Erratum

Topic: Looby


It's been pointed out to me that I got more than a few details wrong in the previous post. Firstly, I was going to Suffolk, not Norfolk. Apparently, the two counties/areas/whateverthehelltheyare have loathed each other since time immemorial, and the mere fact that I'd never heard of them and had no idea where they are is no excuse or reason not to feud for a few centuries. Well, millennia, probably, thinking about where they are. (Viking territory, right? Anglo Saxon collaborators, hisssss)
Also, I didn't mean to make it sound like I was going away for a weekend with Martin - I was of course going to Alistair's wedding, and Martin, Zobo, Louiz, and fortunately Alistair's new wife were also going, but only Martin has a blog.

Surprises:

My car broke down on the way, then I got lost because of course I didn't bring a map with me, reasoning that every town in the South of England has a 'London Road' that points downward, and surely that should be enough to orient me. Surprisingly, this method of navigation usually does work.
Which meant I missed everything but speeches and cake. All the jokes about the female vicar's peep toe shoes were therefore lost on me.
Between the reception and the barbie, knocking on the bride's front door resulted in a set of ten fingers through the letterbox and a small voice informing me that 'mummy is upstairs'. Cue much shrieks of 'oh no, they're consummating! We'll come back later.' And that is the honest reason why I was caught red handed outside the chip shop twenty minutes later. Honest guv'nor.
I've never seen a newlywed husband leave his bride at home on her wedding night to go down the pub with his mates, before. I'm presuming the aforementioned consummation will be withheld for a further eight years as punishment?
Apparently I was scowling or looking miserable most of the time, or so I was repeatedly informed by those who had access to alcohol when I did not. I restrained myself from pointing out more than once that I was missing Gay Pride, (these days rebranded as 'Pride' - we'd not want any nasty 'GAY' clogging up the name, oh no, no room for all the PC acronyms there), aka my one serious chance to pull this year, and it's hardly my fault if they couldn't remember to try to look like 12,000 rhinestone trannies. Nevermind, toasting hot dogs more than made up for the opportunity to have random drug sozzled al fresco sex with a sequence of strangers.
It was very sweet to have a pub conversation where when talking about computers (geeks, eh?), someone blushed and admitted in a quiet voice that they mostly liked reading blogs these days. Oh what conversational suicide that was. Couldn't shut me up. Pub Blog Bore.
There's been a lot of Weather, innit? It veers through flash storms, gales, then back to raging summer within the space of forty minutes. Surely no other country's this changeable. In windscreen wiper flicker terms, I drove through 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 on the same stretch of road.
Okay, maybe describing my journey in windscreen wiper ratings is less than engaging.
The journey up was enough of a nightmare to make me navigate via tiny country 'B' roads most of the way back. I bet you can't wait for all my photos of quiet market towns A through E, alongside the old ladies I helped into church, my chats with the garden centre woman who makes her own Disney costumes for adults, the dog I had a walk in the dunes with, the cinema I popped into to catch Fahrenheit 9/11 (which didn't mention Ray Bradbury once!), or the sixty acre piggery I explored. On the basis of a three hour lazy lunch during a downpour, I'm checking out derelict property prices in Aldeburgh (aka North-London-by-the-sea).
Before I left London, I mused over a lightly browned English muffin with two teaspoons of French compote that B & B breakfasts are always revolting. True to form, the next morning I grinned a watery grin and told lies to the help about how lovely my limp, damp, whitebread 'toast' was. What the fuck do they do to it? Wave it around the fridge freezer, then run it under a tap? And it cost #6. Bastards.
I found out that some other blogger who shall not be named, ups his stats by trying to predict the next day's search terms. Gasp! I'm glad to tell you that I would never never exploit events of the magnitude of the sweaty underdog Federer's Wimbledon glory, of Shapapova's very tight knickers, or Greece's 1-0 Euro 2004 success, or of the rebuilding of Ground Zero, merely to inflate my own sense of self importance.
Not blogging the date. Aren't I discreet?! Who knew?

Best Blo'te of the Day So Far: Unluckyman

"Fuelled by alcohol once again, just when I should be exercising the restraint I?d shown in the cold sober light of day, I?m doing the exact opposite: I?m obtaining ?cashback? on my credit card to pay for a private dance in the ?Penthouse suite?.

