Murder in WHSmith

Housemates… Has one of you got a serious Blue Peter habit?
Today, I have thrown away 6 toilet roll innards. It doesn’t take a lot of energy to put them in the bin. It is right next to the toilet, you can even do it while you are sat on the bog you lazy bastards.
The same with the various bits of soap that are the thickness of an After Eight mint. What the fuck can they be saved for?

I have had a revelation this evening.
I thought it was almost impossible to fuck up Mince but one of the housemates has proved me wrong. It was still in the ‘worm’ shapes of it’s raw state except it was rock hard. The sauce was suspiciously red and if I find out it came from a jar I will go fucking raving. Literally. Additives and I don’t mix well. Even Kenny the Cat wouldn’t eat it. What a criminal waste of food.

Today I had to go and buy a birthday present for a four year old girl. Does anybody else think that sending me to shop for a ‘Girlie’ girl was a bad idea? I fecking do!
I headed for WHSmith thinking, felt tip pens and colouring books, sorted. I ended up with a box of face painting shit, a box of arts and crafts shit and, believe it or not, a box of make up for little girls. Fucking make up, unbelievable. (Make up had been on the list of potential gift ideas her Father text to me.)

Then it happened.
I got stuck in a queue behind an old dear who was producing lottery tickets to be checked. She had hundreds and hundreds. They were pulled from her bag like those long lines of hankies that magicians produce from a sleeve. I was beating my head against the boxes I was holding and wondering if a rolled up Big Issue would be substantial enough to stove her skull in, when the store manager led me away and opened a till for me. An act of kindness I was so grateful for I could have kissed her. She was in with a chance until she smiled, revealing a head full of teeth that looked like Liquorish Allsorts. I’m partial to the round blue ones but that was a sweetie too far.

Driving

Today, wankers on the motorway have pissed me off. As a passenger I get to view a lot more than the driver.
Firstly, old people… Get the fuck off of the motorway and use ‘A’ roads, or better still, walk.
Sitting resolutely in the middle lane doing no more than 62mph makes you a fucking health hazard. Scrabbling around looking for Werther’s Originals and remembering ‘when all this was fields’ WILL cause me to make a gun out of my fingers and shoot you when I pass. Don’t look SO surprised and definitely don’t duck, you know who you are, man in the black Previa. He’d obviously read something in the Daily Nazi about car-jacking and presumed it could be done at high speeds and with body parts shaped like a gun.
Wearing ‘Driving Gloves’ is tantamount to signing your own death warrant. Fine for the Old Days when cars had no roof and no form of heating other than a Woodbine.
Also, why does closing the door of their car make a bloke think they have put on a cloak of invisibility? I can still see you picking your nose, you pig. Your windows are see-through, that is the nature of a ‘window’.

Yesterday I went to Aldershot Military Cemetery to look for my Great Grandfather’s grave.
I found it!
He is buried three rows from the Canadian War memorial. He died seven months before the start of WWII, at the age of 57. I really wasn’t expecting it to be the emotional experience it turned in to.
My Grandfather took me there when I was about 12. He slagged him off all the way there. Said “There he is, the bastard”, emptied a flask of Whiskey on the plot and we drove home.
What affected me the most and hadn’t registered as a kid, was that he had ‘Vaya Con Dios’ on the bottom of his stone. Exactly the same as his son. It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment that my Grandfather had sorted out the headstone for his Father. He always spoke about him with such contempt.
I broke down and cried for a man I never knew and for the one I loved so much.

The ‘Ashes’ have started. What a crap game cricket is. Other than golf, darts and synchronised swimming, I can imagine nothing more boring to watch. Maybe Curling.
It’s also a given that England are going to be spanked like a ginger step-child. So why bother?

On a less boring note, my beloved Spurs won tonight and Schnee will be sat in my kitchen, getting utterly pissed on Saturday! My cup runneth over! The cherry on the top of that would be if the fabulous Steph could join us.

Congratulations to my good friend Q. His Girlfriend had a baby girl on Sunday.
Jessica Eve Shillingford. You are most welcome.

Trundling and Twisting

Today I have been trundling around the Wiltshire countryside and last night's rain has made it treacherous.
Mud, skiddy grass, cow shit, rabbit holes, badger holes, rutted paths and slippery canal banks. Most of the time the sun was full in my eyes. As the mud accumulated, my boots weighed about a stone each.
Along the canal Jessie objected to to two huge Lurcher boys sniffing her arse and I was convinced she was going to pull me in to the Kennet and Avon.
The most galling thing about the whole afternoon was twisting my ankle on the crappy pavement in the village.
I'd forgotten how painful that can be.
At the moment I have no ankle bone, half my foot is blue and I'm slathering on Arnica cream.

This evening I have watched a programme called 'Hitler's Holocaust'. It has been a six part thing and tonight's was The Liberation.
It has caused arguments between me and my host. I have an intrinsic dislike of the Germans but, I'm afraid to say, nothing but contempt for the French. I don't know why but I consider the French collaborators - Awful isn't it? I just can't help it though.
How big is France compared to the UK? How many more inhabitants did they have? Yet they still managed to not to defend themselves. Bringing me to the conclusion far more of them collaborated than they would care to admit.
It's not such a huge leap from Klaus Barbie to Jean-Marie Le Pen.

On a lighter note....
Am I the only person who couldn't give a flying fuck about Tom Cruise's wedding.
Don't care where he is marrying, who he is marrying. Nice he is legitimising the bastard child, but on the whole who cares?
Have tried to find out what Scientologists believe about kids out of wedlock and 3rd marriages. Can't find anything. Funny, seeing as they have an opinion on Homosexuals (Perverts) and depression (Not allowed therapy or medication).
My opinion of them... Wankers.

Charity, My Arse..

The Thai Dragonfly didn't do an awful lot. But fuck me, it went through like a dose of salts. I will spare you the details.

This evening is Children In Need night. An opportunity to raise money for charity.
Pain in the frigging arse I call it.
Overly cheerful people in fancy dress, accosting you on the street with a bucketful of coins.
If you give to one you have to give to all the others, or you look like the tightest, cheapest fucker on earth.
I have carried so much change in my pocket today, I look like I need calipers and I think the spine damage is permanent.

The most annoying thing is the sponsored silences the kids at school used to do.
Ask them a question in lesson and one of their lairy mates will shout at you, 'They are doing a sponsored silence!', like you were stupid.
Unsurprisingly, the silence was suspended at break and lunchtime but the little fuckers still wanted to be paid. Piss Off!
Or the tossers who would spend the day tied together- Good way of getting into another group and totally disrupting.

The whole of BBC1's evening programmes are full of wankers with oversized cheques, telling bemused interviewers, "I sailed the Solent in a shoebox" or "I ate a million baked beans with a toothpick".
Makes me want to drive an icepick through my Frontal Lobes.
Tonight it is pissing with rain, really pissing down.
I'm going to pledge 20 quid for Natasha 'look at my sparkley clothes' Kaplinsky to get electrocuted.
Something good should come of this!

Seriously though, the charity does excellent work, but who else thinks that hospices and medical equipment should be provided on the NHS?
They spend millions on IVF - Bollocks, to the kids that aren't here. Support the those who ARE here.
You want IVF... Pay for it yourself.. Having kids isn't a right and maybe there is a reason you are not.
Like the Portsmouth couple, The Wyatt's... Spent thousands in LEGAL AID to keep their disabled kid alive...
Where does she live now? In fucking care because neither of her pointless parents can cope! What a surprise.
Spend my taxes fighting for her then don't even look after her. More of my taxes paying for that.(They are both on benefits)

I'll stop before I go too far.

Cosmic Inbalance

All last evening the ‘Nutty Daddy’ was a complete pain in the arse.
It was a windy night and the letterbox kept getting caught by it, making a tapping sound as the door was buffeted.
“What’s that?”, says ‘Nutty Daddy’
“It’s the wind blowing the door”.
Two seconds later,
“What’s that?”
“It’s the wind blowing the door”.
“What’s that?”
“It’s the wind blowing the door”.
At this point I considered running into a wall head first.
This continued all the way through the first half of the England match. During half time I Blue Tacked every single bit of door furniture down and ‘tacked’ the letterbox shut.
No more noise.

I remembered to unstick it for the paper ’fugee. He doesn’t need that kind of challenge at the moment.
He just got a bike!
He‘s only pushing it at the moment, it’s a start, and Norman Tebbit would be proud.

He then became obsessed with a set of car keys that were on the side. Every time he walked past them, which was once every five minutes, (He was on a mission to find the banging door) he picked them up and asked whose they were.
Maybe my patience was running just a tad thin, but am I the only one who thinks moving the keys out of sight is a pretty fucking sensible move?
So I moved them myself and the cosmic ‘Thank You’ for that?
MY fucking keys have gone missing from their home in the front door.
I think of it as the Universe ‘Tutting’ at me for being so impatient. Just letting me know, ‘Be nice, or else‘.

Today, I have been on a mission to find some sort of legal ‘high’, so I headed out to Hedonic and returned with Thai dragonfly! It is a liquid Kratom extract and is supposed to give a ‘dreamy, Opium like sensation’. I thought being in this sort of state would help me with the ‘Nutty Daddy’!
It says to take 5ml, so, in true Sleepy style, I took 10ml!
The liquid itself is a particularly crappy brown colour, I got over that by disguising it in a cup of tea.

This evening I have been a little bit wicked. It may have been the Dragonfly stuff, but then again……..
The ‘Nutty Daddy’ has taken to eating his dinner with his face about 3 centimetres from the plate. So, I cooked spaghetti and meatballs!
We had a full ‘Lady and The Tramp’ moment, except his head was hoovering round the dish trying to find the end.
It was excellent!
I almost lost bladder control when he asked for a bib because, “This stuff splashes up at me”.
I was wondering, ‘How?… Your face is so close to your plate we could dispense with cutlery’!
I know the powers that be will get me, but it’s war until I get my keys back.

Housemates… What in the name of all that is holy, gives you the impression that the tin opener doesn’t need washing?
For some reason Asda don’t put ring pulls on their tins of chopped tomatoes. So I was forced to use it.
It looks like someone has been opening tins of fucking mud, tar and other assorted nastiness. The blade thingy punches through the lid people, that's how it works! Therefore it gets the contents of the tin on it!

An English Country Graveyard

Yesterday I went to my Grandfather’s grave. I took a plant, wiped the seagull shit off the stone and had a good mooch around. I was amused to see that rabbits seem to spend a lot of their time crapping on him! He would have liked that.

