Tuesday Night is Curry Night - episode 4

Tonight's blog is sponsored by Sainsbury's Tadka Dhal, Saag Paneer, Bombay potatoes and pilau, accompanied by mini-naan. It is faintly gaseous in this abode.

10 things that make us happy

Velouria is made happy by:

1. Paris - every single last thing about it, even the bad bits.
2. Cocktails, especially daiquiries
3. City lights at night
4. Stained glass windows with sun shining through
5. Stationery - much and varied
6. Big funky Orla Kiely patterns, especially on handbags.
7. Sunshine
8. Finding a pound in your pocket
9. Strictly Come Dancing
10. Having nothing to do but lie still, eat chocolate and listen to my ipod.

Rio is made happy by:

1. Inventing long and witty conversations in my head and often letting the associated thoughts show on my face, to the confusion of passers-by.
2. Putting my feet into the cold corners of the duvet
3. Staring out of the window on trains (especially in tunnels)
4. The sound of rain falling on the outside of tents in the middle of the night
5. Sudden hail storms on bright days
6. Writing, especially if I can crack out a quality pun.
7. When my son gets words wrong
8. Cheese and onion pasties
9. The smell of my own skin on warm days
10. Adventures late at night in big cities

Spot the linguist, spot the scientist.

Your turn: what makes you happy?

Girls on Film

How do you tend to spend Tuesday nights? My Tuesday nights have had a variety of commitments over the decades. In the mid-1990s, Tuesday was Student Nite at Ziggys nightclub in York (which is just as crap as the name suggests. One memorable night my best female friend and I were stood with a male friend, Dave, at the bar. A random bloke in a shiny shirt walked up and pointing at we two girls whilst addressing my mate Dave he inquired: 'they both with you?', when Dave answered in the affirmative Shiny-shirt-man responded, 'can I have one?' as if universal female suffrage had never occurred). For a while in the early noughties Tuesdays were gym nights and after I became a teacher they were stick kid in bed, work until midnight, go to sleep exhausted nights (c.ref Sunday to Thursday).

Now Tuesdays are far, far, far more wonderful than I can ever convey. Tuesdays are Curry Night (capitals ungrammatical but intentional). On Curry Night my friend comes over and we eat curry and discuss the state of the education system. This is a euphemism for thoroughly and systematically slagging off one particular school. However, last night we undertook some wonderful pastimes:

(1) planning out which songs we would dance to if we got on to Strictly Come Dancing. My answer to every single dance was a Duran Duran classic (i.e. Argentinian Tango to 'Girls on Film'. But apparently the tempo would be wrong). I worked through the Duran back catalogue and failed miserably to show any knowledge of dance whatsoever. I then chose 'Something Changed' by Pulp which was the 'first dance' song at my wedding. This led to,

(2) digging out my wedding video, heckling my ex and cheering myself. I have to say - and anyone reading this who attended might agree - I did look bloody gorgeous that day. Was that really my body? The weird thing about looking at the wedding video was I didn't feel any sort of nostalgia or regret for my marriage. I did get a little sniffly watching the wedding speech I gave but the emotion was solely about my Granddad who had died before the wedding. I'm surprised at how it isn't raw and difficult to watch my wedding video but it just shows how far I've come.

So on Curry Night I looked at girls on film from two angles. The first, the Duran early '80s classic and the second, myself on my wedding video. One is an outdated curio from a time long gone. And the other is a Duran Duran song.