Subtitles And The End

Why do I turn up the subtitled bits of a film?
They are talking… and yes, they are talking ‘quietly’ in a language I DON’T understand.
What they are saying is flashed across the bottom of the film, in a language I DO understand, so why do I increase the volume?
It doesn’t make the script of the subtitles any bigger, which is what I actually need.
I’ve also noticed I want other people to “Shush”, while I’m reading.
What’s that about?
I blame the Godfather part two.

Things I have learnt this year…

Insure. The. Fucking. Cats.
To be more brutal when culling self seeded tomatoes.
I can grow Butternut Squash.
People will buy my photos.
I like cooking soups.
Brussel Sprout soup is shite. I was bored, they were cheap, ‘nuff said.
With a bit of planning the garden will feed the house.
Not to buy Aubergines unless I have a specific recipe for them. They don’t keep.
I HAVE to learn how to use the Mac.
I need more exercise.
I should visit my Brothers and Sisters more. They make me laugh SO much.
WD40 gets grease out of a Cashmere jumper but you do smell like a mechanic for a couple of washes.
Not to take part in any kind of BBC phone vote.
Peter O Toole should have won an Oscar for Venus.
I look old enough to mug. The fucking cheek of it.
Housemate Pat is Buddhist. They asked at the hospital.
That sometimes you’ve just got to let go.
Gavin and Stacey never disappoints.
Housemate Claire cooks a pot roast beef that tastes so good it’s sordid.
My Dad likes to talk to me as much as I like talking to him. How cool is that? I’m delighted he told me.
I still hate the Pope.
That while in the garden, shouting “You black twat” at my cat, is probably not a good idea in my multicultural neighbourhood.
I can watch the moment my Great Grandfather died on ‘youtube’. Most freaky.

Have a good one and may it bring you all it should.

Happy New Year.

Boxing Day

These photos sum up my day yesterday!

These, give you a glimpse of my day today...

Allow me to introduce some of the men of my family.

A brother in law, a brother and a Dad!

And now for the Girls! A niece, a sister and a sister in law!

I adore being around this bunch.
I have never felt like and 'Outsider' with these people. Eccentricity is expected, like a default position.
They REALLY get my grin on.

Best of all!!!!! Check out my autistic nephew M.

This is the first time he has interacted with any of us.
Singing and dancing just happens when we are together and M got involved! Look at his cousin's face!
This made my Dad cry.

As a treat.
I am going to allow you to see me.
Me, holding a child.
Here you go..... Me (My huge Christmas Zit) and my nephew, Ronnie.

I absolutely never, ever hold children, but there was something about this one!
His utter wilfulness appeals to me.

Violence Of The Lambs

I decided to do an experiment and cook a leg of lamb in the slow cooker.
Load of garlic cloves, Rosemary, 2 bay leaves, chopped up ginger, salt & pepper and a glass of white wine.
In the pot for 7 hours. (2.5lb leg)
An experiment I probably should have conducted earlier in the year when a fuck up would have been less of a… Well… A fuck up!
It was precisely 2.5 inches too long for the pot.
Fucker.
After violently swinging at it with a cleaver for five minutes, spattering meat up the walls and a near miss with my thumb, I gave up and went for the tool box.
I found a Tenon Saw and a hacksaw.
Neither looked particularly wholesome or the slightest bit washable.
There is a circular saw under the stairs but I’d ruled that out early on.
Fortunately, I remembered that Crisp-e bought one of those knives that cuts through those pens which can stab through tin cans, or something.
It took twenty minutes and was worth every swear filled minute.
The smells that are coming from the kitchen are heavenly.

First bit of Christmas TV gold.
Gavin and Stacey Christmas Special.
A bit darker than usual and kind of ‘setting up’ series three but still immense.

Merry Christmas people, may what ever gets your grin on visit you.

Random Thoughts On Tuesday

Stuff that happened, I was told or popped into my head on Tuesday.

Today, heaven is Helen Hunt in a wet tee shirt.
Hubba Hubba!
Thank you ‘As Good As It Gets’.

There was a queue in the Deli for cheese but Rue Albert Tesco was more or less empty.

Don’t go shopping with someone who is buying a ‘Secret Santa’ gift.
This exchange will give you an idea of how my brain works.