As bone yards go, it’s not all that old. The oldest graves are from the 1800’s but it’s quite weird to see how headstones have changed over the years. You can trace a Nation’s history by the way it deals with it‘s dead.
The oldest are massive stone monuments. Crosses, Angels, Mausoleums and Anchors. Names and dates inlaid in lead. Bible passages and where you can find them, ‘Corinthians 3 blah blah’.
As a kid I used to hate the sarcophagus looking ones, especially if they had cracked open. For some reason I thought the body would be visible, a skeletal hand reaching out to a world long left behind. Things have changed.
Simple ones appear during the period of the first WWI. Engraved name, rank, regiment and dates. Some have regimental insignia and because of the time of year, all had a red poppy.
The same for the dead of WWII but in a little corner set just away there are identical stones, these have an Iron Cross insignia. The level of care is just the same and they too, have a red poppy each. That choked me up and made me think of those well tended graveyards in Europe, with a section that ‘remains for ever England’. I was glad that someone was looking after these Germans in return.
Cremation must have been getting popular because the small flat slabs start to appear and I don’t think being buried standing caught on!
During the 1960’s headstones with photos of the deceased start to appear. Nearly all of these have the surname Verrechia, Napolitano etc. There are also hedged off areas for the Muslims and Jews.
During the 1970’s and 80’s more information goes on, ’John Smith, Dentist’. The 90’s up to the present, Jeez! Pictures, names of those left behind, quotes (none particularly religious). Grave goods! Mugs, toys, flags, teddy bears. Some had perfectly manicured flower beds complete with mini fencing, some people seem to get territorial in death. Stones had trumpets, electric guitars, football badges, sprinters and saxophones on them.
The names have changed. Gone are the Maud’s and the Nehemiah’s, the Smith’s and the Archer’s. We have the Gurdeep’s and the Yao Ming’s, the Singh’s and the Chan’s.
We are totally multicultural in death. Shame about the living.

Phew! That seems a little heavy!

So, on a lighter note.
In the really old part of the graveyard, Moles had been at work. Huge hills on top of a lot of graves. I caught myself having a Temp Brennan moment, I was kicking the piles about looking for bones! How sick is that?
I didn’t want to bring any ancient phalanges home, I just wanted to be mildly horrified!

This morning, we nearly had ‘Alzheimer’s on a stick’. The ‘Nutty Daddy’ has taken to using his umbrella as a microphone. I swear to G-d people, he puts it in my face one more time and it’s going straight up his arse. No warning, no grease and no regrets.

Pampam

Today my Grandfather would have been 90!

He was, and remains, the most important male influence in my life.
He fought with the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War and was one of the very few who survived the battle at Jarama valley.
He was in the Navy during the second World War (As you can see from his natty uniform!)
It was from him I got my love of learning and I still hear is voice saying, 'Knowledge is power'.
He would have been considered quintessentially English but had no 'English' blood whatsoever.
He is my Pampam and I miss him dreadfully.

Last night there was a programme on Channel 4 called 100% English. People, some famous, some not, were interviewed on what they thought made them English. Then they had their DNA tested. There was a truly hideous woman called Carol Manley, she was probably in her 80's. She hid her rampant racism behind a headscarf, a smile and the line 'I'm only joking'. It turned out she was 80% European, 11% North American Indian, 9% East Asian and 0% Sub-Saharan African. On hearing the last one she replied, "Oh thank G-d for that!". The DNA specialist said that her heritage probably had something to do with the movement of Ghengis Khan. Mmmm, she was slightly to the right of him in her attitude.
Gary Bushell found out he was 8% Sub-Saharan African and according to the specialist that strand of DNA only entered his line about 5 generations ago!. Still want to send "Them" back Gary?
There was a guy called Danny Blue, who made his living dancing naked with balloons (classy). According to him to be English you had to be able to trace back 12 generations. He also came out with the line, 'An English person doesn't have black skin'. It turned out that he was 10% Middle Eastern, 11% South Asian, 37% South East European and 42% North European. The specialist told him that to further investigate his family he would have to look to the Balkans and further East! To say he was shocked would be an understatement. He also did a complete U turn and dropped from 12 generations to 4 and you could be English and have black skin!
A lady called Jane considered herself totally English, she thought her people had fought against the Normans at the Battle of Hastings. It turned out she had the DNA of a Romany gypsy. She wasn't happy and threatened to sue the programme!! Hahaha! Deal with it you racist bitch!
It was a really interesting show and left me thinking that quite a few people could benefit from the experience. Starting with the leadership of the BNP.

It also left me with the question, What is English?

As Schnee requested, a picture of my beloved Jessie!
Today we have been out and about in the countryside. It has been a typical autumn day here, bright but grey,the sun was really watery and it was fecking freezing.

We drove to a place called Inkpen, down some lanes so narrow I was breathing in at some points, to have a look for Red Kites. I'm not a great birdwatcher but if you are friends with Rob you have to know the basics.

We were up high enough to look down on one as it hunted. Beautiful. So languid in flight. There were buzzards too and they are huge!
There was also a pheasant shoot going on which meant hundreds of Land Rovers, black labs and much green clothing.
We could hear the guns and see the beaters but didn't see a single pheasant!
Fifteen minutes after the gunfire stopped there were thousands! I think that must be the pheasant version of, "Fuck You!"
It's even funnier to see them running along the road in front of the Land Rovers full of the 'Guns'!
These people who were blasting them out of the sky 20 minutes ago are really squeamish about running them over. They break suddenly, swerve across the lane or crawl along at 20mph to avoid hurting them. Strikes me as weird.

Right, does anybody else get pissed off with people, who when you are speaking to them, are either mouthing what you say, trying to say it with you or say what you've said about a second after you?
What the fuck is that all about. Is it some sort of tic? Put your hand over your mouth and stop yourself! It'll save me going to court for assault.

I have also made a discovery. The scariest thing in a country village is a hundred year old woman, behind the wheel of a Nissan Micra, in a carpark. I had to run from her! At first I thought we had a runaway car situation until I saw the blob of grey hair through the steering wheel. Christ, did my heart rate increase. She would have it the bag full of wine first.

The Runner

After an incident with the 'Nutty Daddy' last night, I have done a runner to my Wiltshire hideaway. Where I was greeted by Jess the Greyhound, who kept her paws to herself! Unlike some.....

A stop was made at Tescos in Winchester.
Here, I got to relive that childhood panic of being left at the till with the groceries, while the person with the money runs off to some distant aisle to get some forgotten thing.
While I was panicking and packing s-l-o-w-l-y, I got to observe the store and some of the other shoppers.
Tesco at Winchester is fucking posh!
The shelves had not a hint of their 'Deckchair' range, the silver packaging of 'Finest' stuff shone all over the place.
Men in corduroys, cravats, tweedy jackets and brogues.
The women.... Eeeesh! More twin sets and pearls than you could shake a pair of sensible shoes at. They were expensively dressed and looked like David Walliams' character from Little Britain.
These are the people who were wearing Burberry 25 years ago, before it got all chav-ed up.
So different from yesterday's experience.

While I'm thinking of David Walliams; Does anyone else get freaked out by little teeth and big gums? I've seen two sets today! I don't think the gene pool in the Winchester area is up for a 'blue flag', if you know what I mean.

So, for the next few days I will try and share life from a Wiltshire village.
If you think Pompey is weird, wait 'til you get a load of this place! People here traipse through cow shit like it was fallen autumn leaves. Waxed jackets, Wellingtons and muddy Labradors are de riguer.
Get this, there is chicken feed for sale in the local Coop!

Sassy, if I miss a day... Patience!

Roaming and Rambling

I have been totally bundled out of my comfort zone today. I couldn’t cope with the wandering and constant questions so I decided, as it was a gorgeous day, I’d get out of the house and down to the seafront. I don’t like going out too much because, in all honesty, I don’t like people.

My oh my, what a disparate cross-section of humanity is out and about at lunch time. There are hundreds, literally hundreds, of people in those motorised buggy things. I'm convinced that half of these people can walk but are just too fucking fat to bother. People who have driven there with a thermos and some sandwiches but never leave the car. Young lads sat in their cars with no windows open, going for the full Cheech and Chong experience. Huge people on bikes, joggers and power walkers. The last lot piss me off, just because you move your arms like you’re running a sprint doesn’t mean you are! It makes your arse look strange, like you are chewing a toffee with your sphincter. Stop it!
There are the bedsit people who have to be out of the house between 9am and 4pm and the obligatory piss heads. I was serenaded by one and almost got flashed, but he managed to get the old chap away in time.

The second affront to my comfort zone was having to go into Somerfield. Just by walking through the door I lowered the average age by 30 years. The automatic doors should have tipped me the wink, they opened so slowly I got wedged for a couple of seconds. The sensor must be assuming that it has a good thirty seconds before the octogenarians reach them.
Inside I was confronted with the slow moving mass of plastic hips, headscarves, orthopaedic footwear and tartan things on wheels. New Rule, if you have any kind of walking aid, you can’t have the trolley. One or the other, you take up too much room.
Next, I was overwhelmed by the baffling array of biscuits. I used my ‘phone a friend’ option and got outside help on that one.

The ‘Nutty Daddy’ gave his handler the slip this afternoon and I found him on the street trying car door handles. Geriatric Twocker! All he needed was a hoodie, he had a cap and gloves on. I coaxed him back indoors with a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits, but he doesn’t know his arse from his elbow. Now he is roaming the house looking for a cupboard that doesn't exist. It is at his other daughter's house. He also thinks it would be a good idea for the ceilings to be 'up', apparently they 'look better up there'.
I'm inclined to agree.

Old Timers

Why do people buy pillow slips with loads of frilly shit on them? You wake up with imprints all over your face, Fleur de Lys scars all over your cheeks and forehead. I’ve woken up and looked like someone had embroidered my face during the night. Also, what the fuck is it with grown women with fucking teddy bears on their beds?! You got to cut that shit out ladies, it’s creepy!

Jane frigging Fonda is starting to piss me right off. She is on an ad selling wrinkle cream. After all the Oohs and Aaahs about how wonderful it is and how great she looks, she does the typical old dear thing and says,
“I’m 68, you know!”..
In one sentence she has turned into every lavender smelling geriatric and totally ruined Barbarella for me. Thanks a fucking bunch.

