Hitomi’s “It’s Only Access” helps the post-Christmas days shuffle towards the new year… “Itsu ni nareba boku wa kimi e to tadoritsukeru no. Doko e mukaeba omoshiroi hanashi wa aru no. Seishun wa mada owattenai sa shinu made bokura…” [Japanese] “At some time, I’ll be able to reach you. With each turn, there’s an interesting story. We’ll keep our youth as long as we fight for it…”

So Christmas came and went very quickly for me, almost as if the Grinch had ordained it to be so. Being not very catholic and knowing that Santa really doesn’t fly through the night sky delivering presents, I opted to just indulge in festive meats and other food considered “stuffing.” I stayed indoors the whole of Christmas day and it was pretty fun waking up in the morning (ok, actually the afternoon) to find not a multitude of presents around the Christmas tree, but instead, my cousins scattered around the living room, excited. They were not giftwrapped but it was fun seeing them enjoying themselves so much since it is their first Christmas away from home. I was happy that they could join us and shared their wish of a white Christmas. I guess you don’t always get what you want for Christmas.

In typical Asian style we had a rice based lunch and a semi-traditional Christmas dinner (turkey, stuffing, sprouts, red wine, etc). Leading up to Christmas I was wondering what mum was going to cook up this year. When I was in the kitchen it seemed fairly traditional, but noticed we had duck roasting in the oven and a plastic bag in the sink. As I was mixing up a nice Caesar’s salad for everyone I was informed that the bag contained raw oysters. We already had mussels cooking and I didn’t complain because I love seafood and thought that the lobster last year would be hard to beat.

Nipped out on the morning of boxing day to get butter-beans for dad, who was hung over. Despite all the food we had in the house, it seemed butter-beans were the only remedy for a splitting headache. Turning onto the high street, I was surprised at the number of people out and about. My area had become much more cosmopolitan in recent years with the rise in number of restaurants and social areas of gathering and the streets reflected this. The high street was plagued with shoppers out to spend their Christmas money and gander at the early sales offerings. On my way back, some mid-teenagers ran past me in the same direction with some coats in their grubby mits. The pristine shop price tags dancing in the stream of their getaway didn’t need to help in making it obvious that the kids had just run from the store with them and I didn’t know who had the filthier mouth: the thieves or the shop assistant in hot pursuit of them. They were down towards the end of the back street by the time the shop assistant appeared at the front of the street, cursing and blinding. I thought to myself what I would have done if the shop assistant had yelled “Thief!” sooner so I noticed them running towards me. I may have tried to be more like my idol when I was a kid (Spiderman) and bumped them so they fell, but I didn’t have any spider webbing I could fire from my palms, plus the shop is insured, so I wouldn’t have done much more than bumped them a bit if they ran towards me. If anyone is crazy enough to steal from a shop that blatantly, I don’t want to be there when they decide to pull out a weapon. Life insurance is something one never hopes to collect.

Later in the afternoon, went out to see Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers with my uncle and cousins. Upon going to make some purchases at the cinema kiosk, I noticed one of me ex-work colleagues behind the counter. We had a brief chat, taking into account the size of the queue behind me and she gave me the staff 40% discount, which was nice. However, I wasn’t buying for myself since I’m slightly sick of popcorn from the old “Forgotten my lunch, it’s going to have to be a popcorn sandwich today” days from working there. I was not so sure about watching the second installment of the LOTR series that day because I was still yet to see the first one. I had read the book and knew which characters were played by the actors/actresses so it wasn’t so hard to follow. I was amazed at the fluidity of the CGI, especially during all the battle scenes, and the opening minutes of the film had me wide-eyed with amazement. Overall, I enjoyed it despite it being extremely slow in parts. They should have a warning for the next LOTR movie though. Perhaps call it “Lord of the Rings: The Three Hours” so that I can remember to prepare myself by overdosing on sleep the previous night.

