Sarsparilla Vanilla

Wednesday, 21 July 2004

Other Blogs, Once Blo'ted

Mood:

celebratory
Topic: Yidaho

Watching London Burn "Bloggers Visual traits: None. Highly dangerous. Actually, one possible clue: wearing a Blogger T-Shirt. Unf. Aural clues: talk about it continuously. All the f*cking time. Dangerous aspects: all bloggers are obsessive. Anyone, who regularly writes down their most intimate thoughts to a PC must be slightly psychotic. Especially anyone who writes their views on politics, as these blogs are typically links to news articles with some of the bloggers own deranged commentary. They only do this beacuse they are unable to talk to people and engage in conversation, which would expose their lunacy. Socially retarded, one and all. Worst of all they all think they are going to be multimillionaire authors once penguin or random house find their blog. Yeah, right."	CGP "I understand that it is necessary to have a penny, because it is the smallest unit of currency, but why-oh-why a coin that represents two of the smallest unit? It's useless as I have yet to find a price that ends in .98 and, worst of all, the two pence coin is huge. As the second most valueless coin, it's also the third biggest"	Eurotrash "The reason we Europeans don't like your accent (apart from you southerners, we love that one) is that you sound like you are talking out of your noses to us. All we hear is a kind of twangy WAAA WAAA WAAAAAA WAAAA WAAAA WAAAA WAAAAAAA thing, which has the same effect as scraping a fork down a plate to our ears. Afrikaaner South Africans aren't much better, I'm afraid, as all we hear when they speak is coughing. Much like the Dutch.
Heyrdupesi "I was sitting on a bus last night on my way over to Umbrella's when an old drunk approched me. Hello beautiful. I was not in the mood to be polite so I gave him a who the fuck are you kind of look and then looked out the window. He got the message, staggered off and sat in the seat behind me. I may be a sad old bastard but I still have an eye for the ladies he then said and opened a can of beer."	Exhibit 5a "All I gotta say is that it's just great, GREAT that we're depicted as obsessive compulsive computer geeks who would rather blog than do anything. Lemme tell you something, there are lots of things I'd rather be doing else. Like, sex for example. Much more fun than blogging. Shut up, I have so DONE IT before. You don't know her. She lives in Canada."	SarahSpace "I could get drunk, but that is rather mundane. I could go get a tattoo on my lower back to complete my slut look. I could take my ?one day I will buy a house? savings and spend the day at Churchill Downs. It must feel exhilarating to say ?$10,000 on 4 to win in the 6th and . . .? Really, I am never going to buy a house. I could take a sabbatical and spend the summer following the Professional Bull Riders circuit around the county. I could just fuck it all and finally join that convent. I don?t know. I am open to suggestions."
Boyhowdy "Willow, what should daddy write on the computer? (silence) Willow? (silence) Should I write...Willow is sick?"	Bastitch "I don't give a fuck whether or not you give a fuck. You know why? I don't need to you validate my existence. I can only hope that the feeling is mutual. But honestly, I don't give a fuck. Fuck a blog."	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..."
Lost in Hype "Obviously she'd been there before. Obviously she was smarter than me. Then in the space of a second the following happened: 1. I realised where I recognised the girl from. 2. I remembered her face from her book. 3. I remembered her photo in City Life. 4. I remembered her voice from a radio interview. 5. I remembered her smile from a TV interview. 6. I knew that the girl was Gwendoline Riley. 7. I remembered that I actually had her first book, 'Cold Water', in my Technics bag. 8. I considered talking to her. 9. I remembered another interview with her where the journalist called her a 'sourpuss' 10. I considered asking her for help with the terrifying Easy-Internet ticket machine from hell. 11. I considered some sort of lame 'oh hello aren't you Gwendoline Riley?' sort of greeting. And then, finally, 12. I completely bottled it, imagining that I would probably sound like some sort of deranged stalker, incapable of working the ticket machine, and Gwendoline would quote a line from a Russian classic at me and I would be forced to retreat to the Disney store and find solace with a life-sized Tigger."	Madame Finistere "Sometimes I completely forget the reason why I'm not calling you when I feel like it, or sending you a birthday present, or writing you a pretentious e-mail trying to display my so-called literary capacities and trying to make you laugh. I forget why I'm neither responding to nor deleting your cellphone messages. The reason is love. I try to tell myself that as long as I do not forget this, you will be ok."	Casino Avenue ""Ah, this is the one we've been waiting for," said one of the little gang of bus fans outside. It's like a smaller, unrevamped version of the Routemaster, all wooden floors and springy seats. We set off up the Bow Road, a couple of mums-and-kids got on, past the church (as Steve Norris' campaign bus passed us) and up the Blackwall Tunnel approach road for a short distance as usual. Left at Old Ford, straight on... "Wrong way!" Oops. These all being run by enthusiasts, and the 8 being a tricky route, something had to go wrong... a quick bit of reversing, and back on course. Going on a bus going backwards seemed to make the kids' day."
Reckless Writer "I don't want to go into the touchy, weight issue territory but I just want to confirm my hypothesis about human behavior. I really wonder why I find fat men excruciatingly adorable but can't say the same thing about fat women? Fat men compensate for their chubbiness by being sweet and humorous. Fat women on the other hand compensate for the extra lipid by throwing their weight around by being arrogant bitches."	Stefangeens "Perhaps I should just start a new genre where I do not actually write a blog but just describe imagined blog entries that I have not written. Noncommittal writing, I would call it, and I would engage in it in the more transient phases of my life, when nothing is really certain or cherished notions are in a state of flux, when writing down thoughts would give them more permanence than they deserve, like putting shacks up on the World Heritage List. And there is something wonderfully Calvinoesque or Borgesian to it all. Maybe I should just post reviews of my imagined rants, pronounce them the work of genius, but report back inexpertly and confused, and depend instead on the imagination of readers to construct something of proper greatness out of them."	Bandhag "What if, contrary to the popular saying, you can take it with you? How gutted would you be to get to the Other Side and find that even there you were priced out of the property market and that it was only the pious fuckers who'd sunk all their disposable income into ISAs and bonds instead of pissing it up the wall on booze, drugs and thousands of impulse-purchases that could afford the biggest, fluffiest, whitest clouds and the fanciest gold harps, while you had to share a flimsy Cirrus with your mates and fight over who used up the last of the manna? Aetheism - you know it makes sense."
Sashinka "So I've got this friend, right, and she's going out with some guy, and she really likes him, it's been a couple of months, and then she calls me up in a real state: he forgot to mention he's still living with his girlfriend. What should she do? (Of course, that should be "what should she do, girlfriend?") Obvious to me: no-one wants to be second choice, it's bad for your self-esteem, blah blah blah, these kinda people never change. She loves him. I can't help wondering how much he loves her. I keep schtum."	Gia "Cunt really, honestly, is my favourite word. I?ve been trying to use it at least once daily ? more often in polite company ? since I was introduced to Peter Cook and Dudley Moore?s album Come Again as a teenager in the late 80s. I had no feminist reasoning behind it then, I simply loved the word. I loved the reaction it got from people. I loved the fact that this word, those four letters strung together, those four letters that when spoken created that harsh and nasty sound, could make men and women, young and old absolutely disgusted. A word! Wow! It was the moment I realised the incredible power of words."	Peeling Wallpaper "Simple pleasures. One of the baristas at my local Starbucks calls me "hon." She is probably fifteen years younger than me. "Hon" is a word of minimal endearment patented by aging waitresses in diners serving coffee from grimy carafes to truck drivers and high school kids too stoned to go home and face their parents. "Can I take your drink order, hon?" the barista asks me. I want to respond, "I'll have the usual, Flo. A cuppa Joe and a generous helping of your sweet smile." But she wouldn't get it. She's too young and she's nothing like the TV character Flo. She would never admonish me by saying "eat my grits." All I would get is a blank stare and my $3 latte and the satisfaction that I remember some really weird shit from my TV watching youth."
ScreamingSeed "So here I am surrounded by all these little girls in frilly party frocks, all smelling of cheap bubble bath and talcum powder, humming theme tunes to kid's TV shows and making their cheap rip-offs of Barbie dolls dance on the table between the sausage rolls. I've got my eye on the mouthwateringly sickly looking butterfly buns but I've been told I have to eat some salad first. I don't really know why I put this whole tomato in my mouth. I guess I was just trying to be entertaining, but the other party guests look far from entertained. There's just no pleasing some people."	OnePotMeal "You couldn?t remember buying the suit, but there it was. People came into your office sometimes but never asked about work, never knew about Yees, only about the shirt(s) you were wearing, and you wondered how long you could get away with changing shirts all day long and doing no work, how long until you could retire and commit full-time to the search for a poet named Yees. Meanwhile the poet who rented your old bedroom downstairs got a sunburn because your old room had so many windows. The spines of his books all faded until the titles and authors were gone. You rubbed aloe into his peeling back, asked if he knew the work of a poet of Yees, but he said, No, no, I?ve never heard of this Yees. Are you sure he?s a poet at all."	Hackney Lookout "Sat opposite a huge transvestite on the tube. Long blonde hair, tanned and cratered face, a pummeled nose: like an Aussi full-back on a hen night. Elbows held high, shielding eyes with a newspaper but highlighting legs like cabin logs."