Talking of geriatrics, the house has gained a couple. Housemate parents are visiting and the Dad has Alzheimer’s.
Let me just say from the off, if I get Alzheimer’s, smother me. I do not want to wander aimlessly asking the same fucking questions over and over. I don’t want to stand in front of someone showing them how I use the pockets on my jacket and then treat them to a show of the contents of said pockets! Clean tissues in the left and used tissues in the right. I don’t want to get totally obsessive about the bin I dispose the snotrags in.
I don’t want it to be a surprise when I see someone I saw only 5 minutes ago. I don’t want to look at my loved ones and have absolutely no memory of them ever being in my life. I don’t want to eat my dinner and then believe I have had nothing since breakfast. I don’t want to forget where the toilet is and then be baffled as to how the flush works. I don’t want to have prayers said when I take my medication. That really got me. What an absolute horror to happen to any human being.

I am finding this particularly hard as he and I didn’t get on, but seeing him like this is horrendous. I would have him back hating the air that sustains me any day of the week. The light has gone and there is an empty human in my house.
To tell the truth, it’s kind of freaking me out.

It’s fucking grim people, grim.

Catnip and Tunes

I have been berated for giving my cats ‘Catnip’. The reaction I got, you’d have thought I’d cooked up some smack for them and mainlined it with their James Wellbeloved ‘expensive’ biscuits!.
They love it! It makes them all un-necessary and silly. Which makes me laugh. It also doesn’t seem to do them any harm. They have been living with a heavy smoker for ALL their lives and these people are worried about the catnip. For fuck’s sake! It’s the passive smoking and lung cancer that should concern you.
Go on! Tell me you have never done something to another living being just for amusement, especially if you are a parent (or a teacher).
When my baby brother was about 3, my sister and I used to say to him,
“Go on, say, ‘testosterone‘”
He used to try, and his attempts would make us wet ourselves. When her kids came along we did exactly the same thing! But with them it was ‘Vaginismus’, it sounds brilliant with a little lisp! If you have access to a small child I recommend trying it.

I think my laptop must be bored. Today when it booted up I got a pop up message from the Norton Antivirus. One of those ‘Shit! You’ve got a virus! Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Do you want to fix the problem?’
No! I’d love a virus to rip through all my files deleting stuff and stealing my bank account details.
Of course I want it fixed you tosser.
I clicked on ‘Fix’ and waited and waited while it scanned all my files. Nothing. Fuck all wrong with it. Now I think it’s laughing at me.

I have spent today recovering from last nights over-indulgence by ripping all my CD singles on to the Mac. What a trip down memory lane that has been. I have discovered an Atomic Kitten single, Take That (Yep, fucking Take That) and worst of all Celine Dion! She has possible one of the most punchable faces on earth.
Who remembers when CD’s first came out and we were told that they were practically indestructible? What bollocks that turned out to be. A hint of a thumbprint can stop them working. Now we have our music on computers and ipods. Again, we are told of the wondrousness of the ipod. Fuck off! You may as well be carrying a raw egg in your pocket. They don’t like shocks or any sudden movements.
Your computer will, someday, up and die on you. Then ALL your tunes are lost.
So you may as well just accept that track 13 will always jump at the second chorus and track 2 won’t play at all. At least you still have the rest of the album.

Happy Birthday to Becky and Smudge the III!

Trick Or Treat

Probably because of my personality type, I go through serious food fads. This past week it has been Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. I just can’t stop myself. A while back it was Refresher Chews, before that Curley Wurley’s and every so often I have a serious Maltesers habit.
ATM is convinced that the body only craves something it needs and during pregnancy, what the baby needs.
During her first pregnancy, my sister craved 18 bag family packs of Quavers. I used to look at my her and think, ‘What the fuck does that child need with something that is, basically, Styrofoam packaging?’
ATM used to cheerfully tell me that she craved cough mixture throughout her pregnancy with me. It helped that she had a job in the dispensary at Boots.
‘Really Mum? That sugary shit that is full of Codeine?’
‘Yes!’
‘You took it the whole pregnancy?’
‘Yes!, by the mugful! Hehehehehe’.
‘So, you drugged me for 9 months, being born sent me cold turkey and you THEN expected me to sleep?’
It wasn’t such a laugh then, but did explain a lot!

I bought some bags of sweeties for the Trick or Treaters but I have a confession to make. I opened the bags and took out all the sweets I like! Fuck ‘em, I thought. They’re getting a freebee as it is.
So far I’ve had 3 pint sized Grim Reaper’s who went away with Parma Violets and a lolly. 2 pirates and a witch, who just stood there, until the girl said, ‘say trick or treat you dins!’. Ah, Pompey kids, got to love them.
I can remember asking my Grandfather if we could do a pumpkin one year. He came home with two Swedes (root vegetables, not Scandinavian types!) You have no idea how difficult they are to hollow out. I think he just wanted to see my Nan’s face when she came home and found us stabbing at them with her sharpest knives.

Today Mrs Next Door’s weirdness hit a new high. They have had a new back door fitted and for the first time their cat has to use it’s own door. We were pissing ourselves in the kitchen listening to her get more and more frustrated with the cat.

“Sammy, concentrate!” (fucking concentrate?!!)
Then as she got shrill,
“Samuel, you have got to learn this or you won’t be able to get in!”
She then picked it up and said in it’s face,
“You have GOT to learn how to use the catflap, now stop messing about.”

As anyone knows, there is NO training a cat. In fact you can’t OWN a cat. It decides whether it is going to stay with you or not and always has a ‘back up’ home in case you piss it off. Like, take it to the vet or shout at it for puking on the bed!

Got to say a HUGE congratulations to one of the Housemates. Mikey has got in to Leeds to do an MSC in Geology! Nice one mate. You deserve it.

Icon

There is a programme on BBC2 called, ‘The Culture Show’ and they are having a vote for Britain’s greatest living icon.
It’s quite a good show, arts, music, theatre, style etc, not too high brow but not for planks either. Or so I thought. Until I visited the website. Just browsing through the message boards to see what names were being suggested, I found Madonna and Rolf Harris. Rolf fucking Harris!
Maybe I have got the wrong end of the stick, but I thought Britain’s Cultural Icon would actually BE British. Rolf’s family MAY have been British at some point, until a light fingered ancestor got the family transported, but Madonna? Fuck off! The Septic’s can keep her and her ‘rainbow’ family. I’ll even throw Guy Richie in for free.
Also, why every time some self absorbed yank wants to legitimise what they are doing, do they go on Oprah? What’s that all about?
I think Stephen Fry is going to get my vote, just because I believe he is a god. He is one of those people, who if I made them laugh, I could die immediately after. There also seem to be very few females to vote for. So, Schnee, Sassy… Get yourselves on the case girls!

How fucking annoying is a radiator that needs bleeding? The one in the living room is driving me mental. Especially late at night. It sounds like there is someone else in the room, breathing. Freaked myself right out with it this afternoon! The heating timer is still on BST and for the life of me I couldn’t work out what the noise was or where it was coming from. What made it worse was the cat sitting bolt upright and doing the, ‘What the fuck was that? There is someone in the house.” look. That, I can just about cope with. The staring, mesmerised in to space really shits me up. I think he knows that. Bastard.


To calm myself I watched Boston Legal. I didn’t want to like it but ended up loving it!
I do admit to watching it with the vague hope that William Shatner WILL explode on screen. The geezer must be on some serious ‘roids to look like that. That aside, he is brilliant as Denny Crane. James Spader is surprisingly good too!

Now one for the Housemates.
I know the kettle holds 3 pints but if you are making a drink for you and you only, 3 pints of water aren’t fucking necessary. The kettle will still work if you put a cupful in! The water can’t be re-boiled it gets all chalky and nasty. The tea made with it has a film on top that looks like Tectonic Plates, for fuck’s sake!
Not only that, it’s a waste of energy and water. Stern Report anyone? Anyone?

As I typed this, Mrs Next Door went off the deep end!
She could be heard over the BBC News! She ‘Could not believe it’ at least 14 times’, ‘Get to your room’ x2 and ‘Get away from me’ x6. The Naughty Step mustn’t be working out for her! I’m now awaiting the arrival of her long suffering husband so I can hear it all over again and perhaps, find out what she couldn’t believe! I wouldn’t be surprised if the girl had brought home some colourful language from a ‘Scholarship’ child. Or had smuggled in a bag of Wotsits.

Today my niece, Brooke, is 13. I haven’t seen her for three years but I just want to say, ‘Happy Birthday Brooke!’ Love you mate.

Vile

Yesterday Crisp-e told me possibly one of the vilest, in the long list of his vile stories, ever.
He watches this ‘Home CSI’ programme. They come in and totally swab and spray everything in your house. One bloke was found out to be a ‘piss in the sink’ kind of guy. His Mother must be so proud. That is not the worst bit.
I did not know this, but apparently every time you flush your toilet, with the lid up, Faecal Coliform Bacteria is launched all over the bathroom. I will now quote Crisp-e’s email:

“Aerobic bacteria found in the colon or faeces, often used as indicators of faecal contamination of water supplies.

Flushing the toilet with the lid up causes a ‘spray’ that can travel the length of the bathroom. The spray carries with it (amongst other nastiness) Faecal Coliform Bacteria. The so called ‘aerosol’ can persist for several hours before it settles.”

On the programme they showed them this using a spray to show the bacteria up. It had settled all over their toothbrushes! This explained why one of the women, who lived in the house, always had an upset stomach. Turned mine.
Now that is some serious fucking nastiness!. Housemates have been informed and the lids have been down every time I went to use the toilet today. That one got through!

I have neglected my music recently. So, while I was staining the stairs, a cheeky Light Oak, I listen to Kasabian’s album Empire. I am totally taken with ‘Shoot The Runner’. I love how Glam rock it sounds. I also listened to You Are The Quarry by Morrisey. Sarah Down The Road said I would enjoy it. She was right! I think the lyrics to ’America Is Not The World’ are classic. Nice one Sarah!

I also have some serious reading to catch up on too.
Has anyone (other than my mate Rob) read William Horwood’s, The Stonor Eagle? It’s taken me 6 months to get to page 134 and I’m sure every time I open the thing it halves my Chi. It is one of Rob’s absolute favourites and I promised him I would read it. (We swap favourites with each other every so often) This one, is killing me.
Shall I continue reading it? Does it get any less depressing?
The only other book I have felt this much antipathy towards is Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. My Grandfather gave it to me to read. (He started out as a member of the communist party and fought in Spain during the Civil War. When he died, he was a member of the Conservative Club!) He would also insist on discussing it with me, so there was no faking it. I was 14 at the time and seriously considered blinding myself. I loved reading (still do!) but that book nearly put me off for life.

