thank goodness for button-them-together double quilts, i say. take an autumn weight 9 tog, button on a summery 4 tog and you get a very warming 13 togger to keep these winter chills at bay. does anyone actually know, or indeed care, what tog means?
and so, this is Christmas. and what have you done?
well, thank you for asking. i've been to visit the mum, adding an extra twist to proceedings by taking the ex boyfriend along. needless to say both mum and nan seemed to prefer him to me. is it just in our family that our relatives always seem to prefer our friends to us, their next of kin? i sometimes think they probably don't like us very much. they love us to bits, of course, after all we are their flesh and blood, but i don't think they'd want to sit next to us (sisters and I) on a long train journey, or be stranded with us on a desert island.
thank goodness for therapy (lots of goodness to thank today!).
and while we're not on the subject of dancing, may i just ask why is it that some girls seem incapable of going onto a dancefloor without waving their arms around in the air. it's like an epidemic. pingyarmup syndrome. there you are, having a little bop when suddenly, seemingly without your consent, first your hands, then your elbows begin to creep up to the side of your head and before you know it you are swaying around looking like Jodie Foster in Nell. did someone once tell someone that this was 'sexeh!', because if so, i'd like to set the record straight that it isn't.
and if you've got long hair, that somehow gets tangled up in an acute attack of pingyarmup it's most definitely not 'hawt'! i recommend dancing with a pair of 8KG dumbbells in your hands. this should help keep them out of harms way.

follow the thread

On my way back from Pret (mayonaisse with that? How about some extra mayonaisse?) I cleverly managed to get the strap of the belt of my coat stuck in the buckle (how much or a trannie or weirdo does that make me sound? Like I’m wearing a safari suit in December, which btw, I’m not. I’m wearing a belstaff ripoff: black, greased-ish, with said buckle). Anyway, don’t ask me how as I don’t know how I managed but got the strap stuck and was forced to yank it out. This, somehow, pulled a bit of thread out so that it was wrapped round the buckle*. The only way to sort it out was to cut myself out of my belt. As I did this, I held one end of the string in my hand which caused my belt to bob around mid-air as if it had a life of it’s own. This reminded me (finally, I get to the point) of those funny toys you got in the 70s that were like overly fluffy pipe cleaners attached to lengths of invisible thread that you would pull around your person making it look like there was a flourescent caterpillar wriggling all over you. Crazy. And slightly disturbing as they used to whizz around quite quickly.
*talking of getting things caught, I once went ‘up west’ with my mum and sisters one Christmas and we went to The Oxford Walk. Younger readers will know this retail hotspot as The Plaza on Oxford Street but back in the day, it (thought it) gave Brent Cross a run for its money. Upstairs was one of those photographic studios where you could get sepia-tinted pictures of yourself in olde-worlde costumes (remember The Good Old Days on TV?), which sisters and I duly did. My nan still has one on one of her units.
Anyway, back in the 20th century we headed down the escalator back down to Oxford Street and somehow I managed to get my brand new black and white mohair jumper caught in the side of the moving staircase, causing a thread to pull and causing me to be sucked into the side of the escalator. I remember that horrible feeling of rising panic as I realised I was trapped. Only a quick thinking passer by saved the day by pulling my jumper and me out of the metal jaws of impending death or at the very least disfigurement. The jumper was ruined.
Another jumper that I lost in an unfortunate manner was the first I ever knitted. Yes, I knitted! And this was long before it was a trendy pursuit. I knitted myself a fluffy grey number with a low neck (OK, my nan had to help me sew it up) and I loved it. I was about 14 at the time and Skinderella-style skinny having started to shed the puppy fat that had helped make my life miserable for the previous decade and a half. I also made the fatal mistake of lending the jumper to my mate Geraldine who had (and indeed continues to have) rather large breasts. When I got my jumper back it was stretched beyond wearability around the chest area and fit only to be gifted to someone with huge breasts.
I still love my knitwear.

mary poppins!

I was, in my younger days, something of ‘a goer’. Now there’s a word that you don’t hear very often. Definitely one due for a revival, along with referring to someone as a bike. In fact, I think I’m going to start referring to myself as the office bike and see if there’s any improvement in my love life (and another one due for rediscovery).
Anyway, in my younger days I used to like to party. Hard. No pill, powder, paper and paste was safe if I was around.
One evening, getting ready to go out with mates one of them announces: ‘you must try this’ before putting something round and white in my mouth.
20 minutes later and I suddenly feel like an elephant with 10 tonne eyelids.
How hilarious – my friends had given me a sleeping pill. I was furious as I really wanted to go out that evening but had to go to bed, where I slept until the next morning and woke up feeling seriously groggy.
I’d completely forgotten about that until reading the story of the young girl who had been kidnapped by her own mum but who had, for a couple of years before then, been regularly drugged with valium. Not only was she doped, she was then sent to school. Now that’s unkind.

school dinners

slow Friday. alone in the office but let's not get too existential, eh? whatever happened to chocolate custard? everyone, at some point during their school days, ate chocolate sponge with chocolate custard. these days you never see it on menus anywhere!

cheers!

according to my horoscope, this week i am due a bit of a break after the hectic, emotionally draining past few weeks. spooky, heh? particularly the bit about slowing things down. i am actually typing this incredibly slowly. can you tell?
i am indeed having a bit of a break, this week, which makes a change from a bit of a breakdown, i suppose.
yesterday i spent the entire day in my pjyamas and spex, doing a bit of wardrobe editing and watching five episodes of Madmen. I was shattered by the end of it! no wonder babies and old people sleep so much - doing nothing is exhausting!
actually i did also pick up some emails (i am a compuslive communicator). there was one from a mate who has some peeps over for Christmas and wondered if i could recommend a cheap hotel in London.
i ask ex boyf who is forever finding places to put his friends when they jet in – he's spanish and of the world-seeing age, so there is a pretty constant stream of visitors. his reply to me? 'Google it you lazy fxcker'!
Now, i could go into a put-upon-mum rant here about all the things i do for him (and, while I'm at it can i just remind everyone of that hilarious song from the 70s called No Charge, where a young girl compiles a list of all the chores she has done and how much she would like to be paid for them, prompting her ma to compile a list of all the loving things she has done for the girl over her lifetime, the cost of which, is a credit-crunch friendly no charge), so as i was saying before those brackets, i could gently remind him of all the things i do for him instead i took his email as an opportunity to use the much underrated 'Thank you for you unhelp!'
It's a classic and, once you get into the habit of using it, extremely versatile. Someone is rude to you on the phone, 'Thank you for your unhelp' is great, especially as it takes the other person a couple of seconds to register what you've said, by which time you've hung up and are gloating in your cleverness.
This tip was passed on to me by my mate Veronica, whose frend George (who is a dead-spit for Goldie Hawn) uses it all the time.

have you got it?

So, we’ve had X-factor, where ‘talented’ wannabes risk ritual humiliation in return for a grasp at potential world domination and we’ve variations on the theme: pet idol, celebrity pop idol, billy idol, etc etc so, what I thought the other day as I was laying in bed at 3am unable to get back to sleep (this is a regular occurrence at the moment due to imminent life changing changes and work rethinks) what about idol idol?

Simon Cowell (SC): Hello, what’s your name?
Contestant 1: Bhudda
SC: OK, Mr Bhudda, what are you going to do for us?
Con 1: I am going to teach you that life is suffering and the art of non-attachment.
SC: Distinctly average, i'm afraid you're not quite what we're looking for

Cheryl Cole wells up

Next a man on a cross is wheeled in
SC: Hello, and who might you be?
Contestant 2: I am Jesus
SC: OK, so, Mr Jesus, you think you’ve got the X factor? What are you going to do for us?
Contestant 2: I am going to die for your sins.
SC: You know what, this competition needs more people like you. Hungry, willing to go that extra mile…

And then it’s Ganesh, The Virgin Mary (doing a Madonna song natch) and on and on and on.
I'd watch!

tight fit

Actually, giving this a title made me remember that band from the 80s who did a hilarious version of The Lion Sleeps Tonight. the lead singer was a buff (and camp) geezer in a nappyish loin cloth i seem to remember. what i definitely haven't forgotten is that i was in Down Memory Lane, a junk shop in Harrow on the Hill, when i came across a box of white label 12 inches. they cost £1 each - exactly the amount of funds i had back in those pocket-money weary days but there was one i REALLY wanted. there was also a copy of that very same Tight Fit epic, which was my mum's favourite song at the time. so, i had to make a choice. be a nice son and brighten up my mum's saturday or buy the one i REALLY wanted. yep, i did the right thing. she was delighted. the one i left behind? Ghost Town by the Specials!
anyway. back to yesterday's tight fit. a pair of white canvas converse-lookie likeys. size 10 but beyond painful. i think they were designed for some kind of human frog - long and narrow. every step was agony (you know what i mean). to the point where i lost the sensation in my feet. they went straight in the charity shop pile. my feet are still not back to normal today - i have mild pins and needles in my left one!
which brings me nicely on to the fact that there seem to be a lot of men in this town who settle for ill-fitting clothes. have you noticed how many guys there are around with trousers that are patently too short for them (and not in a Tom Browne luxe way). lots of 'slacks' flapping wowfully around the upper ankle. it's just not right. maybe they have unexpected growth spurts on the tube on the way to work? and what is it about guys with square shoes? if you want square shoes why not just buy the boxes?

