In 2009 a user on the website Reddit decided to do a secret santa. Last Christmas 212483 people took part in the 2014 exchange. Alongside the big Christmas Secret Santa, redditgifts , the website they now use to host the exchanges, also do themed exchanges throughout the year. I've taken part in number of these over the last two years, videos of me unwrapping some of them can be found on my YouTube channel.

The latest of these has been the book exchange. As you can see from my video I got a great selection but the part I enjoyed the most was picking out books for my person. She told me she likes sci-fi/dystopian books and put the hunger games down as her favourite book. With this in mind I went to Waterstones picked up a copy of Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel as I'd enjoyed it so much myself a few weeks before hand. I also got another book that I've now forgotten the name of but the guy in the store recommended it to me and I thought why the hell not. Then I went down to Dulwich Books and enlisted Chloe's help in picking out 3 more. Dark Star by Olivier Longmead, a noir sci-fi written in epic verse, The Girl With All The Gifts by M. J. Carey a novel about zombie children and Red Rising by Pierce Brown, that Chloe described as the Hunger Games but better and with more death. All in all I think I did pretty well. It's great fun trying to put together a parcel for a stranger based purely on a few paragraphs they've written.


If you fancy taking part in a reddit exchange have a look here and see which ones are running at the moment: www.redditgifts.com

On 8th March I put on my dancing shoes and grabbed my friend Emma and headed up to Wembley Arena for a marathon dance session, a danceathon if you will.

All of this was in aid of comic relief. It was a 6 hour slog, changing styles every 30 minutes. The instructors who led each section were amazing and kept everyone going. I was particularly grateful for the diva session which came just as I was really flagging and regretting signing up about half way through. With the help of Britney, Beyonce, Xtina and friends as well as the only dance instructor I've ever seen wear a suit to teach in I got through that half hour and felt more energised.

A favourite moment from the day came during the bashment (no that is not a misspelling of basement like some of my unnamed friends thought. For those who have never heard of it before, it's Jamaican dance hall music.) section. The instructor's microphone kept failing and deafening everyone. A sound person ran on and tried to fix it but it was no good. After yet more ear splitting crackling noises the instructor had to run off leaving us and the stage full of celebrities left unsure what to do. It was at that point Rufus Hound stepped forward and improvised a routine for us all to follow. It was hilarious. You can see a bit of it in the video above.

I wore my Jawbone Up24 step tracker that day and was informed that by the end of the day I'd hit 20 miles worth of movement! On the train home I ate a KFC Big Daddy meal and for the first time in my life I've already burnt off the calories I was shovelling in my mouth.

The whole thing was exhausting but totally worth it. I had a great time, did some exercise and raised £265 for comic relief.

My sponsorship page is still live so if you are feeling generous and wish to help me get to £300 feel free to donate here: http://my.rednoseday.com/sponsor/laurenkane  thank you! x

One of my favourite things about the Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square is that instead of programmes they sell the play text with cast lists inside, all for the grand price of £3. Considering the average price of a play text is £10, despite quite often only being 100 pages long, this is an absolute bargain. About a month ago I started wondering if all their texts stay at £3 or if the price goes up after the show so I paid a visit to their online shop. Lo and behold they had quite a few on there for £3 but what really caught my eye was something labelled 'Surprise Playtexts'. For £10 you can get a lucky dip bag of 5 random plays. I immediately ordered and selected collect from box office to save me even more.

Now skip to last Wednesday when I saw a tweet from the Royal Court mentioning that their bookshop would be open at 4pm and suddenly I remember that I never collected those books! So on Friday, after a trip to Spitalfields City Farm*, we headed over to West London to collect the books. Unsurprisingly the woman in the box office told me the books hadn't been sent up to the box office (like I said I ordered them a month ago) and that I could collect them from the bookshop downstairs which opened at four. One handbag later and a good look through the kitchen and haberdashery sections at Peter Jones and we returned to the theatre to collect the books.

The bookshop is a small section downstairs in the bar, it's tiny in comparison to the National Theatre's bookshop. I've yet to have a drink there but it seems really nice. We were greeted by a very friendly man with magnificent glasses, who told me he didn't have any surprise bags already put together at the moment but he would go and pick some out now from his magical cupboard. As he left he asked if I was reading or writing so I felt like he was putting some thought into my "random" section.

The bookseller returned from his magical cupboard with a selection in his hand and stuck them in a white paper bag. "I don't know why, but I got you four female writers," he told me, "These are going to change your life." "Excellent!" I replied. Once outside I sat in the sun and had a look at what I got.





If you fancy getting your own surprise set of texts they are available from:
http://www.royalcourttheatre.com/shop

Royal Court Theatre is in Sloane Square next door to Sloane Square tube station. 
The bookshop is open Monday to Friday 4pm – 8pm Saturday 2pm – 8pm. 
Most productions do £10 tickets for Mondays which you can book on Monday the week before.



*If you wanna see a lamb being scared by a pigeon click here