180!

I saw J this morning.
He is my ex Brother in Law and rents a house from me.
I mentioned that one of his neighbours had been see with an extra dog. He confirmed this was the case and that it was her lodger's, who was in prison.
This got my attention and I asked the question any rational person would ask.
"Oh Yeah? What's he in for?
The answer I got...
"He hit some bloke down the pub over the head with the oche."
Just to make sure I asked,
"What? The oche for the darts?
J confirmed this was the case.
I haven't laughed so much in ages and it has repeated on me all day.

My major piss off of the day is people who send text messages to my house phone.
The number is read out, which means I have to trawl through my mobile's "phone book" to see who it is.
Then, because of text speak, it makes no fucking sense whatsoever.
This is one of the reasons I don't answer the house phone at all.

Desert Ireland

A couple of weeks ago, while on the way to the Nun planting, I listened to Desert Island discs.
It popped into my head last night while I was spewing (seafood!), so I listened to it again.
The guest was J.P Donleavy.
Bizarrely, I had never heard of him but I had heard of his book, The Ginger Man.
Probably because they are making a film of it with Johnny Depp in the Sebastian Dangerfield role.
It’s a story about an American studying at Trinity in Dublin, when
he realises his ‘mission is to fornicate and philosophise’.

I have been to Dublin many times, with just that kind of mission in mind.
I got very little of the former and too much of the latter!
And if I’m honest, a couple of crippling hangovers.
Apart from the trip for a tattoo, in a strange, dark place on Capel Street, but that’s another blog!
Although, I did have a Priest come out to me in a hectic Gay pub called The George, another strange, dark place!

If you get the time, or the inclination, have a listen on the Radio 4 website.
Not only does he tell a brilliant story about Brendan Behan breaking into his house, correcting his manuscript and stealing his shoes.
(I occasionally, inadvertently, steal people’s lighters. Stealing shoes is fucking Hardcore!)
He has one of those resonant voices and distinct accents, in the tradition of Richard Burton.
I could listen to him read the Argos catalogue.

Go On!
Imagine Richard Burton describing a Sovereign Necklace, a pair of Creole earrings and an articulated, bejewelled clown.
Brings a tear to the eye and a clench to the sphincter, doesn‘t it?!

Donleavy also has a reputation for being able to knock people out with one punch and is faster now, than he ever was!
I like that. Brains and Brawn.

Boston Legal Line of the night, spoken by Denny Crane,
“The midget I’m dating might be my daughter”.

Grub

I have had a headache all day and I haven‘t been able to concentrate. Nothing really awful but I have got to get some new specs I think!
Trying to suss out a way I can claim for the lost pair on the House Insurance at the moment.

There is a programme on BBC2 at the moment called Taste Of My Life. Chef, Nigel Slater talks to famous people about food, what favourites they have and how it fits into certain periods of their life. This culminates in what they would have for their Final Feast and who they’d share it with.
Food plays a huge part in my life and my childhood memories, so I find it a really interesting show.
This is what I’ve decided I would have.

Breakfast… 2 perfectly poached eggs on white toast. Mug of tea and a fag.
Then I just want to graze on, Tapas sized portions of:
Liver, Onions, Mashed Potato, Peas and Gravy.
Sturgeon and Salmon Caviar.
Bagels and Lox.
Goulash.
Meringue. Just the meringue cases, I don’t want any of that shit that is usually stuffed in it.
Cauliflower Cheese.
Bottle of Sancerre (Not Tapas size!)
Vegetable Pakora with Chilli and mint dips.
Monster Munch pickled onion flavour.
Falafels.
Apple Strudel.
French Onion soup.
Bottle of Pineau Des Charentes.
Coffee.
Cigarettes.

Yummers.

Pruned II

Look at that poor bastard!

Pruned

The disgustingly good weather and guilt drove me into the gardens and grounds of Sleepy Mansions.
I decided to ‘prune’ things and have totally brutalised the Grape Vine. Discovered Rhubarb though.
I’ll be surprised if I haven’t banjaxed it completely.
Any normal person, realising their mistake, would have put down the shears then, not I!
I waded into the apple trees.
Basically, everything in my garden looks like that kid at school, whose untrained, eccentric Mum, cut their hair.

Why is it that your own cat never seems to recognise you when you are in the garden?
Mine always look really shocked to see me and get all scatty if I go near them. Tossers.
Stuff is happening out there.
Things are budding, or they were until I opened the back door, took a lungful of spring day and decided pruning needed no training.
It’s Spring and thankfully it’s quite forgiving.

The Rice Crispies advert is annoying the arse off of me.
A kid is sat at the breakfast table with a few grains of Basmati in her hand and asks Mum why it doesn’t pop.
Mum, all dressed, showered, bright and cheerful, gives her a perfectly rational reason.
This encourages the precocious little bitch, and she asks another question.
This is the point where I have to suspend belief.
She gets an equally pleasant response to that too.
Amazing!

ATM would have been stood, if up at all, in oversized tee shirt, sporting hair that had been mysteriously back combed during the night, cup of coffee in one hand and a Peter Stuyvesant Blue smouldering, like her ire, in the other.
The first question wouldn’t have been heard because she would have been too busy seething at being awake.
The second would have got,

‘SHUT UP! And eat your breakfast!
Don’t think you are wasting milk by throwing that down the sink and don’t think I’m driving you if you’re late.
Questions? How can you have questions at this time of the morning?
Have you taken your tablet? Has anyone SEEN her take her tablet?
What am I signing?
Dinner Money? You have free school dinners. How can you rent out a dinner pass?’