alarmingly i am in my kitchen drinking frozen margaritas. that's not alarming. what is distressing is that my sister and her boyfriend are trying to remember the dance that MC Hammer did to Can't Touch This, while requesting that i google it!

well, that's just great

my friend Maryanne (check out her Scot abroad blog at http://alifelessdamp.blogspot.com/) has just suggested I might have
BED!
no, not A bed, BED. Binge Eating Disorder. Apparently it's the latest must-have condition whereby sufferers overeat or drink for short periods of time and then feel terribly guilty afterwards.
i thought that was called LIFE!
so, that's something for me to fret about on the way home.
cheers, Maryanne.
now, where did i leave my peanut butter and ham bap?

off the rails

so, on Saturday I am on the Tube on my way to Liverpool Street to catch the 1pm to Ipswich (to give a bit of light and shade to the story). Tube is absolutely heaving. We are crammed in like cattle, like the rush hour never happened and I get a whiff of this really musty/charity shoppe smell. 'What the hell is that?' I wonder to myself. And suddenly I realise: IT'S ME! I'd taken an old coat out of a musty old chartiy shoppe-esque cupboard at home and not aired it. That'll learn me, as many people would incorrectly have it.
fortunately my journey was short and I soon had an experience at Liverpool Street that had me thinking nicer thoughts (even if my coat still hummed). Waiting for my train platform to be announced I caught sight of a doddery old granddad nearby (in a coat that was probably related to mine) obviously looking for someone. The I caught sight of another doddery old geezer, and suddenly they spotted each other and their faces totally lit up. The hobbled over to each other and gave each other a really big heartfelt hug before pottering off. It warmed, as the expression would have it, the cockles.
So lovely weekend in Ipswich. On Sunday morning, my mate Marta and I popped in to TX Maxx to see if we could find her a new coat. After several announcements that the store would be marking DDay by two minutes silence in remembrance of those who gave their lives in WW1 an eery hush descended upon the place as, indeed the music went off and myself and my fellow shoppers all stopped talking. It was a nice moment of solidarity and quiet until suddenly it was shattered by two oiks strolling into the store announcing 'I just want to look at the f-ing jeans', which they then did, commenting on each pair. 'Ninety quid!' gasped the girl. 'I ain't paying that!' replied the boy. 'What colour do you want?' she asked him. 'Yellow,' he replied. You couldn't make it up. Well, I could but you couldn't. But I didn't.
Anyway, I've got to go now as I've got a bogey stuck between my teeth. OK, I made that up!

it's big and it's red

someone recently asked me to write about something that made me happy. so i did.

Happiness is sitting on the top deck of a routemaster.
Happiness is a much rarer treat than it used to be, given that ‘they’ have all but phased out London’s transport icon. Happiness can only be found in one or two parts of town these days, where once it spun round every corner.
I grew up in the small-minded suburbs, surrounded by shoe box houses and people who didn’t like me because I wasn’t like them.
The routemaster was my getaway vehicle.
It whisked me off to better things. To record shops that sold indie stuff you couldn’t get in Woolworths or Our Price. To charity shops where I could buy the kind of clothes the other kids at school would beat me up for wearing. It took me to the Tube – another exit from my miserable schoolday existence.
Happiness is sitting on the top deck of a routemaster, in the seat at the back on left. The one with more leg room and a view down the stairs. Happiness is sitting on the top deck of a routemaster looking out over the city that I used to think belonged to me.
The big red bus makes me remember more innocent times. And lazy days, when, if I timed it right and the traffic lights were in my favour I could hop off between stops virtually outside my front door. Lazy days before health and safety turned us all into the worried well, the terrified, the danger strangers.
It reminds me of the days when two people would work on buses, when there were jobs a plenty, and enough of everything to go round. The conductor would actually talk to you not just stare you out from behind glass.
It reminds me of the days of waking up to the gentle hum of milk floats and the sound of a paper boy putting the Daily Mirror through the letterbox.
The routemaster reminds me of times I was too young ever to experience. Of wars won, hard times endured but always, always, the hopefulness of travelling. To a in better place. Anywhere but here.
Happiness is sitting on the top deck of a routemaster.

cheers!

We all have at least one friend who always has one drink too many. The one who goes from vaguely jolly to that girl in the Exorcist in the space of one glass of wine. Who suddenly gets all glazy eyed and starts ranting about the state of the world, the hardships they've endured or just gets bolshy and mouthy? And then the next morning they are always slightly sheepish and start going on about how it was 'the booze talking'?
Well, my booze doesn't talk. It eats! Give me enough wine and, in the space of one glass, while that other friend is beginning to revolve their head through 360 degrees looking ever angrier, i will have morphed into the human equivalent of a Dyson hoover.
No plate is safe once sufficient units of alcohol have been consumed. Put me near a running buffet and I will soon turn it into a run out buffet – no combination of nibbles too surreal. At a friend's birthday party in the not too distant past i was found eating peanut and crisp sandwiches with ham. Really. And butter, which i normally consider devil's spawn!
And as for the low fat, healthy diet i try to follow when there is no alcohol involved? Just add booze and it goes out of the window.
I become utterly butterly with no full reflex whatsoever.
Last night was a case in point. Having begun the evening with a (very good, even if i do say so myself) margarita, we went on to fizz to celebrate brother in law's birthday before heading out to more margaritas and wine before a Mexican meal.
at said meal i managed to consume not only my own body weight in starters (which i said i didn't even want!) but all of my own main course and half of my sister's too boot (she wasn't drinking and so was fully in control of her mental and gastric faculties).
I don't know what comes over me. it's like i channel hattie jacques once the sherry comes out. Answers on a postcard please.
Did i tell you i've just come back from Chicago?
There I 1 smelt the foulest sheets i have ever come across and believe me, i've come across a few sheets in my time. these were on the sofa bed that i was meant to be sleeping on for a week. suffice to say we moved.
2 had the worst pedicure of my life. the young girl who did it managed to make me bleed TWICE! i would actually have declined the 'treatment' – she'd already given my friend the world's second worst pedicure, this time putting on and taking off toe nail varnish THREE TIMES – but the poor thing was patently terrified of her tyrannical boss who kept on shouting things at her in Slovakian, causing her to cower with tears in her eyes before grinning at me (the boss, that is) saying 'is good worker'.
my toenails are just about grown back. thank you for asking

i haven't blogged for so long that i almost forgot my username and password (i've had virtual constipation!).
speaking of passwords - i've recently switched my mobile phone network. after years of faithfulness with one provider another came along with a decent offer and no long term contract so i've defected. anyway, having set my contract up online (where else?) i was unable to pick up my voicemail so had to call their service centre:
'OK, what's your password?'
'erm, xxxxxxxxx?'
'no'
'oh, zzzzzzzzz?'
'i'm afraid not'
'is it vvvvvvvvv?
and on and on (obviously those aren't really my passwords) until i'd exhuasted all my options.
so, i may not know my own mobile phone password but there is someone in a call centre somewhere who knows all my passwords and is probably busy emptying my bank account and stealing my identity right now.
he or she may even be writing this post.
oh no!

is it just me,

or is this blogging business a bit time consuming.
what with scratchcards, soap operas and facebook, there's hardly enough hours in the day.

what's in a name?

i grew up surrounded by animals. my mum used to do rescue work for a local animal charity so we were forever taking in waifs and strays. at one point we had four dogs, seven cats, a parrot, a rabbit and an aquarium full of terrapins of our own plus, at up to 6 fostered dogs or cats. among the refugees i remember most are ellie, who as the joke might have gone, had no nose, just a big red gaping hole where her nose was. she was so delighted by affection it makes me feel teary just to think of her. then there was benji who had erm, a taste dog poo, ideally his own.
anyway. one of the permanent members of the Short menagerie was Tina, an alsation cross. i loved that dog! she used to make a cock-a-doodle-do noise when i would come home. one day i came home (from overseas where i was living) and started calling Tina only to be told by an upset-looking mother that Tina had had to be put down. THREE MONTHS BEFORE! but that's a different matter. the reason i bring up Tina (RIP) is that i have noticed that loads of people have animals with human names. a friend of my sister's has a cat called Nigel, while Kirsten Dunst has a cat called Cat Stevens. i've heard of a dog called Graham and even a hamster called Peter. the queen's favourite corgi was called Susan, which, for some reason really tickles me.
so, when, i wonder, will the trend for giving pet names to children begin. after the Alfies, Ameilias, Jacks and all surely it's only a matter of time before Shebas start appearing on the registers, or Smokys, Tabbys, Rockys, and Ladys (yes, i know i've misspelt the plurals, innit).
if i had a child i would definitely call it Scooby if it was a boy and Lassie if it was a girl.

in short

when people first started writing LOL in emails and on facebook (yes, i'm STILL on facebook, surely it's now so out of fashion that it is back in again) i thought they were sending me Lots of Love. Instead, of course, they mean Laugh Out Loud. which may or may not be the case depending on how amusing the thing they are talking about is.
I'm pioneering a new lot of abbreviations. I hope you like them:
STM - smirk to myself
GAB - giggle a bit
STMOWIJSE - spit the mouthful of water I'd just sipped everywhere
my favourite though is
SMP - shit my pants.
something does have to be bloody funny to get that, of course, and, for those things that really are beyond hilarious
SFIHAHAAHJRFH - so funny i had a heart attack and have just returned from hospital

don't forget to email now!

