So... went on YouTube... typed in 'Roger Federer' (when you go to a search box on this computer and press 'r' it automatically brings up 'roger federer'... isn't that worrying?) and found the below video of Novak Djokovic impersonating Roger, Rafa, Roddick and more. It really made me laugh and then worried me... do we have another contender to Roger's place in my heart?!

If you don't find this funny, you either:

a) Need to watch more tennis to understand how absolutely SPOT ON this stuff is
b) are dead.

Dear Mr. Nadal,

Now, I'm not entirely sure who the hell you think you are. You may now be the number one tennis player in the world, but frankly, even such a title does not make me feel any warmer toward you.

Because, Rafael, you are not being fair. You see, I am a confirmed Roger Federer fan. I love everything about him. Everything. I love his tennis, his style, his charisma, his utter dorkiness and how unerringly beautiful he can look. I adore the man. And, by rights, that should mean I can hate you, his biggest rival.

I mean, you stole Wimbledon, you know? That was his, you git, and you beat him. Fuck you. Seriously. Fuck you. You're all talented, too, and now you're number one in the world. And while these career statistics are impressive, it is not for these I have questioned the tenacity of your being.

You see, if I can hate you, it's fine. And up until a couple of weeks ago, I did hate you. You kept beating Roger - that's not cool. And you looked really grumpy on court, and I managed to convince myself you were an arrogant bastard who wasn't even fit to tie Roger's shoelaces. I certainly didn't find you remotely attractive. Hating you was easy, so I did it with zeal.

And now... now, look what you've done. You've gone and been all likeable. Not a grumpy bastard, but a genuinely lovely, enthusiastic bloke. You keep saying really nice things about Roger. In everything I see you in or read about you, you seem absolutely adorable, like a hyped up puppy. And then I saw the photos of you looking sadly at Roger after you beat him at the French, where you really seemed to care about how he was feeling. And despite myself, I warmed to you. And that pissed me off.

Then today, I get online, I got to my beloved tennis communities. And I see the recent photos you've done, where you look absolutely blind stoppingly unbelievably sexual. Look at the picture above - I think that is a perfecf definition of the term "piercing eyes". And suddenly, I really fancied you, and added on to how I've come to like you as a bloke, that means... you're a bastard.

It was so much easier when I hated you. So, please, Rafael, please, please be moody, arrogant, sweaty and rather ugly. Because as dedicated as I am to Mr. Federer, pictures like the one above and lovely interviews like the many I have read... well, they'd test even the most dedicated Roger fans.

Love, Antonia Kelly.

PS. I would quite like to lick you.

I've discovered the joy of making icons. I always thought they'd just be too finicky but now I've realised it's a way of having a pretty without the work involved in wallpapers.

To be honest, I'm loving doing fanart. For so long, I've used PhotoShop for business purposes, and I'd forgotten how much fun it can actually be just making things pretty for the sake of making things pretty. At present I'm in the midst of a big Fedal wallpaper of photographs of Rafa looking upset to have beaten Roger in a match (one of which photos is also in the icons, it's the 'I Want You', the blue thing in the corner is Roger's shirt... Rafa's face is adorable. "I beats you. I is sorry.") and although all the blending, masking, colourisation and everything is done, I just can't think of way to finish it off. It's missing... something... but I'm not sure what.

Anyway, icons below. (NB: The yellow one of Rafa is meant to be "He's gold because he won gold" but I fear it looks more like "look! Rafa has jaundice!").





That aside, I'm knackered, all the time. Just gone through 'Super Tuesday' when we have lots of work on and tomorrow, it's 'Super Wednesday' with a corporate client and a domestic. Great... I just love sitting in the car outside (am too lazy to drive home, so shouldn't whinge really). Still, we have money. I like money. Saving up for Wimbledon, when I plan to ruin my London-based family's lives for a fortnight and hopefully attend the entire thing.

On a final sporting note: Nastia was robbed. I've always hated South Africans.