I’ve added punctuation. All this would have been said in one, gradually more hysterical, breath.

Not the calm and loving start this brat has to her day I can assure you.

Treaties, Titties And Tuning

An amazing day in ‘Norn’ Ireland. Somehow it doesn’t seem real and I’m just waiting for something to kick off.
Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams sat together, singing from the same hymn book, as it were, was really surreal.
What’s that bit from Revelation? When certain things start laying down with others?
Just a thought.
I’ve watched a few different news reports and they do not once make eye contact.
Never, Never, Never!
Paisley has turned in to that bloke from ‘The Vicar Of Dibley‘.
“No,No,No,No….. Yes.”

The NHS in some areas, has got rid of ante-natal and breast feeding classes.
I have to admit that I am totally in the “So Fucking What?” group on this one.
Breast feeding classes for fuck’s sake? How difficult is that?
Uck out a tit and attach the kid by the end that has the eyes, they do the rest.
Humankind has been doing this for millions of years but now some idiot needs fucking lessons!
You have seriously got to doubt Darwin sometimes.

I don’t have kids but I have lots of nieces and nephews.
While my sister was on honeymoon, I looked after my 3 month old niece for three days.
It was all pretty straight forward; feed her, burp her, change her and bathe her.
Until she wouldn’t sleep.
The irony was not lost on ATM and she was fit to burst with a touch of the,
‘Ha! See How You Like It’s’.
I had no problem with that at all. I was awake anyway!
Pompey police seemed to object to me pushing the pram up and down the seafront at 4am though.
I got stopped at least six times in two days.

I really need an idiots guide to tuning a Mandolin.
My Grandfather used to do it for me and him not living forever, has proved a bit of an inconvenience.
I can get it by ear, eventually, but it just takes so frigging long.
The strings make horrible straining, tortured sounds.
I’ve convinced myself that they will snap and slice my eyeball, in an ironic Bunuel-esque tuning accident.
So doing it at arms length, with my face turned slightly away, anticipating blindness, isn’t ideal.
Any suggestions/tips would be gratefully received.
(Don’t suggest electronic tuning devices!)

Let Me Eat Cake

It’s a sad Sunday. No Premiership football because of the International matches.
How shit were England? I’m having a quid on Andorra on Wednesday, in fact I’d have a bet on my local pub side beating them at the moment.

I decided I wanted Fairy Cakes.
I didn’t really want the cakes I just wanted to lick the mixture out of the bowl.
Who else promised themselves as a kid, that when you had your own place you’d make up a bowl and just eat the mixture?
Who did and felt sick?
I was nauseous for ages the first time.
My sister always promised that she would have paper cups and plates, so she would never have to wash or dry up again.
Unfortunately, she got in touch with her inner chav and fell in love with the Argos Eternal Beaux range.
Fucking hideous stuff.
Maybe it’s just me, but I hate eating off hexagonal plates, especially if the pattern matches the toaster and the pedal bin.

The first thing that became apparent is that I have no idea what actually goes into a ‘fairy cake’. This is the kind of information Nan’s and some Mums know, as well as the weights for each ingredient.
Not ATM though.
A woman who hasn’t met a ‘ready’ meal or cake she hasn’t liked. She also has a deep relationship with anything pre cooked and frozen, like potatoes, parsnips and Yorkshire Puddings.
We thought Aunt Bessie and Betty Crocker were elderly relatives we didn’t see that often.
The second thing is that they are fucking labour intensive.

When I was a kid and took a turn at the ‘creaming’ butter and sugar stage, I thought my arm tired really quickly.
Had nothing to do with me being a kid.
My arm tired just as quickly. There are ‘cake’ muscles.
It would seem I’ve been putting these muscles to completely the wrong use all these years.

At last I have watched ‘Little Miss Sunshine’. Brilliant film!
Laughed out loud.
A lot.

Satanic Spoons

Never underestimate the ‘soaking’ ability of a lone spoon in the sink.
Somehow it hits you all in one lump and soaks to the skin.
I have had a cold, damp reminder.
Even worse if the spoon is in a mug, this somehow causes a vortex and a directional water spout.
I go through absolute horrors if any of this water hits me in the mouth.
I think it’s the idea that it might be ‘washing up’ water.
Isn’t it amazing how in those situations your mind goes immediately blank.
I grabbed a plate from the drainer to deflect the spray and a knife to poke the spoon out of the way of the stream.
All very Arthurian but why didn’t just turn the fucking tap off?

Luckily, I’ve never had a ‘chip pan’ fire.
At this moment, I know the damp tea towel thing is the treatment.
Faced with one, and using the spoon in the sink as a guide?
You know I’m going to die in that fire!
You can hear the pathologist at the coroner’s court,

“For some reason she had tied a damp tea towel around her face, was wearing one oven glove and was armed with a bin lid and a broom. There is also evidence she poked the fire with the broom handle.”

Verdict.. Death by ‘mind went blank‘.

Sassy and Robbie have been round for food this evening. We have eaten, drunk, smoked loads, chatted, laughed and grooved.
Most agreeable.

The most pointless thing I have seen today.. The sticky ‘re-sealable’ tab on family size bag of Maltesers.
Pah!

The clocks went forward a while ago. Have only just got the central heating right from the last change.
Pain in the arse farmers.

Cricket And Kubrick

Well, who would have thought that Cricket would drive someone to murder?
Suicide, I can understand, but murder?
A more boring, pointless, endless game you couldn’t find. What sort of madness is it, when a game can last days and still end in a draw?
Even worse, they shake hands and are quite happy with that.
What bollocks.

