...ruffles...

It’s that time of year again, ten weeks of utter drivel, pointless nobodies trying their very best to get a bit of fame. People scrambling for something to say to fill the tedious void. Yep, the Standard and the Mail are writing about Big Brother again.

The supposed highbrow tabloids coverage is exactly the same as it has been for the last four years. Last week the Standard once again ran a story about how BB was Orwellian in its concept. Which you have to admit is breathtakingly perceptive. The Mail believed it to be like Lord of the Flies and even Animal Farm. Presumably aiming to demonstrate their extraordinary depth of knowledge of A Level English Literature. Next week: why Big Brother is like Cider With Rosie, and Kes.

It is banality dressed up as intelligent commentary, which is basically how the world turns, but it’s at times like these that you turn to something altogether more honest.

The Sun and the Mirror are just in there swinging away with their own brand of pure banality. The Sun is the Official Big Brother paper, spending most of their time analysing the girls’ boobs – did you know that Sexy Sissy is a 32A but would like to be a cup size bigger?

The Mirror is unofficial and apparently Anti-BB despite, curiously, carrying the BB logo without any apparent infringement of copyright, hmmm. They basically run the same story but prefix each contestant’s name with something alliteratively derogatory - did you know Sad Sissy is a 32A but would like to be a cup size bigger?

What’s there not to like about Big Brother? It isn’t a social experiment, it is affected by editing, there is an element of cruelty, extroverts and show-offs tend to apply and there are long periods of nothingness. But is that not your life? Long periods of quiet moments, punctuated by periods of interest and excitement, your hard earned reputation and public façade eroded by other people’s misconceptions of you.

I find life is too busy to have to work my way up a moral totem pole. I spend my whole life bluffing about my ability, so I feel no need to pontificate about the flaws in the Big Brother concept. It’s far easier to kick back and enjoy it for what it is. So, in what I hope will be a regular feature, here is Ruffles’ BB current league table.

1. Nush – Can’t fault nice people, not nearly as precious as she looks.
2. Gos – Who cannot like the Hip Hop Asian, who responded to the first night nominations with “Man youse peoples are harsh”. Respect due.
3. Cameron – Dull, dependable, nice, apparently in complete awe at being there.
4. Steph – Kind of like Cameron
5. Anouska – Warmed to her, but she gone.
6. Sissy – Seems OK, did you know she’s a 32A but would like to be a cup size bigger?
7. Scott – Seems OK
8. Federico – Seems OK, although has the look of a arrogant turd
9. Jon – Spectacularly dull, always worth keeping him in just to gnaw away at the others’ goodwill.
10. Tania – Barely registering, bar tabloid scandals about her bedding Peter Andre
11. Justine – Much the same, without the Peter Andre bit.
12. Ray – Much the same without anything at all

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Labels: TV and radio

Emma’s birthday has always been like a Hindu festival. It takes days to complete and has many sections and phases. 12 days after her birthday we entered phase four, the others being her actual birthday day, the ex-work colleagues dinner, and the dinner for people who couldn’t make Brighton. This was the trip to Brighton for the people who could make Brighton.

Vicki picked out the groovy boutique hotel the Alias Seattle in the Brighton Marina for us to enjoy a day or so with Simon, the Dobscrubs, and Russ and Sam just kicking back drinking with beautiful people in the cocktail bar, eating with beautiful people in a local restaurant, and watching fireworks with beautiful people from our seafront balcony. (To the beautiful people, we were the ugly people pointing at you).

We breakfasted in the Café Paradiso as the morning sun kissed our cheeks (the ones on our faces). We played on the decaying Air Hockey tables, and rode the Crazy Mouse rollercoaster at the end of the pier (terrifying), meandered through the meandering Lanes, ate Funky Tuna Bagels, and decided that once we got home, our lives would be different, we wouldn’t get wrapped up in work, our houses would be fashionably minimalist and hotel spotless, we would go down the gym and get buff, and we would spend our lives sitting in coffee shops philosophising during the day and drink in cocktail bars at night.

Today - Crash, burn, flames, everywhere.

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Labels: General me

I have a good brain for ‘tabloid geography’ – i.e. not real geography, but the geography of knowing the name of different capital cities. I know where Sofia is, and Bucharest and Tiblisi. This has come from years of watching European football on the telly. I also have a well developed understanding of underlying cultural politics, which I have developed from years of watching Eurovision.

I’m not sure where my family’s fondness for Eurovision comes from. As kids we’d get in loads of sweets, and watch all nine hours of it (well, what felt like nine hours). We’d score each song, sometimes using the Radio Times cut out and keep score card (does anyone keep those things) sometimes using dad’s very own computer scoreboard programmed on the Commodore 64 – which was often more hi-tech than the scoreboard being used at the show. My sisters would always score UK 10 out of 10, making the whole thing a sham but it was an important part of family bonding that has served us well as we’ve grown up.

