I Thought I'd Never Get This Collage Done

I decided to use a bit of fake tan earlier on, and now I smell like biscuits. After a rather rubbish day yesterday, today was pretty good. I'm still in my parents house, and I spent most of yesterday and today working on the collage I was supposed to have finished for my godmother months ago. I'm pretty sure my Mam's torn a ligament in her knee, or has fluid trapped; she hurt herself at aerobics class and know her right knee is 3 times the size of the left. After a lot of bollocking around with doctors, she went for an x-ray this morning. fingers crossed it's nothing serious.

I got to be the lady of the house today. Bitta cleaning, bitta cooking - sound. My mam couldn't really leave me alone to cook the dinner though, she still thinks if I'm near the oven too long the house will catch fire.

I spent the whole evening with my Godmother, showing her the final collage, and getting the seal of approval. Note to self: when someone asks you to design them something, do it right away. Nobody does procrastination quite like me. Well, above is the final piece - not exactly one for the portfolio but it's what she wanted, and most of all, the person she's framing it for loves it. So now all that's left to do is get it printed and I'm done.

My To-do list:

• collage for godmother

• vector of me for my mother

• photo-manip for my father

• business identity for makeup artist

• photoshoot with debbie

• new myspace HTML

• new buzznet layout

• posters for NoDisko

• new bebo skin

I'm all happy tonight. My godmother gave me 100 cigarettes, I've one less thing to do, I've started on my next design, I get to go back to my lovely boyfriend tomorrow, and oh yes, Road Wars is on telly. Saturday night bliss.

To-do lists are shit

My design to-do list is shocking. And because it's all for friends and fambly I'm procrastinating extra hard.

• collage for my godmother

• vector for my mother

• photo-manip for my father

• business identity for makeup artist

• posters for NoDisko

• photos for Debbie

• new myspace HTML

• new buzznet layout

• new bebo skin

However I did get the new "Inspiration Edition" of Computer Arts so I feel all motivated about doing some stuff, but I swear I think I'll never be done with this collage.

I'm also having a hard time concentrating on anything but myself lately because I've piled on weight in the last 6 months and I'm feeling very huffy. I'm all about hula hooping, skipping and jogging at the moment. I pulled my hamstring running on sunday so I was looking for something with a little less impact to do to start off. I've also decided to get my diet on - that's about the fifth time I've said that this week. I don't know about anybody else, but whenever I decide I'm going to cut down on sugary foods, I get an instant craving. Which results in me binge-eating and then feeling all sad. Well at least if I've declared it here on the internet, I feel like I have to do it now.

Around a year and a half ago, I got a program on my laptop that you just put in what you've eaten, and it calculates all the calories etc for you. It also calculates calories burned through exercise. That helped me a lot because it meant that I was keeping track of what I was doing, and I was given a budget of calories, specific to my weight and my height.

After the great Mac death a few months ago, I lost all my data. So I've downloaded it again, and my new budget is 1421 calories a day. And I can already tell you that once I have my dinner, I'll have gone over that by about 800 calories. (Friday night is chipper night here in the Katastrophe house) But at least I've recognised that I need to start loosing weight again - I'm barely in the green zone.

My two priorities now are: 1) get back to designing 2) loose weight and get back in shape.

Once I'm a design icon and a supermodel, I'll look into quitting smoking.

Electric Picnic

"You should at least bring some sandwiches, Kerri"

I got a bit behind on my blogging there trying to finish up the ones about Scotland, oops. This is about September 4th - 6th.

This year was my first electric picnic ever - hooray! Earlier on in the year I spent two days at Oxygen, which should've been enough to put me off the whole idea altogether.

Several reasons why I've never been to a weekend festival:

• I hate being outside

• I hate camping

• I hate rain

• I hate large groups of people

• I hate small groups of people

• I hate anything that involves people standing too close to me

• I hate hippy crap

• I hate big gigs

The boyfriend is pretty much a one-man festival wagon so he bought me a ticket in May and decided that by the time it rolled around, I'd want to go. Wrong. Well, that's not true, I was excited, but a very big part of me was still pretty pissed off that I had to spend a whole weekend combining the things I hate most.