BST

Not being one to complain, I am taking issue with the ‘Easy’ bit of, ’Easy Online Shopping’. It’s anything but.

I have shopped with Waitrose online. Excellent service and an extremely nice delivery lady. Type in ‘Garlic’ and the first thing that pops up on the search is, a bulb of garlic. With Asda all the ‘ready meals’ that have anything vaguely garlic in, pop up. Garlic is hidden away in the exotic herbs, with ginger and chillies. Bread? Fucking forget it! About 150 choices appear!
This, and the vegetables being sold by the kg, made me realise that I am a ‘visual’ shopper. I know the size of the bag the frozen peas come in, ‘kilogram’s’ mean nothing. As evidenced by the 2 portion only bag I managed to have delivered. A litre of yogurt doesn’t look that much online but in person, there’s shit loads!
Then there is the ‘lucky dip’ bag. None of the shit in this bag was ordered by me. As the name suggests, sometimes you get lucky or sometimes you get the bag I got.
Six packets of super noodles, a ‘brown’ stir in sauce and some Pringles. I managed to return it to the driver before he left.
The lucky dip from Waitrose contained Camembert, Brie, Pastrami and Parma ham. They must have got the bag of water biscuits and the olives!

While I’m on food.

Home cooked chips taste shit. There is just no getting away from it. Even if you have your own deep fat fryer they taste cack.
Oven chips are the worst. Do those fuckers EVER go brown? If I have got to have them I prefer Crinkle Cut, they seem to take on some colour. The ‘Chippy’ is the only place for chips. If you are in Pompey, Osprey’s on the corner of Brompton Road is best!

The clocks are going back sometime in the next hour. Lighter mornings, darker evenings and an extra hour of insomnia for me tonight! Apparently it’s all to do with daylight hours and farmers. For me, it is the reason that clocks are not set on anything ‘electrical’ in the house.
I can never remember how to do it. It always needs the remote that has been missing since the last party and the manual is somewhere ‘safe’.

Goodbye British Summer Time, it’s been a nice one. Bring on the cold, the dark and the open fires! Whoo hoo!

I Hear You Knocking

My insomnia has been bad the last couple of nights which, as usual, caused me to watch TV all night long. The TV, most times will lull me off to sleep, but not the last few nights.
Do you have any idea what the ‘signer’ in the corner of the screen does to a stoned insomniac?. I sit there trying to match the hand movements to words. When that doesn’t work it becomes really annoying. I’m not saying that deaf people shouldn’t enjoy the programmes but why would they all be up at three in the morning?

The fireworks have started with a vengeance which means the fucking ‘Trick or Treaters’ will be out soon. Another blight from America.
As kids, we weren’t allowed to go Trick or Treating or do Penny For The Guy. ATM described it as begging and my Nan said it was common. “Oh, No Darling! That is for poor and common children”
Every now and then I remember to get some sweeties in; but most of the time I turn all the lights out, move to the back of the house and ignore the doorbell.
The little kids all dressed up and their Mum or Dad stood at the gate, I don’t mind. It’s the 14 and 15 year olds in ‘Chav-Wear’ I object to. The ones who tell you, “A pound’ll do”. I’m sure it will but you’ll have a fucking custard cream between you and like it. I will then stand there and using my eyes only say, “Go on you little tosser, trick me. I fucking dare you, in fact, I double dare you!” I haven’t had a trick yet.
Same with the Carol Singers. I want two verses, not two fucking lines before my hand goes anywhere near my pocket, you common, beggars!

Anyone knocking on my door selling religion, only ever does it once. (They must have a list!) I’ve had Jehovah’s Witnesses begging to leave but did find out Mormons don’t drink tea, coffee or coke. Just one day I’d love to open the door and find two Amish on the step trying to interest me in a barn raising and not using electricity. Or a Zoroastrian who wants to interest me in equality for all (Regardless of gender) and environmentalism. Now that, I would probably go for!
It’s a religion I think I should learn more about.

Champion and Wizard

“An Eavesdropper never hears good of themselves”.

A line used by ATM after my sister overheard Mother bitching about her. Fortunately, I never uttered a word during the diatribe. Although, I inwardly agreed with every word. So ATM was the focus of my sister’s ire, not me. It didn’t last long, her mortgage was due.
I have a similar thing going on at the moment and it’s really beginning to annoy me.
When I started this blog I told very few people about it. Someone I am close to, but didn’t tell, has obviously discovered it for themselves and has got bitter and twisted. The people I told were the individuals I wouldn’t mind seeing me fall on my arse. I wouldn’t be totally humiliated by them knowing it didn’t work out.
So, when I speak to this person on MSN they will makes little references to things I have written, without actually saying. “I read your Blog”.. Last night the conversation went on and on about her Wellies. How she was going to have to shake them out before wearing, how friends of hers had discovered mice in them etc..
This has got me to the point that I would rather remove my spleen with a tin opener, than say, ‘I’ve got a blog going’..

Now for a Housemate rant…

I’m quite laissez faire about toothpaste ‘squeezage’. It doesn’t send me particularly rabid if you squeeze in the middle.
Do the same thing with the tomato puree and I’ll stab you in the fucking eyes! The packaging is totally different. If you bend the top ‘Spout’ bit over, squeezing it causes leaking fissures along the main body of the tube. Nothing comes out of it, except at unfeasable angles. It’s bad enough that you let this happen, but to then put the haemorrhaging mass back in the fridge is a real piss off!
I have also decided that as I’m the only one who vacuums the stairs, I’m the only one allowed to use them. Kenny and Murphy have special dispensation to use them, but the rest of you fuckers can fly, use ropes, install a Stannah chair lift. I don’t care. Keep your leaf bearing, mud carrying feet off my stairs.

Mad Matt paid us a visit tonight! Jeez, is that guy good for the soul! I have laughed and laughed this evening. I am so glad Sarah Down The Road joined us in time for his absolute cracker of the night, which I feel compelled to share with the rest of the world.
He described a slapper’s panty parts as a,
“Fanny like a wizard’s sleeve”!!!
Belter!
We had tears and difficulty breathing. Mad Matt you are a legend!.

Although, I think you may have ruined the Harry Potter films for me, but invented a new drinking game. Champion!

For The Want Of Wellies

Today, the persistent rain has leached ATM issues to the surface.

As a kid I always wanted to go out and play in the rain. It just seemed like a really fun thing to do. Stamping in puddles, playing in mud the whole schmeer. Especially if it was the weekend.
We were never allowed to. We would get ‘wet and dirty‘. ATM is clinically clean, her home is a ‘show house’ and mess is SO not allowed. So the idea of dirty children had the same affect a soaking wet, rabid, St Bernard loose in the house would.
Then why did the torturous bitch buy me Wellies and a raincoat? So I could paddle in the pool during summer? The words, “You can wear them when it’s wet”, WERE uttered during their purchase. Rain is fucking wet you mental woman!

I don’t know why this sticks in my head but it does. So, this afternoon I went and stood in the rain in the garden. I walked around in the long grass and even got muddy!… When I came in, cold, wet and filthy my problems began.

I turned in to HER… Attila The Mum!

I didn’t want the floor to get dirty (I was barefoot, doncha know!) and I certainly didn’t want the floors wet, given my shoeless status.
Hard bristle doormats get very uncomfortable, very quickly. It is at this point I start cursing her in my head… “Look what the fucking mental bitch has turned me in to!”, “It’s your fucking house, mess it up to your heart‘s content!”.
I decided to strip in the utility room.
Great plan! Straight in the wash, Sleepy you are a genius!
It was after I had put the wash on, I remembered we have no nets out there.. The bedraggled plants on the windowsill shield very little and the gaping, glazed expanse of the backdoor, even less. It also looks straight in to my neighbour’s, similarly un-netted kitchen.
I drop to my hands and knees. I am now bare arsed, muddy, wet and cold as I begin my crawl across the kitchen floor. All the while thinking,
‘She should have let me wear the fucking Wellies, IN the fucking RAIN’

Also, the Housemates were due back and I looked like I had a starring role in ‘The Ring’.
Half way down the hallway my Paper ‘fugee decided to deliver the local paper. I used to have a Paper-boy, he morphed in to a Paper-Geriatric, now I have a Paper-Refugee. Yesterday he rang the doorbell and handed me the paper. I pointed out the letterbox, which he viewed with suspicious awe, and posted my paper to myself.
The scales fell from his eyes!. It was an emotional moment.
So, today, with me naked in the hallway he attempts the letterbox for the first time. I’m telling you, time stood still. It’s not that fucking hard! Thank G-d he didn’t bend down and look in.

The new ‘smoke’ is particularly spacey! I couldn’t remember if I had sprayed deodorant WHILE I was still holding the can! I’ve usually got a teeshirt on before that happens, so that’s excellent news! It does it’s job!

Bite Me

Today, drug companies and ‘Health Experts’ are getting on my tits.

The BBC news told me that taking too much Ibruprofen will probably give me a heart attack. Oh Good! I thought. The fucking Alzheimer’s people are telling me it stops ’plaques’ being laid down on my synapses and lessens the chances of that horrific demise. We are told to watch our fat intake, eating bread now causes cancer and Camembert will do hideous things to our cholesterol. SO WHAT? We are not immortal! We are supposed to die. It’s up to your genetics when it happens and what causes it. Generations of your ancestors have already, unknowingly, decided what is going to do for you!
In my heritage, cancer genes have married cancer genes and heart disease has done the same with heart disease. (With a few fat fucker genes thrown in, just for fun.) It’s not going to be any great shock if I’m diagnosed with either. The shock would be NOT having one or the other, making true those childhood dreams that I was adopted! (My REAL family can make themselves known at any time.)
Ok, I agree, you can make changes in your lifestyle to prolong your time. Like, not smoking and doing a bit of exercise. You’ll probably hit 73 rather than the 63 of your predecessors. But something is going to get you so is it worth it?
Stop fucking worrying about it. Just ACCEPT that you are going to die and you might end up living a bit!!

Eeeesh, I’m glad that is out.

My heart went out to Crisp-e today, his first visit to the dentist in many years. When I spoke to him yesterday I could hear the pain in his voice. For me, toothache and earache are probably the two worst pains in the world.
He and ‘Chelle came round this afternoon. He walked in and I gave him a hug, he immediately hooked a finger in the corner of his mouth, yanked it outwards and said,
“Yook!, Ish eye isdom hoof”
I peered in and Ohh-ed and Ahh-ed sympathetically.
Later on I discovered he had bought his OWN dentistry equipment and he disappeared to finish the job he claimed the dentist hadn’t.
‘Chelle’s greeting didn’t involve me looking at her teeth.