come into the garden, fraud

My shed is black. now, i know it sounds like a goth rock classic but it's actually how i spent my weekend. my friend veronica, who works on a gardening mag, so knows about these things pointed out recently that the orange monstrosity at the end of the garden would be slightly less conspicuous if it were a darker shade. i wasn't sure but she showed me lots of pics of black and grey sheds and i have to admit she was right.
an aside about Veronica. as part of her gardening magazine life she gets to do loads of makeovers. her mum's garden, once an unloved wasteland is now, apparently, a verdant vision. imagine how excited i was then when she offered to 'do something' to my own back yard, which, when we moved in looked like a cross between an abandoned football field (home team The Diddy Men) and a refugee camp (that shed has delusions of Alpine Lodgery). so, i give her the brief - anything goes, a patio if poss and some nice flower beds. and soon enough, my makeover arrives. IN THE POST! basically it's a sheet of tracing paper with line drawings of plants etc on it. when laid over the photograph i supplied for Veronica to work on, it gives you an idea of what my makeover garden might look like! hilarious.
not.
Veronica came close to trumping this the other day when she informed another friend, who has spent the past eight years cultivating a gorgeous urban oasis that 'you could really do something with this'. how we laughed.
not.
anyway, back to my shed. it's now black and much less conspicuous than before. providing of course that you are only looking at it from the house. if you are in the garden and catch it from the wrong angle you can see that i was too lazy to paint the side!
you can hardly blame me: it took 3 coats and i had claw-hand-cramp before i'd even finished half of the first one!
i'm logging off now as my machine is doing that really annoying thing where i type but nothing appears on the screen, then suddenly a whole bunch of letters turn up at once. like buses. or a telex.

Rickaaaaaay!

i can't stop listening to the new King's of Leon single (showing my age there. I mean track, download or whatever it is the youth of today say). i like it so much it makes me a bit tingly! i was listening to it at the gym today as i cycled manically (torn my hamstring so no running for 2 weeks, which is, of course, my idea of torture) and i found myself wishing that i was having the kind of affair that would inspire someone to write a song like that about me!
Hot as a fever, Rattling bones
I could just taste it, Taste it
Oh we're still the greatest
Your sex is on fire.

i was at the gym despite having a torn hamstring and despite having quite possibly the worst hangover of the year. yesterday we went out for lunch to celebrate the birthday of one of my team. she is 19 years younger than me. i can't quite believe that i work with someone almost two decades my junior and i'm not a primary school teacher! we went to her choice of restaurant. American-themed chain, you know the one, i won't name it for fear of libel.
suffice to say that when i ordered my hamburger, and asked for it medium well, our waiter raised his artfully shaved and pierced eyebrow and informed me that 'all our hamburgers are served well'. bless. but how wrong he was. while my hamburger did indeed come well-done (or as well done as you can get for a frozen hamburger like the ones they sell down Beejam) i wouldn't say we were served very well at all by lovely little Ricky (or the Rickster as i'm sure his mates call him). Now, i don't know whether the Rickster has another job that he combines with waiting tables (as in, does them both at the same time, running between the two) or whether he kept on popping off to auditions to be in a boy band between courses but all i can say is that our lunch lasted nearly three hours. and not because we'd gone for a tasting menu or a leisurely 'let's drink the place dry we're on expenses' lunch. nope, our lunch lasted so long simply because Ricky vanished the minute he'd finished serving us first our, 'oh my god, this is so insipid i almost admire the barman' cocktails, then our 'when the microwave pings, remove burgers and serve to customer. remember to smile' main courses and on to our second bottle of wine.
anyway, we then went on for frozen margaritas and then home for g&ts and wine.
let's just say today is a little challenging

going for gold

Unless you’ve been in a coma or the Big Brother house lately, you’ve probably noticed that we are doing rather well in the Olympic games. It’s all medal medal medal, siliver gold silver.
Which reminds me of a sporting triumph I enjoyed myself once.
Now, when you are fat, bespectacled, camp as Christmas and sport- and ballphobic as I was as a youngster, moments of sporting glory are very few and far between.
So picture the scene. It is the trials for sports day and I have been selected to try for… the egg and spoon race!
So, I line up, spoon in hand and egg on floor before me. The whistle goes. I bend to pick up the egg and it is as if it wants to be on that spoon. I scoop it up and am off, running (ok, walking slightly faster than normal, free arm flapping around, heels kicking up, egg-carrying arm rigid, probably flapping about the possibility of the egg falling off the spoon, or worse, my hair getting messed up) toward the finishing post while the other competitors are all repeatedly dropping their eggs on the floor and having to pick them up again. It is as if my egg is now stuck to my spoon.
When sportsmen talk about just going into slow motion or flow motion during an outstanding race I really get it, because for a few moments back then when I was 11, I did just that. And I came first by a very long way. It was as if me and my egg were carried along by some higher power. The patron saint of fat children was smiling on me that day.
Shame he’d gone on holiday the following week when the race proper happened. Poised at the starting line, ready to repeat my success and get my very first medal (‘fly Steven, fly’ said the voice in my head. ‘see the egg, be the egg’) the whistle goes off and guess what – I can’t even get the egg on the spoon. I am still struggling to pick it up off the floor when every other bugger has finished the race.

fortune favours the shed painters

Yesterday for lunch my mate Tim had fish and chips for lunch. even though, he noted 'it's batter. which is bad'. not to mention the chips. anyway, so fish and chips for lunch it was. i had a marginally more healthy salmon burger and no chips. this followed a rather toastalicious breakfast on the patio and came before a cream tea and a bottle of fizz and big bag of crisps on the beach. it was like a Christmas day in summer. we'd originally planned to go camping but rain stopped tent pegs so we went for a day out instead, which was basically the food equivalent of a pub crawl (a grub crawl!) - breakfast, drive. lunch, drive. Beth Chatto's garden, cream tea, drive. beach, bottle of fizz and crisps, drive home. local wine bar. local Chinese restaurant.
In the Chinese restaurant none of us could decide what to have (by this time it really was more greed than need). I had Sechuan chicken: nice sauce, dubious meat. Someone else had good chop suey while another had tofu. Tim, after much menu studying decided on sweet and sour chicken: 'I need something light after that battered lunch' he decided.
Now if the description of sweet and sour chicken had included the words 'deep fried' and 'batter' i suspect tim may have changed his order, but of course it did not so it yet more deep frydom.
at the end of the meal we were given fortune cookies.
mine declared that 'from the chosen few you are the one'!
which is reassuring.
not sure which 'one' i am but it's nice to feel special.
today, on the advice of my gardener friend Veronica, i started to paint our shed black.
now, i had hoped that this would take me about an hour - i had done all the prepping last weekend, scrubbing, dusting down, psyching myself up etc but no. if on the tin of paint it had said 'will spread on really patchily whilst dripping all over the decking. blisters on fingers guaranteed and absolutely no more that 3 coats needed' i suspect i may have found another way to spend my sunday afternoon...
i now have to wait until next weekend for the next coat. the shed, btw, looks brilliant from the house, it's only once you get up close that the patchiness becomes apparent. as sister Tracy put it 'it looks like a tourist attraction in Great Yarmouth'.
no, i didn't get it either

in a toilet far far away

Today I am having a specky four eyes day. I normally wear contact lenses but a few years ago the whites of my eyes started turning pink. When I went to the opticians about it, my eyeman told me that it was because my eyes couldn’t breathe properly and that if I kept wearing my lenses for 17 hours at a time, as was my inclination, he’d stop prescribing me them. He also told me I had fatty deposits on my eyes. Love him!
So, now, I put my lenses in first thing to go to the gym. Running in glasses is a no no. Who wants to look like a fish on a running machine!
Then when I get to work I take my lenses out and put my specs on.
So, today, I am bespectacled (but Look*, no pink eye!). I just went for a pee. Where the light above my head reflected through the lenses of my glass it through reflections onto the floor that made it look exactly like I had CP30 eyes. How crazy is that!
And on the subject of crazy when I was in Barcelona recently (see earlier posts) I came across what must be the only Mexican restaurant in the whole world that didn’t do margaritas!
Me: ‘Do you do Margaritas?’ (in Spanish, natch)
Them: ‘No, but we’ve got 7 tequilas’
* I really wanted to write Look with an eyeball in each of the os but couldn’t!)

long time no me!

when a man is tired of blogging, he is… on holiday of course.
so, just back from a week fighting them (off) on the beaches.
if they weren't trying to sell us coconut (which, btw, i saw them washing in the same place where people washed off their feet - right next to the portaloo) it was sarongs. do i look like the kind of person who would lay on (or worse, wear!) a sarong.
then of course, there was mobile Vision Express, each outdoing each other in the cheap and nastiness stakes. Finally there were the warm can men - beer, coke, diet coke. you name it. they had it. warm.
so, on the beach a booming economy.
leave the sunny shore though and it's a different matter. the credit crunch is biting hard.
how did we know?
snacks. or lack of.
a post-beach ritual of the Short holidays is a G&T at Bar Maripili, AKA the lesbian bar. each year we are greeted like 'faamly' and don't even have to order our G&T, it just magically appears alongside a lovely little plate of mixed nuts and pretzel bites, which, after a hard day's frazzling really hit the spot. NOT ANYMORE! this year, no matter how hard i looked (under the table, under the chairs, under the beermats) i couldn't find a crumb.
And it's not just the bars. the cafes are equally strapped. where once you would find a lovely little biscuit to go with your cafe con leche of a morning you now get, well, NADA actually. unless you're the kind of person who counts a spoon as added-value. which i certainly don't.
And I'm sure you're wondering about my tan.
As you know, i try and keep my non-surgical-procedured face out of the sun but even i catch a few rays while i am away.
the result? two rather orange cheeks.
my face is now so sensitive to the sun that i get a blotchy tan.
for a couple of days i looked like an extra from an 80s new romantic pop video.
orange! rosy i could cope with. deep beige at a push but orange! i looked like i'd been attacked by an 80s teenager with a blusher brush.

