Now then my lovely readers. I am going to take a break from writing this here blog. For at least a month. I'm sorry. It has to be done.
Two reasons. One: I am broke. I lost my income recently when our lodger ran off with some woman he met from the Internet, so I need to write some sort of trashy fiction under an assumed name to get some money coming in. Or sell Ian's used panties to Japanese businessmen. It goes without saying I would rather be writing the kind of thing you usually read here, but the publishing industry isn't exactly beating a path to my door on the strength of cat porn and badly drawn horse stories. I can't understand it.
Needing to write a trashy book is, I know, a weak reason to stop blogging, because everyone else manages to hold down jobs and children and still blog all the time, but what you need to understand is that whenever I am not blogging, I am trying to turn everything I do into a half-decent blog post. 99.9999% of the time, it fails, but it doesn't stop me writing in my head, all the time, writing down notes after every funny conversation, taking pencil & paper on long journeys, and taking my very heavy camera absolutely everywhere so that it bangs against my hip and the bruise there never ever quite goes away. I need to spend at least a month NOT worrying about how long it's been since I last wrote a post here and what the fuck I'm going to write in the next one. I need to have a break in which people aren't emailing and ringing me and asking where their next post is.
Reason number two is that I'm pregnant, or I was, I don't know if I still am. This is absolutely doing my head in at the moment and a really big reason why I can't write anything good or funny for a while. I've had a really weird week that saw really overpowering pregnancy symptoms, followed by a positive pregnancy test, then some incredibly strong cramps, a few dreams about death and loss, and then all my pregnancy symptoms completely drying up and shrinking away for four days, then coming back again, accompanied by more dreams about loss. I am going a bit insane from it all, I would really, really, but really like a cigarette, and I don't know if I can have one or not because I don't know if what's in there is alive or dead or healthy or unhealthy or what the fuck is going on up in there.
Last time I was pregnant, the NHS didn't offer me a scan until 16 weeks. I'm only four weeks gone now, so I'm unlikely to know whether or not it's all okay anytime soon, and that is the other reason I need to take a break from trying to come up with funny stuff to put here. The first trimester of pregnancy is all about waiting and waiting and waiting and just not knowing and trying not to think about not knowing and trying not to hope and trying not to worry, and it's all I can do at the moment not to cry and punch people.
Oh, and it's really baking hot, and Esme is knee-deep in the "whiny" phase of being two, and drop-kicking her into the middle of next year just isn't an option.
God, I want a cigarette.
While I am not blogging, here are some wonderful things to keep you going instead.
Bloggers do not come any funnier than Patrick "Bad News" Hughes. Last time I tried to read his stuff I genuinely had to walk away because I couldn't breathe from laughing. You will find him these days at The Domesticated Shithead, and the archive of his bad old pre-domestication days at Bad Hews Hughes.
Emails From an Asshole also made me weep tears of laughter when I found out about it this week: it's exactly what it says on the tin. Don't miss the one about the Bug Themed Party in the archives.
If you like the drawings that occasionally pop up on this site, you will LOVE Kate Beaton. I really want to be Kate Beaton: she is so good at drawing, and so incredibly funny, that I just want to live inside her head for a day to see what it's like. Her journal is at Hark! A Vagrant and her comics are pure genius.
Emma's Belgian Waffle is a far better, far funnier and far more regularly updated blog than this one. Emma has a job and a dog and two children AND still blogs every day and it's a first-class blog that always makes me wonder why I bother with this one. It's brilliant.
And finally, hot off the press, Let's Panic About Babies is Eden and Alice's new site that they've been working on for ages and that just launched yesterday. I really want to read it, and yet I can't face anything pregnancy-related at the moment, so please go and read it for me, thank you. I had a sneak preview before I got knocked up and still had a sense of humour, though, so I know it is blindingly brilliant.
Right, I'm going to go and have a cup of tea and think about writing airport fiction while trying not to kick things. I'll be back here as soon as I've written the first three chapters of something, I know what's going on up my hoo-ha, and I have my sense of humour back. I hope that's as soon as possible.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
My favourite ghost story of all time
Oh my God, I've loved this weekend, getting up and finding an inbox full of ghost stories two days running, having to restrain myself until my coffee was made and Esme was silenced with enough breakfast to let me read them in peace. Thank you for your stories: thank you for making my morning coffee-with-Internet so much better than usual.
I envy those of you that have had very real ghostly experiences, because I'm fascinated by the stories I've heard of them and I haven't personally witnessed enough to know to what extent they exist. I tend not to believe in things I can't see. I like a nice rational explanation for things, and yet I love a meaty, inexplicable ghost story.
If I did one day see a ghost, and could be sure it wasn't a hallucination, then I'd know where I stood, but on the down side, 1. it would make me shit my pants and 2. my friends would immediately brand me the kind of nutjob who writes to Texas the Psychic Horse.
What, you didn't know about Texas the Psychic Horse? Where have you been?
Anyway.
My favourite ghost story was told to me by a drinking-companion of 20 years ago. His name was Paul, and he was about 15 years older than me, a very laid-back, good-time character who could always be found in one of three local pubs, always with a big smile, enormous moustache and a story to tell. He'd done plenty of strong acid in his youth and still seemed perpetually stoned, but very happy.