Kitchentable "We did a few shots of me in my massive boots unlaced, jeans, and with my top off, all that. Fairly innocent. Then some adding a biker?s jacket that he?d brought with him. All very Gay Icon, but I can live with that. So once I was comfortable with posing in semi-nudity, he tipped out a bag of what can only be described as Things. Some of the things, I didn?t even know what they were! There were wrist restraints, chains, (tweet, tweet, chirp chirp twitter) and handcuffs. I put on the (twitter, chirrup tweet) and my friend helped me to fasten the (tweet tweet tweet chirp, faint sound of an aeroplane passing over) at the back. And to make my body glisten we (cut to outside of Big Brother house). ?Do you mind wearing this?? he asked, offering me a (cut to shots of the hose-pipe, followed by shots of the outside of Big Brother house, and then the oven). ?Actually, I?d better just rinse it under the tap.? he said."	Cyber Vassals "Open letter to the woman I saw on the street yesterday: I'm sorry. But if you can fit the word "DANCER" across your ass, you probably aren't one."	Bandhag "I expect she'll remember for a while about an old friend from school emailing to tell her you'd joined the fucking Police force. I expect it will all have come flooding back to her and that, for a while, she'd be unable to stop herself from recalling everything about that time - the pain, the humiliation, the wretchedness, the shame and the silence. The crying and the apologies, the promises and the blame - it'll all be as fresh as the day it happened. And for a while, I would think she'll want to find out where you are, who you know, who you're working for. Tell them what you did, what kind of person you were and what you put her through. She'll remember anger and hatred and she'll want to punish you and damage you and make you pay for what you did. But then she'll remember something more important. She'll remember that she's changed."
SarahSpace "Remember when I made all that homemade porn a few months back? Well, I put it all on a CD for safe keeping. Now, the CD is missing. If you happen to come across it, I would appreciate it if you would return it to me. Thanks."	Fuck Everything "Google search: how to perform an autopsy pics This... Is really disturbing. I don't think anyone should be taking a DIY approach to autopsies. And I had better not be seeing Autopsies for Dummies on the book shelves anytime soon. "Autopsy? Autopsy?! I can't WHACK off to Autopsy! Orrrr can I?!?"	Stefan Geens "Margaretha married Rolf, the man she broke up with Bengt for; they've had two children and lived in Luxembourg and Gothenburg before settling in Stockholm. It turns out that when I called, the children were under the impression their dad was her first love. But how many of us know the details of our parents' pre-marital love lives? I certainly don't, and it will stay that way unless somebody calls me with news of a long-lost love letter addressed to my mother from somebody patently not my father. After I called and Margaretha saw the letter online, she looked for Bengt M? online, found him living in the area where they grew up and called him. He remembered her without prompting."
Smacked Face "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up, all you armchair pundits and office commentators. I don't want to hear about this bloody game any more, do you hear? Listen to yourself, weedy, wacky guy in the Christmas jumper - like as not, you haven't even seen a football since compulsory sports at school, you do not have the right to comment on anything of a physical nature. And you, braying public school bore, stick to the rugby and memories of group buggery, and shut it! You are all so tedious it's a miracle you haven't sent yourselves to sleep."	Random Gestures "Today absolutely sucked. Then, for a sec, thanks to Chris, it didn't. Then it sucked to a power of 10. Then, for another second, it didn't, thanks to esch. Then, after lunch, it began to follow a steep curve into hell."	La Noiraude "So, the optometrist. He was old and grumpy; he lived in some kind of dusty-smelling dark lair. Or so it seemed at the time. I was a quiet child, but not a very compliant one. I was even less compliant when scared. On that day, I was terrified. He shouted at me, grabbed me by the arm and forced me to sit on the examination stool. To cut short ten minutes of ordeal, in terror I peed on the stool - not out of spite, although the idea is appealing - simply out of fear. I would like to say at this point that I graced his stool with a copious stream of urine - but that would be lying. It was more the pitiful letting go of the true fearful."
Light From an Empty Fridge "There are people who will always answer questions while eating, are happy to make and take calls at any time of the day, will check their work mail during the weekend, and who often assume that this is what you do as well. What does this say? I am so terrified of losing my job and/or desperate for the approval of my superiors that I will prostrate myself pathetically in this manner in front of the Gods Of Work for any tiny, tiny advantage that it might bring, despite the fact that 90% of the time nobody notices and 10% of the time they think "useful idiot, give him some more to do". I would probably do better rolling on my back and pissing all over myself, but I might get fired for staining the carpet. or I have become so blinded by my own concept of the work ethic that selling widgets to morons is more than a job to me. It's more than a career. It's a calling, it's an intrinsic duty. A contract of employment is an oath of fealty stronger than anything any samurai ever swore. Making money for other people matters more than anything else in the world, and I can't believe it doesn't to you too. N.B. When my job is outsourced I will likely shoot the entire office and then myself, so you might wish to invest in some sort of ballistic protection. or I'm a self-important arsehole who enjoys feeling superior, and "hours worked" is a scoring system that lets me rate myself higher than you. or maybe just I hate the rest of my life. or any combination of the above."	The Final Broadcast "My last few days (hopefully on the bus): A small jotting of thanks to those on the 428, my 'friends' as this week should be the breaking of our Fellowship. 1) BonJovi Boy: Thanks for playing your Bon Jovi CD every day for the past 3 and a half years. It seems like it was the same CD, although I feel that it would be far too sad if it were. 2) DrPepper Girl: Always reading the Sun and sitting in front of me, so I get the chance to read it too. It's the swigging of Dr Pepper at 7.40am that gets me. I'll miss your obvious need of a cigarette. 3) Kid-who-falls-asleep: This lad's gone through so much change, it's like we've grown up together (I say grown up - it's been 3 and a half years, yet he's about 2 inches taller)."	Muscle 68 "...bullshit, that was a great pour." She just laughed at me. Whatever, she was just jealous. "So we're going to another bar, it's ladies wrestling night." Well, you know me. Anything involving alcohol and girls wrestling and I'm there. So we finished the last of our beers and headed over. It was only a 30 second drive and... ...the hell not, I asked myself. Jager's always a fun choice, so I told her, "Sure, jager shots, let's go." She poured and we all took a shot together. Good times. It's a very bonding experience, drinking with someone. You don't ask people if they wanna go and grab a water, or go and grab a soda, but you can always ask someone if they wanna go and.... ...off my chest." Kinda awkward, seeing as how her husband was right there. But who am I to argue? She laid on the bar, smashed her fakies together, and I sucked the Jager shot down. She stood up. "You missed some." And she then lowered her shirt more. So of course, I had to lick off the... ...had no idea where the girl in the luchador wrestling mask came from, but there she was, imitating oral sex on the other female bartender. Then she screamed. Seems the luchadora chick bit her thigh. Seeing a girl put ice down her pants is pretty funny, especially in a ghetto bar after drinking a shitload of... ...the dude's birthday, I had to buy him a drink. I also had to yell at his girlfriend to set me up with one of her sisters or hot aunts or something. I mean, if they looked anything like her, I'd be happy. So we both cheered ourselves, and we took a shot of Jager. "Happy Birthday my man." "Well thank you, it was really nice of... ...timate cheeseburger, sourdough jack, and 2 tacos, thanks." Me and B were going to eat like kings on our way home "Shit man, do you have any money?" He grabs his pockets. "You know, I don't think..."
Looby "It does piss me off a bit that no-one seems to write as a truly disaffected parent. There's these wanky Guardian columns from Reluctant Dad, where Nicolas Lezard pretends to be pissed off with his children, but when you actually read it it's basically the same sort of mystifying mumsy conversation that I hear constantly from girlf and her pals. "Oooh, I'm so tired", "Oooh, he really wound me up the other day", "Oooh, they've been horrible today." I really have to bite my lip to say "Well, it was you that fucking wanted them - you deal with them. Have you never thought of attempting to overcome your biology and this fatal womanly flaw of wanting children with the same right-on man who loves you, which, you know, is a bit optimistic in this day and age?" "	Billyworld "jude, you'll never guess where I am .... no, @sd@ ..... yeah, well they have a sign on the door - have you seen it ..... it says "admittance will be denied to anyone improperly dressed" ................. yeah, well I've just realised I'm not wearing any knickers - wouldn't it be funny if I got thrown out"	Creepy Lesbo "But what's the point in regretting things? Where does it get you? So. I've written WorkshopLeader an email. And I sent it yesterday. And it was harsh but less offensive and accusatory than it could have been. And now I have to face the consequences. So I should storm into the front room and turn on all the lights and plug the phones back in and prepare for the inevitable onslaught. Face it like a hero, right? So why am I still sitting here? Why indeed..."
Rubbish Gays (You really need to see Rubbish Gays' BB themed pictures to get full impact...) "Hi, I'm Jason from the Big Brother house. I'm not gay. That's me in the first picture bending over for a gay housemate (I'm not gay). There I am in the second, mounted on top of the same housemate. He's gay, but I'm not. Did I say that already? The last picture, just a bit of fun, nothing remotely poofy going on there. Did I mention I'm training to be an air steward? One more thing, I'm not gay."	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)."	Exhibit 5a "Ah yes, there is really nothing sweeter than coming into the office after a long weekend. If by sweeter you mean sucktastic, of course. I've never understood the logic of making your employees work the day after a long weekend. You should never have to work the day after you have more than one consecutive day off. Think about that for just a second and you'll see the brillance of my plan."
