Tuesdays are meant to be the most productive days for UK workers. Am I feeling productive today? Kinda. Am I channeling this productivity? Not exactly. I do have grand plans - completing my uni applications. These plans are not quite at an implementable level. I have completed one though, so half the battle....most of that was already done though.
Reasons I am not working:
- I lost a scrabble game by 11 points, when it was in the bag until an entirely unforced error. Boo.
- Spurs lost last night. Again.
- I have a slight hangover.
- The lovely lovely staircase polisher man is singing along to Magic FM.
- I woke up at 5am and couldn't go back to sleep. This too wasn't that bad, meant I could daydream, giving me control of my screenplay rather than just having to accept whatever my mind chooses. Enough of that.
- I am still a bit high from yesterday and can't really be bothered to focus.
I didn't know that members of the public can actually sit in on parliamentary debates, but we can, you just have to request a ticket for the Public Gallery from your MP. You can find out who your MP is using theyworkforyou and then email your MP using links from the site. My MP was super efficient (a reason to vote Tory?) and got me a great seat.
We watched questions to Des Browne, Secretary of State for Defence, which was really good and detailed. The department under question gets questions submitted to them 5 days beforehand, and then they have to prepare all the answers. It's good to know that other MPs are questioning the actions of various departments, and also that there's a bit of checking and balancing going on even within the Labour party. I was a bit shocked at how the MPs behaved around each other, lots of heckling and cutting each other down etc. but the Speaker was a good referee and kept them under control (kinda reminded me of dealing with a rather enthusiastic class!)
Anyway this was all exciting enough, but then at about 3:20pm loads of MPs started coming into the Commons and we were all trying to figure out why. Then the big-shots came in too - Cameron and Brown. Mr Brown delivered his speech on the EU Treaty hot off the press, was really cool. Annoyingly we had to leave before it got super juicy, but it was pretty awesome to watch the whole thing and also see the Prime Minister and Charles Kennedy and Ian Duncan-Smith and others too live in action. I wanted to say live in concert there, heehee.
The crazy tour made me a laugh, mainly because Steve doesn't know I did politics at university, and also because I am shocked at how little I remembered from first year...clearly the years of drinking have knocked me out. Bless him though, he answered all kinds of questions and even dealt with my endless comparisons of our government being a large football squad and the Cabinet being the first XI. So despite being really rather hyper all day yesterday, I was on good form and it was educational.
Still a bit gutted that Spurs lost last night, but on the plus side I had a lovely evening with Mouche, with lots of walking and drinking and laughing about silly things. London at night by the river is SICK. It was strange, we were walking through these side roads in the cold cold back to the tube station and Westminster was just silent, it was like being in some village somewhere, very nice. I think the coldness helped keep me sensible, I am proud.
Right I'm going to have a nap to prep for some squash later this afternoon. Rouse, a shout-out to you, I am still laughing at you today, you're hilarious! Maybe I will dream of you and cakes...