Long ago when Paul was a young student, he and his housemates went to a college bar one night and struck up a loud conversation about the paranormal. A couple of other people joined in, and after a few drinks, Paul's housemates invited them back to their house for a séance. They accepted. At once, Paul made his excuses and left: he went home ahead of the rest of them, because this was part of the plan.
Paul got home and went upstairs to the room above the sitting-room. He didn't turn any lights on in the house, so it would look like no one was in. Then he waited.
Presently, the rest of the party got home too.
Paul, upstairs in the dark, listened while the group downstairs settled in, rolled joints, poured drinks and cleared a table for everyone to sit around. Paul could smell the hashish as joint after joint was rolled, his housemates making sure the guests were absolutely baked by the time the séance got under way.
The séance began. It was very quiet downstairs. Paul could sense The Fear. He began to feel The Fear himself, waiting alone upstairs in this dark room where the shadows loomed and tiny noises made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck.
Downstairs, an edgy paranoia had taken hold of the stoned group sitting in the lounge. Paul's housemate, in charge of the séance, was playing his part with brilliance, slowly stirring everyone into a terrified and hyper-alert tension. When he sensed that their guests were properly on the edges of their seats with discomfort, he raised his voice.
"Spirit," he boomed, "if you are there, give us a sign."
Upstairs in the dark, Paul paused, then knocked twice, heavily, on the floorboards. From the muffled sound of alarm, he sensed the trouser-shitting terror from downstairs, heard people being persuaded not to go.
"Spirit," called his housemate, "if you are willing to talk to us, please knock again."
Paul gave the floor another ponderous thump, triggering further panic in the lounge. The guests had heard enough, smoked enough, had enough, and wanted to go home, go anywhere, just get the fuck out of this freaking house. The others entreated them not to go, not just yet, not now they'd actually made real contact with the other side.
"Spirit," called Paul's housemate, in a voice slightly wild with fear and excitement, "if you are able, please give us further proof of your presence ... spirit, please ... show yourself!"
And Paul ran downstairs and burst into the room with a white sheet over his head, going "Wooooooo."
The guests, shit-scared, screamed and ran out of the house.
Paul's housemates, despite being in on the whole trick, also screamed and ran out of the house, because they had worked themselves so far up into the Fear.
Paul, despite being the ghost, also screamed and ran out of the house, because waiting in the pitch dark and listening to a séance had terrified the living shit out of him too.
And they all ran down the street, Paul still with the white sheet wrapped around him; and that was the end of the séance.
And that is my very favourite ghost story of all time.
I envy those of you that have had very real ghostly experiences, because I'm fascinated by the stories I've heard of them and I haven't personally witnessed enough to know to what extent they exist. I tend not to believe in things I can't see. I like a nice rational explanation for things, and yet I love a meaty, inexplicable ghost story.
If I did one day see a ghost, and could be sure it wasn't a hallucination, then I'd know where I stood, but on the down side, 1. it would make me shit my pants and 2. my friends would immediately brand me the kind of nutjob who writes to Texas the Psychic Horse.
What, you didn't know about Texas the Psychic Horse? Where have you been?Anyway.
My favourite ghost story was told to me by a drinking-companion of 20 years ago. His name was Paul, and he was about 15 years older than me, a very laid-back, good-time character who could always be found in one of three local pubs, always with a big smile, enormous moustache and a story to tell. He'd done plenty of strong acid in his youth and still seemed perpetually stoned, but very happy.
Long ago when Paul was a young student, he and his housemates went to a college bar one night and struck up a loud conversation about the paranormal. A couple of other people joined in, and after a few drinks, Paul's housemates invited them back to their house for a séance. They accepted. At once, Paul made his excuses and left: he went home ahead of the rest of them, because this was part of the plan.
Paul got home and went upstairs to the room above the sitting-room. He didn't turn any lights on in the house, so it would look like no one was in. Then he waited.
Presently, the rest of the party got home too.Paul, upstairs in the dark, listened while the group downstairs settled in, rolled joints, poured drinks and cleared a table for everyone to sit around. Paul could smell the hashish as joint after joint was rolled, his housemates making sure the guests were absolutely baked by the time the séance got under way.
The séance began. It was very quiet downstairs. Paul could sense The Fear. He began to feel The Fear himself, waiting alone upstairs in this dark room where the shadows loomed and tiny noises made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck.Downstairs, an edgy paranoia had taken hold of the stoned group sitting in the lounge. Paul's housemate, in charge of the séance, was playing his part with brilliance, slowly stirring everyone into a terrified and hyper-alert tension. When he sensed that their guests were properly on the edges of their seats with discomfort, he raised his voice.
"Spirit," he boomed, "if you are there, give us a sign."
Upstairs in the dark, Paul paused, then knocked twice, heavily, on the floorboards. From the muffled sound of alarm, he sensed the trouser-shitting terror from downstairs, heard people being persuaded not to go.
"Spirit," called his housemate, "if you are willing to talk to us, please knock again."
