I think I might have done it.

"It" being.... learnt how to make the perfect brew. That's cup of tea to you Southerners....!

It's a proud moment, a huge event in the history of teagirl... So here's how....

Tea bag in first, obviously. Pour water in until there is a gap at the top of the cup of only a centimeter. Squash the teabag down to the bottom with the spoon, then stir and let it sit for a few seconds. Then, whilst again squashing the bag to the bottom of the cup, stir four or five times and squeeze against the side of the cup. Stir twice more and finally squeeze on the side again and remove the teabag.

This, of course, is only for people that like fairly strong tea.

Then, add milk. It's best to do this from a small jug, because straight from the carton often means milk overload. If you are pouring from the carton, use a steady, firm hand so as to not add too much milk. Pour slowly and stir at the same time, until you get a nice, solid and not too pale colour.

If you like sugar, it's best to add this before you add the milk, so it will dissolve properly.

And there you have it. The perfect brew.

(I could really do with a promotion sometime soon......for the sake of my sanity).

It's surprising, the things you'll do for Michael Portillo...

I'm sleep deprived. Hell, I'm life-deprived right now.

Last week I was on the late shift, which naturally ended up finishing slightly later each night than planned. Then I worked the weekend. I was supposed to go and see New Moon on Saturday evening. But I had to work later. Then I worked 12 hours on Sunday. I got a free Thai meal out of it. But it still felt pretty rubbish.

On the up side, I did manage to watch the X Factor - since there wasn't a lot to do, I had it on in the background! And little lamb Lloyd got the boot, rightly so of course. Considering his..... quality of talent?... I had half expected them to start bargaining off Lloyd votes on offer. Perhaps a reduced price, or even two for one?

So. It's now the end of an eleven day week. All in all my first weekend of work went fairly well, but it is surprising the effect it has on you. On tuesday I nearly fainted, and had to go home early. That was nice. But I've been working in our second building all week, which is a really nice working environment; much more homely and relaxed.

Relaxed, of course, until it came to doing lunches on Thursday. Michael Portillo was in - a lovely fella really, though obviously well used to the somewhat 'celebrity' lifestyle. So here's a few things you might not have known about Michael Portillo (and probably wouldn't actually care to know, but clearly I'm going to tell you anyway!).

He likes a mixture of tea (white, no sugar) and cafatiere coffee (again, white, no sugar) throughout the day. Later in the day, after recording his VO for a good few hours, he opted for a camomile tea. I tried to ask if he wanted milk - which luckily I had brought along in a seperate jug - but he couldn't hear me through his headphones. Some very obvious hand signals later and we established that he didn't. All in all he was very polite, generally a nice guy.

I was slightly miffed when, after travelling in one direction for his colleague's lunches, I had to then sprint in totally the other direction for his food. Nothing to do with him, of course, just bad luck.

And when Michael Portillo wants his second chicken tikka masala (with pilau rice and mango chutney) of the week, what you gonna do?

(Well Overdue) Celeb Spots of the Week...

Apologies. This post is a tidge late. Well, two weeks late. But here's all the goss from my best week so far for celeb spots. I must admit I was dubious as to the future of Celeb Spots of the Week after a few days of celebrity-less-ness.

And then came David Haye. I was walking to work one morning down Regent St when a black cab stopped about 20 yards ahead of me and out stepped a tall, muscular man with corn-rows and a bandaged hand. I thought to myself, "No.... surely that can't be David "The Haymaker" Haye, Heavyweight Champion of the World, as of last Saturday's amazing win against the huuuge and ogre-like Nikolai Valuev?"

Ok, so it all happened a little quicker than that. I whipped out my notepad and pen and said "Excuse me? Can I please get your autograph?" He was really lovely. Really nice. I asked how his hand was and said I'd watched the fight, and he chatted away about how he'd done the same thing to his hand a few years ago too. And then we went our seperate ways.

I later pulled out the autograph to look at it, and had to laugh.


"To Ash. Stay sexy. David Haye x x x"


Awesome.

"So..." you're now asking yourselves, "...surely that's the only A-lister for one week's worth of celeb spots?" How wrong you are.

Whilst out on a run for work the following Friday I walked past HMV on Oxford St and saw a poster advertising Russell Brand's DVD signing that evening. So, naturally, I legged it round there after work and joined the ma-hussive queue of Russel-and-his-ball-bags fans. He did a half-hour Q&A sesh which was, of course, really bloody funny - at one point he plucked three-year-old Brendon out of the audience and - after being very cute with him - asked him if he thought the new DVD was any good, to which he replied "Mmmm." Russell said goodbye, passed him back to his parents and said to one of his guys, "That boy is not a good marketing ploy. Have him killed." In all it's inappropriateness, absolutely hilarious.

I finally got to meet him after queueing for an hour and a half. I passed him my DVD sleeve, said hello, and he said "Come in for a cuddle..." Awesome? Ya-huh. He said thanks for buying his DVD, I said thanks for signing it. And that was that. Short but very, very sweet.

And then. THEN. There was Cheryl. See earlier post named "Hey" for the deets. But there was eye contact. There was hand contact. There was a smile and a "Hey." Basically Ash = happy bunny.

Clearly with me being at The X Factor there were a few more spots, so here'y'are....

Simon Cowell, Dannii Minogue and Louis Walsh (obv.)
All 10 X Factor finalists.
Sinitta.
Brian Friedman (celeb? debatable)
Chico (again.... debatable)
Dermot O'Leary
Holly Willoughby
N Dubs (sat quite near them in the audience!)

"What? Not more A-listers, surely?"
Yup, 'fraid so....

Brian May & Roger Taylor (uuuuuber cool)
Mariah Carey

And that's yer lot.
Cheerio.

Executively Produced Tea.

The producer and executive producer of 'Travels With Bradshaw' for Talkback Thames were in today to view the offline edit for the show. The producer always enjoys a white Earl Grey, no sugar, when she's here and is currently on her third. The executive producer, a very serious-looking man who carries a clipboard and expensive pen and doesn't say very much, had a white English tea, no sugar.

It's the clients doing the offline editing here that have the more complicated stuff. Many a trip to Pret has been made for coffee.

Maybe that's a sign that coffee isn't my calling?

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In other news, for the first time last night I managed to catch one of the many programmes edited here at Halo on TV - Berlin on the BBC. Very cool to see three of my colleagues in the credits!