By I came back from Scotland I was actually quite looking forward to it, if not a bit scared. But, himself is a seasoned festival goer so I trusted him to look after me and tend to my every need. (I'm so pleasant sometimes)

We spent most of the week coming up to Electric Picnic sorting out what we needed for the weekend; we decided to book our tent, mats and sleeping bags online so it meant we could just collect them when we got there. Anything to make the weekend go a bit smoother was fine by me. We also went to the camping shop and got some seriously hideous wellies for trudging through the mud.

I was kind of at a loss as to what exactly to pack, so I went on what I learned at Oxygen: Dress warm, have a rain coat, lots of socks and lots of booze. So a packed just that. And in retrospect, I should've taken another few jumpers. By thursday we had sorted out pretty much everything we needed and our bags were packed. All we needed was some beer so we headed off to the local Centra were we proceeded to look like alcoholics. Clearly this was the only Centra in Dublin that didn't know EP was going on, and it was the only one with any drink left in it!

Friday morning we were up and atom, getting a lift from one of the lads we were going to be camping with. After a late start, a few stops and some general getting lost, we made it all the way there without a scratch. Even the incredibly long walk to the camp site couldn't bring me down because I was all smug with myself that I was going to prove I could last a whole weekend doing things I hate. I've never laughed so hard as I did when I came back from the portaloo to see that my boyfriend had put the tent up all by himself. Luckily, it was a pop-up tent, so I didn't have to help put it up, but I swear my dog's kennel is bigger then that tent was. The tent was about 5 foot in length, once our bags were inside, and neither of us could sit up in it. But I wasn't going to complain - it wasn't raining and we had somewhere to live, so I was happy.

If, like me, you're a bit iffy about festivals, then one thing you must always remember to bring is toilet roll. Really. Portaloos are the single most disgusting place in the planet, and the only thing that makes them bearable is if you can clean up before you have to go. I wont go into any more detail then that, but do remember toilet roll. And hand sanitizer.

After we'd set up camp, we got some food - festival food freaks me out so I played it safe and got a roll - and headed on into the actual festival. I have to say, it was pretty amazing. Once you get rid of the thousands of food stalls, it's actually pretty cool there. There was loads of fun, random stuff to do. And also, I got to see lots of DJs I wanted to see, so that was a plus.

I think it's a sign that I enjoyed myself because I didn't find time to take a single picture. Also, my memory is a little fuzzy because I drank my own weight in cider. Another must in enjoying a festival. I will probably go to EP again, the fact that it didn't rain all weekend is a very big plus, and there was just a nice buzz in spending the weekend with other people who are in the same boat. Besides the crappy tent, the portaloos, and some seriously dodgy plain-clothes coppers hassling me, I had a whopper weekend.

Hello Scotland - day 4

Day 4: Planes, Trains and Fluff

I hate checkout time. I woke up to the horrible sound of my alarm and peeled a squashed McMuffin off my face. We were like two octogenarians packing up our stuff in silence, nursing our hangovers. We headed to the train station and stocked up on Vitamin Water and snacks for the journey. After nearly missing our train, we were Glasgow-bound for our last day in Scotland.

The first thing we did when we arrived was head to the nearest Starbucks. Once we were full of coffee goodness, we headed off to do a bit of shopping. For some reason, my bag seemed much heavier coming back then it did going over, so we stopped off to dump it in a locker at the next train station we saw, Queen St Station. Wandering around Glasgow is a lot more fun when you're not dragging twice your own weight behind you.

Neil Buchanan is my hero

There was a huge building beside Queen St Station with "Buchanan" written across the top of it, at which point we both screamed "ART ATTACK!" and pointed. (Neil Buchanan presented Art Attack, in case you're wondering) After a lengthy discussion about Art Attack we found yet another Candy Shop (cue singing) and popped in for a look. This particular Candy Shop pawned all the others because this is where we found "Fluff", (and yet no Honey Bears, sad face) for our friend Marie. We screamed so loud people actually left the shop. This is where I bought the world's most painfully sour cherry sweets; so sour we had to sit down on the nearest bench to recover.

