and selling my book. If you buy it, you will not be funding the IRA. And, as it stands, there is no relation between my book and the IRS either... unless you live in America, possibly. I don't know. I've only just worked out the correct acronym, I'm not even going to pretend to know how the tax system works.

Peace out my lovelies.

How To Guide for being simultaneously lazy and incredibly productive.

I have had the most lazy-and-yet-highly-productive weekend in the history of my little world. The high contradiction has left me a little whiplashed, let me tell you.

To explain, not once did I leave my onesie for the entire two days. I also left my bed only when completely necessary and was snuggled so tight in my duvet that I was the definition of laze. However, I also spent the entire time working on writing jobs on my laptop. I wrote more of my novel, I worked on my current freelancing editing job and I even gave directions to Claire-The-Bully when she got lost and called me in confusion. Usually, when I do nothing for a weekend, I tend to wake up on a Monday morning feeling entirely guilty that I have wasted 48 hours of my life on absolutely nothing worthwhile. This morning however, I woke up feeling victorious. I had had a taste of what I had always wanted my life to be like, a life where I can be professionally lazy and still turn out a profit. 

This, guys, is the ultimate dream. I'm not going to lie, my ideal dream of writing novels for a living has a lot to do with the burning desire to tell stories and have people get as excited about the voices in my head as I am, but there is also this very real and beautiful aspect to it, which is that I can get away with working every day like the weekend I just had. Sure, I may end up with bed sores and I would probably need to work in some form of conversational type aspect with other people, so as to stop myself from becoming a complete recluse, but overall it would be worth it. 

To add extra beauty to my weekend, I spent my downtime in between writing jobs playing the new Sherlock: The Network, game on my iphone. It's an app that basically enrolls you as a member of Sherlock's Homeless Network and allows you to help him solve crimes. It's the official game, so they've gone all out and break up each level by having video clips of Benedict and Martin talking to you in character. I'm not going to lie. At first, when they started, I listened intently and was geeking out over the chance of brand new footage of Sherlock and Watson to watch. However, as the game continued and my involvement in the game increased, I found my enjoyment was multiplied by 100 if, when Sherlock and Watson talked to me, I talked back... I'm not even going to be ashamed of that. It gave me endless amusement to have actual conversations with them. Such was my excitement, that I managed to finish the entire game by the time the weekend was out, leaving me once again with that lost feeling that only comes with the end of each new Sherlock series. 

That's going to be all I say on that, due to the fact that I have managed to use up the majority of January, talking about Sherlock and I fear that I may be alienating those who either haven't watched Sherlock, or don't like it... not that I know of a single person who doesn't like it... I mean, to watch something as amazing as that and then not like it is, well, weird. 

Anywho... I realise that this month has drastically altered the general theme of this blog. Usually I just chat about crap that I have done, scenarios I have got myself into that are less than ideal, and just generally chat about my day. This month, I've barely done that, for which I apologise. My main reason is, as you might have guessed by the type of weekend I have had, that I just don't have much going on at the moment. I could come on here and talk about yet another day where I worked, went home, and fell asleep, but I fear that you may all lose interest. As such, I have been improvising to fill in the gaps in my usually booming social life (slight sarcasm might need to be inserted there). 

Things that have happened however, is that One-And-Only-Daniela has finally come back from what felt like a year's vacation to the Philippines. This was really only about 3 weeks, but as she consists of my entire social life, it has seemed a little longer to me. But she's back and complaining about the crappy weather and how she needs another holiday already, and it's glorious!! So hopefully, as a result of this, and the upcoming money that should be coming my way for all the productive editing I have been doing all weekend, I shall once again find myself with something to blog about! Huzzah! 

Until then, I thought I might leave you with an old post I put up. It was one I found recently and completely forgot had happened until I re-read it. But it also explains exactly why I have nicknamed the above friend as Claire-The-Bully. True story. Just Click Here to read more.

Peace out my lovelies.

Fancy Things Friday: SORTED Food

Hey guys!

Welcome to Fancy Things Friday, where I talk about things on a Friday that I think are fancy!!

I don't know about anyone else, but I have this obsessive/avoidance relationship with Youtube. I have no medium when it comes to watching videos on it. I either spend my entire time watching vlogger after vlogger, or I just cut myself off entirely. 

For the majority of 2013, I had cut myself off. Possibly due to the concern people were raising over how much time I spent pouring over the countless videos on there during 2011/2012. Also, Younger-Brother-Daniel, who had once been my other obsessive Youtube acquaintance, had also stopped watching the videos, and so without anyone to discuss the sites contents with anymore, I found it fizzled out. 

Then a couple of months ago, thanks to the night where I apparently spent the evening with some famous footballer of some kind; an old friend of mine, Mike, commented on my facebook picture of said footballer to tell me just how famous he was. Although we haven't really chatted much recently, we used to hang out quite a lot several years back, so I thought... I know, I'll go and check out what he's doing now. 

This was when I realised I deserved some form of bad friend award as, unbeknownst to me, he had been busy taking over the internet for the past couple of years. He was doing this successfully and I had completely missed it, because I'm an awesome friend like that. So, as a way of redeeming myself, and also because after spending hours watching their videos I've realised they are pretty much awesome and deserve all the praise they can get, my Fancy Things Friday is all about SORTED Food.

