Somewhere up there in whatever passes for my own personal and somewhat squalid pantheon, a minor and very miserable little deity seems to know I like mondays and is determined to spoil them for me.
This morning, in the pitch dark at 5:30, with the wind and rain lashing down, I get to my parking space at the station to find my nice lockable post has been ripped out of the ground and a trashed, stolen car is parked in my space.
No other free spaces, so I park in the £12 a day car park down the road and run through the rain to catch my train …
Which crawls along at 40mph, due to "adverse railhead conditions" (it's raining) …
Then it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and we sit for another hour with the heating off …
And when I eventually reach London at around nine-thirty, the tube isn't working because of over-running engineering works, so I walk the four miles in the rain.
I still like mondays though. So nyaah nyaah to whichever deity is trying to piss me off. You're looking for a wedgie at the very least, matey.
Which brings me on to Vladimir Putin.
Look, tosh. If you're going to poison people you disagree with, DON'T do it in a sushi bar in Piccadilly!
I would say don't do it at all, but I understand that there are times when the democratic process just isn't enough and you just have to try to kill someone.
But don't do it where I'm trying to buy lunch after an already stressful morning and have to fight my way through a horde of fucking journalists on expense accounts who fancy a free plate of sushi.
Look what you've done. I was doing alright but now you've made me all grumpy, you ex KGB twat.
If there's anybody in Moscow reading this, please give Vlad a kick up the arse from me.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Don't Look At Me Like That
I know …
I'm supposed to be writing something interesting.
And I'm also supposed to be doing my housework and ironing and gardening and cleaning the car and polishing the bath and mowing the kittens and all that shit.
And I know I've just been collapsed in a giggling heap on the sofa watching Spaced and stuffing my face.
Well bollocks!
I haven't had a bloody "do nothing" day for years.
If you want to read something, pop over to Robyn's and catch up on Maryann. I'm now going to watch the rugby, then settle back down in front of Spaced with a big bar of Green and Blacks' Maya Gold chocolate.
And I'm not answering the door to anyone.
Go on … Bugger off … Today, it's all about me and the sofa.
I'm supposed to be writing something interesting.
And I'm also supposed to be doing my housework and ironing and gardening and cleaning the car and polishing the bath and mowing the kittens and all that shit.
And I know I've just been collapsed in a giggling heap on the sofa watching Spaced and stuffing my face.
Well bollocks!
I haven't had a bloody "do nothing" day for years.
If you want to read something, pop over to Robyn's and catch up on Maryann. I'm now going to watch the rugby, then settle back down in front of Spaced with a big bar of Green and Blacks' Maya Gold chocolate.
And I'm not answering the door to anyone.
Go on … Bugger off … Today, it's all about me and the sofa.
Curry Breath (A Thank You Card)
A huge thank you to Mike and Sharon for last night's curryfest, and the totally excellent prezzie of two full series of Spaced on DVD (Jessica Stevenson … Ooooo).
Sharon's a great cook, but last night Mike had a new curry recipe and a kitchen window-cill full of chilli plants … and a fridge full of beer …
Picture the Three Stooges making industrial quantities of hellfire curry while drinking and you get some idea of the goings-on.
All in all a splendid evening of curry, beer and wine and toasting our tootsies on the lovely log fire, and chat and movies and "Bully" on the PS2 … waaay past old Dive's bedtime …
Somehow, this morning I am awake and clear headed (and no arse-gravy from all the chillis).
So hoorah for Mike and Sharon.
Thanks again, guys.
Sharon's a great cook, but last night Mike had a new curry recipe and a kitchen window-cill full of chilli plants … and a fridge full of beer …
Picture the Three Stooges making industrial quantities of hellfire curry while drinking and you get some idea of the goings-on.
All in all a splendid evening of curry, beer and wine and toasting our tootsies on the lovely log fire, and chat and movies and "Bully" on the PS2 … waaay past old Dive's bedtime …
Somehow, this morning I am awake and clear headed (and no arse-gravy from all the chillis).