Adverts… Bane of my life… Orange ad, I think, where people are merged together, then all start appearing, freaks me right out. I don’t know what it is but it makes me feel really uneasy and a little bit queasy.
Don’t even get me on the ad’s where they use the Father, Brother or Mother of some so called ‘star’!.
Fucking Robbie Williams’ Dad! A man who pulls his trousers up just that little bit TOO far for a salad dodger.
Know what I’m saying?
Wayne Rooney’s Brother! Jaysus! Another one who wants to tarmac my drive and buy any broken jewellery I have.

I had a strange encounter along Albert Road. A woman, who was responsible for breaking up a friendship I had with her boyfriend, stopped me and started a conversation.
Because of her I lost a really good friend and we haven’t spoken for 10 years.
She opened with,
‘Hello! I haven’t spoken to you for ages!’.
‘Well, you know why that is’, I said.
Oblivious, she continued,
‘How are you?’
‘Why are you talking to me?’, I asked.
She laughed and touched me. Fucking touched me!.
‘I’d forgotten how funny you are’.
I stared at her.
‘I haven’t seen you about for ages!’ she carried on.
‘I avoid you’ I replied.
‘Sometimes I get a later bus,’ she tried to explain.
‘I’d still avoid you.’
We stared at each other.
I raised my eyebrows, asked if there was anything else.
She shook her head.
I put the little white providers of Mozart back in my ears and continued on my way contemplating the free ‘A Clockwork Orange’ that came with The Independent.

If I’d had Beethoven on, I doubt it would have gone so well.

The Most...

The Most frustrating moment of the day… Trying to fold a fitted sheet into some sort of manageable size. There’s fuck all you can do with something that has no corners!
That’s why it is screwed up at the back of the airing cupboard now.

The Most frightening moment of the day… Forgetting it was Pension Thursday and going to Somerfield, where I was ‘handled’ by one the elderly.
The need for munchies and fags got me out of the house.
The ‘touching’ occurred during a biscuit cascade.
I went for the most obvious, reachable packet of ginger nuts, removing it caused the shelf to spontaneously empty around me.
I was bent down trying to pick it all up, when I felt a hand, grabbing the bottom of my shirt and then going down the back of my jeans.
I shot up and was ready to start freaking RIGHT out, only to be confronted by an old dear in a wheelchair.
I asked her, as politely as shock would allow, just what the fuck she thought she was doing.
Apparently, she was covering up my back because I would get a chill.
The horrified ‘driver’ was apologising and saying,
“Mum! You can’t just touch people!”, which I must admit, I found amusing.

The Most listened to tune today… The Killers - ‘Can You Read My Mind’.
Great tune, shite video.
I think Mrs Next Door has had enough of it though!

The Most misplaced essential item today… My Zippo, followed by my phone, then the TV remote.

The Most interesting word I have read today… ‘Ziggurat,’ in Karen Armstrong’s, “The History Of G-d”. I finished Cornwell’s the Winter King and this is now my ‘Bog Book’.

The Most superb line in Boston Legal tonight… After being shown the foot of a large black man, expecting to see the foot of a small white man.
Alan Shore says, ‘My friend is looking for something lighter, in a size 8’.
I nearly pissed myself.

Frooty

I cooked today.
That’s not really true.
I threw a load of stuff in the slow cooker, fucked off, and left it to it.
It had Lamb, apricots, pine nuts, 8 whole cloves of garlic, a load of spices I considered ‘North African‘ and a carton of sieved tomatoes. It nearly had prunes, until I realised I wasn’t quite sure what a ‘Prune’ was.
I know it’s a dried something or other, but a dried ‘what,’ I’m not sure.
The picture on the packet didn’t shed any light either, if fact it showed something vaguely testicular.
They were slung back in the cupboard.
Housemate consensus is that they are plums. Which, again, directs my mind to the testicular.
So, I’m glad I didn’t use them.
I also roasted a load of garlic and spuds in some fennel and lime rind.
It turned out surprisingly well.
Food always makes me think of my family.

My Great Grandmother also lived in the house I grew up in.
She had her own room on the ground floor. Her trick was to grab you in from a game of; ‘running down the hall and sliding on your knees or socks, as hard as possible with out hitting a door’. This was achieved by turning and trying to run back the way you have just come as you passed the end of the radiator.
If you got it wrong you’d end up perilously close to her door.
Her timing was uncanny, she would open her door and you’d slide right in before you could stop yourself.
The door would be shut in a flash, leaving your siblings and cousins pissing themselves on the other side.

She was lovely but her room smelled funny and was quite dark.
Bright light hurt her eyes. So if she came out, she wore a green visor thing, like card dealers in 30’s and 40’s movies.
Cracks me up when I think about it now, then, it was the most normal thing in the world.
Our job was to look on the floor for dropped hairgrips and coins.

Payment was in Newberry Fruits and slices of apple smothered in sugar.
She had an antique sugar shaker. Glass body with an ornate silver top.
Her eyesight being crap and the room in semi-darkness she couldn’t see it coming out.
Being a practical woman, she picked up a fork and stabbed the fucking shit out of it, ripping the holes bigger.
Some refugee relative had carried it a 1000 miles from one of the ‘old countries’, wedged in the crack of their arse.
Or something like that.
My Nan went mental!
At ME!
The 7 year old, just coming up on an e number rush, was supposed to stop the 95 year old, who had survived pogroms and the Blitz, from savaging solid silver with a fork.
Unlikely!
I think I clapped a bit and said, ‘Crikey Nanny!’