Van Mega "One of the main ways listeners propelled artists was through the art of the mixtape. According to George, mixtapes were huge, and shared extensively (don't forget CD's and the internet was kinda rare and still quasi-cutting edge back then). George then argued that today?s music climate was now in a position to take on the same exciting diverse traits of the early 90's. He the presented a challenge to the viewer to not just get back into making mixtapes, but getting selfless about it. He challenged everyone watching to regularly make mixtapes and mix CD's, featuring the bands which they personally felt were vital and interesting, regardless of if they were obscure indie groups or glossy major label types. Most importantly, George challenged us to share and give away the mixtapes to strangers, as a way to spread the word. You know, just leave them lying around in a classroom or wherever, and see who picks them up, and see how they get passed on. Kinda like a pay it forward kinda thing, but the currency is sonic. [ ... ] I challenge other bloggers to publish a mixtape. Do it up, you've got an audience, spread the word (or whatever). Get in touch with me and let me know when you step up and publish a mixtape. I'll cherish your mix and link your ass, like whoa."	Oeillade "Quietly, softly, it finds its way in To play down your virtue and highlight your sin. The weights are all hung and the tunnel's in place, We'll help wipe away that fat smirk from your face. How long can one spend intending to fly If two in the hand is worth one in the eye? Come in from the outside, come in from the cold. What use is your pride if you're not bought and sold?"	3rd Engine "Only a few minutes later, my math utopia was compromised to reality. You know the kid who no one really wants to sit by, but one unfortunate soul has to because they straggled into the room too late to choose their choice seat? Well, this was me and my friend ?Big Popa?, as he likes to be called I guess. The lad is about 6? something-or-other, and he?s about 180 pounds of pure wigger. He had it all: the velvet jumpsuit, the sideways baby blue baseball cap, and more ice than the Atlantic ocean. About five minutes into class, we had to create our own name tags for our designated area of the tables. I spent about two minutes on mine, merely writing ?Ty? at first, in big, smeared, black mechanical pencil-y letters. I guessed that at a point, someone may inquire as to what my last name was, chiefly the teacher, so I promptly wrote another line of sketchy letters a few spaces away from the freshly created disaster to the left after much deliberation. ?THURSBY?, all in caps. Now they?d know I meant business. My wigger friend decided however to take the high road by writing ?(Big Popa)? above his real name, which based off his funny glasses and towering white kid frame was no doubt Arthur or Clark. We?ll just have to assume because I never actually saw. The only words of conversation this kid would provide was cursing everything under his breath. Any excessive direction from the teacher, any assignment given by the teacher, any stupid joke made by the teacher. Essentially, just anything the teacher did prompted a good, ?What the fuck?, ?Shut the fuck up?, ?Fuck this?. This kid is clearly oozing with substance and I can?t wait to see him everyday now."
Light From an Empty Fridge "As I said, nothing happened today. Nothing significant, anyway. Nothing that, when it comes to adding up lives at the end of the universe, will even produce a pause of the pencil. ?Alive, alive, alive, yes yes, same again"? flick through the pages? ?ah! he fell over a bollard in August! That?s plus one funny points. Another four hundred and ninety and he gets a toaster". I wouldn?t mind a toaster."	He's Welsh, You Know "I have a recurring anxiety dream in which I get the opportunity to work for Radio 1 legend John Peel. I suspect the pay would be miserable, but I would drop everything for the opportunity. However, in this dream, John eagerly asks me to book for Maida Vale my "mate from the pub" who sings an amazing rendition of the gospel tune "Salvation on Faith." "That is such a beautiful song. I really look forward to hearing your friend's rendition of it," John says excitedly in his gravel voice. "Oh fuck," I immediately think to myself. That's just a song my mother used to sing to me when I was a kid. I've never heard anyone sing a particularly stunning version of it. Then I wonder if perhaps I had at some point drunkenly bragged to John about having a friend who does a sterling version of the song. Because I would do something stupid like that -- tell an all-out lie just to garner the attention of John Peel."	Too Much and Too Little "I think I've been to a church twice in my life, thanks to the prompting of James, who promised that they could be "fun", and indeed they were, compared to getting a root canal without anasthestic as performed by a coked-up dentist having an epileptic fit. In other words it was so painful I could have sworn - but couldn't, because God doesn't like people to use naughty words like AHHH FUCK ME LET ME OUT OF HERE OH SHUTTHEFUCKUP WHO ASKED YOU ANYWAY - A BORING BASTARD IS YOU while in His house. I was in Sunday School when I was in kindergarten and it was a horrible experience, involving many picture books of white people in heaven mingling with tigers and bunnies and stuff. It was part of my mom's nefarious plan to make sure I would never be religious and it worked."
Shy Lux "I'm only linking to this because the guy lived. Crapweasel of the day: Kenneth Smith, author of An Open Letter to My Deep Fear That My Girlfriend Will Be Really Fat Later in Life. Kenneth, I hope you go bald, slowly, in an awkward, non-pattern baldness kind of way. And I hope your girlfriend makes partner in her law firm and leaves your skinny ass for a younger, more attractive gentleman with a smokin' bod. And that they have lots of gorgeous children, while you grow old all alone and have to move in with your mother and start wearing shorts with black dress socks that offset your pale, skinny, hairy legs. And I hope Kenneth Smith isn't your real name, because eventually your girlfriend will google you and find this public declaration of love."	Looby "The "pub" nearest to me (I say pub, but it's really a community centre and venue with a bar attached), is somewhere I never normally go, partly because it looks like the set for a pisstake TV sitcom about yoghurt knitters. It has a strange attraction for 50-year-old weirdy beardy men, and people who suffer from imaginary illnesses like ME, (a strangely class-specific virus which somehow affects university lecturers and psychotherapists more than it does catering assistants and people working in care homes). They also have a rule of not serving alcohol before 4pm, although you wouldn't want to be in there at that time anyway, unless you want to hear Proud Mum noisily cooing things like "Ooh, seven today! What a clever boy! Yes, Leo, we're going to go and paint our ant faces now."	Feeling Listless "Will it really have power to sway the voting habits of a country? What is startling for me is how little Moore has changed the way he presents the story. Although I missed the original release of Roger and Me (I was reading about robots in disguise at the time), for some reason I caught all of TV Nation when it turned up on BBC Two and that took me into my university years. Considering the controversy, it's interesting to note how close the new film is to the short ten minutes stories which appeared on television and his previous work. Throughout, there is still the mix of old tv footage, stunts and illustrative contemporary interviews. The proportions of each have been reduced and increased depending upon the story being told but it is very much Moore's style and just as distinctive as latter day Woody Allen." [...] "I saw the film at a Saturday 3:45 showing and it was full. Many journalists and writer who have been to see the film with the public to see their reaction have talked about the heckling and the applause. At my showing the only time anything happened was when a clip of Britney Spears appeared in which she was asked about the Iraq war From out of the darkness deep male voice shouted: "Whore!" He was utterly silent through everything else ..."
Conazo "If you accept the premise that cinema provides us with vicarious experiences through which we can live out our dreams, then it would seem reasonable to suppose that you can work backwards from the movies to figure out what our innermost desires might be. Movies tell us that love conquers all and bad guys always get their comeuppance, but what about darker, more fringe beliefs? After all, isn't the collective subconscious less Disneyland, more Arkham Asylum? What do movies tell us about half-thoughts so disturbing they have to be manacled in a reeking cell?"	Breakfast Any Time "There's a lot of things I've been meaning to tell you, but I lost my notebook and now I can't remember how to spell any of those things. If you're in the Chicago area, be on the lookout for a small black notebook. Then start your own website where you just keep posting the things I've written down in my notebook. Then give me the address. Seriously, it'll save me alot of time."	Peeling Wallpaper "I have this idea for a soft porn novel. You know the kind of book people leave behind at bus stations and train terminals, the ones with the covers torn off, the ones that catch your eye because of the provocative language, starting on page one, with very creative parts of speech for very intimate parts of the body. You?ll look down from your seat at the train station at the abandoned book on the seat next to you and the words ?swollen hamlet of love? will jump right up at you and you will think, ?well, this isn?t Tom Clancy.? "
Diary of a Glitter Splashed Britney Lovin' Lesbo "Every time I venture out I always seem to stumble upon someone who recognises me from school. Of course that means they must grab me, pull me in all directions in some faux 'I love you' kinda of way and tell me how good it it is to see me as I'm left scrambling for air and a name. I finally remember who they are (4 years older, 6 years younger) and also remember never having exchanged a single word with them, ever. Yet here they are despereate to tell me bout there fabulous new boyfriend, their children and how they work in an office and shag the boss. Touched as I am to have these complete strangers reveal their lives to me, why choose me? Because I have a friendly, inviting face? I'm quite sure not, so what is it? Because they think in all their skinny and tannedness they are better than me? Maybe. But most likely it's because I will sit there and listen to their crap, take it all in, gasp and guffaw at appropriate intervals and even stroke their pregnant guts when instructed."	SarahSpace "1. Are Spiderman?s superpowers a metaphor for his penis? Is it one of those ?I am going to fight crime with my enormous cock? type things? 2. I completely believe that it is possible to bitten by a radioactive spider and get turned into a Spiderman, but this Dr. Oct thing seems completely improbable. Why were the arms needed? What do the 4 extra arms have to do with creating fusion? Am I the only person who is bothered by the implausibility of this? And isn?t there a flaw in your thinking about creating a new power source that needs electricity to maintain itself? Spiderman pulls the plug out of the wall and everything stops?"	Creepy Lesbo "Another shit day. How old am I? I'm 28. I can tie my own shoelaces. I can tell the time (just). I can pick my nose and eat it (and I still do). And yet I am still unable to wipe my own arse after a night on the slosh without dragging streaks half way up my back. Why IS that?"