That’s rubbed off on many people, My sister’s best friend has been known to engineer nights in with my parents to watch it, and whoever I watch it with becomes strangely obsessed. Last night, it was with Gareth and Sara. Gareth is an aggressively competitive 23-year-old boy’s boy who had just won his football team’s player of the year award. He had a notebook out collecting scores based on song, performance and look. When we’re in town, everyone goes Eurovision.

As a family we we’ve always been pro-Europe (the irony being, you can’t actually be anti-Europe), and Eurovision has always been the image of an idealised Europe. All countries smiling and dancing with each other, the UK in amongst them arrogantly confident that despite all evidence to suggest otherwise, we are still the greatest country in the world.

But it’s all changed, last night’s national disgrace Jemini (she’s called Gemma, so it’s like Gem ‘n’ I, but spelt with a J geddit?) failed to notch a single point for their woefully flat performance of Bye Bye Baby. In the past countries coming bottom have been relegated because of the influx of East Europeans wanting to enter, so like football in the eighties, politics in the, erm, well, now and business in the 70’s whilst we have smugly sat around thinking we were the best, things have moved on and we’ve slipped out of the elite into oblivion.

I for one will be thinking long and hard about how much more I can take.

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Labels: TV and radio

Wycombe is a town in a valley; it has grown up through its furniture making industry, presumably because of the abundance of raw materials available in the Chiltern Hills. Furniture making is not really a big business in the town anymore. Because of its valley location and subsequent poor access people only go there when they really have to. The local industry is a reflection of this, the town is full of dour but necessary industries. The interesting industries go some place else. It doesn’t make for a great town.

It’s a similar situation with the people, George talks of ‘valley people’ who live in Wycombe and tend to be a bit odd. It’s not surprising, if you were bright and intelligent, you would live in one of the local villages, or perhaps Oxford, or London. Wycombe is the last place you’d try.

Being a good natured chap, I wasn’t prepared to believe it until yesterday when I had to go and pay a bill in town. I waited in the queue and used the pen on a string to fill in my pay slip, then stared vacantly as I moved forward. Suddenly I felt and nudge and a rustle, I was being manoeuvred out of the way. I turned to see what was going on. A small Jamaican lady was edging her way past me. “Excuse me” she said reaching down the counter. I moved out of the way unsure of where she was trying to get to, she picked up the pen I’d just been writing with, gave it a yank to break the string, and put it in her bag. She then shuffled back to her spot in the queue.

A little disturbed by the desperation of someone so openly stealing a 20p pen, I went to WHSmiths. I was looking for a magazine when one of the staff came up to an old man reading an angling magazine. “Can I help” she said obviously trying to push him into making a purchase, or put the magazine down. He looked up.

“No thank you dear, I’ll just read the bits I’m interested in, then I’ll go.”

And then he carried on reading. It’s a town of fruitloops.

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Labels: General me

In my minds eye, the cup final existed on another planet. You drove in the vague direction of London or now Cardiff, and eventually a causeway would open and you’d drive to FA Cup Final Island passing as you did Bert Trautmann rubbing his broken neck, Ricky Villa weaving his way through the Man City defence, and Stanley Matthews waving from his very own Cup Final Condominium (with a Stan Mortensen looking grumpy behind him).

At the gate Ossie Ardiles’d greet you, and with the magic password “Tottingham” you’d go in.

The reality is not so far from the truth; Saturday was everything I hoped it would be and feared it wouldn’t. The colour and the noise, the perfect conditions (helped by the stadium roof), and the magical other worldly quality that only comes from 24,000 grown men in yellow and blue tinselly wigs made it the spectacle I needed it to be for me to retain a bit of boyhood delusion.

It was the Southampton fans that really made it; they filled their end an hour before kick off, the entire place bedecked in yellow and blue. Arsenal fans on the other hand arrived ten minutes before kick off, displaying the arrogance of success that made the day their consolation prize, not their dream. An arrogance which makes them forget that it’s teams like Southampton that makes their superiority mean something.

A Southampton goal would have made it, judging by they reception they got for coming out, the scenes if they had hit the back of the net would have been breathtaking. Arsenal demonstrated moments of guile, pace and creativity which is frightening to watch, let alone play against. At times they appear stuck, passing the ball around midfield, running crossfield, then all the cogs slip into place and they’re all moving, cutting their way through the Saints back four. It’s like each player splinters into five more and suddenly they’re a swarm. At Oxford, I know exactly what the players are doing; they just do it consistently better than me. Arsenal do things I can’t imagine trying to do, the faint, drag back, push and go, all in one fluid movement. Each section ending perfectly poised and balanced to move into the next. Southampton had no answer, their two dimensional attack nullified by Marsden’s poor crossing starved Beattie of service and failed to release the pace of Ormerod. They ran out of ideas and energy and Arsenal were the winners.

