It's perhaps rather shameful that my entire night's work can grind to a halt when the ink cartridge in my beloved, rather crappy, fountain pen runs out, but I have no other pen (I am monogamous in that regard) and an entire stack of Factiva'd news items to scribble on, so tonight that's the way the cookie crumbles.

So I turned to my swollen to do list to find and found this:

'Blog entry on Pikelet (like sitting in the back seat of your parents' car listening to Peter and the Wolf, to use a Mel-ish turn of phrase), Lala and Shane ('I want to go sit right at the docks and watch the cranes.' 'Well, it's not safe... [kids from Laverton in their nice cars with their Croatian girlfriends retaining their virginity], 'I love a velvet singlet.' White asparagus, productive self-pity, and the drunk hairdresser)'

I'm quite tempted to leave it as it is. I've got to say it's rare for me to be so structured about my bloggerating as to put it on a to do list, but clearly at some point I thought the Pikelet album launch, Lala's wise, dry hilarity, the charming harrassment of bar staff and my own ever-present self doubt were rather important.

So... I have been listening to Pikelet's album ever since the show at Cloud City. That is a good thing. After I tagged along with the Chlo to have drinks with Lala and her Mr Shane. Lala is one of my favourite people. We met when she began going out with my (now former) housemate. She ran into some real estate issues and came to stay with us for a while. Usually having a housemate's partner move in is a recipe for disaster, but I really don't know what I would have done without the good lady Lala. She came along right when I entered what can best be described as a three month long karmic fart, one I probably wouldn't have emerged from so quickly without her compassion, kindness and good humour. Out of anything Lala has the same TV watching philosophy that I have, which is that TV viewing is a discursive activity, where the action on screen is really only there to facilitate whatever clever things the viewers have to say.

Clearly there was the odd hilarious anecdote thrown around that evening, but I truly can't remember what the kids from Laverton have to do with anything. I do remember Lala's Sydney-based business partner Mr Shane heckling the glassie by calling out, 'oh, I love a velvet singlet,' but I don't remember why that is important.

Well, that's one thing off the to do list, at least.