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Sunday, 11 July 2004

Does Donald Sutherland Have Curly Hair?

Topic: Yidaho

No doubt I've blogged about my crush on Donald Sutherland before.

But Don't Look Now is on telly, I've eaten too many boiled gooseberries in sugar, and it occurs to me to wonder if his hair is really curly, and straightened now, or if he felt the need for a demi-wave for both this film and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. To be right for the theatrical demands of the part, you understand.

So I looked for a split screen comparison - fat old grey beard Donald with the straightening irons clamped to his silver barnet, versus permanent waved virile frizzheaded emu-faced Donald of the sixties. And found a startling reality behind the hair.

So startling, I can't even pin it down. But there's something going on - something very very wrong - with Donald Sutherland's hair.

Can these all be the same man?

assymetric wave full virile frizz
thespian flopsy Donald has eyes AND bangs look in two directions at once funky Jazz-hat Donald
perhaps he thought going punk would make him look younger? was that curly mop from Body Snatchers an obvious side effect of alien possession?
is this curly? is it straight? spiky? slicked?
Now he's a red head. Loving the sliced colour and the layering there Mister S Oh come on. That's whiter than usual. Isn't that whiter than usual? That's whiter than albino.
bluff and butch when he wants to be Donald can also play the joker
now he has NO hair Swedish Tache Donald!
post face lift inspired by Richard Harris, Donald took to a twice a day hair straightener habit
the callow curly haired canadian youth? and yet, in The Avengers, the straight fringe re-asserted itself
Donald does farmer's beard, but forget to draw in the moustache properly compared to moustachioed European looking Donald. Again with the jazz accessories.
blow dry Donald blow dry AND a demi wave for Sir
it must be him, he signed it
his hair is an art form perhaps the curls disappeared when the face got stapled behind his ears?

Best Blo'te of the Day So Far: Shy Lux
"I'm only linking to this because the guy lived.
Crapweasel of the day: Kenneth Smith, author of An Open Letter to My Deep Fear That My Girlfriend Will Be Really Fat Later in Life. Kenneth, I hope you go bald, slowly, in an awkward, non-pattern baldness kind of way. And I hope your girlfriend makes partner in her law firm and leaves your skinny ass for a younger, more attractive gentleman with a smokin' bod. And that they have lots of gorgeous children, while you grow old all alone and have to move in with your mother and start wearing shorts with black dress socks that offset your pale, skinny, hairy legs. And I hope Kenneth Smith isn't your real name, because eventually your girlfriend will google you and find this public declaration of love."

This page graced by sarsparilla at 12:18 AM BST
Updated: Sunday, 11 July 2004 12:59 AM BST
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Friday, 2 July 2004

Transformation

Topic: Yidaho
the phone box at the bottom of Sydenham Hill has more than a few windows put out by clumsy oafs who can't put their underpants on the outside fast enough to beat the buzzer

the phone box at the bottom of Sydenham Hill has more than a few windows put out by clumsy oafs who can't put their underpants on the outside fast enough to beat the buzzer

Okay, thanks for the advice and comments on the manic depressive posts of the last few days. I liked Looby's suggestion that drinking helps you not to think about such stuff, but unfortunately, when I drink, I don't process things - I just remain static, at the same impasse I was first stuck on, never admitting the road's blocked. When you've ditched a nine year relationship in the previous year, you gain a perspective on putting up with intolerably depressing circumstances, and drinking to forget doesn't help me to move beyond.
Took me a week, but I've almost figured it out now. I've worked out the physical cause (delayed withdrawal from some meds, which I unfortunately decided to combine with drinking, with dieting, and with trying to stop drinking so much strong coffee, all at the same time as going for a promotion. Stressful much?), and the emotional trigger (summer, and fearing the isolation and boredom of last summer recurring - I like my job, and without the pressure and instantaneousness - and sometimes the danger - of it, I tend to retreat into myself).
I've got the root causes sorted out - it's just a matter of time, now till I work out how to beat it.

In the meantime, I'm off out for a drink with Second Dater, then up to Norfolk for the weekend to meet this guy and attend a wedding of someone I met via t'internet (I know! Geeks aren't meant to marry, are they?).

Can't go to the eviction tonight, but a woman dressed as a chicken may put in an appearance. If you see her on your screens, point out to the dozing form by your side that you read the blog of the woman whose Big Bruvva photoshops got their own double page spread in a national newspaper today!
Marco to go. I trust you to make it so.

Best Blo'te of the Day So Far: Rubbish Gays
(You really need to see Rubbish Gays' BB themed pictures to get full impact...)
"Hi, I'm Jason from the Big Brother house. I'm not gay. That's me in the first picture bending over for a gay housemate (I'm not gay). There I am in the second, mounted on top of the same housemate. He's gay, but I'm not. Did I say that already? The last picture, just a bit of fun, nothing remotely poofy going on there. Did I mention I'm training to be an air steward? One more thing, I'm not gay."
[I wish I got search strings like "steven you ginger knob" ....]

This page graced by sarsparilla at 5:41 PM BST
Updated: Tuesday, 6 July 2004 8:32 PM BST
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Saturday, 26 June 2004

Bleak Patch

Now Playing: Snow Patrol and Scissor Sisters

Topic: Yidaho
talk about the child inside, eh?

Sorry for bad tempered posting this week; after a few weeks of going out often, the inevitable grumpy crash occurred. Last weekend with Derby and Krystal was so cool that everything looks dull and draining in comparison. After I smacked my cheekbone open earlier in the week (much better, thanks), I've had that constant feeling that I'm about to cry.

The interesting one on one chats on BB all occur about 1am, and so, tiredness from excursions, plus staying up till two every night, make me a No Happy Bunny. Decided to recharge by spending a weekend at home - cue guilty conscience because I haven't seen my dad to give him his father's day or birthday presents, and they're too heavy to post, plus irritable refusal to go sit in the laundrette and wash the four foot pile of dirty clothes. Which means I smell bad and my clothes are grubby.