Aaaah, the good old days of additive frenzies and sugar rushes….
I can still go clubbing on just a bag of Tutti Frutti’s thanks to this woman!

Going Postal

I have to start with a ‘Can You Believe This Shit’ moment.
There is poor, sweet auld lady in Rooskey, Co Sligo, who didn’t get her Mother’s Day card this year.
The reason?
New gas pipes are being laid and the fucking Postman is working on that!
Moonlighting bastard.
I was outraged.
When I suggested that some phone calls be made and arses kicked, the reply was,
“Not at all! It’s how it works here”.
Leaving me thinking, was ‘here’, Ballykissangel, for feck’s sake?
This doesn’t happen in real life, but apparently it does, in that ‘twilight’ world along Sligo the Mayo border.

Well people, I said it might happen.
Fucking Virgin Media are starting to mess with my head.
Not only have they robbed me of the lust fest that is Bones, and on occasion, Lost.
They flash messages up on the screen telling me I can’t use the remote because of ‘updates’ …. Then tell me to press ‘OK’ to get rid of message.
Which is it? Can I use it or can’t I?
I am stoned and therefore open to mild paranoia at this time of night.
Is it a trick question? Is it a dare? Will they know if I do?
If I pressed it and just ended up with sound, could I live with it?
If I couldn’t, did I really want to go through the whole ‘unplug and count to 10’ shite?
By the time I’d pondered all that, it had gone.
Fuckers!
G-d alone knows what the ‘updates’ were. If it’s more flappy armed people at the corner of the screen, I WILL be pissed off!
Even QI has one of them now.
Most aggravating.

25 And Counting

I can tell you exactly what I was doing 25 years ago today!
I know, amazing for a person who couldn't tell you what they were doing yesterday.

I was playing truant!

25 years ago today the British fleet left for the Falkland Islands. I was stood on the beach at Southsea, listening to 'Don't Cry For Me Argentina', blasting from massive speakers on the deck of Ark Royal.
Most of my year group was there, waving off their Dads, Brothers, and Uncles. I was there for my uncle, who was on HMS Glamorgan.
He came home, many of those kids never saw their loved ones again.
I would also like to add that none of those families I knew, who lost someone wanted to claim money from the Government.
Their loved ones died doing their job and they were proud of them.
If you want to talk about a pointless fucking death then look to the Falklands War, not Iraq.
The Falkland invasion was a war waged because Thatcher was losing in popularity ratings.

I happened to catch a bit of Graham Norton's show last night, by accident. I can't stand the bloke personally and don't find him all that funny.
He had Louis Walsh on from that Pop Idol bollocks.
Am I the only one who thinks he looks like either, a Christian Brother trying to look trendy, aPriest on holiday or a Headmaster on a school trip.
Open necked shirt, jacket, jeans and highly polished shoes.
Total wrongness.
The same as PE teachers on parents evening - Tracksuits and trainers disappear and all of a sudden they have a 'wardrobe'.
Parents expect you to look 'sporty', that's what they pay you for, you fucking 'Wooden Top'!
Male PE teachers in a suit always look like they have a court appearance.

As I type, my Beloved Spurs have gone 2 nil down..... Not a happy pixie.

All Round Wincing

Do NOT talk to me about Rugby. It is still too soon.
Happy St Paddy's to all!

This is a Greyhound smile! She does this and chatters her teeth when she sees me.

Poor old Jess The Wonder Hound has injured a toenail and is gimping about as if she only had three legs.
Grey hounds are huge wimps. They will scream out like they have broken a leg if they stand on a thistle.

Her nail has split open and has exposed the nerve and tendon. makes me feel ill.
I have done some DIY veterinary stuff.
I've watched Rolf, the Fogle bloke at Longleat and I've read Greyhound books.
Which means I'm at least 10 times as good as that Trude Mostue idiot.
Weekly, we watched as that twat failed her exams then STILL became a TV vet!
It was well worth getting that First Aid Car Kit thing.
She is now covered in plasters and lashings of micropore.
She's not keen but it stops me wincing.

She has also been responsible for me testing another well reported theory. Striking a match will get rid of the most horrendous of farts. Something to do with the *Sulphur apparently.
Christ alone knows what we have fed her to cause it but it drove me from bed this morning.
It worked!!
Thank G-d for a huge box of cooks matches.

*Which has probably been removed these days in case, if combined with the correct ratios of Monster Munch, Pot Noodle and Lamb's Lettuce, it would make a competent bomb.
If not a salad.

Sap, Abstention And Panic

Today was another gorgeous day and the sap is definitely rising!
I have considered self abuse at least three times - but I have given it up for Lent.
Honestly!
I’ll be bouncing off the walls by Easter but the wait will be worth it. I am unsure as to the Church teaching on using Lent for this purpose. It’s also the first time I’ve attempted to give it up!
I have been filling my ‘Celibate Void’ with music.
A Jurassic Nun once told me that this is why a lot of “Religious” take up the guitar.
Her exact words were, ‘It keeps their hands occupied and stops ‘em wanking’.
It really made me chuckle back then.
It turned out she had Alzheimer’s and this was part of her pathology!

Back to music. This has been the soundtrack of my day.

