keris stainton

Or maybe it's because I need more sleep...

This is my favourite musical flash mob thingy so far. It made me cry. Quite a lot.

I have to say, I think these musical flash mob thingies are a wonderful addition to the world in general. Hope I get to join in with one one day (unlikely, unless it happens in Morrison's).

[via the amazing Amy Krouse Rosenthal, who is on Twitter]

My Teenage Diary

No, not mine! God!

Just listened to this new Radio 4 show on the iPlayer. Celebs read out extracts from their teenage diaries. Last week was Richard Herring and it was funny, sweet and totally embarrassing. Listen again here (but only until 11.57 tonight!).

Makes me feel so much better about my own humiliating ramblings (from when I was a teenager, I mean!).

While I'm on the subject of diaries, I'm currently reading a YA book called Big Woo! (by Susie Day) and it is just fabulous. It's written as a personal blog and is very funny and moving and the characterisation is so great that I actually dreamed about the characters last night!

And while I'm on the subject of Radio 4, I've also just listened to - and really enjoyed - Heresy.

Good news

A few blogs, etc., that have been making my life better lately:

David Mitchell's Guardian column
Yes, I know I'm always going on about David Mitchell, but his Guardian column is always intelligent and interesting. Plus he recently took on the savage Guardian commenters!

No Sleep 'Til Brooklands
This blogger invites you to join him as he "wallows in the curious world of crap journalism, lazy journalism, evil journalism, pseudoscience and general media chicanery". As you can imagine, Daily Mail and Daily Express stories are often featured and exposed as the utter drivel they are.

spEak You’re bRanes
Mocking the commenters from the BBC "Have Your Say" site. They totally deserve it.

Russell Brand
Not only is Russell hilarious and a total sexpot, he's also intelligent and articulate and his blog is wonderful.

Tweet!

I am LOVING Twitter and I'm there all the time. Come and join me (click on the happy dancing birdie above).

You won't regret it, honest. Okay, yes, you might regret it because it is totally addictive. But you'll enjoy it. I guarantee.*

* This is not a guarantee.

Reach for the stars

Since Harry was disappointed not to get to do his Night Sky routine last night, we thought we'd have a look and see if there's a planetarium nearby (using the fantastically-named BAP Map!). There is, there's one in Manchester and also - doh! - Jodrell Bank, but I found something else: Stellarium.

It's a free planetarium for the computer and it's rather fab. You can switch on (or, you know, off) labels for stars, planets, constellations, speed the timer up so you can watch the sun rise and set in super-fast time (brilliant for answering Harry's favourite question: where do the stars go during the day?).

You can set it to the current time and watch it in real time. You can even increase (or decrease) light pollution to see what effect that has on the atmosphere.

Apparently you can also - I haven't tried this yet - double click on a planet and go and have a mooch around there! It's brilliant and Harry loves it. It may be the one thing that'll tear him away from Wall-e... or maybe not.

Hilarious/creepy ... Creepy/hilarious

My lovely writer friend Caroline Smailes emailed me last night to tell me she'd been checking her search stats and there was a search for "keris stainton nude".

!!!!!!

I must admit, it took me a while to take it in. I thought I must be reading it wrong or have misunderstood or ... something.

Who on earth would be interested in such a thing?! And why would they think they could find it on the internet?!

I hardly ever check my own referrals, but I haven't noticed anything quite so ... pervy - apart from "Toccara Jones covered in chocolate" - they're usually very boring. Which is just the way I like it.

So if you're the person who did that search, sorry to disappoint, but I'm hardly ever naked in my own home, let alone on t'interweb. And you might want to think about getting some help...

(Incidentally, that is me in the photo - I know I look just like Harry!)

UPDATED! I think I've worked it out. I think the searcher got me confused with my journalist friend, Kelly Rose Bradford, who recently posed nude for a portrait and wrote about it in The Daily Express. I knew no-one wanted to see me naked...

Aren't some people clever?

I saw this on Apartment Therapy and think it's just brilliant. At Idée’s Multicolr Search Lab for Flickr, you pick colors from the palette (up to 10) and the search pulls together a bunch of images from the colors you've selected. Hours of fun. No, really. After choosing a blue, a pink and an orange, I was presented with this:

The second Dr Horrible ... so good.

Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Have y'all watched it already?

I just watched it and it's just gorgeous. I loved it.

And the "Bad Horse" and "Dr Hammer" bits are way too funny for someone whose ribs are still hurting from throwing up on Tuesday night. Gah.

How I spent Friday night...

Yeah, I know it's been going for ages. Yeah, I've heard people saying how great it is for months. And yet ... for some reason, I'd never bothered to check it out. I think that, in my head, I had it mixed up with Gawker, which I find much too bitchy.

Anyway, last night, I was reading Meg Cabot's blog and she mentioned the writer of Jezebel's Fine Lines column had got a book deal. So I had to check out Fine Lines, which is a retro YA book review column, and it was fantastic. (She's doing Lois Duncan's Stranger With My Face in a couple of weeks.)

From there I scrolled down and read ... and read ... and read ... for about 45 minutes. Then I ate my dinner, watched Location, Location, Location and DIY SOS then thought, "I'll just have another quick look at Jezebel...".

Two hours later I went to bed. My eyes were stinging, but my brain was ringing and I was happy.

Now, it won't appeal to everyone. For a start, it's sweary and I know a couple of you don't like that (Hi, Maz! Hi, Joyce!), but I think it's fantastic.