Paul gave the floor another ponderous thump, triggering further panic in the lounge. The guests had heard enough, smoked enough, had enough, and wanted to go home, go anywhere, just get the fuck out of this freaking house. The others entreated them not to go, not just yet, not now they'd actually made real contact with the other side.
"Spirit," called Paul's housemate, in a voice slightly wild with fear and excitement, "if you are able, please give us further proof of your presence ... spirit, please ... show yourself!"
And Paul ran downstairs and burst into the room with a white sheet over his head, going "Wooooooo."
The guests, shit-scared, screamed and ran out of the house.
Paul's housemates, despite being in on the whole trick, also screamed and ran out of the house, because they had worked themselves so far up into the Fear.
Paul, despite being the ghost, also screamed and ran out of the house, because waiting in the pitch dark and listening to a séance had terrified the living shit out of him too.
And they all ran down the street, Paul still with the white sheet wrapped around him; and that was the end of the séance.And that is my very favourite ghost story of all time.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
WoooOOOOooo
I had an unusual thought for a blog post while I was making coffee this morning. I thought: I'll write about the houses I've lived in that were supposed to be haunted. I love a good ghost story, and I can ask my readers what ghosts they've seen and yes yes it'll be brilliant.
The first blog I read this morning with my coffee was ELOHSSANATAHW and bugger me, her new blog post was on exactly the same subject. Haunted houses she's lived in, and the request for readers' ghost stories. So there are more over there to read, and they're better than mine.
You see, I am not sensitive to ghosts. I feel I'm missing out, and yet I'm glad I can blithely crash through life unaware of any cold, dead eyes staring at me from the corner. I take others' word for it that ghosts exist. I've talked to sane, intelligent people I know well and trust 100% not to be raving lunatics, and the things they've seen/felt are extraordinary. A ghost could swing its naked bollocks in my face and I wouldn't have a clue. So, my ghost stories are rubbish. I have lived in two haunted houses, and all I know is that there was Something Rum about them.
The first haunted house was the youngest house I've ever lived in. It was only about 50 years old, a spring chicken by English housing standards, and it was 47 Hallfield Road, York, where I lived in my second year at university.
The story was that a previous occupant had fallen down the stairs and broken her neck. I have no idea if this was true, or how one would go about finding out. But there was obviously Something in that house, because it freaked the shit out of friends of ours who came to stay.
No one ever saw the ghost, no one ever heard it, but some people sensed it very strongly. On a number of occasions, in the small hours of the night, our frightened house-guests crept upstairs to see who was awake and pleaded, white-faced, to be allowed to sleep on someone's bedroom floor instead of the comfortable sofa downstairs, because there was "something going on down there." It soon became an accepted part of the house and a frequent topic of everyday conversation.
I liked the idea of living with a ghost. The thing never bothered me. When I was alone in the house I would go to the living-room and talk aloud to it: I just told it lots of everyday stuff and probably bored it rigid. I couldn't really ask how it was doing, so I always just said I hoped it was all right and didn't mind me talking to it. I never asked if it minded the all-night parties. Who knows: perhaps it enjoyed them.
One vaguely paranormal thing I recall from that house was that on two separate occasions, I had the same dream as Maja, the only other girl who lived there. Once we each dreamed that the other was terribly cross with us, and dreamed it so vividly that we avoided one another for a couple of days. Eventually I told her about my dream and she, astonished, told me she'd had the same one, also very vivid. There was another shared dream, but I forget what it was. It was an odd house. I am very conscious of the vibe of a house; I like my own home to be laid-back and welcoming, and there was something in that house that made everyone - residents and guests - a bit unsettled, no matter how comfortable we tried to make it.
The second ghost was in the house we lived in before this one. 23 Montford Place, Kennington, about 170 years old. Three storeys high: the middle floor creaked like a ship when you walked across it.
The Thing made its presence known shortly after we moved in and began arranging the place how we wanted it. On the back wall of the downstairs room, next to the window, there was a bare patch of wall above an alcove that begged to have something hung on it. I hung up a picture.
When I left the room, the picture fell down.
I hung the picture up again.
When I left the room, the picture fell down again.
I examined the nail, and the solid wooden frame of the picture. I put the picture back up again. I poked the picture to see if it were dangling precariously. It was not dangling precariously: it was hanging very solidly on the substantial nail that was firmly stuck in the wall.
I left the room. The picture fell down, as though hurled.
I remarked to Ian that I had the distinct impression that we seemed to have a ghost: Something did not want that picture hanging there. Ian scoffed light-heartedly at this.
A few days later, we had the record decks set up upstairs, and Ian was going through his collection of vinyl by bands called things like Throbbing Anus and Thirteenth-Floor Buttfuckers. He put on a particularly unpleasant Residents album and there was a CRASH from downstairs. We looked at each other. I said I would go.
I went downstairs: a dish that had been on a high kitchen shelf was now on the hallway floor, six feet away from the kitchen.
I told Ian to turn down the Residents. Our resident clearly didn't like them.