While they were here the Discovery Channel had something on about Cannibalism in Extreme Survival cases… Would you eat human flesh if you were starving? Crisp-e would. Even with his painful teeth. He would try it out of curiosity! No starving, extreme conditions involved, just to see what it tasted like. I’d LIKE to say that I wouldn’t, unlike others I’m not a sicko! Not sure of the Kashrut status of ‘Human’ either. I have no objection to being eaten (Who does?!!) by others.
Just to be sure, I’m not going anywhere remotely countryside with Crisp-e ever again. I get the distinct feeling it wouldn’t take much before he was wanting to sample ‘Long Pig’. One wrong turn at Queen Elizabeth Country Park and that fucker would be collecting wood, eyeing people suspiciously and telling us he always carried dried chillis, “Because you never know, man!”.
Not a chance I’m willing to take.

Schnee.. If he visits, DO NOT take him to The Nature Park.

Gate Number 1

Does anybody know of ANYONE, who has ever flown out of “Gate 1” at an airport? Or landed at one?
I mean big airports, not a tin shed in a field (Bournemouth), a major one.
I really don’t know why this is in my head. I haven’t flown anywhere recently and I certainly haven’t flown from gate fucking 1. I always have to walk for miles or take a bus. A bus! I’m 5’ 4 stood on a rizla. I love being wedged into the armpit of some sweaty git in an England football shirt. Not even at Knock ‘International’ Airport in the West of Ireland, which I count as a shed. It’s always full of Nuns and Priests and I consider it unwise to be around these people for too long. It makes me naughty. I mention Church scandals loudly and am a general embarrassment, add alcohol and the effect is quadrupled.

See the kind of bollocks that floats round my head when I have no drugs?.. The real pisser is that this, according to The Dealer, is a nationwide problem. My baby brother (who has moved to Southampton, kudos on getting away from ATM, but fucking Scum? Are you sure?!) confirms this is the case where he is, but the Cocaine is superb apparently.
Other people I know are now cultivating for themselves. Thrusting themselves up the criminal ladder from simple ‘users’, to producers and dealers. Others I know have resorted to buying all sorts of hecticness from the various ‘Head Shops’ in the city. I saw one today advertising Cactus! Fucking Cactus? I just want regular service to resume.
I searched for ‘shrooms daily during my week in Wiltshire. (There was a body in the canal but I didn’t find it! Some poor sod got pissed and fell off his narrow boat.) Didn’t find a one. Well, not the Psilocybe I was after. Loads of others and they tasted really good!

Frightening bit of data for the day, is that there are 219 sex offenders in the Portsmouth area. I checked out wikipedia for our population. Within Portsmouth’s boundaries (Waterlooville, Leigh Park etc) there are 442,252 people. That seems to be a lot of Nonces in one area, or is that just me?

Canadian Karen berated me in my last blog for not posting for a while. In true Pompey fashion, I reply, “Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
So Karen, “Happy now?”

Eeeeeeesh, Women..

Lozenge

Today, it’s a TV advert that has me teetering on the edge of a meltdown.

Nick (the tosser) is quitting with Niquitin.. Yep, see what they’ve done there - Nick…. Quitting. Real fucking rib tickler that one!
It’s set up to look like he’s done all this as a home movie (strokes chin sagely and utters, “ReckON”) Yeah Yeah, you want to give up. Well Done. Just don’t inflict your fake cheeriness on me. Have a look at his face people, he’s not happy. He has this manic grin on his face that doesn’t quite make it to his eyes.
I’d also like to suggest that with the money he saves on smokes, he should invest in some serious dentistry.
Oddly, this is not what pisses me off, in fact it makes me light up a cigarette.
He goes on and on about how easy it is just to pop the lozenge in your mouth. EXCEPT he calls it a lozengER. It’s a fucking lozenge, the end rhymes with hinge. You wankER.

I find people pronouncing ‘something’ as ‘somethink’ deeply irritating too. Even educated people are guilty of that one (You know who you are!) I’m led to believe that this is a ‘Midlands’ thing but I think it’s laziness.
How on earth do you make a G sound like a K? Either and Neither you can pronounce however you like, doesn’t bother me. Somethink leaves me fit to be tied.

Last night I thought Mrs Next Door had finally done what, Crisp-e and I have predicted for a while, and gone psycho.
Some of the screams from the children had me contemplating phoning Esther. I ended up thinking, Fuck It, I’ll videophone her being dragged out and stick it on the internet.
I met her outside today and she asked if I had heard any of the screaming. I did the, “Oh no, not a peep” thing. It turns out that she had set about her kids with a nit comb (Huge step back) and they hadn’t particularly taken to the experience.
Pompey nits, like their some of their hosts, are really difficult to get rid of. They are immune to all known cures, even tea tree oil.
I can remember how mortified my Nan had been, when my sister and I had been sent home from school with nits. She may as well have been told we had Syphilis. Nits and TB were conditions she associated with being poor, common and not looked after.

My scalp still carries the memory of that comb and the subsequent trip to the hairdressers to have our hair cut short. Although, I must admit having my hair cut short was bliss to a 7 year old tomboy! I never had to have my hair long again, claiming fear of nits. It was the venom with which my Nan wielded the comb I feared the most.

Ride, Ride, Ride

I got ‘Janis’ out today. Dusted her down, greased her up and rode her like the clappers!
For those of you who don’t know, ‘Janis’ is my bicycle. Named in honour of a great friend and cycling guru!

Portsmouth is ideal for cycling as it is relatively flat, apart from Fratton Bridge, which is easily avoidable. The only real pain is that for some reason you are always cycling AGAINST the wind. Even if you follow exactly the same route back from where you have gone - you are against the wind!
It’s madness. I’ve also seen it rain in the back garden and be dry in the front. Like some kind of chav ‘Eureka’.

I was on the bike delivering a ‘well done on the sprog’ card to some friends. The new Mum is Welsh and I was chuffed to bits to find a card IN Welsh, in Carmarthen!. An extremely hirsute old lady translated a bunch of them for me. She could have told me anything really, as I was fixated on her luxuriant handlebar at the time.
With most European languages you can kind of work out what is going on, or maybe that’s because I had to do Latin.
Welsh doesn’t look like anything! Not even Irish Gaelic. Which I think is groovy and no wonder they get all militant about keeping their language. I’ve learned Creoso is ‘Welcome’, Araf is ‘Slow’, Dim is ‘No’. I learned Dim from the signs on the campsite toilets. As in ‘No Smoking’, which begs the question, what could you set light to in the toilet that wouldn’t be easy to put out? You have access to quite a bit of water in there. One of the sites had a sign in the shower reading, ‘No Wetsuits’, well, duh!

Sarah Down The Road popped in for tea this afternoon. I think she is one of the coolest women I know. She is ‘straight’ and knows about football!. More than that she actually meets and works with Premiership managers, how cool is THAT?!
She is great for listening to my peculiar rants against the world and can usually put them into some psychological context! More often than not, we agree. Which helps!
Today, it was the matter of navy blue trousers and brown shoes. How wrong is that? Listen people, they do not go!
It’s the same thing as women who wear black bras under white blouses. Why would you do that?
Another one that really REALLY annoys me is men in nice suits with one side of their trousers tucked in their sock. It’s sloppy. Even worse, if their shoes are all scuffed up and un-polished. Total slovenliness.
People who leave the prices on the bottom of their shoes also get on my tits!

Housemates. Yet AGAIN there are 5 packs of lard in the fridge, in various states of disrepair, but no cheese or eggs. Whoever has the lard habit, get it under control for fuck’s sake!

Welsh Wales

The misadventures with the van continued. About 24 seconds from Fareham one of the driver’s side mirrors fell off. Nothing hit it, we hit nothing, it just popped off and became part of the M27 detritus.

The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful. We got to Hay on Wye and our traditional ‘shrooming patch, only to discover a thousand sheep had beaten us to it. Not a one was to be found. It was here, in the pissing rain, I discovered I hadn’t packed my coat so we aimed for Brecon and Millets.
While I’m on the subject of sheep. Most animals get their colouring from some sort of need to be camouflaged. What are sheep camouflaged against? Perhaps snow but that is not year round and if you’re the black sheep, you’re fucked. The same with cows, especially those black and white ones. I would also like to know who the first person was to look at cows udders and think, “I’m gonna give them a tug and see what happens”.

Our first stop was at a place called Rhandir-Mwyn, a few miles from Llandovery. A really nice campsite with about 10 other ‘people’ and no kids!
It was here that Rob voiced concerns about air flow and quality during the night. I suggested that with the van being German in construction and given their expertise with gassing, we should be quite safe as it seemed unlikely they would kill themselves. The same with the onboard gas oven.

We stayed for a couple of nights then headed for St David’s. St David’s has the distinction of being the smallest city in the UK. Population 1,797. We stayed on a site a stones throw from the Pembrokeshire Coast Path. I did the walk and found St Non’s Well and the place where St David was born. St Non was his Mum and apparently gave birth to him during a storm on the top of the cliffs.
Really bleak and open place. As we all know, to become a Saint some sort of miracle has to be performed. St David’s happened at Llandewi Brefi! Yep, the very same one of Little Britain fame!. According to legend, a few of the crowd couldn't hear or see him, so the rock he was standing on just grew up out of the ground.

Apart from the TOTAL lack of ‘shrooms it was a good trip! Other mood altering drugs were along with us! Thank Christ. I also found out that the Welsh word for Bowls is 'Bowlio'! I'm going to be using that from now on, it's lovely.

Psychonauts

How boring is shaving your legs?
I hate it and I’m crap at it. They look like a butcher's window when I have finished and I resent the fact I have to do it.
I never used to bother until the day my Dad was doing some building work in my house. I came down the stairs in shorts and Tee shirt to find my father in full ‘Builder Mode’… ie … sat with mug of tea, a ciggie, reading The Sun and basically doing fuck all!
He looked up smiled, looked at my legs and said,
“ Fuck me love!, are you on steroids?”
That did it for me… I never let the leg topiary get out of hand again.

