Wednesday Filler Post

And apropos of absolutely bugger all:
This is for Little Jo, my secretary (sorry; "administrative assistant"). It perfectly encapsulates our working relationship. It also looks like her. And it also tickles me.

As usual, click on it to make it readable.

If anyone knows where I left my brain, please let me know as I am as sick of these crappy filler posts as you are.

Monday Melee On A Tuesday

Phew …
After a relaxing Easter Break of housework, weeding, mowing lawns, cleaning the car, washing, ironing, shopping, going to church to find good old traditional Cannonball Bob has retired and been replaced by a happy-clappy moron, visiting, cooking, cleaning, washing up, dusting, vacuuming, decorating Mum's bungalow, furniture-wrestling and occasionally sleeping, it is lovely to get away from the countryside and back to the peace and quiet of Westminster to have a nice sit down and a cuppa in the office.
I missed Fracas Monday Melee so here it is on a Tuesday instead.

1: The Misanthropic.
(Name something - about humanity - you absolutely hate).
This week I have been mostly hating mankind's innate love of gardening (as if I don't have enough to do).

2: The Meretricious:
(Expose someone or something that's phony, fraudulent or bogus).
Painkillers … Ha!
Five pounds for a box of crappy pills that do fuck all (yes, I have a headache).

3: The Malcontent:
(Name something you're unhappy with).
Crumbs …
I hate the little fuckers!
If genetic engineering is so good, why haven't they made toast, croissants and biscuits that are safe to eat in bed? Eh? …
Useless buggers!

4: The Meritorious.
(Give someone credit for something and name it if you can).
Mark E. Smith for reaching fifty and still being the most 'ornery curmudgeon this planet has ever seen. Bless his cotton socks.

5: The Mirror.
(See something good about yourself and name it).
I have great legs.
In fact below the waist I am pretty good looking. It's above the waist that things go seriously awry … and above the neck is where the ugly stick hit hardest.

6: The Make-Believe:
(Name something you wish for).
See above … crumb-less toast for eating in bed.

Look Up. Pt.8

Right.
Time for one of the silliest pieces of construction I have ever found.

This is the poetically monickered "CIGS and PAPERS" on the corner of Norwich mrketplace.
Not in itself that silly, being merely a Georgian building given a kitsch makeover by the notoriously tacky Victorians.
Today's marvel is the bizarre architectural excresence perched on top of it.
What we have here is an attempt to make some kind of Greek temple out of some reclaimed Georgian windows and pediments and what can only be described as a bunch of old bits of corrugated iron.
I love it!
The sheer audacity of marrying classical proportions with old shed building materials atop a Georgian building which is clearly visible from the windows of the City Planning Authorities just across the market takes my breath away.
If only more people had this sense of style and fun and total lack of respect … the world might not be a better place, but it would be sillier.

Look Up. Pt.7

I do like ridiculously overwrought ornamentation on buildings. The sheer pompous silliness of it makes me giggle.

This is the front of the ladies' shoes section of Jarrold's department store in Norwich. I like the over-the-top faience work.

I have no idea what all of the figures represent or what they are supposed to be doing.

On this one, a man appears to be showing a giant hat to a couple with a dog.
And on the next, two men stretch a third man's penis out to about three feet in length, while behind him another man beats an oven-ready chicken against the ground.
What this has to do with ladies' shoes is beyond me, but compared to out of town shopping in vast estates full of massive tin boxes, festooning buildings with elaborate silliness gets my vote every time.

The tragedy is that in the ten minutes I watched them, not one passer-by looked up to see the splendour just above their heads.
It was not until I stepped up and started taking photographs that people followed my eye.
"Oooh! Look!"
"Oooh! I never noticed that before."
"Isn't it pretty?"

Yes, look, you dumb bastards.
Get some fucking joy into your dreary, TV drenched lives.
Socialist though I am, I sometimes despair of the lumpenproletariat …

Die, Dive, Die!

Hokay …
A huge pay increase for my lovely Very Personal Assistant, Ms. 外人ガール。

Thanks to her I will get absolutely no work done for days.
Get on over to her site right now and play the most splendid waste of office time I think I have ever seen.

Look Up. Pt.6

They pollard the plane trees near my office in Westminster, which looks attractive in a slightly silly way at this time of year.

That's Saint Stephens' church down there on the right; my office is behind me. I love plane trees. London is full of them because they are incredibly pollution tolerant; they shed their bark when it gets too full of cack, which gives them their attractive patchy appearance.

The next one's for Lynn, to make up for all the monstrous carbuncles in yesterday's post.