ME.. Do you like this person?
BUYER.. Why would that have anything to do with my choice. I’m getting her earrings.
ME.. Well, if you are not so keen on her just buy any shit worth a tenner and we can go to the Café Distress for a Vodka.
BUYER.. I said Coffee.
ME.. I heard Vodka.
BUYER.. She only wears small earrings.
ME.. What’s wrong with her ears then?
BUYER.. There’s nothing wrong with her ears! Why would you think there is something wrong with them?
ME.. If she wears little earrings she must not want to draw attention to them.
BUYER.. Her ears are fine!

Browsing, browsing, browsing.
Bored, bored, bored.
Owner/Friend appears.

O/F.. Hello! Hello!
ME.. J, for fuck’s sake sell her a pair of earrings for someone with sticky out ears, so I can go and have a Vodka.
O/F.. Are they really big ears?
BUYER.. Sleepy! For fuck’s sake! There is nothing wrong with her ears AND I said coffee.
ME.. I heard Vodka.

More browsing and locked cupboard opening.
At last earrings are selected, wrapped and paid for.

O/F.. They’re nice. Understated. Won’t draw attention to her ears.
BUYER.. There is nothing wrong with her ears!

We departed for the Café Distress.

BUYER.. Sleepy, you’re a cunt.

A five minute walk later, I had Vodka.

I had a real urge to find some of this this! It started when I was about six.
My childhood viewing totally primed me for magic mushrooms and LSD!
This is also from an era in my life when my diagnosis was ‘Hyperactive’ and they were drugging me with all the shit that was around before Ritalin.
My Grandmother’s Mogadon, also known as Nitrazepam, being a ‘privately’ administered top up to the prescribed shite.
The pills were crushed between two teaspoons, jam was put on one and the powder sprinkled on top.
Apparently, a dose that used to put my Nan out for 20 hours would give them a three hour respite from my incessant questioning, demands to be taken to the library, fire lighting and taking things apart.

Amazon packaging is NOT, ‘a perfectly acceptable form of Christmas wrapping’.
I have a vague recollection of being told this before.

I’ve cooked a huge saucepan of my Nan’s Red cabbage.
The smell soothes me and makes me feel happy.

WTF And Tesco

You fucking what?
I can honestly say that I have felt true hatred very few times in my life, but I hate this cunt.
My stomach tightens and I start to chew the inside of my mouth.
I see his face and I really wish harm on him.
How’s that for irony? The fecking Pope banjaxing my Karma.
The Fucker!
Look what he’s wearing for Christ’s sake and he calls me a ‘deviant’.
Man of G-d? My Arse.
What’s worse, I’m one of those deviants who actually turns up to Mass! Not just at Christmas.
A deviant who is one of the few who understands the proceedings in English.
The Panzer Pope doesn’t want us ‘touching’ each other during the sign of peace, how long before the whole thing is reverted back to Latin?

The ‘big’ Tesco was totally hellish at 8.30 this evening when I decided to do my Christmas food shopping.
Turkeys were actually being snatched from hands!
I was so stoned I got the giggles watching that and approached hysteria when I saw the shenanigans around the sprouts.
The pickled onions had been decimated and Chablis was on offer.
I had a list and was in and out in an hour, 20 minutes of which was spent queuing.
The people in front had a grand total of 206 quid’s worth, then they produced coupons.
Piles and piles of coupons.
By the time they had finished their bill was down to £68.
Fuck me!
To say I was impressed would be an understatement.
I am going to be trying some of that shit next year.

Watched Iron Man tonight.
Does anyone else feel that they couldn’t get John Malkovich for the ‘Obadiah’ role, so they dressed Jeff Bridges up to look like him?
It niggled me the whole way through, for some reason.

Sneezing Sunday

I read somewhere in the last couple of days that sneezing is linked to sex.
That thinking about it brings on the sneezing or something.
I’d link to it if I could be in any way arsed.
I have been very sneezy today and each time, I thought,
‘Oh that’s linked to sex.. Was I thinking about sex just then?’
I had a ponder.
‘No! I was thinking how boring the WBA v Manchester City game was. Was I thinking about sex now? Yes. Yes, I was. Thanks a fucking bunch!”
I think there is a flaw in their research but I haven’t read the article properly.
Either way I started to have thoughts, of an impure nature, about the Polish woman at Mass and because I flicked past an episode, Captain Janeway and Seven of Nine.
A bit later on it was Celia Imrie, how wrong is that? Celia Imrie? Where did that come from?
But she does have absolutely magnificent tits.
I haven’t sneezed since I started thinking about sex though.

