Saturday, January 19, 2008

It'll be all white on the night

Following Louis Theroux trip to San Quentin Jail, where he met a married neo-Nazi with two children who was having a non-physical homosexual relationship with a gay jewish man in make-up, one could only conclude ‘only in America’.


Except, last night I stumbled across BNP Wives, which did exactly what it said on the tin. I couldn’t work out whether it was shocking or funny. One lady said that the difference between white Europeans and Asians was that (and I have to confess, I didn’t know this) ‘they look after their cars, we look after our houses’ – she fully expected the UK to become a Muslim state as the result of ‘a war… or something’.

Another was seen protesting about the opening of a Mosque, nobody seemed interested in signing their petition. One lady said she wasn’t bothered if there was a Mosque in the area to which the BNP wife responded under her breath ‘you will when they rape you’. Later she was confronted with someone who tried to prize a reasoned argument as to why the Mosque shouldn’t be built; the answer was: ‘we’ll lose four municipal car parking spaces’.

And then there was the BNP Wife who was flyering around a neighbourhood. She said that she didn’t deny the holocaust, she just questioned the numbers (having read a book called ‘Did 6 million jews really die in the holocaust?’ – it’s not on Amazon. Which, unless it was 5 people of varying backgrounds who died of old age, is surely a technicality. She did say that some good had come from it – dentistry and plastic surgery, for example.

Friday, January 11, 2008

New look

New Year means resolutions, I’ve tried formulating some SMART objectives, but I can’t quite nail it. Like most people, I want to be better than I was last year. I’m just not sure in what ways.

I want to swear less, Millie was quick to copy me saying ‘tractor’, it will be markedly less sweet if she comes out with ‘fucker’ over the next few months.

I want to stay fit; I’m already a gym regular and have had a clean bill of health on both my teeth and, by some miracle, eyes. I’ve been going to the gym for about 3 and a half years, but it’s still a daunting ugly prospect. I figured I should get some new kit to make me feel better.

I found some trainers, which literally overnight dropped £30 in price (and were only available in my hard to find size 10.5), so I bought them. I didn’t know whether they were any good, or even if they were suited to my needs. According to the website they were for ‘neutral’ running. I looked everywhere to find out what neutral running was – perhaps it was Swiss. Perhaps it was a new fangled exercise programme I don’t understand – like ‘core fitness’. Eventually, by downloading the Mizuno catalogue did I find out its true meaning. Apparently it just means it doesn’t have any specific purpose.

I also bought some ClimaCool Adidas shorts. They’re a bit like cycling shorts but I wear them under my normal shorts. Again, I had no idea if they were any good, but sometimes on the rowing machine my boxers show out the bottom of my shorts and it’s a bit unsightly. The blurb said that they have physiological and psychological benefits to performance which basically means that, although they are generally more comfortable, they have no real purpose apart from making you feel like you might start looking like John Arne Risse.

I’m torn by buying kit in January. On one hand it tends to be in the sales, on the other, you simply look like one of those new resolution numpties who think buying the kit takes you half way to running a marathon.

Those people are the ones who buy exercise DVDs. They’re not short of choice there’s the minor, previously fat, celebrity who starves herself to death type. There’s also the novelty exercises – today I saw an advert for a pole dancing DVD called ‘Poleercise’ and a Strictly Come Dancing DVD called; wait for it – Strictly Come Dancingercise. Surely you can’t legitimise exercise regimes by simply tagging ‘ercise’ on the end of something. Otherwise I’m going to make a new DVD called lager and kebabercise.

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Hunting and gathering

I lie in wait in the dark recesses of the forest. My pray is sitting alone in an open pasture. I have spent time firstly finding it, then tracking it; the kill is nearing.

But as I sit watching my vulnerable prey, a prey that will not fight my attack, I know that others may be sitting in the shadows. I may not be alone.

The minutes tick by. I could attack early to draw out my foes. Too early, however, I may find myself facing something I can’t handle. If I sit here, someone may attack when I’m not ready.

The silence is deafening; all I can hear is my own breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Should I just attack? Let the frenzy begin? I know that more experienced hunters wait.

Eventually, I decide to attack…

And as a result I won my first ebay auction. I’ve never been a big bargain hunter so ebay hasn’t really held me like it has others, but I have been usurped in a couple of auctions.

OK, so it was a CD, it was £1.99 and I was the only bidder. But, hell, it was exciting

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

So that was Christmas?

I haven’t yet joined le grande return, as the French might enigmatically say. Christmas and New Year were pretty fragmented. We weren’t really prepared, finishing just three days before Christmas day. Millie got Chicken Pox. Three walks were cancelled, as was a Boxing Day party. We missed The Big Friends Night Out due to babysitting technicalities. Even Millie’s immense Christmas day nap meant that we didn’t get to unwrap all her presents.

Which makes it all sound like a disaster, which it wasn’t. Dinner at the Dobscrubs, Christmas Eve with the babies, Boxing Day football and Christmas Dinner were all good (Christmas Dinner was officially The Best Ever). It was just that when we actually managed to engage with the festivities, we seemed to bounce along the surface rather than delve right in.

For New Year we managed to disengage totally. As last year, we decided to do nothing, but this year we surpassed ourselves with nothingness. Following a nice meal, Emma decided to go to bed at 10.30 (learning from last year that snoozing on the settee and going to bed at 12.05 does not a New Year party make). I was supposed to go and wake her just prior to the chimes.

Nothing was on TV so I put on my new DVD copy of Depeche Mode’s 101. At 11.55, halfway through the film, I ventured upstairs. Emma didn’t respond to my calling… so I went downstairs and continued to watch the DVD whilst she slept on oblivious.

Party on. 

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