how many posts make a theme?

just noticed i've done two in a row about my new ROF (roll of flab).
am i now officially obsessed or do i get a few more posts about it?
another recurring theme, of course, is the radiator in the bathroom.
it remains BOILING hot but continues to gurgle so i now have to unplug it every night and plug it back in every morning.
when i remember…

eat, drink and be merry, tomorrow we diet

The Mayo Clinic, Atkins, food combining, blood type. Forget those old-timers – I’ve started a new fad. It’s called the reverse diet. I go on holiday a week on Saturday. To Spain to lounge around in the sun and to stay at the house I co-own (and which leeches money from my bank account every month, but that’s a whole other rant).
Every year around May I start thinking, right, must drink less, eat a bit more sensibly and up my running so I’ve got a nice flat tummy / six pack for my summer holiday.
And every year I miss my target.
Well, this year I have surpassed myself.
I’ve had a particularly boozy / eatty (or is eaty?) few weeks, which consequently have left me with a rather unbecoming roll of flab that hangs menancingly over my trousers when I sit down – it’s like I’ve already been on holiday and have the body one expects to have after a week lounging around eating rich food, drinking too much and doing no exercise.
The day before I go I am going for a fake tan.
And that’s where the reverse diet comes in. I am going to go away brown and ‘cuddly’ and come back certainly paler (sunbathing is a no no in these surgically enhanced / face ripped off and stuck back on again times, you know) and hopefully a bit less flabby.
Get it? Remember where you read it first.
No doubt my first entry back will read To Barcelona, where my tan faded and my stomach became firmer. Which brings me to today’s pet hate: people who, usually in the Londoner’s Diary pages of ES begin a story by saying ‘To The Wolseley…’ or ‘To the courts of justice’. Whatever happened to ‘I went…’?

i have hangover cubed. that's a hangover on a hangover on a hangover.
i also have another kind of hangover - a roll of flab that spills from over the top of my jeans. it's a brouilly belly (i don't drink beer – far too butch). it was a sad sad day when i realised there were calories in alcohol. and not just any old calories. empty calories.
and i'm going on holiday in two and half weeks. every year i think to myself 'right, this year, i WILL have a flat tummy for the beach' then i go into psychotically social mode and go out night after night boozing.
i've always said that the best thing about me and the worst thing about me is that i am ALWAYS up for a drink.
so yesterday i had a Christmas food preview. this basically consisted of trying loads of food and drinking Champagne and shots of flavoured vodka. at midday!
i then went out with a mate in the evening to a new gaff in Park Lane where, apparently (does that take care of the lawyers?) there had been some shenanigans with rohypnal the previous night (too late again!).
so, get there. get in, by the skin of our teeth – despite the fact that mate is actually the pr for the place.
it is full of suits and overly tall, overly blonde sloaney types neighing things like 'Sophie, you look amaaaaaaaaaaaazing' and 'oh you must meet my backer, he's a sweetie'.
we were meant to have a table.
'private event i'm afraid, you can't have a table until later. can't you come back after supper.'
er, no.
'oh yes, i've got you down on our lists. no table, just 10 drinks.'
so, we get to stand at the bar drinking 5 cocktails each, being stamped on by suits and horses?
we took a rain check and went into Soho instead.
Vodka gimlet is currently vying with frozen margarita for favourite drink ranking.

ping,,, pong...

so, was it bad chicken, a hairball or AASD (acute attention seeking disorder)? whatever it was that had me being sick at various points last night / this morning has also meant i have spent an extremely leisurely day at home.
i've been mostly sitting on the sofa waiting for a tennis match to start (more of which lately).
i also had a look through my old photos and couldn't help but think of that Baz Luhrman song that is based on a supposed graduation speech (though variously attributed to Kurt Vonegut and others on the interweb). the lyrics 'one day you'll look back on yourself in a way you can't comprehend how truly special you were' rang particularly true. i was, quite simply, ravishing!
a picture of vital fresh faced youth.
Oscar Wilde really did get it right when he said that yut is wasted on da yung!
mind you, my hands have certainly improved with age. i now have fingernails where once i had angry looking stumps - invariably with a cigarette between them.
i also have fewer wrinkles now than when i was in my 30s, which is uncanny.
speaking of which, is it my imagination or does Sue Barker look fresher faced than she used to?
anyway, got to go, the Murray / Nadal match is about to begin.
For those of you who don't speak Catalan (heathens!) Nadal translates as Christmas!
So Andy Murray is about to get his ass kicked by Mr Christmas.

water water (and smelly children) everywhere

For my birthday this year (41. who'da thunk it!) my sister paid for me to go to a meditation workshop at our local yoga centre. Unfortunately the workshop was cancelled as the teacher couldn't get there – she was too stressed. just kidding. she was flying in from LA and there was a problem with her flight.
So we got a refund and had to think of something else for my special day.
I decided on the London Aquarium as i) I've never been ii) i love love love snorkelling so figured it would be like that but while being fully clothed. and no jet lag!
We went on Saturday afternoon. It was baking. The Aquarium, therefore, would be empty right? Who (apart from me) would want to go to the indoor, dark Aquarium on one of the hottest weekends of the year?
Erm.... about 400 other people. And their children.
Now, for some reason I'd created this image of the Aquarium in my mind, which was all lovely crystal blue waters, endless exotic fish and a brilliant glass walkway/tunnel where you ACTUALLY WALK THROUGH A TANK OF MASSIVE FISH!
What we got instead was a dark and dingy basement with home aquarium stylee tanks with grubby windows, in front of which an army of space-invading, shouty children gathered banging on the glass while their parents took endless photos with endless flashes from their cameras, even though the signs everywhere clearly stated NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY.
I was terrorised by one particularly loathesome specimin of smelly boyhood who, I swear to God, appeared at every window I stopped, leaning into me and pressing his face against the glass.
At one tank, as I admired the parrot fish, he actually bobbed up in front of me like a shark! Or a turd in the sea. Not nice.
Unperturbed, sister and I skipped a couple of tanks to get away from the throng of families and found ourselves watching an episode of Life On Earth as what we thought were two crabs 'making lurve' turned out to be one crab eating a smaller one. We only found this out when an even bigger crab came along and nicked lunch from the smaller rival.
Next we made our way to the ray tank for some light petting – i'd been looking forward to tickling a ray's tummy all week. apparently they like it. they do!
So, we get to the tank and guess what! No petting! No bombing or necking either. obviously in these post Steve Irwin times man must not pet a ray. Which would be fine, except there was one little blighter plopping up and down on the surface of the pool, looking really upset that all the potential ticklers standing around goggling him/her weren't even putting their hands in the water – prefering instead to blind him/her with endless flash photography. or bang on the walls of his home.
Oh well, at least we had the brilliant glass walkway/tunnel where you ACTUALLY WALK THROUGH A TANK OF MASSIVE FISH to look forward to.
Only of course, we didn't. Moving past a couple more dingy windows we found ourselves unceremoniously guided toward the exit and through the obligatory gifte shoppe.
At the exit we were asked to fill in a questionairre about our experience.
Do you have children? it asked. No, I replied. And after today I don't want anyway.
I'm going to Barcelona in a few weeks where there is an aquarium with a brilliant glass walkway/tunnel where you ACTUALLY WALK THROUGH A TANK OF MASSIVE FISH! can't wait! it's bound to be really quiet at this time of year.