So hoorah for Mike and Sharon.
Thanks again, guys.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
The Miserable Git Goes Christmas Shopping
Into Norwich for coffee and breakfast.
This is the week they actually start playing fucking Christmas music in the coffee shop. Mince pies I can stand, but not festive "cheer". It just makes me want to buy guns.
They can just kiss goodbye to my custom from here on in. I'm not going back there until I hear they've started playing Bowie again.
Luckily, Norwich is still stuck in its Frasier Crane stage, so there's plenty of other bookshops which sell coffee and brekkies and have big friendly sofas.
Mum has driven up from Suffolk today as it's the annual emptying of the bank account for the yuletide festival of Mammon.
Luckily, she has not brought any of the Mad Bints with her.
As anyone who has been here at the Planet long enough will know (see The Truth About Everything), Christmas Day is an anagram of Mad Scary Shit and that, for me, is what the spirit of Christmas has been reduced to. And trying to shop in Norwich after the third week in November is blind, suicidal insanity. So mother drives up to Norfolk and we get in a pre-emptive strike before the queues reach critical mass.
That's it … I'm staying out of the city now until the January sales are over. We've just emptied Borders and Waterstones (I always buy people books; force the buggers to read instead of sitting in a drooling heap in front of the idiot box). I'm knackered and both our bank managers are crying in the corner. Then we go back for CDs and DVDs and lovely opera for my mad aunt, Nurse Ratched, and crappy, stinky stuff for the elderly, and tat for the kids …
Christmas may be all about "giving", but I'm buggered if I'm paying £4.99 for a roll of wrapping paper, so I hit the Pound Shop for that.
And it's home-made e-cards all round this year to stick it to those profiteering bastards at Hallmark.
Mike and Sharon are throwing me a late birthday party tonight, so at least I can seek refuge from festive tat in Mikey's strange world of monkeys, robots, video games, large nude women and NOTHING TO DO WITH FUCKING CHRISTMAS.
Quick change of subject:
Robyn's photo scavenger hunt subject this week is "plush".
As my house is devoid of "plush", I'll use the same get-out clause as Robyn has and post my cat.
Meet the late, great, Kate. named after Kate Bush, for the bushy tail they both have, as well as the racket they both made, and because "Kate" was the closest thing to "cat" I could think of.
Click on the images if you like a larger pussy (sorry, Robyn) …
Kate was about as plush as a cat can get. I really miss her, though not her habit of waking me by leaping off the bedroom window-cill onto my bladder.
I am catless at the mo, though Jerry next door's cats have the run of my house.
I like them; they sleep in my garden and crap in Jerry's.
Which is as it should be …
This is the week they actually start playing fucking Christmas music in the coffee shop. Mince pies I can stand, but not festive "cheer". It just makes me want to buy guns.
They can just kiss goodbye to my custom from here on in. I'm not going back there until I hear they've started playing Bowie again.
Luckily, Norwich is still stuck in its Frasier Crane stage, so there's plenty of other bookshops which sell coffee and brekkies and have big friendly sofas.
Mum has driven up from Suffolk today as it's the annual emptying of the bank account for the yuletide festival of Mammon.
Luckily, she has not brought any of the Mad Bints with her.
As anyone who has been here at the Planet long enough will know (see The Truth About Everything), Christmas Day is an anagram of Mad Scary Shit and that, for me, is what the spirit of Christmas has been reduced to. And trying to shop in Norwich after the third week in November is blind, suicidal insanity. So mother drives up to Norfolk and we get in a pre-emptive strike before the queues reach critical mass.
That's it … I'm staying out of the city now until the January sales are over. We've just emptied Borders and Waterstones (I always buy people books; force the buggers to read instead of sitting in a drooling heap in front of the idiot box). I'm knackered and both our bank managers are crying in the corner. Then we go back for CDs and DVDs and lovely opera for my mad aunt, Nurse Ratched, and crappy, stinky stuff for the elderly, and tat for the kids …
Christmas may be all about "giving", but I'm buggered if I'm paying £4.99 for a roll of wrapping paper, so I hit the Pound Shop for that.
