what is there to say about the drama of the hostages in the russian theatre? that for over the past five days or so whilst we ate, slept, watched tv, read our books in the comfort and safety of our bedrooms, over 700 terrified innocents were trapped in a building not knowing whether they were going to live or die?

Just carry on posting sharon, carry on posting.

oh ok, its only been splashed all over the front pages hasn't it!

did anyone see Five this morning? who is this man whom Ulrika claims to have raped her?

i went to see Coldplay perform last Monday night. They were good. The lead singer rocks and was probably on drugs. I was standing for the entire performance, which wasn't in itself very long, but we had gotten there at 7.30pm, and they didn't start performing until 9pm, and finished at approx 10.15pm. we were entertained by Idlewild whilst we were waiting, and they were ok. the kids seemed to like jumping up and down to their songs in particular, couldn't say why, but it was entertaining.

I think I can count the number of concerts/gigs I have been to on one hand. The very first one was to see Elton John at Wembley Arena, and I went with my dad (ahh). the second was a family affair, me, my sisters and my dad went to see Michael Jackson at Wembley Stadium. I went to see this Chinese Popstar guy when I was in Hong Kong in 97 with sister and her friend, and then I went to see the Spice Girls with this guy in 98 or 99, I believe. So there, Coldplay was the very first proper gig I have ever been to, and they were goood. (My gosh, even I am appalled when i read this last paragraph that I've just typed out.)

i got my deposit back now, hurrah! I finally managed to get hold of the guy last saturday, and he was very nice and civilised and promised to give me the money on monday (today). And guess whom, after moaning endlessly about it to my lab colleagues and friends and posting negative posts about it on the internet, completely forgot to go pick it up? yes that would be me, what a f****in' moppet eh? Luckily enough the guy was nice enough to phone me to remind me, thank goodness, so I ran over from school and picked up my money, cash. so thank you mr. ex-landlordy guy, and sorry to have posted horrible posts 'bout you on t'internet.

it's been three weeks now, and no deposit. The man is not answering his mobile phone. i feel... worried. my neck hurts from tension from worrying. I can't even go to the shop that used to be below the flat, because it's kind of changed hands - well it's still owned by the same landlord, but he's rented it out to some other people who don't have anything to do with the flats. There were two men inside the shop which seems to have been turned into an office, and they seemed... nice. one of them phoned the landlord for me - but couldn't get through, and then he kind of tried to reassure me by saying that the guy who wasn't answering my phone calls is a nice guy, and that they were still waiting for some stock from him as well, and that he has the flu. and that kind of made me feel better for about 5 minutes. But now I'm back to worrying again. let this be a lesson to you all, always get a contract when you rent, so if you want to drag the landlord into court, you can. or better yet, if you have the balls, don't pay the last month's rent, which is what I should have done, but alas, I didn't. have the balls, that is.

that bloody ex-landlord man still hasn't bloody given back my deposit for the flat that I left 2 and a half weeks ago. I tried to call him this afternoon but he didn't bloody answer his bloody phone, bloody f**k. He'd better give me my money back or I'll cast a voodoo jinx on him.

I watched Insomnia last night. went all the way to the odeon on Panton street, just off leicester sq. almost ended up paying £8 (wot a swizzle!) but waved my out of date University of London Union card at the couldn't care less ticket lady who sold it to me for £5. I don't think it would have been worth paying £8 to see. It was ok, it was trying to be psychological thriller and kind of clever different at the same time, because it talks about how this cop gets insomnia in summertime alaska where it never gets dark, after killing somebody by accident (oops, was i not supposed to say that?) and how he can't think properly and digs himself deeper and deeper into the poo. I was expecting something a bit more.. well thrilling, really. and when robin williams comes on as the killer, I just couldn't stop thinking about how cute he looked, and i don't mean I want to shag him cute, i mean *he's so kee-yute!* cute, I mean, it Robin Williams, mork and mindy, flubber man, mrs doubtfire himself. so, there you go. Still, it was ok. and I got to see cute Robin Williams play a bad guy.

shit! the -70 deep freezer just scared the crap out of me, i was making this really loud screechy racket like as if it was going to self-destruct.

i didn't know about the bombing in Indonesia until today lunchtime when one of my colleagues told me. i hadn't watched news all day yesterday, so i had no idea. sometimes its hard to connect with the untimely deaths of people who are otherwise nothing to do with you, but these people (obviously) could've been me or you. Prayers and thoughts.

i just joined the 'brit blog' webring, and for description of website (which i'm really crap at coming up with anything good) I put down 'bbc londonite bird', amongst other 'choice' descriptive words of which I cannot remember. i have just found out from the counter that i have got 30 hits , which is approximately 25 more than I usually get per week. and i'm just wondering if the reason for that was because of the 'bbc' bit. bbc stands for british born chinese, people, i'm afraid, not british broadcasting.

speaking of BBC, I watched a wildlife programme on meercats last night, filmed by Simon King. Weren't the baby meercats the most adorable things in the world?! They were soooo kee-yute! cue lots of awing and cooing noises.

seroxat
I watched that Panorama programme on TV last night about Paroxetine - 'Seroxat' to the lay british person, and 'Paxil' to the lay American. i was actually expecting it to be scientific like, and having to struggle to watch it. I generally never watch Panorama, but this programme was actually very tabloidy and sensationalist. After watching it I thought, right, that's it, GSK are going to lose so much sales from this and get so much flak. But then i thought - well, actually, maybe they're not going to, but y'know I didn't really actually know about these psychological side effects and withdrawal symptoms. All I knew were these single line warnings that can be found in their information leaflets and in the british national formulary, that make them look like rare isolated incidences, and seem to be added in as an after thought to avoid litigation. I suppose it may not bankrupt GSK, but I hope it'll make doctor's think twice before prescribing them to the next whiny teenager like as if they were sweets. It'll certainly change the advice that i will now give anybody who asks me what i think about taking an SSRI, especially for something like panic attacks. I used to have panic attacks, and the thought of having yet more psychological side effects on top of what I was already going through sounds pretty dire. Ofcourse I can only speak from my own point of view and my own experiences, and everyone is different, but you can pull through panic attacks by relaxation exercises such as yogic breathing, or maybe by taking herbal preparations like valerian have been readily available for centuries which is found in 'Kalms' and is marketed for 'coping with life's ups and downs' or a homeopathic preparation called Bach's Rescue remedy. There are books available out there to help you as well, which would advice life style changes. I wish people would seriously consider options like these instead of going straight for the drugs.
In any case the programme admits that seroxat has helped millions of people, and as i see it the proportion of people who have had these serious psychological side effects are by far in the minority. so now I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens to it.

i submitted something to ickle.org about small cell culture flasks, ages ago, I thought they'd read it and thought - 'that's crap, let's just ignore it!' but there it is. makes me cringe actually, reading it. and i thought i was being so cute at the time. i guess i'll have to include it on my links column.

i am struggling to do the corrections on a paper that i want to submit to 'Planta Medica', but as usual i am having problems in the cell culture side of things... the bloody man that I need to get info from seems intent on making me sweat and I can't seem to get hold of him. its ironic really because i remember thinking that i wanted to go out of my way to avoid conflict with this guy when i first met him, and yet all i seem to be doing is walking into these awkward situations with him and... well, basically conflicting with him.