Paula Radcliffe finished the Olympic marathon, then. I've got to say I was pleased. I knew she wouldn't win it, and I like to think I was slightly kinda than Paul (who LiveJournal-ed at the time of the race with "Fuck's sake Paula, run you lazy bitch") and I mostly just wanted her to finish. Which she did. Okay, so it was in 23rd, but she finished, which I hope goes some way to healing the wounds of Athens. She's from Leicestershire, ya know...

Then, lovely Rafa won Olympic Gold. I got to see the last couple of matches, after basically passing out with sheer exhaustion when we got back from Paul's Sunday class (at 10.30am. On SUNDAY. It's just cruel, but it's what the clients want, so we are just little monkeys...) and missing pretty much the entire match. Still, both boys got gold, which works very nicely as I had a gold-themed song lyric in mind for a wallpaper/fanart I'm going to do!

Other Olympics happy included Louis Smith winning bronze on the pommel horse (totally didn't see that coming, good lad) and now I'm awaiting the replay of the girls' apparatus finals so I can see my girl crush, Nastia Liukin, in action.

We have tomorrow off, which is an absolute miracle, and I shall be sleeping and watching the Olympics. Don't tell me hubby and I don't know how to par-tay...

The photos of Roger and Stan after their gold medal win are absolutely lovely. And also? Total gift for us tennis-slashers.

They're the new Fedal, you know...

(NB: Whenever, wherever that song is on, on the 'gold!' lyric, Paul punches the air. He did it in Asda once. But still, who doesn't love a bit of Spandau Ballet?)

Anyway, yes, Roger is now an Olympic champion, with help from Wawrinka (but I think we all know who was the real class act of that pairing). I was knackered after listening to the swimming until the wee hours (congrats Becky Adlington!) and although I managed to make it through the Djokovic game without as much as a yawn, I actually fell asleep in the late third set of Roger's game.

I fell asleep. Watching Roger play tennis. I can only assume I've recently developed severe narcolepsy, because that never happens to me. I mean, is Roger. Like Roger. Roger lickable. Watch Roger play tennis = happy. Very strange. Anyway, I came round in time for the fourth and got to see him win. Very odd celebrations (and he got whacked in the cheek when Wawrinka was trying to bounce him up and down, bless!) and then there was the absolutely adorable "Roger doesn't know how to stand on a podium" moment, so all in all, I'm happy, and jonesing for the US Open. And obviously, good luck to Rafa.

That aside, life is busy. Too busy. Business is booming and I'm just exhausted, seemingly all the time. Still, I'm planning to make enough money and get enough time to go to Wimbledon next year, because I really have taken tennis to my heart recently. I've always enjoyed it, always watched, but recently (and probably due in no small part to it being the rugby off season; a girl needs her sporting fix) I've really started to love it.

It is so nice, because whenever I think of how Tigers (my beloved rugby team) treated our most recent coach, I feel quite shamed. I've supported this team my entire life, have been seriously ill and still made it to games to cheer on the boys, and I've always been so fiercely proud of our reputation, honour and ethos. But what we did to Loffreda was just horrid... the guy didn't even get a season in charge and we threw him out because we had some dodgy results. I mean, yes, we are TIGERS, we expect to win, but he only had eight months for Christ's sake... so yes, I'm enjoying tennis because it doesn't make me feel slightly dead inside when I think about my favourite players.

I really hope the shame about Tigers' recently behaviour changes when the season starts, because I hate feeling like this about a team I have given my life to.

But still... ROGER IS AN OLYMPIC CHAMPION! Happy day.

Roger as Lolcat.

I'm writing fanfiction. I'm making fanart.

Am I 14 again?

Last night, Madam (aka Darcy) went missing for a good four hours, bringing back horrible memories of her 20-hour outside stay. Naturally, Paul and I set up a vigil. When she finally returned, Paul brought her back into the bedroom, and the following conversation took place:

Me: "Is she okay?"
Paul: "Yeah, she's fine."
Me: "She's not hurt?"
Paul: "No. Bit of a messy face, but not hurt."
Me: "Right. I'm going to kill her."

Obviously I didn't, but seriously, that cat is a bloody pain. Austin and Donncha are uber reliable when it comes to coming home on time, but Princess Paws? Not a chance.

