Our house is nicknamed 'Geek Central'. Here is why:

[Gwen does something stupid in 'Torchwood']
Gemma: God, I hate Gwen.
Emma: It gets worse next week! Rhys is back.
Gemma: Oh I know, I saw the trailer. It's ok though, we won't be here. We'll be at the theatre.
Emma: Oh yeah!
Gemma: Swapping John for J.J!
Emma: It's ok, it'll be on On Demand by the time we get home.

I love On Demand. I really do. I just wish the BBC had put Strictly Come Dancing on it. And Neighbours! Neighbours on On Demand is my dream. Luckily when Five steal it from the BBC next month they're going to start showing a Saturday and Sunday omnibus. I actually squealed out loud when I found that out. I think it's the first time I've ever been excited about anything channel Five have ever done.

But there's something that's better than On Demand. Oh yes, there really is. It's called V+ (wonder where they got that name from?) and it allows you to record everything, even the stuff they refuse to put on On Demand (like, er, everything on ITV). I want it so badly.

Of course, from what I can gather from the website, new customers get better offers on V+ boxes than current customers. It's always the same. I'd move to Sky, but they're just as bad. My dad's been with them on a premium package for as long as I can remember (it must be 15 years now) and still they won't cough up and give him a Sky+ box, despite handing them out like candy to new people. Too many companies don't give a shit about you once you've signed on the dotted line. They slowly but surely add a quid or two to your bill here and there, promising improved services, until you're paying a fiver or a tenner more than new customers.

We really don't complain enough in this country.

In other news, I phoned the taxman today and said 'Oh hai, I think I owe you some moneys'. He said 'no u don't, kthnxbi'. I think this needs to be put on record, so when he inevitably sends me a letter in six months time saying 'where's my money, bitch?' and I have to recollect the exact date of said phonecall, I can use this as a reference. See, blogs are useful.

I'm all drugged up with nowhere to go. Literally. Today I had to forgo a free facial because my foot is intent on getting worse before it gets better. I'm still fooling myself that it'll be 100% fine when I go to Australia (a week Saturday) even though that's looking less and less likely as the days go by. I had an X-ray on Sunday and it's not broken, which makes it even more annoying that it STILL HURTS.

Ah well, I'll live. Onto far more exciting things, and a bit of boy ogling. The latest man to find his way into my daydreams is JJ Feild, who, in a nutshell, looks like Jude Law and sounds like Alan Rickman. He was in The Ruby In The Smoke and The Shadow In The North with Billie Piper, and the recent ITV / Andrew Davies adaptation of Northanger Abbey (which is where I saw him). Apparently he was in our office building last year (there's a production company below us) and Katie and I were contemplating spending long periods of time in and around the lifts, hoping to spot him. We didn't. Aaaanyway, I've just discovered he's starring in 'Ring Round The Moon' at the Playhouse Theatre, and am currently sat here impatiently awaiting my housemate's return so I can book us two tickets. We have a habit of booking tickets to see things purely based on the cast. Not that we're shallow or anything. Last year it was John Simm in Elling. This year we already have tickets to see David Tennant and Patrick Stewart in Hamlet at the RSC. So worth the trip up to Stratford, though waiting until August is just mean. The last thing I saw at the RSC was The Duchess of Malfi when I was studying for my A'levels. It was absolutely mindblowing. And a bit disturbing. Have you ever read Webster? He was - to quote my good friend Jojo - Nucking Futs. Obviously I never put that in any of my essays.

We're also going to the Isle of Wight festival this year. My housemate's from the island originally, so I get all the fun of a festival without having to go anywhere near a tent. And we have The Police, The Kooks and Scouting For Girls all on one day. As far as I'm concerned that's worth the ticket price alone.

Yes, I have rubbish taste in music. Deal with it.