For any of you who have been living under the same rock I have, SORTED Food are a cooking channel on Youtube, consisting of four guys cooking easy and affordable food... I think that's pretty much, word for word, their byline... I thought I'd mention that, just in case I get in trouble for some form of plagiarising or something. 

I've been watching them for a couple of months now and, thanks to the several collaborations they have done with other apparent massive youtube stars who came into the limelight during my youtube hiatus, I have officially joined the realms of obsession in the damn site again. I know the purpose of their videos are more about encouraging cooking, rather than encouraging youtube procrastination, which means I appear to have missed the point of the videos for the large part, but I still do blame them for my lack of doing useful things, as well as my non existent Internet Data Allowance on my phone for this month... 

Okay, this is meant to be an advertising post... I should probably stop complaining and start telling you why these guys are awesome. First off, their food looks freakin' awesome every time they upload a video. From what I can tell, they basically upload recipes based on a mixture of their followers suggestions, mixed in with their own ideas. 

Out of the four guys, Mike, Jamie, Barry and Ben, only one of them seems to be able to cook; Ben. The other three are either attempting to learn from him, or just trying to annoy the hell out of him. It makes for funny watching. Want an example? Below is one of my favourite vids: 

I'm not going to lie, I laughed so hard, I peed a little. You're welcome for that imagery. 

I highly recommend that people go and check them out. They really are amazing and fill you with all this hope that one day, you will be a culinary genius. So much so, that you might go home at Christmas and announce to your whole family that 2014 will be the year of cooking everything on their channel until you are a cooking God, and people will come from miles away to taste your food because you know how to copy a recipe unlike no other. And then your Mum might look at you as if this is the proudest she has ever been and suddenly you realise that this is no longer an empty promise and you will have to see it through... even though Microwaveable dishes are so much easier to do and you're always so knackered after work and too busy watching other youtube videos over the weekend to actually put this promise into action. Which then leads to you shaking your head at SORTED Food and saying, "Well I didn't become obsessed with these other videos on my own, if you had stopped being so awesome with your collaborations with other very funny people, maybe my attention wouldn't have taken such a nasty diversion away from the kitchen and into the homes of Grace Helbig, Mamrie Hart, Hannah Hart and Miranda Sings, to name a few." But then you watch more videos and you decide that, as they're making it so easy by providing you with cookbooks and kitchenware, maybe you can be a cooking genius after all. And you vow to yourself that, as soon as you stop having no money, you are going to buy food that requires more preparation than piercing the film lid with a fork, and you will be just as awesome as the SORTED Food guys are... or something. 

I've pretty much overloaded you with sneaky links to their videos in that previous paragraph. Check them all out. But also, there are others which I love, such as these below. 

... There are others, but you know what? I've probably already overdone it... 

Just one last little tip before I finish. If you are going to watch the videos in fast succession, one after the other; try to avoid doing so when you haven't eaten in a day and have no food in the house, nor money to go out and buy said food. Take it from a gal who learnt this the hard way, it won't end well... I appreciate that most people would take this as a given anyway, but I thought I'd mention it to the few that might have the same cluelessness as I sometimes can hold... Also, when you're dieting and you've managed to trick yourself into thinking that the small meal you've just eaten is enough for your stomach, probably not a good time to watch a video either... learnt that one, last night... I also haven't stopped having a hankering for an Apple and Butterscotch Crepe Cake ever since. 

Okay, I reckon that's all I have to say. Sorry for not noticing your journey to becoming awesome Mike, hope this redeems me in some way. 

Everyone else, go forth and cook stuff!! I'm going to... at some point... perhaps. 

Peace out my lovelies.

Careful, this post may contain over positivity and happiness. It is likely to become infectious and leave you feeling happy as well. If you wish to be miserable, best to give this one a miss.

Today is a good day. Today is a happy day. Today I have felt good about being happy and I would like to share said goodness and happiness with you all because, for all my tendency towards cynicism and sarcasm, I have decided that occasionally smiling about absolutely nothing is required.

I've made some very small and insignificant changes in my life this week. I've instigated a few things and combated my procrastination problem for finishing other things. I started doing this on Monday, and it left me with such a rush, I continued to do productive things all week. This then increased my good mood so that I haven't been able to stop. I'm in a "Doing things created Good Feelings which gives me energy to do more things" cycle that is just making my week better and better. 

So far, my doing things have all created positive responses and repercussions. So much so, that I am finding myself spontaneously dancing in the street and high fiving strangers, whilst throwing them the wink and the gun. I'm laughing about silly things and filling my mind with the positive and ridiculous. I'm also eating silly amounts of Oranges... I don't know if that has anything to do with it but I'm going with it. 

As such, I feel that I should be spreading the happiness to all of you lovely people. My reason is that this blog being read by people is one of my favourite things that I have. When I see that people daily check out my blog to read the random crap that I have to say, and then come back again the next day because I apparently haven't scared them off, it makes me so giddy I could just kiss my computer screen... I may even have actually kissed the screen on a few occasions, you know, just because. 

