Like a party at a banker's house in 1982. (Tons of snow?)

That is not what London looks like right now. There is some beautiful snow action happening, but it is mostly ambient and airborne, the kind that turns to regular ol' rain once it hits the ground. The rooftops are slightly whiter than normal, but otherwise it's business as usual here at the Ye Olde Britishe Water Emporium aka the whole country all the time.

But. Everyone is losing it. Seriously. For one thing, people are walking around everywhere huddled in groups under snow umbrellas, which are their regular rain-time umbrellas being used as some kind of snow-defender. Guys, snow doesn't get you wet like that. Also, you look stupid. No one can see where anyone else is going so there is a lot of tutting and hawing and hemming as people try to skirt around the other bundled up, wet feet they can see from beneath their nylon guardians.

In addition to the pedestrian chaos, a lot of trains and roads are just not happening, and people can't get into the city or out of their homes. A lot of people's workplaces have been shut down for the day. Maybe it's the Canadian in me, but I'm just sort of finding all of it hilarious. My real hope is that things will get like the picture above and everything will shut down and I'll just make hot chocolate and go skating and for walks and read in my room with my pathetic electric candle and christmas lights from Poundland.

POUNDLAND IS THE NAME OF THE DOLLAR STORE HERE.

Right, so this is probably the most embarrassing blog post ever written.

Every time a new Harry Potter movie comes out, I wonder if this will be the time I am finally a grown up and stop leaving the theatre thinking (sometimes secretly and sometimes out loud), "GOD I wish magic was real so badly." Deathly Hallows Part Two is my last chance to be a real person, you guys.*

Tonight I went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One for the second time. The first time was free though, which I'm pretending makes that less lame. My friend Heather had been given free passes from her place of work, and at that screening there had been free popcorn and drinks and actors dressed up as professors from Hogwarts doing imitations of them and talking to all the patrons of the theatre as if we were students. It was both great and lame, which is one of my favourite precariously balanced states. I came for the free stuff and stayed for the RON.

Now, I did not make this Rupert Grint collage, but I would. (Not really, but I make mind-collages of him on the regular.) He is a beautiful ginger man who I love a lot. My love of gingers is well documented, and this movie franchise features a large ginger family, the lone female of which is so redheadedly seductive she snares the hero of the entire thing, so obviously I'm all about it.

The most shardiest time of the year

My favourite thing in the whole world, the Shard, became the tallest building in London today, and it is only partially built. Suck on that, 1 Canada Water, title-holder for the past 20 years. I learned about this via the twitter account @skyscrapernews. That's a thing.

There used to be this beyond amazing display of children's Shard-inspired artwork at its base by London Bridge Tube Station, in theory based on what the building would look like when completed. In a solemn reminder to take opportunities when they come to us lest we miss out on something GLORIOUS, I did not take any photos of the child's drawing that turned the Shard into a giant super hero, or the ones that gave it weird spirals, or the one of it poking the moon in the face. Tragique.

To supplement, here is some artwork of my own. Family and friends should look forward to receiving these beauties in their imaginary mailboxes shortly. Merry Shardmas everyone!

Weekend update

(See what I did there? That's already a thing!)

The main point of this post is to offer this piece of advice: if you are pushed into an already packed car on the Tube by a group of people, one of whom is being particularly rude, tutting and fussing and being generally curmudgeonly in a very British-in-a-bad-way manner, it is probably the man with the silk paisley ascot, pinky ring, and large, curled moustache. The good news is, he will provide entertainment for the rest of your journey, as he is not only disdainful and furious when getting on the Tube, but also horrified by the incorrect subway etiquette of passengers in general. Let the theatrical eye-rolling, exaggerated sighs, and somewhat terrifying sneering begin!

Ladbrokes also runs a tasteful event called 'the poker cruise'. 

Also: LADBROKES. Ladbrokes is an English business that I had presumed was a place for betting on sports games and horse races and the like. Turns out, you can bet on anything you want. Anything. People who got wind of the William and Kate engagement were rushing into Ladbrokes' all over London before the news broke in an attempt to get that bet in. You can still bet on where the Royal couple is going to get married, though, so good news. Ladbrokes is the commercial equivalent of saying to a friend "Oy, mate, bet you it's going to rain later today." "Bet it's not." "You're on." That is a real business here. Also, why would you name your gambling business Ladbrokes? That just seems like a bad plan, from a branding perspective.

"You probably get this all the time, but..."

