I have a cold, which means I can't smell anything. Well, no, that's not true. I can smell cigarette smoke. Well, cheers, that's really helpful.

Just found out Ned Kelly is out this weekend, which I might go and see. I'd still quite like to see Calendar Girls and Down With Love is out next weekend which I'll have to see given that it has Ewan McGregor in it.

This song has been bugging me for ages and I finally remembered to look it up. I remember singing it at Brownies - I knew all the words once.

On top of old smokey,
All covered in cheese.
I lost my poor meat ball,
When somebody sneezed

It rolled off the table,
And onto the floor,
And then my poor meatball,
Rolled out of the door.

It rolled down the garden,
And under a bush.
And then my poor meat ball,
Was nothing but mush.

And then in the springtime,
My meatball tree grew,
And then there were meatballs.
For me and for you.

If you have spaghetti,
All covered in cheese,
Hold onto your meatball,
'Cos someone might sneeze.

We were talking about games we played when we were kids so I was trying to remember them with the help of the internet. It doesn't help that there are so many variations, but these are the ones I remember.

What's the time Mr Wolf?
There was a wall in the middle school playground perfect for this game. One person is the wolf and stands facing the wall. Other people ask 'What's the time Mr Wolf?' Mr Wolf answers and everyone takes one step forward for each hour. Once Mr Wolf answers 'dinner time' then everyone runs away and Mr Wolf tries to catch them.

Hot Chocolate
One person tells a story and the third time they say 'hot chocolate' everyone has to run away before they are caught by the person telling the story. We always seemed to get the first two hot chocolates in quite quickly, then there were quite a few 'hot coffee's and other things that could start 'hot ch'.

Wink Murder
One person is the detective and stands in the middle of the circle. One person is picked as the murderer, but only they know who it is. They then kill people by winking at them. The trick is to not always wink at people when the detective's back is turned, otherwise they'll work out who it is. The fun is in trying to work out who it is yourself and dying, which of course, was always long and drawn out.

Duck, Duck, Goose
I vaguely remember this one. Everyone sits in a circle and one person goes round tapping people and saying 'duck'. One person they say 'goose' to instead and that person has to chase the original around the circle before they get back to their place.

Murder in the Dark
One person is the detective and goes out of the room. One person is the murderer - but only they know who the murderer is. They then pick someone to kill who screams when they die. The detective then comes racing back in and questions all the living people to work out whodunnit. We tended to play it in the daytime, so it was more Murder in the Light. We also had variations where the murderer could commit suicide and also where the detective could question the dead person.

Shipwreck
One person shouts out commands and everyone has to do them - if you don't do them right you're out. The commands I can remember are:
Port/Starboard - Run to the left or right side of the room
Bow/Stern - Run to the front or back of the room
Climb the rigging - Pretend to be climbing a rope ladder
Bombs above - Lie on the floor
Bombs below - Jump (these are the ones that got mixed up the most, along with port/starboard and bow/stern)
Captain's coming - Stand in a line and salute
Cook's coming - Stand in a line and pretend to be holding a bowl and stirring the contents
Crocodile's coming - I think someone was the crocodile and you had to not be caught (and 'killed') by them, but I can't swear to it.

Rice pudding
I think that's the name. I remember standing in lines and running but nothing other than that. I keep getting recipes when I search for it though

No idea of the title
You all pass a pair of scissors round and say 'crossed' or 'uncrossed'. Those who know will tell you whether you're wrong or right. The trick is to sit in a circle on chairs - the crossed and uncrossed refers to your legs.

The Sacrifice of Soldiers is up on HASA. It's the first one I wrote about Elrond and Estel and I realised the other day, watching Smallville is the thing that fascinates me is dysfunctional families. Although when I say dysfunctional is when they love each other like family but aren't. So that goes for Elrond & Estel, Qui-Gon & Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan & Anakin, Clark Kent & his parents. Also Wesley & his dad, just because their relationship is interesting - despite everything he's done Wesley still wants his father to be proud of him but it will never happen.