· I’m Just Another Soldier ……………………The Staple Singers
· Undiscovered …………………… James Morrison
· Country Girl …………………… Primal Scream
· Fix You …………………… Coldplay
· Take Me Out …………………… Franz Ferdinand
· Crazy …………………… Gnarls Barclay
· Tumbling Dice ……………………. Rolling Stones
· Filthy/Gorgeous …………………… Scissors Sisters
· Breathe Me …………………… Sia
· Go West …………………… Village People
· Old Time Rock and Roll ………………….
· The 1st, The Last… …………………… Barry White
· Shang-A-Lang …………………… Bay City Rollers

With hindsight, I wouldn’t have added Coldplay. It takes too long to get to the ‘shit kicking’ bit at the end. Which is all you want really.
I can’t remember who sings the Rock and Roll one and telling you it is on ‘Dad’s Tape’ wouldn’t enlighten you either.

One of my tenants paid part of their rent in Greenery.
A bonus!
The fact that it is really good makes me feel I got the better part of the deal.
Of course that means, I am due an ‘Instant Karma’ moment within the next few days.
The Universe doesn’t like imbalance and will bite back.
I must remember to give some away to offset that effect.

R. woke me up this morning.
I was on his ‘beat’ and he was in full uniform.
I shit a brick. In my sleepy state I thought I was being raided.
It took 3 long seconds for my brain to realise it was “Friend” not “Foe”.
I dragged him in before the neighbours saw him.
We had a cup of tea and listened to the madness that comes from his radio.

I’m in Wiltshire now.
M has had an imac delivered and is under the misapprehension I have a clue about it.
I do, in fact, have an imac but every time I use it I have to phone crisp-e for technical support.
I stick to the laptop for the most part.

Crisp-e… Brace yourself Dred!

Stocking It To Them..

My Aspergers’ nature causes me to border on brutal honesty when people ask my opinion.
Especially about clothes.
An effect doubled after a bottle of Macon and a couple of smokes.

Most have learned to ask me if they actually want to hear the truth.
The rest get it anyway!
Although, my word is never believed.
I either answer too quickly and therefore have ‘not looked or concentrated’ which means I am, ’no help’.
Or I pay too much attention and go in to too much detail, therefore I am ’taking the piss’ which means I am, ‘no help’.
I couldn’t give a flying fuck what anyone’s wearing until my attention is drawn to it.
The question I dread is,
“What do you think about these shoes, with this dress?”
Or the equally tricky sister question,
“Ok. Wait.. What about these?”
I swear, these are two of the few questions that make my mind go blank.
Nothing.
I think NOTHING about those shoes.
To tell the truth, I don’t really understand the question in the first place!

One of the Housemates has had to organise and deliver part of a conference to health workers tomorrow. Doctors, Nurses etc.
Obviously, they want to look their best.
This evening we have had the interminable fashion and shoe show. With a selected silk scarf and stockings sidebar.
Now, I know that usually the mention, even the thought of stockings can bring out the priapic pubescent in me.
Tonight that died.
When they are represented by similarly coloured ‘pop sox’ some of the mystery is lost forever.
Stockings are sublime. Tights are wrong.
‘Tights’ that only come to the knee are an offence against nature.

Stockings offer promise.
The guarantee that at the top, there are the 6 softest inches of skin in the world. Especially after your fingertips have being left tingling from the denier of the stockings and are slightly numb, but I digress…..

Ruined by the sentence,
“The stockings will be this colour and of course I will have shaved my legs by then!”
Too much!

Like those freaky ‘old lady’ shoes that curl up like poked woodlice when they take them off.
They were the preferred footwear of old ladies with bunions.
Not sure if they still make them.
For some reason they horrified me as a kid.
Pop sox have now joined that list.

Rude Awakenings

I was awoken by the insistent ringing of the door bell at 8.30 this morning. I went to bed at 5am and wasn’t best pleased.
It was the window cleaner. I haven’t worked out this bloke’s schedule and neither has he. You never know when he will turn up.
I opened the door and asked if he could knock later next time.
He said,
“I didn’t know you were in bed”.
Your face being 15cms away from my DRAWN curtains didn’t give you a fucking clue then?
I hollered that in my head.
In reality, I thanked him, shut the door and questioned his paternity all the way to the kitchen.
My mood wasn’t improved when I saw the convoy of people carriers pull up and deposit screaming kids next door.
So began two hours of thudding and screaming, fucking great start to the day.

Adverts are warning us of the imminent arrival of Mother’s Day.
Interflora and 3 for 2’s on hand cream at Boots the Chemist.
Fresh faced ‘boy’ Tenor’s singing Barry Manilow hits or a selection of Show Tunes, ELO’s Greatest Hits and, without fail, Neil Diamond.
Must find out what happened to Demis Roussos.
My Nan loved him.
Huge, hirsute, Greek man in a kaftan.

Cannabis production in England has gone up from 11% in 1997, to 60%.
Really?
Police say 3 ‘factories’ a day are being raided. Vietnamese gangs control the lions share apparently.
Legalise it and tax it then! Put some ‘gangsters’ we know in charge of it.
Perhaps, instead of banging on about how strong the ‘skunk’ is, that it’s sending people psychotic, control it.
Stick the equivalent of ABV on it.
The Americans tried to ban booze, it didn’t work and provided a thriving business for gangs.
It is Human Nature to want to ‘get out of our heads’.
It’s been going on from the moment we realised we could!
Just give us who choose to use it, the fecking CHOICE.

In Wyoming, a Catholic, lesbian couple have been refused communion by their Priest.
They live an openly lesbian life, were married in Canada and are advocates for same sex marriage.
This is why they have been refused a Sacrament.
Brace yourselves for the right wing backlash.
Refusing gay Catholic’s communion will be used as a weapon.
I give it two weeks before it starts happening here.
This Government cannot get involved in that bit of church dogma, the way it did over the adoption issue.
This is a ‘Protestant Theocracy’ after all.
It’s not going to end well.