And then they lifted the cup and Seaman danced like your dad at a wedding. We clapped the dejected Saints players and made for the exit and back into the real world.

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Labels: General me

The Cup Final actually meant something in our house. That day more than any other saw my family (excluding my philistine sisters) acting like the archetypal 1950’s nuclear family round the television watching the build up and the game.

Dad had the inordinate talent for naming every cup winner since 1872, usually annotating his answer with a neat bit of trivia; “Ah yes, 1939, the Monkey Glands Final”. Such a feat was made all the more staggering in that he usually fell asleep ten minutes before half time waking up ten minutes before the end to announce that “This is the worst cup final I’ve ever seen”.

What was special about the cup final was the build up. It always started early, perhaps with Cup Final Swap Shop. Then you’d see the players getting up (having their first fag, kicking the old tart out the bedroom etc.), you’d see them choosing their cup final suits (grey, shiny, white flecks), going on the coach to the game and finally disappearing into Wembley.

Intertwined was the showbiz element. Stan Boardman, Cup Final Question of Sport (Emlyn Hughes, Bill Beaumont), the celebrity fans. What’s more, it was BBC and ITV at the same time. One year we set up a portable black and white next to the normal telly so we could watch both sides at the same time. As technology progressed, we’d record ITV whilst BBC was on live. We’d often miss bits because there weren’t three strong men available to lift the new tape into the machine. This was when you hit record; the buttons would give off a satisfying “KERCHUNK” noise.

You were usually exhausted by kick-off. Traditionally it’s always hot, often you’d get some old pro announcing that it was 450 degrees at pitch level and that the players, dehydrated from the previous night’s booze up wouldn’t cope. Cramp was an occupational hazard and there are many stories of players having to go off after scoring because they exhausted themselves celebrating.

The games weren’t always classics, Alan Sunderland’s last minute goal in 1979 probably making that year the best cup final in a generation. His hairdo was probably the best perm in a generation too. Coventry in 1987 was a classic, Liverpool v Everton in 1989 set to the backdrop of the Hillsborough disaster was an amazing day. Not least seeing people scaling the walls of Wembley to get in.

Anyway, I shall be thinking about all this as I sit in my seat on Saturday.

Oh sorry, did I forget to mention I’m going to the Cup Final this year?

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Labels: Football

Emma was delighted when she got out of bed that her boobs didn’t hit the floor, she was less pleased to find out that all that was stopping them was her knock-knees. It seems despite the onset of time she’s holding up rather well, mind you suddenly she’s dressing very young for her age.

Happy birthday m’luv.

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Labels: General me

If it weren’t for Emma’s Irish dancing fund raiser at school I’d have probably never have gone to EMAYL on Friday. EMAYL is not some groovy boho urban eatery with brushed steel industrial fittings and seventies porn playing on plasma screens in the corner. EMAYL is our local Eat as Much As You Like Chinese.

EMAYL is much more Sara and Gareth than Justin and Emma, we like atmosphere in our dining establishments, they like volume and value for money. With Emma off the scene, I tagged along with them for my fill of Chinese and to watch the crock of shit that is X-Men 2.

I mention this only because it gives me an opportunity to articulate something that I am not usually able to during normal conversations – other things being “Men’s futile obsession with thongs” and “Paedophilia, it’s not all black and white” (‘Just a very dark grey’ according to the visibly disturbed Nobby). I once phoned EMAYL to find out whether they were open. The woman who answered was particularly terse when I asked if it was the Eat As Much As You Can restaurant, no, she said, it was the Eat as Much As You Like restaurant.

Why was she so adamant about the difference? Well, Eat As Much As You Can means eating so much that your gut expands and begins to press on your spinal column causing you to lose feeling in your feet and your vision to narrow. East As Much As You Like, means eating until you don’t really fancy anymore watery noodles or Fried Anything covered in thin sweet and sour sauce (usually after about half a plate).

The difference is absolutely crucial to the success of their business. If everyone came in to eat as much as they could the business would be bankrupt within weeks. People wouldn’t leave until they you could see crispy chilli beef coming out of their nostrils and hoi sin sauce leaking out of their tear ducts.

Mind you, some of the people there on Friday were giving it a good go.

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Labels: General me

Listening to Miss Kittin’s Radio Caroline mix tape she announces in her ethereal non-specific European accent that this music represents a soundtrack to her life (a movie that is real, apparently). The mix is not what I expected being a CD of Warp Records style techno; Auterche, Mu-Ziq etc. it pootles along nicely and she chats over the fudged mixes.

