Big hairy birds and celebrity encounters

Nobody panic, but I have recently been delving into my sub-conscious. A terrifying experience for the best of us I’m sure but, apparently, according to (internet-based though I’m sure reputable) experts, I really am in a lot of trouble.

Who knew?

You see, I have been making detailed notes of my dreams. And my dreams have always been a bit on the worrying side if I’m honest. Maybe it’s my love of cheese, maybe it’s just because I’m a few steps away from clinical oddness, but whilst others run through sand, or fly, or lose their teeth, I’m busy perching on a moths wing whilst playing the harmonica and wearing rubber underpants. It’s not right, it really isn’t.

So recently I sought some confirmation from the experts. I just wanted to clarify exactly how ‘left field’ I am here. Not surprisingly the experts told me, in no uncertain terms, that it’s not right. Definitely not. Wrong, wrong, wrong – seek help immediately. However, there are always two ways to look at something I find.

The website I consult pronounces that:

You are entering a mysterious and fascinating world of dreams where the rules of reality do not apply.

Hmm, well they’ve got that bit right. If reality came a-calling in any of my bedtime musings, he’d be checking into the nearest secure unit and asking for his money back pronto. My dreams, like Aunt Sally’s impossible complexion (you will understand this reference later), don’t appear to be (even loosely) based on reality most of the time. Having said that, my reality very often doesn’t appear to be based on reality either. Let me expand on this…

Just last Friday, I found myself in a very odd, dream-like (and possibly morally wrong) situation. I used (and I’m not even that ashamed of this) my friend’s baby to make friends with a movie star. As you do. You know, perfectly normal. You’re down the boozer with your pal’s baby (I mean, not JUST your pal’s baby – your pal was there too obviously) and Johnny Lee Miller comes in and tries to talk to you. Of course he does. Nothing weird about that at all. Happens all the time. So far, so weird.

So you go into ‘meet celebrity’ default mode – which is, as everybody knows, freeze and grin like simpleton. He gives up and retreats to the bar. He is out with pals and you don’t want him to cotton onto the fact that you love him and now intend to stalk him for the rest of your natural life. So you play it cool. You start talking to the baby in a rather large, weird voice in the hopes of attracting attention. It doesn’t work. The baby looks at you like you’re a cock. Largely because you are a cock.

On leaving the pub you make one last ditch effort to engage said celebrity in witty banter. You force your pal, against her wishes, to wheel her baby in front of Johnny like some prize turnip in a barrow. And then…

YES.

Gullible, delicious Johnny takes the bait.
“Hello” he says, “what’s her name?”
I blurt out my own name then swallow it quickly in an explosive cough. He’s talking about the baby you twat… obviously.
“Louisa”, mutters my friend, looking at the floor and making a strange monotone laugh that signals to the world that she has recognized Johnny M.
“She’s beautiful”, he says.
“So are you”, I blurt.

NO.
Tell me.
I did NOT just say that out loud.
Fucking tourettes.

Actually, thank the Lord, I didn’t. This time it stayed in my head. But it’s not always the case, trust me. So, I return to work and spend all afternoon devising fantasy situations in my mind whereby Johnny Lee Miller takes me into his confidence (and perhaps his arms) and we become the best of friends and I get invited to his most recent ‘shoot’ in L.A. Then he asks me to write a script for him and introduces me to his more talented, better looking cousin/brother/best friend and we all go on double dates together and throw darts at a large blow-up doll of Angelina Jolie and drink cocktails in the sunshine forever and ever and ever… etc. You get the picture.

So imagine my surprise when I return to the pub and… there he still is! And then…

“Hello again”

HELLO.

AGAIN.

That’s what he said. Like an old friend. Like an old chum from way back – I look behind me, to the left, to the right, but yes, seemingly, bewilderingly, HE IS TALKING TO ME. Too much. Can’t cope. Brain freeze. Some dribble comes out. I contemplate fainting and, when I come round, he is gone. Just like that.

And this is where it all starts to get a bit dream-weird. No moths or harmonicas and, thank god, no rubber pants, but still quite weird. I am still standing outside when Johnny Lee Miller’s drunk ad exec friend stands on a very cute puppy and incites the wrath of the crowd. Now there’s an ‘in’ if ever I saw one. Bit of drunken puppy banter and, just like that, we’re back in the game.

I am talking to fat friend (fat friend’s ALWAYS love me) about his history of violence against baby animals when… who is this other guy? Not sure. I don’t recognize him but everyone else seems a bit excited. Unfortunately, by the time I realise it is actor of note Sean Pertwee, I have smoked most of his fags and made him buy me lager.

Oops.

So, I find myself in the unlikely position of being out on the piss with a short, mintos ad exec of uncertain origin, Johnny Lee Miller (who has now gone off in search of a curry) and Sean Pertwee (Worzel Gummidge and Doctor Who’s Dog Soldier son, for the uninitiated). This is weird. Definitely weirder than that dream I had about Barbara Cartland being my Mum.

After this, it all gets even hazier. I am understandably a little keyed up and by this time have drunk my own body-weight in red wine. So when fat friend suggests I give him my number I down half a glass of wine in one go and run off into the night to question whether it was all just an unlikely ‘Alice down the rabbit hole’ moment.

Next day, still unsure, I decide to consult my online dream oracle. The previous night, in no particular order, I dream of:

A boat
Giant eyelashes falling from the sky
Unidentified road kill
A moth (always moths, seriously…?)
A wooden classroom
A talking bird with human hair

This is what the oracle said:

You are entering a mysterious and fascinating world of dreams where the rules of reality do not apply.

Yeah, yeah, we know that bit. Just get on with it …

Boat
To dream that you are in or see a boat, signifies your ability to cope with and express your emotions. Alternatively, you may be ready to confront your unconscious and unknown aspects of yourself.

Yeah, unknown aspects such as my new life as a yacht-lounging celebrity best friend/wife/mistress! Hoo bloody rar! Bring it on.

Eyelashes

To dream that all your eyelashes fall off, suggests that you are having difficulties expressing yourself. It may also mean a loss in your feminine power.

So presumably, to see massive big eyelashes everywhere means precisely the opposite - an abundance of feminine power, sufficient to seduce Johnny Miller I’ll warrant.

Road kill (yes, there really was a listing for road kill)

To dream that an animal is about to become road kill, indicates loss of control in some aspect of your life. Consider the type of animal that is hit for clues as to what aspect of your life is out of control.

Loss of control!!! Very much liking the sound of that in the context of Johnny M. Although, admittedly the road kill image is a bit of a passion killer. I will assume it signifies the death of my reserve and the wild unleashing of a grand amour as I gallop naked on a stallion through the sea… or, urr, something.

Moth
To see a moth in your dream, indicates that some unseen irritation may not surface until it is too late. It is important to pay attention to the minor details and not to overlook certain things. Alternatively, the moth symbolizes your weaknesses, character flaws or fragility.

I’m just going to ignore this one if it’s alright with you. Doesn’t seem relevant. I never liked moths anyway.

Classroom
To dream that you are in a classroom, indicates that you are learning an important life lesson. Alternatively, it symbolizes personal growth. You are learning something about yourself.

Yip, learning that my new husband should be Johnny Lee Miller.

Hair
To see hair in your dream, signifies sexual virility, seduction, sensuality, vanity, and health.

Result!

Bird
To see deformed or odd birds in your dream,indicates that you have a unique outlook and perspective on romance and love.

Unique, special, artistic. One might even say that I am the type of girl that would appeal to an artiste. An actor, say?

Then, for good measure I thought I’d check my horoscope, just to see, and guess what???

Your recent achievement has made you a celebrity in your circle. Enjoy the praise! Overview You need to try something new today -- it could be anything from a new restaurant to a new way of looking at your career. It may also be a good time for you to move forward with a romance.

Well I don’t know about you, but it’s all blindingly obvious to me. I need to move forward in a celebrity romance with Johnny Lee Miller and invest in some heavy duty mothballs. I KNEW my time as a sun-drenched celebrity would come. KNEW IT.

Just better hope Angelina’s hung up her Lara Croft gun-holster suspender belt. They remain very close unfortunately… so my new friends tell me. But I reckon I could take her in an arm wrestle. After all, I’ve got a life-size, hairy, talking bird on my side.

Yip, sometimes I scare MYSELF.

Whoops! I've got a scallop in my pants

Now, I don’t know whether you’ve caught this on the Telly box yet, but following the trend for dangerously over-produced, sun-drenched cookery programmes, the BBC has recently seen it necessary to air yet another ‘sexy’ food show hosted by the (allegedly) voluptuous beauty, Sophie Dahl.

There are a lot of things wrong with this. A lot… of things…

Call me a cynical old piece of overdone venison, but can anyone actually tell me what the connection between posh nosh and graveyards is? No? As far as I know the two have never been particularly comfortable bedfellows, largely on account of the people in graveyards being, well, dead.

As Sophie gamely licks cream off her fingers all smug and back-lit and flashing her oyster-sized engagement ring all over the place, the scene cuts to various ‘mood pieces’. Either Sophie reciting a poem in wistful recline or, in a rather bizarre twist, talking about the ‘eternal romance’ of graveyards. Now slap me in the eye with a chilli scallop if I’m wrong here, but do people really want to think about their nearest and dearest maggoting away in their coffins as they tuck into their shepherds pie? NO would be my guess.