I felt that something unseen in our house wanted to remind us we weren't the only ones there. I had a talk to it when Ian was out, just to say hello, acknowledge it, apologise for trampling all over the place and whatever. I bought a huge, beautiful wall clock for £120 and hung it by its precariously shallow, fragile metal rim on the nail the picture had been thrown from. It stayed perfectly in place and never fell down once, despite some rigorous parties.
The only time I was really and truly afraid was when I was alone in November, about a month after we moved in. Ian had gone to India on business, had just left that day.
I came home from work ready to get through the door and relax completely into my own personal space. I planned to put my slippers on, make some hot chocolate, put on some good music, read a book. Enjoy having the house to myself.
I opened the front door and heard the distinctive, familiar and unmistakable sound from upstairs of my kneeler chair-on-wheels being pushed backwards sharply from my desk. I say unmistakable with absolute confidence, because I have excellent hearing, like radar. (This is great if you want to get 100% in an aural test or locate a ringing mobile phone, and a total cocking nightmare if you want to get to sleep and stay there.)
I backed out of the house again and slammed the door shut, breathing in a panic. A burglar! Fuck.
I walked around the block without the faintest clue what to do. It was dark, and cold, and I was out of mobile-phone battery, and I needed to pee. Should I call the police from a phone box and get them to go in the house with me? No: that would be stupid. I paused outside our house, walked around the block again, then decided I must have disturbed the burglar and they would have made their escape out the back of the house by now. I opened the door again, absolutely terrified, and went in, banged about downstairs a lot, and listened. Nothing. I did a lot more ridiculous banging-about before finally tiptoeing upstairs, armed with knives.
There was no one there, and nor had there been. The doors and windows were unfucked-with. Nothing had been rifled through. And yet I know with 100% surety that I heard my chair being pushed back from my desk. I knew that sound because I made it happen fifty times a day, and there was no other sound like it.
I had the impression, again, that Something in the house just wanted to remind me I wasn't the only one there. Still, I was so relieved to think it was just a ghost. I was far more afraid of burglars than ghosts: ghosts are just company. The best sort of company, too: people you can share silence with.
Our present house is 173 years old, and it has no ghosts whatsoever. I sort of miss having an unseen housemate to talk to: I liked the companionship of the haunted houses I lived in, whether it was real or not.
So those are my shit ghost stories. Jesus what a long post. If you have a ghost story I really want to hear it, so if it's too long for a comment and you turn it into a blog post, please tell me where to find it, and I will NOT stay up late and read it before going to bed. I'll have it with my coffee tomorrow.
The first blog I read this morning with my coffee was ELOHSSANATAHW and bugger me, her new blog post was on exactly the same subject. Haunted houses she's lived in, and the request for readers' ghost stories. So there are more over there to read, and they're better than mine.
You see, I am not sensitive to ghosts. I feel I'm missing out, and yet I'm glad I can blithely crash through life unaware of any cold, dead eyes staring at me from the corner. I take others' word for it that ghosts exist. I've talked to sane, intelligent people I know well and trust 100% not to be raving lunatics, and the things they've seen/felt are extraordinary. A ghost could swing its naked bollocks in my face and I wouldn't have a clue. So, my ghost stories are rubbish. I have lived in two haunted houses, and all I know is that there was Something Rum about them.
The first haunted house was the youngest house I've ever lived in. It was only about 50 years old, a spring chicken by English housing standards, and it was 47 Hallfield Road, York, where I lived in my second year at university.
The story was that a previous occupant had fallen down the stairs and broken her neck. I have no idea if this was true, or how one would go about finding out. But there was obviously Something in that house, because it freaked the shit out of friends of ours who came to stay.
No one ever saw the ghost, no one ever heard it, but some people sensed it very strongly. On a number of occasions, in the small hours of the night, our frightened house-guests crept upstairs to see who was awake and pleaded, white-faced, to be allowed to sleep on someone's bedroom floor instead of the comfortable sofa downstairs, because there was "something going on down there." It soon became an accepted part of the house and a frequent topic of everyday conversation.
I liked the idea of living with a ghost. The thing never bothered me. When I was alone in the house I would go to the living-room and talk aloud to it: I just told it lots of everyday stuff and probably bored it rigid. I couldn't really ask how it was doing, so I always just said I hoped it was all right and didn't mind me talking to it. I never asked if it minded the all-night parties. Who knows: perhaps it enjoyed them.
One vaguely paranormal thing I recall from that house was that on two separate occasions, I had the same dream as Maja, the only other girl who lived there. Once we each dreamed that the other was terribly cross with us, and dreamed it so vividly that we avoided one another for a couple of days. Eventually I told her about my dream and she, astonished, told me she'd had the same one, also very vivid. There was another shared dream, but I forget what it was. It was an odd house. I am very conscious of the vibe of a house; I like my own home to be laid-back and welcoming, and there was something in that house that made everyone - residents and guests - a bit unsettled, no matter how comfortable we tried to make it.
The second ghost was in the house we lived in before this one. 23 Montford Place, Kennington, about 170 years old. Three storeys high: the middle floor creaked like a ship when you walked across it.
The Thing made its presence known shortly after we moved in and began arranging the place how we wanted it. On the back wall of the downstairs room, next to the window, there was a bare patch of wall above an alcove that begged to have something hung on it. I hung up a picture.