The reason for the shaving is that I’m going away in the camper van again. It’s to celebrate my friend Rob’s birthday which fortunately coincides with the start of the Mushroom season!! So we are on a mission and I don’t want him being horrified by my legs.
The Drugs Bill 2005 turned us into criminals. As ’shrooms are under the same classification as Heroin, Crack and Cocaine.
That means the possibility of 7 years imprisonment and an unlimited fine for possession. Life in prison if we supply them.
These are for personal use.
Mushroom use can be traced back to 7000BCE through statues and cave paintings in the Sahara. Most of the central American tribes used them in their rituals, some calling it Teonanactl, “Flesh Of The Gods”. They were used for divination and for intercession with the spirits. That is what I like about their effects (on me), the feeling that you are part of something so much bigger. I love the giggling, the visuals and the total loss of time. You got to ’pack for the trip’ though. I mean, you've got to be in a good mood, listen to great music or read books that will make you think. If you are feeling down and have just watched a load of horror movies, don’t expect a good time!
I once tripped with a couple who spent the whole time running around the Welsh hills naked and giggling. Another who saw angels and spent 3 hours singing with the ‘heavenly host’. Was most surprised when they knew Kokoma and A Fool Such As I. But then again, why wouldn’t they?
I had a line from a poem just going round and round in my head, ‘… and through it all a sense of G-d, which lifts my soul above the sod….’ It’s different for everyone but still a community activity.

Just hoping that Global warming hasn’t claimed The Liberty Cap and our searches are fruitful.

Crisp-e, when you move out, you are supposed to take ALL your stuff!! Eeeesh.

I’ll catch you all in about 5 days or when I return to this plane.

A Pox On NTL

The whole world seems to be on a mission to piss me off! Ntl are now top of my shit list.
They changed all the numbers of the channels and I can’t find anything, Bastards. The part of me that crosses over into the Autistic Spectrum does not like change. I find it very unsettling and more annoyingly I missed part of The Sopranos looking for the fucking channel.

Mrs Next Door has been hosting one of The Macmillian Worlds Biggest Coffee morning things, to raise money for cancer research. Great. All the middle class Mothers of yesterday’s crying children plus extras. The noise was horrendous and she managed to hold it during the only 2 sunny hours of the day, so they spread out into the garden. I did the only thing I could to protect myself, I went out to my garden and coughed to the point of retching. They drifted back indoors after that. The cats watched with sympathy and seemed a little disappointed there was no hair ball for my efforts. The downside is that all my sniffing and hawking has left me alternately deaf in each ear, depending on how long I can leave between swallows. Very irritating.
For those who are interested in the new and bizarre ways I can combine medicines here goes. Robitussin for chesty coughs and Pholcodeine linctus for dry tickly ones combined with Zopiclone make for extremely interesting dreams, but does absolutely fuck all for the cough.

New laws come in on Sunday concerning older people in the workplace. Brilliant! I can’t wait to walk into Next and see some old dear telling a young ‘lady’, “Oooh, you can’t wear that! You’ll get a cold in your kidneys” or “Oh No dear, those shoes make you look like a slut”.
Old blokes in River Island encouraging lads to pull their trousers up, buy the correct size to begin with and get a hair cut. Extolling the virtues of comfy slip on shoes, cardigans and National Service.

This weekend will see the end of an era. Crisp-e is moving out. We have been friends since the first day I met him at Mayhem School and within a week I knew I would have a mate for life.
He is quite possibly one of the most decent, honest, honourable men I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet.
During the last 5/6 years we have argued and fought, laughed and cried but there has never been a moment when we weren’t friends. He is generous to a fault and would give you his last fiver if you needed it.
Crisp-e, you are a legend.
I will miss you terribly and thanks for being my friend.
Good Luck to you and ‘Chelle and know you will always have a home here, if ever you need one.

Reasonable Chastisement

I have an evil cold at the moment and I feel like death warmed up. My nose just drips, it feels like I’m trying to swallow ping pong balls and my body aches as though I’ve had a bloody good kicking. The horrible dry cough makes my lungs my enemy and is interfering with my smoking, but I‘m persevering . I can be very ‘blokey’ when I’m not feeling well. I don’t have a cold, I have ‘flu.. You know the sort of thing.
I’m on my Dad’s remedy, which is lemonade heated up in the microwave for a couple of minutes. I’m not sure if it actually does anything but he’s convinced.

On top of this, it’s my neighbours day for having 8 small children to her house to scream and cry. I’ve had to listen to, “Molly, put it down it’s not yours, I said put it down Molly, if you don’t do as you are told you will have to go and sit on the bottom step”.
I just can’t imagine this sort of conversation going on in my childhood!

I would have been slapped long before that and as for sitting at the bottom of the stairs? It would have been too painful to sit on the bright red handprint! Who else remembers running around their own shoulder joint as your arm was held and your arse slapped?
When I think back, the only smacks that I remember are the ones I didn’t deserve! Like the one for breaking the shed window. Sister did that. Stealing money from my Step-Father, yet again, my sister.
All the slaps I deserved and I assure you there were many, I don’t remember. Anyone who works or has worked in a school knows that kids have a heightened sense of justice, even the mildest mannered, mousey kid will go apeshit if there is a perceived injustice.
ATM had reinvented herself by the time she had my brother. (He’s 17 years younger) He didn’t get slapped like we did and what I think is worse, she wouldn’t let his Father discipline him AT ALL. I can remember my sister and I staring open mouthed at each other when he deliberately pulled down the net curtains. In unison we said, ‘Slap him!’
ATM’s reply is what caused our jaws to drop, “I don’t know what is wrong with you two, you resort to violence at a drop of a hat”… Well, we must have licked that off a stone out in the garden!

In Scotland it is illegal to slap your kids, Northern Ireland is going the same way. So it is just around the corner for us. Soon I’ll have to stop shouting ‘Piss Off outside your own house and play’ at the kids who Roller Thud (It’s and attempt at skating but they just thud along) outside my house. I’ve probably damaged one of the poor little fuckers and in 20 years time I will be sued because they can’t take responsibility for their sad, fucked up life!

Who hasn’t looked at a kid behaving like an animal and thought,
‘SLAP IT!’?

As my Nan used to say, ‘It concentrates the mind’.

Tuna Tales

One of the Housemates has taken umbrage with Kenny the cat.
Who on earth believes a feline can be left unattended with a bowl of tuna? I’m not sure that there is ‘Absolute’ proof that Ken had it. There is a looky-likey cat that keeps getting in and eating stuff. So I’m sticking up for my boy.
Kenny isn’t bright. He got into the ‘stash’ when he was about 11 weeks old. Not the kind of thing you can rush to the vet with.

“What seems to be the trouble?”
“Fucker has eaten an eighth of the finest Morrocan!”
“June! Would you call the police”.

He slept for about 3 days then licked all the chocolate from a family size pack of maltesers. So he is a little odd, totally un-trainable but I kind of like that. If I died and laid undiscovered he’d be the first one to eat me, so the thought that a bowl of tuna would be left unmolested for 30 seconds is laughable.
My cats are my ‘babies’ and like any other parent, I am the only one who can bad mouth them.

Crisp-e has discovered a new and novel approach to the Dale Carnegie method. While house hunting he slags the property off in front of the owner. Big ‘thumbs up’ on that one mate!
Seriously though, I think we should complain and bitch a bit more. We just suck up shit service, smile and apologise. Hungarians get out on the streets and burn stuff when the Prime Minister fucks up. The French take to the Rues at the drop of a YSL hat. What do we do? Nothing.. Even writing about it, I just can’t be arsed…..
Crisp-e is way more forthright he threatens internet companies with Trading Standards! Excellent.
I’m too apathetic to stand up for my consumer rights but I get vicarious pleasure from him doing so.
Keep it up dude, you are my ‘complaining’ guru!

Paradox

I am SO angry today I'm just going to post this.....


In the paradox of life
that makes peace come out of war
when a man will give his life
without knowing what it's for,
Is the essense of existence that
Mankind has come to know.
He shouts to throw his chains off
but refuses to let go.
When parasols for sunshine must
keep the rain off his head
when the simple life he once had
like his old beliefs, lie dead.
You would think he would awaken
from the comfort of conceit,
would cast aside pretentions and
see the danger he must meet.
Still the man is reaching
to drink from poisoned wine,
still he blames the cup he drinks from
when the evil's in the vine.
In the masochists self pity
is a hidden truth of life,
for the hand that staves the blow
is the hand that holds the knife.
We are good as we are evil
Destroying peace, creating war,
we are clever in our perceptions
yet don't know what life is for.
We seek and we have gained
what we did not have before
But we have lost and do not know it,
for we could have had much more.

5767

Rosh Hashanah starts at sundown on Friday. This is the Jewish New Year.
It is ‘celebrated’ with extra long services at Temple. It’s also a time of judgement when, according to the Talmud, individuals and the world, as a whole, are judged. One is supposed to reflect on the past year and resolve to change in the coming one. It lasts for 10 days and ends with Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement. These are known as The Days Of Awe. The theme during this time is that G-d has a book in which our names are written. Writing down who will live, who will die, who will have a good year, who will have a bad one. During these ten days, through repentance and good deeds you can change that. The book is closed on Yom Kippur and what is written shall be!

Honey and apples are used in cooking at this time so that the New Year will be sweet. Apple dipped in honey is really yummy.
Another tradition I really like is, Tashlikh, “Casting Off”. You walk into flowing water, a river or a stream, on the first day and empty out your pockets. It symbolises casting off your sins. It’s not in the bible but neither are many things that people do!
The best bit is a Ram’s horn, called a Shofar, gets blown a lot and somehow it sounds really ‘ancient’ and connects you to all who have gone before. There are many different stories told for the reason it is used, my favourite is that it was used before the Israelites went into battle.

There is also a joke I love about this time.

“Two maids were discussing their respective employers. One says, ‘Mine are Catholic and Christmas and New Year are really busy in the house’. The other says, ‘Mine are Jewish and on Rosh Hashanah they blow the Shofar’. The first one answers, ‘Really? Ours Just gets a £100 bonus’..” Ho hum, Used to crack us up!

Friday is also a New Moon and the day after is the Autumnal Equinox, so I feel certain things are afoot. Housemates beware! You know what happened the last time we had a full moon!

Also, the calendar in my kitchen says that Friday is Native American Day, we don’t have many of those in Portsmouth so I had to look this one up. I didn’t find very much but I would really like to know about it, so if anyone has the info it would be appreciated.

So come on people, it’s a special time. Say sorry to the people you have pissed off, get your shoes and socks off, have a paddle and get rid of pocket fluff. You never know something just might change.

“May you be inscribed and sealed for good”.