And it's home-made e-cards all round this year to stick it to those profiteering bastards at Hallmark.
Mike and Sharon are throwing me a late birthday party tonight, so at least I can seek refuge from festive tat in Mikey's strange world of monkeys, robots, video games, large nude women and NOTHING TO DO WITH FUCKING CHRISTMAS.
Quick change of subject:
Robyn's photo scavenger hunt subject this week is "plush".
As my house is devoid of "plush", I'll use the same get-out clause as Robyn has and post my cat.
Meet the late, great, Kate. named after Kate Bush, for the bushy tail they both have, as well as the racket they both made, and because "Kate" was the closest thing to "cat" I could think of.Click on the images if you like a larger pussy (sorry, Robyn) …
Kate was about as plush as a cat can get. I really miss her, though not her habit of waking me by leaping off the bedroom window-cill onto my bladder.
I am catless at the mo, though Jerry next door's cats have the run of my house.
I like them; they sleep in my garden and crap in Jerry's.
Which is as it should be …
Friday, November 17, 2006
Forgive me, J …
I know it's wrong and I'll go to blog hell and have blog dæmons using my bottom to store pointy things in, but I keep one of my very favourite blogs as a guilty little secret from the rest of the gang.
She may never forgive me, but I just have to steal this from her post yesterday as it's the funniest thing I've heard in a long, long time:
"As I was leaving work, the marching band was practicing on the field
outside of my building. It always gives me a lift, and I try to see if
I can recognize the song in the few short minutes it takes to walk to
my car.
Today, I was having a problem figuring it out right away. It had a catchy melody, and sounded like it was from a musical. Then it hit me. What would Brian Boytano do?
They were playing a medley of songs from "The South Park Movie"!
I am going to be so sad when it is no longer marching band season..."
YES!!!!!
Oh me, oh my, there surely is a God …
Somewhere in the United States a college marching band may well be playing the jaunty tune that is "Shut Your Fucking Face, Unclefucker" (with its 'challenging' wind solo) …
… or "Kyle's Mom's A Bitch", or "Blame Canada" or Big Gay Al's "I'm Super (Thanks For Asking)".
Well I'll be a "donkey-raping shit-eater" …
She may never forgive me, but I just have to steal this from her post yesterday as it's the funniest thing I've heard in a long, long time:
"As I was leaving work, the marching band was practicing on the field
outside of my building. It always gives me a lift, and I try to see if
I can recognize the song in the few short minutes it takes to walk to
my car.
Today, I was having a problem figuring it out right away. It had a catchy melody, and sounded like it was from a musical. Then it hit me. What would Brian Boytano do?
They were playing a medley of songs from "The South Park Movie"!
I am going to be so sad when it is no longer marching band season..."
YES!!!!!
Oh me, oh my, there surely is a God …
Somewhere in the United States a college marching band may well be playing the jaunty tune that is "Shut Your Fucking Face, Unclefucker" (with its 'challenging' wind solo) …
… or "Kyle's Mom's A Bitch", or "Blame Canada" or Big Gay Al's "I'm Super (Thanks For Asking)".
Well I'll be a "donkey-raping shit-eater" …
This Is Carlton Your Doorman
A bit of light relief after yesterday's wonderfully stimulating religious education debate with Robyn.
Indeed, thanks yet again to Robyn for pointing me at this silly accent quiz.
I cannot do a Noo Yawk accent to save my life, but it seems the quiz thinks that's the closest to my Norfolk/London Brit accent.
Actually, I used to do a good Julie Kavner as Brenda, yelling "Rhoda", but that's about my limit.
I loved that show back in the seventies. Lorenzo Music (great name) drawling "Hello, this is Carlton, your doorman" cracked me up every time. And of course, the magnificent Ms. Kavner is still with us, voicing the sexiest woman on TV.
