Retail therapy?

While I know I have a varied, diverse and generally interesting personality, I thought a list of my material purchases from the last week or so might provide Lakshmi-novices with valuable insight into just what they're getting for their money:

• Brown leather Coccinelle handbag (was on sale, how could I say no?)
• Disturbed's latest album (annihilation will be unavoidable)
• 11 P.G. Wodehouse books (10 Penguin edition, 1 Vintage)
• A Terry's Chocolate Orange (round, but not round for long)
• Seasons 3 and 4 of Entourage
• Travel insurance (despite no solid plans for any trips in the near future)
• Clean Cotton scented Yankee Doodle candle (went out, meant to buy lunch, bought a candle instead. As you do.)
• Greatest Hits of Erasure CD

Try as I might, I can't discern a pattern...

We are the champions

Went to (and won) pub quiz at the Commercial last night - leaving my Herne Hill pub quizzing record at an unblemished 100%.

Very gratifying to win, despite the relatively meagre prize, but very disturbing to note that my only real contribution towards our success was knowledge of bad 90's music - I correctly identified a Peter Andre song (can't believe I just admitted that in writing) and knew what country Ace of Base were from.

The shame of it.

Celebrity spots in London so far

• Lucy Liu at the Rodin exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art, looking at sculptures and being accompanied by a very tall man. As all very short women inevitably are
• Howard from Take That at the Hospital member's club in Covent Garden, looking for the bar. Presumably to drown his sorrows, as Take That had not had their renaissance yet and he was, at that time, just another washed-up ex-member of a 90's boyband
• Laura something or other who is currently one of the favourites on this year's X Factor* walking down the street in Covent Garden. Until and unless she wins and actually goes on to have a singing career, we might have to award her only temporary/pseudo/British-standard** celebrity status for now
• Sir Derek Jacobi buying some sort of unidentifiable thingummy at a special effects/theatrical make-up shop in Covent Garden.

Looks like Covent Garden is a clear winner for potential celebrity activity but think the quality or at least recognisability of the contenders could do with some improvement...

*Singing-based reality TV contest, similar to Pop Idol, American Idol and countless others, to which I am hopelessly addicted against my will

**It doesn't take much to become famous in Britain. Really it doesn't.

YES WE CAN!

What a momentous week this has been for world history - some might argue it's really more about American history but considering the 'leader of the free world' makes decisions that impact all our lives these days, I think we've all had enough of a stake in the recent US elections to celebrate at the result.

After months of preparation (mostly consisting of soaking up relevant media articles, watching episodes of the West Wing and reading The Audacity of Hope), Gareth and I stocked ourself with pizza, Pepsi, pretzels and pudding (the election was obviously brought to us by the letter P) and settled down to watch the entire night of US election results from 11.00pm to 6.00am. In practice, this consisted mostly of several hours of dull talking heads commentary from random people whose insight was no better than my own, briefly punctuated with amusing moments such as when Gore Vidal (who appeared to be drunk) told the BBC correspondant he (BBC man) shouldn't ask any him (GV) questions since he (GV) didn't know who he (BBC man) was.

Our patience and resilience was rewarded when Barack Obama emerged the clear winner and Sarah Palin's hopes of murdering John McCain and usurping the presidency amounted to nothing.

In a cynical and largely charmless world, it's nice to feel so strongly united with so many people, regardless of race, gender, creed, geography or age and feel like we've all been witness to a historical event.

A change we need indeed!