Anyway, due to Madam's outside wanderings at 4am, I slept in. "It doesn't matter!" I told myself confidently when I remembered My Lovely Roger was playing his quarter-finals at the Olympics. "He'll go through and I'll get to perve at the semis." And so I slept on, seemingly forgetting that Roger's form has been slightly... off... in recent months.

So I missed the match. And he didn't go through.

After feeling deeply depressed and wanting to fly to Beijing to give him a huge, huge hug, I discovered I could still watch his doubles match, which has been postponed. I then spent fifteen entire minutes trying to find out when it's been postponed too, and only after extensive Googlings did I get the answer. "Information super highway" the internet is not.

Poor Roger.

Still, Rafa's in fine form. But not the same as having Roger there...

A very long time ago, a girl named Antonia was obsessed with boybands a1 and Westlife. Antonia had always wanted to be a writer and decided to flex her keyboard fingers and write some fan fiction. Soon, she had her own website and people were paying for her fics as presents for friends. She became known for how heartbreakingly horrible she could be to her characters, though obviously things always turned out okay in the end.

Then Antonia grew up, and stopped liking a1 and Westlife. She shut the website. She bought lipgloss and eyeliner with her tiny commission money and figured the whole thing was just an immature thing that might also help in her ambition to be a fiction writer for real one day.

For many years Antonia looked back on her fanfiction career with a mixture of shame and pride. Shame, because really, fan fiction? And pride, because she'd been successful. She figured that if you were going to do something as cringe-worthy as writing fan fiction for boybands, you might as well be good at it. Some of her stories are still on Westife websites today, nearly ten years after they were first written. She was always pleased she'd gotten married and changed her name, as she was now a proper business owner with her husband Paul, and even if people did Google her name, nothing fanfiction related would come up under the surname "Kelly". She'd also made a living out of writing and really didn't want people associating her with that kind of writing.

Then one day, during the Beijing Olympics, it occured to Antonia that she wasn't in any tennis communities. Though a rugby union girl through and through, during the off-season she transferred affections to tennis as easily as she had switched between boybands as a teenager. Innocently, she searched for "Roger Federer", the love of her tennis life, on the "Interests" section of LiveJournal, and found herself thrown into the world of Fedal (Federer/Nadal) fanfiction.

At first, she scoffed. She blogged about it on her proper blog and thought it was mad. Then she read some. And some more. And suddenly, she was remembering why she'd loved fanfiction all those years before, and she became so engrossed in the community she started to neglect her duties as co-ordinator for her husband's business. She was too busy reading fanfiction.

Then it came back. The need. The desire to write. The desire to write something about Fedal, to be a fanfiction girl again. Before she knew what had happened, plots were flowing through her mind, ideas. Just how much horror could she put Fedal through before the happy ending? Could she manage to get a grasp of Nadal's Spanish elocution? In the midst of business work, she'd been neglecting her own supernatural book writing. She loved the book she was working on, felt it was much better than the first, but books are hard work... fanfiction doesn't have to be. And soon, she knew. She was going to write fanfiction again, but Fedal fanfiction this time.

And instead of feeling shame, she felt proud, for the first time in her fanfiction life. Because writing is all about bringing joy, and besides, you can never have too much practice. Maybe writing some Fedal fiction would help her novel writing, just like writing Westlife fiction had taught her how to craft a plot and finish a story. And though business is so busy she hasn't had chance to write yet, she knows she will. And she is ever so thankful to <lj user="fedal_fans"> for changing her feelings about fanfiction, and the way her writing career began.

She also talks about herself in the third person. She hates people who do that.

Probably.

I know I haven't updated here at all recently... we were sans internet for ages following a flat move (new flat rawks) and mostly I just blog at Drama, She Wrote now.

Also, got me a Twitter: antoniajane if anyone's interested...

And er, that's it. How're YOU?

Originally posted on antoniakelly.vox.com

Where I've been blogging:

Drama, She Wrote - personal blog

Three Cats In A Flat - cat blog with products reviews and anecdotes and blogs from the three cats

Emerald blogs in their new homes:

Talking Ballots - politics blog.