You guys give me happiness every day, so I wanted to do the same. So here goes... 

Life is short but amazing. Of all the species that exist in this world, we definitely get the best deal. We are able to love and smile and cry and feel. We are able to look at the world and appreciate the beautifulness of it. Not only that, but we are able to create new and exciting ways to make it beautiful. This world consists of natural stunning sights, such as: 

And then we went right ahead and added to that, by creating equally beautiful things like:

Guys, we made those! Actual people with brains and awesomeness. Sometimes it feels like there is far too much focus on the evil of humanity and not enough on the sheer stunning talent we possess. All around the world, there are people thinking up stuff and other people saying yes to those people. All through history it's been happening. We've all just been a species of people who marvelled at beauty and said "I want to add to this."

Just stop for a moment and consider the concept of Imagination. We could just be walking around this world, surviving, eating and sleeping and we'd be considered a successful species for being able to, as a whole, get from point of birth to old age and function with each other. That would be an amazing thing in itself. However, in addition to our amazing ability to do that, we also come with all this other stuff. We are able to feel emotions, to express ourselves in innovative ways, and (perhaps the most awesome thing of all) we have access to imaginations.

The imagination. Each of us has one. Some of us have bigger ones than others. But what is amazing is that, by it's very nature, there are no limitations to what it can hold and, as such, this allows us all to use it in our own special and unique way. Due to this, it has to be the most adaptable and varied possession we have available to us. Each imagination is birthed and adapted based on an individual's personality, talent and passion. We each have the capacity to make whatever we want in our minds. We don't just get to enjoy the miracle that is living, but we get to expand and dream. If there is something in our lives that we aren't happy with, we each hold the ability to change it. The only thing stopping us, is our willingness to see it through.

As has been proved time and time again in this blog, I have always been an advocate for the stretching of one's imagination. Even when I dream something ridiculous that would never happen, it still allows me to feel giddy over the possibility of it, especially when things aren't nearly as exciting in real life.

Imagination gives us drive and purpose. Whether it be through designing beauty, creating fictional worlds and storylines for others to enjoy, developing dreams in our careers and a goal to reach for our future, or just simply coming up with a way that would make another person's day, the fact that we hold the ability to do it in the first place, is just mind boggling.

I am grateful for the ability to dream. And, being a woman who has suffered from nightly nightmares for almost 10 years, I realise it takes a lot for me to be able to say that. But if to lose the nightmares meant that I would also have to lose my ability to imagine, I wouldn't even consider it, I'd keep them both.

So with all that said, take a moment today. Look around you at what the world has to offer. When you're out in public, have a sneaky glance at the people around you and watch how they are with each other (emphasis on the "sneaky" bit, otherwise things may progress to a non happy place, when confronted). If you come across a particularly beautiful section of your world, stop and take a moment to soak it in and marvel. We truly are blessed with what we have, and sometimes it's just amazing to stop, observe, smile and be in awe.

Then, whilst you are marvelling at the beauty of it, allow it to inspire your imagination. Take a moment and allow your dreams to take over. Go through the desires of your heart and select the most beautiful, then consider, even if it's just for one moment, that this beautiful dream has the possibility of coming true. Take a moment then to just absorb the happiness that that brings and just Be.

In case you were wondering why I spent most of my time in my head, now you know.

Peace out my lovelies.

Wind Back Wednesdays: The memory I couldn't quite believe was actually true, on the account of it possibly being illegal.

I don't know if anyone has experienced this, but occasionally I'm prone to have memories from my childhood that, when I've mentioned it to my family, they have told me never happened. When this has happened in the past I tend to have two different reactions:

1. I will adamantly stand by my account and tell them that they are the ones who are wrong for not remembering it. Clearly I have the superior memory brain.
2. Even though I'm convinced at the beginning, when they've said it didn't happen and I really think about it, I agree that this is probably something I've fabricated.

However, there are a few memories where, even before I have got to talking about them with my family, I am convinced  they never really happened. I had probably just dreamed it once and then it turned into something that I thought was real afterwards. The memory that I'm going to talk about today is one of those, except, instead of my family confirming that it wasn't true, it has been confirmed that, apparently, this totally happened, mainly by Older-Brother-Glyn who was the one who shared the bulk of this memory with me.

The memory is vague as it's one of my earlier ones. Which I guess just makes things even more bizarre. I'll try and flesh it out as much as I can though... okay, here goes.

I was around 4 years old and it was a Sunday Morning. Coming from a Christian family, we were all getting ready for church. Older-Brother-Glyn and I were ready downstairs, although Younger-Brother-Daniel, who would have only been 2 or 3 at the time, was still running around the house. All of a sudden, there was a massive crash and I ran to the hallway to see that Younger-Brother-Daniel had fallen down the stairs, cracking his head open... it wasn't pleasant. Incidentally, this was the first in a long line of accidents where Younger-Brother-Daniel managed to crack his head open. For some reason, he got some weird kick out of getting himself into situations where hard or sharp things would come into contact with his head. My other favourite including an incident where he had become so angry over not being able to swing on the swing that Older-Brother-Glyn was on, he decided he was better off making his protest of this by standing right behind where Older-Brother-Glyn was swinging, screaming at the top of his lungs... Unfortunately, he just didn't see that swing seat coming...

