Highlight of the Day - Siro A! Slightly (that word is there for effect really, it was more than slightly) surreal, a tad crazy, but very entertaining, the Japanese version of the Blue Man Group is currently in London.  Siro A (meaning white A, but I can speak Japanese and really you'll probably pronounce it better if you think of it as SHiro A) were on in Leicester Square Theatre.  I had a lot of fun, laughed a lot, and learnt that I fancy Japanese guys to such an extent, that even their faces being painted white doesn't detract from the attraction.

Second highlight was veggie cafe, Vitao Organic on Wardour Street.  I always look at it there, but have never been in, because it looks a bit too hippy and I like MEAT damnit.  Risked it today, and it was really, really tasty.  I had a lovely passion fruit and raspberry mocktail thing and a huge plate of salad and bean curries from a buffet.  It was really reasonable and very tasty and the hippiness/vegetarianness, wasn't intimidating at all.

Lowlight of the Day - I don't want to go into this in too much detail, because if I let myself begin a rant, it could go on for pages and you might start to think I'm a raving loony, but let's just say that my phone's broken and that all the technical expertise, intelligence and customer service (or lack thereof) of Samsung, EE, T Mobile and Carphone Warehouse has left me with a phone that's still broken, a contract that's been cancelled (I cut off my nose to spite my face, by just cancelling with T Mobile because I was so angry with their incompetence and rudeness) and no new contract yet as the girl in Carphone Warehouse made a ridiculous mistake in my address when doing my credit check which has led me to be rejected and has caused an awful lot of confusion on their part and stress on my part.  All phone companies are muddled, stupid arsehole-y type companies and I hate them all.  End of.  People met along the way (the way to being even worse off that when I started, because I am now without phone and contract and possibly with a damaged credit rating).
Nice-but-dim Carphone Warehouse girl who can't read the letter B correctly.
Impossible-to-communicate with Samsung man who told me, whilst in his Samsung uniform in the Samsung shop that I should "contact Samsung about it."
Miss I'm-not-actually-listening-to-what-you're-saying-I'm-just-going-to-say "Maybe if you upgraded to EE"-all-the-time
And then a couple of classic know-it-all phone shop wankers who don't ask you what you want, but tell you what you want.  One particularly annoying one talked to me as if I was insane when I asked if they had a spare phone in the shop I could just put my simcard in for 2 minutes to check my texts with, in spite of the fact that the other EE shop down the road did it straight away.  Another classic was the one who told me what I needed.  I disagreed completely, and then he replied with "That's what I'm saying."  That wasn't what you were saying.  You were saying the opposite.

Rant over.  Sorry.

Highlight of the day - Cafe Gourmand - a lovely little cafe and bistrot on Lexington Street in Soho.  It feels very French inside (I used to live in Paris, so I know innit) and it's a lovely, peaceful space in which to escape from the hustle and bustle of Soho.  The staff were really friendly (possibly the only bit that didn't remind me of Paris) and the prices were very reasonable.  I only had a coffee, but was very tempted by all the cakes.  I will definitely be going back for some mini gourmands (little cakes, just a mouthful) or their posh meat pies - I don't think I've ever seen a pie look so delicate!  I'm also quite tempted by their green cookie tea. I was kicking myself for having eaten elsewhere beforehand!

Embarrassing moment of the day - I call it the 'tube lean.'  You know, when you think you're perfectly steady and don't need to hold on and then it jolts off and you rather embarrassingly lean on the person next to you.  That's really embarrassing, right? However, you normally steady yourself and are off of them within a milisecond, mumble sorry, and go back to avoiding eye contact.  I went for a bit of a spectacular one yesterday - it was a 2-second full-frontal lean.  Quite a masterpiece.  Why I was facing this guy, I don't know.  How the tube was going at such a thrust that it lasted 2 seconds, I also don't know.  He was also a really attractive guy, which just made the whole ordeal (allbeit 2 seconds, but let's face it, 2 seconds of British awkwardness feels like a lifetime!).  I felt like the whole carriage were staring at me for the rest of my journey.  They obviously weren't.  Or were they??

