If I ever marry [1], this is the song I want played for the First Dance.

[1] My boyfriend comes from Irish Travellers stock (or at least his surname does) so I could technically have a Channel 4 My Big Fat Gay Gypsy Wedding!

I've got an idea for a new American TV drama. It centres around Muslim teenagers in the U.S. and it has Kim Wilde's "Kids in America" as its theme song. And yes, it's set in the 80s.

I also want to know why there are no hauntings or poltergeists in EastEnders seeing that so many corpses litter its history? (Even going so far, as margotmetroland pointed out, of having one open the show's first episode?) I want to write for EastEnders and have the recently murdered Archie haunt the Queen Vic. Mirrors cracked from side to side. People thrown down stairs. Heads spinning. Projectile vomitings. Just another Christmas Special. I'd get those ratings through the roof.

When wink_martindale and I first moved to London, we lived with some crazy lesbians in Stoke Newington. Two of them were big EastEnders fans and they immediately set about unraveling for us the show's Gordian Knot. Somebody gave birth without knowing they were pregnant in the first place? Someone discovered their sister was actually their mom? Sounded like your typical brasilian soap!

My favourite character was Janine, a sort of village punchbag who couldn't help being malicious and starting trouble wherever she went. Her high point came when she "accidentally" killed off her husband Barry after enduring a descent into homelessness and prostitution. But elsewhere, the characters and storylines didn't grab me. Where were the qualities that I loved in brasilian soaps? The magic realism? The werewolves? It was all a bit miserable to the sound of the wrong soundtrack. (Characters listening to Lloyd Cole and the Commotions' "Perfect Skin" while eating their toast at the local caf would have kept me hooked.)

I gave up on EastEnders and went on my merry way downloading brasilian soaps and the great American series of this past decade.

Then a few months ago, I took a writing workshop for a Pakistani soap opera... and I loved it! Why couldn't I get paid to do this every day? Create a whole universe of characters then put them through the grill? Having so many years of LJ Drama under my belt, it all came very easily to me. Coincidentally, my brasilian friend Vini Bambini alerted me at the time to EastEnders introducing a gay romance involving a British Muslim, with flagrant kisses before the watershed thrown into the mix. At the start of these holidays I finally caught an episode and was hooked. Would the two unbelievably good looking men elope to Barcelona? Or would the young Muslim continue to live a lie for the sake of his family and get married to a woman? And to complicate matters, a major murder plot was introduced making nearly every character in the show a suspect.

Now I've got wink_martindale moaning at me because I'm not only hooked on A Favorita but now I need to know who killed Archie in EastEnders and if Janine is going to have a bad end (as my gut seems to tell me.) What I really should be doing is working on my CV and applying for jobs.

2010? Script Writing for TV courses here I come!

Kevin's sister got married this weekend in Chelmsford, Essex. I used to think the whole of Essex was as unappealing as Romford but I was wrong: Chelmsford has a nice little downtown centre, a canal teeming with fish and canoes, outdoor tables that nearly transport you to continental Europe and a very affordable Travelodge (£20 a night!) with the friendliest of staff. The ceremony itself was very traditional (and beautiful), performed in All Saints Church, which looked and felt distinguishedly old (Restoration period, with newer bits attached to it?)

I was asked to be one of the ushers, a red rose pinned to my brand new H&M black suit's lapel by the mother-in-law's sister a few minutes before the ceremony. I stood by the pews with Kevin and the groom's ten-year-old nephew, handing out programmes and directing people to either the right (groom's family) or the left (Sissy Jen's fam).

Amidst the small group of formally attired family members, I noticed a mother and daughter dressed somewhat casually. They took programmes from me and sat with the groom's family. I didn't think much of it until the ceremony was over and I saw them walking away. I pointed this out to Kevin and he wondered if they might re-join us for the party after the dinner. They didn't. I now wonder if they are "wedding crashers" - taking an hour of their Saturdays to sit through any ceremony that will offer them choir songs, beautiful dresses, some tears, some tangential magic. Wedding Spotters.

I was worried about meeting Kevin's family from Canada and Ireland, an older generation of Catholics born and raised in small towns who travelled to Chelmsford especially for the occasion and who had never been in the same room together. They couldn't have been warmer and friendlier. By yesterday, when we were saying our goodbyes, we received invitations to visit and stay with some of them. It made me feel how lucky we are to have such open and understanding families - people who are fully aware how long Kevin and I have been together, and who are happy for us, and who want to get to know us better. Last night, it felt like a come down to have our apartment empty of Kevin's mom and sister, the expectation and tension of the past two weeks finally over.

Some people asked us when we are getting married. Weddings are such terrifying things, I can't even think about it for a second without freaking out. I don't know if it's the thing for us... we have been together now for nearly 11 years - why change? But, at the same time, it was so lovely to see these families meet, share a day, stagger away happily drunk from too much food and drinking.

I'll need to attend a few more weddings (for research purposes) before I make up my mind.

Clatty Pat's - Also known as Cleopatra's, disreputable Glaswegian club to be avoided at all costs. Clatty (a glaswegian slang for dirty) is the sort of place where you can find men making love to their own reflection on the dancefloor's mirror, or covered in puke and begging for a kiss (so I hear).

Highland cattle - Mythical red cows with big horns, originally from Scotland's highlands but now found near urban areas (such as the Pollok House). Strangely reminiscent of club girls spotted at basement Darkhouse-fest Basura Blanca.

Hen - term used for any Glaswegian woman. Top Hen is the woman who organizes a hen party and who may, or may not, provide drugs afterwards.

Ned - Wee fellows that will clob you if you are wearing the wrong football T-shirt. Better not wear any blue or green when the Rangers and the Celts are playing against each other on a Bank Holiday Weekend.

Jakie - Fellows who enjoy their alcohol as well as screaming at each other on the street.

MDMA - powdery drug, the colour of brown sugar, which tastes like rat poison, to be taken in a nightclub's bathroom cubicle. A pinch is enough for smiles, but not enough to get the mojo going on the dancefloor. May cause lethargy the following day.

Blether - Chatty gossip you learn at 2 A.M., when joints are passed around and CSS is on the stereo: Paul McCartney married Heather because he liked getting her stump up his bum; Camilla Parker Bowles got drunk at her son's wedding and danced to Wham!; and David Hasselhoff said, on a phone interview to Star magazine, "you don't hassle the Hoff".

The West End - Area of Glasgow where students and the bohemian middle-class live. A ground floor apartment facing Glasgow's Botanical Gardens: the home of an academic (conveniently away for the weekend in Turkey) filled with books, paintings, mismatched furniture, dusty world music CDs, a black cat called Marley, subzero temperatures in the basement rooms, an overstuffed fridge and rarefied air that makes less than 10 hours sleep impossible.

McShite Airlines - easyJet, Ryanair and all the other craptastic airlines that have lost this customer. Better spend the extra £100 on a proper airline and deal with people trained not to be assholes.


Will Mellor, spotted yesterday wandering around Glasgow Airport, hoping someone would ask him for an autograph.

Volta - You are back home, lying in a warm bathtub, just one red candle flickering against the tiles; you have an airport CD for company; you are angry at low-cost flying, the weekend coming to an end, and your empty fridge; You are the Earth Intruders, you are the Earth Intruders...