While we were recovering from the cheek-numbing sour balls, we realised we'd accidentally sat court side to some action. Some junkie was unconscious outside H&M and there was a crowd of coppers and paramedics around her trying to wake her. Suddenly the street was filled with coffin-dodgers trying to rubber-neck on the action. The second an ambulance showed up the junkie sprang to her feet and ran away. Brilliant.

"You've got a tongue like leather"

After we'd fully recovered from the sour balls we headed into Glasgows answer to the "Irish Life Mall", which was full of shops where you could exchange old jewellry for cash, and one tattoo and piercing place. Cha ching! I got my tongue pierced for a second time and nearly passed out - hardcore, I know. The piercer also told me I had a tongue thicker then leather. Wonderful. Glasgow, although it has a lot more shops then Edinburgh, is full of knacker hang-outs - for example the "£1 emporium". Not your average pound shop, oh no. This place was like a warehouse, which sold everything from pregnancy tests to "Hoes Red Cabbage". Every shelf was covered in signs saying "£1", at the end of every aisle there was a sandwich board saying "£1", there were giant signs hanging from the ceiling with giant "£1's" painted on them. And yet, as we were leaving, I heard some old man shout "how much is this??" at a shop assistant.

The last shop we visited was of course, a Candy Shop, where I nearly fell over a box of candy canes trying to avoid a bloke who turned out not to be my ex, but I gave him a good glaring at anyway. It was at this point we realised we were flat broke and dipped into Debbie's bank account before getting the train to the airport.

"I had those jeans..... when I was 16"

I hate falling asleep on any kind of public transport because I'm terrified I'll be mugged, and I snore like a walrus. Sexy. Unfortunately my hangover got the better of me and I fell asleep, and was rudely awoken by Debbie pressing my nose like a button. Once we got to the airport we headed to Starbucks for some food before we went through. I gummed down some fruit because my tongue was all swollen and Debbie went to town on a panini - once she'd picked off all the olives. I don't think we actually spoke the whole time we were waiting for our flight, we just vegged out on chairs munching on crisps and reading magazines. I think I fell asleep again.

Finally it was time for the worlds most drawn out boarding - it felt like they were letting one person on at a time, and we were last. When we did eventually get moving, some rude woman wearing a pair of jeans I had when I was 16 (stylish! not.) decided she didn't like the look of me and hawked me out of it as we inched along on our way to the plane. She's lucky I was once again dragging twice my own body weight behind me, because I was in no mood.

We were really sad to leave Scotland, because we'd had such a fun holiday, but we were both seriously happy to be going home to our own beds. And I was dying to see my Monkey. Plus my holidays were only starting, I had Electric Picnic to look forward to at the end of the week.

Hello Scotland - day 3

Day 3: Lie-ins, Faith No More and Polygrip

The third day was our first chance for a proper lie in, and we made the best of it. We were rudely awoken by some bloke trying to clean to room around 1 o'clock, and we just shouted "NO!" at him and did a swatting style gesture until he went away. We fell back asleep for a while until we felt well enough to drag ourselves out of bed to find some food.

We headed back to the Black Rose where we nearly fell asleep waiting for our food, it took so long. I also hollered at a fat man wearing a Faith No More t-shirt, to inform him that my boyfriend was at their gig in Dublin. Needless to say, he didn't care. After we were fed and watered we headed out for a spot of shopping, and bought some of the most amazeballs shoes I've ever seen in my life (which I still can't walk in. sad face.) I heart hooker shoes. I buy most of my shoes from shops that look like only strippers and porn stars shop there. If strippers can dance in such painful shoes, then why can't I walk in them? There must be some sort of trick.

"You alright for Polygrip?"

For some reason, Debbie made me go into the Early Learning Centre and compare the prices between the one she works in, and the one in Edinburgh. Snore. After about 30 seconds the smell of baby powder and that horrid milky dribble smell got to me and I threw a tantrum until she let me leave. Success. We popped into Superdrug again and I bought my own weight in lipglosses and I considered getting a Ped-Egg. I swear that thing followed me around for the whole trip. Everywhere we went, there were ads for that damned Ped-Egg. I made Debbie cackle when we were at the till and the bloke asked us did we have everything we needed. I said "I think so... don't think we've forgotten anything. Debbie? You alright for Polygrip?" (pointing to the display of Polygrip at the counter. The cashier bloke didn't find it very funny, but fxck him. We bought some more random mixers and headed back to the hotel to get ready for Enter Shikari. Back to the HMV Picture House we went, thankfully this time I felt fine.

