Highlight of the Day - Although it sounds really insignificant, I found a long iPhone 5 cable for less than a fiver on Living Social, which means I can now charge my phone over night and still have it on my bed to use as my alarm - not fun to have to get out of bed to snooze every day.  Life changing.

Embarrassing moment of the day - getting lost at Kentish Town station.   Google Maps really makes it looks like you come out on the opposite side of the road to where you actually come out (I double checked afterwards).  I had to ask in Greggs and the guy behind the desk said "Oh, don't ask me, I'm not a local."  I mean, where does he commute from to work in Greggs?? I eventually found my way anyway.

Today, I went narrow boating on the Thames, as you do.  We started at Broadway Market and spent just over 2 hours on the boat to go all the way up to Camden via Angel - it was so much fun! Not the best weather, but it was mostly covered.  I went for a friend's birthday and we all just drank ourselves silly on the boat as we looked at the pretty canal and waved at strangers (which got a bit awkward, as we were actually moving really slowly!!).  We went through lochs and everything, just like Rosie and Jim! I loved it and would definitely go again (would be even better in summer...if we ever get one!)

Highlight of the Week - chilling with vino tinto, vino blanco, beer, shandy and a new discovery of 'tinto verano con limon' which is red wine mixed with traditional lemonade or less traditional lemon Fanta in SPAIN in the SUNSHINE - woo!

Lowlight of the Week - Realising how unfit I am.  Getting lost on a 1-hour mooch turned it into a 4-hour hilly hike.  This was on the second day of my week-long holiday.  I then spent the rest of the week aching all over - slightly depressing perhaps.  I chose to solve it by eating lots of tapas and drinking lots of wine.

Embarrassing Moment of the Week - Where to start? I went into the women's toilet and almost walked into a 70-year-old Spanish woman, panicked because I didn't know the word for "sorry" so I bowed, almost knocking her out (I used to live on Japan, I blame it on that).  My friends and I also got kicked out of the cathedral in Toledo in a rather loud and public fashion as we tried to sneak in because we'd missed the free entrance period by about 2 minutes (due to very misleading signs).  Jesus would've been ashamed.

Yes, I haven't blogged for over a week as I've been sunning myself up in Spain.  My friend won a stay in a 'villa' in the Spanish mountains, near a 'town' called Cecedillia.  Not long before we left, the 'villa' was downgraded to a 'lodge' to a 'flat' and the 'town' to a 'village' that was more a of a cabin (but still very nice).  I've got another friend who lives in Madrid, so I spent some time with her and we also went to the stunningly beautiful Toledo (although we spent most of our time there looking at things without knowing what they were) and the incredibly intimidating tomb of Franco (plus the odd thousand civil war victims!)  I enjoyed myself immensely.  Only small problem was the lovely 4-hour delay that Easy Jet provided us on the way back.  Oh yes, and the perfectly grey sky that greeted us on our return - back to reality!

Also used the panorama function successfully for the first time on my camera - see above! Go me!

Well, call me a poofta, but I love me a bit of Eurovision.  It's just so much fun! My favourite, Denmark, won by quite a bit.  She looked a bit scary - she looked ill she was so skinny and pale, but the song was really catchy.  I also liked Iceland, Italy and France.  Italy might have been affected by the fact that I fancied the singer a bit.  Definitely not the case for Iceland! I think the funniest song was Romania - some strange guy singing in a really deep voice, trying (I hope) to be scary, before switching into a super-high pitched voice for a bit of popera, all whilst standing on a platform above a big flowing red dress.  Sweden's skit by the presenter and a comedian about all-things-Swedish was really funny too.  I was laughing along, even though I don't even really know much about Sweden, so I didn't know the stereotypes even, but the humour was great.  The host was wicked, but I get the feeling a lot of the humour would've been lost on some other cultures.  I reckon British and Swedish humour isn't too different.  Graham Norton is great too - really good replacement for Terry.  Just the right amount of sarcy!   Shock of the evening for me was Norway doing so well - I thought that was really forgettable.  Also pretty shocked that the swaying beached whale also known as Bonnie Tyler managed to come 19th! I would've put it further down.  It's embarrassingly poor - maybe it's time to stop auditioning in the ex-music-star pension queue for our Eurovision entries!

Anyway, good news about Denmark winning is that it's not too far away, so I'm thinking I might go and see next year's contest.  I might need to win the lottery first as the tickets are expensive and Denmark is expensive to be in too - I went once and pretty much lived on bread rolls from the supermarket for 4 day

Highlight of the Day - Free Egyptian food from a new 'street food' style place that's just opened on St Martin's Lane called Koshari Street.  I'd never had anything like it - it had pasta, rice, lentils and other beans topped with a tomato sauce.  I love lentils and beans etc., but I was thinking when I looked at it that it might be a bit flavourless, but it was really delicious.  Not sure if it was partly because it was free, because free things are always better!