Mr Angry

I saw a woman having an angry phone call at lunchtime. She was stropping down the road shouting ‘you don’t know how I feel’ over and over again, presumably at her lover / boyfriend / partner. And I found myself envying her ‘letting it all out’. In Japan they (apparently) have quiet rooms that you rent by the hour. These rooms are soundproofed and may or may not be padded, but basically you lock yourself in and then have a good old scream, releasing all that pent up aggression, frustration and anger. I’d love one at home. Imagine if, when you were looking in the window of your local estate agents the property specs said things like ‘2 bedrooms, one en-suite, sunny reception, fully soundproofed angry room’…
Anyway, in the absence of such luxuries I thought it might be nice to try ‘angry mobile phone’ therapy. Basically I’m considering just having a really angry phone conversation with mr N.O one. I reckon a nice old shout would get rid of some the London aggression that has built up over recent weeks. I’ll let you know how it goes.
And speaking of angry phone calls. I was once getting a Thameslink back to Herne Hill, in my Sawf London days, when a very well dressed woman got on. She was all ballgown glam with a big hat on, which hid most of her face, and, I realised as she sat down in front of me, completely shxt-faced.
After about 10 minutes of doing a nodding dog impression she pulled her phone out of her bag, pulled her hat down to cover even more of her face (lest us other travellers hear what she was about to say) then proceeded to scream at the top of her voice ‘you’re an absolute sxit and I never want to see you again’ into her mobile phone.
She then put her phone back in her bag, lifted up her hat and nodded off again.
OH NO! MAYBE SHE HAD THE ANGRY PHONE THERAPY IDEA BEFORE ME!

put 'em on!

i'm just back from a weekend at a luxury spa in Austria.
hmmm. funny word luxury. very subjective.
all i can say is that if that is the Austrian idea of luxury, i think i'll pass on what they would describe as 'basic' .
the spa was like a cross between a holiday camp and a run down 1970s swimming pool, with a touch of primary school thrown in - there were primary coloured pieces of ceramic thrown at, i mean positioned on the walls, with lots of chimes hanging around.
but let's not dwell on the decor.
let's talk about the people!
ever had a dream that you were having it off with one of your parents (just me then!), well, this is about as close to parental nudity and displays of sexuality as you are likely to get without being taken into care or imprisoned in a cellar (well, we were in Austria!).
everywhere we looked there was a Mum or Dadalike wandering around letting it all hang out (and down, and over!).
the size 0 debate clearly hasn't reached Austria yet, or if it has someone pickled it and ate it on toast as a snack.
let's just say that xtra large, elephantine, diplodocusesque and oh-my-god look at the size of that would be suitable adjectives for a size chart describing our fellow spa-ers. and that's just the children!
sister (who i took as my +1) came back all pink and flustered from her first trip to the sauna.
'it was like walking into a pub in the village of the damned, where everyone goes totally silent and stares at you.'
i pointed out that the reason she might have attracted so much attention was that she was wearing not only a bikini, but also a towel AND a towelling robe. 'that's like walking into Selfridges in just your knickers and wondering why everyone else is looking at you'.
i shall spare you her descriptions of the people she encounters in case you're eating.
we were generally well behaved though, being sure not to overdress for the naked areas (i bore all, Tracy stayed away) or underdress for the restaurants (buffets of the eat as much as you dare kind - i put on 2 kilos in 3 days) .
we did have a couple of funny encounters while we were there. firstly with a wedding party. I KNOW! which we gate crashed by mistake, taking a wrong turn at Volcania (pronounced Wulkaneeeeeeeea), one of the swimming pools. one moment we were lounging by the lovely thermal pool in our swimwear. next we'd wandered into a full on wedding reception - in our bathrobes. how we laughed! (the wedding party weren't quite so entertained).
next came at the end of a lovely bike ride in the country (during which we got totally soaked thanks to a passing monsoon). returning to the spa we once again took a wrong turn and were soon cycling amidst bemused looking towelling robe clad fellow guests, heading for Wulkaneeeeeeeeea! how we laughed (two laughs in three days - what fun!
i don't think either of us is in any hurry to return.

oh my oh my, have you seen the weather?

Well, this is nice.
A bit of sun.
lots of inappropriate bearing of flesh and lots of pink shoulders (hairy to boot!).
The good weather is set to continue tomorrow, too. Day after it’s going to be back to rainy cloudy grey-ey, so at least we’ll know where we stand.
We were talking about the weather here at work earlier (as you do – perish the thought we ever actually talk about anything interesting / pertinent / world-changing) about how lovely it is and how it will be equally pleasant tomorrow.
And I asked, why is it that they only show today’s weather on TV, along with a preview of what’s to come but never yesterday’s?
I think it would be much more useful to get the weather today in context with the weather yesterday.
For example, today it is 26 degrees c and I am wearing a lovely linen shirt / baggy jeans combo, and, like Goldilocks’s porridge, I am not too hot, not too cold.
How useful, if lovely Andrea on GMTV tomorrow morning were to tell me that the temperature will be exactly the same as today, so I know what layers / fabrics to wear.
Instead she will no doubt tell me sunny today with highs of X (by which time I will be incapable of remembering today's magic number), cloudy tomorrow. Giving me two sartorial dilemmas to worry about and not a mention of the past.
The people at work thought this was a riduculous idea, so i just shut my eyes and pretended they weren't there (thank heavens for black-out eyeshadow!)

radiator update

on plumber's instructions i bled the bathroom radiator.
a very technical affair which involved wedging a spoon in a screw like opening (no, the screwdriver didn't fit) and allowing lots of air out.
have you ever smelt rotting fish mixed with dead people and cat poo? i have – it's exactly the aroma that wafted out of the valve.
anyway. the radiator is now so hot i'm thinking of opening up a teppanyaki grill in the bathroom.
and it still squeals!

on the shelf

on facebook today (I know, what century AM i living in!) i saw that one of my 'friends' is a member of a gay rounders team.
i love rounders!
i looked at his most recent post and was greeted with picture after picture of athletic looking men running around with balls and bats, having what looked like a real laugh, and a picnic, and i found myself thinking 'I want to play'.
and that then led on to thinking about 'it' and meeting someone to do 'it' with (and yes, we have moved on from rounders now).
and i thought, oh no, am i going to have to join the virtual hordes and get online to get it on offline with someone?
and how would i describe myself these days and what would i ask for.
so far the best i've come up with is blue toothbrush seeks blue toothbrush. must like rounders.
which patently makes me sound like a maniac.

could it be that it was all so simple then/

whatever happened to life? we used to drink tea or, if we were forward thinking Camp coffee, with a splash of milk and sugar (OK, so we didn't keep our own teeth beyond our 20s but we were happy!).
we used to drink beer or, if we were French, wine.
now, we don't have lives anymore. we have lifestyles.
you can't go into a coffee shop and ask for a coffee anymore, you have to ask for a one-shot, decaf, extra dry, straight up cappuccino. fewer than four adjectives and you'll be exposed as a Luddite. or my mum!
you can't go into a greasy spoon anymore (it's a surely only a matter of time before these are rebranded as something with olive oil in the title. greasy is such a dirty word) and ask for a bacon butty. today it's a foccacia (elongated vowels optional and let's not get started on how people now insist on saying pan au chocolat or croissant with French accent start on) drizzled with olive infused olive oil, proscuitto and buffalo mozzarella. lightly toasted.
everything is bespoke. everything is designer (like no one designed stuff before, it just willed itself into being).
it's all style and no life if you ask me

hot hot hot

today's irritations.
my bathroom radiator is doing strangled cats impressions and whining loudly. so loudly in fact that it kept me awake last night. i have fiddled with various buttons but it's still making the irritating, just within human hearing range, squeal. it is also only hot at the bottom so if we want to get our towels warm and or dry we have to wedge them behind it. which was hardly the idea of spending £200+ on a swanky radiator.

a little mouse with clogs on, well i declare

i was watching the 'amy winemouse' video earlier (youtube it if it's passed you by, it's a goodie) of old aime and PD playing with baby mice.
it's weird.
who decorated the place? the room is lit by a blue bulb, which, frankly, is hardly the most flattering of lights even when you are feeling peachy, let alone when you are rocking the skeleton in a stretched yellow Marigold look.
so, Amy picks up one of the baby mice and in baby mouse voice starts talking to hubby asking him not to leave her, and I found myself thinking – what if it's all an elaborate hoax!
what if she's not really a caner but is in bed, make up removed and fully moisturised for 10pm, so she gets a bit of quality shuteye before getting up, donning the frantically backcombed beehive wig and manky charidee shop bra, smearing a bit of kohl round her eyes so she can 'fake stumble' into the garden for the paps to get their shots.
what if it's all a front, some clever marketing ploy to keep her in the headlines.
well, i'm buying it!

eye eye

put my contact lenses in this morning. went to gym. noticed that my left lense was durdy.
big smudge right in the centre, meaning i was seeing the world in slightly soft focus (my left eye is the alpha male of my vision).
get to work, take out my lenses.
still have big smudge right in the centre of my field of vision.
i have smudgy eye! is that a condition, like pink eye? it's not pleasant.
and my eye woes don't stop there.
i once had an examination, at the end of which the optician told me 'apart from a couple of fatty deposits your eyes are in perfect health'.
FATTY DEPOSITS! at the time i was enjoying a particularly tricky relationship with my body, so hearing that as well as a stubborn roll of flab around my midriff i had fatty deposits on my eyes was the icing on a cake i was far too calorie-controlling to eat.
it's a cruel old world.

what's in the bag?

there is a woman on the radio talking about a bag of hair.
she apparently used to cut her ex boyfriends hair and, unbeknown to him, used to keep all the cuttings.
she now keeps the cutting in a bag and can't throw them away.
not because she still holds a flame for the ex but because she can't bear to touch the bag as it feels like a human head.
she sounds vaguely deranged.

i got a press release today about a new restaurant that is not only going to be 'huge'! but it's also going to serve 'imaginary eastern food'. I LOVE THAT. imaginary food!
i was so inspired, in fact, that i have just opened an imaginary restaurant. it's already a big hit among foodies. drop my name when you call and they might be able to fit you in some time in September. 2009.
i'm also in the middle of writing 'the imaginary food diet', which is guaranteed to be a 'huge' success and should see the skinny trend elevated to new heights!

i personally recruited all the imaginary staff for my imaginary restaurant (they are all gorgeous, natch and think i'm a really 'amazing' boss)but i have forbidden them from using the word 'enjoy'.
don't you hate it when you go to a restaurant and, upon bringing you your dishes, your waiter/ess puts down the plate and says 'enjoy'. like it's some kind of order.
well, i do. anyway.

so many irritations, so little time...

today's niggles. in no particular order.
minty mist - my mum put 20 packets (that's the real figure by the way, not a gross exaggeration) of extra strong mints in my goodie bag for the train journey on Sunday. i brought them into work and have been unable to stop consuming them. i now feel like i have swallowed a cloud something similarly airy and nebulous, hence minty mist. i feel full of it.
(while on the subject of goodie bags, why is it that even though i will only go to my mum's for one night she will still buy me four muller light yoghurts! and why is it that i have breakfast before i go, the minute i get on the train my sandwiches start going 'cooey, we're here!' until i can't stop thinking about them and so consequently end up eating my lunch approximately 9 minutes after leaving Norwich.)

people who don't use toilet brushes. i'm not going to get vulgar - i'm sure you can imagine - but there is someone on my floor who doesn't seem to be able to work out what they are for. (clue: toilet. brush.) alternatively there might be a bear on the loose.

people who don't say thank you when you hold the door open for them (I know I've said that before but what is it about people? do i look like a bouncer?)

forever carrying an umbrella around and ALWAYS leaving it back in the office when it actually rains.

my dad asking me once again to be his facebook friend! what is it they say about being able to choose your friends but not your family?