For some reason, Enter Shikari fans have a penchant for throwing glasses of water over each other. Also, they enjoy throwing up everywhere and loosing shoes. I only know one Enter Shikari song which is "Mothership" (I didn't say I like it, mind) which they played that so I felt included. I can't really comment much on the actual gig because I think they're a bit shite anyway, so it's hard to tell if they played well. Neither of us were arsed staying for the encore and Debbie demanded we go to McDonalds before we went drinking. We decided to head to The Hive straight after the gig, a place that was recommended to us by the barstaff at Opium. It wasn't open yet when we got there, so we just headed back to Opium and once again proceeded to get bladdered. Our drink of choice was Vodka, Cherry Sourz and Lemonade. Needless to say my memory of the third day is patchy at best.

As it was our last day we made plenty of random friends, including a group of random Chinese business men. Debbie made a special "Opium Friend" who hung around like a bad smell until he was booted out for being off his face. Pleasant. We stayed in Opium til the death (5am) and staggered to MacDonalds for breakfast. No one is a bigger fan of Egg McMuffins then Debbie, so she was in her element when she found out they were serving breakfast. We munched on our eggy bacony goodness as we wobbled our way home, cackling at the week we'd had. We got back to the hotel and passed out, half-eaten McMuffins in hand.

Hello Scotland - day 2

Day 2: Rock and Roll and Gimp Masks

You can never have too many phone charms!

They built this city on Rock and Roll

I wanna..... I wanna.... I wanna be Trash ♥

Rat-arsed in Opium

g e t a m o v e o n

We had a plan B hotel, The Ballintrae, which was alright, if not a bit 70s. It was a striped wallpaper wet dream. We got a room for the next two nights, so we dumped our bags while our room was being prepared and headed out for some lunch. This is were Debbie and I differ; I'm big into sandwiches and lunch in general, there's not a lot of sandwiches I wont eat, but I'm a very picky eater when it comes to dinner time. Debbie however eats either tuna, or cheese. And woe betide anyone who puts mayonnaise near her food. Mayonnaise was the holiday villain this year, everywhere we went we ended up doing a very dramatic "no mayonnaise" gesture, the kind you do when you're on holiday in a country where they don't speak english, and you feel compelled to shout at them in broken sentences while doing semi-threatening gestures to describe what you want.

We traipsed around the street our hotel was on, and up towards Princes Street until we finally agreed on where to eat: a cafe covered in festival posters that sold the worlds most expensive sandwiches. Bastards. We headed over towards the 'alternative' side of Edinburgh to do some shopping and on the way we found a sweet shop called ''The Candy Shop".(cue impromptu singing of Fiddy Cent's 'candy shop' before an in-dept discussion about what flavour 'Formula 50', his flavour of Vitamin Water, would be.) I think this was probably one of my favourite shops of the whole trip. We bought some chocolate and headed on to the cutest shop were we bought waaay too many phone charms. (note: phone charms prevent crazy old men robbing your phone)

The next shop up was a shop called "Pie In The Sky", which is where I would do all my clothes shopping if I lived in Edinburgh. I suddenly got the urge to buy a latex dress when I went into this shop, an urge that has yet to die I might add. The shop sold some seriously amazing (yet horribly over-priced) clothes and jewellery - which is where I got my new favourite things, my giant diamond and my 'Trash' clip. I was on a bit of a latex buzz for some reason, so we headed to the nearest fetish shop (as one does) to stock up. That was about the time that I lost all interest in buying a latex dress in Edinburgh and we decided to head on to the street festival, sans latex.