I had my first drink in over a fortnight yesterday. Then I had another one, and another one...and my friends witnessed the fall-out. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, actually. It really is true that you get drunk quicker if you've not had a drink for a while, though. Apparently, you also get a hell of a lot more hungover. Anyway, after that brief (planned) lapse, I'm now back on the wagon again before I go to Australia, which is in less than two weeks! So far I've dropped half a stone by eating healthily and skipping the booze, and I do not intend to put any of it back on by being lazy.

I can barely move my foot today. Earlier in the week it started to hurt a bit and I thought I'd just strained it a bit with my exercise (see, this is what happens when you exercise). Then one day I woke up in so much pain I was convinced I'd broken my toe. Then it was ok again, to the point where last night I put some heels on for a bit. This morning? Swollen up like an old lady. Fun fun! We (ok, I) have decided I've pulled a muscle, and the constant walking on it is stopping it from healing.

Apparently most bloggers spend their time talking about their weight or their ailments. I've managed both today. Aren't you proud?

Dear Mandy Moore,

Hi! I would like your hair. I'd also like your ex Zach Braff and your recent co-star John Krasinski. And perhaps your money, figure and amazing collection of cute little dresses.

I'd settle for the hair though. How do you get your fringe to do that?

Thanks, Gemma. x

Hello to the people who've come to this blog by googling my name! Um, why are you googling my name?

Also, hello to the people who're here from my facebook! Fools, now you're forced gently cajoled to read reams and reams of rambling about why I've not lost enough weight yet considering the fact I've not touched a drop of alcohol in a fortnight, started doing exercise and given up all the things I love (well, except those mini muffins this morning - which I compensated for with a vegetarian omelette tonight).

I'm off to the homeland on Friday, for a very short whistlestop visit to Birmingham with Jenni (the best friend) for tapas and pantomime (not at the same time, obviously) and then back to Worcestershire for the opportunity to show my face to my mother and reassure her that a) I'm actually losing weight and b) the brown hair dye she really didn't like is fading quickly.

And now I have to go and watch Torchwood. Here's hoping this week's episode is a little more substantial and a little less 'fangirl / fanboy's wet dream'. Not that I'm complaining about James Marsters or anything...

The cause of death hasn't been confirmed, but they suspect drugs were involved. Don't they always. What a complete and utter waste of talent.

The zip did up on my 'thin' dress today. You have to understand that by 'thin dress' I actually just mean a dress that used to fit me 12 months ago when I was - for about two weeks - a size 12, but it's still a good sign. As is the fact the dress I bought back in September from Warehouse that never zipped up almost zipped up today. By the time I get on that plane to Oz (in 18 days!) it'll fit perfectly. I promise.

One of the reasons I'm managing to lose inches so quickly is exercise. Not just my usual walking (incessant, never ending walking) but 100 crunches, 100 bridges, plenty of stretching and enough arm and shoulder exercises to leave my upper arms aching the following morning, but fine by the evening (when it's time to start again). I'm really proud I'm sticking to this. I just keep thinking...three weeks, bikini, three weeks, bikini. It's amazing how well that works!


The upside of the exercise is that I can drop pounds by still eating amazing things like the above. Thai green curry with prawns, fresh cod (yum), peppers and coriander. I overdid it a bit on the sauce, but you can never have too much sauce, right? I used the recipe from Cook Yourself Thin, which cuts down on calories by using reduced fat coconut milk and bulks out the dish with veg, not meat. I added the cod as an extra (after seeing Rick Stein put monkfish in his) and it tasted absolutely amazing. It's all about the fish sauce, kids!

I also tried the Cook Yourself Thin recipe for tomato, basil and chilli soup. If you ignore the fact I scalded my hand because I can't work a blender correctly (and thus lost one of my four servings all over the kitchen worktops, the hob and the floor) it turned out quite well. It's quite thick and rich, but I'd add more chilli, more salt and possibly a bit of stock instead of water next time, as it's a bit bland. I sloshed in a bit of soy sauce to combat that, and now it's great, and really filling. To beef it up a bit I chopped up a chicken breast, fried it off in some flaked chilli and mixed herbs and distributed it across the three bowls of soup, which works really well. Soup's a great diet food as it takes ages to eat; by the time you've finished it your body has had time to go 'yep, I'm full now' so you don't go on to stuff yourself. That said, Nigella is now cooking chocolate cake on the telly*, and Kevin's Oreo cookies are calling to me...