Anyway, turned out nice again, hasn't it?

a tale of two dressing gowns

did i ever tell you that in a previous existence i lived in Spain? of course i did.
we had a massive leaving do - i made the invitations out of my MA1 flying jacket, which i was very rarely without. it was symbolic maaaan...
as a leaving present my parents gave me Terry.
actually they gave me a towelling dressing gown, which boyfriend and I christened Terry (as in terry towelling). it was, quite simply, the 80s made garment.
an extravaganza of grey towelling with red and black go faster stripes.
Terry met with an unfortunate end – flushed down the toilet of a hellhole, i mean flat, that i was renting. don't ask me why, it just seemed like a good idea at the time.
I remembered Terry recently when at work, my publisher told a dressing-gown related anecdote.
publisher has an older brother, who, judging by some of the stories publisher tells about him, has always been a bit, erm, unstable.
one of his tricks when they were growing up involved spraying himself with hair lacquer and setting fire to himself.
he would only do this, for some reason, when he was wearing his dressing gown.
apparently publisher and family would be sitting on the sofa watching tv and he would come screaming down the stairs and into the living room wearing a flaming dressing gown.
it got to the point, she says, that they almost stopped noticing him!
my current dressing gown, thank you for asking, is navy cashmere. it has only two moth holes!

more tea vicar

i know it's immature but it makes me laugh. i have the annoying habit of spraying perfume (yes, i know i mean after shave) into my hair when i feel in need of an uplifting burst of this week's favourite fragrance. i've done it a few of times today and each time, the team at the next bank of desks have all gone 'oh wow, what a lovely smell, what is it?' to each other.
the first time one of them said it might be her new perfume, but that she hadn't put it on for ages. the next time it was credited to someone who had recently walked past.
i've just done it again (i'm a heavy sprayer – you wouldn't want me as a cat!) and one of them has announced. 'i've worked it out, it's my herbal tea'.
you had to be there....
and isn't it weird how instead of say, we use go. so i go 'shut up' and she goes 'make me' and i go 'i don't make onions, i just pickle them' or whatever (sorry, i mean wtvr)

sock it to me

i’m slightly concerned that i am the only person left on earth who is still on facebook (I feel like I am Legend with a laptop). i’ve had no new friends for ages and the old lot seem to have migrated to goodness only knows where without inviting me along. the only notifications i get these days are asking me to check out the ‘are you interested’ application, but frankly, i’m not. or not enough to try and install it. any application i’ve tried in the past has usually resulted in posting some random message or photo of myself as a fat child to everyone of my facebook friends, so i’ve given up trying.

Back in the real world, have you noticed how many pregnant women there are around at the moment? it’s like a plague. Attack of the unborn babies. there are bumps everywhere!

and, have you also noticed how many men there are around with baby bumps. Just kidding (topical, huh!). No, really, I mean with too-short trousers? it’s an epidemic. check it out. there are loads of guys, usually in the slack/suity style trouser, who are all to happy to have their trouser legs flap around their ankles (usually hovering over unattractive slip ons or cornish pastyesque footwear). now, unless there is also an outbreak of STLS (sudden telescopic leg syndrome), someone needs some lessons in pinning up trousers. whatever, it seems that recently, wherever i look there is too much sock on display.

Which reminds me (as many things seem to) of when i used to live in Spain and we would have ‘el dia del…’
one day it would be el dia del manco (‘day of the men with one arm’ - everywhere you turned would be a geezer with an empty jacket sleeve tucked into some or other pocket) or el dia del cojo (‘day of the limp’ where every second person would have an awkward gait) or, my favourite el dia del vizco (‘day of the squint’.) I’m a boss-eyed chap myself (without my contact lenses I have what is referred to in the trade as an ‘alternating squint’ which basically means that to focus on anything I have to strain my eyes so that one or other makes a mercy dash for my nose. And I actually get to choose which eye! lucky, eh.

progress?

as part of a literary drive to improve reading skills in my borough, every Thursday morning i go to a local school and hang out and read with a nine-year-old called Mustafa. we usually pick a book from the school library or we practise with the book he's been reading in class (he loves this as it makes him look really bright because he already knows what's going on). for a change, last week i took in a comic i picked up at the newsagents (i was mildly upset to see that Twinkle, my first experience of weeklies, is no longer published).
sitting down to read it yesterday i was horrified to see that it is all written in text speak.
they talk about things being really xtreme, and say c u l8er to each other, when they clearly mean 'tatty bye for now'.
i found myself getting outraged about how language is being corrupted, but then figured that if we had that attitude our lovely tongue would never evolve and we would still be saying things such as 'a pox on thine house' when we mean to say 'i'm gonna well skank you up down Talacre l8er, innit'.
progress, eh.

time is on my side, or is it?

my nan once told me: steve, the first 40 years of your life go really slowly, then the next 40 whizz by!
she is now 84 and says she can't quite believe it, and still feels 16 (which if you think about how 16 year olds behave today could have rather worrying implications). She has also turned into Queen Curtain Twitcher, and knows more about the comings and goings of her neighbours than is healthy.

i've been thinking a lot about time and age lately.

growing up, when asked who my ideal man was (no one ever asked about my ideal woman, bizarrely), i would always say Cary Grant. he was handsome and manly. a real gentleman and, at his peak, the ideal age for ideal man material.
it recently struck me that i am now roughly the age he was when he made Arsenic and Old Lace and perfectly embodied the older, wiser partner of my dreams.

and then on Sunday, to ease my aching heart I trundled off the the Wallace Collection. let's just say if Barbara Cartland has reincarnated as a house, she can currently be found in Manchester Square W1. the walls are all bright pink and flock, while hugely lavish chandeliers hang from the ceilings and there isn't one bit of furniture that some poor sod didn't go blind or at least lose a finger carving.
there are also two paintings there that i really wanted to see. The Swing, by Fragonard, which features a lovely young things swinging gaily in lavish gardens (beyond camp) and The Laughing Cavallier.
When we were young we used to play a board game called Masterpiece, which featured loads of paintings, some of which were genuine, some of which were fake. the point of the game was to get rid of the fakes while stockpiling the real thing.
one of the paintings we used to call 'The Old Man'. none of us ever wanted him.* that painting was actually The Laughing Cavalier.
I had a mental image of him being in his 50s. On Sunday I realised it was more like 25.
you know you are getting old when the masterpieces start looking young!

*the Old Man thing has just reminded me of colouring books. no matter where you bought your colouring books, you could guarantee that there would be a picture of a wizened old woman to complete. we always used to call her Granny Grunt.

reunited and it feels so good...

if your typing skills are as hit and miss as mine, you could discover that it's very easy to type reuntidied instead of reunited. i quite like the idea of being 'reuntidied' - it sounds a bit like letting your hair down or going crazy. this weekend i am going to be totally reuntidied!
anyway, just picked up my work emails (as you do at 8.17 on a Sunday morning, even when the clocks have gone forward so it's actually only 7.15!) and i've been sent a note from Friends Reunited informing me that there are new classmates of mine on the site.
i duly log on to have a look at who they might be, and i've never heard of any of them. then i go through the list of people who left in 1983 (how old am i!) and come across my own name.
next to it is written 'became a great grandparent'.
now, security issues apart (i certainly didn't update it!) that's pretty hilarious and would make me at least 46!

no, not that one!

when i moved back from a year out in Spain (it actually ended up being almost a decade), i was amazed to read in the paper that a certain Jonathan Woss was interviewing a certain Jordan on TV that evening (I'm going back a while).
'gosh,' i wondered to myself, as i am wont to do, being an inquisitive type 'i wonder what she is doing now, and why on earth is the spiky-haired one now on a mainstream chat show?'
of course, for me (and you, i suspect, for none of us are getting any younger) Jordan was (along with Cat Woman Sue) one of the original punks and wused to work at Sex, Vivienne Westwood's achingly anarchic King's Road shop back in the day (aka 1976/1977).
Googling Jordan I noticed that she is now actually cat woman and looks after a whole bunch of them in Streatham.
As to catwoman Sue, who knows?
i can't help but think though, that she might have made a more interesting interviewee than old Katie P.