Added to this, a creeping need to drink alcohol. I had given up drinking entirely, then at Easter I decided it was okay to drink when I go out with friends; just the last few days, knowing I was getting grumpier, sulkier, and waiting for the strop to descend, I found myself thinking about glasses of white wine all the time.
Yesterday evening I gave in, bought a bottle, then realised I don't own a bottle opener. It took two hours of cruising local shops (witnessed by an embarrassing number of my customers from work), then experiments with screwdrivers to get to three whole glasses of wine. And as per usual, it didn't make me feel better to have given in.
Of course, having spent a Friday evening in, drinking alone and watching telly, combined with the terribly retrograde decision to engage in e-mail conversation about trivialities with an ex (an as yet unblogged ex who could only really benefit me by never having slept with me in the first place) - that's all going to make me feel so much better.

The only bright spark in the tunnel of oblivion that's this weekend has been watching the Glastonbury highlights. Shit performance from Kings of Leon, but I was jealously enjoying Snow Patrol, Oasis, Franz Ferdinand, PJ Harvey, Spearhead and Goldfrapp, and remembering how great gigging can be. Not that jealous, though - the site looks full enough and corporate enough to remind me of Donington or Reading; where's the hippie nonsense? Where's the other mindbending, black market barter economy, toilet roll grabbing stuff that makes Glastonbury what it really is - the annual opportunit to find out how rapaciously snobbish hippies really are?

Ah well, if we didn't have bleak patches, I suppose we'd never know when we're happy. Or somesuch obvious bullshit.

Best Blo'te of the Day So Far: The Final Broadcast
"My last few days (hopefully on the bus):
A small jotting of thanks to those on the 428, my 'friends' as this week should be the breaking of our Fellowship.
1) BonJovi Boy: Thanks for playing your Bon Jovi CD every day for the past 3 and a half years. It seems like it was the same CD, although I feel that it would be far too sad if it were.
2) DrPepper Girl: Always reading the Sun and sitting in front of me, so I get the chance to read it too. It's the swigging of Dr Pepper at 7.40am that gets me. I'll miss your obvious need of a cigarette.
3) Kid-who-falls-asleep: This lad's gone through so much change, it's like we've grown up together (I say grown up - it's been 3 and a half years, yet he's about 2 inches taller)."

This page graced by sarsparilla at 3:50 PM BST
Updated: Saturday, 26 June 2004 4:15 PM BST
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Wednesday, 23 June 2004

I Don't Even Drink, I Can't Explain It

Topic: Yidaho

yidaho says:
i'll have to buy some shite bread tomorrow
yidaho says:
and crap margarine
yidaho says:
what's the worst?
yidaho says:
stork?
Vanessa says:
Everyone where I live chucks their old bread out the window
Vanessa says:
no, lard
yidaho says:
lolol
yidaho says:
i'm not making lard!
Vanessa says:
lolol
yidaho says:
i'll use vaseline instead
Vanessa says:
make it into bread and butter pudding
Vanessa says:
lol
Vanessa says:
pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease make a hair sandwich
Vanessa says:
it'll be so funny
yidaho says:
i dont know how
Vanessa says:
stick a load of hair into some bread and photo it
Vanessa says:
i f I had enough hair, I would do one now
yidaho says:
lolol
yidaho says:
maybe in the morning, eh?
Vanessa says:
it won't seem funny then
Vanessa says:
i can guarantee it
Vanessa says:

yidaho says:
heh
yidaho says:
so.. two bits of bread..
yidaho says:
with hair between
Vanessa says:
simple but disgusting
yidaho says:
heh
yidaho says:
now?
Vanessa says:
unless you want mine to hurry up and grow
yidaho says:
if i don't have to use butter i could
Vanessa says:
ugh! no butter
yidaho says:
lol
Vanessa says:
you'd have butter on your hair
Vanessa says:
and that would be a bad thing
yidaho says:
exactly
Vanessa says:
and don't actually eat it, either
yidaho says:
lolol
yidaho says:
k
yidaho says:
2 mins

Best Blo'te of the Day So Far: SarahSpace
"Remember when I made all that homemade porn a few months back? Well, I put it all on a CD for safe keeping. Now, the CD is missing. If you happen to come across it, I would appreciate it if you would return it to me. Thanks."

This page graced by sarsparilla at 12:46 AM BST
Updated: Wednesday, 23 June 2004 12:57 AM BST
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Wednesday, 2 June 2004

BBheebeegeebee

Now Playing: BB live feeds (SHUT UP Michelle)

Topic: Yidaho

Famous blogger Mike suggested an obsessively BB influenced post:

I've been getting into the unfortunate habit of leaving a full screen Big Brother web feed on, with the volume down low as I sleep, or if I leave the house. Till I realised I've already pissed all my neighbours off by shouting half naked in the car park at stupid times of the morning on a weekday.

It has a weird effect - you start to get irritated by the housemates as if you actually have to share bed space with them, and it makes the Channel 4 show bizarrely distorted.

Given how often they mute the feeds to replace anything tasty they want saved for the TV show, you become convinced your house is haunted by birdsong at times.

Last night, I was drifting off to the weird accompaniment of

Cameras zooming into extreme, pore opening close up of Daniel's nostril as he stares into space.

Ahmed's scary dark open eyes on the night vision camera as he lies in his bed 'asleep'.

Stuart rubbing the fake tan into his entire upper body in the den at 1am, his eyes closed, heavy sighs, and rather too much attention paid to the nip area (I counted twelve nip applications before I felt too pervy to keep watching).

Another hour of Daniel sipping tea in the cold night garden, alone with his thoughts, while in the background, Kitten's animated indoor discussions (IQ level: "Brighton's brilliant, innit?") went completely ignored.

If you want to watch the uncensored web feeds, you need to sign up here - it costs about #4.20 a month by the time they charge you.
If you want to watch without all the assorted onscreen crap of realplayer, then Craig Pickles' BBviewer has been a nice simple bit of design for a few years now. You still need realplayer installed for it to work, but it's a much simpler interface, no adverts, and should they offer more than one camera stream, you can watch different feeds simultaneously.
If you're into betting on the show (not with money, but you can win a T shirt...), then Fantasy Big Brother is about to start - email Eddie before June 3rd to take part.
If you want to go to a BB eviction night, sign up here.
Alternatively, perhaps you just want to peruse some computer generated diagrams that reveal nominating patterns - and therefore spot which factions are forming before anyone else at the watercooler? Check out Igblan.
Finally, if you want to laugh at the contestants, the spectacular movie poster spoofs done by blogging's very own Yidaho have been meming the tabs for years now.

Yesterday, Ahmed was pissing me off - he let Jason and Victor wind him up, then toddled around the house doing their bidding, winding up Marco. Stuart was pissing me off - just for his naivety, by day's end - but for his manipulativeness earlier, in winding up Kitten and setting her off.

Kitten seems universally hated on lesbian messageboards - who needs a psycho lunatic like that representing their demographic onscreen? - but also appreciated - we need the mad ones to stay in, if we don't want some dull wanker like Cameron to win again. I read somewhere last year the cities with the highest density of gay inhabitants:

The highest gay populations in the UK are: 1 Brighton and Hove; 2 London; 3 Manchester; 4 Blackpool; 5 Bournemouth; 6 Cambridge; 7 Nottingham; 8 Bristol; 9 Oxford; 10 Lewes, East Sussex. Source

Add the BB house to that list.

My favourite stupid quotes so far (I've resisted the temptation to quote Emma, as she's growing on me):
Michelle Am a thrill seeker me
Victor Like what?
Michelle Whatever, anything
Victor What like Bunjee jumps?
Michelle Noah, ah doant like heights.

Best Blo'te of the Day So Far: Madame Finistere
"Sometimes I completely forget the reason why I'm not calling you when I feel like it, or sending you a birthday present, or writing you a pretentious e-mail trying to display my so-called literary capacities and trying to make you laugh. I forget why I'm neither responding to nor deleting your cellphone messages.
The reason is love.
I try to tell myself that as long as I do not forget this, you will be ok."

This page graced by sarsparilla at 11:17 AM BST
Updated: Wednesday, 9 June 2004 11:10 PM BST
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Monday, 10 May 2004

Politicaaal

Topic: Yidaho

Events in Abu Ghraib, Chechnya, and Haiti have had at least one tiny ripple, over here - I re-animated my'dormant membership of Amnesty International.