What's also interesting is the nature/nurture debate. How much is Aragorn the way he is due to being brought up by elves? How much is Clark like Jonathan Kent and how much is he like Jor-El?

If you're the person who sent me some feedback on Dropping Eaves earlier this week it was much appreciated but I only had time to skim-read it and then I accidentally deleted it. If it was you can you please resend it!

I've been spending this weekend getting my life back. I've confused myself by watching series 2 and 4 of The West Wing and have two episodes of Smallville left to go. I've seen the new episode of Enterprise and updated my website. I've looked into moving this blog and decided it was more trouble than its worth. Not least because I've just noticed it's got a spellchecker!

Enterprise
No spoilers in particular but T'Pol actually looks pretty with the new clothes and haircut. I've been reading that TPTB want to do more with Trip and T'Pol which can only be a good thing. Daniel Dae Kim (last seen in Crusade and Angel) gets about a bit. Beyond that it wasn't particularly exciting. I had to get a new version of DivX player to see it. But The West Wing won't play in it, so I have to go back to the old version to watch that. Except that it keeps crashing. *sigh* You just can't win.

I finally made it to the new Blakes 7 site and waited for ages for it to load up and finally got to see the new logo and it's hideous! There really wasn't anything wrong with the old one that a bit of tarting up wouldn't cure. The links take ages to come up as well. It's another example of a website assuming everyone has super-fast computers and broadband connections.

I realised this lunchtime there was supposed to be an extra episode of The Bill - on a Tuesday. So naturally I assumed that meant today. But no, it was last week. Which explains why Wednesdays and Thursdays episodes confused me. It's probably just as well in the end though because I wouldn't have got another hour of The Bill in on Sunday.

I'm getting all excited about Alias now I've seen the first episode of series 2 again. It was weird, cos so much has happened since then. Only a few more weeks to wait.

You'd think that going all of three stops from Reading to Goring would be simple, wouldn't you? Well, no. I got to the train station yesterday to find there were no trains, I still don't know why because the announcement was too quiet to hear. I froze on the platform for an hour before three turned up. So I should get 50% back for the train I got on being over an hour late (which will come to �1). Hopefully they'll pay for my taxi too, since there's a gap of 2.5 hours between buses, right when you need them as well. The best bit was that the main screens, the screens on the platforms, the announcements, national rails live departure boards and Thames Trains live departure boards all said different things.

I've done the equivalent of a days work today. I'm probably a bit more then halfway through writing Novick Poland. I really know more about the names of Polish beers than I ever wanted to, frankly.

I got an American-British dictionary yesterday and quite liked the entry for pissed:
pissed adj (col) - drunk. It does not mean pissed off (which is used in Britain). The actor David Suchet recalls that when he was at a party in New York and confessed to being 'a bit pissed,' he was puzzled because someone asked, 'I'm sorry. What's wrong?'. This has a number of spin-off terms, such as piss-artist, meaning a heavy drinker, on the piss, meaning on the sauce, and piss-up, a drunken party.

You know when food companies 'improve' their products and their worse? That's what blogger's like. It's been improved so you can't see as much text when you type and it takes longer to publish. When it decides to publish at all. I will have to look into moving this weekend. This weekend being the only time I'll have any free time - work has been hideous and I'm trying to catch up on my sleep. Had a good (3 day) weekend though, so that was something.

I actually managed a reasonably finished draft of my drabble of LOTR Chapter 1. I must write at the weekend though, especially since challenge deadlines are approaching. And I want to do a drabble for TPM100, even if I don't manage any of the rest.

I ordered my Tesco shopping last night to arrive today between 7 and 9. So I had to leave work not too late (and go in early tomorrow - you get so much more work done when you're not being badgered for stuff). And have they arrived yet? Have they bollox.

Really must reply to my e-mails and catch up on my reading while it's quiet.