Embarrassing Moment of the Day - Stayed so late at work on Thursday (2.30am!) so I could've taken Friday off, but I had a meeting at 10.30.  It wasn't that important, but I thought I'd go in for it, just to show willing and then go home.  I ran in, completely knackered and looking a state, to find the meeting had already started.  I burst in with my coat still on and had to go and sit at the table next to the person who was talking as it was the only seat left.  2 minutes later the meeting finishes.  It was 10-10.30, not 10.30-11.  I'm an idiot.

I did something very brave on Friday! I'm very proud of myself.  I did some stand-up comedy! I talked for 5 minutes at an open mic night about family holidays, caravanning in Hastings, or somewhere on a layby in the Hastings vicinity.  It went pretty well! The audience was very small, but very supportive.  It was at a night aimed at comedians who have only been going for a year or less, called Underdogs at the Blue Posts on Rupert Street in Soho.  Some of my jokes went well, some fell flat on their face, but the big problem was that I didn't ask the friend who came with me to record it, so I have no idea which ones got laughs and which ones didn't! I'm definitely going to do it again, as I had loads of fun and I met some great people - everyone was surprised it was my first time when I told them afterwards, so that was great! I just need to be a bit funnier next time - sort of a key point! I'm working on it!

That's one of my 30 things ticked off though! Go me!

Highlight of the Day - FINALLY getting a new phone - iPhone5, woo! No thanks to Carphone Warehouse or Three - all thanks to me being intelligent, determined and (eventually) very un-Britishly forceful.  I might give you the full shabang in another post one day, but I don't want to think about it for now, I'm happily playing with my new Appley toy.  Also rather enjoy this Youtube video of idiots at the Coachella Festival in the US pretending they know bands that don't exist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_IzYUJANfk

Lowlight of the day - being stuck in Sainsbury's whilst a man announced about (no exaggeration) 20 times that the fire alarm was about to be tested.  It was tested, he then announced 20 times that the fire alarm test was over.

I felt pretty old today.  I went to a club for the first time in quite a while and I enjoyed myself, but whereas a couple of years ago I would've partied until 5 and spent all night drinking, I stopped after 3 drinks (because I didn't want a hangover, didn't want to queue at the bar and didn't want to spend £4.50 on a dwarfed can of Heineken...so sensible) and was pooped by 1.  We went to see Mark Ronson DJ at XOYO in Shoreditch by Old Street Station.  We had to call the club first to ask them how to pronounce it because we were a bit embarrassed we might say it wrong in front of some cool kids in the queue or something! I can confirm it's just X O Y O in letters - nothing too complicated there then!

We saw Mark Ronson announce some other acts, but we're not entirely sure we even heard him DJ, because it was so smokey and we just had to leave at one before our legs dropped off.  We also had to move to a less crowded area several times, because we didn't like trying to dance whilst feeling like you were in constant junction of people and were elbowing people left, right and centre.  The mix of music was really fun though - some dance and some classic disco, and upstairs they had RnB (I had a good gay sing to Jumpin' Jumpin' by Destiny's Child, to which I still know every word - they played a quicker version and I still put myself on fast forward and sang all the way through - not totally over the hill yet!).  The strangest part of the night was when a girl came up to me (from quite far away as well, she'd obviously picked me out of the crowd) and asked if I had any "M Dog".  I had no idea what she was on about, I said "What?" then she asked again.  I said "No" (crazy girl) and then she said "How about coke?" I laughed out loud and said "NO." Really, I would've thought the fact that I hadn't heard of the first drug and reacted in such a shocked way to coke would prove that I wasn't drug dealer (although really I'd hoped I don't look like one anyway!!), but the persistent little thing still carried on "Anything?"  How confident was she that I was a drug dealer??

Looked up M Dog online today and urban dictionary tells me it's short for MDMA.  It's the first time I've looked something up on urban dictionary and it hasn't meant "shit" so I'm very pleased.