The assertion that the music is a soundtrack to her life is hardly what you’d call groundbreaking. If I were to concoct a soundtrack of my life it would probably have to start with ‘Under the Moon of Love’ by Showaddywaddy and finish with Skattered Jazz by Dirty Sole getting from one to another will be tricky because so many points needed to be touched in between.

I’m surrounded by piles of music, I carried 25 CDs out of the boot of my car yesterday, and dumped them on 25 more CDs that came out of my car a couple of weeks ago.

I’ve got a drum and bass version of The Dad’s Army Theme, two copies of KLF’s 1987 (The bootlegged complete one, and the one where all the samples are taken out for copyright reasons and you’re given a book on how to recreate them (includes instructions like, record 1984 Christmas Top of The Pops and splice up the chart run down leaving out 17). I have a ludicrously early pressing of Aphex Twin’s Didgeridoo, I have It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back on all formats (tape when I was a teenager, CD when I got a CD player, and Vinyl when I found a copy for £3.99 in HMV). I have everything Justin Timberlake’s ever committed to vinyl and over forty Depeche Mode singles. Music leaks into my house – between me starting and finishing this post I got a new record I ordered it months ago and it’s just arrived. I don’t even have to leave my house anymore.

I’ve even changed my buying policy to purchase only records that I actually want – this will only mean something to people with a voracious appetite for buying music (sometimes you have to buy an album or two to know you don’t like someone). I still don’t have Just A Little Bit by Liberty X, Celebrity Skin by Hole, She-La-Na-Gig by PJ Harvey or Don’t Stop Movin’ by S Club but I really want them. And if anyone is willing to part with Tricks of the Shade by The Goats on CD, I have money.

Despite this, you’d hope that I have a record to satisfy every point on my multi-dimensional mood graph, but for some reason no. Listening to Ugly Duckling in the car yesterday and I wanted to listen to Elbow, it wasn’t quite rocky enough, so I moved onto Elephant by The White Stripes, it still didn’t hit the mark so I figured maybe something like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

But I don’t even have any Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, I’ve never even heard a Black Rebel Motorcycle Club record, why would I think that would suit my mood?

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Labels: Music

We were once asked by an American to point to Stonehenge on his map. This would have been fine if it weren’t for the fact he was looking at a map of Windsor and standing in front of the castle. Naturally we vaguely pointed to somewhere just out of view, indicated that he could follow the signs and legged it.

No doubt Madonna, when she reads this, will be laughing at the foreigner’s stupidity. No doubt she’ll be drinking her beloved pint of Tommy Taylor’s bitter down the Dock and Duck in Soho whilst she does it. This is just a…. hang on….

Oh, fuck off woman.

There was a time when we as a nation were accused of being little more than a big US aircraft carrier, now we’re a bloody rehab clinic. Going British is the latest US celebrity fad, fuck Tai Chi, and Macrobiotic diets, let’s have pie and mash and a night down the dogs. Madonna and Guy Ritchie, Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, Nicole Kidman and Ewan MaGregor, Dustin Hoffman and Johnny Vegas. Americans wanting to immerse themselves in some kind of ‘real’ British culture (“with all that history”, as though history is a commodity). They do their theatre, drive their Minis, see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in concert at the Monarch, joke about they’re terrible theatre wages on leftfield talk shows. It was a neat novelty at first; but the fad is gone, isn’t it about time they all went a bit eighties and moved to Berlin to be close to the burgeoning Nu Punk Synth Scene?

Much more of this and we’ll have Americans shopping at Tesco and visiting Bracknell. Nothing is safe, soon sniggering landladies won’t be able charge treble their normal price because the bed they bought from Argos was “The one King Henry the Eighth first bedded JK Rowling in”. It’s a bloody disaster.

I’ve been trying to find a term for these people I’ve toyed with Van Dykes, and Brankies but have come up with an acronym:

Migrating Yank Celebrities Hope to Initiate Pitiful Pursuit of Ill-conceived English Traditions to Help Evolve Image, and ValiditY

OK, it’s not great, but it does kind of spell out….

MY CHIPPIE THE IVY

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Labels: News

Anyone who saw Manchester United v Real Madrid had to be impressed by the fluidity and skill on show. Two of the world’s best sides playing it like a Playstation game, all immaculate passing, flawless tackling and perfectly executed goals.

If football is theatre, this was pure Andrew Lloyd Webber; glossy, skilful, entertaining, and totally anodyne. A minute after Ronaldo equalised you could see United fans smiling broadly enjoying their evening with the family, sharing their drinks and reading the programme. When Ronaldo went off having embarrassed United’s ‘world class defence’ Old Trafford applauded politely. All very lovely.

This is fine, and it’s just the kind of harmless light entertainment that ITV wants for Tuesday night viewing. But if you think that’s what makes football the biggest sport in the world, you’re wrong.