Anywho... back to this particular head cracking incident, (which had included some form of wheely toy at the top of the stairs coming into contact with his feet) Marmie and Father automatically went into panic mode, and, realising that not only did they now have a bleeding child to get to a hospital, but also two other children who would need to be put somewhere out of harms way whilst this was dealt with, Father called for an ambulance and Marmie ran next door to the neighbours for an emergency babysitting session.

Thankfully, the neighbours were in and happy to help. So Older-Brother-Glyn and I were sent round to theirs in our Sunday best with slightly traumatised looks on our faces over what we had just witnessed... there had been a lot of blood, guys.

Once the ambulance left with Younger-Brother-Daniel, Marmie and Father, it gets a little sketchy over what happened immediately after. I would guess we sat around the house until roughly midday, when the people in charge of us then decided to take us out on a trip. We were then shipped off into a car and taken to a local pub... at least I assume it was local. I'm not going to pretend that I knew the locations of any of the pubs around that area, given that I grew up in a Tee Total household... oh and also due to being 4 years old.

I remember sitting in a darkened room and eating crisps. Then Older-Brother-Glyn and I were asked if we wanted to help unload some stuff from the back of a van. We must have said yes, because we were then taken out back to find a parked van with a bunch of men opening the back doors. Our temporary guardian picked me up and sat me on the ledge of the back of the open van and I remember seeing all these crates inside. The man then opened one of the crate and showed us... (no word of a lie, Older-Brother-Glyn has confirmed this) cases of bullets.

I'm suddenly aware that should anyone be reading this from across the pond, this might not be so shocking given that I hear you all carry ten guns each or something. I'm sure the supply and demand of bullets is pretty high within the American States... I'll admit I don't really know, given that I've not spent much time over there. But, in the same way that I hear you all imagine we've got a castle on every street (which, of course, is 100% true), I tend to imagine that there are bullets being sold on every street corner. I'm basing all of this purely on the fact that guns are legal there. Therefore my brain has just come to the natural conclusion that it always tends to make. The same way I imagine that you guys use guns to open cans of beans and stuff, you know... because you can.

However, guns are not legal in Great Britain... unless your in some special department in the police... or a farmer. Farmers seem to be above the law and have a bunch of them. The thing is, I lived in London at the time, so the chance of these people being Farmers was pretty low. They could have been police officers... but Marmie and Father didn't seem to remember that being the case, when I have asked them in the past.

So, with those deductions made, the fact that Older-Brother-Glyn and I found ourselves helping people unload bullets off the back of a van down some street alley really didn't sound all that law abiding. On account of my 4 year old body not really being up for much heavy lifting, I was given the task of sitting on the end of the van and looking cute whilst the men worked. I think Older-Brother-Glyn helped a little, although I suspect not too much, given that he was 6. I was even given a couple of bullets to play with, so as to occupy myself.

There's not much else that I remember of that day. Only that we came home and Younger-Brother-Daniel was all stitched up again (in case you were worried). I don't know whether we mentioned what we had done with our day to Marmie and Father. If we had, Marmie and Father didn't seem to be too worried about the whole thing. Which apparently just confirms the theory that Older-Brother-Glyn has over the whole incident...

According to him, he was under the impression the bullets we were offloading weren't even real bullets, but rather blanks or something. Something to do with a shooting range that might have been located nearby. Apparently the whole thing was completely innocent, although he has no evidence to back this up... that I know of.

Due to this lack of evidence, my over-imaginative brain has come up with all sorts of theories as to what was really involved in our back alley task. Needless to say, in my mind, I starred a minor role in some form of scenario you might find re-enacted in a Martin Scorcese type film and narrowly escaped a life of Black Market crime. Or Black Market crime narrowly avoided me... I'm not too sure how useful my constant blogging and natural cluelessness to things around me that are based in reality and don't come out of my TV screen, would have been. I mean, let's face it... I'm not exactly mafia quality...

Although, having said that, from what I remember of that day, I held my own pretty well. If shizzle had gone down, I reckon I could have defended myself with my mad skills. Although, as I can't really remember there being any actual guns there, perhaps my throwing of the bullets at my attackers might not have had the same effect.

And on that note...

Peace out my lovelies.

Weekly review: The Musketeers. Completely Spoiler Free!

No Spoilers are used within this post... You are welcome.

Sorry for lack of postage yesterday. Was ill and bed ridden.

I'm much better now though, so thought I'd pick up on what I was planning to write.

I'm very aware that I've started some different series of things on my blog this year. Most have been conscious decisions; Wind Back Wednesdays and Fancy Things Fridays. There is one though that seems to just simply have happened, mainly due to my obsession for all things Sherlock. And that is I appear to be writing weekly reviews on stuff. I'm not too sure if this is going to become a regular thing at the moment, because there might be a week when I don't watch anything to review... unlikely, but it may happen.

However, this week, I still find myself with things to review on as, now that Sherlock has ended, I have had to desperately find something new on the BBC to sink my teeth into/become obsessed about. Not unlike a drug addict finding her next fix. This is the reason I don't touch drugs... If I am able to get this obsessed with fictional fantasy places, living in my TV screen, I dread to think what would happen should I take something that actually has addictive qualities.