Graveyards (romantic or not) are no place for a quick sandwich. The antithesis is too great, the juxtaposition of the monster-munch-guzzle living and dried out hollow-socket dead is unsettling. No. I don’t like it. It is incorrect. Whichever way you spin it, food and dead folk don’t mix. Well, not unless you’ve got some pretty deep psychological problems anyway.

And I’ll tell you what else forms a particularly incorrect and alarming union. Fish and your underwear, that’s what. It’s a well known fact. NEVER mix seafood and your undies, it’s just a bad idea and conjures up all sorts of unpleasant associations. A point which the producer of Sophie’s show has spectacularly missed it seems.

As she chops up a chilli with a rather sinister commentary about an ex boyfriend’s penis (no, I’m NOT making this up – chilli being sliced - followed by phallus reference), we cut to a gratuitous shot of what appears to be Sophie’s pants hanging on the line. OH – FOR – GOD’S – SAKE – WOMAN. Do you really need to be quite so literal about all this? WHY would I want to see a shot of your pants as I’m trying to get in the mood for marinated shell fish? NO. I DRAW THE LINE SOPHIE, I really do. You are making me feel nauseous – not usually the aim of a cookery programme, surely?

The irony was complete when Sophie (a bit too flushed from the success of her mash potato) proudly garnishes her pies with some sprigs of rosemary. One, she explains, is garnished with a V for…

…vacuous? My flatmate suggests.

Nope. It turns out that too much anthropomorphism in her formative years (I blame Roald) has turned Sophie into a VEGE BLOODY TARIAN.

What? She’s been cooking meat and fish for the entire show, but doesn’t actually eat it! Wonder what Fantastic Mr Fox would have to say about that? Not chuffing much I’ll warrant.

Lewis Caroll's fat ankles and other thusings

Sorry, sorry, sorry, blog audience. Blaudience if you like. I have been away too long. So much has happened over Christmas and the New Year that I really don’t know where to start. Much like Cheryl Cole with the Times crossword methinks. But I’ll get to her (or rather her libido-ridden estranged husband) later. Ignore the nun on the phone for now as well. She’s a cautionary tale. All will become clear. Or clear er anyway.

I recently went to see the amazing Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland at the cinema and it got me to a’ thinking or a’ ‘thusing’ (thinking and musing) about Lewis Caroll’s great legacy to all humankind. No, not opium induced visions and an unhealthy preoccupation with little girls’ under-bloomers, but the portmanteau. You know the sort of thing – a humorous and pleasing fusion of words to create an entirely new splendiferous, frabtious, beamish marble of a word. All plosive and shiny and descriptive.

So… you take two words. Let’s say, well, ‘word’ and… ‘shit’. And you get…wit? Hmmm. But no, hang on, that can’t be right. Try another one. Something closer to home perhaps. What about ‘calf’ and ‘ankle’? This gives you the very pleasing ‘cankle’, to describe those granny spill-over ankles famously sported by the elderly, the pregnant, those of the elephant genus and, very regrettably, me.

I’m not of course suggesting that Lewis Carroll had fat ankles, although I think all the best people do. I’m simply saying that he was a man that knew a good word when he saw one. And if he didn’t, then fugger it, he just created his own. Fabulous! Frabulumous! Wondrill! Like your style Lew. I profeartily approve.

However, I’m not sure whether Lewis Carroll would have been so proud of his legacy if he’d seen some of the crass tabloid inferences that it has spawned of late. I’m talking of course about ‘sexting’ and all the faux moral outrage that seems to accompany it. People are such hypocrites about these things.

Vernon Kaye, Ashley Cole, Tiger Woods and the rest of the penis overruled telephonic idiots out there all pound away furiously on their mobile phones with their disloyal digits, and we’re all thrown into raptures of disapproval. HOW COULD HE? What a RAT!!! CHEAT, CHEAT, DIRTY CHEAT we cry.

Hang on a minute though. And I refer chiefly to the case of the hapless Vernon here (as the others clearly did not restrict their ardor to a smutty text or two), what has he ACTUALLY done? Is cyber-sex now akin to the real thing? If he’s sent some ill-advised ‘sexts’ to some pole-lubed slapper in Essex, is it really the same thing as getting down and dirty in person?

I put this scruples question to the floor at a recent dinner party and the response was rather surprising. Women (I think) are known for their more emotional take on life. But the consensus at dinner on Tuesday was reasonably unanimous. Flirting via a text or email (even if you are married/in a relationship/shagging the gardener) is absolutely A OK. It doesn’t count. It’s sexual monopoly. Not real life. It’s just a game.

Hmmm, curiouser and curiouser.

I doubt old Tess Dailey would agree with us here. Surely your husband sending smutty messages to some perma-tan silicon tart (especially when you have borne him children) is quite offensive and more than a little worrying. However, the fact remains that he hasn’t actually DONE anything and probably had no intention of doing so. Men are simple creatures when it comes to lusty matters I find, and I’m sure he just saw it as a bit of harmless titillation to make his day a bit more interesting.

Thankfully this sort of thing is not something I’ve ever had to put to the test. As with most of these modern-day portmanteaus (smirting – smoking and flirting, jazzercise - a particularly gruesome combination of jazz and exercise), I am utterly rubbish at all of them. Well, that’s not strictly true, I’m very good at eating brunch and I’m pretty adept at the chortle/snortle (chuckle and unattractive snort). Sexy – oh yes.

Speaking of which, when asked some time ago in a rather furtive text what I was wearing, I managed to spectacularly miss the point and replied ‘Tracksuit bottoms and a jumper, why’? I imagined he was about to take me on some unspecified activity which involved a certain dress code and was asking a practical question. He was imagining something quite different. Tatty tracksuit bottoms weren’t quite what he was looking for at that point. Oh well, you live and learn. Girls like me just aren’t cut out for that sort of chat. I may as well accept it. Even if I’d responded with ‘suspenders, rubber thigh boots and spurs, why?’ it would have just come across as weird and creepy and/or unhinged. I just can't seem to get it quite right.

Another excellent example of the ‘sext’ gone awry is when my friend’s mother bought herself a new mobile phone. As with all ladies of a certain age, she wasn’t all that proficient at text messages but she thought she’d send her son a little tester.

“Hello there! Love Nun XX”

My friend, not recognising the number and taking the typo to be a kinky alter-ego of some sort, texted back with… wait for it… this is really bad…

“Hi Nun! Fancy a fuck? XX”

Oh… holy… god… no.

To your OWN Mother!!! Bloody big double oops. I’m not sure how the conversation progressed from there but I assume ‘Mum’ managed to set him straight pretty quickly. He was probably a bit more cautious with his casual ‘sexting’ from that point on though.

But, and this is the main question, is ‘sexting’ really cheating though? Should it be met with the same moral outrage? My take is no, of course it shouldn’t. Everyone flirts via text. It’s hardly the same thing as booking into a motel for an hour is it? A little cheeky text never did anyone any harm. I bet Mr Carroll would have been a master at them, had he had access to a Nokia.

“Wanna see my slithy tove darlin’?”

No ta Lewis, thanks all the same. I’m practicing my ‘smirting’ in front of the bathroom mirror tonight whilst reciting The Jabberwocky backwards.

How to make a complete dog's dinner of a job interview

Lately it struck me that, in these ever-unstable financial times, many people out there may be going through the unavoidably false and grizzly process of job interviews. Provided you actually manage to get that far of course. These days it’s really not as simple as you might think to even get to the interview stage. Butcher, Baker or Candlestick bloody maker, you had better be one hell of an over-qualified neuro-surgeon with an aptitude for the dramatic arts, accountancy skills and a degree in quantum physics if you wish to get anywhere close. Take this impressive Rhodesian Ridgeback dog for example, he has a nationally recognized qualification in childcare. But can he get a job? Can he walkies as like. One little mistake and... well, it's enough to make you sick, it really is.

I was recently asked, whilst applying for some casual work in a bookshop incidentally, whether I had any publishing experience. Publishing experience? What the bloody hell has that got to do with anything? I’ve got an honours degree in English Literature. Will that do? Apparently not it seems.

My resentment was fuelled further by the fact that I was asked this question by a predictably spotty youth whose expression (and livid chin area) I recognized all too well. He was a Eng Lit undergraduate for sure. If I’d looked I would have, without a doubt, found a Norton Anthology behind the counter as well as a well-thumbed, though probably little understood, copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses. I mean, come on, does anyone REALLY understand that book? Even if you buy all the York notes in the world and quiz every Professor and Don in the country, it’s still an utterly perplexing read. Not so for my spotty friend though, OH NO. His beady bespectacled eyes dared me to take him on with the irritating assurance that only comes with youth and a few lectures on T.S. Eliot. Twat. He was just waiting for me to ask a question about ‘post-modern narrative experimentation’. You could tell.

I may not have indulged him with the latter but I certainly gave him a bloody good stream- of-consciousness rant our Jim J would have been proud of.