Smells and Smiles

The smell of roast dinner cooking always reminds me of my childhood. In my mind’s eye I can see my Nan, big and shiny, moving around the kitchen with pots and pans.
My Grandfather would come home from his “two pints” at the pub and chase us around. As we ran through the kitchen my Nan would be trying to wallop us while hold scalding pans and my Great Nan would be shouting, “Cossacks, Cossacks!”.
We would all sit and eat together and the best bit was mopping up the gravy with a slice of bread. Bliss!

My Grandad had a special smell all to himself. Old Spice and Whiskey, a mixture I still find comforting. You tended to get a good whiff if you made a noise during the News. He would call us to him and use the pressure points just below our ears to render us unconscious! My sister and I would pass out to the sound of our Grandmother screaming,
“Louis, You will give them brain damage”… But he got to watch the news in peace.

The smell I associate with my Dad is wood shavings and damp brick dust. I think I must get my love of Bitumen and Creosote from him too!
My Nan smelled of all things Avon! Especially a perfume that came in a bottle shaped like a Swan with a gold crown for a lid!
My Great Nan smelled of Deep Heat, Mackeson stout and sweeties!
The weird thing is, I associate no smell with my Mum. None at all. I suppose that is telling, in it’s own way.

The reason I’m on this subject (Schnee will love this!) is that I smelled my Nan’s perfume today. Avon haven’t made it for years, I checked! And she has been dead over 20! No one else was in. I just walked into an invisible cloud of it. There were no temperature changes, no unseen hands touching me. It just made me smile instantly.
I’m sure that there is a perfectly logical explanation but I like the idea that she looks in on me occasionally. Because of her, my first 10 years were blissfully happy and as the Jesuits say, “Give me the boy until he is seven and I will give you the man” (although, with what we now know about some Catholic priests, it sounds a bit sinister!)

Honour

Have been looking at old photos today which has been a real trip down memory lane. One of the Housemates, I have known since I was ten and her brother from the day He was born. Their Mum was my Maths teacher and general saviour. She clocked that something wasn’t right with my home life and took pity. I was kept behind after class one day and she said, “I know something is wrong at your house and I can’t do anything until you tell me. I also know you will never tell.”
At this point she put a front door key on the desk and pushed it towards me.
“This is the key to my house, use it whenever you want”. I never did, I always rang the bell but I became part of their family. That is why two of her kids live here. (After H died their Dad, who had met someone online and fucked off after 35years of marriage, sold the house out from under them. They had nowhere to go) They had to come here.
It is a debt of honour. I have some, even if their Dad hasn’t.

Being brought up by my Grandparents has given me a kind of old fashioned outlook on life. If I give my word, I mean it and the concept of ‘honour’ was big with my Grandfather. According to him if you stripped people of their money, houses, and possessions, personal honour is all you have. Dr Johnson’s dictionary describes honour as, “Nobility of soul, Magnanimity and a scorn of meanness”. What pisses me off is that his ‘idea’ of honour is attached to men. A woman’s honour is to do with the maintenance of virginity for the single and monogamy for the married. So a woman’s word or promise means absolutely nothing?
How could murdering a female or gay relative do any good for a families honour?.
Where is the honour in killing for G-d? Where is the honour in discrimination? Where is the honour in watching people be homeless?


Oh well. On a lighter note.

I usually heed all warnings pertaining to the chopping of chillis but today I got careless. I forgot that the ‘sting’ has a half life akin to Uranium and can live happily in and under your nails for ever. Unfortunately, I came into contact with a particularly sensitive part of my anatomy during a comfort break. JEEEZUS it fecking smarts for some considerable time but is on a slow release timer. It wasn’t until 10 minutes later that I started spasticated break dancing around the kitchen, at one point trying to out run my own crutch. Yogurt doesn’t help and neither does lime juice, or coriander, (Three things that were to hand!) the upside of that is every now and then I get this kind of ‘salsa’ aroma! A fiesta in my drawers, Cinco de Mayo in autumn! Whoo Hoo.

Am halfway through my second bottle of French wine called Red Bicyclette. I know, I know, I hate the ‘French’ but that is historical, their wine though, is the dog’s bollocks.

Liar

The Pope has fucked up and it’s made me hate the Catholic Church a little bit more than I used to. He claims that he wants ‘dialogue’ with Islam. That is a blatant lie. I know for a fact that one of his first acts as Pope was to SACK the priest who’s job it was to liaise with Muslim leaders. I know this because one of the Housemates used to be an ’insider’ in the Catholic Church and still has friends on the inside. Benedict, you are a liar. Let’s not forget the pictures of the ‘holy’ man in his Nazi uniform or forget it was Vatican passports that got a lot of Nazi war criminals to South America.
Or that while he was Cardinal Ratzinger he said that all Homosexuals ‘have an inherent moral evil’… INHERENT.. That means I was born evil. That as a small baby I was evil and I remain evil. He stopped short of saying that we couldn’t be saved, after all that would be blasphemy wouldn’t it?.
This is a church that punts it’s paedophiles around. Check out The Ferns Inquiry, the documents are online. The Bishops, The Cardinals and the previous Pope KNEW what was going on. That a diocese in America was told by the Vatican to declare itself bankrupt to avoid the massive payouts to the abused kids and their families. Very Christian considering the wealth of the Catholic Church. (They didn’t get away with it)
It’s also time for Catholics to take responsibility too. Every Catholic I’ve met, especially in Ireland, has a story of a dodgey priest or brother or of a Nun who liked whacking them a bit to much. When asked why they didn’t tell more than half said they did and their parents said, “It happened to me, just get on with it”. Oh, So that’s alright then.
I’ll get off this subject before I get really offensive.


Now for a Housemate rant!
There were 50 messages on the ansaphone today. Fucking 50!! This is due to Housemates either not picking up their messages or not deleting them. Because the phone is a bastard and is affected by minor electrical fluctuations, the date and time are never correct so you don’t know how old the message is. One of the Housemates has a friend called ‘Strange Sam’ and boy, is he strange! He had left 17 messages. He must have got all brave again because I have shouted at him about his phoning every 5 minutes and we didn’t hear from him for ages.
He also has a little soft spot (or possibly, the total opposite) for Crisp-e. This amuses me no end! His clumsy attempts at flirting and Crisp-e’s look of terror. We feed him Sambuca shooters until he has to leave thus protecting Crisp-e’s honour!
I think this may be a universal rant but why is it no one likes refilling the Ice Cube tray? You only have to put water in it and return to the freezer for fuck’s sake! It's not like you have to go to ATM's and ask her to open her heart to the tray. This has even pissed Robbie off and he doesn’t live here!.


I’m on Absinthe and Martini cocktails at the moment. It’s a funky taste but I’m persevering, my lips went numb about 4 sips ago so it’s looking good for some sleep tonight.
Karen, give it a go!.

Poxy Adverts

There is an advert that is played ad nauseum at the moment. It’s for one of those ‘Ambulance Chaser Direct’ companies. You know the type, ‘Been a complete wanker and hurt yourself? Phone us and we will get you compensation you don’t deserve’.. This particular ad shows some bloke falling off a ladder. In a voice over he claims he was fitting an alarm system and was given the wrong type of ladder. You What?!! How can there be a WRONG type of ladder, you prick? According to the dictionary a ladder is, “An often portable structure consisting of two long sides crossed by parallel rungs, used to climb up and down”…. So how is there a fucking wrong ladder??!! Was this tosser using a structure made of knotted, ruined hosiery?
While on the subject of ad’s, why do they need to be at least 50% louder than the programme you are watching? So that everyone ends up shouting, ‘Quick, Quick, Where’s the fucking remote?’

There are some ad’s I’m really loving at the moment all because of the music they have with them.
If you get the chance I recommend having a listen to Miriam Makeba and a tune called “Mbube”. As soon as you hear it you will know what song ‘grew’ out of this.
The other one I’m loving is, “When Night Hears My Song” by Bedouin Soundclash. They are both on itunes and well worth the 79p/99c.

I have had a few days away in Wiltshire (Cracking!) When I arrived home the house looked lovely! All clean and empty.
At this point I have to pick up on something Schnee said previously about hand towels.
OK.. How do they end up grubby and stained? If you have washed your hands properly where does all the nasty shit come from?
How about this for a concept Housemates? USE FUCKING SOAP! I know it may sound controversial but Hey, let’s give it a go!.

Crisp-e is cooking tonight and it smells lush! This also means that almost every pot, pan and utensil is used. Bizarrely, he is listening to ‘Duelling Banjo’s’ while whipping up a pepper and cream sauce.
Normal? For this house, I’m afraid to say, it barely warrants a raised eyebrow.

On a happy note, my beloved Tottenham Hotspur won tonight!

Bad Moon Rising

No preamble today. Straight in. There are SEVEN tea towels on the go in my kitchen at the moment. Seven. Am I alone in thinking that this is a bit fucking excessive? Given The Housemate’s stubborn refusal to wash them, I’m a bit miffed to say the least. Two sport evidence of having been used on spillages… Grrrrr…
I am supremely grumpy today. I worked out that my last full night’s sleep was over a month ago and it is doing nothing for my usually ‘cheery’ disposition.

I congratulate those Housemates who have managed Sociable Bathrooming Level One. Well done.
This means that you have managed to rinse away most of your hairs and the soap doesn‘t look like it needs feeding. It is not human nature to climb into a bath or shower that is hirsute so it follows that when you get out, any that are in there are yours! They were probably attached to you not that long ago, so what is the problem with using your hand to get particularly stubborn ‘clingers’?
Level Two requires you use some sort of cleaning product. We have a surprising selection and they live under the sink, there are even ‘Eco‘ ones. They don’t live alone, oh no, they share with a cloth!
While I’m on the subject of the sink. The Red, White and Blue pattern at the bottom is not a wry homage to patriotism, it’s fucking Aquafresh! As shocking as it sounds, this can also be removed using the same products as the bath! How amazing is that?
I will address the Toilet issue at a later date.
There is a full moon tonight and maybe that’s why I’m feeling so weird and hectic. There was also a partial eclipse. That made the moon look quite orange and gave the impression it was wearing a really bad toupee. Through the ages the Full Moon has been associated with insomnia, insanity and of course Lycanthropy. An ex neighbour of mine was a psychiatric nurse and according to her they used to put extra staff on during this time!
The English name for this moon is a Fruit Moon so it kind of fits in with last night’s blog.

