30s TTC - We BESH you a Merry Jizzmas and a droid-free new year!

[CurlyCasper]

Come in, come in. The wine is mulling, the bird is stuffed and cooked. We have a huge table at which to enjoy our festive feast, and the rippling Ricky Whittle is the centrepiece, draped in berries to be removed by whatever method you choose.

A bottle of Gin and an elf-man in a box awaits each and every one of you. Just make your wish and when you undo the bow he will appear.

There's a nativity tableau in the corner, for praying to the baybee Jebus and, most importantly of all, Santa has been asked to deliver the gift of exceptional fertility, so that each and every BESH can enter the new year with a baybeeee in their tum tum.

Oh, and I've let a few cats in to aid with the 2WOOFL menkulness.

Now, let's get together and get the tree up!

Not sure about FFJ, but having been here a little while and knowing the way the BESHies think I'd hazard a guess at Fertile Fanny Juice. Am I right? Do I win a baybee?

Someone help me. No escape until NYE. Can't... go... on...

Scorps - hell really is other people's families. Just spend a loooooong 3 days with TSF's family over Xmas. They were perfectly nice and hardly tried to kill me this year by putting nuts in everything. And still I struggled.

But I do feel really guilty about enjoying your tales of the in laws - you have to suffer for your comedy, hon! It's like watching Little Britain. Hope you are bearing up/counting down.

Honeybunny & MLPony & Costa, lack of maternal instinct sucks. I'm only tcc because I can't think of anything else to do. Nothing like being denied something to make you want it, though. I was like Pony and feared I'd get diffed the first cycle so tried to wait until my head was ready before trying. So this year has been somewhat of a blessing, in that now I feel a teeny bit readier and more like I want it to happen given I have spent a year thinking about it.

But you're still a baby yourself, Honey, you must take these descisions at your own pace.

Oca glad you had a good night - here, have a fertilised egg.

Um.

Oops.

Dropped it.

....Sorry.

Where is everyone? - am having to stray around MN to find entertainment. Luckily this AIBU has kicked off nicely. I'm managing to see both sides of the argument for once so the mudslinging is very entertaining.

I'm here, lurking. I keep getting tempted to post in the boarding school convo but hold back. Must... do... work....

Ooh did you go to boarding school? was it like The Chalet School? Did you get into jolly japes etc?

Must...also...work.....soon.

2WOOFL moment: my boobs went from normal to sore very suddenly yesterday. My new, improved cycles seem v odd, one minute I'm finishing droid, the next I'm FFJing, then a switch is flicked and I am counting down to droid again, no gradual changes at all. Also I am tired and feel a bit sicky. And this is in no way related to (a) large quantities of booze and chocs consumed, or (b) not going to bed till v late the other night cos we'd had a fight and I was sulking. Nope. No siree.

Culture report: Sherlock Holmes wasn't as bad as we expected last night. Quite enjoyable. I even warmed slightly to Rachel McAdams despite being initially annoyed about very young, carbon copy actresses being used in films as the love interest, when the part would be better played by an actress with some character and skill. I realise this is because I am a Grumpy Old Woman and the actress in question is about 15 years younger than me..... But I'm ok with that. Also, policemen are looking very young these days.

Yes, I went to boarding school. No, it was not like the Chalet School or Mallory Towers. And the teaching wasn't even any good, despite costing an absolute fortune.

It's interesting to hear sherlock holmes wasn't that bad... I had expected whatsisname who is holmes to be wrongly cast and the fact that guy ritchie is directing it to make it into some ridiculous action blockbuster. I have no opinion at all on Rachel McAdams.

I am on day 8 of my cycle, 2WOOFL approaching. What day are you on, VAG? Is it time to start shouting POAS at you yet?

I'm on CD21 - and I have not POAS for months now Every time I do, PP starts within hours (sometimes minutes) so I have given up. We did bonk at the "right time" (assuming I have another "normal" cycle) but I can't face the crashing disappointment so refuse to speculate too much. TSF is desperate to avoid his sperm test by getting us diffed before he goes so I think he's more concerned about this than me right now. Which is amusing.

Robert Downey Jr was actually quite good, as was Jude Law. It was still a fairly poor movie, but good enough to be entertaining. I'd watch it again, which is a good sign. But I'm generally thrilled to be going to the cinema - TSF isn't that bothered so we hardly ever go (am too lazy to organise alternative cinema buddies). I gave him tickets for the ballet and the theatre for Christmas, in an effort to ensure we go on dates occasionally. He'll enjoy it when he gets there (in fairness, he's looking forward to it, and I did get him other things too)

oooh, what ballet are you going to see? I wanted to see the all male swan lake, I heard it was amazing, but there were no tickets going.

I thought Jude Law might have been quite good as sherlock holmes.

As someone who is irritated by Guy Ritchie's mere existence, do you think I should avoid the film or is it safe to watch it? When answering please bear in mind that I also hardly ever get to go to the cinema.

