I don’t think I ever described my encounter with Anthony Stewart Head, ex-Gold Blend man, acoustic guitarist extraordinaire and star of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, did I? Well, then. I’d been working in Melbourne’s CBD (my temp agency had sent me on some hugely exciting envelope stuffing task, as I recall) and we finished up early, so I headed over to the bagel place in QV building for some lunch. I sat at a table opposite the counter, read a book and drank coffee, and generally minded my own business, when, all of a sudden, I felt someone looking at me (I think the book was called ‘Cruel and Unusual Punishment’, and there was a picture of some unusual punishment on the front, so I suppose it’s quite likely I was attracting a few stares, what with me looking so innocent and all).

So naturally, I looked up - and gosh! There was someone who looked VERY like Giles from Buffy, standing a few feet away from me in the coffee queue, looking inquisitively at my choice of reading. Surely not, I thought; it’ll just be one of those times when you see someone who looks a bit like someone famous, so you look again, and find out it was just the angle at which they were standing or the sunlight or the alignment of the planets that misled you. I took another look. Then another. Then another. It was getting quite embarrassing at this point - like a quadruple take - and he still looked like Anthony Stewart Head! I hit myself on the temple and took one final glance; nope, he was still there.

And he was looking noticeably amused by this stage. He paid for his coffee and stood in front of my table while he put his change back in his wallet, taking the longest time I have EVER seen anyone take to put their change away. Meanwhile, upon realizing this was the real-life and, well, really quite gorgeous-in-the-flesh Anthony Stewart Head, I’d blushed bright red like a tomato, or like one of those old-fashioned British phone booths, and was sitting trying to hide behind the punishment book. He looked like he was trying not to laugh, and also as if he was considering saying something to me, but that he was worried that if he did I’d collapse on the floor and start kissing his shoes or something. So in the end - after, like, five minutes - he took pity on me and walked behind a pillar to wait for his coffee, so as to at least put that between me and his obviously overpowering presence.

After he’d gotten his coffee and walked out of the café area, I grabbed my book and left; he was standing at one side of the courtyard, still looking over at me (I mean seriously, can you blame him?). I have half a suspicion that Spike, the vampire with a chip in his head, was there too, since they were both in town for a Buffy fan thing, but I was far too embarrassed to look.

So, yes, that was my Giles experience. I hope this puts into context the reaction to Giles’ rendition of ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ the other evening. Good job he wasn’t carrying a guitar, eh?

Oh shit. Sorry to be so stark, but I just realized I made a big mistake in the first sentence of the abstract I was talking about the other day. You know, the one I’ve just sent off to the two co-editors by e-mail. It was about that 26% of all sales figures I quoted in the previous post, which I totally thought sounded dodgy and was going to check, but then was so relieved to finish I completely forgot. It’s 26% of the top 100 bestselling books, obviously. Sheesh. Now I’m torn as to whether to send another e-mail explaining that I’m an idiot who can’t even check my facts, or letting them work that out for themselves.

Hmmm, maybe I should send a duplicate of the e-mail I just sent, then they’ll assume I sent it twice by mistake and probably just open the top one, right?

Oh, AND I’ve just realized I forgot to reference it. Completely. Do you even need to reference abstracts? I don’t think I’ve bothered in the past but I bet you’re supposed to, especially when you’ve just proven you’re happy to make up wildly inaccurate facts out of thin air.

OK, I just sent it again.

It was also a day late, because I spent yesterday reading and realizing all the things I needed to read that I couldn’t get hold of, giving up in despair, then had a brilliant idea at 1 in the morning, got up to write, went to work, got home, wrote, and then sent the thing off. So they probably won’t accept it anyway. But at least that explains the above scatteredness.

(I’m not even tired, now. Typical, isn’t it?)

P.S. So, that Buffy episode where Giles is playing the guitar and singing The Who’s song, ‘Behind Blue Eyes?’ (the only YouTube clip I can find is dubbed in German. Ha. German Xander)

WOW.

I totally get the Gold Blend man thing now.

I’m writing on Richard and Judy’s book club, at the moment, for a paper due tomorrow, so am surrounded by printed out articles and such-like. Well, technically, just the proposal’s due tomorrow. Luckily. Just 500 words, so hopefully manageable, though sometimes 500 words seems as much as 5000, doesn’t it? As if each word gets concentrated and becomes worth 10 normal ones.

