Oktoberfest

October has come and it's been raining. A lashing bitch of a day was not what I wanted to see when I opened the door this morning, especially given that I had to do the trip to the Atrium on foot, my baritone case's handle carving deep canyons into my hand all the while.

But Pete complained last night that this is becoming a Joel blog rather than a house blog, so I shall keep it strictly at home this time.

And what's going on in the house right now?

Fifa night!

Basically, Cliffey bought Fifa 2011 this morning (it came out at midnight; Tom was in line at Tesco's before Cliffey was even back from work last night) and it's looking increasingly like we're going to spend the whole night at it. I suggested some sort of championship thing where we play every version of Fifa we have handy- we've got 6, across three different consoles - and see who's the best overall. But frankly I can't see that happening, so enamoured are we with this shiny new thing.

So here we are, Cliffey, Tom and me, in Cliffey's room, in our pyjamas, playing Fifa 'til the morning light. Tom's rung his dad to say he won't be home tonight, Cliffey's put an apple crumble in the oven for us, and we're settling in for the night. I've even opted to forgo the first episode of Strictly Come Dancing, although I imagine I'll catch it on catch up, big girl that I am.

I am aware that some people reading this won't be the least bit interested in Fifa - as Tom said earlier, "girls just don't get Fifa" - so I'll leave it be for a moment and mention Tim's send-off at The George last night. We trudged through the already sheeting rain to get there, and spent the whole time standing up, but several people were happy to spend quite a lot of money on the quiz machine so we were well entertained. Oh, and a guy came around with a camera and asked us if we'd like to be on the screens around the pub. We did, apparently, so he took a picture of us all and I for one will not be returning to The George for fear of seeing my own terrible visage grinning back at me.

Now more on Fifa! The soundtrack to Fifa '11 is pretty damn sweet, with music from the likes of LCD Soundsystem, Yeasayer, Dan Black, Dum Dum Girls...the list goes on. It's a world away from the old games, where you'd get a Moby song and then six dancey tracks you'll never be able to find outside of your PS1.

See what I did there? I made it so that people who don't like football can relate to the Fifa obsession going on around here.

As for those housemates who aren't playing Fifa (i.e. wasting their evenings), Pete just now stumbled in looking as though he's just gotten new eyelids and he's not used to them yet; Gem's sat in the living room watching TV and getting drunk on a bottle of rosé; and Soph's gotten over her food poisoning and is currently at a children's party.

Cliffey, Tom and I just had some apple crumble (£1 from Tesco) and custard (8p from Tesco), and it's beginning to look like a very good night indeed.

Joel.