Publishing experience to sell a few books in your poxy mass-market shop where the only room for self expression is when you spill your Starbucks coffee on your “Big Massive Popular Books Company” t-shirt and the spill looks like a map of Britain or is that a woman with a hat holding a small child on her knee I don’t think so thanks all the same small children why is that one staring at me shit I have biro on my face again I hate it when that happens shit someone I know has just walked past as my CV is getting binned by an incompetent minor duck good not suspicious how to deal with this little home counties twerp flirt maybe God no awful idea I’ve told you before inner self you are really shit at flirting it just scares people thank you anyway John is it yes incidentally I didn’t want to fucking publish a book just to flog a few of them to passers by and enjoy regular fag breaks and an excuse to get out the house and get cheap paperbacks yes my attitude is quite wrong John sorry you’re right TWAT I shall immediately go home and study some high-brow literary theory it’s probably the very least I need to do to work in your very nice big shiny American shop lady pram stuck embarrassingly in door out drop bag shit catch coat bye bye then yes bye goodbye.

Stick that in your Joycean pipe John you pretentious little tit. I showed him alright. Publishing experience? Fuck off.

Hmm, slightly off topic. Sorry. John obviously got to me more that I thought there. Where were we? The job interview, yes. It’s a tricky one and by no means as easy as you might think. Especially if you take my recent experiences as examples. I thought I’d hit an all-time low when in the middle of a particularly stifled exchange with a creative director, a dog casually sauntered into the room and vomited up half a cheese sandwich and a baby’s finger on the carpet. OK, I’m lying about the finger, but the enormous beast (Rhodesian Ridgeback I believe) had definitely been imbibing something of a cheese-based nature. It didn’t really help to strike the right tone in an already flagging interview and I don’t mind telling you that it put me right off my stride (and my lunch).

Surprisingly this was not to be the worst experience though. Just the other day I was ushered into an interview at an agency. Instead of passing calmly through to a boardroom or office, I stepped neatly from the civilized world of reception into what appeared to be the bowels of hell. At least the bowels of hell if the devil was in advertising (which I suppose he is in a way). People shouting and throwing muffins at each other. Yes, muffins. People huddled over flimsy plastic tables and chairs, trying to plug in computers or make notes on over-sized sketchpads. I’m sure I actually saw someone lying dead under a table, unnoticed by the ad-crazed throng.

“We’re a little hectic at the moment” explained my guide. “Space is at a bit of a premium, as you can see.”

Hmm… space and any EU directive on humane working conditions I thought to myself. Even cattle get more room than this on the way to the abattoir. Fortunately, we stepped out of the mayhem into… a broom cupboard. Oh well, better than out there where there was a very real chance of getting trampled to death or cannibalized I thought.

A very strange Monty Python sketch then ensued as more and more people, a seemingly endless stream, followed us into our cupboard. How many nuns can you fit in a telephone box? Search me. But I do know how many advertising creatives you can fit in a cupboard. The answer is 7. People jossled for position at the light box behind me as I tried to talk with authority about my portfolio. Then…

…the fire alarm went off. I mean, COME ON, you’ve got to be kidding me? Everybody out! So our happy little band all trooped out of the cupboard one by one, much to the amazement of the people still hurling muffins about outside. It was like that magic trick with the handkerchief up the magician’s sleeve where the hanky just keeps on coming.

So, once outside I thought I would take the opportunity to stave off the residual claustrophobia with a little chat. Oh dear. Seeing as the interview already seemed doomed I thought I’d rescue it with a small anecdote of mine. What did I choose? Yes, you guessed it, the dog vomit story. I even included the bit about the baby’s finger. I mean, what in god’s name possessed me????

So, after death by fire was averted, I and my, by now quite mystified, audience troop back into Dante’s Inferno and back into our cupboard. Then (and you couldn’t write this – spot the obvious irony) the fire alarm went off… again.

“Just ignore it this time” shouted one of my interviewers confidently. So, with the constant threat of an untimely, firey end hanging over us, I proceeded to shout through the rest of my presentation. I had of course already lost my audience at the dog vomit stage so it was all rather pointless by that point.

At the door as I was leaving, the head of copy leant into me conspiratorially and asked,

“Was there really a baby’s finger in its vomit?”
“No, no there wasn’t really.”
Look of utter confusion from him. Look of utter disbelief from me.
The sound of me running away as fast as I possibly could.

It was so weird it was positively post-modern.

Of rats and men

Yes, correct. This is a very horrific picture of a giant rat. But hang on a minute, I ask myself, which one are we actually talking about here? I mean, the rat was probably just making his way through the street, minding his own ratty business, off to do a little light rat shopping perhaps? Then, before he knows it, along comes a very over excited (and by the looks of it rather smug) man to spoil his day. It's all a matter of perspective really. And, If my recent experience is anything to go by, this man is also probably cheating on his girlfriend (which the rat would never do - he's very much in love as it happens). So, who's the rat now?




Tuesday 14th April 2009

So why the rat rant? Well, I'll tell you. Just when I thought the world of chat-up lines could not get any worse, it did, and with some enthusiasm. My drinking foray into Blackheath the other day meant that I was lucky enough to experience a hitherto unknown level of male delusion. So, what did the hapless fellow opt for? "I ardently admire and love you", "You're so beautiful", "Can I take you out to dinner some time?". No. None of the above. Brace yourselves (another gem he may have attempted later I suppose)...

"You're in my wank bank".

Stunned silence.

Now even supposing that I am familiar with the phrase "wank bank" (which incidentally I am) how did he honestly think I would find that remotely appealing? Is the thought of him feverishly tugging away at himself in a darkened room in only his socks really supposed to whip me up into a frenzy of uncontrollable passion? I think the most disappointing thing about the whole grizzly encounter was that I only responded with a rather lame "Urr, well, thank you, but all the same I'd like you to get off". Not exactly the witty retort I could have done with. But perhaps most disappointing of all, the nameless man in question had spent all evening telling me how he had got together with his current girlfriend. RAT I tell you.

So, romance is officially dead. It was so depressing that I had to spend the rest of my easter weekend supporting our crumbling economy in Cactus Blue www.cactusblue.co.uk
with Dan the Hat (a very talented barman if you ever fancy dropping in on him) drinking endless lines of Crack Babies. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the crack baby and may wish to drown your sorrows in this highly efficient way, I have included the following recipe:


The Crack Baby

1 tall shot glass
Vodka
Passion Fruit
Rasberry liquer
Champagne float
A disregard for your own personal safety
2 good hard-drinking pals with no sense of when to utter the sentence "I think that's enough, we should all go home now"

Dan the hat - we salute you!

Aston Martin versus Vauxhaul Corsa

There's no point fighting it. In this life, Darwinian theory means that some of us are just more naturally blessed than others. I know this, and yet, I find myself feeling mightily short-changed at times. Take any beautiful, talented and glamorous friends you might have for example. At the top of the pile it's all effortless glamour, elegance, sophistication and seemingly blessed, sun-drenched lives. It's an Aston Martin in Monte Carlo. At my, slightly more slap-stick, end of the spectrum it's game for a laugh but a bit frayed round the edges, it's "what a nice girl, bags of fun", the odd nice pair of shoes that you buy but then can't walk in. It's a vauxhall corsa in Sainsbury's carpark...

Thursday 23rd April 2009

So, this weekend I attended a christening. Babies, aw, how lovely I hear you coo. Well, if you say so although, personally, I still think they all look like Winston Churchill on a bad day. Aside from the fact that these things always make me feel like the biggest under-achiever out, this was no ordinary christening. This was the glamorous international christening of the son of an Ecuadorian model and an American soap star. Sound unlikely? Well wait till I mention the fact that the whole thing took place in Yorkshire at an eccentric rural theme park. You may think I'm making this up but you'll just have to take my word for it, I'm not. www.theforbiddencorner.co.uk

The model in question is a very old school friend of mine. Resplendent in designer hot pink she was the most natural (and horribly glamorous) new Mum I have ever seen. While the rest of us tramp around in last week's tracksuit bottoms with baby sick in our hair, this maternal goddess floated around meeting and greeting and generally beaming all over the place in her Jimmy Choos. I'm not being funny, but whenever I'm called upon to dress up for an event, I always feel like an imposter, like I'm dressed in drag or something. I can't walk in girls shoes, I feel bulky and unnatural and I always manage to spill something on myself (in this instance it was a generous dollop of apple sauce from the hog roast).

So the question is... is effortless glamour down to designer genes or designer jeans? Is it nature or nurture? I really want to know. You could dress me up all day in the finest designer clobber and pamper, curl and rouge me to within an inch of my life, and I'd still manage to spill chocolate sauce down my front or fall over in the flowerbed. Is this just my lot? Should I just accept this, or try to do something about it? Can I too be an Aston Martin? I can't help thinking that to go against my naturally uncouth instincts would be a horrible betrayal of some kind.

After the christening, as I drove out of the estate gates and left the world of polite lawn champagne sipping behind me, I happened to glance at my wing mirrors. Covered in bird shit. Corsas don't half show the muck.