I’ve watched two cracking films today.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding and A Matter Of Life And Death.
In the first, everything is cured using Windex and spit roast lamb.
In the second, David Niven just expects heaven to look like England and to join a queue, “I wonder where I report?”
Both are brilliant; but you have to admit that they knew how to do colour in 1946.
It also reminds me of the time when I lived with the Grandparents and life was ‘perfect’.

Consensus

This is the text I sent out this evening.
“Wouldn’t it be brilliant if Bruce Forsyth dropped dead on live TV?”
The general consensus was,
‘LOL’

Wine, Texts And Photoshop

Last evening Mad Matt dropped by with a bottle of Chablis and a belly full of laughs!
We were joined by Mr & Mrs Crisp-e and for a short while the Sassy one.
We polished off a few bottles of wine, a Chinese Takeaway and many, many smokes.
It soon became apparent he wasn’t going to make it home and the spare room was made up.
I couldn’t tell you what we laughed about but I know we did a lot of it, my sides ached this morning.

The chuckles have continued this evening via text.
I have discussed with many people the concept of the “Shudder-Wee”.
(I’ve probably blogged it before but I’m too stoned to check)
That extremely satisfying piss which ends with a pleasurable shudder.
There is also the “Shudder less, Shudder-wee” which feels like it should end with a shudder but doesn’t, and its absence is disappointing.
It also sounds like a Nigerian Prince.
The text I received from MM was this,
“Just watched a man have a shudder wee and thought of u x”
I replied as only one could,
‘I’m touched beyond measure x’
Why the hell he would be observing another man having a slash was a question I thought I’d save for later.

Photoshop Elements, in partnership with the Apple Mac, have conspired to make me a raging, frustrated mess.
1. I’m pretty much clueless as to how the Apple actually works. Preferring to use the laptop.
2. I’m pretty much clueless as to how Photoshop actually works.
Preferring to get Crisp-e to do it for me.
I need some sort of guide that doesn’t presume that you have the SLIGHTEST idea.

If the fact that there are 18 of them wasn’t advert enough for sterilisation.
Starting all the names with a J has got to be.

Ink And Auras

The trip to get more printer ink was painless.
Sassy accompanied me and we took the opportunity for a swift coffee in the Café Distress.
One of the great things about our ‘fugees is the café culture they have brought with them.
Today, The Distress looked as if it was predominately Bulgarian.
They were definitely Eastern European because I couldn’t pick out anything recognisable in what they were saying.
Loathed as I am to say it, Latin HAS had its uses, unlike the physical assault as a teaching method, that hasn’t been much of a boon at all.
There were about 10 dark, stocky men who greeted each other with handshakes and shoulder punching.
One took up the ‘Tony Soprano’ position and the rest arranged themselves deferentially around him.
For some reason I really wanted them to produce a chess set or a deck of cards.
I was amused that he was drinking a cappuccino with lots of froth and chocolate.

The Sassy one needed to collect dry cleaning so I ended up waiting for her in the ‘hippy, crystal, self-help book, Enya and whale song’ shop.
I don’t go in there often because the moment I cross the threshold I feel bewildered.
The yoga practising, tofu eating, wild haired women who work in there feel the need to follow me and tell me what the labelled thing I‘m looking at is.
In Europe all the shopkeepers immediately presume I’m local and speak to me in ‘gibberish’, here they all presume I’m a thief.
Do shoplifters wear a look of bewilderment as cover I wonder?
Their suspicion interferes with my Chi and gets my Chakras all feisty.
Fortunately, a couple who looked like they had been sharing a can of Tennant’s Super came in and I was abandoned amongst the Rose Quartz and Pythagorean Tuning Forks.
Sassy came to the rescue and we giggled at the CD of ‘Chill Out Music for Nervous Dogs’, before escaping with our Aura’s unmolested.