When I left the room, the picture fell down.
I hung the picture up again.
When I left the room, the picture fell down again.
I examined the nail, and the solid wooden frame of the picture. I put the picture back up again. I poked the picture to see if it were dangling precariously. It was not dangling precariously: it was hanging very solidly on the substantial nail that was firmly stuck in the wall.
I left the room. The picture fell down, as though hurled.
I remarked to Ian that I had the distinct impression that we seemed to have a ghost: Something did not want that picture hanging there. Ian scoffed light-heartedly at this.
A few days later, we had the record decks set up upstairs, and Ian was going through his collection of vinyl by bands called things like Throbbing Anus and Thirteenth-Floor Buttfuckers. He put on a particularly unpleasant Residents album and there was a CRASH from downstairs. We looked at each other. I said I would go.
I went downstairs: a dish that had been on a high kitchen shelf was now on the hallway floor, six feet away from the kitchen.
I told Ian to turn down the Residents. Our resident clearly didn't like them.
I felt that something unseen in our house wanted to remind us we weren't the only ones there. I had a talk to it when Ian was out, just to say hello, acknowledge it, apologise for trampling all over the place and whatever. I bought a huge, beautiful wall clock for £120 and hung it by its precariously shallow, fragile metal rim on the nail the picture had been thrown from. It stayed perfectly in place and never fell down once, despite some rigorous parties.
The only time I was really and truly afraid was when I was alone in November, about a month after we moved in. Ian had gone to India on business, had just left that day.
I came home from work ready to get through the door and relax completely into my own personal space. I planned to put my slippers on, make some hot chocolate, put on some good music, read a book. Enjoy having the house to myself.
I opened the front door and heard the distinctive, familiar and unmistakable sound from upstairs of my kneeler chair-on-wheels being pushed backwards sharply from my desk. I say unmistakable with absolute confidence, because I have excellent hearing, like radar. (This is great if you want to get 100% in an aural test or locate a ringing mobile phone, and a total cocking nightmare if you want to get to sleep and stay there.)
I backed out of the house again and slammed the door shut, breathing in a panic. A burglar! Fuck.
I walked around the block without the faintest clue what to do. It was dark, and cold, and I was out of mobile-phone battery, and I needed to pee. Should I call the police from a phone box and get them to go in the house with me? No: that would be stupid. I paused outside our house, walked around the block again, then decided I must have disturbed the burglar and they would have made their escape out the back of the house by now. I opened the door again, absolutely terrified, and went in, banged about downstairs a lot, and listened. Nothing. I did a lot more ridiculous banging-about before finally tiptoeing upstairs, armed with knives.
There was no one there, and nor had there been. The doors and windows were unfucked-with. Nothing had been rifled through. And yet I know with 100% surety that I heard my chair being pushed back from my desk. I knew that sound because I made it happen fifty times a day, and there was no other sound like it.
I had the impression, again, that Something in the house just wanted to remind me I wasn't the only one there. Still, I was so relieved to think it was just a ghost. I was far more afraid of burglars than ghosts: ghosts are just company. The best sort of company, too: people you can share silence with.
Our present house is 173 years old, and it has no ghosts whatsoever. I sort of miss having an unseen housemate to talk to: I liked the companionship of the haunted houses I lived in, whether it was real or not.
So those are my shit ghost stories. Jesus what a long post. If you have a ghost story I really want to hear it, so if it's too long for a comment and you turn it into a blog post, please tell me where to find it, and I will NOT stay up late and read it before going to bed. I'll have it with my coffee tomorrow.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
At the London Aquarium
After ten minutes' slow trundling through small and unimpressive fish, listening to piped ambient music - because the ocean sounds just like choirs, pianos and tubular bells - we arrive at the sharks. Esme has been asking for the sharks since our arrival. She has forgotten that the point of the trip was to show her a live octopus, which is good, because we can't find one. If pressed, I shall buy the tinned kind and jiggle it about a bit.
Me: Here we are! Here are the sharks!
Esme: Shaaaaarks!
Me (being the dull fuckwit you always get stuck next to at public attractions) Aren't they big! Look at that one!
Esme: Really big!
Me: Here comes another one!
Esme: That shark's got BIIIIIG tits!
Me: What?
Esme: That shark! It's got big tits!
Me: Big tits?
Esme: No, big TITS.
Me: Big teeth?
Esme: Yes.
Me: Oh, right. Thank God.
The small crowd that has casually gathered behind us drifts quietly away, its hopes dashed. The elusive Shark With Big Tits still roams the open seas, free of the underwiring of captivity.
JACQUES I DO NOT KNOW NOW GO AND BRUSH YOUR TEETH THEY ARE BROWN
*Fade to choral/piano/tubular bell music of the ocean*
Me: Here we are! Here are the sharks!
Esme: Shaaaaarks!
Me (being the dull fuckwit you always get stuck next to at public attractions) Aren't they big! Look at that one!
Esme: Really big!
Me: Here comes another one!
Esme: That shark's got BIIIIIG tits!
Me: What?
Esme: That shark! It's got big tits!Me: Big tits?
