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?
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
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?
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?
Monday, November 10, 2008
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!
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!
Friday, October 31, 2008
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.
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.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
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
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
Sunday, October 5, 2008
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!
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!
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