Exciting Valentine's drinks

I've been doing The Insider for The Independent Money section yesterday and today.

It's basically writing short blurbs on products that readers should be spending their money on.

Among the array of, mainly Valentines themed, products there is a selection of quirky wine and spirit bottles from Vom Fass.



They are shaped like boots, hearts and male and female bodies and I love them.

I'm not a big one for Valentine's day I prefer to send Valentine's messages to my friends rather than one special man.

However, with such exciting gifts on offer I might just re-assess my position.

Plus Vom Fass don't just fill up the bottle with whichever alcoholic beverage you like, you can also choose oils and vinegars too.

And they refill the bottles with whatever else you want when you finished the first lot of contents, how ecologically sound is that?

Sadly I don't get samples to convince me to write nice things about them, so if anyone out there loves me that's what I'd like for Valentine's Day - preferably the chocolate liquor variety.

The full article will be coming out on Saturday.

State of Play goes State side

I was quite dismayed to read that Paul Abbott's State of Play is to be turned into a Hollywood film.

Don't get me wrong it's a brilliant series, I'm just not sure that complex six part drama will be done justice by a, at best, three hour film.

Plus Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck are currently set to star, I'm even less convinced.

This is intelligent political drama I'm really not sure that Affleck is up to it.

Why not just show the American's the State of Play series?

If you're an American and you're reading this invest in the State of Play BBC DVD and then if you must watch the film at least make sure that you watch the BBC version first.

And while you're at it check out the British Channel Four version of Queer as Folk.

How to find an Exorcist

I've been doing work experience at The Independent since last Monday.

My first morning was very quiet and I was beginning to wonder whether I'd be given ANYTHING to do when Alice, the woman co-ordinating my work came over.

She said Johann Hari was on the line and wanted to know whether I could help him with some research for an article.

I was more than eager to do anything so she put him through to me.

Johann explained that he wanted to do a comment piece on Exorcism and would I track down an Exorcist for him to interview.

So began my mission.

I first rang up some specialist Catholic papers to see if they had any contacts of the Exorcist variety.

The first guy I spoke to was very helpful and gave me three numbers to try, but he warned me that they were about three years old.

Indeed they proved useless, some didn't even ring through.

So I rang another Catholic paper and was told that it was best if I rang each diocese individaully and asked them if they had an Exorcist.

So I started searching dioceses, in my quest I found a site with a map of Britain with links to each Catholic diocese on these shores.

The first diocese I tried said they would get back to me.

The second had a very lovely old woman who told me that yes they did have an Exorcist called Father Anthony Hayne and she kindly supplied me with his phone number telling me that if I didn't have any luck there was another retired Exorcist in the area that she could get in touch with for me.

I tried ringing Father Anthony Hayne and was greeted to his answer phone with a mobile number, the mobile number again gave me an answer phone message.

Undeterred I continued ringing round dioceses, mainly being told that they woukd get back to me after they had looked into it.

One guy that I rang in Wales rather angrily told me that the identity of Exorcists wasn't public and was only known by the Bishop.

I carried on and reached a guy in Glasgow who told me that they didn't have an Exorcist as such, but a priest who was considered most experienced was appointed if there were a need.

He said there hadn't been that need in Glasgow for twenty years.

During this endless stream of phone calls I also fired off some e-mails to Catholic friends in the vain hope that they could help.

One friend got back to me with details of a book on Exorcism, "The Dark Sacrament", by an Irish priest called David Kiely and in the course of my phone calls I uncovered another book and interview by Father Gabriele Amorth - The Church's Leading Exorcist.

So I'd rung every Catholic diocese in the country, e-mailed every Catholic friend I had and found out a bit about Exorcist literature.

It was now pretty much the end of the day, so I e-mailed Father Anthony Hayne's phone numbers to Johann along with all the other tit bits that I'd uncovered.

On Wednesday his comment piece came out.

I was delighted, he's managed to get through to Father Anthony Hayne all my effort hadn't been in vain.