So, why was yesterday so spontaneous? I had planned on doing nothing this weekend, but have been talking to friends recently about how my life revolves around lists.  I want more spontaneity damnit!  Then, I saw tickets on lastminute.com a few days ago for My Big Italian Gay Wedding at the Greenwich Theatre.  It's come from New York and the tickets were a good price, so me and a friend went on the spur of the moment.  It was really fun - loud, proud, camp and, in places, hilarious.  It was about an Italian New Yorker getting married to his boyfriend and all the hoo-ha that surrounded it.  It had a lot of visual humour, funny characters and farsical storyline.  There was a great atmosphere, with people from the crowd joining in on jokes and interacting with the actors.  Some singing, some dancing and a whole lot of camping.  A few of the jokes were very America-centric and went a bit over my head - I was hoping they might have localised it a little bit at least, just by picking things that were still American, but more relevant/famous here.  I'd be really interested to know if laughs came at different places in the UK and the US actually.  Me and my friend then went to the gay pub in Greenwich called the Prince.  I then ran down the road like a big poofta about to miss the last DLR.  I caught it.

Earlier in the day, I spontaneously met my friend to go the Southbank Food Market and had a lovely Beijing-style pork pancake from Mei Mei street food.  It did remind me of what I'd eaten when I actually went to Beijing, except that she'd added meat, which made it even better in my book.  I may have also sampled about 15 other stalls' foods! It was such a lovely day to mooch around London.  We then went over to Trafalgar Square and watched the outdoor pillow fight (see photo above).  We didn't join - we're not that spontaneous yet, one step at a time.  Then we went to Cafe Gourmand, then I splurged £50 in the River Island sale (all in the name of spontaneity of course).  Spontaneous is fun, but it's also expensive, and it also left me running (literally at time) late for everything I did.  Still, a great day all round! Maybe the start of spring? Dare I hope?

Highlight of the day - The return of Jonathan Creek! The ending was a bit weird, but, in my memory, they often were.  Alan Davies also tweeted that there are three more new episodes planned!

Embarrassing moment the day - Does anyone else feel that a different, more angry and impatient person takes them over as soon as they enter the tube system? I always feel as though I'm in a rush, even when I'm not (I more than often am, but still...).  Today, in the distance, I saw a huge crowd of tourists gathering as I was coming down the escalators.  A man had his hand in the air and was signally, tour-guide-stylee for everyone to meet there.  I immediately knew that I HAD to get past them before we entered any sort of corridor.  I JUST missed the opportunity and found myself directly behind said man, right in the midst of the slow-paced group.  He was the only person between me and huge, promising clear space of corridor, which would allow me to reach the platform at least 6 seconds sooner.  Typically British, I didn't want to be rude by asking him to move aside, I wanted to be super-polite, by standing almost on his heels, huffing, puffing and pulling faces.  He turned around a couple of times and failed to notice (the idiot! I was being so Britishly obvious) and then the third time, he realised, looked mortified and apologised, whilst moving aside.  For a brief second, I felt guilty, remembering that just because we are on the tube, does not mean that we have all become horrible, idiotic people, but are in fact all normal nice people.  I said sorry too and moved past him, only to in some catastrophically clumsy motion hit the end of the wine bottle that was in a carrier bag I was holding onto a funny bone in my knee (I believe that's the technical term).  A shock went down my leg, I let out a hugely embarrassing groan and stood clutching my knee.  I almost fell over! Needless to say, I was then getting in the way of the big tourist group, clutching my knee and my pride.  Silly tuber.