The perils of job hunting for those of a luddite persuasion

Over the years I have had some pretty "special" experiences with computers. There was the time I got a plum stone stuck in my printer for example, or the time I "sent all" telling my friend that his new girlfriend looked like his mother, only to receive an email minutes later form an address I didn't recognize, which read simply, "I don't look like anybodies mother thank you very much". So, you can imagine the familiar feeling of horror I experienced this morning when I made this next little blunder. Are you sitting comfortably children, then I will begin...

Friday 24th April 2009
The No.1 Ladies Dating Agency

To keep myself busy and to enable me to live vicariously through other people's love dramas, I enjoy setting my friends up with each other. Now, I'm no Sarah Beanie but I like to think, in my own small way, I'm really quite good at matching people up (I have 2 marriages to date). My latest victory in this department blossomed in the city over a bottle of Sancerre or seven and some very tasty Dim Sum. Things were going very well I thought.

Until this morning, when I did this...

Eager to spread the word of the date's success, I emailed a mutual friend of ours with the following. You'll have to excuse the rather crude subject matter, I have a potty mouth when I don't think anyone but friends are listening.

Subject: The red mattress.
Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:54:15 +0000


Phone cut out as I was getting to the good bit. I will now tell you a story. Are you sitting comfortably?

Many years ago when we were all young and carefree and casual sexual encounters were the order of the day (let's just ignore the fact that this is still the case for some) there was a famous little red mattress that lived on Leathermarket Street in London Bridge. The famous man- jizz petrified red mattress of Leathermarket Street had seen a lot of action in its time and was no stranger to amorous guests. However, one day the little red mattress thought to itself "Oh dear, I appear to be losing my touch" - here I sit neglected and unused in the sitting room, my dubious stains and frayed edges exposed for all to see. Why, oh why, thought the little red mattress, is no one bouncing up and down on me in an enthusiastic fashion? Is love in fact dead, worried the little red mattress.

The answer?

No of course not cos the filthy little hound had corridor creeped next door to get a butchers at her oriental foo foo (that's a type of carpet, obviously).

But can I find out if any action took place? Can I spunk as like. No one's playing with me. It's no fun when you can't get the gossip out of them!

The no 1 ladies dating agency clearly kicks ass though.
You're next you realize. I'm checking my books as we speak!


Now all this cheerful banter would be fine of course if I hadn't, minutes later, received this rather worrying response...


Thank you for your enquiry and your interest in WCRS. If you are applying for a vacancy please be assured your CV will be passed to the relevant department who will ascertain your suitability to any of their current roles. Should there be a suitable vacancy WCRS will contact you in due course, however if you don't hear back from us then please assume that on this occasion there were no suitable roles for you skills and experiance. Unfortunatley due to the high volume of applications we are unable to respond to all recuritment queries individually. Good Luck!

Yes, you guessed it, my email "send to" box had defaulted to a recent address I had been emailing. I'm guessing that there probably aren't going to be any 'roles for my skills and experience'. It is, after all, very unclear what 'skills and experience' I have demonstrated to them with the above. My superior use of grotesque imagery perhaps? My talents as a matchmaker? Or just my ability to take the charm out of any situation with my crude and unsophisticated take on things?

As a wise friend of mine pointed out - I'll either get the job or they'll send the police round, one of the two. Let's hope it's the latter, I know a girl who's got a thing for policemen.

All aboard the smash train - heading where exactly?

Turner's Rain, Steam, Speed. Ah, finally some culture you're thinking. But no. Sadly not. This picture, though undoubtedly a beauty, is here today to represent what I, and my fellow hedonists, have come to term "The smash train". This weekend, in fine style, the smash train hurtled on unchecked well into oblivion and beyond. I feel my ultimate demise is drawing closer. How can it be possible to leave the house on a Friday with every good intention, only to return on Sunday with the certain and horrific knowledge that you danced round someone's kitchen table in a novelty hat till 5 am, embarked on an ill-advised liaison with a minor from the deep south, and now have 15 missed calls of increasing irateness on your phone and your face on a milk carton? I mean, to coin a phrase, hang on a cotton pickin' second!
Monday 27 April 2009

I don't feel too clever to be honest. Crashing round the Northcote Road like a cross between Barbara Cartland in the morning and Amy Winehouse after a crack binge is all very well, but it can't be the answer, can it? I have decided that my health and mental well being would be much better served if I went and lead a simpler life in the hills (and no, NOT the hillbilly kind, before you ask). Super-foods and yoga could be my new obsessions. Overnight, I would start to resemble Cameron Diaz, I'd grow flowers and vegetables, keep puppies and pigs and be nice to small children.

OK, so perhaps a little optimistic, but there must be some way of getting some balance into my life. Some time ago now I spent rather a lot of money on something called Metamorphic technique. axelle@themetamorphicway.com
This mostly involved a nice lady tickling my feet for an hour . She claimed this was something to do with my energy and that it was a means of seeking physical and emotional enlightenment (I'm not joking, she really did just tickle my feet for an hour). Apparently the embarrassing gurgling my stomach made all the way through the session was the energy moving around my body and absolutely nothing to do with missing lunch and then drinking a bottle of cheap white. So is there actually any truth in all this new-age hokum?

My flatmate's friend went one step further than foot tickling and had her brain re-aligned. Sounds a bit drastic but I think it was really just about re-training your thought patterns to be positive rather than self-destructive. This worries me too as I'm sure once someone delved into the curious recesses of my head they'd probably either have to commit me (or themselves) or send me to prison.

So today's musing is... what healthy "my body is a temple" kind of activity can I take up that will help to offset the demon drink? Can I overcome my natural cynicism long enough to find an alternative therapy that can actually make me all glowy and happy and smug? I like the look of yogic flying - they seem to be having a lot of fun on those trampolines, but if I die of cirrhosis first then the more holistic approach seems all rather pointless doesn't it?

What about marajuana? Does that count as a herbal therapy?

Blind waiters versus psychedelic galactic ponies

After another considerable weekend of idle yet violent drinking, I am officially on ‘detox’ (God, what a frightening word). So, imagine my alarm when I was told that for my best chum’s birthday we would be going to a rather challenging concept restaurant and that this would involve us eating our meal in total darkness whilst we were served by… wait for it… blind waiters. Yes, correct. BLIND waiters.



…we’ll come to the ponies later.

Friday 8th May 2009

Imagine the scene. There we sit in confused blackout, clutching our knives and forks nervously. It’s dark. Very, very dark. We’re not talking any ordinary namby-pamby metrosexual darkness either. This is utter pitch black, can’t see the fork in front of your face, Brian Blessed, bushy bearded oblivion. For large stretches of the evening I fully believed that I might actually be dead. That’s how dark it was. The name of said restaurant was, rather tellingly, Dans le Noir. Never a truer word spoken. I am, and remain, truly and utterly dans le bloody noir.

The trouble, I think, is that the concept when explained on the Dans le Noir website (http://www.danslenoir.com/london/) was in grave danger of disappearing up its own arse. Instead of saying:

“ Well chaps, we’ve switched all the lights off and all the waiters are blind, what a giggle that will be eh? Not to mention the scope for groping and/or uninhibited food fights.”

They went for the below:

“Darkness leads to truthfulness about taste, kills preconceptions and lets you face the realities of ingredients and cuisine. Our chef elaborates a refined and sensorial cuisine with fresh ingredients to help our senses enjoy the ‘truth’ taste of food.”

Face the realities of the ingredients? What realities was I supposed to be facing? Had they tricked me and at the last minute substituted my juicy steak for a piece of raw haddock? I’m not sure I want to face the ‘realities’ of my food thank you. Just let me enjoy the ambience and artifice of a nice pricey restaurant please. Enough of your pretentious rhetoric and bring on the chocci pud, that’s what I say. However, there is clearly no room for my cynicism in an establishment such as Dans le Noir, because:

“The experience is emotionally strong and this empathy really encourages mutual trust and respect.”

Ha! They had their work cut out with us lot I can assure you. One of our party who has a rather peculiar, but none-the-less very deep, suspicion of anything that involves a fish or a mushroom believed the whole thing was a conspiracy to stuff her full of slimy mushroom-based dishes and ruin her evening. I don’t think she really wanted to engage with the ‘truth’ taste of her food on any level. She also appeared to think that, as she had lost her sight, she would have to compensate vocally. The result was a hungry, alarmed, very, very loud person who kept jumping every time someone or something brushed passed her. Not exactly the relaxing night out I had hoped for.

The other problem is that, for fear of losing them, you have to constantly grasp your knife and fork like an expectant orphan in Oliver Twist’s workhouse. Speaking of which, do you really think Oli gave a shit about the ‘truth’ taste of food? Mais non, je pense. All he wanted to see (and I stress the word see here) was an enormous plate of bangers and mash. No mucking about and far less risk of spilling half your dinner over your new top or bemused mole-blind dining neighbour.

The food was, I admit, nice. Whether it was truthful or not, I have no idea, you’ll have to ask the cow. And I’m afraid I just can’t justify all the “concept” babble. Basically, they switched the lights off and charged us more. Money for old rope, surely?