Chapters And Verse

I have had 5 hours sleep in the last 36 and I’m feeling distinctly strange!
Well, stranger than usual.
It’s all relative!
I am becoming more aware of that bizarre dimension you can only see occasionally, from the corner of your eye.
Inhabited by imaginary cats and blurred people.
I’m still not sure how wise it was to smoke a joint. Only time will tell with that one.
It’s definitely a smoke to make a ‘Music Mix’ on..
Might give that a go later.

During a spontaneous bout of text tennis with Sassy, I have come up with another chapter heading for the autobiography I will NEVER write.
It’s good fun.
Sometimes you hear or see things that are not, ‘The story of your life’, but close enough to be a chapter.

Today’s offering is,
“Leave off the nuts and I’d give it a lick”.
Brought about by a photo of an ice-cream van!
The others I have are,
“Louis, they have margarine at home”.
A line my Nan would utter with menace, when my Grandfather would start to complain about the amount of butter we put on toast. (It used to drip off!)
Margarine. Like Nits, Carol singing and TB, was something poor, common people had.
He also had an obsession with the amount of toilet roll we could use.
Which brings me to the next one.
“2 squares! 2 Squares! That’s all you need!”
According to him,
“Bloody Girls wound enough toilet paper around our fists to make a serviceable boxing glove!”
For some reason these just sum up my childhood.
I wouldn’t have a final chapter just this verse,

“It is my intention to die in a tavern;
May wine be placed to my dying lips
That when the choirs of angels shall come;
May they say, G-d be merciful to this drinker“.

I think it is a quote from Walter Map or someone as equally sound of mind.

If you can download it from somewhere, have a listen to ’I’m Just Another Soldier’, by the Staple Singers.
(I found it nearly impossible to get the version I wanted.)
I bet you play it twice.

Today, I have been mostly reading, Bernard Cornwell’s ‘The Winter King’.

Best In Bog

Crufts!
Such a bastion of Britishness it has to be watched!
This year it was worth it for the delicious irony of Clare Balding announcing, “Fabulous Willy!” as the winner.
I snotted on the laptop screen..
A huge shout of,
‘We think NOT, Clare!’, was the call from the assembled Housemates.

There was a woman who, from a distance looked like Penelope Pitstop, and when she ran, WAS.
Cries of,
“Hay-elp! Hay-elp!” and “Stop the Pigeon!” rang out from the sofa gallery.
I saw a white thing that would have been brilliant for collecting the cat hair that accumulates, like Tumbleweed, along my hallway.
A Maltese something or other.
If you are squeamish about inserting the broom handle, you can always rub it with a balloon before booting it’s arse up the hall.

One of the first things I do when I go into someone’s house, is check out their books and music.
This is a huge clue as to the kind of evening you are likely to have.
No books and a wide selection of club mixes would point to getting straight on the spirits and cutting the night as short as possible.

There are books in every single room of this house. I have so many by the side of my bed, I have some sort of ‘Book Jenga Table’.
They have become interactive furniture.
This has led me to consider the weird selection of books that live in my downstairs lav:

Quicksilver……….. Neal Stephenson
Immoral…………. Brian Freeman
Decipher…….. Stel Pavlou
Time Quake….. Kurt Vonnegut
Cathedral………. Raymond Carver
About Time: Exploring Gay History………. Martin Dubermann
A Cold Heart…….. Jonathan Kellerman
Acid Row…… Minette Walters
The Brentford Chainsaw Massacre….. Robert Rankin
A stack of FHM magazines

The question is, if you were trapped in my bog for 4 hours, (as I have been.*) which one would you pick up first?


*The door on the upstairs facility opens outwards. The bastard cats rucked up the carpet trying to get in at me. When I tried to open the door it all jammed and I was trapped until a Housemate returned and freed me.
I know what Feline Mirth sounds like.

Sunshine, Smalls And Spurs

It has been a gorgeous day today and the Ice Cream van has been out.
As soon as I hear the music I get this urge to run around looking for my Mum’s purse and still experience the panic that it might go before I get out there!

It felt like ATM took an eternity to get her purse open.
I’d hop from foot to foot, pleading,
“Quick! Quick! It’ll go..!”
My sister would be at the window shouting,
“It’s still there! It’s still there!”
Pure adrenaline rush. I can feel the tightening in my stomach right now!
I love cider lollies from the van. I hate ice cream. Always have done.
As a kid I used to hate holding an ice cream cone. They always melted and dripped off your elbow. I deliberately dropped them.
Fecking sticky, nastiness.
As soon as the lolly got to that unpredictable stage, where the bit that’s left could fall off the stick at any moment, I’d drop that fucker too.

I made the mistake of going in to the garden. The sun had caused a sudden blooming of colourful laundry in almost every garden along my road.*
A huge ‘Jackson Pollock’ expressed through fabric.
I find it mildly unsettling to see my neighbour’s underwear, ‘Free Range’, as it were.
Shirts and all that are fine, but pants/knickers are something I don’t want to know about.
Thongs? Eeeesh! I have some neighbours who are quite ‘broad in the beam’..
See? Now try and get that out of your head.
I’m cursed with an almost photographic memory and a vivid imagination.
You see my problem.

The sun also gives people an uncontrollable urge to wash their cars.
In my experience, this activity guarantees 2 things:
1. They will attempt to talk to you.
2. It will rain.
So it will be pissing down tomorrow.

