Italian Guys

The best thing about Italy, obviously, is that it's shaped like a leg. The second best thing about Italy is the men. I took this on our first morning there, in Pisa, and it's my favourite shot from the whole trip.

Under sniper fire

So, Hillary Clinton is in trubb for having misspoken about her arrival to Bosnia back in the nineties, when she didn't come under sniper fire and didn't have to leg it past the runway with her hands over her head.

She did, however, once arrive at a Bosnian airport.

I totally understand. Everything she says is 100% truth; sometimes it just needs a little pinch of salt, right? What Hillary Clinton needs is a blonk.

Somebody is trying to kill me

I unlocked my bike in Stoneybatter at the weekend only to find that my brake cable had been cut in half. What?! Why would anybody want to cut my brake cable?

I sink down onto the kerb as the enormity of the situation envelops me. Somebody is trying to kill me! But who? I don't have any enemies, do I? Unless it's somebody I've offended on my blog? Hmm, no. The only people I offend on my blog are my parents — and it wouldn't have been... could it have been? Surely... surely not? No! I erase the thought from my mind almost as soon as it enters. They would never do a thing like that!

I cycle home very, very slowly that day, pondering the situation. When I get in, Bjarni points out that it's not my brake cable that's been snipped, it's my gear cable. Oh. They vandalised my gears? That doesn't seem half as brutal. Somebody trying to make it harder for me to cycle up Gardiner Street isn't nearly as menacing as somebody wanting me dead.

I cheer up again later on, though, when Al points out that the crooks, being crooks, are probably quite stupid and actually meant to cut the brake cable — which means somebody really is trying to kill me, after all. Huzzah.

You can tell your mother has been to stay

"You can tell your mother has been to stay," said Bjarni, ominously. "Because we actually have some bread in the house."

Aw. I love the way Bjarni always sees the best in people — he hasn't even mentioned that all his whiskey is gone. But yes, we now have a fridge full of food after my mother very kindly took me round Tesco's at the weekend. Still, I gave her a good glare when I heard her reporting back to my father.

"Would you believe it," she gasped into the phone. "They took me to a restaurant that didn't serve alcohol. An Indian place! And the next day was Good Friday so that was dry too. And they have one of those thingies that you stick in the top of a wine bottle to stop it going off. Can you imagine!"

That "thingy" that you "stick in the top of a wine bottle" has caused my parents great amusement over the years. Who the hell opens a bottle of wine and then doesn't finish it in one go? Well, me and Bjarni, actually. Sometimes we like to drink in moderation, if you can believe that, and often enjoy a glass or two of red in the evening, re-corking it afterwards to keep it fresh for the weekend. Can you imagine!

I can hear my father's tinny laughter on the other end of the line. I think I even hear them refer to me as "Saffy".

My Palindromic Nephew

Last week I went out for dinner with my palindromic nephew, Otto, to celebrate his sixteenth birthday. I can't believe he is sixteen already. I can't believe it so much that it's not until I arrive in Galway that I realise the present I bought him from the toy shop is "suitable for 4-8 year olds". Hmm.

Otto has always held a very special place in my heart, partly because I remember gently rocking him in my arms when I was just twelve years old, but mostly because his name is spelt backwards the same way it is forwards.

These days Otto has long hair, plays the guitar, and, in the Salthill restaurant we're eating dinner in, he smells suspiciously like hangover. I try to impress him by referring to Led Zeppelin as "Zeppelin" (as if I even know who they are), and I embarrass him by ordering my pasta in a beautiful Italian accent. (What?! I spent last week backpacking around northern Italy — I can't help it!)

It turns out the present I bought for him is "class" though, which means it's good — despite being suitable for 4-8 years olds. It's an American version of Connect Four, except instead of trying to get four of the same colour in a row you have to spell out the word "Otto". How class is that?

Happy sixteenth birthday, my palindromic nephew.

Must start using a faster shutter speed

I took 324 pictures of my nieces and nephews in Galway this week and nearly every single one of them is blurry.

Abba drummer found dead in tragic accident

"Oh my God!" screeches my friend Jenna, obviously reading the internet while she's supposed to be listening to me talk on the phone. "The drummer from Abba has been found dead after a tragic accident at his home!"

"Oh my God!" I screech back.

"Damn," she sighs. "I always really loved Abba, didn't you?"

Hmm. How can I put it, at a time like this, that I never really cared much for Abba?

"To be honest," I say. "I kind of preferred Patrick Swayze."

The Definition of Backpacking

Bjarni and I spent last week backpacking around northern Italy. As I type this, Bjarni sighs and rubs his forehead: just because we carried "packs" on our "backs" doesn't mean we were actually "backpacking". What was last week? Our gap year?

Well, I never took a gap year (actually I did, but I spent it in a pub in Galway so it didn't count). Apparently it's only "backpacking" if you're away for a long time and come back half the weight and twice as annoying — not twice the weight and, well, twice as annoying. The reality is we stayed in nice hotels, drank champagne, and ate lots and lots of pasta. And not studenty pasta like I make at home that comes in the shape of little Spidermans; but really, really fancy pasta that comes with homemade Italian sauce, a starter, a desert, and a really nice bottle of wine.

I guess he's right about the backpacking thing. If carrying a pack on your back equals backpacking then I have also backpacked my way round Croydon shopping center with my Aunty Hillary.

A boy trapped in a book

The Weekend Picture
I'm not trying to turn this into a photo-blog, I swear, but this is a shot I took on the set of the film we finished last night — the second and last professional-standard film we'll be making on this course.

The film is about a boy trapped inside a book, and I was on the design team this time round, which I loved. It meant I got to design sets, pick out costumes, and lift lots and lots of very heavy furniture. Normal service will resume as soon as I've had a hot bath.

The Irish Blonk Awards

I got so drunk at the Irish Blog Awards last night that I'm probably not the best source for the evening's gossip. I was just so thirsty, really, and made the mistake of drinking gin & bitter lemon — which tastes like lemonade, but isn't.

Well, Twenty Major (or "Tony Major" as the non-bloggy friend I'd dragged along kept calling him by mistake) won the Best Blog award again. "I can't believe it!" I exclaimed to Bjarni, indignantly. "That's three times in a row he's won it now!"

"Maybe it's because his is the best blog," shrugged Bjarni. "Here he is now, anyway, you can ask him about it yourself."

"Oh, hi Twenty," I gushed. "Congrats on winning Best Blog! You totally deserved it."

I didn't win anything, of course, which I had been mentally preparing myself for by spending the past year writing a hilarious but completely narcissistic acceptance speech.

"Who are you going to thank?" whispered non-bloggy friend as the nominations for Best Design were being read out.

"Um, myself?" I replied, just before losing to Sabrina. "I mean, I designed it."

But the best thing about the evening, of course, was meeting all these people off the internet and comparing their online personas to their real personas. I always expect people to look like their blogs — the way dog owners look like their dogs — so I was disappointed to see that Devin looked like a real-life woman and wasn't made up of green blocks with rounded corners after all. Flirty is lovely and she really does look like Nicole Kidman, only hotter, even in a brightly lit room. LC isn't as short in the flesh as you'd expect — not that he was there, but I was able to get all the dirt on him from Rosie.

I kept hugging people by mistake, as usual, forgetting that Irish people don't really like hugs — especially not from strangers off the internet. I was particularly huggy with Bock the Robber — who is actually very cute in real life, if you can you believe that. But after my fifteenth lemonade I was so drunk that I was falling asleep while I was talking to people about myself and so I had to be whisked home in a cab. The end.