Impotent Fury - Paul's rant blog

New Emerald sites:

Emerald French Services

Originally posted on antoniakelly.vox.com

http://www.justgiving.com/paulkellypdsa

Yep, Paul is throwing himself out of a plane to raise money for the PDSA. Please donate if you can!

And I am totally okay with this.

And by "totally okay" I mean "totally terrified" but he wants to do it so... yeah. 

Originally posted on antoniakelly.vox.com

Got me a new home: dramashewrote.wordpress.com

I'll probably still copy and paste up here though, so you neighbourhood/friends list people don't have to bother to visit the new URL.

Originally posted on antoniakelly.vox.com

For the past week or so, I've been getting the worst bouts of depression when I'm trying to go to sleep.

This is quite unusual, as while I can definitely be a moody cow, I don't really suffer from depression. I'm actually chipper the majority of the time, which really annoys Paul, especially when I'm happy as a clam in the mornings and he wants to die.

The depression starts the moment I turn the light off, and within seconds I'm laid there thinking about the world ending, the cats dying and then - the big fear - losing Paul. Sometimes I stress about him finding a girl who isn't mentally retarded and physically bollocksed and buggering off and leaving me. Nasty as those thoughts are, they're better than the second type of Paul-related-depression; the idea of him dying.

My entire life I seem to have worried about people I love dying. I vividly remember being about six and clinging on to my Mum and crying, begging her not to die. This was way before she got sick. I have these fits of burning desire to tell people how much I love them. I think it comes from actually having a lot of people I care about die; three grandparents, one best friend and of course my mother.

I used to console myself quite easily when I thought of Paul dying; I'll just top myself. Easy. But then I thought more about it, and how I'd still have to spend some time alive while Paul was dead. Then I started wondering what would happen to the cats, and now I know I couldn't kill myself if I lost Paul because I'd need to stay alive for my babies. So I lay in bed, my mind going nuts and my stomach churning.

It always ends the same way. I wake Paul up and blurt out endless blurb about how much I love him, how much I need him etc. I then tend to cry and apologise for things I've said or done to him, events which are sometimes five years old. Paul has become skilled at dealing with this, though I can't imagine me contemplating his death is a bunch of fun for him. He lets me cling on to him and cry and tell him I love him, before I exhaust myself into sleep. By the next morning I'm absolutely fine and also, very embarrassed. But recently it's been happening every night, and I'd quite like it to stop now. Please?

Usually I then ask Paul to tell me a story. He once told me an hour long story about a donkey who wanted to be an architect. It was very funny and pulled me out of my slump, so today he told me a story about a ladybird who became the Pope's official carpenter. It's little things like this that make me love him so much.

Anyway. Last night we watched the Super Tuesday coverage and... uh... nothing happened much. The Democratic race is still wide open, though leaning toward Hilary, and though it looks like McCain will get the Republican nomination, it's by no means certain. My overall feeling after six hours of coverage was disappointment.

I've also told the police what happened with the car denting crazies. It's in their hands now, so we shall see.

Oh, and some woman from Lloyds was tremendously condescending to me when I phoned to ask where the hell my new debit card is (ordered two weeks ago). So I've made an official complaint which makes, count em, complaints to BT, KFC, the GMC about my doctor and Lloyds in the last week. Don't mess with Toni, she really is enough of a busy body to complain all the time. I'm that sad.

Originally posted on antoniakelly.vox.com

The police didn't come last night. (If you don't know what I'm on about, here's the explanatory post). Apparently they were on their way when some major disaster happened and all units had to go there. I found this out when I phoned at 4am, because they didn't bother to tell me they weren't going to be able to make it last night.

Okay, so we were up anyway, watching the Superbowl, which was fanfuckingtastic.  I got very excited when the Giants scored their last-minute touchdown, which surprised me. The catch on the left was pure brilliance and has totally made me want to follow American football properly now.

So yes, we were up and excited anyway, but we could have done with being informed of them not coming that night.