Football is mostly gut poppingly frustrating, a total waste of time, and often a complete waste of money. As a form of entertainment it registers just below heart surgery. But the elevation from these regular frustrations to the preciously rare joy that comes from a success is what makes it the greatest sport on the planet. In a fortnight Southampton will be in the FA Cup final for the first time since they won it in 1976. Their fans have watched their team for the intervening 27 years with little reward, but they still go every week in the hope that they’ll do it again. If they lose to Arsenal, which they probably will, they may have to wait another 27 years for another go. On that basis you’re looking at perhaps three moments of tangible joy in a football supporters lifetime. And Southampton are one of the more successful teams in the country.

Yesterday Oxford were on the verge of a rare moment of joy, if Lincoln lost to Torquay and we won, Oxford would be in the play-offs. From the play-offs we could be promoted from the cloggers and animals in Division 3, to the cloggers and animals in Division 2.

Oxford scored after two minutes and never looked like losing, near half time the place erupted even though the ball wasn’t on the pitch. Lincoln were losing. We were winning. We were in the play-offs and chasing promotion.

The second half came, somebody leapt up shouting “Torquay have got a penalty!” There was a pregnant pause, if you can imagine the pregnant pause of six thousand Oxford fans waiting to hear the news of a Torquay player taking a penalty in Lincoln. A moment later stadium was jumping, Torquay were 2-0 up. As the concrete stands cracked under the cacophony the bloke in front of me tuned into his radio, he turned to me perplexed; “They had a penalty, but they missed it”. It was the biggest game of Chinese whispers Oxford had ever seen. Somebody shouts they’ve got a penalty, somebody else translates that as they’ve scored a penalty. Somewhere in Lincoln, a Torquay striker holds his head in his hands as the ball nestles comfortably in the arms of the grateful Lincoln keeper.

Lincoln were still losing though, we were winning, that was enough. The tension rose, which made reading the quietening crowd more difficult, each text message beep that went off, each ripple of the crowd, the occasional bloke who jumped up shouting “It’s 2-0!” which caused another surge of delight, but turned out to be another reference to the penalty they scored but missed. What would it sound like if Lincoln scored and doomed us to another year of Division 3 football? With four minutes left we found out, yelping, swearing but overall a ghostly silence drifted across the stadium.

And that is what football is about. In a season you watch 69 hours of frustrating, largely un-entertaining football, and despite this investment you may miss out with four minutes of those 69 hours left. Your next opportunity will only come after 69 hours more of football. It’s like reading the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, only to find out that when Frodo gets to the Mount Doom he left the ring on the mantelpiece back in the Shire, and the Mount Doom have been turned into a Hungry Horse restaurant with child’s ball pool and play area.

If you don’t follow football but see David Beckham on Pepsi adverts and think that’s what it’s about. It’s not, it’s all the kicking and screaming under the media sheen that makes football what it is. Football isn’t really about the top teams and players; it’s about Vietnamese second division promotion race, the Mongolia Vs Greenland international friendly, the Peruvian cup quarter-final second replay. People forget that.

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Labels: Football

Whilst it isn’t updated that much, I love this site, it mirrors the comments we make when we watch the Hollyoaks omnibus on Sundays. Although at no point does it say “I don’t know why I’m even watching this, I’m going to have a bath”.

If you don’t watch Hollyoaks there’s been a serial killer plot running almost as background noise for months. Will Davies is the investigating police officer who’s infatuated with his partner Drew, although she slept with Ben, Will’s son. Ben continues to have a love hate relationship with Izzy the posh DJ (whose eclectic style veers from acid trance to the Waterboys to drill and bass to SClub 7 (RIP) with every new tune). Izzy’s last boyfriend was Café owner Tony, who she split with after he accidentally asked two people to marry him. Tony recently got involved with sunken-faced laundrette owner and older woman Helen whilst she was married to Mr Cunningham. Helen is rather hotly pursued by younger men and was recently obsessed over by Bombhead who once went on a date with Abbey even though she is now with Lee. Izzy, meanwhile, went out with Dan Hunter, but split because of his self-destructive streak (which turned out to be diabetes), Dan now goes out with Debbie. Izzy is currently on the verge of an affair with Christian. Christian’s past conquests includes Jodie who slept with Gay Nick when he thought he was straight, more recently she had a brief flirtation with Max. Max barren love life didn’t preclude him from snogging his half sister Mandy, who briefly went out with Adam who is confined to a wheelchair after a car crash. Adam, has now embarked on a simpering smiling relationship with Becca, who once slept with Matt when he was on a break from his now fiancé Chloe.