I had no idea the Richard and Judy book club had become such a big thing while I was out of the country. They’re like the new Oprah, only more socially inept (I’m talking about Richard, there, obviously). 26% of all UK book sales in a year are Richard and Judy approved, apparently.

[Oh please. Sorry, I got distracted because I'm multitasking, watching an episode of Buffy on my laptop while I type this. Riley just said "I can feel my skin humming" (when he's near Buffy). Now that's just silly. If someone's skin started humming when I was near them, I'd be seriously disturbed. Plus, it would be distracting. And how would you sleep with the noise? Anyway, Riley looks like a Ken doll. She should go for Spike, or Giles; which totally wouldn't be icky, despite him being a sort of father figure type. I mean come on, he was Gold Blend man. Not that I remember him being Gold Blend Man, but apparently he was VERY hot. Hot like coffee, I suppose. Mmmm, coffee]

Where was I? Richard and Judy. I’ve realized, finally, how much quicker it is to type directly onto a laptop instead of writing everything by hand, and typing it up later. Can’t think why I didn’t work this out before. I’ll have to give this new-fangled electric lighting a go at some point, too. And since I can type faster than I can write, it means I’m less likely to forget what I was typing half-way through when I catch sight of something shiny. You know how it is.

I have an evening primrose plant on my windowsill (actually, I have four of them; it’s becoming a problem) and its flower has opened this evening. They only flower for a night or two, but the flower’s so pretty, yellow and ethereal looking, and there’s something intriguing about a flower that only opens in the evening. I feel like I should sit and look at it all night so as not to waste a second of its briefly-flowering beauty.

Well, that was my Saturday night. Hope yours was much more exciting. Skin-hummingly exciting, even.

For fans of Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Serenity): Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. I checked on Wikipedia (as I generally do when I need to make any important decisions, form opinions, and so on) and apparently it was written during the Writer’s Strike, a “3-part musical comedy produced for the Internet, telling the story of a low-rent supervillain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to”. I’ve only watched the first Act so far; it reminds me a bit of the musical episode of Buffy, and Dr Horrible himself is similar to the three geeky villains in whichever Buffy series it is that Willow turns evil (she ends up skinning one of the villains alive). The show’s free to watch on the website till 20th July.

Also, to echo hundreds of annoyed voices, WTF happened to Last.fm? To quote user bad_wisdom, the new profile layout looks like “a twisted nightmare freak baby of Last.fm and Facebook”. Bwahaha. I’m quite enjoying reading the comments, but it does look pretty vile: for a start (and where to start?), there’s too much space taken up by the profile box at the top of the page (which used to fit neatly into the left hand column) - the focus should be on the music that’s being listened to, not the user’s avatar. Too much space taken up by ‘Recently Listened Tracks’, which used to be very compact at the centre of the page. Comments hidden at the bottom of the page, and a stupid Facebook wannabe list of ‘recent activity’ (X and Y are now friends; X is no longer single; Y is now an atheist, etc). Yuck. It’s hurting my eyes.

Here’s hoping the hundreds thousands of negative comments will cause a rethink.

I’m really in the mood for watching Test cricket today. Curses to pay TV. In Melbourne, even overseas Tests were shown on normal TV. Really, though, if all these sports are only on pay TV, how do they expect to inspire kids to start playing them?

That’s my rant for today. I suppose I should go listen to Test Match Special (if it’s not raining. Which is a VERY big if).

ETA: Alternatively, I could just read the Guardian’s ‘live over by over!’ coverage:

36th over: South Africa 100-4 (Prince 28 de Villiers 8)
The bizarre rogues gallery of celebrities in the pavilion has been bolstered by wee Ronnie Corbett, who seems to be having a hearty chuckle with Stephen Fry about something or other. Christ I find Stephen Fry irritating. He’s so unbearably smug. The thing has its roots in that film Wilde, ever since when Fry seems to have actually become convinced that he’s the genuine reincarnation of old Oscar, on the grounds that he too is fat, camp, lank haired and prone to the odd bon mot. Fry actually made headlines once for telling American customs that he “had nothing to declare but his genius”, my how everyone chortled. Hold on, aren’t you just repeating a joke that was made 100 years ago? I mean, isn’t the whole point of being a wit that you’re supposed to be original? If I grow my beard and shine my pate, and start mincing around talking about the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” does that mean I’m a modern day Shakespeare? Arse.

There is stuff about cricket in it too. Honest.