Sitting in a ?de luxe? vibrating leather chair watching a young Brazilian divorcee undress in front of a fake, illuminated city skyline, I suddenly realise I?m literally sitting in one of those ?dark corners? I reserve for soul-searching questions. Even at the end of a surreal, escapist, ostentatious day, I?m sober enough to realise this is excessive, not moderate, behaviour. Why am I here? I wouldn?t normally do this kind of thing. Haven?t I got a good, healthy social life already? Do I really need this? (Of course, I stay. It?d be rude to walk out)."

Verboten

Topic: Looby

Do Not:
Go to Bellini anymore, it's gotten crap, and the service is awful. Clue to waiters: if you 'lose track' of where the customer is sitting, you're not really paying attention, are you?
Do Not:
Get pissed and lie down in the rain in Soho Square. Your soaking wet jeans aren't going to be funny five hours from now, when you're still trying to get home.
Do Not:
Run into the car park by your house at 4am in your t-shirt and knickers screaming directions into a mobile phone that isn't yours. Not only is it less pretty than your addled drunken mind imagines, but your neighbours hate you now.
Do Not:
Pretend that Urban Outfitters used to be on the King's Road, only now they only just moved it to High St Ken, nobody will believe you at all, and you just look stupid when you cling to the story that you fondly imagine makes your 'U' grade in Geography less apparent.
Do Not:
Buy those jeans you can't afford in FCUK just because they're the first pair of trews in that shop that ever fit you. If you can't afford the jeans, then you certainly can't afford the pink strappy sandals that you will feel could only ever go with them. And five pairs of blue jeans is enough, if all you're going to do is lie down pissed in the rain in Soho Square, surely.
Do Not:
Walk in the countryside on non-maintained woodland without real paths looking for wild deer if you haven't bothered wearing socks today. You're not immune to nettle stings just because you're no longer six, you know, it's not like school bullies or rhubarb crumble.
Do Not:
Get pissed and shout at your ex in public. Just don't, even if it sounds like a really really satisfying idea right now, by 8pm tonight you'll regret it already. Ditto making up lies about her. No joy, vengeance-boy.
Do Not:
Fuck up the next date. You done good not to go home with her already. Don't piss it away.
Do Not:
Go on the internetweb at 6am when you're out of your tree. You're only going to be rude to people and regret it the next morning when you find all the bread is mouldy and there's no solace in the world.
Do Not:
Forget that if it looked ugly in the changing room mirror, it doesn't look any less ugly after six vodkas in Revolution, no matter how foxy you suddenly feel.
Do Not:
Go to Revolution again. Gary Crowley isn't really the DJ.

Best Blo'te of the Day So Far: Die Puny Humans
"A hyperlinked Sparkline would make webpages like superdense, fractal, layered, zoomable resources, and make the top-level of each topic look vital and organic like a terrarium of squirming data.
The next step would be to see Sparklines in the street, not just delivering data, but harvesting it - being it.
Crawling up lamposts as electricity consumption spikes during the ad-break of Coronation Street. Or infesting the wounds of a pigeon flattened by a delivery truck, updating the national epidemiological database and the air pollution record for that borough based upon trace metal readings in the carcass..."

I dunno when I'm s'posed to learn ...

Topic: Looby

That staying up till 2am picking out old photos for my Moblog is a waste of oxygen?

Topic: Looby

The unthinkable has happened. In the flat where I live alone, above the wardrobe, is a big spider. I walk into the room, and both I and the spider are immobilised by fear. It's like starting a staring match with a dog; there are no limits, and no possibilities.

I just got in from a wild night out, and I desperately need eight hours of sleep.

But - there's a spider. A spider! In my bedroom.
It's horrific.

Bored Now

Topic: Looby

Think I have to go into work tomorrow, whether I'm well or not, just to halt the rot of immobility that a week of staying indoors sick infects you with.

Wish the damn cat was immobile. This week, the cat has entertained me by:
1. Leaping on top of the wardrobe to destroy it. Successfully.
2. Jumping out of the window and running away.
3. Watching me scale the nearby six foot fence to look for it, when actually, it's behind me.
4. Getting lost on a ground floor windowsill and forgetting how to jump down.
5. Spending its three am time by hooking a paw into the wardrobe door, and pulling all my clothes out forcibly through the crack.
6. Jumping into the full bath.
7. Climbing inside the wardrobe, and then using claws alone to attempt a vertical scaling challenge up the face of a silk shirt.
8. Once grooming the bath water from legs is done, jumping into a full bath again. And standing in it, meowing at the plug chain.
9. Jumping into a full bath a third time. This joke can never get old, right?
10. The proper way to dry off is to curl up and sleep in a human's lap.

I need external stimulus that isn't cat related.