On the way home, however, we had a new lease of life and decided, spur of the moment to go to Duck and Waffle!! It's number 30 on my list of things to do, so that's a big tick for me! It's open 24-hours and it was absolutely wonderful.  It's the restaurant at the top of the Heron Tower near Liverpool Street.  If you don't know which one it is, see the picture above - it's that one with what looks like a mahusive radio aerial next to the Gherkin.  You get an absolutely incredible view over London, the staff are lovely and, at that time of night, it's very quiet up there, so you have an almost private view in a serene setting.  The signature dish is waffle with duck meat and a duck's egg, but we didn't get it, because it was a bit pricey and we weren't starving.  Instead, we got Columbian Eggs, which were only £9! It was basically posh scrambled eggs on toast with lots of avacado.  It was really delicious.  We sat there for about 2 hours chatting away (and nursing the oncoming hangover that was already setting in).  I will definitely try to go again - £10 including tip for

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 - The Light Show at the Southbank Centre - it was phenomenal.  It's about 15 pieces of art which all use light in some way.  The fact that there were only 15 pieces, but that me and my friends spent well over 2 hours there, shows just how fascinating they were: optical illusions, interactive adventures and mesmerising beauties.  Go, go, go!

Embarrassing Moment of the Day - Randomly falling into a really heavy sleep on the tube - possibly a tiny bit of dribble - horrendous!

This day was a special day.  We organised a birthday treat for a friend, by making her lots of clues on gold cards and hiding around London with them, with each clue guiding her to the next.  We planned meticulously, but this didn't stop the odd error creeping in, like my friend bumping into an old colleague when she was supposed to be rushing ahead of me and the birthday girl to be ready with the next clue at Warren Street Station.  My friend worked out the clue, we went to Warren Street, I thought we had made perfect timing, and then I felt my phone vibrate as soon as we were coming to the top of the escalators.  "STALL."  "I'm behind you".  As she had been chatting away, she had wound up on the same tube as us and we had taken her over! So we were heading to a clueless spot.  Stalling was not easy and it was all quite hilarious.  The clue was about newspapers and it was actually as simple as going to the Evening Standard stand right outside the front of the station, but I made it out it was more difficult, which sent her on a wild goose chase for a couple of minutes.  There was another part where I was going to go the toilet after during our lunch and not come back, instead going with the next clue to Goodge Street, waiting for the birthday girl to find me.  We were in the Attendant Cafe (see below) and you have to go outside to the toilet to the pub next door.  Of course, she needed the toilet at the same time, so we had to go to the pub togehter and I just had to walk into the gents', turn around and head straight back out.  I'd really needed to go too - so spent most of the rest of the day almost wetting myself.  Not sure what the landlady thought of my strolling into the loos and running out 5 seconds later!  Quick work!

Our lunch was in The Attendant Cafe, just near Mortimer Street and the BT Tower.  It's an old Victorian public toilet that has been cleaned up (they promise!) and is being used as a restuarant, so you can eat your lunch in a urinal, with a hand-dryer hovering dangerously close to your head.  It's quite the experience! It's tiny, so a bit difficult to get urinal-seats, but the food is lovely, the staff are very friendly (they even played a part in our clues) and it's just so unique, it's really worth a visit.  I had a sandwich on tiger bread (another addiction of mine) and a really tasty coffee.  I recommend it! My friends had goat's cheese tart and warm french toast - they all loved their meals too.  Slightly ironic that the toilets are outside!  My only disappointment is that there were no cheesy puns like BOGOF on coffees or something, or a fridge labelled the water closet...I'm a sucker for a good pun! It's a bit too cool for that I think though.  I'll be going again, I really enjoyed myself.

After more treasure hunt and the Light Show, we finished the day in Skylon Bar in the Royal Festival Hall Building.  Lovely cocktails (I had a blood orange martini), if slightly awkward table arrangements, as we couldn't fit 4 plates (for charcuterie, darrrling), 4 drinks and the platter around one table, so we were sort of sitting in a line along two tables, which were also of different heights.  It felt a bit like Christmas dinner!

Now then, now then, I've been an awful blogger and haven't blogged about my today's world for an entire week (nobody emailed to check I was still alive - thanks for that!)  I have spent the vast majority of the week at work (including until 4am (!!) on Tuesday.  I've also spent the week experimenting with double denim (decided I like my black denim skinny jeans with normal blue denim shirts, but not too sure about any other combo) and becoming addicted to app wordgame Ruzzle and convincing myself it's not a waste of time, because I can do it in French and German, so I am learning something.  Anyway, let's go into a bit more detail about Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  This post is about Friday.