We're going to see The Snow Queen at the Coliseum. I looked at the ROH but ordinary tickets seemed to be £140 each . We occasionally go to the opera (not ROH!) and enjoy it (we're a bit Classic fm rather than actual buffs, y'understand) and neither of us have seen a ballet before so we are giving it a go. And in Feb we're going to see Enron the play. I'll pretty much see anything at the theatre.

I did not have a high opinion of Mr ExMadonna, based solely on heresay and Heat, but he was on Top Gear the other night and seemed very ordinary and lacking ego. I don't think I've seen another of his films, never seen Lock Stock. So I'm not sure I can guarantee you won't want to pull out your - or my - eyeballs if you squander your annual trip on seeing it, but I thought it was ok. Though I wish they'd make proper movies these days - not remake (that makes me want to kill people) - just fims of the calibre of All About Eve or The Third Man, ones that are meaty and satisfying and don't spell things out to the audience.

Bessie I too kept my answer on that thread succinct - I'm not sure people want the truth. As for Guy Ritchie - I'd hope he's not filled it with convoluted dialogue which raises the same humour quotient in me as an episode of Top Gear... Twat. Posh twat at that. Why do people try to hide their roots? Double twat.

I love Rachel McAdams - Regina George anyone? And she's Canadian which is redemption in itself although she really needs to tell Anna Wintour to do one.

vag I'll be your cinema buddy! I suffer from exactly the same problem - husband not that interested in movies, me too lazy to organise outings.

Guy Richie does make me want to tear out my own eyeballs, purely because of the faux-working-class misogynistic shtick of Lock Stock etc. But Holmes has Robert Downey Jr. But then it has Jude Law - did any of you see The Holiday on the tellingvision the other night? Jude Law is terrifying in it - like a lizardy stalker. And he describes himself as a book editor. I have NEVER heard anyone specify the kind of editor they are. NEVER.

Hmm. Today I shall be mostly confuzzled.

I mean that the Jude Law character in The Holiday describes himself as a book editor. Not the actor Jude Law. Obv.

I sat through saw The Holiday the other night - pretty much cos TSF had gone to bed and I was too angry to be near him. It was offensively awful. But I've been thinking about it since and I don't think it needed to ahve been quite so bad. Thought Law & Winslet came off worst and wondered whether it had been written by Americans therefore was a dreadful twee impression of what "english" people speak and act like. The Americans coped better. Almost the inverse of Scarlett Johanssen and Helen Hunt in Lady Windermere's Fan - they just couldn't get their mouths round the foreign sounding dialogue. And none of the actors are as bad as they appeared in those two films. Felt sorry for them.

Camel - it's a date!

I couldn't bear to watch the Holiday, I was worried it might make me want to kill myself. Why would anyone make such a shit-looking film?

Camel - can I be your cinema buddy too? I NEVER get out.

Skihorse - I know what you mean re boarding school. Did you go to a school in Scotland?

Why oh why do they bother opening the office between Xmas & NY? What a steaming pile of shite it is being in work. Not that I'm breaking into a sweat by doing any, you understand.

Right, my views on wanting a baby. Still don't think I really do want one, just the getting diffed has now become a kind of battle of the wills between my brain & my ovaries. My nephew completely exhausted me on Boxing Day "sit here Auntie Laurie, play here Auntie Laurie, sing Auntie Laurie".

My boyf is a film gimp. He talks about the director, the lighting, camera angles - WTF?? Each Monday he gets the box office figures for various films. I was even dragged to the cinema for a 10 minute advert of Avatar! Not enough time to eat a bag of Maltesers!

Jude Law, now there's a twat......

Battle of wits even.

Battle of wits is well put, oh wise laurie. It's a face-off all right.

so confused, I scan read and thought your nephew was a film geek, and wondered how much of a child prodigy he was!

heh - I almost did some work, then.

Bessie Absolutely. You're just round the corner from me, aren't you?

What's worrying about The Holiday is that it was written and directed by the highest-paid female director in Hollywood, and it was clunky and awful. Vag I think you're right about the twee cod-Englishness of it all.

Jude Law has been rubbish in everything I've ever seen him in, apart from The Talented Mr Ripley when he just had to be burnished and beautiful. I did find myself screaming at Cameron Diaz in horror when the obviously drunk, floppy-haired twat appeared on her doorstep, claiming to know the owner of the house and she let him in! Why would you do that? Drunk man who you don't know? And then the character is really arrogant and all "women always fall in love with me and I always let them down" in touch with his inner pain and just ick.

Apparently I did not like this film at all.

Laurie Of course, the great joy of being in the office during this time is that we're not doing any work, but someone is paying us to be here?

Jude Law was the only good thing about The Talented Mr Ripley. How they could take a top book and a solid cast amd make a dull, turgid waste of time is utterly beyond me. The light went out fo the film once JL did, and not even Philip Seymour Hoffman could rescue it.

The most memorable moment of TTMR for me was the crushingly obvious cut when the noise of a train turned into the noise of the band in a jazz club. I could almost feel the director/editor patting themselves on the back for being clever.