Adam's final year college project is a Big Brother pastiche The Fish Tank, one of whose contestants is the aforementioned Christian who after his appearance is being obsessed over by reformed self-harmer Lisa, this has put undoubted strain on Lisa’s relationship her boyfriend Cameron. Lisa’s self harm was appeased in part though, not totally through poetry and music, her problems were appeased wholly when she became old enough for the producers to let her wear bikini without inviting accusations of paedophilia, then all her problems were conveniently forgotten. Lisa got very close to Norman who had an unnaturally close maternal relationship with Sally who is married to Les. Lisa’s emotional outlet of music and poetry ended up with her shacked up with gothic Christian rock singer and Kilmarnock fan Brian. Who had been going out with Zara. Their relationship was irretrievably damaged when he slept with Steph Dean, who slept with ‘evil’ nightclub owner and former England footballer Scott Anderson. Anderson’s was alleged to have raped Beth Morgan, who embarked on an empathetic relationship with OB whose recently become infatuated by Roxy, yes, Roxy who he met on the Internet. Roxy has recently been murdered by Toby in a psycho sexual attack inflamed by Ellie, his girlfriend who has embarked on many relationships, including aged landlord Jack and Ben who slept with Drew, whose infatuated by police inspector Will Davies.

And that my friends is the worlds first Thirty Six Sided Love Polygon.

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Labels: TV and radio

I feel ashamed by what I’ve done. I don’t even know why I’m putting this in such an open forum. It’s so hard to articulate it face to face to people I know, people who have a certain view of me, well, I’m not the person you think I am.

I’ve had a moment of madness, seduced into something I never wanted to get back into, I’m in a very bad place. Rather than you finding out yourselves, as you inevitably will, I wanted to try and explain myself.

I try to analyse how I got into this situation, maybe I was tired of the same old same old. I needed something new and exciting, something harmless. Perhaps a quick screw so nobody gets hurt.

And it’s so easy to get into, you just pay your money and it’s there, on a plate, anything you want, whether it’s something conventional or something a little out there, rubber, binding, anything. If you want a themed room, they can do that for you, all your fantasies satisfied.

Then you get home and you take stock of what you’ve done, but you try to live with it, and you get in deeper and deeper and you feel so dirty.

And dusty.

That’s right, we’re doing DIY again.

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Labels: General me

We have very needy cats. Peanut is a white cat with her head and tail dipped in ginger. She was the runt of the litter and quite evidently needed to be a bit canny and bold to survive. She is now gregarious and a bit of a bully. She will follow you around and ask to be stroked with a screeching miaow; if we go out into the garden she will push you out the way so she can get out first. She doesn’t know her place.

Waddle is a big floppy black and white cat who runs away from everything and morphs and distorts when you stroke her. She has uneven splodges on her face; it makes her look a bit autistic, which seems very appropriate.

Depending on the temperature they will both usually sleep on the bed. The colder it gets the closer they will get to us, Waddle will sometimes sleep between us causing her to take most of the duvet. Emma invites her under the duvet so we can retrieve what is rightfully ours. Waddle then overheats and disappears. It’s better than throwing her against the wall, which is what you want to do at 3am with an icey chill blowing up your pyjama trousers.

I woke this morning at 4.45 with my brain racing about the things I had to do today. Of course when I got in to do the things I wanted to do today my brain started racing about the things I wanted to do at home. Go figure.

Upon waking I turned over to see Emma fast asleep. Then in the half light I could see something else poking out of the duvet. Slowly I focussed. It was Peanut asleep between us, she was totally submerged under the duvet, only her head could be seen, and that was on a pillow.

I woke her up and she looked at me, I looked at her as if to say that she’d pushed it a little too far. She stared momentarily concluded that I had woken her for no reason, and went back to sleep.

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Labels: General me

Yesterday I joined the first wave of bank holiday DIY'ers at B&Q to pick up some Polyfillar and some varnish in an attempt to progress our two year kitchen project.

I say first wave because wave one is buying the goods required to make whatever it is you plan to make, this usually means buying far too much of the wrong stuff (Get four hundred gallons of white emulsion, it might be useful in drilling some holes). The second wave is returning to buy the stuff you forgot or the stuff that will fix your botch.

"I can't get this bloody stuff to work"
"Have you read the instructions"
"I don't need to read the bloody instructions"
"Look, it says here, apply paint with paintbrush, did you get a paintbrush"
"No I bloody didn't, why doesn't it come with a paintbrush’ Where are my keys"

Fixing the bodge means buying something progressively more dangerous than the thing you bought the first time you went in. For example, during the kitchen project we bought a worktop (potential dangers: Could saw finger off when cutting (no) or could drop on both feet when manoeuvring (YES)) We cut it to size only to find that when we put it in it was considerably shorter than we expected (repeat this mantra: ˜None of the walls are straight").