Judging from my test result, I should be able to converse intelligibly with Sassy and Rich and the rest of the New England Posse, though I have no idea (being Brit) what a New England accent sounds like. Perhaps we should all type in our vernacular (although this would make our Scottish friend utterly incomprehensible).
My favourite accent of all (even more than "Minnesota Nice") is the one Eddie Izzard does in his James Bond sketch, where the guy's accent-changing voicebox is stuck on shop demo. A drunken party favourite down our way. "Ah, Meester Burnd".
Comments in your vernacular, please.
Indeed, thanks yet again to Robyn for pointing me at this silly accent quiz.
I cannot do a Noo Yawk accent to save my life, but it seems the quiz thinks that's the closest to my Norfolk/London Brit accent.
Actually, I used to do a good Julie Kavner as Brenda, yelling "Rhoda", but that's about my limit.
I loved that show back in the seventies. Lorenzo Music (great name) drawling "Hello, this is Carlton, your doorman" cracked me up every time. And of course, the magnificent Ms. Kavner is still with us, voicing the sexiest woman on TV.
Judging from my test result, I should be able to converse intelligibly with Sassy and Rich and the rest of the New England Posse, though I have no idea (being Brit) what a New England accent sounds like. Perhaps we should all type in our vernacular (although this would make our Scottish friend utterly incomprehensible).
My favourite accent of all (even more than "Minnesota Nice") is the one Eddie Izzard does in his James Bond sketch, where the guy's accent-changing voicebox is stuck on shop demo. A drunken party favourite down our way. "Ah, Meester Burnd".
Comments in your vernacular, please.
Mr. Ranty Pays A Short Visit
So farewell then, Milton Friedman.
I don't like to speak ill of the dead, but I'll make an exception for Friedman,
Good riddance to the shit who brought us Thatcherism and Reagonomics.
Almost worth buying a plane ticket to dance on his grave.
I don't like to speak ill of the dead, but I'll make an exception for Friedman,
Good riddance to the shit who brought us Thatcherism and Reagonomics.
Almost worth buying a plane ticket to dance on his grave.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
The New Bond
Just been over to The Other Girl's blog to put the case for Stephen Fry as the "Sexiest Man Alive".
George Clooney, my arse!
Norfolk's own hunk of gorgeousness could lick Clooney any day (and probably would).
Watch Wilde again. Watch the man on QI. Listen to him speak. Peer inside the biggest brain on the planet. Dribble down your cardie as he turns those piercing eyes your way. Revel in the wit and charm of the only possible contender* for the title: "Sexiest Man Alive".
And while Daniel Craig (the blonde Bond … "We expect you to dye") may well have worked out a bit, there is only one man truly born to play Bond (in much the same way as he was born to be Wilde).
Blofeld would have never stood a chance against such übercool rapier wit.
Genefluct unworthily in his general direction.
Laydees and gentlemen. Stephen Fry. Sexiest Man Alive. No contest.
* Runners up: Old Knudsen and Eddie Izzard.
George Clooney, my arse!
Norfolk's own hunk of gorgeousness could lick Clooney any day (and probably would).
Watch Wilde again. Watch the man on QI. Listen to him speak. Peer inside the biggest brain on the planet. Dribble down your cardie as he turns those piercing eyes your way. Revel in the wit and charm of the only possible contender* for the title: "Sexiest Man Alive".
And while Daniel Craig (the blonde Bond … "We expect you to dye") may well have worked out a bit, there is only one man truly born to play Bond (in much the same way as he was born to be Wilde).
Blofeld would have never stood a chance against such übercool rapier wit.
Genefluct unworthily in his general direction.
Laydees and gentlemen. Stephen Fry. Sexiest Man Alive. No contest.
* Runners up: Old Knudsen and Eddie Izzard.
Drooling Nutjob Creationists
Phew.