I get compared to Drew Barrymore semi-often. One time, in LAX, a confused family actually asked me if I was her. I take this as a big time compliment and am very unsecretly pleased about it, as Drew Barrymore is quite a cute lady. Usually if someone starts a sentence with "You know who you look just like..?" I just sort of presume that's where things are going, commence feeling good about it, and get my smiley face on. Since moving here, I've been told by a number of ladies (and one old man) that I bear a striking resemblance to the singer Adele. On the one hand:

I guess?

On the other hand: 

I bought a fur hat, everyone be cool.

You know when you go shopping by yourself and somehow end up sucked into a delusion-vortex where you are completely cool and can pull off anything you've ever wanted to wear in your wildest dreams? Typically, I call this Euro-shopping, where you go out to a store in Italy or something, and everyone else is wearing camouflage jeans with "Sexy and Military" written on them in rhinestones, so you think your shirt with the see-through sections over the shoulders is cheeky and fun, instead of super weird and embarrassing. Or you go to France and decide that since the gamines can do it, dammit you are getting one of those gray tunic-y sack things and rocking the HELL out of it, instead of looking like a B-list celebrity trying to start pregnancy rumours. The good thing about Euro-shopping is that it only happens in Europe. (In the twitter version of this post, the hashtag is #ohshitiliveherenow.)

I went to a vintage market in Brick Lane the other weekend, and had been looking for something fur, as well as something leopard. Drunk on my obsession with the '60s and that weird mildew smell that is ubiquitous wherever second hand clothing is sold/your great aunt's basement/Miss Havisham's house, I found EXACTLY what I was looking for.

Then I took it home:

some pictures

I am really terrible about taking pictures. I know in this age of flickrtumblrtwitter "check out our brand on facebook" that if you don't document it and then post it on the internet, it didn't happen, but a lot of stuff happens too fast to take pictures, okay? Anyway this is the best I could do:

Somerset house is right beside my campus. Amazing.

See all my sexxxxxy pixxxxx below. ($1.50/min)

ill, bruv.

That's me. (Artist's rendering)

Have fallen ill with that grimey cold that seems to always coincide with the start of winter in earnest. It does not help that the weather for the next week is slated to be 100% Go Back to Bed weather. Which, I'm realizing, is England's default forecast.

Today I caused a minor scene in Sainsbury's while trying to get some Neocitran. I guess the cashier had never heard of this brand, but when I tried to explain what it was and how it worked, he looked at me like I was an alien. In an effort to be helpful, he started listing brand name products, but I had no idea if liquifen or any of the other context-less names represented what I was looking for. A line (sorry, queue) formed. It was awkward. I eventually struck off on my own to find the medicine section. Sainsbury's, riddle me this: why do you have three different brands of anal lubricant but no lozenges?

Point-form weekend

1. It is 'bonfire night' in London, also known as Guy Fawkes' day, also known as the weekend everyone, regardless of familiarity with pyrotechnic safety procedures and/or blood alcohol level, lights fireworks and bonfires all over the city, in backyards and on street corners. It is also the first week of London's firemen and women going on strike.

2. I have spent the weekend being a hung-over academic at a gesture lab/conference at the Globe, which has led to a lot of doodling, most of it Shakespeare-based, all of it embarrassing.

3. The gesture lab has involved a lot of professional actors explaining their theories of early modern performance and workshopping ideas/methods of staging. A lot of it has involved some very floofy acting-type exercises, including something about 'floating' and 'falling' based on Chekov, and actors moving feelings and colours to different locations in their bodies. It has been a cruel reminder as to why I ultimately failed as an actor: my complete inability to let the colour purple govern my movements.

4. Spent last night at a party in Peckham talking about time travel and the way British people say the words 'pedophile', 'hummus', 'yogurt', and 'albino'. (Spoiler alert: they say it weird.) In the name of bonfire night we sent up this firey lantern thing into the air, although as it floated into the night sky it looked suspiciously like it was about to become consumed in flames and maybe land on someone's roof. Whoops. No one called 911 because a) I don't think that's the number for emergencies here, b) The firemen are all at home on strike laughing at their genius trick, and c) It was pissing rain and went out on its own anyway. All's well that ends well and all that.

Here is one of my aforementioned doodles. I presume by now I don't have to preface this with NERD ALERT:

Home is where your psychotic pet is

Monica: For the first time since coming here, I'm legitimately homesick today.

Emily: Why?

Monica: No real reason, that's the worst part!

Emily: Oh, I thought you might have seen a crazy dog, or a dad having portraits done of his daughters.

I miss my weird family and my weirder friends.

listen up London, you too crowded

oh, oh dear, terribly sorry, would you excuse me, just trying to get by, ah, yes, mmmm quite.