I watch The Simpsons like others watch Corrie or Eastenders. I love it and I never bore of them, even the repeats. I end up hearing or seeing stuff I missed the first or second time.
Tonight’s episode was the one when Homer and Marge end up going over Niagara Falls in a bouncy castle.
The American and Canadian coastguard start fighting over who has jurisdiction. The guy on the Canadian boat came out with a line that just keeps repeating on me!
“Back off you Shatner stealing Mexico touchers, eh”..
Maybe you had to be there! Schnee.. Thought of you immediately!
While I’m thinking of Shatner… Happy 40th Star Trek.

Homo Sapiens

I read today that the American Tennis Association has renamed the National Tennis Centre in NY after Billie Jean King, one of my all time heroes!
How many sports venues can you think of that are named after women? The Virginia Wade Lido? Apart from this one I can think of none. (But I am Mullered!)
As a kid I had no idea about her sexual orientation but I knew there was 'something' about her, because of the way ATM spoke about her with other adults. I heard the word ‘Bi’, ‘Dyke’ and someone saying she was sponsored by ‘Snap On Tools’. Which, with hindsight, I find quite amusing.

Is it possible for homosexuals to be homophobic?
I don’t mean in the ‘self loathing’ kind of way but in the usual Daily Nazi, conservative voting, builder kind of way?..
I find extremely camp men very hard to deal with. I think it’s the screaming but I can’t be sure. Also, why are this type of male usually best friends with the biggest slag on the planet? To me, the term ‘Fag Hag’ is synonymous with ‘Huge Slut’. (Often, they look like Dog The Bounty Hunter’s Wife) They can be found sat together in a gay pub bitching about what Bastards men are, when neither have had a date since 1997. For obvious fucking reasons!
The thing is, from my experience working in school, I know they are born like that. At this time of year, when there is the new intake, you can clock them straight (as it were) away! They are Eleven! It’s not like they have been sat watching Lily Savage and been honing their ‘camp’ skills for 4 years of bullying. It’s usually at school they acquire their first Fag Hag.. But even at that age I find they ‘grate’. Why? I, of all people, should be more tolerant. I just can’t do ‘screaming queens’!
I have also wondered about parents who came in to school complaining that their child was bullied because ‘they think he’s gay, he’s not you know’… Yes, he fucking IS! Are you stupid?
ATM reckoned she had always known about me. I think she was trying to be nice, a concept I find that VERY confusing in my Mother.
That just makes me even more pissed off with her! If she knew, why didn’t she tell me? Save me the horror of ‘going out’ with Terry Pearce. After our first ’proper’ kiss he told me he didn’t use toothpaste. Only Bicarbonate of Soda because his Granddad used it during the war! Great! It all went wrong when it became apparent I was better at football than him.

While I think about it and given the state of my short term memory! What are those bumpy bits around a female nipple and what is their point??

Well, one of the Housemates has a death wish. Today I found the kitchen roll in the same condition as the toilet roll.. I’ll smother you in your sleep and tell everyone you had a heavy cold if I find out which one of you it was! Bastards!

A night on Shooters

I read somewhere today that the Australian Government would give Steve Irwin a state funeral, if his family were up for it.
As you know, my mind works bizarrely and I had an image of a Gun Carriage drawn by 6 Kangaroos. Hopping along to a dirge played by a massed band of didgeridoos (an instrument, which like the bagpipes, are best heard just out of earshot) with supporting Wobble Boards. Brings a tear to your eye doesn’t it? I know! Have laughed all day about that one.
The Gun Carriage morphed into a selection of Antipodean fauna. A Platypus, a Dingo, Kangaroo, a Wallaby, a Koala and an Emu. I contemplated a Croc but I’m not sure how trustworthy they are around the others. Same could be said of the Dingo I suppose. Just have to keep babies and small children away from it.

The Soham murderer, Ian Huntley, has attempted suicide and this has left me in a quandary.
One part of me says, ’Good! Let him do it. One less we have to pay to keep’. Then there is a part that says, ‘No! Keep him alive, let him suffer for what he has done. Trying to take the easy way out. Bastard!’.
So, is that about justice or revenge?
I have really got into a band called Bright Eyes and the lyrics of one song really stuck in my head.
“And in the face of every criminal
Strapped firmly to a chair
We must stare, We must stare, We must stare”

I’m SO glad I have never been called for Jury Service, thank G-d for a juvenile record! I know they tell you it’s wiped at 17, but I don’t believe that for an instant!

Had to ‘frontline’ the felines today. An experience none of us enjoy particularly. They really seem to believe I am trying to kill them and look at me as if I have just pissed on the backs of their necks. I take exception to this as one of the bastards puked on my bed last week, which to them, seems perfectly acceptable. I am with-holding catnip as a punishment. Not that they care, if they got opposable thumbs they’d fuck off tomorrow.

Have been on the Crisp-e special shooters!…. Eeeesh. Amaretto and Cherry Brandy. At least it had no Absinthe in it.
We have decided that after a few of these, the words ‘Slits’, ‘Flange’, ‘Gusset’ and ’Plinth’ take on a sordidly surreal quality.

Aaaaah! The wonders of alcohol.

Mea Maxima Culpa

I would like to start by hoping that Steve Irwin rests in peace. I didn’t mean to kill him and in my defence I only encouraged the crocs. The Stingray was working for someone else and as the text I got earlier says, ’Troy Tempest has denied all knowledge”.

This has got me thinking about guilt. The wikipedia definition of guilt is, ’…primarily an emotion experienced by people who believe they have done something wrong’..
I know I didn’t kill Steve but can’t help feeling a little bit guilty about it.
So I’m going to take this opportunity to ’fess up to a few other things!

My sister, to this day, believes she was a bed wetter. She wasn’t, I was. I’d get up in the night and half way to the bedroom door I would get scared of the dark. I would get into her bed to build up the courage for the next leg, fall asleep and wet her bed. An hour or so later I would wake up and head back to my own dry bed!.
I also used to tell her we had got her from Bernardos but I don’t feel as bad about that one for some reason!.
I have some mild guilt about the five hamsters I buried BEFORE I found out they hibernated. Sorry Katie 1 through 5.
I need to apologise to Mr Zebedee who lived in Emsworth. It was me who used to phone and say, ‘Boing!!, time for bed!’ (I know! I know! I was only 9!) If it cost money for you to go ex-directory, again I’m sorry.
I’m starting to feel a bit bad about laughing with Chris this afternoon, about how they tell in China if a child has Downs Syndrome.

Housemates: The mop requires NO special training so please feel free to slop it around anytime you like. It is the scruffy looking thing with the red bucket that you see me pushing around ALL THE FUCKING TIME!! If any training is required, feel free to ask.

Urges

Have been thinking about urges today.

Some people, when stood at the edge of a cliff or high place get an overwhelming urge to jump. My friend Dave does and his wife gets it if she is passing over water.
Mine is thatch. Thatch incites me to arson. As soon as I see it I get and overwhelming urge to set it on fire, just flick a fag butt at it. It literally gives me butterflies!. There are some places in the New Forest I have to be taken through at high speed because of this ‘urge’.
Someone else I know has a problem with scissors. Has an urge to cut up the curtains if she has scissors in her hands for too long. She actually blames the scissors, claiming they ‘dowse’ for the curtains!

Another overwhelming urge I have, is for that wanker Steve Irwin to get seriously bitten by a croc. If I have to watch it I spend the whole time urging the crocs to try a bit harder. I always want ice skaters to fall over too, as they wind up into a jump I shout, “Fall, Fall, Fall…” at the TV. During the last Winter Olympics I had a 70% success rate.
I also get the urge to slap one of my housemate’s girlfriends every time she opens her mouth. She is probably a very nice girl but I can never remember her name. To be perfectly honest, I couldn’t really tell you what she looks like. Her strident voice cuts through me, had to have my dinner on my lap today to prevent any ‘incidents’.
I also find I have the urge to shout, ‘Bollocks!’ at the News more than I used to.

This is one of my ‘Happy’ times of year the Football season has started and so has the new series of the Sopranos! Spurs could be doing better but it’s early days.

And We Laughed...

This evening I have had visitors to the House… Mad Matt the Dyslexic Science Teacher, Josh, who used to teach IT and Robbie!

Mad Matt is one of my most favourite people because he can make me laugh.. Not just polite “ Oooh aren’t you witty” laugh. Proper laugh, Kid laugh! Like when you were in a school assembly and you know you shouldn’t but it just comes out… And you hurt your muscles trying not to…!
Matt comes from Co. Durham and has an accent that lends itself to funny stories. He also has a poor Dad whom isn’t the luckiest geezer alive. MM’s Dad has a prosthetic arm and a glass eye, which is ripe for comedy!..

Tonight we heard how MM’s Dad needed a new hand and that there is such a place called ’The Limb Clinic’.. (I was cracked up with that one!) His measurements were taken, angles were calculated, Pi was probably involved and a new hand was manufactured.. The only problem was they had made the had for a large Jamaican male.. Not much call for that in a small pit village in Co. Durham..
Matt is one of those who should live here, but doesn’t (at the moment!)

This leads me on to the ‘Housemates’…. Who else thinks that if you boil water in a pan it doesn’t need washing up?? Do you NOT notice the chalky residue left on the pan?? Why would you think I’d just use it like that?? Or saucepan lids… Why would they need washing? Because, what is in the lower part of the pan splashes up you fucking *DINS!

And rest…………1……………………......2.....................................3..............
Ok… Here’s another one. How long can laundry be left in the washing machine before it starts to smell like decay? (Chris calls the smell ‘puck’, my family call it ‘Fausty’..) The sister question to this, is how long do you leave it in before YOU take it out? What’s the etiquette?
I object to having to touch another persons unmentionables just to get mine in the machine.

And rest………………..1.…………………………2.……………………………..3
Also, tea towels are for wiping dry recently washed dishes; NOT any spillages, drips and bits of takeaway that may have escaped. You animals! While we are on that subject, Well done those of you who have moved on to ‘Dishwasher, Level 2’… Level one being loading it and turning it on. Level 2 is taking the washed stuff out!! Depending on the timing (When you open the door), some of this will need wiping dry before putting away. If it feels slippery in your hands, it is wet! Dry it… By doing that we avoid the ‘Licked Clean’ look of most of our glassware and cutlery.

Ho Hum! The joys of community living…. Imagine if we went communist! I’d have to slaughter half and send the others to a camp in Gosport to live out their days cold and reviled!..


* DINS… Good Pompey word for those not academically gifted and devoid of any redeeming features, other than a head shaped for wearing baseball caps.