hole in the wall

today i took £100 out at the cashpoint.
'would you like an advice slip?' the cashpoint asked before it dispensed my money.
i normally turn down its kind offer but today, feeling a little lost and fuzzy (read hangover) i thought a bit of friendly advice might be just the thing. So, out pops my 'advice' slip. I was hoping for something useful or inspirational along the lines of:
'Get your haircut'
'Be nicer to your boyfriend'
'Always stay two drinks behind your client'
'Don't wear those jeans with that cardie'

instead i got a piece of paper saying 'withdrawal £100'.

now, is it just me, or is that definitely not advice!

tubular hell

apparently, people who work on the Tube call the woman who does the announcements Sonia.
because she gets on ya nerves. geddit 's on ya' nerves.
pu huh (that was the noise my twin sister used to make when she laughed at a joke she didn't understand and has now become family parlance for funny. also for not funny, weirdly)
anyway, Sonya is this week's object of disaffection. you see, i get the Northern Line to work of a morning. it used to be called the misery line because it was so bad compared to all the others, but now that all the others are equally dreadful it has been robbed of than moniker.
so, each morning i get the Northern Line. 'The next train terminates at Morden via Bank' announces Sonya merrily, unaware of her dreadful grasp of English (there is no such place as Morden via Bank) before announcing 'The next train terminates at Paddington via Charing Cross'.
which is plain wrong not just on the grammatical construction but also because the Northern line goes nowhere near Paddington.
Poor old Sonya has got her Kennington mixed up with her Paddington.
I wonder if she has a little teddy bear at home that loves Marmalade and comes from Peru that she calls Kennington.
hey ho

book 'em Danno

viewers of a certain age (actually we're all 'viewers' now. according to the multimedia experts, 'readers' is v v v 20th century. that's not entirely true. my mate Damian Barr is still a reader. in fact he is set to become the world's first Reader in Residence at the Andaz hotel. 'book' him and he will come and read to you in your room! how amazing is that? i wonder if he will pat my bum too, like my nan used to. you can also reserve him for a literary lunch or supper or call him for book advice, which he calls bibliotherapy. he's even holding a 'book-in' at the gaff. find out all about it at guestservices.londonliv@andaz.com or call 020 7618 5061).
anyway, viewers of a certain age might remember Johnny Ball, father of wild child Zoe and erstwhile presenter of Think of a Number. i saw Johnny Ball on the Tube the other day. DOING A SUDOKO! which you just couldn't make up.
so, if you remember Johnny and Think of a Number you may remember a piece of wisdom he once imparted. it went: 'a man with a watch knows the time. a man with two is never sure.'
i was reminded of this yesterday as i made my way from deepest WC2 to bright and oh-so-gay W1. every clock had different variations on a theme. in fact most of them were right, give or take a month or two.
my watch read 6.20pm.
the clock on st martin's in the field read 3.20.
the clock on the swiss centre was stuck at 4.12.
i arrived at my date mystified. was i early? on time? a week and a half late…

oh no!

i interviewed a chef earlier. 'OK, can I ask how old you are?' '37'
'And are you a Thomas or a Tom?' 'Erm, I'm a Nicholas!'
how i laughed.
not quite as much, though as when my friend Tim sent me an email yesterday. he had sent a disc of high-res images of some glitzy jewellery to a repro house to be retouched. 'I've been to our repro house,' he says. 'It makes Prison Break look like a Women's Institute meeting.'
The reason Tim told me this was because he hadn't actually sent a disc of jewellery images to the repro house but a disc of images from his civil partnership, which we celebrated with his lovely partner Alan a few weeks ago.
One of the pictures involved the happy couple crouching down, poking their arxes out as if waiting for a very 'oh vicar' wedding present to be administered – it was actually a preparatory shot for an airborne 'jump' photo. another showed Tim's stubby fingers gently easing a ring onto Alan's middle finger.
i felt a wave of 'oh no' butterflies on his behalf.
and talking of embarrassing, my trainer once took some topless photos of me for a before and after story for his testimonials, which involved me flexing my muscles a la body builder contest.
i put these photos in with a dvd that he had lent me and left it at reception at the gym. and guess what! someone stole the dvd! someone who goes to the same gym as me and who must pxss themself every time they see me!

i'll call you....

i've had a recent cinema binge.
lots of afternoon screenings - i love going to the cinema when it's light outside, it always feels like a guilty pleasure (AKA something only losers do, according to the other half), and i love coming out and it's still light.
My sister asked me what i thought of one of the films i'd seen recently. 'Boring,' I told her.
'You always say that,' she replied. 'Or fantastic. Those are the only words you eve use to describe a film you've seen.'
which is true, though i have been known to say 'it got brilliant reviews'. this is usually my justification for putting something dire on our Lovefilm list. (that's the same sister who kept me awake all night the other night as she kept turning the hall light on and off and crashing around because there was apparently a mouse under her wardrobe!)
anyway, i've started turning my phone off during screenings, i never used to (but, before you get all uppity I HAD IT ON VIBRATE) as it's started to annoy me when it buzzes during a film and i spend the next 10 minutes wondering if that call was the one life-changing call i really should have taken or not. (the buzzing doesn't annoy me as much as people with big hair sitting in front of me even when the cinema is empty, or people chatting as if they were sitting in their living room, though).
and it is about that phone that i wish to blog today (which almost turns that intro into an homage to AA Gill, though i won't refer to my Nokia as the blonde).
it's stopped working properly. actually, it's one of my old phones, which i have had to revert to using given that my new, lovely, super slim Nokia does weird things like go straight to voicemail rather than ring before waiting 1/2 hour to tell me i've got a voicemail EVEN THOUGH I HAVE BEEN HOLDING IT MY HAND WAITING FOR THAT BLOODY PHONE CALL. and tell me that 'the number you have called has not been recognised' even though it is my number one speed dial and i call it at least twice a day! the new Nokia is currently being reprogrammed.
the old phone, meanwhile, does ring when it should (if only we could say the same of our lovers, eh?) but it's buttons have got a big 'sticky' meaning that i merrily key in a text message only to greeted by a blank screen. i feel like i'm writing in telephonic invisible ink, which would actually be great!
it also means that while i try and set myself a reminder (i live my life by mobile 'to do' lists: get up; breath; go to cinema and sit behind person with big hair to avoid irritation later) i actually end up looking for the week view of sometime round about 1912. i didn't know they even had mobiles back then!

i've got a new pet hate.
people who send untitled emails. especially people you don't know.
and people sending emails marked urgent which aren't in any way shape or form!

open your windows

i've just done my first bit of yoga for months. my god, it's a jungle in there! i'd forgotten what a mental chatterbox i am: 'do this, don't forget that, why did you do that, ouch that's stiff, ouch, that's really stiff, how much longer, where's my phone…'
it's scary how quickly emotional cobwebs gather. when i used to go to classes regularly it felt like i was giving myself a gentle mental dusting - judging from the last 20 minutes spent on my mat it seems my whole mental mansion needs a makeover and a bloody good clean.
which is pretty much what my bricks and mortar abode got this weekend - paintwork was washed down, balls of fluff were removed, oh and i nearly chopped a finger off retrieving a picture from behind the radiator.
the house looks so much better and brighter today.
now, if i can get my spiritual house looking the same way.

go go before you wake me up

just come back from trying to buy the sunday papers. trying, as in not succeeding.
i really must be turning into a grandad because i think it's weird that not one newsagent or supermarket is open at 7.45am.
the only people i encountered when i was out was the road sweeper - it struck me as harsh that he had to be out sweeping the streets on a sunday but then i figure that serial litterers don't really think to themselves 'oh i won't drop that fag packet here today, it is sunday, after all', and a group of three lads who patently had not yet been to bed.
this trio reminded me of the now long gone days when i too would still be up when day arrived. i had a sudden flash of that feeling i used to get upon leaving a night club only to find that it was already daytime outside and that people were already going about their lives. it was a cross between 'oh no!' and 'ye-hah! pardeeeeeeee'.
needless to say, i don't miss those mornings in the slightest.

drowning in Berlin

the boyfriend just reached the big three oh. oh as in 'oh my god, i feel so old!' which of course is quite the wrong thing to say to me, who has 10 years on him.
anyway him indoors had always wanted to go to Berlin, so did my usual 'business / pleasure' thing and arranged to go and check out a swanky hotel there, and treated him to his flight as part of his pressie (a word i loathe, by the way, and which i have banned from any publication i am involved with).
so, off we trotted. Air Berlin - lovely. they even gave us a free drink and a sandwich. imagine!
arrived to a sunnyish capital, checked our bags into swankarama hotel (rocco forte's new gaff, very nice too) and off we went to check out our neighbourhood.
anyway. you know sometimes you visit a new city and you feel 'there's something going on here if only i knew to look'? well, as friends of him indoors used to live there we did actually know where to look but we both spent the weekend feeling a bit 'is this it?'
don't get me wrong, we had a lovely break but we were both underwhelmed. i was expecting crisp blue skies, frost and BowieIggy lookalikes in every smoke filled bar but all i got was drizzle and sausages.
our Saturday morning was exciting. Mr D was all in a guidebook tizzy when i arrived back from my organic facial (well, i was WORKING, I'd earned it!). 'I've found a shop that sells Bernard Wilhem, Anne Demelmeister, Ute Pelier, it sounds great' (ok, i know i've spelt those wrong, so shoot me).
unfortunately, it was a cab drive away. if you ever find yourself out of a job can i suggest becoming a Berlin cabbie? you don't need to have a clue about where anything is, an inability to read maps is also fine, as are terrible driving skills, but that's a whole other blog (based, btw on 5 shocking cab experiences).
so, we get a cab. 20 minutes later we arrive at the shop. in the pouring rain.
and Mr was right, it stocks all of those labels and more and is indeed great IF YOU ARE A WOMAN!
'Do you speak English' 'yes'
'Do you sell menswear' 'no'
'Do you know anywhere round here that sells designer mens clothes? 'no'
back into another cab.
how we laughed.

