1. I finally managed to get rid of that nasty cough. It still has a little rattle now and then but nothing like it was.
2. Ive been out and about and been on a couple of nice walks. Been to Balerno and walked in to Colinton, and went in the Station Bar for afternoon tea, with Anne.
3. I went to a Saturday night Fringe Festival show with a friend and saw a slide show demonstration which was put together by a Dundee artist called Stella Small.
4. This week I was at another NHS meeting and we discussed how we might work better as a committee. It is a voluntary body and has no Executive powers.
5. Ive been at my Volunteering I.T. work again this week, and its been good to get involved with the different people I help.
6. No luck on the Paid Job front as no offer of work has been forthcoming.
7. I went and saw another film at the Dominion Filmhouse. It was very funny, and was called: 'HAIRSPRAY'
8. Credits to Wikipedia, the Plot synopsis is as follows:
   May 3, 1962 begins the same as every other school day for Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky), an optimistic "pleasantly plump" high school student from the Highlandtown neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. She endures a day's worth of boring classes so that she and her best friend Penny Pingleton (Amanda Bynes) can race home in order to catch their favorite television show, The Corny Collins Show. The program, a local teen dance show, is broadcast in the afternoons from station WYZT, sponsored by "Ultra-Clutch" brand hair spray.
   Some of the teenagers featured on the show also attend Tracy and Penny's school, in particular snooty rich girl Amber von Tussle (Brittany Snow) and her heart-throb boyfriend Link Larkin (Zac Efron), on whom Tracy has a large crush. Amber's mother Velma (Michelle Pfeiffer), a former teen beauty queen, is the manager of station WYZT, from which Corny Collins is broadcast. In true stage mother fashion, Velma goes out her way to make sure Amber is prominently featured on the program and that Corny Collins remains a segregated program. Corny Collins (James Marsden) and all of his "Council Kids" are white, and perform only conservative dances choreographed by Velma herself. Despite Corny's objections, black teens dancing with white ones is seen as taboo. Black kids are only allowed on Corny Collins on "Negro Day", held the last Thursday of each month and hosted by local R&B radio dee jay "Motormouth" Maybelle Stubbs (Queen Latifah).
   Neither Tracy's plus-sized shut-in laundress mother Edna (John Travolta) nor Penny's strict Catholic mother Prudy (Allison Janney) approve of their daughters basing their lives around a TV show, particularly one where teens dance to "race music". On one day's show, Corny Collins (James Marsden) announces that one of his "Council Kids" is going on a leave of absence and auditions for a replacement will be held the next morning - during school hours. However, Velma turns Tracy away at the audition for being overweight and supportive of integration. Tracy is sent to detention for skipping school, but finds that detention hall is where all the cool black kids (and several of the dancers from "Negro Day" on Corny's show) hang out and dance. Befriending the detention hall's best dancer, Motormouth Maybelle's son Seaweed (Elijah Kelley), Tracy learns R&B dance moves from Seaweed that get Tracy a spot on The Corny Collins Show when Corny sees her dancing at a school dance he is hosting.
   
   Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky, right) dreams of her crush Link Larkin (Zac Efron, left) during driver's education class at school during the "I Can Hear the Bells" musical number from Hairspray.
   Tracy quickly becomes one of Corny's most popular Council Kids, and a threat to Velma's quest to have Amber win the show's yearly "Miss Teenage Hairspray" pageant. In addition, Tracy also becomes a threat to Amber's courtship with Link as the boy becomes increasingly fond of Tracy and less so of Amber. Tracy's popularity earns her a sponsorship offer from clothes salesman Mr. Pinky (Jerry Stiller), who wants Tracy to be the spokesgirl for his "Hefty Hideaway" boutique for plus-size women. Tracy convinces Edna to accompany her to the Hefty Hideaway and act as her negotiating agent, and in the process brings her mother's days as an introverted shut-in to an end.
   At school, Tracy eventually introduces Seaweed to Penny, and the black boy and white girl are instantly smitten with each other. One afternoon, Seaweed invites the girls and Link to follow him and his little sister Inez (Taylor Parks) to a platter party at Motormouth Maybelle's record shop. Amber is shocked to see her boyfriend following Tracy and Maybelle's children to North Avenue, and prevails upon her mother for help. Velma prepares to pay a visit to Tracy's father Wilbur (Christopher Walken), while Amber gets Edna out of the way by alerting her that Tracy has slipped over to the black section of town. Edna turns up at Maybelle's shop to retrieve her daughter, but ends up staying for the party, particularly when she catches sight of the soul food spread.
   It turns out that Maybelle threw the party to soften the blow of telling everyone that Velma has unceremoniously canceled Negro Day. Tracy suggests that Maybelle and the others stage a protest march, which they plan for tomorrow afternoon, the day before the Miss Hairspray pageant. Link, scheduled to sing at the pageant and worried about his budding career, backs out of the demonstration and accidentally offends Tracy in the process. A crying Tracy returns home with Edna, who finds Velma downstairs in Wilbur's "Hardy-Har Hut" joke shop attempting to seduce Wilbur (what Edna does not see, however, is that Wilbur is completely oblivious to Velma's sexual advances). The distraught Edna puts Wilbur out and bans Tracy from the Corny Collins set. Tracy helps her father sneak back into the house, and Wilbur is able to apologize to Edna and win her heart back.
   The next morning, Tracy sneaks out of the house to join the demonstrators in their march on the WYZT studio, where Velma has had the police set up a roadblock. Edna shows up at the protest looking for Tracy, but finds herself under arrest along with Tracy and the other protesters. Edna manages to help Tracy escape, and Tracy flees for Penny's house. Wilbur posts bail for Edna, Maybelle, Seaweed, and Maybelle's dancers, but no one knows of Tracy's whereabouts. Link, who saw the whole drama unfold on the TV news, turns up at the Turnblads' apartment hoping to apologize to Tracy, but no one knows where she is.
   Penny offers to let Tracy hide out in a basement shelter Prudy has designed to protect herself from Communists. However, Prudy discovers Tracy and calls the police, locking Tracy in the shelter and tying Penny up in her room with a jump rope. Seaweed and a few of Maybelle's dancers arrive and help Tracy and Penny escape to Maybelle's record shop, where the kids concoct a plan to crash the Miss Teenage Hairspray pageant.
   With the pageant underway the next afternoon, Velma, leaving nothing to chance, places policemen around and inside of station WYZT in order to prevent Tracy from entering the sound stage. In addition, Velma switches the tallies from the pageant's phone lines so that Amber is guaranteed to win. Penny arrives at the pageant with an incognito Edna, while Wilbur, Seaweed, and Maybelle's dancers help Tracy sneak past the police and into the studio in time to participate in the Miss Hairspray dance-off. Link breaks away from Amber's side to dance with Tracy, further demonstrating that he has changed by bringing Inez, who has just arrived at WYZT with Maybelle, to the stage to dance for the pageant. Seaweed and Penny take to the dance floor as well.
   Against all expectations, Inez receives the most votes and wins the pageant, officially integrating The Corny Collins Show. A perturbed Velma loudly declares her frustration, informing her daughter that "I switched the damn tallies!" Unknown to Velma, however, Edna has trained a camera on her, and Velma's outburst is broadcast over the air, getting her fired. Meanwhile, The Corny Collins Show set explodes into a celebration as everyone - even Edna - is invited to the stage to dance on TV. Corny and Maybelle combine their dancers into one team and begin co-hosting the show together, and Tracy and Link finally kiss.
9. Ratings, this is a truly excellent film. Great laugh, and has a message.