Today, I went to The Bridge Coffee House in Shoreditch.  My awful phone camera mustered up the courage to take the awful picture above.  It's a quirky little cafe, which is supposed to be in a Victorian/Dickensian style.  The decor really is something.  It's a feast for the eyes, that sort of makes them want to vomit.  It's quite dark, very kitsch and opulent and certainly old-fashioned.  The decor does look Victorian and you could spend quite a while looking at it all.  The cakes felt quite 70s in a way, but delicious nonetheless.  The music was a mix of 70s-90s - we had Nina Simone, Abba and Celine Dion.  Quite odd.  I enjoyed it and it certainly is an experience.  You wouldn't think that would all be hiding in there.  However, I'm not entirely sure I'd be in a rush to go again.

This evening, I went on another date.  This is another guy I've met on the internet, this time on OK Cupid.  OK Cupid is a website that has a straight and a gay section and, unlike most gay dating sites, is not focussed on sex and even has profiles without cocks on them...quite original! I felt that I had a lot in common with this guy from the start.  We both speak German.  We both work in marketing.  We both like language and puns and he seemed pretty intelligent, witty and good-looking.  We have the German and the marketing in common at least.  We went to Soho Joes on Dean Street, which does delicious pizza at a good price.  The staff are really nice too.  I've been before.  I suggested it, I hope it went down well with him.  I thought it was going really well.  I suggested, very casually, almost as if I didn't want to (trying to be cool, perhaps came off as freezing cold) that we move on for another drink.  He said he should get home as his flatmate was ill.  Then, I can't quite remember what I said after that, but he did a U-turn and said let's go.  I can't work out now if it's that I was being cold and he thought I didn't really want to, until he saw my reaction to him tentatively saying no, or if he didn't really want to, but said yes out of awkwardness/pity when he saw my reaction.  Anyway, we went to The John Snow pub which is really nice (if somewhat overcrowded) and we just seemed to chat and laugh all evening.  I made the very uncool mistake and texting him this evening to say that I had fun.  He hasn't replied.  I had a really good feeling about this one and am a bit concerned already now.  Hopefully he will text soon.

I don't always go on two dates in one weekend by the way! In fact, this may be a first, but it IS Easter, and I'm sure Jesus died so that gay people could meet strangers from the internet, didn't he?

UpDATE from the last one (pardon the pun, would be way funnier with the power of voice for emphasis, not capitals), I text him, he text back, I text again, nothing since.  I don't feel that bothered though, which is a sign I'm not that bothered about him.  I feel quite bothered about tonight's one though, so I'm keeping my

Highlight of the day: See picture.  Hummingbird red velvet cake (with added chocolate chips...naughty me) and wine.
Lowlight of the day: Getting coughed on on the tube...always nice.

Why unexhaustingly exhausting? Because I had NO WORK to do.  This is pretty rare at my job and, without sounding incredibly selfish, I really didn't want to let on before somebody shat a great load of work on me from a great height.  I had a long week last week, so I thought I deserved a down-day.  The thing is, it's actually incredibly exhausting trying to make yourself look busy all day when all you are in fact doing is checking your facebook and opening the same email again and again and staring at it intently (with the occasional chin clutch for good measure).

Another thing I did today was read the news from the BBC that in a crazy health and safety push, a school has banned triangular flapjacks after a child threw one and it hurt another kid.  Am I the only person thinking that a better solution to the problem would be to do something about the kids lobbing things rather than changing the shape of things to make them slightly less dangerous when lobbed.  I don't imagine they've banned cutlery or trays or any of the other things that are surely more dangerous than triangle flapjacks!! If they banned everything, they'd only be allowed plain soft white bread (cut into oblongs, not triangles of course).  Maybe it's time we went back to turkey twizzlers in the name of safety! They are nice and soft after all, even if they are probably more E-number than meat.

In other safety news, I also had the tube announcer man today telling me "for my own safety" I should not leave newspapers on the station...is that really for my own safety or is it just because it's lazy, rude and dirty? It seems like they'll (not really sure who "they" are...the man or something) put anything down to safety...it's really a bit of an empty phrase now.

What's your craziest safety announcement experience?