The BBC, being clever and knowing that there would be a lot of people feeling the same way after Sherlock was taken away, has been sneakily feeding in trailers for a new BBC drama called The Musketeers, which was scheduled to start (surprise, surprise) the week after Sherlock had ended. This was very good advertising which I fell for completely and wholeheartedly.

The premise of this TV show appeared to be telling the classic Musketeers story and making it hella sexy with good looking men wearing leather and fighting other men, whilst having sexy times with women and, basically, just throwing testosterone around the screen for 60 minutes. Naturally, I was intrigued.

I would say, at this point, that it didn't disappoint. I mean, we all knew what we were getting ourselves into upon turning on our TV screens, with trailers like below:

It delivered exactly what was advertised... although whether it delivered much else aside from this, is still left to be seen.

I want to be clear, I did enjoy the episode. I might even attempt watching it again tonight to see if this enjoyment is increased further. However, in terms of whether it will be winning any awards for being amazing? Not too sure. It also was just the pilot episode. And there were introductions to storylines that could go places. So I guess I won't be able to fully tell until I have seen more.

Also... Peter Capaldi (AKA: Our new Doctor) is in this series. He plays the classic bad guy, and has already succeeded in making me not like his character, although I don't know if this is a good thing. I'm pretty sure I don't want to associate the image of this man with that of the Doctor. I might get confused when Doctor Who begins later in the year and my already conflicting emotions on losing Matt Smith will just get worse and then I won't be able to love the Doctor anymore... who am I kidding? I will always love the Doctor... but I'm just saying, there might be conflict involved.

I wanted this review to be more detailed, especially for those of my overseas Internetual friends who may not have heard of it yet, and want to know more. However, the fact of the matter is, there's just not that much to talk about with it yet. I am definitely intrigued enough to watch again next week. And hopefully there'll be more to say, but until then... there really is nothing to add that isn't already portrayed in the trailer.

There is one character I really like so far. One of the women called Constance, who has had a few good funny lines in the first episode and an instant likeability to her. Other than that, not many attachments have been formed... apart from the general enjoyment of the good looking men and their testosterone. That was nice, but then that's a given.

The writer and creator of the series is Adrian Hodges, who wrote the screenplay for My Week With Marilyn, which I remember enjoying... vaguely... I think. He's written a lot of other TV dramas, none of which I've ever seen so it's fair to say I'm not really a follower of his work. But, in case you might be interested and recognise some of it; the big ones seem to be: Survivors and Primeval... so there you go. You're welcome.

That's about as much as I have to say for the time being. Overall, the opinion seems to be I didn't hate it, but it didn't exactly blow me away either. It was... fun. That's the word. Fun. And I'm also willing to watch more, which is definitely a good sign. I'll keep you posted.

Peace out my lovelies.

Fancy Things Friday: The awesomeness that is Tumblr and Fandom

**SNEAKY SPOILER ALERT!! Although the content of this post is completely spoiler free, all links within will go to spoilers for Sherlock: Season 3. You have been warned.**

Welcome to Fancy Things Friday, where I find something I find fancy and cool and talk about it. 

This week's Fancy Thing is something new to me, but probably not to anyone else who uses the Internet. Today, I would like to talk about Tumblr. 

Now, up until a couple of weeks ago, I was incredibly reluctant to sign up for any other social networking site than the multitude I already had become a member of. Mainly because my tendency towards procrastination at the hands of the Internet is already to an obsessive level, I don't need any other reason to drop off the edge of the real life world. 

However, after the first episode of this series of Sherlock aired, a friend uploaded the top Tumblr Fandom reaction posts onto Facebook, and I laughed so hard that all breath left me. It was at this point that I realised I would not be able to fully experience the joy of Sherlock unless I had thousands of other fans to enjoy it with. So, I finally gave into the pull of Tumblr, not really sure what it was that I was letting myself into, and created an account. 

Now I would like to point out at this time that I am pretty much a newbie when it comes to Tumblr. I was shamed more than I can say when I had to learn new Internetual lingo. I had thought I was pretty up to date with what I knew, but it would appear I was not. So, if you are interested in discovering the world of Sherlock on Tumblr, or other fandom worlds, let me introduce you to one word in particular that you will need to be able to understand in order to get the full experience.

To "Ship"
I was first introduced to this word the day after Sherlock Season 3, Episode 1 was aired. I was looking for a video clip on YouTube of the famous sexy kiss for my blog. Once found, I thought I might check through the comments made on this video. A lot of it involved comments I totally understood and completely agreed with, like: 

" 

How the hell will any kiss match up to that ever again? I've watched it 25 times now and my stomach still drops like a roller coaster every single time."

"DAMN SON."

"Jawline of D E A T H"

"REPEAT. REPEAT. REPEAT. DIE INSIDE A THOUSAND TIMES."