Esme: No, big TITS.
Me: Big teeth?
Esme: Yes.
Me: Oh, right. Thank God.The small crowd that has casually gathered behind us drifts quietly away, its hopes dashed. The elusive Shark With Big Tits still roams the open seas, free of the underwiring of captivity.
JACQUES I DO NOT KNOW NOW GO AND BRUSH YOUR TEETH THEY ARE BROWN*Fade to choral/piano/tubular bell music of the ocean*
Friday, June 05, 2009
This is going on our corkboard RIGHT NOW
Thank you to Fourstar, who posted this on his blog earlier this week as being a typical day in the Cornwell household. He has no idea how right he is. Except he does. He's been to this house plenty of times and found Ian filling a doorway in just this stance and this uniform, saying this kind of thing and looking exactly like this.
In fact it was only last weekend that Ian found a thing wrong with a mechanical thing that was in our house, and that required a wrench, and lo he did fix it with that wrench. It was the kitchen hot & cold taps, which had been back-to-front ever since the last time he fixed them with a wrench at the end of April.
The other thing that is wrong with a mechanical thing in our house is the lavatory cistern, which goes HMNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN every time it refills, like a mournful sound at sea. Every time I hear it I want to put on a yellow sou-wester and a chinstrap beard, stare at the horizon and look wistful. In fact, I'm going to go and do that now, before Ian fixes it. And I'm going to take the video camera with me.
In fact it was only last weekend that Ian found a thing wrong with a mechanical thing that was in our house, and that required a wrench, and lo he did fix it with that wrench. It was the kitchen hot & cold taps, which had been back-to-front ever since the last time he fixed them with a wrench at the end of April.The other thing that is wrong with a mechanical thing in our house is the lavatory cistern, which goes HMNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN every time it refills, like a mournful sound at sea. Every time I hear it I want to put on a yellow sou-wester and a chinstrap beard, stare at the horizon and look wistful. In fact, I'm going to go and do that now, before Ian fixes it. And I'm going to take the video camera with me.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
More Information Than You Ever Wanted to Know
I spent yesterday lying around in the sun, in Highbury Fields. The weather has been glorious lately, which goes a long way towards explaining why this blog has been neglected for almost a fortnight.
As I sat on the grass yesterday, from time to time I noticed a vibration in my shorts pocket. I thought it was my phone, then I remembered I'd lost it and the new phone isn't on vibrate setting yet.
I realised it was the Victoria Line tube running under the park that was setting something off. Every time a tube ran underneath, my shorts vibrated. Brrrrrrr! there goes the 13:12.
I emptied my pockets. Phone, keys, loose change, all into my bag.
Brrrrrrr! went the 13:15.
My shorts! My shorts were vibrating in sync with the Victoria Line. What? Maybe it was the zip. The button. Whatever it was, I had magic vibrating shorts! How exciting.
Later that evening, I sat at home, in the basement, in front of the computer. The Victoria Line runs underneath our house, too. So does the Northern Line.
Brrrrrrr! went my shorts.
"My shorts vibrate when a tube goes underneath," I announced. "They've been doing it all day, in Highbury and now here. Is there any logic behind that?"
Ian looked at me oddly, then explained something about blah blah resonant frequencies blah blah blah.
"Is that possible? That my shorts could be resonating with the Tube?"
The Northern Line rumbled by underneath. You can hear the Northern Line here, as well as feel it: a low, comforting sound. However, my shorts stayed still.
Then they went off again.
"It's just the Victoria Line," I told Ian. Then I looked up the London Transport website. I looked up departure times from our local tube station, in both directions, on both lines. For the next ten minutes I monitored Northern and Victoria Lines rumbling by, and concluded that my shorts were in tune with the northbound Victoria line only.
"My shorts vibrate when the Victoria Line goes north," I said. "I'd let you try them on to prove it, but I don't think they'd fit you."
"Let's have a go," said Ian, gamely, and took his trousers off.
I took the shorts off, handed them over and turned back to the computer to learn about resonant frequencies. Then I thought I should tell Ian what to expect from the shorts.
"It's like you have a phone in your pocket set to vibrate," I said, and turned around to face him, "only -"
And then I threw myself headlong to the floor and buried my head in my arms, because of this:
"I can't feel - OOF - anything," Ian said in a tight voice.
"Sweet Jesus Christ."
Ian waited for a few minutes, walking very stiffly up and down and making small noises.
"I still can't feel anything."
"This comes as no surprise."
"I think I'm going to take these off now."
Ian removed the shorts. There was a slow trombone noise as his testicles descended from his lungs and resumed their usual position. I put the shorts back on.
Brrrrrrr! went the shorts, as the 21:21 went by. "You just missed one!" I said. "You should have kept them on a minute longer."
On a scale of disturbing to sexually thrilling, the shorts were somewhere in the middle. Distracting. I realised I wasn't going to have any peace until the Victoria Line shut down for the night.
I went to bed. I sat up reading for a few minutes. And then the Victoria Line passed by northbound again. Brrrrrrr! went the buzzing in my pockets.
Except I didn't have pockets, because I didn't have the shorts on.