As a result I had to get expanding foam to plug the gaps. This required me to wear gloves when applying. These safety instructions are always overly cautious so I squirted it on, and spread it out with my gloveless fingers. Now, this stuff is what you might describe as a Liquid wall and as such it dries like concrete. It did a fine job of melding my fingers together. I had to sit for three hours with washing up liquid, baby oil, cocoa butter and anything would keep stop my hands turning into trotters. I saved my career as a pianist but managed to smell like a cheap hooker for days.

More recently, when applying gloss paint to the skirting boards I decided we'd get a better job done by stripping the old paint off. Whether you're doing DIY or not paint stripper is worth using just to see it in action. You apply it to the paint and nothing happens, then three seconds later the paint blisters violently and the noxious fumes fill the air. It's the sexiest DIY application on the market.

I used it wearing gloves as directed. Fine except the shards of paint kept dropping onto my bare arms causing my skin to fizzle and burn. Managing to burn enough holes in my arms for people to think that I was half man half Curly Wurly, Emma's dad went out and bought some new wood at a fraction of the cost and replaced the old crap in a matter of minutes.

Given the danger of this particular product I cannot be far from the DIY bodgers dream using an application that requires a facemask and chain mail.

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Labels: General me

My morning routine is a simple and well drilled affair, I wake up, go straight to the shower, come downstairs, iron a shirt whilst the kettle is boiling, drink tea whilst I watch the TV review on GMTV with Kate Garraway (WEY HEY!, a thousand more hits for me) and Richard Arnold, finish my tea, pick up my rucksack and make for the car. Stop the clock, forty minutes.

The eagle eyed amongst you will realise that whilst I have a smartly pressed shirt, I appear go to work naked. Interwoven amongst this routine, is dressing, almost every day.

I hate getting in the shower. It’s the point of no return, a surge of energy, sparked by our badly tuned clock radio, propels me to the bathroom. Once I’m in the shower I’m no longer allowed to be a sleepy lumbering beast, theory says in three minutes I have to be awake, alert and ready.

To lubricate my passage (WEY! HEY! two thousand more hits) is shower gel. It’s like the big lever Han Solo pulls on the Millennium Falcon to make the jump to light speed. It’s supposed to take you through the barrier into the world of the awake. Much like the Falcon’s flux capacita, every time I use it, it fails to live up to expectations.

It’s always called something like Sunshine Sunburst or is the fragrance of a far off paradise like Aloe Aldershot. I expect my skin to crackle and sparkle into life when the gloop touches it. I expect it to invigorate my mind, open it up to embrace the challenges ahead (challenges like, how to write 500 words about shower gel, for example). I want it to feel like I’m having colonic irrigation using Sherbert Abdabs and Semtex.

It never does of course, it makes no difference to my morning, it goes from orange goo to orange goo with a couple of bubbles to orange goo with a couple of bubbles making haste towards the plughole. I’m so disappointed.

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Labels: General me

Emma, like all teachers, lives on a different time convention to most people. She will say things like, “Shall we go to Brighton on the last weekend of the spring half term” as though anyone knows when that is.

It’s day one of the Easter holidays and like the big meany I am, I have made it quite clear that if Emma is to start redecorating the hall (her planned Easter project) we have to have finished the 2 year old kitchen project first. This has spurred her on to great things, today she was out of bed before lunch time.

I got a phone call at one o’clock.

“The painting looks crap, the dentist can’t see me for three months, I phoned the council (about something complicated) and they said it’s not their fault, I phoned the cinema and their systems are down and you’ve had an email giving you information about penis extensions, I assume you didn't have anything to do with that?”

I laughed hysterically and a little too loud and denied it all, afterall, what do I know about cinema computer systems?

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Labels: General me

For me, the last three weeks have been dominated by exhibitions, putting stands up, taking them down, standing staring blankly trying not to look bored. Being an exhibitor is a rotten job because you spend three days trying to convince yourself that this is all worthwhile, when all your doing is exposing yourself to the maddest people on earth.

First up are the people wearing slightly obscured badges, all you can read is that they’re job title says “…ing Di…” and you hope beyond hope that this means they are Managing Director. Eventually they reveal themselves to be a “Catering Dining Room Assistant”. They turn up on the first day and are queuing outside before the doors are open. Their boss has sent them to the exhibition because it’s a day out and cheaper than training and a pay rise. Yet despite this rare freedom, they fear they will be found out if they saunter in at lunchtime having spent the morning on Oxford Street. They look around listen intently at the to what your telling them, give positive comments like “That would be good in our company” then when you ask if they want to set up a meeting they cackle wildly, turn red and say “Ooh my boss wouldn’t like that” and shuffle off. But not before they take one of each piece of promotional literature you have. They wear beige anoraks and are laden down with promotional plastic bags. You later see them having a coffee and a flapjack fretting they won’t be allowed to claim it on expenses.