Festivale

Having spent most of our day wandering around the finest adult stores Edinburgh has to offer, we stopped for some yummy frappachinos while we thought about what to do next. We sat down on some steps in the middle of the street festival (I mean in the middle of it going on, not blocking it or anything) and were promptly attacked by some seriously gammy pigeons. The Scottish pigeons are a lot more resilient then the Irish ones, you can't just swat them away, you need to give em a good boot up the hole in order to send them packing, and even then they'll come back. Not one for flying rats, Debbie was on her last nerve with the Zombie-like pigeons of Edinburgh and we moved on to have a look at the rest of the street festival. If you've never been in Edinburgh during festival season, then essentially it's just thousands of tourists being ambushed by performers trying to get them to come to see whatever show they're part of. There's face painting and dancing etc etc. The first thing we saw were some amazeballs dancers rocking out to the best of the 80's. Anything 80's is cool with me so I was in my element. The last song they danced to was "We Built This City On Rock And Roll" so of course we sang it the whole day. We got stopped by a man dressed as a dragon holding a chihuahua, I don't know what his act was, what he was selling or even what his name was. The point is, he had a chihuahua. Cute. (sidenote: My boyfriend wont let me get a chihuahua because he's convinced he'll sit on it and squash it)

"Courvoisier?..... as in.. "Pass the..?"

After we had our fill of the street festival, we started searching for a supermarket to get some vodka and snacks for later. We'd learned our lesson from last year, when we walked for over an hour to find an off license, so we asked a friendly bus driver where to go. She pointed us in the direction of Sainsburys, where we found 'Sainsbury's Brand Courvoisier'. I actually snorted when I saw that. I called over to Debbie and told her I'd found Courvoisier, she shouts back "Courvoisier?..... as in.. "Pass the..?" Besides stocking up on booze and snacks, we were on a neverending quest for Cheese Moments and honey in a bear-shaped bottle. Unfortunately we never did find the latter. The former we found in Glasgow on the last day. Success. We stocked up on a variety of fizzy drinks, grabbed some vodka and headed to The Black Rose Cafe for some dinner. Edinburgh is littered with random tiny metal bars in the most random places. This particular one is across from BHS (British Home Stores if you didn't know). Bang of my childhood of BHS as it goes.

"I think this might actually be a gimp mask..."

After walking around for two days and going to a gig, we decided to pamper ourselves a bit and some stuff from Superdrug. We stocked up on all the girly essentials and got some face masks and headed back to the hotel to get all dolled up for a night on the tiles. Doing face masks still makes me laugh. No matter how many of them you do, you still look like a twat with gunk all over your face. This particular face mask however was more like an orange-scented gimp mask. It had holes cut out for the eyes and mouth and had oranges drawn all over it. sexy. Debbie cackled when I put it on. We got our old skool beauty on with teabags on our eyes and had a lie down while watching / listening to Hollyoaks. No one can say I don't lead a glamorous and extravagant lifestyle. After we washed of the gimp masks we started getting dolled up, and all of a sudden there was a very angry knock on the door. The people in the room next to us were complaining that the fan in the room was too loud. I'm sorry the gentle hum of the ceiling fan is keeping you from going to bed at 10pm, but fxck off and come back when you have a real complaint. Needless to say we left said fan on. Also we started to whack out a few Adam Freeland tunes when they left.

o p i u m

We had originally planned to go and see "Dinosaur Pile Up" but we weren't really that bothered to be honest. Instead, we opted to head to our old watering hole, Opium for some cheap drinks. And when I say cheap, I mean £1. We headed upstairs to the booths / dancefloor and proceeded to get absolutely rat-arsed. Feeling like I was entering a sugar-coma after all the Cherry VKs, we switched onto Vodka and lemonade at which point we proceeded to table-dance to Nine Inch Nails and then a very tattooed barman dared us to dance with a crazy man (I later found out he was called Harry) who had some serious moves for a crazy old man. We agreed we would only dance if he put on "Beast And The Harlot" by Avenged Sevenfold. He dashed off and put it on straight away. Balls. A dare is a dare so we headed straight for the dancefloor, followed closely by about 15 blokes who just stood around in a circle. I'm putting that down to the fact that Debbie was wearing hotpants. I gestured to the old man to come over and dance with us, as per our agreement with the tattooed barman. He charged at me and pinned me against the wall. It was the single most disgusting thing that's ever happened to me on a dancefloor. He then charged at Debbie, and then at us both. We darted off the dancefloor when the song ended and held each other hoping he'd go away. *shudder* After he left we got up and danced a few more times, and thankfully more girls showed up and the dancefloor felt less like a stage.