It's me. My Lady Parts respond to northbound Victoria Line trains.
They've been off about six times while I've been writing this. I sort of want to know the explanation, and yet I'm not sure I do. Does this happen to other people? No, I thought not.
As I sat on the grass yesterday, from time to time I noticed a vibration in my shorts pocket. I thought it was my phone, then I remembered I'd lost it and the new phone isn't on vibrate setting yet.
I realised it was the Victoria Line tube running under the park that was setting something off. Every time a tube ran underneath, my shorts vibrated. Brrrrrrr! there goes the 13:12.
I emptied my pockets. Phone, keys, loose change, all into my bag.
Brrrrrrr! went the 13:15.
My shorts! My shorts were vibrating in sync with the Victoria Line. What? Maybe it was the zip. The button. Whatever it was, I had magic vibrating shorts! How exciting.
Later that evening, I sat at home, in the basement, in front of the computer. The Victoria Line runs underneath our house, too. So does the Northern Line.
Brrrrrrr! went my shorts.
"My shorts vibrate when a tube goes underneath," I announced. "They've been doing it all day, in Highbury and now here. Is there any logic behind that?"
Ian looked at me oddly, then explained something about blah blah resonant frequencies blah blah blah.
"Is that possible? That my shorts could be resonating with the Tube?"
The Northern Line rumbled by underneath. You can hear the Northern Line here, as well as feel it: a low, comforting sound. However, my shorts stayed still.
Then they went off again.
"It's just the Victoria Line," I told Ian. Then I looked up the London Transport website. I looked up departure times from our local tube station, in both directions, on both lines. For the next ten minutes I monitored Northern and Victoria Lines rumbling by, and concluded that my shorts were in tune with the northbound Victoria line only.
"My shorts vibrate when the Victoria Line goes north," I said. "I'd let you try them on to prove it, but I don't think they'd fit you."
"Let's have a go," said Ian, gamely, and took his trousers off.
I took the shorts off, handed them over and turned back to the computer to learn about resonant frequencies. Then I thought I should tell Ian what to expect from the shorts.
"It's like you have a phone in your pocket set to vibrate," I said, and turned around to face him, "only -"
And then I threw myself headlong to the floor and buried my head in my arms, because of this:
"I can't feel - OOF - anything," Ian said in a tight voice."Sweet Jesus Christ."
Ian waited for a few minutes, walking very stiffly up and down and making small noises.
"I still can't feel anything."
"This comes as no surprise."
"I think I'm going to take these off now."
Ian removed the shorts. There was a slow trombone noise as his testicles descended from his lungs and resumed their usual position. I put the shorts back on.
Brrrrrrr! went the shorts, as the 21:21 went by. "You just missed one!" I said. "You should have kept them on a minute longer."
On a scale of disturbing to sexually thrilling, the shorts were somewhere in the middle. Distracting. I realised I wasn't going to have any peace until the Victoria Line shut down for the night.
I went to bed. I sat up reading for a few minutes. And then the Victoria Line passed by northbound again. Brrrrrrr! went the buzzing in my pockets.
Except I didn't have pockets, because I didn't have the shorts on.
It's me. My Lady Parts respond to northbound Victoria Line trains.
They've been off about six times while I've been writing this. I sort of want to know the explanation, and yet I'm not sure I do. Does this happen to other people? No, I thought not.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Special Musk and Required Reading
I smelled a Man Scent that I really liked a few days ago: in Korres, that wonderful shop full of toiletries from Greece that look and smell incredible.
Ian has never been an aftershave man, for which I am terribly grateful. All men's scents remind me of cheap drunken secondary-school fumbles in 1988. But this, this smells of saffron and amber and cardamom and agarwood. Like incense, but not in a Camden Market way: a tall, dark, interesting way. I put some on my arm while I was waiting at the counter, and ten minutes down the road I couldn't stop smelling my arm. I went back and got some for Ian. Who never wears scent.
It sat on my shelf for three days, then I decided the Time Had Come.
"This is for you," I say, putting the box on his desk. "I got it from that nice Greek place. It's the one I had on my arm."
"Oh!" says Ian, and peers at it. "It's in a box! All unopened."
"Yes. It's for you."
"Gosh," he says.
"I know you don't really do smelly things, but I thought, in case there's ever an occasion when you want to smell nice, you might like it."
Ian turns the box over curiously, then pulls away the cellophane wrapper. (Here's a photo I stole from the Internets that shows the way it's packaged.)
"Look," says Ian, "it's in Thick Cardboard. This is a Thing for a Man."
"Yes. Pour Homme."
Ian reads the ingredients.
"It has cardamom! Extracted from CARS AND BOMBS."
"Yes! It's terribly manly."
"And amber, which is of course extracted from GUNS."
"Hot!"
"It also has saffron, which is squeezed from the AGGRESSION GLANDS of TIGERS!!"
"Only a real man could possibly wear this."
"It's got a child-proof cap, too," Ian grunts.
"Yes, I asked for that especially, in light of That Time With The Calpol."
There is a little more grunting. "How do I get this off?"