You'll probably think it's tofu knitting, if you're right of centre, or appeasement if you're leftist, but Amnesty really works.
My personal conviction about this stems from a bizarre experience of receiving a reply to an Amnesty letter once.
I recall I was working with a muslim academic from UAE on translating some of Edward Said's fables, many years ago, when an Amnesty letter I'd written to the then leader of Israel resulted in a personal reply. The Secretary of State himself (later to become president) had decided to take the time to write back to me to explain in great detail why his army had been instructed to kill arab children in the street. Apparently I was a victim of media propaganda, and was not to think of these dangerous terrorist militias as 'children' per se. Oh, and that the killing would continue, thanks.
The job I was working on at the time I received this state apologia for the most incredible brutality put me into contact with ~~arab academics~~ some people who were extremely interested in what an Israeli government's justification of child killing might be -- especially when its intended audience was not the UN, the US, any figure of state at all, but a UK undergraduate who had written simply asking why it happened.

It's the simplicity of the thing that makes Amnesty work. You write letters, and you ask why. You ask if it might be possible to calm down, old chap. You remind them that someone somewhere knows these people are still alive.

Current Appeals for Action:

Haiti: The re-trial of Louis Jodel Chamblain ? a test of the judicial system in Haiti

Women of Rwanda: marked for death

Belarus: Stop the silencing of trade union activists

Ratification - Bahrain

Angola: Stop forcible eviction of families

Stop violence against women - Act now

Ratification - Jamaica

Thailand's anti-drug policy should not be killing people

Burundi: Women under attack

Ratification - Burundi

USA: "Double jeopardy" for some Guantanamo detainees

"Justice only in heaven" ? End the death penalty in Uzbekistan

Ratification - Yemen

Viet Nam: Help free Le Chi Quang, imprisoned for internet use

Mexico: Stop violence against women in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua

It costs #24 or USD$25, or CA$20, or AUS$55 or Kr240 to join Amnesty International. Then you get to write some letters to Ministries of Foreign Affairs, and that might cost you a few stamps.

This page graced by sarsparilla at 7:43 PM BST
Updated: Monday, 10 May 2004 9:23 PM BST
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Bromide

Topic: Yidaho

For months and months this blog was subject to searches for le.sb.ians pis.sing or Van.essa Bl.ue.
No longer, as lately I've been delighted by the esoteric search terms that return the hapless to this here pile of mumbling platitudes. Some of them are quite poetic in their glittering banality, as if they represent some sort of fractured attempt to find yourself through minutiae.

Recent searches leading to this blog:

flutterings + colourful + clothes
sarparilla drink UK
'the dare game' sex
horror blog
card index of Heidi written by Johanna Spyri
'the beach' 'alex garland' differences film book message
oriental psychic readers
belgian biscuits + kinky
little vanessa
chilli sauce stain carpet remove -recipe
"i've had breast implants"
lingerie shoot uk photography
Helen Mirren's bra size
Very hairy and scary girls
Vanessa's blog

Meanwhile, on the inhospitable side of the planet, someone's been using Proxify to read my blog. I have to point out that although I have four sitemeters working on the page, I don't actually look at them much anymore (I've moved my addictions on, now, to browsing kinja, see). Even if I did read them obsessively, and thus cared, I'd have to be fifteen years more technologicallly savvy than I am to work out who you are from your IP address. There isn't oxygen enough in the world to waste on finding out how to do that.
Flattered people go to such lengths, though. You fools.

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Sunday, 25 April 2004

None o' that

Topic: Yidaho

I got my car fixed! Temporarily - it still needs taking to a garage for (deep breath, it took me four weeks to learn this term) 'glow plugs'.
CarMechanic said sitting in the car park for eight weeks solid meant the battery was dead, and given the battery was apparently the size of a red postbox, I'd have to keep the car running for an hour or two to charge it up again.
An hour or two? My projected Saturday activities - dvd of Kill Bill, washing dirty knickers, cuddling cats then trying to let them excape, hoovering, picking toenails, etc - misted over. After eight weeks of becoming a pedestrian again (and it is a mindset, believe me), I had to drive for two hours.
It was a gloriously sunny warm day. Where to go?
Easy. Epping Forest.
I like South East London - I like the sort of Blitz mentality of being The Area That The Rest of London Forgot. And there are some pretty bits - Pett's Wood, Eltham Palace, Blackheath, the view from the golf course at Beckenham, Greenwich, Dulwich, the view from Crystal Palace - but you Sarf Easterners have *no idea* how beautiful the edges of Essex are. The Hollow Ponds at South Woodford, High Beach, the view on the way to Epping Green - there are so many spots where you can't see a single building. Stuff your poncey Hampstead Heath, you haven't the faintest of a fuck what a city forest is like, till you've been to Epping Forest.

The thing about charging a battery up for two hours, though, is that you can't stop. Therefore, MacDonald's drive-through ice cream and coffee were the only food groups available to me.
The thing about not having driven for eight weeks, though, is that your weakest faults are a little more noticeable than usual. In my case, that's spotting traffic lights on red.
So, hurtling along the A104 at speed, working without a map, in a car where the windows, the seats, the mats, the controls, me, everything is covered in an explosion of emergency stop coffee and runny ice cream, I bombed through the Forest, past the Chingford reservoirs, and into the rolling Essex farmland, looking for deer.

It was gorgeous. Really sunny, breezy, beautiful. After twenty minutes I was in love with driving all over again. I know as a pedestrian, I felt increasingly belligerent at drivers, but in a car, alone, not knowing or caring where you're going, you don't feel like a gas guzzling lazy polluter. You feel like a pilot.

It was so cool, and great and wicked, and class, and top, that I almost didn't mind bumping into Tybalt as I stopped off at my flat in East London on the way home. I'm not going to ruin it by blogging that. Or the mad catholic congregation who kept trying to hit me for chatting too loudly. Or blogging the annoying Goldsmith's twats on the train later, or the mad evening out at a Cuban bar, or the failed attempts to see Kelis, or the thimble fulls of tequila in an empty club, or the Officer I snogged, or how I fucked things up, or the pervert taxi driver who thought I was well up for it by seven this morning. None o' that, mate, none o' that.

Turn Off TV Week ~ I'm spending a week living an imaginary life as a couch potato, to see if it's any more fulfilling.

Daily Selection: I might have watched ~

1. 5.45pm, BBC1, Historyonics ~ Nick Knowles presents a new slant on historical events using reconstructions and imaginary conversations. He takes an alternative look at the truths and myths surrounding the most famous highwayman of all, Dick Turpin. Oh now, this actually sounds cool. Perfect rainy Sunday afternoon blob material. Bag of crisps and some chocolate milkshake, a sofa, maybe a blanket, and this. Great.
2. 8pm, C4, Children of Abraham ~ Mark Dowd, a Catholic who trained to be a Franciscan Friar, embarks on a very personal journey to the Holy Land, Egypt, Turkey, Bosnia and the USA to explore the shared roots and deep enmities of Christianity, Islam and Judaism to try and discover if there is any hope of a shared future. Last year I had to do some research into comparing attitudes of the seven big religions, plus the multitudes of minor atheisms, on topics like blood transfusion, funeral rites, genetic experimentation, the Six Day War, etc. I found, to my extreme surprise, that anything comparative about religion is eye openingly revealing, and often teaches you much more about cultural history than my usual jaded agnosticism allows credit for.
3. 11pm, C5, World's Wildest Police Videos ~ Amazing footage of reckless criminals engaged in a range of illegal and often highly dangerous activities. Featuring the pursuit of an 81-year-old driver with Alzheimers heading the wrong way down the freeway, and the rioting students who turn a campus into a war zone. Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

Verdict: There's so bloody little to do on a Sunday that I'll put up with much. I like that these programmes are diverting, and set somewhere else. Will I be upset if I don't see it? We-e-ell ... the Dick Turpin and the religious prog ... maybe ...

This page graced by sarsparilla at 7:04 PM BST
Updated: Sunday, 25 April 2004 7:09 PM BST
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Monday, 19 April 2004

Meniscus

Topic: Yidaho

Reality's swimming slightly, everything's under a surface of glittery, moving sparkles, and things don't so much stay put any more - they ripple and shimmer in your peripheral vision. There's an over-emotional haze over rooms that are too bright, and a melancholy feeling of comfort and soft, welcoming rightness to the rooms that are too dark.
I find myself wondering at odd underwater moments if I'm asleep or awake, or if I'm dreaming that I'm asleep dreaming I'm awake?

That's correct, I didn't sleep a single minute last night. I'm going to leave off the random brutal blog master act till I have the wit to be able to stop drifting off into an undersea world of never, and work out where I am more than once every five minutes.

