This is just to say

This dress just became available again on the Oasis online store, and now it belongs to me, or will as soon as it ships. Yaaaay.

Cam.

Ten good things this weekend, chronologically:

1. When I arrived on Jesus Green it was like walking onto the set of a sitcom after a lengthy hiatus: enthusiastic shouting, getting picked up and twirled around, having beer pressed into my hand, etc. (So even better than a sitcom.)
2. The barbecue was if anything more fun than the one last year, because we had missed each other more, and had learned not to pick up the disposable barbecue and move it while it was still burning.
3. I showed up at Vicky's house the next morning to find Vicky and Bethmo giggling over washing-up; they had apparently had lots of orange juice for breakfast without remembering that they'd poured vodka into it the night before.
4. Enormous pub lunch. With quite bad sparkling wine, which was Reece's idea of a hangover cure.
5. Collective lying by the river at the Mill Pond, watching the punts roll across the lock and eating Tangfastics.
6. Everyone crammed in between the racks in the accessories department of Topman. "Did we just discover nu-rave?"
7. In the Maypole (as ever) Alex, Bethmo and I played a drinking game based on primes and numbers divisible by or ending in seven. I was forced to crush my opposition because it was suggested (nicely) that I wouldn't know primes, so we shouldn't include them in the rules. I suppose I might have had trouble if we'd ever gotten past 23.
8. The next morning I woke to an hour and a half of church bells, and showered while looking out on King's College Chapel and the Old Schools. "I'll never have a view this good again," said Becky, in whose room I was staying. It's a cheering thought that in my case, things can only get better. (My view is of the M4.)
10. Lunch in Mem Court, an afternoon flipping through the racks in Fopp, and an evening working ourselves into a sugar frenzy and watching "Constantine".

And then I woke up on Monday and realised I had to get to work by five. Which I did, and now there are ten days to go and a sea of admin to swim across. Then it's France and proper swimming.

I miss everyone now, and also the town itself; it's unlikely I'll be back for a while. But I'll have a new university town in October, and it was an excellent final weekend.

Sunday morning dream

...having gone back to bed after spending the night camping on the sports field with the upper third: I am still camping, but this time with the cast of "Zodiac", who are in full 70s costume, drinking Aqua Velva, etc. I'm explaining my idea for a musical.

"It's about this high school," I say, and one of them interrupts me: "That just sounds like 'High School Musical'."
"No no, there's a twist. Mine has ghosts in it."
"That's still JUST LIKE 'High School Musical'." Extremely disdainful. "You do know that everyone in that turns out to be a ghost?"

I think this is not-keeping-up-with-youth-culture guilt because I've never actually seen "High School Musical", as became clear when everyone was singing the soundtrack to it at the campfire on Saturday. I did, however, know a depressing amount of the lyrics to S Club 7's "Reach For The Stars".

In the category of "I can do links and I'm GOING FOR IT", these are lovely. Oddly enough, this one looks most appealing right now. It's summer, and I just want to go to sleep somewhere heavily air-conditioned.

Eight days until the Cambridge Unofficial Reunion Barbecue, the only barbecue in England with its own tagline (the tagline is "because so many things are flammable"). The barbecue is also an experiment in how much you can hype up an event before it becomes an automatic letdown. Previous casualties of such experiments include the Party On A Boat last summer, in which we all fled the boat before it left the dock. (Incidentally, in a couple of weeks I'm going to a party on a boat for school purposes, and it looks like it might be the same boat as last time, or at least the same company. I wonder if I can get out of it by pleading near-certain being sick.)

Cold.

I've just discovered yr.no and am gently fascinated. Currently watching it scroll through the weather over the next forty-eight hours at the Troll research station in Antarctica. It cycles between about minus 28 and minus 15.

(and I just realised it's the new millennium and I actually can do links.)

The week in music

- Sang "Die Fresche Lola" with Kine in various locations around London, at least the two lines or so we could remember (something something Pianola zu Hause in meine Salong).
- Became addicted to "Pon De Replay" years after everyone else, and spent a lot of time walking to and from various events in flipflops, listening to it on earphones. (Trondheim was much more summery than England is; it's chucking it down and I can in no way wear flipflops. On the upside, my hair has reacted to the moisture by becoming awesome.)
- Listened to Swedish reggae at Storås and was delighted. During a vaguely romantic song someone in the audience tossed a purple tulip up to the singer, Syster Sol; she sang the rest of the song in his direction.
- Playing Scrabble in Vegard's new apartment, we decided that if Amy Winehouse doesn't end up doing the new Bond theme (unlikely now that the Cambridge English tripos (or possibly just Eric Griffiths) has taken her into its arms), it should just be a half-speed version of "Moskau" by Dschingis Khan.
- We went to the Futureheads concert in Cambridge mostly for the support band, Operator Please. Once the Futureheads had done "Hounds of Love" we pushed our way out of the crowd, then danced for a few songs in the unaccustomed space in front of the bar before leaving. (Incidentally, the bar at the Junction is not great; the beer was terrible and they kept carding us, unwilling to believe that if Becky's identical triplet sister was over 18 then Becky must be as well. "They're the same! The same!" we shouted, pointing at Olivia and Becky in turn.)
- We got back to Old Court and sat quietly in the bar for a while, Becky and I swaying gently to "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots". "This is a joke song, right," said Vicky.