We three kings of orient are, one in a taxi, one in a car.

Festive greetings online stalkers! I imagine you're still all pregnant with Christmas food babies as we speak? Guaranteed you won't get through this post without at least a Christmas tree chocolate to fuel you. You make me sick.

Every year on Christmas Eve there's a carol singing shindig outside our local church where some of the keener churchy types dress up and act out Jesus being born etc. I'm not talking Mary with her ankles in stirrups, it's more of a nativity scene with real people. This is not the type of event I would normally attend, however I make an exception for this because it's so shambolic and hilarious that it's actually worth standing outside for half an hour for. Firstly there's Christmas songs for everyone to sing, and who doesn't love a good singsong?! However, the band is down one end of the road and everyone else is spread out along the next 100 meters or so, so what you end up with is a Mexican wave of carols with everyone pretty much choosing their own tempo and sticking with it. My general rule is 'whoever's loudest is right'. We were loudest, and unfortunately for everyone else we were also 'improvising' the lyrics to some extent. Childish, yes. Still funny? Yes!

"We three kings of Orient are, one in a taxi, one in a car, one on a scooter beeping his hooter, smoking a fat cigar..." 

While everyone in the crowd sings, the 'actors' saunter onto the stage. They've all had their faces blacked up a bit for some inexplicable reason, and some of the ladies go as far as fake facial hair - hilarious. What's not so funny is that the little girl cast as Mary is normally about 12 and the Joseph is a shifty 50 year old bloke. This year was no exception. The awkward cast is accompanied by the occasional donkey, and this year a horse with antlers on. You remember that horse with antlers and tinsel scarf at the birth of Jesus? Me neither. That particular abomination was soon forgotten as the whole crowd made a swift exit into the nearest pub.

Christmas was joyous as ever. The main star of the show was this cheeseboard. Let's all take a moment to admire it:

Forgive the abrupt ending to this but I can't really be bothered to write any more.

Fa la la la la la la la la.

Luce x

Alright everyone, line up alphabetically according to your height...

When I try and explain my job to people they more often than not get stuck on certain facts and create this strange illusion of what my job is. When I say "I do marketing for a wine merchant", most people just pick out the keyword, "wine" and reply with "so you just get paid to get smashed?". I have now heard this so many times that I just say "Yes. my liver's in shreds, I'll be dead in a month. The staff turnover is frankly ridiculous and it's astounding the company's still in business". Normally shuts them up.

I work in marketing. It just so happens that the product the company sells is wine, and, as it's quite a good company, they like to educate their staff in the product they sell. So I recently went on a 5 day wine training trip IN BORDEAUX!! Take a moment to consider the last training trip you went on...  ... that's what I thought.

Put simply, the trip was deeply brilliant and vair hilarious. And not just due to the sheer volume of wine consumed, although that did play quite a big role. We spent our time visiting endless chateaux, trying the latest vintage (2010) plus some older wines. The first day was the busiest, I think we visited 7 chateaux. If you've ever tried a very young red wine, you'll know that they are really tannic which dries out your mouth and turns your teeth black. Now imagine if you will, turning up to the last chateau of the day having already tasted 20 or so wines and having to act professionally looking like this:

My mouth was so dry that my lips had stuck to my gums, revealing my lovely black teeth. Excellent. Of course I was half cut at this point so I didn't give a shit*. 

Another aspect of the trip which added many LOLs was our mode of transport. The vehicle of choice for the trip was the ironically named Espace. Never have I come across a car with such an ill-suited name. Attempting to fit 7 adults in it was problematic, mainly due to the BSc in Espace you need to have to manoeuvre the back seats without losing a hand. The journeys to and from the airport with the suitcases were like a game of extreme tetris. Not even joking, we had to stretch first. This is us:

Safe to say I'm pretty comfortable around those 7 colleagues now. Our des for the week was trip leader M, who deemed it necessary to push the E(notverymuch)space to its limits. I can only presume he was once a rally driver. I don't think we touched the brakes once. M laughs in the face of blind corners and oncoming traffic! We arrived at each chateau with a stylish handbrake turn into the driveway, kicking up a huge cloud of dust all over the vines, then stepped out of the car dripping with cold sweat looking wholly terrified (and terrifying, see the above 'wine mouth' image). 

All in all, the trip was utterly fantastic; we had 4 days of tasting brilliant red, white and sweet wines and the sad thing is I'll never be able to afford any of them. Or drive like M. Or ever have white teeth again.

In other news, the housemates and I decided to have a houseparty last weekend for housemate C's birthday. We decided on a regatta theme (God knows why) and decorated the house with about 5000 miles of bunting plus a paddling pool. Excitingly, everyone took the theme quite seriously and there was an abundance of straw hats which was pleasing. Needless to say we drank a fair amount of Champagne and things like this happened:

That's piggyback polo for those not au fait with regatta themed party etiquette.

