Night of many wigs

Guy Fawkes night!

Guy Fawkes night is a huge deal here, young Londoners have been blowing off unnecessary body parts for weeks now, and the streets are full of smoke and the constant wail of ambulances and police sirens. I made mulled wine and go ridiculously over-excited on the actual day, but two of my housemates got sick so we didn't make it to any of the massive bonfires around town where they actually burn lifesized effigies of the pope. One day...
Instead we bought about six kilos of explosives from our nearest supermarket and blew massive holes in the lawn of the local childrens playground. It was rad, the whole skyline of London was erupting and the parks were full of cheering drunken people who were too cheap to buy their own fireworks but sure got a kick out of ours. This is my housemate Tom about to light one of the little baby rockets we got. These were a bit pathetic, but we also had ones the size of four bricks which could have blown up a car. I can't wait til next year.

Three exciting things

1. I met Kenneth Anger! Actually, that's an exaggeration, I touched his shoe. But it was a beautiful moment. And then he spilled his beer on me, so I am never showering again. I went to a secret screening of his new films (blurgh), in the old railway tunnels under London Bridge- it was all pitch dark and scary and filled with candles and smoke machines. I didn't even know he was still making films- he's had so much plastic surgery he looked about forty.
2.I have family! I spent the weekend in Sheffield being spoilt rotten with big family dinners and living it up in a swanky apartment with all my cousins, am still recovering from the sheer quantity of food we managed to consume.
3. I'm going to set fire to things! Tomorrow is my first ever Guy Fawkes night, so my housemates and I are stocking up on mulled wine and fireworks (you can buy them at the local supermarket, ridiculous country).

So thats three exciting things in what is otherwise a desert of boredom..... This week is 'Reading Week' so I have no classes but masses of essays to write and I've turned into a revolting library slug. Joyous.

Good looks run in the family

Hell is a hairdressers convention

A couple of weeks ago I got recruited by this swanky hair salon across the road from my work to be a hair model for the London Hairdressing Expo, which was today. Little did I know it was going to involve eight hours of pre-dying over the past week, in which I went from brown to orange to red to purple, followed by a two hour horror fest today where I had to sit on a little stage, not moving, as my head was brutally attacked by a pretentious wanker in really tight jeans while a huge swarm of Italian hairdressers with hairy chests mobbed me and took photos and spun me round and round on my chair until I felt sick. It was utterly bizarre, and they caked me in so much makeup I looked like I was dead. My only escape was a tiny temporary cupboard where I managed to hide and scoff chips with a few franticaly smoking off-duty security guards. It was a total nightmare- five thousand shallow, narcissistic, bleating, over-peroxided, underfed, hairdressers crammed into one convention centre and fighting over fluro pink metallic scissors and platinum hair extensions for dogs. On the plus side; I got paid, I stole the t-shirt they dressed me in, i got mobbed by Spanish women who wanted to touch my hair, and I got a total thrill out of wearing a big security pass around my neck that said 'Model'. On the down side, I am now hideous. And when I wash all the product out, I'm going to look like Ronald McDonald.

Hamster love!

Tragically I'm not brave enough to broach the subject of a hamster with my very houseproud flatmates, so I'm consoling myself by pestering my cousin Anna's new pet Hamlet. He's so cute and pointless! He has no tail and basically no legs and all he does is eat and roll around the floor in a lime green plastic hamster ball. He's the coolest thing alive. Back home, we're growing a bulb of purple organic garlic on our front porch. This is taking a surprising amount of effort and passion, and I think its about as close to a pet as we're going to get.
In between bouts of aggressive Hamster fondling I am in the process of being fired from my job at the cupcake store. I went out for a drink with the Polish managers, who are both girls about my age who work like slaves and speak very little English, and I admitted my extreme hatred for the owner of the store (the sleaziest, angriest man alive) without realizing that one of the girls is involved with him. Whoops. Also, I keep eating the icing off the cupcakes because I get so hungry after nine hours without a break, and I've started giving away cakes for free to any customer who looks a bit broke or has a nice face. Clearly, I'm not top employee material.
School is going well, I haven't offended any royalty yet and I made it all the way through the single page of recommended reading they gave us last week. I'm only there two days a week at the moment so in between I've been hanging out with way too many visiting Australians, getting lost on epic bike rides around the city, and spending all my money at the British Film Institute or this amazing bar/art space called Shunt that I discovered in the tunnels under London Bridge. Its vast and dark with strange light installations and different theatre and music performances every night, and you can literally become lost wandering in old pitch dark train tunnels before suddenly you come across a pinball machine or a stuffed shark hanging from the ceiling or a crazy film being projected or a cluster of comfy chairs around a bar.

keeping busy...