Silly Milly Doesn't Like My Blog

Despite evidence of my near lapse of professionalism being (lovingly) documented in my work newspaper, Stephen Merchant failed to mention me on the radio yesterday, and is also noticeably reticent in turning up at my office with Nobu reservations and/or noticing my existence.

Onwards and upwards however, and last night, soaking up the first feeble rays of spring, we (me, Ben, Erin and Jonathan) trekked across London for a proper Aussie barbecue, although, as the host remarked, it was more of a "conceptual barbecue than an actual one" since they had to do the cooking inside due to the sub-optimal barbecue facilities (it's technical, this stuff). We did consider using the barbecue as a light-generator and spider-repellant, but there was far too much beer to be drunk and grilled haloumi pasta with sausages, chicken avocado and three-bean salad, and a lot of chocolate to be consumed - yes, this was a barbecue with style. I guess we have to overcompensate for the lack of warmth and mosquitoes, but by the time we got there I would have been happy with bread and tomato sauce. Jonathan insisted that the journey was '20 minutes from Charing Cross', but three tubes, a train and a long walk at 'Race Around the World' speed later he was probably glad that Erin and I were too engrossed in the bars of chocolate we had bought to notice the complete over-optimisim of this statement.

I was pretty much the only person at the party who wasn't a professional musician, so while what Jonathan described as 'cello porn' was going on in the front room, I again had to resort to the chocolate. It has been quite a boozy weekend with a Good Friday lunch going for a good 12 hours (for me, Jonathan to his horror discovered a day later that he was out for more like 14).

The barbecue also introduced me to the delights of a game called Silly Milly - I use the term "delights" loosely since poor Erin was nearly driven to tears of frustration and lost herself in a quagmire of pop culture references and socio-political implications, which probably actually just shows that she is a lot more intelligent than the rest of us. Well actually, the game had been introduced at the Crowded House gig a few weeks back. (Apparently, the band's guitar tech has been touring with them for four years and still doesn't get the rules.) You basically need to work out what "Silly Milly" likes and doesn't, based on smug examples from -- in this case -- Jonathan, and then give a correct example to prove you're in on the joke. Thanks to years of annnoying games that my sister and father played every time we got in the car, it didn't take me too long to work out. But the pain of pondering the whims of Silly Milly seriously went on for hours.

Let's just say that Silly Milly quite likes Neil Finn, but she certainly doesn't like this blog.