And then this comment came along: 

"SOMEONE PLS HELP ME I CAN'T BREATHE THIS IS MY SHIP SAILING OMGGGGGGGG"

I won't lie. I sat there, read that, and thought "Where's she travelling to?" And then "Ship" arrived all over the comments and, after the 15th or 16th time of seeing this word, I realised there was probably some other meaning to it than actually a mode of transport for the open seas. 

After being on Tumblr for a couple of hours I soon became aware now of the true Internetual meaning of the word "Ship."

To ship is to take two people and basically want them to be together. It happens everywhere apparently. 

An example of this in a sentence would be: "OMG, I totally Ship Sherlock and Moriarty". 

In terms of Sherlock, the Fandom "Ship" pretty much every possible pair, although the top people are: 

Sherlolly: Sherlock and Molly

Johnlock: John and Sherlock

Sherliarty??: I'm not too sure how to join together that one, but Sherlock and Moriarty

And my personal favourite: 

Mystrade: Mycroft and Lestrade. This is my favourite as the fans who "Ship" this really don't have much to go on, due to there being no scenes of them both together. To the point that, in the last episode of the series, there was a 3 second clip of them both in one shot, and the Fandom jumped on it unlike anything I've ever seen. It was copied all over Tumblr, even though it consisted of them both just sitting down on either side of a desk. It was the only thing they had, guys! I applaud their devotion. 

Once I had that definition down, I was all over Tumblr 24/7. I'll admit, I've only really used it for Sherlock posts and blogs but I'm sure, once a new obsession begins on TV I'll have something new to use it for. But I will take this moment to thoroughly encourage you all to check the blogs out on there. Only if you've seen it though, of course. This will be no fun to you if you haven't and don't want to know what happens. 

If you just want to read everything possible, then simply type in "Sherlock" in your Tumblr Search. However, I can recommend some highly satisfying Fandom blogs which have never failed to disappoint in the past couple of weeks: 

bbcsherlockftw

bbcsherlock

sherlockspeare

You follow those three and you'll be laughing.. literally. 

Also, feel free to follow me, although I'm not quite sure how to properly post on it yet, I've done it at least twice and I'm up for learning. I'm (surprise surprise) on there as Plumsauce10.

Also, I appreciate that this has been a crash course on Tumblr, written by a woman who has about 2% knowledge on the subject, so feel free to add any additional comments on what makes it so cool in the comments below, I'm always happy to learn and fall in love with new stuff.

Peace out my lovelies.

I appear to have developed an allergy to myself

As most of the regular readers of this blog will have become aware, I am a lady who likes her TV programmes. If I'm not lost in a boxset of some kind, it's like I'm dead inside... true story.

Anywho, I've recently decided to go all retro on my bad self and work my way back through the full workings of a particularly famous vampire slayer we all know and love. I am of course referring to Buffy. Man, every time I watch that programme, it's like I'm falling in love with it all over again. It's pretty much the reaction I have for anything Joss Whedon puts out in the world, slotting him in nicely with the group of Writer besties I plan to make this year: In case you haven't been paying attention, this solid group of people now consist of: 

Steven Moffat

Mark Gatiss

Joss Whedon

Neil Gaiman

There are others, but I thought I'd take my family's advice and stop dreaming too big. These four are plenty enough for me to be getting on with for 2014. The others can join the flock afterwards. And I also promise not to talk with them about the upcoming project I'm planning (involving my books, Joss Whedon and Steven Moffat) until a proper friendship is formed. I'm just looking to bond with them tbh... whatever happens after that will just be a beautiful development of epic proportions. 

Back to watching Buffy... There I was last night, making my way through the collection, of which I am up to Season 5, and two very monumental and sad things happen. I don't really want to give away spoilers but I will say Joyce and Tara both broke my heart. 

Now, thanks to a best friend who lived and breathed Buffy growing up, there really isn't an episode of this programme that I don't know off by heart. Seriously... there was absolutely nothing else we would both do with our teenage years, other than watch this programme... and we spent a lot of time together. There is a video somewhere within her keeping where we both sing and act out the entire musical episode of Buffy, accents and all... we were so cool. 

Due to this, I knew exactly what was going to happen within this series, so the particular above mentioned sad moments came as no surprise to me. However, this did not stop me from crying on and off for about four hours as I made my way through these episodes. 

It was after the initial cry however, that I began to notice something was wrong. As I started to create tears, my eyes seemed to get quite irate about the whole thing. They seemed to be reacting badly to my bodily eye fluids and started to become inflamed, itchy and irritable. I know there does consist a slight amount of rubbing of eyes when crying, so I didn't think much of it. However, once I stopped crying, I noticed that the itchiness didn't wear off for a while. I finally managed to get my eyes under control, mainly by dunking my face in a sink full of water. I returned to the programme and low and behold, someone else had a breakdown, began to cry, and I joined in with their pain. My eyes erupted. It was like my tears were some form of acid and they were not happy to be in contact with it. 

This continued until I finally decided to turn off the most depressing episodes of Buffy yet and try and get some sleep. Although, by this time my eyes had become swollen and red, not unlike how they get any time I come into contact with anything feline. I could not work it out. So, instead of spending time thinking things, I decided to just sleep because, let's face it, that's a hell of a lot more fun. 