My Beloved Spurs are continuing with their mission to put me in an early grave. 3-1 up at half time. Finished 3-3.
Berbatov is a football god.
Mido is a “Donkey”, according to crisp-e.
Neither of us were surprised at the result but at 3-1, there was that ‘triumph of hope over experience’ moment, and we dared to believe.
Ho Hum.. There is always the replay.
Nice win for the English Rugby team but I wasn’t inspired by them.
Some real talent for the future though.

*Except for Sassy. She would never display her smalls to the proles!

Dry Shite

Today I heard another saying that’s as annoying as the ‘cut yourself with a sharp knife’ one.
“It’s better to step in cow shit, rather than dog shit. Cow shit is clean”.
Clean shite?
Um.. Shit is shit, I don’t want to tread in it AT ALL, thanks.
The most annoying part about it this saying, is when people decide to share this informative gem.
Right after you have stepped in a dog turd on a city street. Where the likelihood of treading in cow shit is fucking zero.

Don’t tell me bird crap hitting me is lucky either.
Some monstrous thing crapped on me in Union Street, Aberdeen and I was traumatised.
It must have been the size of a small aircraft, with an basketball dimensioned arsehole, judging by the deposit it left on me.
It covered half my head, my right shoulder and some hit the pavement.
I had to spend 2 hours in Waterstones to calm down, then got pissed enough to order, and actually eat, Haggis.
Something I have blocked from my mind.

My lips are so dry today, they are getting sore.
The only thing I can put it down to, is the number of desiccated Nuns I kissed yesterday.
Their dry cheeks have leeched the moisture from my lips during a moments contact.
The Parched Pure.
Damned dangerous people to be around.
That’s without them trying to steal your soul with their profoundly camp rituals.

Funeral Fun

I’m not sure if you are supposed to have a good time at a funeral, but I have had a cracking day!
The only downside is that I didn’t know a Requiem Mass could be 2 and a half hours long.
My arse is numb, my knees are caning me and if I hear the words,
‘Offer it up’, one more time……

There were a varied array of Nuns on display, a selection of Carmelites, Monks, at least 30 Priests, (many, escorted and bewildered looking) 2 Bishops and an Arch-Bishop.
Not a single one of them under 40.

The waiting for it to kick off was endless.
Especially when you don’t want to talk to people and spend a lot of time staring at the floor.
What does happen though, is you get to look at a lot of shoes.
I saw a high proportion of what could be described as ‘Bi-Curious’ shoes.
Not quite the flat, sensible Brogue but not a high heel either.
Ecco and Clarkes, that kind of thing.
Many of them attached to ‘suspect’ looking Nuns.

I knew it was going to be good when the bloke swinging the smoking brass thing around, twatted it straight in to the coffin.
I grinned, raised my eyes to heaven and thanked the department above that looks out for easily bored, very stoned lesbians!
Astoundingly, I could remember all the responses and found myself chuntering along.
To tell the truth, it was quite soothing.
Like being part of something ‘tribal’, all chanting at the same time. It makes the hairs on my arms stand up for some reason.

Loads of water was flung around with a huge pastry brush, thing!
Everybody had something to say and all the bits I was used to just saying, had to be sung.
Are people born knowing these tunes?
I had forgotten how much ‘up and down-ing’ there is at Mass and this was doubled.
There were over 30 cars following the hearse to the cemetery through West Wickham and Croydon. The car I was in (and the tossers following us!) lost the convoy. We pulled in to a bus stop to confer with those behind.
I lowered the window and asked a bloke at the stop if he’d seen a funeral pass by.
He hadn’t.
He didn’t know where the nearest bone yard was either.

Then a Renault Clio, chock full of Nuns bimbled passed. I think it is part of their vows, ‘No shagging, no shopping, they are not allowed to get out of second gear or have less than six in a car‘.
The Wacky Races were back on.
Unfortunately, Sister Mary ‘I’m fine, I can see through the steering wheel’ was going so slow, she lost who she was following.
Probably forgot.
I ended up looking like some ‘special’ person doing their impression of a Labrador.
Head stuck out the window trying to keep an eye on the car the Nuns are losing, as more and more people pull out in front of us.
“Faster! You Fuckers”, I was screaming at them on the roundabout at Addington.
I mimed pushing them faster.
They waved at us. Much hilarity in our car.

We made it in time.
As the box went in the hole, it fucking hailstoned on us.
A voice behind me said,
“Hail. Ah, tis a blessing“.
I wasn’t feeling very blessed.
Big stingy bastards got me in the ear, twice.
Then they tried to ‘float’ her.
I swear, everyone seemed to produce their own supply of holy water and squirted it in the hole.

It could have been worse.
At least I now know, just go to the cemetery bit.
15 minutes tops.

Memory Lane

I will get the Housemate rant out of the way first.
Whoever put the FOUR fucking chips back in the freezer, what were you thinking?
That someone would come home and decide,
‘Oh, I think I’ll have egg and four fucking chips, no more and no less.’
Or perhaps use the 12 pasta shells left in the packet to bolster it up a bit?
Moron.

Today I went to Langstone Harbour.
It’s about 10 miles from Pompey and it’s where I grew up with my Grandparents.
I walked along the beach and went to the pond where we used to feed the ducks.
I carried on along the coast and visited my Grandfather’s grave.
It was so nice to go back to a place that is full of really happy childhood memories.
When we stopped living with the Grandparents the happy memories ended.
I had a drink at the Royal Oak and could almost see my sister, cousins and myself sat with our bottles of coke, with the crappy paper straws that collapsed in on themselves, along the wall outside.
We were never allowed to swig out of the bottle because it was ‘common darlings’.
My Grandfather also told us all sorts of animals had pissed all over the bottles while they were outside.
That put me off more than being thought common!