Here's his final article: The devilish church practice of exorcism

The Devil's day

I've hit 666 blog readers since I started this blog.

I got 6 6 6 for my SATs results too.

Good job I don't really believe in that stuff.

She wouldn't say boo to a goose.

Our Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, has come out as saying in today's Sunday Times that she wouldn't walk alone round London at night.

When I heard them reviewing this article on the radio this morning I couldn't help thinking, what a wuss.

However I thought she is a high profile public figure she is more of a target.

When I met my friend a couple of hours later he had a copy of the Times so I had a chance to read the full article.

And it transpired that Ms. Smith wasn't just talking about how she currently felt walking the streets of London, but how she has always felt.

She wasn't just talking about dodgy areas like Hackney (no offence to anyone who lives there), but even affluent ones like Chelsea.

She even had the cheek, or rather ignorance to go onto say of walking round Hackney late at night: "Well, I just don't think that's a thing that people do, is it, really?" The Sunday Times.

What?!?

Has she never heard of night buses?

Who does she think is riding on them, you need to walk to a bus stop you know!

Ok I wouldn't deliberately go for a late night walk round Hackney, but I've certainly walked round the area late at night.

There's another reason that I'm irritated by Jacqui Smith's comments: I kind of feel she's letting the side down.

I couldn't help noticing that the Times had slipped into their article: "Smith, the first woman home secretary," I can't help thinking that they wouldn't have added that detail were it not for the detail of the article - though to be honest I can't be sure as I don't read the Times regularly.

Then to make things worse, she back tracked when her aide rang back the Times to say she: "bought a kebab in Peckham" at night.

Maybe I'm just blissfully unaware of the threat to my own safety when I'm out at night, but I usually feel reasonably safe - I certainly wouldn't bat an eyelid at wandering all over Chelsea late at night.

Jacqui you really need to get out more.

Public transport etiquette

Time for an appeal/moan.

I got on the bus the other night and got stuck at the door, well to make it more clear there were a line of people filling up the lower deck of the bus.

I couldn't get past and plenty of people were left waiting at the bus stop so I suppose I was lucky.

Why my interest in getting past the throng of people at the bottom deck of the bus?

Well I wanted to get to the stairwell.

Why?

Because it is my experience that people will fill up the bottom deck of buses without going upstairs for a seat.

Finally some people left the bus on the bottom deck and I clearly saw two people coming down from the top deck so I determindly squeezed past the remaining people to make my way upstairs.

When I got upstairs I found not two but at least ten vacant seats, as I had expected.

Here is the thing the people downstairs were perfectly able bodied, I'm not saying that the disabled, infirm and pregnant should be expected to walk upstairs to look for a seat, they could have easily gone upstairs for a seat or if they were determined to stay downstairs gone up the stairwell temporarily to let me pass and find a seat.

It's very infuriating.

Not only are people denied the chance to sit down when there are seats available, but even worse believing the bus to be full the bus driver will stop other people getting on leaving them in the cold to wait for another bus.

So if you find yourself on the bottom deck of a crowded bus at least go and look upstairs for seats, if you can.

Ok, moan/appeal over, sorry to be so dull.

Victoria line to be limited again.

I was shocked while listening to Capital 95.8 last night to hear that they will be restricting the Victoria line service again from the 4th of February.

I use the Victoria line from Brixton tube pretty much every day and was greatly inconvenienced by the last lot of restrictions which ran from July to November last year.

These restrictions will also be lasting till November, though it at least looks like it won't be closed at weekends this time round.

Information on why they are closing the line, again, is in the Capital Radio link above.

So much for any drinks after Uni I've got to make sure I make my connecting train.

There is always the Northern line, but it's horrible at the best of times and is going to be pretty awful with all the extra passengers it's going to be getting.

Curse you London Transport.


Another quick note, I was hoping to be the first one to say this but they pointed it out on Radio Four last night, what have all these details coming out at the Diana inquest actually got to do with the circuymstances of her death?

It is an inquest right?

It's meant to be about how she died not satisfying the public curiosity about the intricate details of her private life.

the mind boggles.