It depends how many sandwiches you've got

When you die of hypothermia you'll probably be found lying naked, face-down in the snow. The body gets confused and can't tell the difference between hot and cold, so you strip off moments before your death to 'cool down', just as your internal organs freeze over and everything grinds to a stop.

It was -18°C in the highlands this weekend and Bjarni's dad, Einar, took us on a jeep-trip to stay in a hut, unconcerned with our traumatic and potentially embarrassing deaths. We have a shovel and a radio with us, he says, so we either dig ourselves out of trouble or we call for help. And if we get really stuck, we just get into our sleeping-bags and stay inside the jeep. I wonder how long we'll survive like that?

"I wonder how long we'll survive like that?" I ask him, in the middle of a snow-covered lava field 100 miles from nowhere.

"That depends how many sandwiches you've got," he says, fiddling with the radio and frowning.

I do a quick count on my fingers: I made eight sandwiches. That's one a day and I'll last over a week — plus Bjarni will probably donate a couple of his, because he's soft like that. I decide not to touch any of my own until I'm really, really hungry. But halfway through the mountains the wheels just spin and spin and the jeep won't go. I panic and eat half a sandwich. The last thing I want is to be found naked and dead, 200 miles from nowhere, face-down in the snow.

It only takes Einar a couple of minutes to get us out again.



More pics here

The coolest bar in the world

I ended up in Sirkus last night; the most overrated bar in the world. Only the coolest kids are allowed to hang out there — I once got turned away for being a foreigner, if you can believe that.

"No tourists," said the blonde on the door.

"I'm not a tourist!" I said, indignantly, in my best Icelandic.

"Don't care," she pouted, eyeing my visitors in the queue next to me. "You're with tourists."

Well, I guess my need to be considered cool is greater than my self-respect, because somehow that incident never put me off. Last night there was no queue and no pouting blonde at the door and so I walked right in and shook my booty on the tiny dance-floor, next to a very tall, very cool girl in a fur coat.

"I like your coat," I shouted, jumping around her ankles, forgetting that I'm not supposed to like fur coats.

"Thanks," she purred, stroking her fluffy breasts. "It's real fur. Everybody hates me for it, but I don't care — everybody's always hated me."

I nodded my head and felt a bit better about not being a cool kid. It has its disadvantages.

Happy Christmas, blonkettes

I'm drinking a lot of cocktails these days — in a fabulous way, I mean, not in an alcoholic way — so I asked Bjarni for a lime-squeezer for christmas. And I got a lime-squeezer, an orange squeezer, and a lemon-squeezer, and I love every single one of them.

There's something about having one of each colour that just feels so unbelievably good — isn't there? — and one day, like all the big movie stars, I expect I'll feel the same way about children.

Happy Christmas, blonkettes. Hope you're all having a lovely holiday.

Iceland: Pink fluffy clouds and strategically-held bottles of shampoo

Mid-winter in Iceland can be dark and depressing, but if the weather is clear then the days are one long sunset, filled with fluffy pink clouds and frosty joy and happiness etc. Today was one of those days, so I went to the outdoor pool with Logi and Anna. It didn't matter that it was minus seven outside; the water is hot and eggy and you can just float there, staring up at the sky and wondering what's for dinner.

I've written before about Icelandic swimming pools and how they're totally worth the stress of having to get your kit off in front of everybody in the showers. But one of the best things about moving over here was that I lost a lot of that obsessive body-conscious bullshit I'd picked up after all those years freaking out about people even seeing my legs in my P.E. kit. These days I find it's much easier to strip off than it is to walk around the locker room with strategically-held bottles of shampoo covering up my fuzzy bits.

That's why, when I bumped into Ursula in the showers today, I was able to give her a big wet naked hug, and all I had to think about was not enjoying it too much.

At least that's The Christmas Fight over and done with early this year

I must be a bit run-down after all the exams and travelling and stuff — I woke up in our shoddy Gatwick hotel room this morning with a burning throat and the hugest spot on my arse. (Actually, I think it might be a boil, it's that big, but I don't want to say "I have a boil on my arse" on my blog — I find that kind of language distasteful).

Well, at least this exhaustion explains why I just had to start a fight with Bjarni as we took the train to London together yesterday. Really, the guy didn't stand a chance, not after he said something about us "renewing gym membership in the new year". Um, alarm bells much? He obviously doesn't fancy me anymore. And so I jotted it down next to all the other innocent comments he's ever made, in that mental notebook I keep just in case I ever need to have an emotional outburst in a posh London restaurant on the third day of our Christmas holiday.

By the time we were halfway through the main course I'd decided we were best off breaking up and said I'd be getting the first train back to Wales the next morning, while Bjarni sat there rubbing his brow and trying not to look at his watch.

