Order of the Brown Nose

In addition to being in the Guardian, it would seem that the Flatmate and I have now been spotted and featured* in the Private Eye too!

http://www.private-eye.co.uk

This is quite an honour because as my friend Matt says "You cannot get yourself into the Private Eye...you have to be chosen"It was all exciting as we thought of responses to the man who nominated us. At first I thought we were being mocked but then I realised that in order to put us into the Private Eye, this guy would have to read the Guardian too (dork!) and even read the "Nice to Meet You" column (dorkier!) and then I felt better. We think we might invite him around for coffee and croissants some morning (or, as the Flatmate said, only 1/2 a croissant, because after all, we only have £1.40 to spend).

*mentioned

My sister is in London for a few days. The visit got off on a bit of a rough start as a stream of tube cancellations, runnings late and late/absent busses left us wandering London in the pouring rain until 1:00, but today was grand. There's an amazing photography exhibit at the Tate. I am now a member and can go to all of these things for FREE and I can even have a coffee in the members lounge after now! Am I poshing it up or WHAT?

My other highlights of this weekend have included garden centres, drinks with friends and watching the toddler of a friend of a friend produce mammoth poos in her bathroom, but the joyous stories of potty training will have to wait.

The sister and I are off to make a mom-classic recipe for dinner tonight. Gosh, I wish I hadn't blogged those two bits in succession!

Tony and Me

I think most of my readers (whoever is still around) will know that as soon as my work permits, leave to remain, etc come back I will be giving my notice at my current job.

I thought it might be great if Tony and me had the same last days. Maybe he'd join me for a pint after work...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6639945.stm

Is it an automatic two-for-one deal?

Maybe someone can offer some insight...

Here's the situation... I wanted to have a chilled afternoon at a pub to commemorate my third anniversay of being in the UK. I sent an evite to the relevent parties...some have partners, some don't. The thing is, I invited the people I did because they're people who have made my time here lovely and significant. One responded saying that he could come, but his partner probably couldn't. To which I thought "well, she wasn't invited!" I've only met her once, and while she seemed nice enough, and is someone I'd maybe like to get to know better, I was not sure if it was snobby of me to be a bit taken aback at his automatic assumption that she could come along too, or if that's a normal part of this "two becoming one" funny marriage business.

What are the boundaries here? Am I a jerk? Is it a wrong assumption to make that people can maintain a bit of their individual identities after they get hitched? I think it's the automatic presumption of "we" that gets to me. If he had called and said "can she come along?" I probably would have happily said yes. But what if I was planning on revealing to them all some horrible disease or condition I had been diagnosed with and having strangers there would make it difficult to do so. You never know in these situations. That's why I will never presume if I ever have any sort of a relationship. But the likelihood of that seems a long way off, so for now I will remain a grumpy and exclusive singleton.

OK. Maybe I am a big jerk.

Famous as famous can be!

Katrin and I appeared in the Guardian on Saturday...

I tried to find the link to it, but since I couldn't, you'll just have to look at the picture we put in instead!