*yes, now I've got the cooking bug all I do is watch UKTV Food ALL THE TIME.

Paul McKenna has just told me I can't weigh myself for two weeks, and I'm ok with that. Unfortunately, I don't think his 'I Can Make You Thin' program is going to work for me. Last night I tried to listen to the CD and found myself laughing rather than relaxing. However, the book made a lot of sense. Rather than telling you that you're fat because you consciously eat too much, it tells you you're fat because you have the wrong relationship with food, and then teaches you the steps to overcoming that. The problem is I've always been aware I have the wrong relationship with food. The scars of being a ridiculously fussy eater take a long time to heal, and though I'm trying my hardest not to be like I used to be, I do still have my quirks (just put mashed potato near me and see my reaction).

However, since his program basically tells me I can lose weight by eating whatever I want whenever I'm hungry (so long as I do so slowly and consciously and recognise the difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger) I've decided to follow it to the letter while I'm in Australia. There'll be plenty of time on planes to lie back and relax and listen to his brainwashing CD, you see. And if I can come back from a holiday having lost weight, I'll know this isn't all mumbo jumbo after all.

A whole weight loss plan based on common sense and positive thinking seems a bit too good to be true for me, though. I'll keep you posted.

I can't even begin to explain how much I love the new Miu Miu advertising campaign with Kirsten Dunst. I'm never usually that impressed by fashion ads. I think the Louis Vuitton ones are over-posed, the Juergen Teller for Marc Jacobs ones are too artsy and cool for me, and don't even get me started on what's wrong with Dolce & Gabbana's gang rape 'chic'. However, in these pictures, Kiki looks like a sexed-up Alice in Wonderland, and it's brilliant. I want absolutely everything in every photograph, particularly the sunglasses and the amazing frilly white dress. Gorgeous!

I didn't get up until about half one today. I wish I had an excuse like a hangover or a late night, but I was actually in bed by about midnight. Just before 9am I was woken up by two different postmen delivering me stuff I shouldn't really have bought from ebay / amazon, and then I drifted off to sleep again, only to stir when I heard my housemate moving about in the early afternoon. Pitiful. I blame it on latent jetlag from Vegas. It's more likely to just be laziness, though.

I've spent the rest of the day reading cookery books and watching Rick Stein on UKTV Food, and later going to Tesco / the chinese supermarket to pick up things like reduced fat coconut milk and tamarind paste in order to make a killer (and healthy-ish) thai green curry tonight. Who knows, I might even watch a bit of shockingly bad Saturday night TV. Rock on!

I really like cooking. I don't do it very often because by the time I get home I'm usually starving and prone to shoving something in the microwave, but when I do have the time to make something from scratch, I really enjoy it. I love dancing around my kitchen to the Fratellis ('Costelloe Music' is my cooking album) using too many pans, getting over-zealous with the mixed herbs and inevitably spilling something (always the red thing, not the colourless thing) on my clothing.

Where am I going with this? Well, since I'm currently trying to not be fat any more (again), I've started cooking. It's out of necessity, really. Pre-prepared 'low fat' foods are usually a) tasteless and b) only 'low fat' because the portions are smaller, not because they're any better for you. Processed food is the reason we're all heifers to begin with (well, that and alcohol, laziness and 'slow metabolisms').

The 'Cook Yourself Thin' girls have been my inspiration for all this cooking, and I've just ordered their book in the hopes of being even more inspired. Since I have the willpower of Lindsay Lohan (read: I keep relapsing) I've decided not to cut anything out completely, and am instead trying to come up with healthier versions of all the things I love as a compromise. If they can put pureed pumpkin in brownies and still beat James Martin's full-fat ones in a taste test, I can swap white pasta for brown, add more mushrooms and less meat to my stir-fry and substitute fruit for chocolate. Ok, scrap the last one. That's never going to happen, particularly since I just discovered a giant Toberone in the bottom of the bag I bought back after Christmas and never properly unpacked...

