Sunshine

I saw a special screening of Danny Boyle's new sci-fi flick Sunshine last night, if only for the Q&A session with him and the impossibly good-looking Cillian Murphy afterwards. Freckles and cheekbones, mmm.

This film is utterly ridick. A team of astronauts are sent to save the dying sun on a spaceship called Icarus ("Ridicarus" would've been a better name) and run into trouble along the way. I could sense Bjarni Supergeek just itching to stand up and shout "impossible!" every time the "science" bit in science-fiction was overlooked. The story was disappointing too, despite every single character being killed off one by one — usually such fun.

So, only go and see this film if Cillian is there afterwards to answer your questions. Not that he could make much more sense of it all than I could...

"You know the bit where I'm walking on the thing, trying to detonate the thingy?" he explained, helpfully. "Well it was hard to do that in a very actorly way..."

Uh huh.

Recent Headlines From the No. 72

Now that I'm back in an English-speaking country there's nothing I like more than sitting too close to people on the bus and listening in on their private conversations. For those of you who haven't been out in a while, this is like getting an RSS feed, only less modern.

Pale Skin
Good news for gingers and Irish people in general: pale skin is in and tans are out. (I also read about this in Observer Woman so it must be true — don't worry, I had it hidden between the pages of Now magazine).

Self-fellatio
It wasn't that long ago that it would have been considered impolite to disclose whether or not one was able to suck one's own cock. Not so anymore, apparently.

"Podcasts"
I still don't know what a "podcast" is. I used to think it was something you did with your iPod, but when I mentioned that to my geeky friend he just looked at me funny as if he wasn't sure if I was joking or not.

Going bonkers
Oh dear, it was all going so well for Britney wasn't it? She was out and about again, smashing up cars with her umbrella, flashing her minky, taking loads of drugs and having a great old time... and then she went crazy and cut her hair off.

Size Zero
I'm a bit confused about this Size Zero craze; are they talking about American Size Zero or our Size Zero? Our Size Zero seems a bit drastic, but then you go looking for a picture of Posh Spice and you can't see her anywhere so you know it must be true.

Dublin

I seem to be getting the hang of this city — if only because I got on a sight-seeing bus by mistake when I was trying to get to Tesco's. I mightn't have managed to get my toilet paper or my Actimel but at least I now know where to find Dublin Zoo.

Making friends in Ireland is going to be a little easier than making friends in Iceland ever was, just going on how many people want to talk to me. If you were as optimistic as to count a "friend" as somebody you once managed to hold down a conversation with — like I was in Reykjavik — then at this rate I've made 12,253 friends here already. Which, according to my nephew, is more than Lily Allen has on MySpace.

I met the vice-president of the Google Wives' Club last week, who I liked very much — mostly because she rolls her eyes and moves the conversation swiftly on every time somebody mentions computers. She's threatening to initiate me sometime soon, which I'll be very glad of. All those old men in the pubs might be very talkative but they're shit at advising me on my make-up.

Everything changes

Galway just isn't the same as it was. Everybody's got handbags now. Handbags! We can't carry our drugs around in our baggy combat pockets these days, y'see, because we're all wearing silky dresses. Well, it was a wedding, I suppose, but even so. And the drugs... they're just not as exciting as they used to be, hey.

I caught the bouquet, despite Bjarni casually getting me to hold his pint at the last minute. Didn't matter; I leapt into the air anyway, a drink in each hand, elbowing a pregnant lady to the floor and catching the roses between my teeth. No probs.

Bouquets and handbags. Everything changes.

Guinness

This'll be my first year in Ireland for Paddy's Day since 1998, when I was working behind the bar in the second most disgusting pub in Galway. This meant I not only had to WATCH people throwing up into their own pints but I had to clean it up and SMILE ABOUT IT, too.

I'll be in Galway again this year, on the other side of the bar this time. But I won't be drinking any stout, that's for sure. Not after ordering a pint last week by mistake, like some kind of American tourist. I'd wandered into a bar one afternoon and the words just came spilling out of my mouth: "Pint of Guinness, please".

It took me bloody hours to drink that bloody pint. I had to keep taking really, really tiny sips before dashing off to the toilets to wash my mouth out with the pink soap from the dispenser. Every time I climbed back onto my barstool to tackle the next sip the barman looked at me funny. But I just smiled and gave a casual wave of my hand. By the time I got out of there I was 3 hours late for my hair appointment and all the shops were shut.

I'll stick to cosmopolitans next time. They already taste of pink soap.

No Flash Photography

There are some things that I'm not very good at writing about, like my brother's dad's funeral last week, which I just didn't have the words for. Or crazy Icelandic landscapes, which are difficult to make fun of — unless you have a camera handy.

So I've started another blonk, for all those kinds of things, illustrated by pictures.

A slice of banoffi pie

The trouble with going out with someone who looks like a slice of banoffi pie is that sooner or later someone else is going to dip her finger in and have a little taste.