Tomorrow, I’m off to a funeral.
I’ve never been to a Nun’s funeral before but I’m guessing the ‘wake’ will be pretty tame.
Unusually, for a Bride of Christ, she wasn’t Irish so there probably won’t be a punch up either.
Most disappointing.
Thank all that is holy for the hip flask I got a couple of Christmas’s ago. I intend to fill it with Vodka, hopefully that will take the edge off the ‘bells and smells’.
By the way, I have chosen my outfit and I will be looking ‘particularly Shane’ tomorrow.
I even have a tie but haven't decided on the Homburg yet.

Those of you who say your prayers, please offer one up for Sister Teresa Clements DMJ.
She was one of the good ones.

The Knives Are Out

Today, I got incontrovertible proof of something I have known for some time.
G-d hates me.
Not only did I cut myself with the same bastard knife, it used the slightly flappy bit of skin as a guide and got me in exactly the same place.
For an extra chuckle the Supreme Being waited until I was chopping a chilli.
I was bleeding, stinging, swearing and stamping my feet.
I really wanted to kick the shit out of the kitchen cabinets but I’m not at home.
It would have happened there!

I now feel it is safe to assume that knives, like dogs, have to be destroyed once they have tasted human blood.
They can never be trusted again.
It’s not like I’m a complete eejit in the kitchen, I actually enjoy cooking, and on occasion I’m quite good.
Although the knife is not mine, I ditched it anyway!
I’ve thrown away a wok that fell and hit me in the head, so the knife was no problem.

Strokes, Names And Cuts

Blowing bubbles?
I was nearly spitting fucking nails!
My beloved Spurs are conspiring to give me a stroke.
The amount of alcohol I’ve managed to get down me this weekend, obviously, won’t help.
My boys were 2 nil down at half time, to the team at the bottom of the league.
Not acceptable!
They got it back to 2-2 and in the 80th minute West Ham went 3-2 up. Bastards.
I was not happy.
Then in the 88th minute Berbatov got it back to 3-3, with a cracking free kick.
I would have happily settled for the draw at that point.
In the 95th minute the goalie couldn’t hold the ball and there was Paul Stalteri, a Canadian, to win it for us!
O CANADA!
A patriot son I love at the moment!

While perusing the Sunday Nazi I came across a name.
Candida.
It’s one of those snotty, posh names.
I’m not sure how it is pronounced but whenever I see it or hear it I think of Thrush.
Not the songbird.
I also have a problem with the name “Wendy” because, basically, it’s not a fucking name! It’s a made up word, one of JM Barrie’s I believe.
Toby isn’t a great favourite either, they are usually wankers.
Of course, if you work in a school, some names are ruined by tosspot kids.
In my experience there is a direct correlation between bad behaviour and awful names.
The more ‘made up’ the name sounds, the worse the behaviour problems.
Although, white boys called 'Tyrone' amuses me no end.

I sliced in to the end of my thumb with a knife yesterday.
Why do people always say, ‘It’s better to cut yourself with a sharp knife’?
I suppose that might be true if you actually WANT to cut yourself.
Fuck that!
Give me a blunt bastard any time.

Loss And Conscience

Last night I lost Sky One, Sky Two and Sky News from my choice of channels.
Virgin Media has taken over NTL. Somehow, I never even knew NTL had been bought until the deal was already done.
Sky now want more money, I suppose because it’s Virgin and Branson is richer than G-d, they thought they’d get it.
This is a huge pain in the arse because now I won’t be able to watch Lost or lust after Temp Brennan in Bones.
I still have Mariska Hargitay though. A bonus!
I may be sounding quite calm but I doubt it will last.

I’ve had to get rid of D the Dealer.
The fact that he rarely had anything to deal, when he did the deals were ’light’, smelled like a wet dog and was an ex pupil always pointed towards this being a short association.
We now have T the Dealer.
He speaks in complete sentences, doesn’t smell of anything and actually has something to sell.
So far, so good but I’m not getting my hopes up.
The police are having a raid fest around the city.

Watching Sharpe last night, I heard a line I wished I’d had in my repertoire while boarding with the Sisters of Perpetual Misery.
A woman had been kidnapped and was being forced into a convent.
The Nuns didn’t seem to mind she didn’t want to stay and there was some ‘grappling’.
Then she comes out with the line,
“Get away from me you Viperous Virgin!”
Beer came down my nose!
It would have been perfect for Sister Mary Bernadette.

To balance that out I’d just like to share this.
During the 70’s Sister Jeannine Gramick started ministering to the Gay and Lesbian community and speaking out for them.
Her order, the School Sisters Of Notre Dame, were told by Cardinal Ratzinger to silence her.
She wouldn’t be silenced claiming, instead, the Catholic concept of ‘The Primacy of Conscience’.

The Second Vatican council said, ‘.. one’s conscience is the divine voice echoing in our depths, as a law written by G-d on human hearts. A person must always obey the certain judgement of his or her conscience.’
So, the judgement of sinfulness is ultimately a matter best left to
G-d.
Primacy of Conscience is a ‘loophole’ in Church Law, a way for gay Catholics to get past the Church’s attitudes to Homosexuality.
Shame this isn’t mentioned more often. RE lessons would be a good start.

The Notre Dame sisters forced Sister Jeannine out of the order.
She ended up joining the Sisters of Loreto, who seem to be a touch more liberal.
She is still out there, doing her thing.
Fair play to her.