tempted...

from what i can gather my grandparents had a tricky sexual relationship. grandad was an ever-ready, eager beaver, hot blooded male while my grandma would have given queen victoria a run for her money in the prudy stakes. he couldn't get enough, for her once a year was a bit too often.
for gran, 'the deed' was something you did with the lights out, under the sheets and duress (which i do believe is an example of a zeugma, if you don't mind) and commited as infrequently as is humanly possible – in the case of my grandparents i know this to be at least three, as that's the number of offspring they produced.
whenever sex was mentioned in public or an innuendo dolled out over Sunday lunch - as they frequently were: our home life was one long carry on movie, Nan would roll her eyes and mutter something about it being 'dirty' or the person making the crude remark being a 'dirty bugger'.
which makes her choice of perfume all the more bizarre. for years and years whenever i asked my gran what she would like for christmas she would always request the same thing: a bottle of Just Musk (which is so 70s sounding it has just reminded me of that Pat Coombes advert for Tweed which concluded with her declaring 'shouldn't be allowed!'). So, a bottle of Just Musk would be bought, and for the next year Nan would wear it as her daily smell. she would run around the house with a hoover (i've never known anyone do so much house work) leaving a musky trail behind her, while my grandad would sit ogling page 3 of a certain newspapers for hours, steam of frustration almost coming out of his ears.
I am laying in bed (Saturday morning, no work, no gym, cup of coffee, radio 4, heaven) reading Men's Health and I have just discovered that musk, (even synthetic – it no longer uses secretions from antlers or wherever it used to come from) is a 'heady aphrodisiac, sure to signal sexual interest and stimulate the same in others'.
if only someone had told my gran this years ago she could have saved herself so many headaches!
if only she'd asked for Charlie instead our Sunday lunches might actually have been pleasant affairs!

if you ask me...

'what's wrong with your eyes?' enquired my mate loudly yesterday, seconds after we met. at the time we were standing in a queue for a cashpoint so the five people in front of us were also soon wondering what was wrong with my eyes.
'nothing,' i replied.
'they are really red and bloodshot,' blurted my friend, possibly louder than before (he'd been in the pub for a couple of hours before meeting me and had lost control of his volume button!).
my eyes, i pointed out, are always this bloodshot. i'd also spent the whole day in front of my computer and i wear contact lenses, neither of which are conducive to baby-white eyes (have you ever noticed how white the whites of babies' eyes are? spooky).
the exchange reminded me of the time when i was walking down The Strand when i was pounced upon by a blousy market researcher. 'sorry, i'm in a real rush, i can't… ' i explained with a smile. a smile that soon evaporated as the market researcher said 'oh no, i didn't want to ask you anything, i just wanted to see if you were alright! you're very pale!'
you couldn't make it up!

fill your boots

i went to a party yesterday in a house that cost £50 million. it's true what they say about money not buying taste but it does mean you can be vulgar without worrying about claustrophobia. the chandeliers looked like they came from Argos on steroids. my entire house would have fitted twice over in the living room the party was held in (one of five). mikel gorbachov was the guest speaker - which explained the spy-film like security on the door. he spoke (not in English, which he never learnt - bigger fish to fry, but in Russian, which was brilliantly translated by his interpreter) about his humble beginnings and rise to power.
i'd never been so close (3 ft approx) to such an important figure before and i have to say he had a real presence about him. he was imposing in the nicest possible way and seemed very warm. i liked him (i'm sure he'd sleep more soundly if he knew).
my party date had booked herself into a local hotel for the night - quite a comedown from the party venue, it must be said - her room would have fitted into my wardrobe!
when we checked her in the woman at reception went through the normal hotel stuff (and looked at me like i was a punter after an hourly rate!) before declaring 'it's an eat as much as you can' breakfast.
she meant a serve-yourself buffet but i loved the idea of an early morning challenge. as if they'd arranged some kind of pre-work competition to stuff as many croissants and cold bits of toast down you as you could that would get guests rushing downstairs to compete in.
then i had a cross-group (i work for a multinational) conference about the internet and thought about how best to get noticed in anonymous meetings and decided that in future, the first time i looked around the table at my fellow meeters i'd go boss eyed so that everyone would be left wondering who the person with the really bad squint was and who i was looking at.
you get your thrills where you can in January

yes, i know they do Mr Larkin

not only does my father have a facebook profile (and he doesn't even put crap posts on my wall) but my mum has now taken to sending my crude and lewd jokes by text! her last one was about a woman shitting herself over the price of a diamond!
what is the world coming too.

city slickers

when a man is tired of london, they say, he is tired of life. what, i wonder, would they say about a man who was bored of Berlin. ok, i put my hands up – that man is me. i've just come back from a weekend in the German capital and all i can say is booooooooooooooooooooring. no offence meant, you understand. had a lovely afternoon wandering around looking at some nice edgy/interesting boutiques and homewares shops, and had a brilliant 5-star hotel experience (including a great blackhead busting facial) but saturday and sunday were total washouts. ok, so no city is particularly great in the rain but i just didn't get it. sometimes you go to a city and get the feeling there are great things going on, if only you knew where to look for them. in Berlin i felt like everyone had gone on holiday without telling us where!
i did like the currywurst, though.

tree's company

the bad news is that my cleaner has had a little mishap and broken a stone bird i lugged all the way back from New Zealand. i only noticed it was chipped because she had cannily hidden it behind a box, drawing a damn sight more attention to it than if she'd left it in its normal place.
the good news is that the huge tree that a friend gave me, which, despite friend's estimate that the tree was about my height turned out to be 11 ft tall (either i have the height version of body dysmorphia or she needs a new pair of glasses), and which languished in the back garden for a week before i got a chance to plant it, has started to flower, in January, as promised.
my little heart gave a little skip yesterday when i noticed.

beak this!

when i was seven we 'upgraded', as estate agents would have it. basically we moved from a three bedroom house to a four bedroom semi (which, incidentally cost a staggering £11,000!). as a moving in present my dad gave my mum Susuku. an African grey parrot. he was slightly scary at first but we soon came to love him. he was soon talking – saying things like Suku (which is apparently Swahili for parrot), silly bird and come on Jan (my mum's name).
he also learned the name of Cecil (one of our hundreds of cats) and Daddy Mick (our grandad) and would scream them whenever they appeared.
and he developed the infuriating habit of hanging upside down from the roof of his cage and yanking his wing out, causing him enough pain to scream in the most hideously ear-piercing manner whenever he wanted to be let out. Thirty three years later he still hasn't realised that he could perhaps make the same noise without actually hanging upside down.
anyway, about seven years ago, Suku started behaving a bit oddly: he got a bit stroppy and quiet and wouldn't shxt in his cage, saving mega 'whoopsies' (that's my mum's expression, not mine) for the second he was let out.
Then one day mum came down from bed in the morning to find that Suku had laid an egg! Yep, after 25 years we found out that he was a she – we only thought he was male because the vet told us.
anyway, he (I can't bring myself to change his gender) has laid three eggs since. well, now four, actually because yesterday my mum rang me. 'Oh Steve, I'm so excited. Suku laid and egg. Oh, and I've won an iPod touch!'.
The egg will be stored with the other 'emissions' (in a pot next to the spare bed), the iPod touch is being delivered tomorrow.
'It was from a raffle for the local paper. I won first page,' explained Mum. 'I'm so excited. They are bringing it tomorrow and want to take a picture of me with it!'
That's great, I say. The conversation carries on in this manner for a bit before Mum asks: 'Steve, what is an iPod touch?'
Bless

porn to be alive

we're very 'teched up' here in my workplace. computers, email, faxes, photocopiers. you name it, we've got it. we've also got this great email firewall thing that traps naughty emails before they get a chance to sully my inbox and make me feel dirty!
once every couple of days i have to log on and delete all the ones that are caught.
i've just done Christmas's lot and i must say, a pretty sorry bunch they were. now, i like a bit of porn as much as the next man (we all do, there's no point denying it), but i do wish these spammers would be a little more discerning in what they send me. do i want to see two hot blondes get it on? erm, not unless it's heath ledger and paul bettany. and only then if there's nothing better on. am i interested in a bored housewife and a plumber? only if it will help me plumb in my own washing machine next time i move! you would think that in this 'bespoke, tailored to you' world we live in, the spam squad could do a little harder. and learn proper English while they are about it. ok, i understand the need to write c0ck, rather than cock, in order to get it over the firewall, but there is no excuse for 'is you're c0ck to small?'
and, no, thank you very much for asking. it isn't!
but that's a whole other entry…