So, should you get the urge to sit in a dark room for an hour, far better for your buck in my opinion would be (here comes the seamless pony link) “My Little Pony: Reign Of Buttercup Sprinkles”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXoYK4b_q24

I, for one, don’t think there are enough pony-based sci-fi films around. The trailer is worth viewing, if only to hear the voiceover guy say “ponies” in an all-action-hero stylie. Priceless.

A Tsunami - the collective term for a gaggle of inebriated witches

A savvy (and at the time rather startled) gentleman once termed a group of my old school friends “a tsunami of ladies”. As it turns out, a scarily apt term for the scene of unprecedented mayhem that unfurled on Friday night in Soho.

You’d think Soho had seen a thing or two in its time. It hadn’t seen anything like this though, trust me. The tsunami hit, showed no mercy, took down its victims and then, as suddenly as it had arrived, retreated back into the night leaving nothing but shocked silence and grubby kebab wrappers in its wake.


Monday 18th May 2009
Firstly, I must stress, we are a distinctly mixed bag. The ladies are a very disparate group of outlaws but that, I think, is our strength and ultimately our genius. We come in all shapes, sizes, professions and specialities. We are tied together forever, bound by our shared school experience – horrific and hilarious in equal measure as it was. Once you’ve borne the humiliation of nazi-style cross-country running in big blue knickers, there really isn’t much that scares you. The public school system has a lot to answer for really. Certainly the rather world-weary policeman who became unwittingly embroiled in proceedings on Friday would agree with me.

It all started in a little restaurant on Old Compton St.

http://www.justsoho.co.uk/showABC.php?id=Amalfi&p=true

“And would you like some drinks ladies?”

Is Gordon Ramsay a foul-mouthed ego-maniac?

“2 bottles of red, 2 bottles of white, 6 sambucas please.”

The waiter’s face said it all really. I distinctly recall him sharing a look with another diner. I think he may have gone back into the kitchen and pressed his panic button.

The evening rolled on, the deadly wave was gathering its strength. Topics of discussion ranged from the delicious and various merits of deep-fried cheese (the ladies aren’t afraid of a bit of deep fried cheese), clandestine love-affairs with minors and the appeals of pulling a schoolboy, a recent pick up of mine that was notable for having occurred at the swimming pool whilst in my tatty speedo swimming costume (I didn’t realize they were running an outreach employment program for the blind), and whether or not limoncello counts as one of your five-a-day.

Then things took a rather more sinister turn. Memory loss becomes a big factor here, but this is the text message I sent to a friend on Sat morning (names have been changed to protect those involved).

“Having a day off from the health regime. Last night we all got thrown out of a club in Sohomo – HOW? Bernie got her toe broken, Bridgette called a very large bouncer a c***, Adelle got snogged by a gay punter in full tweed/cravat ensemble, Flick lost her bag and I drove a black cab down my road. Mayhem.”

Interestingly, these are only the edited highlights. We also managed to get the local constabulary involved. The amount of noise we were making, I think the bemused bobby thought one of us had been stabbed to death. Actually, what occurred was a small toe injury as a result of the bouncer’s rather hasty ejection technique. Apparently (and this has been widely disputed by the ladies) we were upsetting a couple with our rather spectacular brand of ass-wiggly dancing. Seems a bit of a prudish attitude for Soho, surely?

Upon ejection from the club
http://www.club49soho.com/
the ladies scattered like drunk cats. My last memory is managing to persuade my cabby to let me drive his cab to the end of my street. I really wasn’t expecting him to say yes (for obvious reasons) but when an opportunity like that arises I see it as my duty to make the most of it. Fortunately no one was killed. Actually, I seem to remember staring fixedly ahead, grasping the steering wheel like a short-sighted granny and travelling at a heady 2 mph. Anyone I had hit would have perhaps been mildly annoyed and sustained a small shin bruise. Still, be warned, health and safety clearly is not a big issue with some cab drivers out there!

After scouring the Northcote Road for chip emporiums (I know this because Adelle woke up with a chip on her bedside table), the remains of the coven retreated to my flat for the inevitable post-mortem. The verdict? A good night out had by all. All good clean fun. Tears, laughter, mild assault - something for everyone.

It’s clear that I am, and remain, firmly at the helm of my own hedonistic demise. But that’s the thing about being the captain of a great big boat. You can handle a tsunami.

Satanic, maternal cult alive and well in Battersea

Whilst I am aware that the words ‘maternal’ and ‘satanic’ do not usually go hand in hand, at my local swimming pool (my most recent fitness drive) they certainly seem to. I’m the first to admit that I am not (as yet) the maternal type, but what I experienced today was really too much.

Wednesday 20th May 2009
What happens to perfectly normal women when they have babies? Do they leave their brains at reception? Do the mumsy hormones coursing round their bodies really require them to turn into saccharine, cooing losers? Babies are fine. I have nothing against them. Well actually that’s not true, I have nothing against them until they start balling and then shit in my swimming pool. However, for the most part, I have no grudge to bear against the dear little bundles of effluent.

BUT…

WHAT OH WHAT is the phenomenon of the mother and baby swimming class all about?? Anaemic, tired looking women (and one rather nervous looking man) grasp their little cherubs and force them to perform all sorts of pointless splashy, swooshy feats of water gymnastics. And, as if this wasn’t enough to spoil my lane-swimming, dolphin-like vibe, they then started singing. SINGING.

I can tell you that the effect of ten shiny, happy, oestrogen-high mothers with babes in arms all singing ‘twinkle twinkle little star’ complete with hand movements, is not at all soothing. It is sinister. They suddenly became members of some scary, breast-milky cult. It was all too much. I had to make a quick escape to the sauna (which, incidentally, only served to make the sound of them all chanting away in the pool even more spooky).

I’m sure the new Mums amongst you are now all sufficiently riled, but just a minute, before you string me up in the changing rooms from your mothercare baby harnesses, what would you say if I told you that the babies happened to agree with me? Yip. I distinctly caught the eye of one disgruntled infant and his expression certainly did not suggest endless babyish pleasure of any kind. If anything he looked resigned and a touch depressed. “Bloody hell, here we go again, Mum’s turned into the village idiot”, he was thinking.

I’m aware that a certain amount of cooey sounds and exaggerated expressions are probably required for small children. I’m not saying we should have them all dressing in black tie and knowing which fork to use by 3, but do we have to treat them like total idiots all the time?

The wheels on the bus go round and round? Please. What the hell has that got to do with water-based fun anyway (apart from the fact that I was beginning to hope said bus would veer out of control and plunge to its watery grave in a convenient ravine)?

Perhaps I was having a bad day but by the time I left I could cheerfully have tripped one of the little darlings over and poked their self-righteous “birth is a gift” mother in the rose-tinted eyeball.

So, my suggestion to my fellow thinking human beings, next time you see a small infant or toddler, say something interesting or controversial to him or her. They won’t know the difference anyway and you’ll at least have a bit of a laugh. After all, my Father read Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer to me as a bedtime story when I was a baby. He had fun and I was none the wiser. Where’s the problem?

Don’t answer that the mother-cult. It was rhetorical.

The drinking game - when is it time to call time?

You know the scene. Some leathery old slag with saggy boobs and a tragic line in coarse chat up lines for men half her age is gyrating her baby-ravaged pelvis across a cheap dance-floor. She dances round her handbag, sashaying up to occasional victims, blissfully unaware that the (considerably younger) clientele are sniggering at her from behind their bottles of blue WKD. She resembles something that a bad Glasgow tanning salon threw up at 3 in the morning after a dodgy kebab. She thinks she resembles Rene Rousseau. In this situation, the burning question is – when do you become too old and a bit tragic?

Thursday 21st May 2009
Feeling your age is no bloody joke. As the years slip past, you’re confident that you’re still a ‘bright young thing’. Yeah man, you’re ‘down with the kids’. You can take your booze and, while you’re not exactly a fan, you at least know who Dizzy Rascal is. You can still hold your own.

Then something awful happens.

You go out with a group of friends who all get very drunk (fine so far), you join in with the shot drinking (even though it’s a Sunday night), you laugh at a few drinking stories (drinking is still cool and hilarious because you’re young, right?) and then… the drinking games start.

Classics like “Yee hah” and “21” appear to be happening all around you. You’re getting pulled up for things like pointing and saying the word ‘drink’. You don’t notice someone’s thumb resting on the table and all of a sudden you’re the ‘drinking game joke’. Thing is, I remember playing all these games at University. That’s fine, surely? I was 19. Fuzzy Duck and sticking flaming shots to your forehead is funny when you’re 19. But 30?

Perhaps I’m being paranoid. I mean, we all had a good night… I think. But crazed rugby-shirted boys getting all militant and yelling “imbibe” at you every time you pause for breath is surely a little, well, teenage? While I’m not over the hill yet, I can safely say I am not a teenager. For a start, I no longer throw a jumper over my pyjamas to go out to the pub at midday (a good development by and large I think).

The point is, I do still like to drink profusely. I come from a long line of very well established piss-heads as it happens, and I’m proud of my heritage. But, just for a second, last Sunday evening, I got the distinct impression that I might be too old to be gargling jaegar-bombs and pissing myself at Viz jokes.