"Man not take lid off. Man grunt at bottle, bottle open. Man beat chest, spray come out of bottle. Man is master of bottle. Bottle respect Man."
There is a victorious pop as the lid comes off. Ian sits the bottle on his desk. They face each other squarely in silent contemplation. Neither has ever seen the like of the other before.
Then he fiddles with it a bit more.
"Oh shit. That's the spraying bit. That's not meant to come off, is it."
The Spraying Bit is put back on.
"What - what do I do with this?"
"I find the best way is to hold it at arm's length, spray a tiny cloud of it and then walk quickly through the cloud."
Ian sprays his wrist with it, like an old lady. Then he shoves his nose to his wrist.
"NO don't smell it YET. Give it time to settle."
It settles. Idly, Ian assembles a car with his right hand. Several scantily clad young ladies drape themselves over his feet, handing him spanners. Ian sniffs his arm again.
"Hm! It's quite nice."
Man smell Quite Nice. Man go back to Peering at Bicycle Parts and Welding Equipment on Internet, also Scratching Beard.
So that was that.
Now. I am, of course, Going Away, and while I am away, this is what you should be reading.
ELOHSSANATAHW
If the thought of 123 miles to Norfolk with a whiny toddler turns your hair white, read this amazing, funny, golden-hearted, foul-mouthed and wonderful lady from the Deep Deep South, who drove one thousand miles home to Alabama with just her and her 80-something Alzheimer's mother in the car. On her other journeys, she's had guns pointed at her by Russian border guards and as a child, she was chased by a crazy drunk aunt with a gun. However, she has never shat a baby's arm. Her blog is quite unlike any other I've found on the Internet: she's my latest online hero. The day I started reading her blog, I put everything on hold and sat and read the whole archive in one go. It's not for the faint of heart, and it's fantastic.
See you next week!
Ian has never been an aftershave man, for which I am terribly grateful. All men's scents remind me of cheap drunken secondary-school fumbles in 1988. But this, this smells of saffron and amber and cardamom and agarwood. Like incense, but not in a Camden Market way: a tall, dark, interesting way. I put some on my arm while I was waiting at the counter, and ten minutes down the road I couldn't stop smelling my arm. I went back and got some for Ian. Who never wears scent.
It sat on my shelf for three days, then I decided the Time Had Come.
"This is for you," I say, putting the box on his desk. "I got it from that nice Greek place. It's the one I had on my arm."
"Oh!" says Ian, and peers at it. "It's in a box! All unopened."
"Yes. It's for you."
"Gosh," he says.
"I know you don't really do smelly things, but I thought, in case there's ever an occasion when you want to smell nice, you might like it."
Ian turns the box over curiously, then pulls away the cellophane wrapper. (Here's a photo I stole from the Internets that shows the way it's packaged.)
"Look," says Ian, "it's in Thick Cardboard. This is a Thing for a Man.""Yes. Pour Homme."
Ian reads the ingredients.
"It has cardamom! Extracted from CARS AND BOMBS."
"Yes! It's terribly manly."
"And amber, which is of course extracted from GUNS."
"Hot!"
"It also has saffron, which is squeezed from the AGGRESSION GLANDS of TIGERS!!"
"Only a real man could possibly wear this."
"It's got a child-proof cap, too," Ian grunts.
"Yes, I asked for that especially, in light of That Time With The Calpol."
There is a little more grunting. "How do I get this off?"
"Man not take lid off. Man grunt at bottle, bottle open. Man beat chest, spray come out of bottle. Man is master of bottle. Bottle respect Man."
There is a victorious pop as the lid comes off. Ian sits the bottle on his desk. They face each other squarely in silent contemplation. Neither has ever seen the like of the other before.
Then he fiddles with it a bit more.
"Oh shit. That's the spraying bit. That's not meant to come off, is it."
The Spraying Bit is put back on.
"What - what do I do with this?"
"I find the best way is to hold it at arm's length, spray a tiny cloud of it and then walk quickly through the cloud."
Ian sprays his wrist with it, like an old lady. Then he shoves his nose to his wrist.
"NO don't smell it YET. Give it time to settle."
It settles. Idly, Ian assembles a car with his right hand. Several scantily clad young ladies drape themselves over his feet, handing him spanners. Ian sniffs his arm again.
"Hm! It's quite nice."
Man smell Quite Nice. Man go back to Peering at Bicycle Parts and Welding Equipment on Internet, also Scratching Beard.
So that was that.
Now. I am, of course, Going Away, and while I am away, this is what you should be reading.
ELOHSSANATAHW
If the thought of 123 miles to Norfolk with a whiny toddler turns your hair white, read this amazing, funny, golden-hearted, foul-mouthed and wonderful lady from the Deep Deep South, who drove one thousand miles home to Alabama with just her and her 80-something Alzheimer's mother in the car. On her other journeys, she's had guns pointed at her by Russian border guards and as a child, she was chased by a crazy drunk aunt with a gun. However, she has never shat a baby's arm. Her blog is quite unlike any other I've found on the Internet: she's my latest online hero. The day I started reading her blog, I put everything on hold and sat and read the whole archive in one go. It's not for the faint of heart, and it's fantastic.
See you next week!
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