Meanwhile, something I was going to do today anyway - it's Adbuster's Turn Off TV Week this week - their big annual push to disempower the media, despite the fact that corralling up Clifford and the Beckhams and garrotting them would be a much cleaner, speedier, method.
As I don't normally watch more than one or two hours of TV a week anyway, it seems stupid to pretend I'm doing it for some noble anti-media/ocracy cause, so instead, during TV Turn Off Week, I'll be looking at the Schedules, and pointing out three things I might have watched, if I'd turned the telly on. And, films don't count - not that I'll be watching any terrestrially broadcast ones, either. At the end of the week, I reckon I should be able to look back and see if there's any point in having the damn plastic portable teev set glowering from the upturned bucket in the corner of the room at all.

[Oh, hey, look, no, it sounds a really logical thing to do if you've not slept for two days.]

Turn Off TV Week ~ I'm spending a week living an imaginary life as a couch potato, to see if it's any more fulfilling.

Daily Selection: I might have watched ~

1. 7pm, BBC2, Terry Jones' Hidden Histories ~ Concluding the exploration of Ancient Rome. I'd have given this twenty minutes idle flickering attention, because it's the guy from Monty Python who always looked most bitchily convincing in a dress.
2. 8pm, ITV1, I Want That School: A Tonight Special ~ Britain's school admission process. I love laughing at the socialist guardianistas as their high falutin morals are shredded within six weeks flat of school hunting. Hypocritical self serving bastards that they are.
3. I'd be tempted to watch 'Enemy of the State', because I love trying to spot as many links nods and references to 'The Conversation' as possible in it, except it's butchered in the middle section by the news at ten, so I'd not bother. 10pm, BBC1, News ~ consisting of the usual Becks / Iraq / Dubya / Oil companies in Not Always Totally Honest Shocker / Blair's EU referendum crap, to see if they followed up the local Sarf Lahndan story about Kevin Spacey pretending he was mugged while ~~openly cruising~~ *cough*cough*cough* walking his dog in dodgy SE London local brushland at four am.

Verdict: Entirely missable.

This page graced by sarsparilla at 9:24 PM BST
Updated: Wednesday, 21 April 2004 6:17 PM BST
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Saturday, 27 March 2004

Travel Narrows the Soul

Topic: Yidaho

If I had a wife
Plague o' me life
I tell you what I would do
I'd buy her a boat
Set her afloat
And paddle me own canoe ... hoy!

I was working for peanuts in a hotel in Athens aged seventeen, and on a cold bright autumn morning, I sang that to a bunch of guys who were both patrons, and co-workers. French guy, customer, bit slimy, but no more so than most, stood behind me, and hugged me after I sang it.
Behind the bar, Moroccan guy, co-worker, sweet as anything, turned to my dappy English boyfriend, usually too blasted on drink or hangover to do anything but squint at the world, and silently handed him a seven inch carving knife, nodding towards the Frenchman.

Or me. I'm not sure which.

The more I ever travelled, the more parochial I became, and the more I realised we're never going to all get along.

I'm off to Birmingham for the weekend.

This page graced by sarsparilla at 10:53 AM GMT
Updated: Thursday, 8 April 2004 3:31 PM BST
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Sunday, 21 March 2004

The Simple Journey

Topic: Yidaho

I had, like, wow, this rilly normalistical blog ready, and then, like, this rilly big bomb scare at Paddington, that was like, totally seriously awesome, and it, like, meant I was stuck on a train all evening instead of being able to, like, blog about it all? And I, like, totally watched The Simple Life reunion on cable before I left? And now, like, ohmigod, wow, bereft of any normal non-transport focused interaction, right? Rilly, I can't speak, like, any other way? I mean, ohmigod, whatever?

This page graced by sarsparilla at 11:43 PM GMT
Updated: Thursday, 8 April 2004 4:04 PM BST
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Saturday, 20 March 2004

Euphoria Transit

Topic: Yidaho

It is ages since I blogged from the train. Usually I'm prevented from reflection by travelling everywhere on shanks' pony, which leaves me pink palmed, breathless, practising the tendons and trying to feel alert to the muscles that are warming up - trying in fact to feel anything other than the cold rain on my nose, and the blister forming beneath the callouses on my sole. Walking's a more solitary activity - your interaction limited to shrugged greetings, fleetingly awkward manoeuvres which rarely progress beyond 'shall I catch her eye', 'has he seen me' or 'shall I overtake yet'.

Train travel, and I'm bombarded by other's phone calls home, excited conversations, wild clothing combinations, faces both animated and bored.
In two minutes I've been treated to four SE London fight narratives, enthusiastically mimed in replay, and a host of tips on how to avoid paying the fare (apparently saying 'sorry, me fohh-ren' to the ticket inspecter yields least success.)

Safe in my seat I can stare out at a dramatic, lowering blue sunset, Canary Wharf in granite blue and silver outlined on the cold pink horizon as wash after wash of navy thunderheads gloom threateningly above.
I can listen to the rails' repeated rumbling energy, trying to decipher a rhythm, a tune, words, from its weighty creaking rattle.
Or look the other way, avoiding the picturesque sunset, and see greenish flickering gold window reflections jewelling against the dried blood coloured boxes of inner city tenements.
Peer into the still lit offices, emptied of their usual occupants, each tenth window revealing a thin moving figure who looks like me.
Or watch the sky in the oily gun metal platform puddles as the train slows to a judder, the surface calm but cold, the bridge platform frozen in space, the Thames churning below.

This page graced by sarsparilla at 1:06 PM GMT
Updated: Thursday, 8 April 2004 4:08 PM BST
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Thursday, 18 March 2004

The Strange Tale of How I Told Mrs Opposite to Learn Some Fucking Manners

Topic: Yidaho

Okay, in person I'm quite mild mannered and polite. Almost to a fault, in fact.
I like turning the other cheek and being magnanimous, and for one reason; it's a stance.
A few weeks ago, I was parking my car in alternate positions in the huge, rather empty off street private car parks we have here, and relishing the security of it all. No more annual break-ins, no more monthly drilling of your locks in that ole East End stylee. I can park numerous places, now, all of them totally utterly parking permit free, bird shit free and crime free.
Parked up a slightly awkward incline, next to the outhouse where all the rubbish gets lobbed, I returned to my car one morning to find a post-it note stuck to the windscreen.

THIS SPACE IS
RESERVED

DONT
PARK.HERE.AGAIN.

Well, you know, I haven't worked alongside the great unwashed of Catford / Enfield for ten years to knock my knees together and quail at some retard threatening me on my doorstep. One of the great side effects of ~~the crisis management and general abuse that so addicts me to~~ my thrilling job is that I'm scared of no one. No one.
You can come at me with whatever weapon you like, you can try to hurt me however you want, and there is no way in hell that I'm going to turn away until I've disarmed you literally and metaphorically. That's right. You're going to apologise.
One of my best such moments was aged 24 in the race-riot-strewn estates behind Euston, when a gang of chemically altered teenagers decided to bottle my head in for being gay. I loved the look of horror on their faces when instead of running away, I turned and walked towards them. I made damn sure they apologised before I left.
I read that inane post-it note, left on the car that, given an option, I'd prefer never to have parked in the same spot twice, and laughed at the world of hurt unfolding in my imagination.
This is probably how squillion decade long neighbourly disputes begin.

I got me a post-it note from my own secret poison pen stronghold, and left a fairly terse message on the miscreant's own grimy windscreen. Something along the lines of 'I don't see a fucking sign, do you?' and 'Learn some fucking manners' (particularly proud of the oxymoron there).

Oh how I prayed the anonymous note writer would go further. I wanted a show down. A full blooded barney at dawn. I was quite happy to go toe to toe and twat the owner of the grimy grey shitmobile. Preferably police called.
Dammit, I have nine months of untapped dead-relationship rage inside me, I wanted to rip my fingernails along someone's face.
No joy - the reply disappeared, grey grubby shitmobile hogged the space possessively, and eventually the opportunistic rage subsided into a mere burst of 'and another fucking thing' rantation if I was having a grim day.

I don't think I've particularly wound my neighbours, so far. I play the radio pretty loud in the bathroom once a day, but it's Radio 4, it's hardly eardrum shattering. My bogus landlady had told me her old schoolfriend, Pilchard, lived upstairs, and had a cat. Poor bloke looked freaked when he walked towards the stairs with some cat litter and a strange woman in a pink fluffy hat yelled 'you're Pilchard, aren't you?'
But aside from my usual slight stalkerish tendencies, nothing to suggest I was a newly planted sociopath in their midst.