Then again…

Viz Top Tips

One (or two) flew over the cuckoo's nest

It might not surprise you, given what you’ve read on this site so far, but last Saturday I spent the day with Austin Powers, 2 Doctor Evils, some thunder birds and a LOT of Sherlock Homeses (complete with deerstalkers, pipes and plus-fours). I felt a little under-dressed if I’m honest. No, I had not wandered onto the set of the latest Dr Who Christmas special, I was in fact at the rugby sevens at Twickenham – great fun if you like creative fancy dress and heavy drinking as a combination (who doesn’t?).

A grand day out that was only marginally spoilt by Tinky Winky’s unfortunate on-pitch encounter with the police. I think they actually broke his aerial, poor wee fella. I also heard that Pacman put up a good performance on the Sunday as he tried to evade the police in the empty seats of the upper levels. Up, down, across – an exhilarating chase that ended in a standing ovation for Pacman. Sheer genius.

My point? Ah yes, getting to that. Today for our consideration is… WHERE do all the nutters (creative as they might be) come from and why, nine times out of ten, do they seem inexplicably drawn to me?

Friday 29th May 2009
Anyone want a bit of my sandwich?
You see, for many years now, I have been the unfortunate victim of what I like to call “niche appeal”. This means that ordinary, polite, well-adjusted people with shiny hair and normal shoes stay well away from me, while vomit-stained, unstable (and on a few notable occasions actually clinically mad) people find me impossibly alluring.

It started at University. The tramps outside the aptly named Bedlam Theatre http://www.bedlamtheatre.co.uk/
were quite happy to leave everyone to go about their business. Everyone but me, that is. Without fail, every time they spied me, one would leap up from his stinky cardboard palace and thrust a can of special brew at me.

“Can hen?” (Scottish tramp)
“No thank you, that’s very kind, but I have a lecture to get to”
“Acht weel, take it with yous anyway. You look like ya need it”

Great. Worzel Gummidge’s less fashion conscious brother thinks I look like I could do with a drink. Comforting. I actually had to tip up at the aforementioned lecture and explain to everyone why I was clutching a battered can of Special Brew (didn’t want to be rude). But my relationship with the Bedlam tramps was to be just the start of a long and illustrious career in attracting lunatics. Worse still, the university pals I made all seemed to possess similar skills. My favourite bizarre pick-up of all time was watching my friend get cornered by a very friendly lesbian with a voice box. I’m telling you, throat cancer or no throat cancer, you can’t pay for that kind of entertainment.

I know everyone knows that feeling of sitting on the train praying that the scrofulous, flatulent, toad-like elephant man that has just entered the carriage clutching a 4-pack of lager DOES NOT make a B-line for the seat next to them. We’ve all been there. But with me it really does seem to be a recurring theme. To demonstrate just how serious this problem is, I thought I’d make you a small list of some of my favourites to date.


1. A born-again Christian who attempted to save me with the “laying on of hands” (nice try pal) in Chelsea


2. A small cockney radio personality with a gambling problem and a coke habit who, incidentally, wanted to take me to see the recent West End play ‘Equis’ (in case you don’t know the delightful details, it’s about a disturbed stable boy who blinds all the horses in his charge and then proceeds to have sex with them). Quite a gritty choice for a first date, no?


3. An African man who wrote to me for years expressing his wish to be my “house pet”, whatever that might entail.


4. And, just the other day, a smiley looking rasta-man who walked passed me and said “Mmm, nice”. Yes! I thought, still got it. Until, that is, I saw him talking to a lamppost further up the road. Oh dear.

Basically then, slightly off-centre characters are drawn to me from the various churches, bookmakers, bottle shops and rum outlets from which they are spawned. It’s obviously a vibe I give off, perhaps some kind of deranged pheromone? It says, hello nutters, approach me, I am one of you. Talk to me, stand too close to me and stare at me with your weird scary eyes, offer me bits of your sandwich if you like – no, no, it doesn’t matter that’s it been in the bin – I LOVE that.

Attracting head cases is not much of a skill I grant you. However, in these testing financial times surely every skill-set can be utilised in some way? So, my thought is this, is there some way to harness this unlikely talent of mine? As I’m, more or less, in a constant state of unemployment (or as I like to call it, ‘freelance’), maybe I could turn my ‘niche appeal’ into a career? At the very least I could be a scout for Britain’s Got Talent? Or perhaps there’s some homeless charity out there somewhere that can employ me to round up the lunatic and disaffected amongst society? Sort of like a Pied Piper for whack-jobs.

Of course, in the end, I just have to face it. The truth is, nutters like me because I like nutters. Bodes well for my search for the future Mr Bitter Lemon. He’s out there somewhere, I feel sure of it – probably picking an egg and cress sandwich out of the bin as we speak.

Over the sea to Skye; living the biopolar dream

Rather like the aforementioned Mr Hulk (he’s only Incredible to his friends and don’t you forget it!), I have, for years now, been leading a curious double life. I don’t mean that latent anger issues turn me into a bulging green monster or anything (at least not more than once a month anyway), it’s more of a lifestyle schizophrenia really. Shall I explain? Oh, OK then, if you insist…

By day, I’m an ever so slightly shambolic freelance writer mixing with all sorts of creative types, sitting in funky warehouses listening to loud music with, frankly, mostly homosexuals. Dark rimmed spectacles, ironic t-shirts and converse trainers are the order of the day and no one would even blink an acute eye for detail at you if you came into work sporting a re-constituted welly-boot as a handbag (http://www.joey-d.co.uk). I take the bus, I get excited about fonts (the typographical kind, not the old stone things with water trickling out of them, although they are nice too, in their way), I have several aborted scripts for stage and screenplays strewn across my kitchen table and I watch subtitled films with ‘breathtaking cinematography’.

But by night, or rather by weekend, it’s a very different story. I am a tweeded ex-public schoolgirl with a puffa jacket and a pony. A huntin’, shootin’, fishin’ ruddy-faced pushy pony-club mother in the making – an alter-ego that a good friend of mine once kindly dubbed “the cat-piss lesbian”. Too kind RK, too kind.

I can talk reasonably knowledgeably about equine management, hedgerow plants and shotgun cartridges. I can pluck a pheasant, gut a fish and, on one notable occasion, bury a rather mangled looking fox (it was actually dead I hasten to add). In short, I am two people.

We’ll call the first girl oh, I don’t know, something with a Z - Zanna? Cool old Zanna with her converse trainers and her apple mac. We’ll call the second girl Bunty (school nickname obviously). Good old, slightly alcoholic, Bunty with her 12-bore and quivering regiment of gundogs. Zanna lives in a loft in North London above a tattoo parlor and a shop that specializes in vintage buttons. She has a boyfriend who is in a band. Bunty lives in a shared house in Fulham (when she’s not at Mummy and Daddy’s big pile in Surrey that is). She has a whippet.

You see the problem with such stark duality in ones psychological makeup is that you never quite know who or what you are, and you do tend to get yourself into some rather odd situations. Take the hippy outside the David Hume Tower circa 1998 par example. I shamble up in my holey jumper and converse trainers with a strand of hair in my fringe that I have dyed very pink and very badly, in the vane hope that I will look creative and interesting, even a little bit exotic perhaps. I don’t need to tell you that, in reality, the effect is just a bit alarming and not at all enigmatic. He thinks I’m Zanna (or a less cool approximation of her anyway). He is running a stall for the League Against Cruel Sports. He eyes me with the look of one who knows he has found a kindred spirit. I listen to him patiently and then, when he has finished his grizzly and somewhat fanciful sales pitch, I try to put him right on a few points. Now don’t get me wrong, I think everyone is entitled to an opinion and I was in no way confrontational with Swampy, but he is quite quickly thrown into an irrational and uncontrollable rage. He thought he was speaking to Zanna and he got Bunty. It’s a disaster. He actually, when asked exactly what his feelings were about foxhunting, said to me, and this is entirely true,

“Pretty much the same feelings I would have if you came into my house and raped and murdered my Mother.”

Interesting. Somehow I can’t help thinking that’s overstating the case, just a little.

He then started screaming (on the busy steps of the University Library),

“Rapist! Rapist! You’re a fucking rapist!!!!”

Quite punchy behavior for a peace-loving hippy you’d think. This is though, a classic example of someone misjudging their audience. But can Swampy really be blamed? I mean he was clearly already a bit mentally unstable and then I come along with my tricky dual personality and get him all confused. “Quite right too, these people need telling”, says Bunty. “That was like, a bit bloody unfair of you”, says Zanna.



Never have I felt this contrast more than last week though, and this is really the point of my ramble today. I have had the post holiday blues now for quite some time – and it’s all Bunty’s bloody fault. I’d been looking forward to my week on the Isle of Skye for months. A few close friends in a lovely house on the beach. Great seafood, fishing, boats, lobster-potting, walking (although not something I usually hold with, it was great fun, even when we had to ford a couple of rivers and very nearly lost one of our party). Just being up there, that far north, is great. No mobile phone reception, not even any electricity in the remote fishing lodge we trek out to (see piccy). You are outside every day and every night you are in front of a cozy fire getting quietly comatose on industrial-sized gin and tonics. Life doesn’t get much simpler or much better. You start to remember what it’s like to be alive again. Your legs ache from actual use, your skin glows, your lethargy disappears. Bunty is in her bloody element – she practices her fly-fishing, nearly dies in the ‘the perfect storm’ in a bathtub boat and chops down a bloody great tree with a chain saw. Zanna just sits inside and reads her book on ‘How to plot the perfect novel’. Loser.