This morning I woke up with normal eyes again and spent the majority of my day, leading up to this point, trying to work out the bizarre allergic reaction I had been subject to. The only conclusion I could come up with? I'm allergic to my tears. 

Yes, ladies and gents, I appear to have found a way to become allergic to myself. Because apparently, after this and this  happened, my body didn't already hate me enough, and has decided to come up with a new and fun way to torment me. 

After thinking about this for a while, I realised that I shouldn't be really all that surprised, given that I had already identified that I have acidic armpits, and so the fact that I am now excreting acid from my eyes as well, makes perfect sense. What I do have a problem with, however, is that, if part of my body has decided to become slightly toxic, I fully expect the rest of my body to adopt, adapt and improve. By not doing so, it is proving that there appears to be some rivalry going on, and I really don't want to have to have yet another conversation with my organs, flesh and body fluid about getting along again. That last time was just painful, none of them would speak and then they all just started shouting at once and I was all "Calm down!" And then the people at Starbucks started suggesting that I took this conversation elsewhere, and I just hate creating a public scene, so I was hella embarrassed about the whole thing. 

The problem is, I haven't even finished with all the sad Tara bits in this series (I'm not even going to mention the Big Sad in the next series), so I know there will be future crying involved and, if my body doesn't start behaving itself, I'm going to come in tomorrow looking like I've been punched in both eyes (true story, my eyes look like that after an allergic reaction, I'll take a picture next time to prove it... (just don't wait around for that picture. It's not like I'm going to go and find a cat, then rub it all over my face, for the purpose of creating photographic evidence. I love you guys, but it hasn't quite developed into a "I'm willing to die for a photo" kind of love (yet))). This will mean that an intervention will probably have to be scheduled for soonish. But don't worry, I've learnt from my mistakes, all conversations had with myself are now made strictly within the comfort of my own room so as to avoid any inevitable committing to a mental health hospital. 

I may be crazy, but I'm also clever about it. 

Peace out my lovelies.

Wind Back Wednesdays: My Childhood Super Power

Welcome to my second episode in Wind Back Wednesdays. The fact that I'm writing this means that this has already lasted a whole week longer than I thought it would! Hurrah!!

In case you missed it last week, Wind Back Wednesdays is when I look back on the memories of my life, find one worth talking about, and write it down! Today, I'm going back in time to my life in Primary School when I was about 8 years old. Similar age to last week. Apparently this is when I blossomed in my anecdotal experiences. So without further ado, I give you this week's story.

When at school, we were given a project. Our teacher asked us to come up with either an example of when we were really naughty, or when we did a good deed. We had a school assembly coming up and the idea was that we were going to tell our stories on this day.

When I was asked to do this, I couldn't think of anything for either story. So, as a result, I figured the best thing was to make something up, naturally. There was a certain degree of competition involved in this project. We all wanted to have the best story. I needed it to be good. As such, I came up with this story about how I had been really naughty one day when I had taken talcum powder and covered my entire room with it. If I still had the original version now, I would have been able to upload it and show you the awesomeness of this story. However, as I don't, you will have to take my word for it. It had plot twists and a protaganist and deep relationship dramas that made for an amazing and enthralling story... all of that, and it lasted about half a page in my exercise book... sure the twists and drama involved probably weren't that obvious, but if you read in between the lines, you would have found it.

Anywho, I wrote this story and presented it to my teacher with a flourish and pride that had me certain I had the best story yet. This pride and excitement was incredibly short-lived however, when my Teacher announced that these stories would all be going back home with us, so our parents could read them. Suddenly I was filled with dread; knowing full well that, if Marmie read this, I would be caught in the act of lying, and I knew she wouldn't be happy with that.

However, it was all too late and, as I hadn't developed the ability to cover my tracks when being naughty yet, I had no choice but to let the exercise book go home with me. All that evening, I was terrified for Marmie's reaction to what she had read in my book. I heard nothing from her for a while, which just served as a further catalyst to increasing my fear. When Marmie eventually did address the story with me however, her reaction was not that of disappointment or anger, but rather surprise.

"You have some memory on you," She said.

I looked at her, confused, but too paralysed to speak.

"That incident with the talcum powder happened when you were really young." She continued. "I can't believe you remember that."

My mouth dropped open in amazement, not quite sure how to deal with the information that I was being given. Marmie was telling me that not only was I not in trouble, but that I hadn't even done anything wrong in the first place. My completely fabricated story of my Talcum Powder mayhem appeared to be 100% true.

"That actually happened?" I asked.

Marmie laughed at this. "Well of course it did, why else would you have written it?"

"Yeah." I said. "I was really naughty that day, huh?"

Marmie smiled at this, and continued with whatever she was doing, blissfully unaware of the full out explosions occurring within me. I remember clearly leaving Marmie and going back to my bedroom in a daze. There was no part of my story that I had thought was true. I had no memory of doing what I had written I'd done, nor did I have any memory of being told that I had. And yet, here I was having made something up, and later discovering that it had, in fact, come true.

Naturally, my 8 year old brain then made the only conclusion that seemed possible. I somehow had developed magic powers. When I wrote stories, they came true. I felt 100% certain of my new found special abilities and was suddenly overcome and drunk with the power of it. I immediately thought of all the things that I wanted to come true, knowing, without a doubt, that all I had to do was write them down and they would happen.