During one of my smoke breaks I made friends with two girls who informed me that a great place to go in Edinburgh is Cabaret Voltaire. We headed there pretty much straight away and it turned out to be an absolute sweatbox. The kind of place where condensation drips from the ceiling. Lovely. We only stayed for one drink, and the whole time we hassled some bloke who refused to give us his cardigan. How rude of him. We headed back to Opium and kept on dancing and drinking until our poor feet could take no more. We headed back to the hotel and passed out on top of all our stuff.

Hello Scotland - day 1

Day 1: Planes, Trains and Egg Mc Muffins

mega lolz. I don't know if you can see but he's got "I Elliot ♥ Minor" written on his bag

Hello Glasgow! *snap*

Training it to Edinburgh - Vitamin Water and my Sidekick

Rockstar baby.

The greatest hotel I've ever seen

Gay pride arch

Posing in the hallway of the hotel

We were in love with our hotel

Outside HMV Picture House

Holidays!

It's impossible to sleep when you a) are excited about holidays, and b) have to be up for a flight at 4am. Debbie crashed in mine and helped me pack the night before we went away - neither of us got any sleep, we just sort of lay down for a few hours. (sidenote: gutted that, for some reason, Road Wars wasn't on) Up we get at 4am for a montage of hair extensions and whore-like makeup, on go the fabulous outfits and we're ready to go!

We arrived in the airport and herself made sure we were full of Mc Muffins before we went through. We spent the best part of 15 mins lol-ing at this poor bloke trying to pay with some expired coupon. He had the names of all sorts of hardcore bands like Elliot Minor scrawled across his schoolbag. And yes, he heard us cackling at his expense.

Give it up J.Lo! No one wants to smell like you!

Debbie made the MAC sales assistant snort with laughter when we walked by the new Jennifer Lopez perfume display. Debbie throws it a dirty look and goes "fuck sake! give it up J.Lo! No one wants to smell like you!" We drank our own weight in coffee and vitamin water before going to our gate too early and nearly ended up flying to some random country. We spent most of the queue getting glared at by a baby - actually the most impressive glare I've ever seen. The entire flight was a bit awkward considering the baby was sat in front of us and spent the journey glaring at us. Or more specifically, glaring at me. Also, airport pet peeve - I dislike when blokes don't put their dicks away before leaving the bathroom. No one wants to see your tiny shriveled knob - put it away for God's sake. Cue "bunch o' queers" as Debbie dubbed them, all coming out of the bathroom (knobs in hands) at once, strutting and drip-drying across the departure lounge. Gross.

r y a n a i r r e a l l y h a s g o n e d o w n h i l l

Ryanair fails at life these days. After I finally got my knees in behind the seat in front of me, I noticed they no longer have storage space to put magazines and crap. How depressing. Also, you now have to lasso the hostesses if you need something, and gone are the days of inflight reading material. One air hostess power-walked down the aisle with what I can only describe as what looked like the Aldi catalogue, and if you didn't stick your arm out in time, you weren't getting one.

We landed in Prestwick Airport, and trained it to Glasgow Central for some impromptu mirror posing with our sidekicks. Last year we made the mistake of getting the on the train to Edinburgh that had the worlds most stops in one train journey - and neither of us had anything to eat or drink. This year we made the same mistake train-wise, but we got snacks and Vitamin Water before hand. After a near-fatal incident involving some seriously gammy lookin' pigeons and Debbie's last nerve, we eventually got on the train to Edinburgh, after I figured out (smug face) what train station we were supposed to go to, using Quavers as a memory Jogger. (Quavers / Edinbugh Waverly.... get it? (mmm. they're floaty light )) Nothing makes a long and sweaty train journey more enjoyable then being in the same carriage as two teenage boys who've obviously never been on a train before. A note to anyone who ever sees me on a train, if you decide to randomly start acting like a retard on speed, I will beat you to death with my horribly over-priced and useless phone. The two lads on that train got away with it, from now on, it's beatings for everyone else.