Bjarni is going to a party tomorrow, without me. Which is fine, really, no probs — I want him to have fun. I just don't want him to have fun with anybody who might be tempted to dip her finger in and have a little taste.

I've been trying to fatten him up a little, see if that helps. "The burgers here are great," I'll sigh, as he skims over the menu. "I think I'll have one myself," I'll say, changing my mind and ordering a salad at the last minute.

I'm encouraging him to cycle to the party. He's recently bought a little rear-view mirror attachment for his bike helmet, which is great for the crazy Dublin traffic, and, as an added bonus, looks utterly ridick.

"You should wear that at the party, y'know," I say to him, casually glancing up from my book as if our entire relationship didn't depend on it. "It really suits you, somehow."

He's dubious. But give me the rest of the day to work on him, he'll come round.

Nathan Jones

Now that I'm 27 I'll probably kill myself sometime this year just like all the greatest rockstars did. Oh, hang on, I never actually became a great rockstar, did I? And now that I've reached the classic rockstar-suicide-age and am stable and happy, I probably never will.

I started my first band when I was eight years old; me and the two girls from the farm across the river. We called ourselves "Dynamite" and named the first song we wrote I Love You — just because we couldn't think of anything else to call it. We took a moody photo of ourselves in the rain on Harlech beach and spent the rest of our pop career miming to Bananarama in the village pub — much to the delight of Bob Tan-y-Castell, who, bobbing away on the other side of the room, seemed to think we were the real thing.

Other bands I played with later on, as a teenager, enjoyed even less success — despite my developing breasts and my efforts to learn the guitar. One group of guys from nearby "indie" village Betws-y-Coed asked me to play bass for them, but dropped me again shortly afterwards when I shaved my white mohican off. And there I was thinking they'd recruited me for my rhythm, man.

Pfft, doesn't matter. These days I have little interest in being anything as ridiculous as a rockstar. I'd much rather be a DJ, like the cool girls in Reykjavik, one eyebrow raised, one headphone wedged professionally between my chin and my shoulder, playing endless Hot Chip songs on iTunes and occasionally throwing in Bananarama's Nathan Jones for good measure.

Happy Birthday

It's the Blonk's first birthday this month, but blog years are more like dog years than human years, which is why it feels about ten years old.

I also happen to have a birthday today. 27 years old, or, as my brother Fergus told me, "your second to last cubic birthday ever". Whatever that means.

Hello Ireland

The biggest difference between the Oscars and the Irish Blog Awards, as far as I can tell, is that the Oscars is full of American actors who like to get up on stage and the Irish Blog Awards is full of Irish Bloggers who don't.

This means that — despite spending the last few weeks thinking "oooh, I hope I win an award!" — I spent most of the ceremony thinking "oh please god don't let me win an award." I had no speech prepared whatsoever and my skirt seemed very short all of a sudden for getting up those steps to the stage in. Of course, as soon as I didn't win an award I immediately regretted praying against it so I nipped outside to shake my angry fist at God, who I never even believed in in the first place.

The infamous and entirely anonymous Twenty Major showed up in person to collect his Best Blog award, and is actually quite handsome in real life, I thought. Bjarni had the privilege of taking a slash with him but annoyingly refused point blank to tell me anything about his penis. "That's something a man will never reveal," he told me, righteously.

But what I was really shocked at was Sweary not winning anything. Shocking and wrong. I clocked her early on in the evening but was way too shy to go over and introduce myself, so I just sat there nonchalantly pretending to text people while Bjarni got the drinks in. Luckily she wasn't shy at all and came right over and stroked my hair as promised. She's as likeable in real life as she is online, and, as my mother texted me later on, "Sure, didn't you meet the Swearing Lady, and isn't that a prize in itself!".

In fact, I met lots of really great people last night — I'd forgotten what good company the Irish are. Of course they have this international reputation for friendliness, but, to quote my mammy again, "It's not friendliness, we're just nosey and we talk too much".

It's good to be back.

Conveyor Belt

We managed to get to Dublin without breaking up, despite the constant bickering along the way. It's nice, isn't it, to reach the bickering stage of your relationship just as you're about to move in together.

Bjarni is one of the most patient people I've ever known. He is good and kind and considerate and never ever raises his voice or loses his temper — so I was surprised at him snapping at me as we waited for our luggage, when we suddenly remembered we hadn't locked up our bags properly.

"Eeeeeeeep!" I shrieked, in a tone that only the sniffer dogs could hear. "What about all the sex toys?! They'll be all over the place for everyone to see!"

"I'm more worried about losing all our stuff, actually Annie, rather than some random strangers getting a look at your bloody rabbit," he barked, as he stormed off towards the approaching suitcases. "You have your priorities in completely the wrong order!"

I didn't really get his point. I couldn't think of anything worse than Bunny going round and round the airport conveyor belt, crowds of orange people on their way back from Lanzarote pointing and laughing at him.