We're best friends again now.

I bet Sofia Coppola's dad doesn't make fish stew for her premieres

Last night we got the boat from Ireland to Wales, which sounds romantic, doesn't it, but it's not really; not if you consider that the boat is one big floating McDonalds and docks at Holyhead, the most depressing small town in Britain.

But now we're back in Snowdonia with my folks, being rural and drinking Bucks Fizz by the fire. Tonight we're having the premiere of my amazing 3-minute film and my dad is busily cooking cullen skink (i.e. fish stew) for thirty people, still slightly disgruntled that I even suggested he might serve 'vol-au-vents'. Life is good: I bet Sofia Coppola's dad doesn't make her fish stew at her premieres.

I'm going to make the guests Moscow Mules on their arrival, seems I'm so totally over Cosmopolitans. Let's face it, Cosmopolitans taste crap, and the only reasons for drinking them is to look less tomboyish (they're pink) or to get rid of the clap (they're packed full of cranberries). Moscow Mules, on the other hand, are made with vodka and ginger and lime and brown sugar, and are perfect for movie-star parties like this one. And Pablo the dog agrees.

After celebrating the end of term

On Sunday morning I wake up with the kind of pounding headache that no amount of hangover-sex is going to cure. But there is no hangover-sex on the cards, it turns out, as I lie there with my eyes hanging out of their sockets on long red stalks. Instead, I spend the day moaning and shivering in bed, eating ibuprofen and grinding my teeth.

By about 4pm I've talked myself into believing that this 'headache' is, in fact, some kind of 'leak', and the space between my skull and my brain is filling up with a toxic fluid that will most likely kill me within the hour. I don't know how feasible a 'brain-leak' is, or if it even exists, but you know what I'm like — I can be quite convincing when I need to be.

Luckily, I manage to nod off again, despite my imminent death, and when I wake up in the early evening I find that Bjarni has ordered a pizza, and I start to feel a bit better.

Eavan and Mary's Costume Party

Here are the photos from Eavan and Mary's costume party a couple of weeks ago. I could have posted them straight away, but because I'm of the generation of point-n-click digital 'photographers' who reckon lighting can be fixed in Photoshop, I had some work to do to them first. And anyway, whenever I post un-photoshopped pictures on the internet I tend to break out into a rash and turn into a pumpkin.

As for the dressing up, I just gave into my dormant lesbian side again by tying a napkin round my neck and going as a cowboy, but some of the other costumes were significantly more ambitious. Like the pale Scottish man who lived out his dream of one day being B.A. Baracus, or the cute hostess who had decided to go as 'a building'. With pink hair. Bjarni was adorned with a bed sheet and a catalogue, thus becoming 'Argos the Greek God of Catalogue Shopping' and there were farmers and movie stars and 70's chicks just like you get at any other kind of party. My personal favourite, though, was 'Elvis and his Baby', which was confusing at first — Elvis had a baby? — until he broke into song.

Unfortunately, Marilyn Monroe and General Slut both denied me permission to post their photos on the internet, but clicky-click the link for more of the other costumes.

Grandfather

Next week Bjarni and I will be making our way back to Iceland for Christmas, stopping off in Wales to see my folks, and in England to visit my grandparents. I'm a bit nervous about this, because earlier this year my grandfather had a stroke and now he has trouble speaking.

Before anything happened to him, for my birthday in March, he gave me three books on screenwriting so I could prepare myself for my film course. Inside the cover of each book he'd written an encouraging phrase like 'Vistas anew!', or a quote from Aristotle's poetics, or just: 'all the best with your new path, with love from Granny and Grandad'.

A few weeks later he collapsed in a heap in Croydon and was rushed to hospital. When I went to visit him, I sat on the edge of the bed and helped fill out a form for the nurse.

"What do you prefer that they call you, Grandad?" I asked him, gently, because he looked confused.

"Paki," he said, looking up at me in surprise, as if I should have known. "Paki, paki, paki."

He didn't know what he was saying and neither did I, that's just what came out of his mouth, and under the fluorescent lights of the hospital ward and the glare of the nurse I held his hand and tried not to giggle. But later that week, on a train back to Wales, I cried all the way home.

There will be vol-au-vents

My mother is busily arranging the premiere of my film, for when I get back to Wales next week. Well, actually, I've instructed her to do this, so hopefully she's busy arranging it.

I'm not sure if the guests realise the film is less than 3 minutes long; I hope this won't be a disappointment. This is Dolwyddelan, not Los Angeles, and villagers like John Pen-y-Gelli will have to walk through forest and marshland to get to our house. I've told them it's strictly black-tie.

Update: There will be no vol-au-vents, according to a disgruntled email from my mother.