Highlight of the day - the end of the week and the knowledge that I didn't have any work to do over the weekend - bliss.
Lowlight of the day - being caught in the kitchen at work (which is miniscule for an office of any size, let alone a building of 6 floors!) whilst getting my breakfast with the only girl at work I don't like.  She announced (quite literally into my ear, as there was no space for her to annouce anywhere else) that she was having her second breakfast of the day.  I didn't ask further.  She announced again.  I didn't ask.  She naturally didn't take the hint and continued to tell me about she'd had poached egg and avacado and homemade chilli jam - it was like Nigella had walked in.  I just can't cope with that sort of thing at 9.30.

After finishing work, I went to a restaurant on Cambridge Heath Road called Italina.  Not too cryptically, it's an Italian restaurant, for which I'd bought a Living Social vouhcer (I may or may not be addicted to Living Social).  The pizzas were huge and really tasty, the staff were friendly and the atmosphere was very warm and homely.  I'd go again.  I had several plans to get chores done on Friday before a busy weekend, but, I accidentally conked out 10 minutes after getting in.  Bless.

Highlight of the Day - the same as everyone's in London I imagine: SUN!

Lowlight of the Day - Learning that Cleo Higgins from Cleopatra Comin' Atcha (now on The Voice) is 30, reminding me that I am not that young anymore.

I've had a great day today.  Sun is amazing.  We really get a great atmosphere in London when it's sunny...because we appreciate it while it lasts!  I mooched down to a lovely little restaurant on Cambridge Heath Road (about a 10 minute walk from my flat), called This Bright Field.  Slightly odd name, I grant you, but the food was really delicious (I had roast beef with a Mama of a Yorkshire Pud like I've never seen before).  We ate outside (it wasn't really warm enough too, but why not?) and I think my yorkshire was almost big enough to catch the wind like a sail and go skirting of the down the road!  The staff were all really lovely too.  I'll go again.

I was with two friends, and we made the most of the sun, but walking down Colombia Road, then over Arnold Circus / the Boundary Estate and into Club Row.  There's some amazing street art on Club Row and I love the Boundary Estate because it used to be on my tours when I was a tour guide (the first council estate in Britian, because, believe it or not, the now super-expensive, sought-after Shoreditch, used to be the poorest area in the UK, with slums, such as the Old Nichol Slum, where the Boundary Estate now is (built 1901, as the slum was demolished so it's not that long ago), where people lived in houses without foundations, in basements without windows and with 15 to a room.  We went to an exhibition inside Mother London on Redchurch Street, called the Secret 7".  All in the name of charity, they've taken 7 songs and asked artists to design covers for them (hence 7" records).  They are selling them next weekend at £40 apiece, but you won't know which artist's you have until you've bought them.  It's all the name of an anti-knife charity.  Some are by famous artists, like Gilbert and George, others are by complete unknowns.  I'm officially stating, in advance, that my favourite is the one above.  If it turns out to be a Gilbert and George worth 1000s, I am an art genius.   What was wonderful about it was, that, if for instance I had been to an art gallery with two exhibitions: one of Gilbert and George and one of someone I'd never heard of, I would've probably spend very little time looking at the other exhibit, but, here, you looked and appreciated all the talent, regardless of how famous they were.  It's a wonderful idea and it was great to see 700 mini pieces of art.  The staff were friendly too, not like the arsey types you can often get around Redchurch Street.

And what better way to top it off than with an ICE CREAM (not that I haven't had ice cream at home almost every day since forever, but this one was OUTSIDE).  Stopped in Motown Desserts on the way home, not it's not a Diana Ross Pavlova cafe, it's a cool cake and ice cream shop on Bethnal Green Road.  The ice cream is homemade and after several tasters (just to be sure, they even had brown bread ice cream!), I went with cookies and cream.  Yummy sunny Mothery day.  Happy times! 

Highlight of the Day - Getting up early, without a hangover, and being super-productive.  I felt like I could've seen Heather Small interrogating me with a warbling "What have you done today to make you feel proud?" and answered very successfully even at 11am.  I went into Oxford Street, which is uncharacteristically bearable and sparse before 11 and got my refund in River Island (open open open this time) and then scurried around M+S, House of Fraser and John Lewis looking for the biggest plain white plate I could find.  It was for work (I had to drop it off at work before 2).  My work's a bit confidential, so I can't really divulge what it was for, but it had to be huge, flat, round and plain white.  I also couldn't tell any of the very confused sales assistants what it was for and I imagine they were talking about crazy plate boy all day.  John Lewis was the winner.  Pizza plate - 35cm diameter, in case you ever need a ginormous plate.  

Embarrassing Moment of the Day - Apart from forcing people to measure plates, it was my unexpected item in the bagging area at Sainsbury's.  I mean, pray tell self-checkout lady, how unexpected can a bag of carrots in Sainsbury's really be??