I have put the new ink in the printer but it insists there is fuck all there and keeps telling me to replace the cartridges.
Screaming, “I fucking well HAVE you bastard!” at it, then at the computer, does absolutely fuck all to resolve the situation.
The sooner we get technology I can talk to/shout out and it just does it, the better.

I’m pissed off with Nigella.
She has been showing us her Christmas shit on BBC2.
Surprisingly, given my ‘anything with a pulse’ reputation, I don’t find her remotely attractive.
What’s pissing me off is the way she is always filmed as if we are spying on her.
Making us into peeping toms.
Fuck off BBC, if I chose to stalk someone it wouldn’t be Nigella!
Besides, I’m too easily distracted to follow someone around.

A Tuesday

A need for cigarettes drove me out in to the world today.
It was a mistake.
I saw one of my old supply teachers, the one who had attempted to teach us Germish, leaning on his sticks against a wall.
I asked if he was ok because he looked like he had broken down.
“I remember you!” he said using a name I was known by at school.
Then came the total fuck up your day question.
“Tell me, did you ever make anything of yourself?”
How the hell do you answer that?
“Um, well it depends on your criteria Mr R…”
I was too stoned and too taken aback to come up with anything remotely intelligent, so I opened my mouth and,
“Well, I’m a neighbour of yours!” came out.
He laughed and smacked me on the back a few times and I carried on my not so merry way.
Old Fecker!

I spent the afternoon printing out some of the black and white photos I took in Amsterdam, while trying to make some sort of sense of this.
I’m none the wiser but it looked fucking ‘epic’!
The ink ran out so this means I’m going to have to leave the house tomorrow and interact with people again.
I am not looking forward to that.

There really is no reason to laugh at this poor man’s misfortune but it cracked me up!
“…. it blew up spectacularly, bursting the doors off the oven.”
I know I’m going to hell!

The 'Dam Or Be Damned

Amsterdam was as I had left it. Fucking cold and watery.
The hotel/hostel we stayed in was a five minute walk from the station and the red light district.
It was clean, warm and had its own bathroom. The cigarette burns all over the bath suggested they had a lax policy concerning the smoking ban which is all you really need from a cheap hotel.
I did hope that the seven notches carved out of the edge of the table represented ‘bunk ups’ and not ‘kills’ but I realise when it’s cheap you can’t have everything.


Before we left we heard news that the Smart Shops had been banned from selling Magic Mushrooms and we were a bit pissed off as a ‘trip’ had been part of our plans.
On Saturday the Big little brother went out to get us some Party Pills to help celebrate his birthday.
He returned so excited he could barely contain himself.
The Mushroom menus come out at night!
Being an inventive people, the Dutch have got around the ‘shroom ban with Truffles.
The brother had found Mexican Mushrooms and Truffles called Philosophers Stone (Sclerotium).
I had the Sclerotium and J had both!
After an hour or so J suddenly stood up, looked around and announced,
“I declare it good times!”
Taken a little by surprise I replied,
‘Thank Christ somebody has!’
This little exchange sent us both into deep, belly laughing hysteria.
They were extremely euphoric and I giggled and giggled.
I even got to the point where I knew I’d have to stop or burst into tears.
At some point ATM ‘phoned to wish him Happy Birthday.
J was really coming up on the ‘shrooms and the first words out of his Mum are,
“Feel any different?”
J, not realising she meant, did 21 feel different, looked panicked and blurted out,
“I’ve taken Magic Mushrooms!”
This tickled me for a long time.


Laying on the bed I got the feeling of rushing down a tunnel, like a ‘Shroom Flume.
There was nothing I could do about it other than keep my elbows tucked in.
An extremely pleasant and intense experience although texting was a bit of a trial.
I was the last one to go to sleep and the first one up the following morning.
Joints were smoked, vodka drunk, and book read as I waited for the ‘Hardcore of a Generation’ to wake the fuck up!