Today I managed to not eat said Toblerone and instead turned my coronary-in-a-pan pasta with tomato sauce, pancetta and mascarpone cheese into pasta with tomato sauce, tuna and dairylea light (eaten in smaller portions). I'm not even going to pretend it was the same meal, but it was a fairly decent swap, and my waistline will thank me.

Now, can anyone tell me how I can come up with a healthy, calorie saving alternative to White Zinfandel? And don't tell me to make it into a spritzer, that's just silly...

When I was home for Christmas I discovered an old diary from when I was sixteen. It was absolutely brilliant. Like something out of Dawson's Creek but with fewer big words, more self-loathing and dozens of train tickets and cinema tickets taped inside. I really was a precocious little madam (I still am, actually). The whole thing is filled with self-pity and literary gems like "I don't care. I love my friend and hate my enemies. Kind of stated the obvious there, but never mind." It's also filled with vicious comments about friends of mine who're in 'relationships'. It's nice to know that even back then I was a bitter singleton who didn't think she deserved to be loved.

After reading it and giggling to myself in the same way I will do when I read back on this blog in a few years (or months) time, I put it back in the bottom of the drawer from whence it came. No doubt I'll discover it again in a few years and have another good laugh.

Either that, or my mother will read it.

Ten things you probably don't need to know about me (or 'ten things you probably already know about me', depending on who you are):

1. I'm slowly morphing into Zooey Deschanel [left]. I love her, so this is fine.
2. I'm going to see a panto this year. Blame this man.
3. I don't wear my glasses as often as I should, despite loving them.
4. I have terrible trouble getting up in the morning. Every morning.
5. I like strawberry cremes the best. As a result, most people like sharing chocolates with me, because all normal people leave them until last.
6. I've decided to start collecting vintage hair combs. I have too many things with butterflies on now, it's time to move on.
7. I think J.J Feild sounds like Alan Rickman, and that alone is enough to make me want to marry him. His smile helps. So does the unconventional spelling of his surname.
8. I adore the movie 'Monkey Business'. It has Marilyn Monroe and Ginger Rogers in it. Oh, and Cary Grant. What's not to love?
9. It upsets me that I now use the word 'movie' instead of 'film' without a second thought.
10. Sometimes I read cultural studies books for 'fun'. Otherwise I fear my brain will turn to mush*.

*actually, it already has.

I'm back from a week of shopping working in Las Vegas. The last of the Christmas gingerbread (sorry, Lebkuchen) is gone, I've eaten all the strawberry cremes, and in less than a month I will be expected to air my flab on the beaches of Eastern Australia. This can only mean one thing. It's going to be a long, dry month.

I won't go into details. I realise talking about your diet is on a par to talking about your cat (read: nobody cares but you). Suffice to say, as always I have overindulged and let things go even more to seed than normal, and now I have to ditch all the things that make life worth living (white wine, chocolate, bacon and egg sandwiches, tomato and mascarpone pasta) in hopes of shedding half a stone (or, by some minor miracle, one and a half stone) before I'm forced to put a bikini on.

I've decided, in lieu of making new year's resolutions, that 2008 is going to be the year that I sort myself the hell out. That sounds a little harsh, but 2007 was a bit of a hedonistic, silly year for me. You have to understand that 'hedonistic' for me is still 'ridiculously boring' to anyone else, but I have a gaping sensible streak, and I give in to it every time. By 'sort myself out', what I mean is I'm going to stop living like a student. I'm going to stop surviving on a diet that is more or less exclusively alcohol, grease and processed carbs. I'm going to stop looking in the mirror and picking out the bad stuff. I'm going to discover the cure for a double chin and I'm going to start wearing trainers every now and then to give my poor feet a rest. I'm going to read something other than chick lit and Grazia, and I'm going to get into work on time more than once a week.

I'm also going to update my blog. Maybe.