I heart Edinburgh - everyone is really friendly. And a 'real' friendly, not like that scary fake "I'm-only-being-nice-because-I'm-on-commission" friendly that you get in NY. We decided to try and get our Sidekicks unlocked by T-mobile to see if we could get the internet working while we were there. I've never wanted to buy a stranger a box of chocolates more then I did in that T-mobile shop - The manager and all the staff spent well over an hour trying to sort out our phones for us, while letting me use the staff phone to ring around to try and sort out a hotel. Unfortunately, between the fact that our phones are T-mobile USA, not UK, and the fact that T-mobile now no longer sell Sidekicks, we didn't get them sorted. Sad face.

[ I've found a niche market ]

I did however get to prance around HMV Princes St, which made me happy. I spent most of my teens in HMV buying CDs, so any excuse to go in there makes me happy. *Prance* We specifically went in to find out where the HMV Picture House was, to get tickets for Metric and Enter Shikari. I love the staff in that HMV, they were lovely last year too - the boy came out from behind the counter and directed me to the venue using air-hostess style gestures. HMV should give their staff special HMV brand boxers with the pink logo printed all over them, because 90% of their male employees wear their trousers around their knees. Stylish. I should submit my designs to HMV HQ. Plan.

"I don't want to alarm you but.... "

We found the Picture House anyway and got all our tickets, then went on an epic journey to find a hotel. You'd think we'd of learned our lesson from not booking last year (we ended up in some shit-hole that looked like something from a B-Movie horror film - it was called The Osbourne, should you ever be looking for hotels to avoid in Edinburgh). After getting turned away from several rubbish hotels we were told to go to The Holiday Inn (which it turns out is actually around £250 a night, so no thanks) and on the way there we came across the greatest gay pride hotel in the history of gay pride hotels. Let the record show that I'm not gay, but for £70 for a room nicer then my whole flat, I can be persuaded. We could only get the room for the one night, so we decided to stay there and then get somewhere else in the morning. This place was amazeballs. They had male arse-print designs on the tables in the bar.

Metric are alright

So we went and showered and got all dolled up and headed out - via taxi because it was pissing rain - to the HMV picture house, which is like a rather fabulous cross between The Ambassador and The Academy main room in Dublin. The only downfall of the Picture House is they go mad at you if you want to go outside and smoke, and the drinks are hella expensive. We went to see Metric, who we only went to see because at the time we booked the flights, I had just started getting into them so I gave Debbie a load of their stuff and we decided they were alright enough to go and see. The only songs I was bothered about hearing live were "Gold Guns Girls" and "Gimme Sympathy" and I got to hear em both. Holla! It's not that Metric are bad, they're just a bit... blah. I've heard it before, and I wasn't that bothered then either.

The crowd was such an odd mix of randomers and wankers. I don't care if you have work in the morning Mr Day Job, get your elbow out of my spine lest you want to know what it feels like to receive anal from a WKD bottle. For such a quiet gig, there was an awful lot of pushing and shoving. Down with that sort of thing. If you wanna mosh, then let's roll, if not, then piss of and get out of my personal space. After eating the worlds biggest bacon and cheeseburger in Hardrock Cafe, I was going into labour with a food baby - and it hurt. So I couldn't drink and I was a little bit crabby. Also, the two of us had now been up around 16 hours and were starting to get tired. We managed to get a seat at one of the tables for the last half of the gig. Maybe it was just because I was incredibly tired but Metric seemed to play for much longer then bands usually do.

We decided to skip out before the encore, and headed back to out gay pride hotel where we were informed there was a big gay singles night on. It actually seemed pretty full, and had we not of been bolloxed, we would've gone. We intended to go upstairs, get changed and go gay clubbing, but we ended up scalding ourselves on chocolate croissants and watching Jimmy Carr. Next thing I know my alarm is going off and Debbie has her arm draped across my face. Shower, get dressed, do hair, do makeup, pack up and off we went to find a new hotel.