In even more exciting news, in 6 weeks from now I will be in sunny Spain! That's right, my lovely friend R and I are heading back, and this time I know how to order wine! Should be interesting. Any travel tips for Pamplona/Bilbao will be welcomed like a long lost family member.

Hasta luego,

Luce x

*If anyone from work reads this, I'd like to point out that a lot of what I write in this blog is exaggerated for comic purposes. Sadly it's necessary for me to fabricate minor details of my life in order to seem interesting which of course I am not. I was professional at all times in Bordeaux and made full use of the spittoons (except at Ch. d'yquem. Obv).

Gastric Bands and Jazz Hands

Dear Greys Anatomy,

The fact that Glee has been all kinds of successful doesn't give you the right to go all 'jazz hands' and do a musical episode. Doctors don't spontaneously burst into song! They practice medicine in a serious manner! And I'm pretty sure they don't have time to rerecord the entire Snow Patrol back catalogue whilst performing surgery.

I think we should agree to pretend this episode didn't happen and leave the singing to the Glee kids. It's all they've got.

As you were, ta. 

Luce x

I'll stop at nothing to avoid using negative numbers.

Dobrý den and bonjour!

I have recently (ish) upped my total number of countries visited this year to a whopping SEVEN (Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, America, France and Czech Republic). Although it has been a brilliant year for travelling, sadly it may be the most travelling I will ever do. Bit depressing, really.

The Prague trip was a little spontaneous, with @hollandizzle sorting it out in about 40 minutes flat. Being the hip, happening kind of gals we are, we stayed in a penthouse apartment in the centre of Prague - fancy! In just 3 days we managed to cover everything in Prague, including the castle, changing of the guard, that weird clock thing, Dali exhibition, a cathedral, a Czech food market, a very seedy sex museum and burning through a 1300 Kroner bar bill in an Irish bar, obv.

One thing to mention - Czech people have KILLER accents when they're speaking English. Like Borat. Hilarious. I wish I had written this sooner, because I have forgotten pretty much everything else about Prague. That'll learn me.

Marjatron (mum) and I popped over to Paris in November to see Sophatron (sister). Paris being quite expensive, Soph's student house has about 1000 students in it and only 3 bedrooms, so mum and I sensibly opted for a nearby hotel. Over the following few days we ate our bodyweight in peppered steak and visited the Louvre and Musee D'Orsay, climbed the Arc de Triumphe and saw the Eiffel tower.

Didn't bother going up it though, it was absolutely pissing down. Nightmare. Due to a minor balls up on the way back we ended up in first class on the Eurostar, result!

In work news, I managed to pull off the most mortifying and embarrassing moment of my life at my very first office party. You're gonna love this... long story short, I vommed in the back of my boss' car on another collegue's lap. Classy. You literally can't make this stuff up. Needless to say I spent the rest of the weekend riding the SS Humiliation round a degrading spiral of shame. I tried to creep to my desk unnoticed on the Monday morning... the spiral of shame continued for around a week and a half. It makes me cringe even thinking about that night, and it's certainly not a memory I will cherish. And not one to be repeated. EVER. 

In Jesus news, it was Christmas a few days ago. As is standard in the Christopher house, we have ploughed through INORDINATE amounts of food and the overindulgence has literally been uncontrollable. 

On Christmas eve, @Miss_AmyL, @hollandizzle and I attended our local church's nativity play and lowered the tone by singing rude versions of the carols. This put us in a great mood, and we were so drunk with Christmas spirit we ended up attending midnight mass at St Paul's cathedral. Upon deciding this was on the agenda for the evening, we were rolling on the floor killing ourselves laughing because apparently this was a particularly hilarious thing to do. Not so funny when you're in a 45 minute queue in Arctic conditions with 1500 Chinese tourists just to get in to the bloody place. Anyway, having warmed up our voices earlier in the night, we treated the 2000-strong congregation to a stunning rendition of Silent Night, then left half an hour in because it was getting a bit dull. One thing worth mentioning about the service; during one of the prayers one of the vicars...

...was banging on about how it's great that people work hard etc then he said "may those who do not [work hard] be struck down". You heard it here first: work hard, lest you BE STRUCK DOWN!!


On that slightly harsh note, we draw to a close. That about sums up my life for the last 4 months. 


You're welcome.
Luce x

#12: Take heed, fame whores.