Now, usually, I suppose a person might try and exploit this power by writing a story about how they are a millionaire or famous or something, but this wasn't my plan in the slightest. As soon as I realised my power, I also realised the responsibility that was tied to it. And what was amazing was that this was years before the Spiderman movies had come out. I had always been slightly ahead of my time...

Due to this revelation, I decided that I would use my new found power carefully and with caution. Apart from anything, I was afraid that people would discover my talent and then want to experiment on me and things. So I didn't write anything else for a couple of days, careful to ensure that my previous accidental magic had gone unnoticed by any Scientists.

However, as the date of the School Assembly began to draw near, my Teacher appeared to begin to get a little distraught over the material we had to offer. Apparently, so many of us had chosen to write about the naughty story, there were barely any stories about us being good. She asked if anyone would consider writing one for the other column. She had no takers. All of us apparently prefered to be seen as naughty than good... or we simply just didn't have any examples to give.

The day prior to the Assembly, our Teacher offered the class an ultimatum. If we all insisted on doing naughty stories, we wouldn't be guaranteed a spot to read it out in front of the school and family visitors. However, anyone who was willing to write a good story, would have a definite place in the Assembly.

Now, for all my good intentions on not exploiting my power up until this point, there was one form of Kryptonite that I had growing up... that was the need for attention. There was nothing more satisfying to me than to perform and have a whole room of people watch me... Yes, I was that girl. Due to this, the possibility that I might not be able to have that attention on me scared me silly. Also, by sacrificing my story when no one else wanted to, effectively taking the bullet for the class, I was showing myself to be a shining example of selflessness and would be praised by everyone else around me. That prospect played to my drama queen inner self so much, I knew I had no other choice but to volunteer. And so, like the martyr I was, I raised my hand and humbly offered my services in writing another story last minute for the sake of a well balanced Assembly and, in turn, to uphold the reputation of this school.

Of course, there was still the issue of my not having any valid memory of doing a good deed. But, due to my new found powers, I knew this not to be a problem. The moment I wrote it, it would become true. I was certain of it.

So I spent the rest of the afternoon writing my next story. This time, I went all out; knowing that the longer I made it, the more time I would have in the lime light. I didn't hold back at all, knowing that there was no story I could make up that would be too big for my super powers.

Due to the short notice, there wasn't enough time for the Teacher to show this story to my parents, and so took the story as gospel. I had had the sense to make the story at least possible, so as to not attract suspicion. There was no flying or world peace involved, I kept it classy; involving myself and Marmie alone.

Assembly day arrived. The school piled into the hall, taking their seats on the floor in front of the chairs, which were organised at the back for the parents to sit. I held onto my piece of paper and waited in anticipation for my turn to tell my story. Eventually it came, and I made my way to the front, throwing Marmie a wave as I spotted her at the back. She waved back, smiling. As far as she was concerned, I was going to be telling my naughty story. I hadn't told her I'd changed it, I wanted it to be a surprise. Once centre stage, I began my story.

"One day, I came home and couldn't find anyone in the house, so I shouted "Mummy" and didn't hear anything at first, but then I heard her. Mummy shouted from the bathroom, but when I got there, the bathroom was locked. Mummy said that she was locked in the bathroom and she was stuck on the toilet, doing a poo. She asked me to help her, and so I tried to open the door but couldn't, so I got a chair and stood on it so I was closer to the door handle, but I still couldn't open it. Mummy was crying now and said she was really stuck on the toilet, so I got a 50p and used it to open the door. It worked and I went in, but Mummy was still stuck on the toilet so I got the neighbours to come round and we all pulled really hard and then Mummy wasn't stuck anymore."

There were giggles throughout the story. The kids especially liked the bit about the poo. When I finished the story, people applauded and I looked up and smiled. It had been a success! I searched for Marmie in the audience and found her. She was staring at me in complete confusion. She didn't look like she remembered the story at all.

I was confused. Why didn't she remember this? I'd written it, so it had to be true. I'd already proved that I was able to do this... however, she almost seemed embarrassed by the whole thing. Why would she be embarrassed?

After the assembly, I found her and asked what she thought of the story.

"What happened to your talcum powder story?" She asked.

"The teacher wanted more good stories instead." I said.

"I wish you had shown it to me first, it was a little embarrassing." Marmie said.

"There wasn't time."

"I thought you were only meant to tell true stories." Marmie said.

I looked at her confused. Why wasn't she remembering this yet? What was wrong?

"That didn't happen, Lisa." Marmie said.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"I'm pretty certain I'd remember something like that."

And then my world fell apart around me. The amazing gift I had been certain I had, was ripped from my hands and all I had was a story I had made up without any truth involved. I had never been so devastated.

Of course, I didn't totally stop believing I was able to do it... I mean, it had worked once, so maybe it was only on certain stories that it would happen...

... I can't remember the point in which I stopped believing this. But I'm pretty certain I don't believe it now... at least I hope it's not true, given that I've published a novel where the entire world is destroyed... I will not cope with the guilt if that one came true...

Peace out my lovelies.