We did, however, get a very, very long answerphone message this morning arranging an appointment for 10am tomorrow. We haven't heard anything more from the car denting maniacs, but I'm still reporting them. Turns out the police can trace the call even though they did 141, and they made the mistake of telling me where they were calling from anyway. In a way I'd like them to call so we can record them, but at the same time, I don't need to hear anymore of their threats. I know it's all talk but I'm a first rate panicker, so it's not great for me.

I actually had some rather huge anxiety stuff when I was trying to fall asleep last night. Paul was sound asleep so I was laid there trying to convince myself to stop freaking out and that I really do not having throat cancer. But that aside, I'm feeling a lot more cheerful today as with daylight came the realisation that the madmen can do precisely nothing to us and they are the ones in trouble with the police, not us. I forgot to mention before that at first they claimed I'd dented their car, left my number on their windscreen and they wanted £100 to pay for the damage. I know for a fact this never happened (I never go out!) so they switched tack to the whole "unpaid cheque" thing. Who knows what the truth is, but I'm beginning to think we're just unlucky and some standard scammers are trying to pull their crap on us by throwing around some meaningless threats.

It doesn't stop the fact that our landlord told them which car was mine. He definitely did, as the scammers named him and also said he'd told them we were in rent arrears. How else would they know this, when they don't even know my name properly? They keep calling me "Mrs. Smith" for God's sake but they know what type of car I drive, the name of our landlord and that we're in arrears?! Come on! And we know the landlord has been around recently because flat four is vacant again and he's showing it. I'm not even sure what to do about the landlord giving this information - and let's face it, he must have known what they planned to do to the car, as why else would they want to know? - but I will tell the police.

I'm not the kind of person to take their threats and let it go. I'm a call-the-police kind of girl. Paul wouldn't have, but I'm not taking crap like that. It's harassment and it's illegal, so I refuse to just let it go.

That aside, I'm a lot better, though Paul's still sick as a very sick Irishman. I keep getting nose bleeds and my throat is a bit sore, but I'm 90% better.

Also, the cats have been spacking for five straight hours now, and I'm going to have to kill one of them is they don't CALM THE HELL DOWN.

Still, good things (this is becoming a habit):

• America's Next Top Model cycle nine starts tonight *squeeeeee*
• Super Tuesday tomorrow
• The Giants won the Superbowl, which was our desired result.

There's always good things :)

Originally posted on antoniakelly.vox.com

Tonight I got a phone call. From a man claiming I've given him a cheque for £100 which hasn't cleared. He told me he'd already dented my car as "payback" and was going to do more damage to it, and I should "watch myself" as he's "known in Leicester" and will "have [me] done in".

Okaaaaaaaaaaay.

Now, I did notice a dent in the drivers door of the car before it broke down, but there's so many little nicks and scrapes on that car that I just figured I'd not noticed it before. But apparently not, apparently it is "payback" for this cheque I have no record or memory of writing and have been unable to find a bounced cheque on my bank account details.

So I hung up on him.

And phoned the police.

Even if I have done this (and I really don't think I have) then this isn't the way to go about resolving the issue. What kind of sane person calls up and threatens someone to such an extent?

So now it's Superbowl night, 2.30am, and we're still waiting for a police officer to come and take a statement. In the mean time, that lovely fellow has called back with more threats, but annoyingly he hasn't called since we figured out we can record calls.

I got myself so wound up about his calls that I had the mother of all anxiety attacks, and by the time the police come that will be two of the three emergency services called here this evening. The ambulance people were very nice and gave my oxygen, then tried to persuade me to go to hospital, which I point blank refused because I want to make a statement to the police tonight.

Oh, and did I mention that bastard knew which car was mine because our landlord told him?

I wish I was making this up. I wish this endless disaster rotation was just a figment of my imagination.

Now somebody tell me I'm not a naturally unlucky person. I'm afraid you non-believers in my amazing jinx like ability are on shaky ground at the moment.

If I sound bitter and wrung out by all of this endless crap (car nearly going on fire, virus, tooth problems, toilet overflowing, bathroom flooded) well, that's because I am. And I'm pretty sure it's all happening because I made the mistake of feeling positive a few days ago.