But then the inevitable. I have to break the news to Bunty that the holiday is over and we must return to Edinburgh and then to London. She doesn’t take it well. Even when we time our trip back south to perfection and the city of Edinburgh lays on our very own pyrotechnical extravaganza (it WAS in honor of all our fishy, nautical triumphs, nothing to do with the end of the festival), Bunty feels the grey Sunday clouds roll in and Zanna takes over. Monday morning and before you know it Zanna has plugged in her ipod for the train down south and coolly negotiates the tube at the other end. There’s a wicked gig she’s going to catch in Hoxton tomorrow. She’s looking forward to it.

But what, in the end, does all this schizophrenia mean? Is it a good or a bad thing that someone can be two people at the same time? Am I playing this urban/rural game at my own personal cost? Will I turn round in years to come and realize that I have damaged myself and no longer have a unified sense of identity?

Nar. Don’t be ridiculous. Way I see it, I get the best of both worlds. I get to be both characters, as and when it suits me, and surely this type of varied and adaptable behavior is not the denial of something, but in fact a new modern life-skill. These days we all have busier, more city-centric lives and I think if I can slip into my Bunty persona every now and then and get away with playing for both teams (so to speak) then what’s wrong with that?

So here’s to the fond memories of my recent jaunt over the sea to Skye (thanks to all that were there and my kind hosts – both Bunty and Zanna had a great time). NO matter that I am back in the big smoke. Zanna is quite happy and Bunty will get a chance to come out to play this weekend when my countrified, moleskinned pal A comes to visit.

On the Skye theme though, I will say this. I now know how Bonnie Prince Charlie felt when the Jacobites smuggled him over to Skye dressed as a woman. He was a fleeing monarch, oh yes, but he was also a big old maid with a skirt and girly slippers and, just for a moment I fancy, he enjoyed the perversity of being both!

What is the etiquette when?

Picture
Now this isn’t as bad as it sounds, but the other weekend I was very nearly unwittingly involved in a ménages a trois. Unwittingly I hear you ask skeptically? How can you be unwittingly involved in a threesome? Surely a certain amount of lucidity (no matter how drunk you might be) is required for such a situation? You can’t just ‘accidentally’ invite two men back to your flat and…

…well, I’ve got news for you friends, you can if you’re me. I have always had a problem when it comes to noticing people’s ‘romantic’ advances, I prefer to err on the side of caution and just assume they are being friendly. Sometimes, as you can imagine, this has led to difficulties.

2 AM – Friday night – somewhere on St John’s Hill

So here we are. 31 years of emotional ignorance have led us to this point. It’s 2 am. We are on the rampage for more booze. Every sensible drinker is either in a club or tucking into some filthy takeout. Man 1 suggests that Man 2 goes home with my friend whilst he accompanies me home (it’s dangerous out there you know, lots of people on the prowl for impressionable ‘young’ girls). That’s silly, I think to myself. We’re all looking for a drink. We should all go back together, makes perfect sense to me. My naïve night-vision eyes blink like Bambi in the streetlights. At this point my friend decides she’s had quite enough and is going to throw me to the wolves and go back to her flat alone. She has a lot to do in the morning (or some such shit). Still blissfully unaware of my predicament I offer up some booze at my house. Any takers? Yes, apparently 2 takers. Jolly good. You, dear reader, can no doubt see where this is going, but I was genuinely still none the wiser. Man 1 looks a little disgruntled perhaps, but I don’t notice. Man 2 then asks me if I want him to leave. This seems a bit suspicious. I just invited them back, why would I want him to leave? Hmm… the plot thickens.

La la la, isn’t it nice in my little world? All sugar-plum fairies riding around on apple-cheeked My Little Ponies and plenty of free-flowing elderflower champagne. Hoorar! No late-night binges, no dirty kebabs and certainly no boys on the prowl for drunken sex. HEAVEN FORBID!

I don’t know why I’m so clueless about such things, I just always have been. It’s not like I grew up in an Amish community or anything. I’m a country girl, yes, but there was plenty of illicit teenage drinking and rolling around in haystacks – it’s just I probably missed it on account of my hay fever and late blooming issues. While everyone else was getting felt up in the barn I was still wearing vests and getting excited about gymkhanas and ice-cream in a little Enid Blyton world all of my own. Sweet really. Unfortunately, this does not equip me to deal effectively with the Noel Coward farce that is unfolding in front of me at 2am on a Sat night in my sitting room.

Back in the real world Man 2 makes a drunken bid to crash out in my bed whilst Man 1 is thinking about a quick fondle in the sitting room. It’s an in-one-door-out-another, more tea vicar? nightmare of my own making. I quickly realize that without the correct management this situation could find me very out of my depth indeed. I toy with the idea of feigning sickness, perhaps I could have an epileptic fit of some kind? Or maybe I’ve had a family emergency and need to leave? No, that’s stupid. I live here. I’m not leaving. But I can hardly ask them to leave either, I just invited them. It’s like that old law about vampires. If I get bitten here I’ll have no one to blame but myself. Oh dear.

Fortunately I manage to placate Man 1 with some (of all things) smoked mackeral pate (true story and slightly grim if you think about it. I’ll leave it there I think). Man 1 is then jovially yet forcefully evicted from my boudoir. Trouble is, now what?

Fortunately Man 1 has passed out on the sofa. That’s easy. I know the answer to this one. Throw a woolly rug over him and let him wake up cold and confused in the morning. This is usually enough to ensure that any drinking guest will leave pretty quickly under their own steam in the wee small hours. Unfortunately this is no ordinary situation and I have Man 2 to deal with. So, of course, I put him on the other sofa - all boys together, kind of like a piss-head’s dormitory. Lovely.

“Right, ok then. Night-night.”

See ya. I have absolutely NO INTENTION of getting up in the morning to deal with this. This is definitely a situation for my flat-mate to sort. After all, it can’t be worse than the time I brought that taxi driver home to talk about ‘problems in di black community’… can it?

No, of course not. As predicted Man 1 felt the cold shame of dawn, woke up in his clothes on a strange sofa and left sharpish. Man 2 was very polite and had to rush off to “see a man about a washing machine” – fair enough, more plausible than my epileptic fit at least.

Disaster averted then. No sordid threesome. The gentlemen drinkers have left quietly, leaving me free, at last, to play with my Care Bears and go to the park on my bike to test out my new spokey-dokeys. Awesome.

There’s no hope for me. There really isn’t.

An awfully big adventure?

Birthdays. What is it about birthdays lately that makes me want to kill myself in a range of increasingly creative ways? Set fire to myself with those especially irritating “you can’t blow me out” candles perhaps? Or gorge myself on a cyanide-laced double chocolate birthday cake? Maybe I could spoil someone else’s birthday fun too and get hit by one of those sambuca-fuelled party buses? OK, so I might as well admit it, last Sunday I turned 31. Thirty chuffing bloody One. To be honest, until I start thinking about it and the involuntary sweating and palpitations kick in, it doesn’t feel a lot different from being 30, or 29, or 25 for that matter. Problem is, when I start thinking about it...

Peter Pan had the right idea. Bugger off with a whole pile of mates and live in an unsupervised commune of fun and adventure. Of course, as our Pete comes to realize, refusing to grow up comes with its own problems – the frustrated sexual desires of an aggressive Amazonian huntress for one (poor Peter). Admittedly, there are SOME perks that come with growing up but, frankly, the attractions of eternal youth seem far stronger on the wrong side of 30.

The trouble with getting older is that it makes me want to hit the self-destruct button in a BIG way. Because who wants to just peter out into old age and decrepitude? Not I. Getting old is a competition in hedonism, and I intend to win. Narcotics, liaisons dangereuses, badger bating. You name it, I’m up for it. Anything that will scream forcibly to the world that I AM NOT 31 years old. NOT nine years off 40. NOT yet consigned to the unquestionable love of a labrador and a vanilla slice on Sunday afternoons.

LOOK HOW FUCKING YOUNG AND CRAZY I AM.

That’s what my birthday t-shirt says.

Unfortunately, I think what it actually says is ‘Jesus I look fat in these jeans. When did I start to have more than one chin?’.

And this year was not made any easier by the unflinching support of my A-team. A and B and myself, enough champagne to kill a pony and big country pile in Yorkshire… and, looking particularly glam in my pyjammas with a particularly large hangover, these loving words of support in my birthday card:

(Front):

Big picture of a pink shetland pony with flowers in its mane.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

(Inside):

Have a special day (the card’s actual greeting)

And

1. Find a boyfriend
2. Find a job
3. Wash more
4. Remove unsightly spot from nose

(Not the card’s actual greeting.)

Lovely. Thanks chaps. Love you too. Feel a lot better now.