Polite beyond the broadest definition, I tried to avoid a meeting with Mrs Opposite this week - Bogus had told me she was an old dear - slightly deaf, and extremely quiet. On Monday, I could hear Mrs Opposite across the hallway slamming her door to run in and out of the flat. This is London, I don't want anything more than frosty civility towards neighbours - so I decided to wait a moment before charging out to begin my two mile morning constitutional.
The coast seemed clear, but as I stumbled towards the hall light, I nearly broke my ankle on some grey dusty car cleaning materials in a grey dusty bucket. So that's what the crashing and slamming had been in aid of. Early morning car wash.

The horror - the palpable gut lurching horror - as I emerged from the front door directly in the path of the mystery note writer's grimy grey shitmobile. As Mrs Opposite looked up from her grubby bucket seat behind the steering wheel.

Me heap big Sarf Lahnnun hard woman, eh? I did my Moron's Best shiteating grin, limply waved hello, and scampered.

This page graced by sarsparilla at 5:52 PM GMT
Updated: Friday, 19 March 2004 12:13 AM GMT
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Friday, 27 February 2004

Wanna Buy a House?

Mood:

lazy
Topic: Yidaho
Four things:

this is pretty
this surprised me
this is for sale - two careful owners

I knew I'd feel like this today, after a three hour long appraisal. Like a sugar-deficient crash.

Still, I have broadband. Wooo!

This page graced by sarsparilla at 8:37 PM GMT
Updated: Friday, 27 February 2004 11:02 PM GMT
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Friday, 6 February 2004

Tales of the Urban Burbs #5

Topic: Yidaho
Too knackered to blog.
Decided to go back up East and heft some furniture.
Realised I'd left a dripping wet duvet cover inside the washing machine.
Sat and watched it wash again.
Hefted two sideboards, two lamps, a mirror, and three rubbish bags full of clothes and shoes down three flights of stairs and into the car.
On the twelve mile way back, deeply wet, deeply difficult to see through overstuffed rear view mirrors I remembered there aren't really any big Tesco stores in Sarf East Lunnun (apart from Elmers End, which is the other side of Penge and Does Not Count).
So I stopped off at Charlton Asda (which is much the same thing, but with more nylon; think Walmart) and bought a cheapo #35 microwave.
I hurt my ankle moving stuff the night before, and my bedraggled, limping form cut such a pathetic dash that even hard done by Asda checkout operatives took pity, carried my stuff to my car, and spent twenty minutes trying to balance so it didn't fall from a height onto the gear stick when I cornered.

Got in real late, only to realise I had to now get it all, sideboards and all, into my flat without pissing off the neighbours.
With a limp.
I moved very very very slowly.
Stinking of sweat, my true love Malice ran me a mildly tepid bath.
I'm bloody knackered.
Again.

This page graced by sarsparilla at 10:11 PM GMT
Updated: Friday, 6 February 2004 10:29 PM GMT
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Wednesday, 4 February 2004

Tales of the Urban Burbs #4

Topic: Yidaho
I left the mobile phone charger back East in 1.67 Kilometre End. I have just about enough saltpetre left in it to listen to one more message before Friday. Better be choosy about whose message I play, eh? Sleep deprivation and constantly forgetting what I went to the shop for takes up most of my time right now. It doesn't help that I've never seen what my street looks like in daylight - just a tad disorienting, that.
My friends all know I'm crap with phones of any description - why do they all get tetchy if I don't hear their messages instantly? Instant availability of communication doesn't instantly obligate you to reply. Jings, if it's that important, train a pigeon.

So intermittent bursts of telephonic power allowed me to arrange for Tybalt to come stay with the mad ritalin deprived cats this weekend.
I'm flying to Belfast at some ungodly hour in the morning on Saturday, to meet most of the people in the first category of my blogroll for a jar. (It's totally coincidental that we all have blogs, honest, we're just lazy copycats. So I can give you the inside dirt on Tess, Vic, Yidaho, Nikki, Edna and Dee, because I'll be the only one sober. Hah! Dee doesn't have one yet, because she's too cool and uber-geek for it, but I can't see it holding out for much longer - she's every bit as attention- seeking as the rest of us.)
It's going to be somewhat anomalous, the idea of Tybalt's presence in my new Temporary Tybaltless Abode, with or without me being there; I almost decided against it -- but I suppose it's a measure of how incredibly the right thing this move was for me that I can even consider it. It'll prove I didn't steal all the teaspoons, too, no doubt.

Creeped by the silence, I bought a #35 DVD player from Savacentre. You can imagine how good the picture is. I realised why it was so cheap soon enough - you have to buy all the leads separately, adding on at least another tenner. By the time I got it sorted and settled down to watch Swimming With Sharks, it was midnight, further adding to my lost sleep tally. The director's commentary is comedy gold, though - ignore all the best shots, ignore the storyline, the detail, the cliff hangers, the carefully framed shots - just focus on how all your actors hated you, called you a stupid witless bastard, and constantly walked off set telling you they'd had it with your shit. "Of course it was very, deeply wrong of me to suggest to Kevin Spacey that a suit on a hanger could have acted the part better than he, and I had to do much apologising to persuade him to come back to act the final scene."

I think I forgot to attend the lesbian book club. I've never been to a book club of any orientation - was put off by tales of Duch's book club, where they actually take minutes. Dashtarnit. I read Brave New World for nothing.

This page graced by sarsparilla at 9:05 PM GMT
Updated: Thursday, 5 February 2004 6:21 PM GMT
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Tales of the Urban Burbs #3

Topic: Yidaho
The quiet got to me. It really really got to me. Pastel, torpid silence. Bare rooms, bare walls.
No phone, and my mobile dying without its battery (charger left the other side of the Thames).
I'd gotten into a routine of two cold baths a day, interspersed with massaging and pummeling of Malice's knobs and pipes. Inbetween getting to Crystal Palace to blog, begging for friends to house-sit during repairs or deliveries, and trying to assemble a flat-pack bed, things were becoming desperate.

Krystal came over while I was at work to let the bed delivery men plate up their parcel of joy for me.
Assembling the bed was a construction job of the utmost importance - I assembled the bed, slowly, carefully, remembering the sudden nocturnal crashes of the last one. I'd spent four years plummeting earthwards whenever a particular plank slipped out of joist. It was one of those occasions when I regimented not only the parts, but the washers, the nuts, the damn screws too, in a crazy jigsaw parody of what the frame was meant to become. Promised to reward myself with chip shop suppers.
Knackered from bed meccano antics, I fizzed onwards to put together the hi-fi. The complete silence afforded by Temporary New Abode has me flicking on teevee, radio, anything to hear a sound. I attached all the wires to the hifi while on the phone to Toulouse, who was making international calls from work. (gasp!) The hi-fi was a piece of piss - the next downside was that I've only brought one CD, but it's better than the silence pressing in. (All charity donations accepted; Maxinquaye is becoming old.)

After all that, tiredness was beginning to flake my brain into slivers, and I ran the car into a bollard I hadn't expected, just beyond my driveway. Yes, yes, yes, I know they're lit up with flashing harzard lights. Don't distract me from my whinge.
My fingers stank of grease and iron bolts. I nearly plunged down the stairs backwards while blogging too excitedly, and the consolation of more chips on the way home wasn't much enlivened by the metallic tang of iron filings.

But then two things went right.
In the morning, a welcome shock: Malice lurves me.
Malice offered up steaming boiling bubbling hot water. As hot as I can take it, she'll pump it. Hotter.
But she'll only do it at seven in the morning. (there goes my new lie in)
My other gift from the gods - the first, last and only time - I bought a Teddy. Starved of cuddles from psychologically damaged wayward felines, I was desperate. I bought Theodore Bear amid much cruel hilarity at my expense from the natives.
I cuddled him curled up on Pink Nasty for an hour, while watching Rotten in the Jungle. I took him to bed, too.
He has 2004 embroidered on his footpaw, to remind me I can only have him one year, then emotional maturity must become de rigeur. I'm to pass him on when the year is up. Being female, I can get away with this as if it's in any way psychologically normalistical. (Unless you actually know me, I suppose.)
Believe me, Theodore Bear has done serious sofa cuddle time for me already. Those cats should be nervous, because I woke up today still snuggling Theodore, to find jets of lovely hot water from Malice.

Things look up.

This page graced by sarsparilla at 8:52 PM GMT
Updated: Wednesday, 4 February 2004 9:41 PM GMT
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THIS SPACE IS RESERVED DONT PARK.HERE.AGAIN.

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Wanna Buy a House?

Tales of the Urban Burbs #5

Tales of the Urban Burbs #4

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THIS SPACE IS
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DONT
PARK.HERE.AGAIN.