My office knows more about Gossip Girl than I do ...

Last night I watched a weird drug movie called Layer Cake. It was confusing, but I feel like if I had paid more attention it would have been better. We got distracted because people kept coming in and telling us if we heard that Walkabout closed down. That is the bar that all of us go to on Monday nights for pound drinks. Apparently it just disappeared a few days ago and there is no furniture in the place or anything now. I went once and didn't like it too much, so I don't really care. But it made me mad cause I kept missing the movie.

Anyway, today was a very busy day at the place where I intern for academic credit and am required to keep a journal on for my class. I took the usual walk into class down past 7 dials and stopped at the ATM off of Trafalgar square. I decided to only get out 60 pounds of cash last week to see if I could live on just the allotted stipend money (which comes out to be about 7.50 pounds per day). I barely made it, since I had 3 one-pound coins left in my wallet. I did cheat once when I went to the store and used my credit, but I also bought a lot of expensive drinks with cash, so it balances out. I went through security and Simon immediately took me into the palace where my boss was in a committee meeting for Welsh affairs. We handed him something and went back to the office. The committee meeting corridors are really fancy looking. Simon asked me what my policy interests were, and I told him education and energy. I really have a lot of different policy interests, but I feel those two are the most important long-term domestic policy problems in the US right now (as well as tax and economic policy, but I digress).

Back in the office Peter handed me a 60 page long government report on making government more efficient with technology and told me to summarize it. I spent a long time highlighting important stuff my boss might be interested in and typed up a one page memo about it. Somehow we got into a discussion about Gordon Brown and Sarah Palin. Peter said he met Gordo once in the bathroom at a Labour convention. We talked about who the GOP for candidate for 2012 could be if not Palin (please God not Palin ...). I suggested Michael Steele, ND graduate and Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, or Bobby Jindall. I should have also said Matt Blunt in hindsight. We talked about the Daily Show, and I told them I didn't like how lots of young people in this country get their news from him in an incredibly slanted format.

At lunch we talked about former interns they had, Avatar, Entourage, and Gossip Girl. I swear these guys know more about American pop-culture and tv shows than I do. I need to go watch some tv so I can keep up with them. One of their former interns is another SLUH graduate, Ben Farley. Tim Malecek also interned in Parliament last year. U High domination. After lunch we went back to the office and Sporcled for a while to waste time (last semester's intern introduced them to this miracle of a website). Simon and I did the British monarchs (took us forever to get Lady Jean Gray) and Peter got through all 50 states without my help. They said they always missed "the square ones in the middle," but they can get the east and west coasts. Yeah flyover states. I told them they better remember Missouri from now on. We were all about to start another quiz when our boss walked in. We immediately pulled up word documents or the BBC on our computer screens and pretended like we were typing something. I had to hold back laughing for a few minutes while our boss was talking to them.

After doing some real work, I tagged along with my boss to a committee meeting on the selection of the new Prison Inspector . It was basically an exit interview with the old inspector about problems she had and suggestions for future candidate qualities and such. It was very interesting to hear the questions and see my MP in action acting as the committee chair. The committee rooms are very nice with a big u-shaped table and chairs on the outside for the public. I had to leave at the break in the meeting to get back to the flats and eat a quick dinner before our second class theater experience.

We went to a play called Rope at the Almeida Theatre in Islington, a nice neighborhood north of our flats. It is about two college kids who murder one of their classmates for pure fun in an attempt to make the perfect murder. They get caught. It is similar to the plot of Murder by Numbers. Unlike The 39 Steps, where I had no opinion about the acting, I felt like one of the actors way over-did his part, while the main character didn't show enough emotion. I'm becoming a critic. I guess that's the point of the class, though. Tomorrow after class I am going to a reception for a conference on Internet Governance that my MP is presenting at. Conveniently, I am in class all day for the academic parts, but I was invited to come to the reception and glad hand some people. Should be fun, but it should be another busy day tomorrow. Lots of coffee.