After yesterday's ludicrous comment-deluge, hopefully we'll get back to some semblance of normality today; especially as I'm working from home and the donkey who trudges round and round to power my village's alleged broadband connection has not been well of late.
Reading New Scientist on the train last night and this: New Scientist article on the insane future of America scared the shit out of me.
I'd heard of this place before (Patrick Henry College), but the article brought home to me just how close we are to having the world's biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons controlled by the lunatic Christian Fundamentalist 'Taliban'.
In a supposedly free country, to raise children with closed minds and train them up to attack reason and reality with drooling fucking hogwash is a far greater danger than any possible terrorist threat.
Read the article.
Shit yourself with fear.
I'm suddenly glad to be as old as I am, as I'll be dead in a few years and won't have to see it happen.
After yesterday's ludicrous comment-deluge, hopefully we'll get back to some semblance of normality today; especially as I'm working from home and the donkey who trudges round and round to power my village's alleged broadband connection has not been well of late.
Reading New Scientist on the train last night and this: New Scientist article on the insane future of America scared the shit out of me.
I'd heard of this place before (Patrick Henry College), but the article brought home to me just how close we are to having the world's biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons controlled by the lunatic Christian Fundamentalist 'Taliban'.
In a supposedly free country, to raise children with closed minds and train them up to attack reason and reality with drooling fucking hogwash is a far greater danger than any possible terrorist threat.
Read the article.
Shit yourself with fear.
I'm suddenly glad to be as old as I am, as I'll be dead in a few years and won't have to see it happen.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
The Unbearable Shiteness Of Being
Unaccountably back down in the dumps.
Having managed to cheer up a bit last night, I fully expected to wake up at 4:40 this morning without my usual scream of horror at still being alive.
No such luck.
It's not the bleak suicidal despair of one of my periodic and strangely attractive black depressions; more just a general feeling of shitty blah, mingled unpleasantly with the fag end of my crappy birthday and the looming horror of the tacky commercial onslaught that is the British Christmas "Season" (gak).
Having said that, it's a lovely sunny day, Westminster is its usual chaotic and hilarious fuck up of closed roads, barricades and armed police running around like headless chickens (it's the State Opening of Parliament today … whee); lots of bored TV crews clogging up the coffee shops and blocking the pavements with boxes and wires and expensive looking tripods to kick on your way past.
And good old Red Ken (our lovely Socialist Mayor) has announced that anyone stupid enough to be still driving a 4x4 in Central London will now be charged £25 a day for being a complete arsehole.
And I've got a lovely bowl of miso soup in front of me (and haven't yet spilled it in my keyboard).
So plenty of reasons to be cheerful, but a somewhat disheartening lack of actual cheer.
Bum …
"Oh well, what the hell."*
*Try to cheer up old Dive by playing a ridiculously easy Spot That Quote.
Having managed to cheer up a bit last night, I fully expected to wake up at 4:40 this morning without my usual scream of horror at still being alive.
No such luck.
It's not the bleak suicidal despair of one of my periodic and strangely attractive black depressions; more just a general feeling of shitty blah, mingled unpleasantly with the fag end of my crappy birthday and the looming horror of the tacky commercial onslaught that is the British Christmas "Season" (gak).
Having said that, it's a lovely sunny day, Westminster is its usual chaotic and hilarious fuck up of closed roads, barricades and armed police running around like headless chickens (it's the State Opening of Parliament today … whee); lots of bored TV crews clogging up the coffee shops and blocking the pavements with boxes and wires and expensive looking tripods to kick on your way past.
And good old Red Ken (our lovely Socialist Mayor) has announced that anyone stupid enough to be still driving a 4x4 in Central London will now be charged £25 a day for being a complete arsehole.
And I've got a lovely bowl of miso soup in front of me (and haven't yet spilled it in my keyboard).
So plenty of reasons to be cheerful, but a somewhat disheartening lack of actual cheer.
Bum …
"Oh well, what the hell."*
*Try to cheer up old Dive by playing a ridiculously easy Spot That Quote.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)