Dear Celebrities,

Having gained fame and notoriety in your chosen field, be it music, film or sport, it's pretty safe to say you're doing OK for yourself having been deemed a 'sleb. This considered, why then do you feel the need to release your own brand crappy products onto the unsuspecting public? I'm talking about perfumes, bags, clothes, make up, and other various tat that isn't even worth mentioning. I'm talking this crap:

Just by looking at you, Avril Lavigne, I can tell you smell like a dirty prostitute. Why in God's name would I want to smell like you? Also you're image confuses me. Are you a punk or are you going to make an effort to make that pink dress work because at the moment none of what you've got going on there works for me. So in summary, Lavigne, I won't be buying your perfume, but at least you have your wildly successful pop career to fall back on......

This make up is by Nicola Roberts, the ginger one off of Girls Aloud. I can only assume she created this range due to there not being any on the market suitable for skin so pale it's almost translucent. Just because Cheryl is busy being successful, doesn't mean you need to fill the time 'til Girls Aloud's next work of audio delight. Back in your box.

REALLY!??!

To conclude: stick to what you're good at. Just because you may have enough money to launch your own range of, say, bendy straw, doesn't mean you should. 

Good day.
Luce x

...And God created Saturn, and he liked it, so he put a ring on it.

I haven't written for ages due to pure laziness, so forgive me if this isn't a literary masterpiece as per usual.  

Since last post, my friends and I have been trying to become slightly more cultured seeing as we are essentially children with jobs and cars. To remedy this we decided to go for a posh breakfast at Fortnum and Mason where we managed to hold it together and behave in an orderly fashion. I put this down to the fact that it was at a single figure hour and most of us were half asleep. 

After several pints of coffee we were ready and raring to go and had a little stroll down the Mall and watched the changing of the guard, which shockingly none of us Londoners had seen before!  To be fair a bit of trotting in place is hardly worth shouting about so we wrestled through the massive crowd of camera-wielding Asians and powered down Southbank to the Tate Modern. The art was dull so this happened:

And this...

What larks.

I have also recently been to the theatre. As I am frequently mistaken for a dancer myself, I thought I would relate to the giselle-like elegance of the graceful ballerinas.....turns out Billy Elliot is a fella. Ah well, it was still good fun, and although it was hugely lacking in tights in the costume department, it more than made up for it with swearing.

Fans of my life (read: my immediate family) will know that it was my birthday last weekend. As a little treat, @hollandizzle and I hit the mean malls of Bluewater for a spot of spontaneity. After being pleasantly surprized by Zara's FAB a/w collection, we somehow ended up in the cinema where we watched Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. I think we gave it a whopping 3.5/5 which is fairly good on our picky scale. Quote of the movie "you punched me in the boob!".....quite. That evening @Miss_AmyL, L, D, S, S and I hit a supercool restaurant in Blackheath for some proper nosh and cocktails. YUM!!

Developments in the workplace: I have finally started my wine course! Hurrah! In light of this, here are some basic wine facts that you may or may not know:

• You can make white wine from a red grape, but not red wine from a white grape.
• Champagne is made from a blend of pinot noir, pinot meunier and chardonnay.
• Italy is the world's largest producer of wine. 

Fascinating. I feel these are facts that might serve you well in a pub quiz. You're welcome.

Recently at the gym I have developed a method which helps me run further. I call it "The Monty Python Method" and it involves simply listening to my collection of Python sketches whilst running. The concentration required in not laughing to yourself and looking somewhat bizarre on the running machine outweighs the concentration it takes to actually run, ergo you run further. I will try this method until I am (to quote Python's Mr Creosote sketch) wafer thin. 

...um....goodbye.

Luce x

#10: Things you don't know if you know, you know?

I have always wondered if people who can't sing know they can't sing.  Having watched countless episodes of X Factor makes me think not.  Some snotty little princess warbling her way through an emotional Mariah Carey ballad and hitting, at most, 3 notes is genuinely shocked when Simon Cowell starts digging into her (Do I think it was brilliant? No. Honestly that was one of the worst performances I have ever heard).  So if you can't hear that your voice is like fingernails down a chalkboard, you don't know you're making ears bleed until someone tells you!  Having said that, how many people will you meet who actually have the stones to tell you you've got a shit voice?!

Another thing I don't know if you would know, is if you were cross eyed.  If wonky looks straight then would your wonky eyes look normal?!  I was once speaking to a cross eyed person who came out with "I used to be cross eyed".  It took all my self control to slap a concerned look on my face and come up with "oh.... really?".  What I was really thinking was "USED TO BE?........USED???".  So I just assumed a caring family member/hilarious practical joker had told her she wasn't boss eyed any more, when clearly one eye was looking at me and one was looking for me.

So for all I know, I could be a tone deaf, cross-eyed person!  Someone let me know, I'd rather I knew the truth.

Luce x