01.06.05..4:39 pm

Though I will finish my Family History, I promise, I do, I will not today because the exam hangover still lingers. A week on and I'm still brainweary and noggin-heavy. I still cannot THINK after going through both exam and post-exam knees-up last Tuesday. I�ve been feeling a bit raw, but mostly just dumb. Like my whole brain got sucked into the exam paper and is currently blinking all confused with its nose(?) pressed against the back of another paper getting ink in its eyes(?). See? I can't even pull together a decent analogy.

Regardless, this past long weekend did much to ease my pitiful state: I had gorgeous time up in the wilds of Yorkshire for my grandad's 80th complete with long lost relatives and more food than I am physically equipped to digest after one sitting. My grandpapa had a fab time, surrounded for the first time by all his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, with my Dad and aunt sitting on either side of him at the table. The party was held in the golf club that my cousin runs. (My cousin also being the master France-trained chef who cooked so splendidly, yet so muchly. Enormous vegetarian pastry wrap thing with feta and roasted veg. I couldn�t see my plate.) M came too which was lovely: we managed to escape for a couple of hours to the moors wherein we climbed some hills, traversed some vales, enjoyed indecent acts in public places.. Well, a very quiet and rarely trod field with a small copse of trees and long grass, but there WAS a helicopter overhead and I DID end up with a clutter of Mysterious Insect bites on my right hip.

(There�s something so purely magic about natural sunlight and the soft vocalings of birds chirping above your head as you try desperately not to cry out in orgasm because at any moment a swathe of children or ramblers may come across your sweaty wake.)

And then Sunday night we had a tea party down at my South London home � complete with tea and scones and cakes and sweets and Pimm's - to celebrate still another birthday and I ate and drank and drank until the rather unholy hour of 5 in the morning! M had gone to bed some time around 2.30 with my promising to be up in a minute and lo, two and a half hours later I drag myself up the stairs.. Needless to say I felt distinctly sloshy Monday and it took a Star Wars marathon to clear it up starting with Revenge of the Sith (III) at the cinema.

I LOVED it! Revenge of the Sith is brilliant. It explains so much, everything falls into place. It left both M and I going 'Ohhhhhhh. I get it!' over so much of the last three episodes, and was so much better than Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones, which I hated. The Phantom Menace possibly because it had child actors in it which creeps me out a little; Attack of the Clones DEFINITELY because Jar-Jar Binks is the most irritating creature in the history of the world � would rather be read Vogon poetry than listen to him � and ALSO because the computer animation was so awful I cringed and then wept with relieve when things stopped being drawn. And the acting was even more crap than crap and the script sucked� Where was I? Right. So the Sith rules, I would even vouch that it is actually at the same level as Empire Strikes Back.* In true keeping with the tremendous geekazoid I am, I ended up renting out A New Hope and the Empire Strikes Back episodes when I got home**, though I have to admit that the Leia kissing Luke to make Han fuck off a bit is SO DISTURBING now that I've seen them being born together.. Out of the same womb.. Ick.

Watching The Empire Strikes Back I have to admit I found (animatronic) Yoda a little wilted and much more withered than I remember after his brilliant (computer generated) performance in Revenge of the Sith. On the other hand the Wooki's are great wherever though I did admittedly nearly collapse giggling at the horde of Wooki's going into battle.. Also nearly peed involuntarily at Anakin/Darth Vadar wrenching out of his gurney and Frankenstienistically screaming, Nooooooo, as he telekinetically crushed all around him while Darth Sidious looked on all wrinkly and maniacal. And at the sight of Samuel L. He should have it permanently in his contract that he is NEVER allowed to face-shave while head-shaven, nor be seen without sunglasses because he's got an unfortunate turtlish appearance when bald and exposed to the light. He reminded me of a giant black Yoda without the emotion-control ear lobes.

*I say 'as good as Empire Strike Back' rather than �as good as A New Hope and Empire Strike Back' because I always found Luke Skywalker in A New Hope a little like Holden in Catcher in the Rye: a little too whiney and a little too arrogant for his own good. But I suppose that�s all part of their individual learning processes, isn�t it.

**Actually I think the fact I wound up in a different postal code to join a foreign video/DVD rental in order to get them out says volumes more than I could muster here.

So now I�m all Star Wars all the time with either the theme or the Storm Troopers music rattling in my head. Slight overload perhaps, but man was it worth it!