Bah. 

Originally posted on antoniakelly.vox.com

I'm supposed to be re-designing Paul's French business website because he keeps getting new students, and the idea of paying customers actually seeing the dross I've put up there and half-arsedly called a "design" is criminally embarrassing. As has already been pointed out to me (thanks Meri! Love you!) he still is getting students with the crap design, but they're just the ones we know about. What about those people who Google for a French tutor, see the website and run a mile? And they exist, because there's more Google hits than there is students.

So I could be doing that.

What I am actually doing is pissing myself laughing at the archives of I Can Has a Cheezburger? and squealing in delight at the discovery of the sister site I Has A Hotdog. However, I am still sick as a very sick thing and every time I laugh I cough for ten minutes.

Here's a LIST!

• Superbowl tonight. Paul's big into American football and I'm... learning... but this will be our third Superbowl in a row and it's always fun. And okay, so I mainly watch so I can see Johnno (love him! Miss him! Come play rugby again, Martin!), but still.
• Super Tuesday is in just two days. *Excitement re: politics*
• England's loss will probably mean Brian Ashton's days as coach are numbered.
• I finally emailed Sinead Moriaty. She is an Irish writer responsible for books such as "Perfect Match" and "The Baby Trail". In these books, the husband of the main character is the Leinster rugby coach. And you'd think the woman would research rugby before writing this, wouldn't you? But no. It's woefully painfully bad - a lineout becomes a "line up" in one of the worst Damages to Rugby - but mostly I laugh at Edinburgh being described as "great team". So I've emailed her saying hey, not all of your readers are rugby blind, GET A GRIP and write something that makes sense. A shame, as I quite enjoy her books, but the rugby stuff is so terrible I had to write. I was nice, actually, but it had to be done.
• Paul is sound asleep on the sofa, snoring very, very loudly.
  
• I still have tooth ache.
  
• I wrote all the evil letters that have been piling up wanting to be written. Official, boring stuff, which also included two compaints - one to BT for something much too dull to go into, and one to Asda complaining about the mad shelf stacker who grabbed my cheek a few weeks back. There is no Toni like a Toni scorned.
  
• That grey patch of hair is still here.
  
• We installed the new desk phone. God I love landline telephones. I think since we've lived here (three years) we've had about fifteen. They don't have to be funny or novelty or anything, I just love phones. Now we have a cordless, which I love, and the new desk phone, which has a nice shaped handset.
  
• What a weird passion to have, eh?
• The bathroom is slowly drying out after The Flooding. The heater is on in there 24/7 so at the moment it's like taking a trip to the Equator when you need to pee.
  
• I'm going now!
  

Originally posted on antoniakelly.vox.com

In short: the toilet blocked and overflowed yesterday and we couldn't get hold of the landlord. We had to phone a plumber and when it came to paying time, had to pretend we'd lost my cheque guarentee card and gave them a dodgy cheque which we will have to use money we don't have to clear. The cost, for fifteen minutes in the flat, was an extortionate £110.40. I then found out I've had more bank charges added to my account so my pay day on Wednesday will give us maybe £6.

We're both still sick as dogs.

I went to bed at 7pm thinking I'd definitely, definitely wake up in time for the Six Nations first day, the first game being at 1.30pm. Yet I still managed to sleep through half of Ireland vs. Italy and all of England vs. Wales bar the last ten minutes. Ireland were dross but somehow won, whereas England were dross and lost to the fucking Welsh at HQ. Way to compound a girl's misery, thanks England.

And to add to the whole dying-of-a-virus stuff, six teeth on my upper right hand side are excruciatingly painful for no reason and I sure as hell can't pay for a dentist visit.

We never did get any snow.

Our ouija board spelled out "fuck" and we had to shut the board in case anything worse came through, so that achieved nothing.

For the first time in months, I dreamed of the gremlins. I really didn't think I'd ever see them again.

So all in all, it's fair to say, February SUCKS.

Originally posted on antoniakelly.vox.com