At this point I feel I should explain the nose comment (I hope the personal hygiene issue was simply a reference to my manky pyjammas and general grungy outlook and not a more sinister issue involving actual unsanitary behavior). In my now characteristic pre-birthday panic (PBP as its known in medical circles), I managed to get a little alcoholically onward. In this case ‘onward’ meant drinking my own body weight in dirty martinis and then having a slight, yet very convincing, argument with the pavement outside. I, or specifically my nose, lost said argument by some margin.

One question though. How in the name of sweet baby Jesus did I manage to fall on my face? Presumably I didn’t spend the whole night tottering around with my hands in my pockets? It’s a mystery. A mystery no one that I was out with could answer either.

When asked by well-meaning pals how my birthday weekend had gone, here is the email that I sent:

Achievements on Thurs 24th July 2009:

Woke up. Tried to put a wash on but got distracted by a phone call from R who FORCED me to go and drink fine wines with him in Chelsea.

Met J for more fine wines and cocktails.

Had a row with the pavement and broke my nose.

Fri 24th July 2009:

Woke up VERY late with broken nose and 3 miscellaneous facial injuries of varying degrees of seriousness.

Momentarily wished I was dead.

Packed bag full of dirty clothes that I had forgot to wash.

Was sick.

Met B at train station.

Was nearly sick again.

Drank a bottle of champagne.

Arrived at York station, got in A’s car, drank another bottle of champagne.


Had guests round.

Scared guests off.

Chain smoked.

Did shots.

Had meringue fight.

Went to bed.

Sat 25th July 2009:

Woke up very late.

Forced on a grim nazi death march to the local pub (long way).

Drank pint of cider.

Felt sick.

Walked back.

Went to Harrogate.

Was nearly sick.

Had a pizza.

Was nearly sick.

Went to see a pal in Harrogate who force-fed me dodgy unidentified spirit from the back of his drinks cupboard.

Went home.

Drank wine.

Went to pub.

Drank more wine.

Fixed A up with some underage totty.

Went home.

Attempted to trampoline.

Smoked drugs with bunch of underage skiers.

Bolted B to the ceiling of the barn in a pair of skis.

Smoked more drugs.

Went to bed (after taking B down from the ceiling of course).

Sunday 26th July (my birthday):

GAME FUCKING OVER.

31 - duly achieved. Sense of self-loathing, check. Utter memory loss, check. Cracking headache, check. Aching internal organs, check. Overwhelming sense of fear and dread, check.


Oh well, better luck next time eh? Actually, believe it or not, this 31-year milestone represents progress. Last year was much worse, trust me. So, please feel free to tune in next time and celebrate with me. Some light crack cocaine use perhaps? Maybe a bit of self-mutilation followed by some base-jumping – who knows? I suppose that is actually the point isn’t it?

Who knows?

And if no one knows then, why the hell worry? 31 years young, that’s me. In the words of the immortal Peter Pan (who incidentally I met recently in Kensington Gardens), "To live would be an awfully big adventure".

Cheers to that Peter! Tinker Bell, pass the Absinthe would you? There’s a good fairy.

Why Darwin needs a machine gun

I once had a friend of the boy persuasion who had what I considered at the time to be a rather radical, if not actually fascist, world view. Darwin was, he argued, quite correct but he just hadn’t taken things far enough. The world’s resources were stretched and there were a lot of stupid and unpleasant people out there putting further unnecessary strain on them. A man-made ‘survival of the fittest’ program, so “Bob” argued, was the only option – that way all the inefficient, stupid and genetically offensive people would no longer be a problem. We should take all the happy-slapping chavs, rapists and traffic wardens outside, line them up and, well, you get the picture.



Hmmm...


Bob didn’t gauge his audience particularly well at this point. He took my rather aghast expression for dumbstruck awe at this brave new world plan and continued to explore his exciting new manifesto on a more micro-domestic level. It transpired that, should we be lost together in a life-threatening situation, he would kill and eat me to survive (ah, the romance of it). I got the distinct impression that I wouldn’t even have to be in a particularly weakened or injured state for him to do this. I think I eventually got him to agree to wait until I was actually dead, but he was resistant.

Anyway, the point is, increasingly I find myself agreeing with Bob, certainly when it comes to network rail employees anyway. It appears that most of the processes of evolution have simply not happened to employees of the various rail companies in this country. Let me tell you what happened to me the other day. Please do not read on if you are of a nervous (or bi-polar) disposition.

I tried to book a train online to Edinburgh. I have a long, and somewhat checkered, history with National Express and it didn’t surprise me that due to a “fatal error” (fatal is right if they fail me one more time) I was unable to book any tickets online.

So, not unreasonably I think, I decided to walk down the road to the train station to see if I could fare any better. That is, after all, what train stations are for is it not? Call me perverse but I foolishly assumed that buying tickets and travelling on trains was the train station’s main function in life. Not so, it seems.

I joined the queue quietly, no trouble to anyone and, as yet, no signs to suggest that I, or any of my fellow would-be travellers, were homicidal maniacs. So far, so good. Despite there being 5 or 6 ticket counters at Clapham Junction station, there were only three operating. There was a large queue that was not getting any smaller thanks to a rather worked up Irish lady who seemed to be having a problem booking a ticket (funny that). The mood in the queue was what can best be described as passively aggressive, until…

“Oi! We’re all waiting here you know and frankly I’m sick of this. She’s told you three times she can’t help you.”

Irish woman turns around too slowly. Looking into her eyes the gobby confronter realizes that she may have made a rather large mistake. The kind of mistake where limbs could be lost judging by the size of the Irish woman’s wrists.

“Excuse me, but I’m trying to book a ticket here. Would you like to tell me what the fuck you know about it?”

Uh oh. Use of the word fuck – loud – in public – to a stranger. The atmosphere is now officially tense. The confronter (crazy clothing, bad roots, too much makeup) squares up.

“We’re all fucking waiting here.”

Again, the word fuck. Oh dear. Not going well. She looks to the queue for support. She gets none. This crazy bitch is on her own. We’re lambs. We’ll queue unquestioningly for hours if that’s what it takes to avoid a shoeing here.

During this remonstration the lovely ticket lady’s contribution has been to sullenly scowl throughout and to be as unhelpful as humanly possible to the (now VERY irate) Irish lady. Why should she give a shit about train tickets? What do these crazy fucking people think she is? Some kind of train ticket dispensing system? As if.

Meanwhile at counter 1…

Unnoticed, a rather hard looking man has been having difficulty. He’s had a bad day. You can tell. His clenched shoulders suggest something quite interesting is about to happen. He wheels around, my fellow lemming-lambs give a little collective gasp.

“Right you rude bitch”

(He is talking to crazy eye-makeup lady.)

“I’d just like you to know that if I am in a queue and it is my turn and you EVER talk to me like you just talked to that woman, I’ll knock you’re fucking head off.”

He then (rather ingeniously I thought) added for emphasis,

“Head. Off. Got it?”

Jesus Christ. This is like downtown Basra now – everyone is piling in. Crazy lady stares unblinkingly back, says nothing – wise move gobby. She sits there looking sheepish in that ‘I’m trying not to be bothered but I’m actually mortified’ way. It’s painful. And then, suddenly, oh bugger, it’s my turn.

I smile encouragingly at ‘computer says no’ lady. She doesn’t even look at me, just huffs slightly. Here goes nothing.

“I’d like to book a return ticket to Edinburgh for these dates please.”

“When?”

“These dates”

“Huff. Tap tap tap – that’s £156”

“Sorry, I didn’t want to charter a helicopter”

Scowl

“I can get a ticket at the machine for £112”

“What? No you can’t.”

“Yes I can, I just had a look and it said £112”

“Fine £112 then.”

So now it appears that we’re working on a bartering principle. Interesting. I try my luck a bit more.

“Usually I can get them online for about £80”

“No. £112. Depends on availability.”

“So there aren’t any £80 tickets?”

“Dunno. Look online.”


OH. SWEET. BABY. JESUS.

I can understand Ray Winston’s “Head. Off. Got it?” approach now. This woman is going to turn me into a monster. I’m going to be guilty of an unspeakable act of violence any minute now. Lucky she’s got that reinforced glass to hide her indifferent smug snout behind. I realize this woman probably doesn’t have the highest job satisfaction in the world, but does she need to be quite so sullen and unhelpful?

The question is though, what came first? The chicken or the egg? Who do we blame? Do we get Darwin (and his nazi firing squad) round to deal with surly ticket lady, tattooed Ray Winston with anger issues, gobby eye-liner slag or amateur wrestler Irish lady?

In my humble opinion, it is the rude and inefficient staff that have created all these scary manifestations of rail rage. It is these scrapings from the remaindered barrel of life that we need to deal with if we all wish to retain peace, harmony and, more importantly, our sanity. You can argue it’s the system that’s the problem but I blame disinterested, unpleasant, jobs-worth rail personnel.

Personally I intend to totally go for it and trample everyone to death with my great big carbon footprints. I shall fly everywhere from now on. Kind of shits on Bob’s original plan for preserving the fragile balance of our environment, but I don’t care anymore. I am a creation of the world around me. I am the Incredible Hulk! I am Mr Hyde! I’ll rip your bloody arms off soon as look at you. It’s every man for himself. And if anyone’s got a problem with that I’ll rip your bloody head off.

Head. Off. Got it?