If you let your guard down you’ll find yourself turning and walking into a man invading your personal space by standing two inches from you. He will have a jet-black perm with silver grey sideburns. He is a magician/hypnotherapist/dolphin trainer who specialises in motivational and/or quit smoking techniques. He is about to sell to you. On your space, which you have spent in excess of £7000 to construct he spends twenty minutes convincing you he will help you give up smoking in seven days. Tell him you don’t smoke and he will insist he can help you start smoking in seven days, “or your money back”. He will always have a business card that says Flat 9a, Edgeware Road, which it will be above Carphonewarehouse.

Occasionally somebody apparently credible will come and talk to you. Sometimes they will reach into their pocket and before you know it you have a business card imbedded in your forehead. “Send me something to that” they say before disappearing off to maim someone else. Either that, or they will stop and ask what your business is about. “Well…” you say before they interject and spend an hour telling you that they’re doing something very ordinary “I’m recently redundant, er, an independent consultant who is specialising in helping people eat carrots” you nod “But I’m doing it a bit differently to most people” at this point your inner ear caves in and you can’t hear anything apart from “Revolutionary technique from America” and “Using computer simulations online”. All the while over his shoulder you can see the Bill Gates perusing your literature saying to his handmaiden “If I can talk to this guy I’m going to buy this for every single one of my employees and all my wives.”

At the end of long and busy show your mind turns to going home, and hey presto! the mad people turn up. Mostly they collect leaflets that they will sleep in. Others will draw you into a conversation, which is apparently making sense, until you realise they have teeth made of pegs, eyes that are different colours and ears growing upside down. Then the show closes and you cut them off mid sentence and turn and rip your stand down in a frenzy.

When you’ve finished and everything is packed up, you realise they are still standing there waiting for you to finish. Either that or you accidentally pack them up and find them back at the office running your IT system.

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Labels: Work

Having been super busy recently, I haven’t posted much up on the site. In a panic to appease my growing fan base (I’ve decided now to refer to all readers as ‘fans’) I posted an all too hasty note about the boat race. Rubbish wasn’t it?

So to alleviate my fans, here are some snippets of conversations held throughout that day: -

Conversation number 1: - Russ and Sam are going to Canada on holiday

Simon “So you’re going Whale spotting?”
Russ (nodding in acknowledgement) “Visiting relatives…that’s not to say we’re related to Whales”
Sam “Although in a sense I am, because I’m half Welsh… and half Canadian”
Scott “Exotic”
Russ “Yes, but we don’t have water spurting out the top of our heads”

Conversation number 2: - Simon looks for his college colours

Simon “I haven’t seen anyone in my college colours (Churchill)”
Scott “Why do Churchill have pink and brown college colours”
Simon “Apparently it’s the first principal of the college, it was his wife’s favourite colours”
Scott “Oh right, like the colour of her dogs or something… er… one being a chocolate Labrador, and one having fallen in a vat of Immac”

Conversation number 3: - Tips for business luncheons

Mike “I’m having lunch with my new employers tomorrow, any tips?”

Responses included: - 

• Order just after everyone else does, or just before
• Don’t have noodles, sucking them up and having them slap your forehead on the way in doesn’t leave a good impression
• Don’t drink anything, although as they’re paying, you should drink as much as you can, it will relax you and loosen you up
• Wear clowns boots and a twirly wirly bow tie
• Would you like us to come and sit at the next table reading newspapers with eyeholes to give you tips and see how you’re getting on

Mike visibly shrivelled muttering something about being “nervous beforehand and terrified now.”

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Labels: Friends

At the age of 13 I turned up to a maths exam without a calculator – the effect was catastrophic – my mark was lower than expected, meaning I dropped down a group for maths, meaning my GCSE grades weren’t what they could have been, meaning my A Levels suffered, meaning I didn’t get into either Oxford or Cambridge University and in a moment of teenage forgetfulness, my hopes of a rowing blue were scuppered forever.

To the people who know me, I hope your snorting your coffee out of your noses at the phrase “My GCSE grades weren’t what they could have been”.

Russ invited us to his club, I didn’t really like Russ until I found out he had a West London club, now I’ve found him to be one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. When he asked us to join him to watch the boat race, we were all over it faster than you can say “I’m 19, at Trinity College, I feel the need to wear a blazer, fedora and slacks.”

Although we watched just 12 seconds of live rowing as first the reserve crews, and then the proper race sped by our balcony vantage point, it was a fantastic day with friends, drinking (too much for a school night) and having a right laugh.

Whilst I could, and maybe will, elucidate further than this, I won’t because to say it was just great fun says it all really.

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Labels: Friends