We caned the coffee shops and were stoned about 18 hours a day.
I stormed my way through some heady hash from Africa and the Indian continent.
Aaah. I miss proper hash.
Starting with White Russian, travelling through Hawaii and Asia, I smoked six different varieties of weed.
Most agreeable.
I also realised that I smoke cannabis for totally different reasons to my brother and his mates.
They smoke to get absolutely, positively fucked up.
Whether a smoke is an Indica or a Sativa is important to them as well as the strength of it, but most of all they want to be left dribbling and staring in to space!
I like to smoke and see what the effects are.
Some make me want to draw, some make me want to write, others make me very aware of music and some make me want to be active.
They just wanted to get ‘retarded’.


Which brings me on to the words I heard most this weekend:
Epic, Retarded, Sketchy, Spin Out, Blatantly and the most heard sentence;
‘I could do with something to eat’.
I swear to Christ they needed to eat something hourly.
Not just munchies, full fucking dinners!
But it’s done. My baby brother is twenty one and I was delighted to be a part of it.




This is one of my top ‘Dam tunes from this visit. Heard in the Hill Street Blues coffee shop while smoking Manali Charas.
Good times.

Wanking kills. Those hellish Nuns were right!

The Bang And The 'Dam

Who knew The Sally Bang were so fucking fierce!

Tomorrow I leave for Amsterdam.
I’m so looking forward to this trip.
I thought I’d check out the forecast for the next few days having frozen my tits off there more than once.
Snow!
Heavy snow is forecast for the ‘Dam.
The Big little Brother is delighted. His plan is to head straight for Tara’s Irish Pub, sit by the fire in the big comfy chairs and go silly with the Brandy.
After a coffee shop, of course!

This is my tune of the day.

Tame Tuesday

Tuesday was a lot less hectic.
I watched a cracking movie called Mongol.
The filming was beautiful and for a sometimes violent film I found it strangely calming.
I read somewhere it was part of a trilogy; I really hope it is.

Cousin Markus became a father today!
A little girl, who will be known to the world as Aliyana, which is Spanish for Beautiful Girl.
I’m chuffed to bits for him!
I have seen a picture and she is stunning… But I WOULD think that!

Spent my evening thinking about packing for the ‘Dam.
I have a 20x20 clear bag for toiletries I don’t actually have yet.
I’ve found some European plug adaptors and some warm socks but that’s about it on the packing front.
I’m stressing about whether to take my new camera.
There is so much I’d like to photograph but I’m worried it would be like wearing a massive “Mug Me” sign if I took it.
A lot needs to happen tomorrow.

Manic Monday

Monday was a really weird day.
Housemate Pat’s doctor called and said that she needed to go into hospital.
She started to tell me what was wrong but I managed to stop her at ‘uterus’.
The point of this call was to tell me I needed to get there, in a taxi, with her packed bag and take her.
My response was along the lines of,
‘What! Me? Are you mad? Why? I’m just her landlady!’
I ended up agreeing to go and set about packing a bag.
I’ve never packed a bag for a hospital stay in my life!
ATM or my Grandmother did that.
I remembered it involved buying slippers and Pears soap but that was about it.
She couldn’t have chosen a more inappropriate person for the task.
It’ll be like a Lucky Dip for her when she does open it!
There definitely are slippers and soap in there; I’m too traumatised by trying to find her underwear to remember anything else for sure.
I got her there and booked in, then wanted to leave.
The nurse led her to a bed and as I had her bag, I had no choice but to follow.
I started to get really worried when the curtain was pulled behind me.
“You can sit over there” I was told.
“Can I fuck!” she was told.
I slung the bags on the bed and escaped.
An hour later I was told they were keeping her in.
I was out of there! Almost bathing in the hand wash that smells of vodka.

I went for a mooch around the cemetery opposite for an hour to try and clean the hospital off me.
I pitched up at Housemate Claire’s office to eat my sarnie in the warm.
Then I marched to Crisp-e’s to vent my spleen.
Thanks for that mate.

The ‘Dam trippers dropped by this evening to have a smoke and sort out the arrangements.
We had a smoke.
No arrangements were made.
Unless you count the discovery that three of us can use the same ‘phone charger!

Jupiter and Venus have been getting up to something complicated which made the night sky breathtaking.

It looked exactly like the cover of the Peter Pan book I had as a kid.

A sliver of a Crescent Moon with the brightest star just below the lower point.

It's the only time I've wanted a sooper dooper telephoto lens.