Yesterday, I went into the city to meet up with Yogi and catch some of the early sales. For some reason, nothing excited me much this year in terms of CDs and DVDs. This year I fancied reading books. I don’t know what I will be picking up with regards to those and clothes, but a digital camera is on the cards. Still not too sure which one to get.

Went to see Marc towards the evening at the new hospital he had been moved to. Met his mum and his sister, as well as her boyfriend and they were doing nothing but staying positive despite it being so hard. Marc had undergone hours of surgery and was feeling poorly, and he was left to rest, so we decided not to go in and see him. Though it might be a long journey to recovery, we all have no doubt that he will be fine again. He’s a fighter, that’s for sure.

Afterwards, we went for dinner and as usual had our discussions about all the funny stories worth hanging onto. Yogi always provides interesting topics to debate over, such as “Can a guy and a girl just be friends?” I asked him about his new car and if he had been speeding in it.

Yogi: I’ve been out in it and when you stop at lights you can see the guys in the other cars just staring and I can tell they just want to race me.
Me: How could you tell, were they stroking their steering wheel and revving the engine?
Yogi: No, you can just tell when they’re looking at you. They even wanted to race my dad when he was driving.
Me: I couldn’t imagine your dad speeding.
Yogi: There were guys in ordinary Fords with modified bodywork trying to race me, but my car would just piss all over them.
Me: Yeah, your car gives no respect, yet demands it.

This time, I think I managed to finally convince Kristy to stop trying to play matchmaker for me. This would be better for both of us since she’s either assigned herself (or been assigned) the arduous task of finding another one of our friends a girlfriend.

Me: You could just focus all your energies on finding a good one for him.
Kristy: Oh, he says he’s not fussy.
Me: Shouldn’t be too hard then.
Kristy: But he wants two girlfriends.
Me: What is he going to do with two girlfriends? Wait, don’t answer that.

At the moment, Yogi was having fun by winding up a guy via the Internet who thinks himself as a bit of a studmuffin.

Yogi: This guy sent me a picture of himself with no top on and another with his zipper open.
Me: Oh my gosh, why? Did you request some sexy pictures of him?
Kristy: No, he [Yogi] was pretending to be a girl.
Me: Pretending to be a girl again, huh?
Yogi: Why not? I haven’t got any work to be published till March. I’ve got time on my hands and this guy is a fool. I am going to arrange it so he comes out thinking he will meet this girl, but I will just set him up with Kristy’s ex. Set those two guys up at the same time.
Me: Why her ex? I thought he wasn’t hassling you anymore.
Yogi: He isn’t, but he called her [Kristy] a b!tch once and sent me an e-mail saying I was an asshole.
Me: What, straight out of the blue, for no reason?
Yogi: {Nodding and winking}
Kristy: No, you said you were going to cut off his balls.

I’ve always thought Yogi and Kristy made a good couple, though we all generally agree she’s way too innocent for him. It’s great teasing her by saying that she corrupts him (totally). I don’t believe I’ve even heard her swear, so she’s really maintaining that sensible and demure image well. It’s sweet watching them browse through a trashy magazine together and seeing him pull his chin up to her shoulder to whisper to her and make her giggle. Ocassionally he will hold strands of her long hair in between his fingers and run them past his nose, pretending to bite at the strands. She looks as though she is too lost in the magazine to notice him doing it, but I’m sure she knows he’s there. So cute.

Later in the evening, saw Cornelius at the 2002 Fuji Rock Festival (from the summer) on TV. It was so good it made me feel crappy for not going to see him when he was here a few months ago at the Royal Albert Hall. He makes each of his songs into an animated performance piece on stage, with resplendent visuals and beautiful light shows. Upon playing “Star Fruits Surf Rider,” the giant elevated screen on the stage displayed cycles of the cosmos whilst the audience was bathed in dots of lights imitating earthbound stars. I was impressed with the way all the different sections of the song were recreated by each of his musicians (especially the dummer who was either really skillfull or on amphetamines). He doesn’t come to the UK (or even Europe) often, so next time is a must.