This is Leadenhall Market this morning. Regretfully, this lovely Victorian cast iron fancy is now filled with tourist tat emporia but is still a nice place to walk before the crowds build up.

Apologies for not slagging anybody off or swearing a lot, but I'm feeling unnaturally tranquil this morning. It's been a quiet week here in Lake Wobegon; Sassy's moving house, Robyn's sunning herself in Mouseland, Utsav's gone AWOL … It's too quiet.
Don't worry; it won't last.

Look Up. Pt.5

I went home yesterday via the Gibson Hall on the corner of Bishopsgate and Gropecunte Lane, to check out more mad guff from the deranged sculptor of the masturbating grinning man (whose legs and "member" are just visible on the bottom left of this photo).

I rather like the sunlight reflecting on it from the glass office block across the road.
But I was particularly struck by the juxtaposition of Gibson Hall with Tower 42 behind it and wandered off to look for similar examples.

We Architects get around the "You can't build that there, you twats!" argument by telling the planners that the new building "carries on an interesting conversation" with the old …
In other words: "I know it's completely out of character with its surroundings and totally destroys all sense of massing, symmetry and character, but hey! I'm the Architect and you're just a know-nothing Philistine, so bugger off!"
It takes us years of training to be able to design what the hell we want and plonk it in the middle of some nice old buildings.
We do so love to annoy conservation groups and local residents, and especially Prince Charles.
Hee hee …
Here's the last Victorian building in Gracechurch Street; the Swan Tavern. Notice how the buildings either side are designed in complete harmony and sympathy.

And here's the poor old Albert pub on Victoria Street … with a subtle little extension out the back.
Hoorah for the Gherkin! I love that building, but it does kind of "carry on an interesting conversation" with Saint Helen's Church in the foreground.
Note also how well the Tokio Marine skyscraper on the right complements the little Georgian house next door.
I love my job.

It's The Christian Movie Review Site Again

I've not had a sly dig at the God-botherers for a while, so it's time once more for "Christians writing about sex".

Whilst doing the ironing I like to watch a trashy movie.
Yesterday, it was good old "Team America, World Police", which provided my shirts with some unusual and creative creases.
I decided today to look up the movie in my "Insane Christian Film Reviews" link (you must remember their nudity review of Spongebob Squarepants: The Movie).

These reviews are supposed to let parents make an informed choice about whether to let their children watch certain movies.
This is fair enough and a general overview with various ratings is not at all a bad idea.
Where this site careens off the rubber walls into unintentional hilarity, however, is in their choice to rate movies purely on sex, violence and profanity.
They do, however add a little piece at the end of each review addressing any message the film might convey; my favourite of which is for Natural Born Killers ("Love conquers all" which is kinda sweet considering the body count).

Hennyway: I'm not going to quote the full review of Team America, just the sex part … ahem …
Imagine, if you will, a couple of Christian film reviewers sitting there with their notebooks and their fingers over the pause button.
That image is far scarier than any movie … brrrr …
So: their review:
"A man and a woman kiss, we see them nude (we see her bare breasts and his bare buttocks, but they are not anatomically correct otherwise) lying in a bed and they kiss; in a series of encounters, the man lies on top of the woman and thrusts, then the woman is on her hands and knees and the man thrusts from behind, then the woman is on top of the man thrusting facing him and then away from him, then they perform oral sex on each other, and then she performs oral sex on him. A man asks another man to perform oral sex on him, we hear the man unzip his pants and then see the other man move downward and off screen. A man talks about another man having performed oral sex on him. A man asks a man if he is gay. A man talks to another man about fearing that he will force him to perform sexual favors. A woman says that she will have sex with a man if he makes her a promise. Women wearing traditional belly dancing outfits (revealing cleavage and bare abdomens) dance in a tavern. A woman wears low-cut tops that reveal cleavage. A man proposes marriage to a woman. A man and a woman kiss".

Now I don't know about you, but that sounds like a pretty good evening's entertainment.
It's a damned shame they're only puppets.
I love the last line. It's so sweet and chaste after all the rest.

Monday Melee

The older you get, the more every day seems like Monday.
Time once again for Fracas Monday Melee .

1: The Misanthropic.
(Name something - about humanity - you absolutely hate).
This week I have been mostly hating guys who commute to work but don't get dressed properly.
There are always some on the trains; wankers who just hang a tie round their neck but don't do it up. For fucks sake, wear a tie or don't wear a tie; make your stupid minds up. You look like fucking dorks.
That's almost as bad as Breakfast Boy who gets on the 5:40 with me in the mornings and lays out an elaborate array of Tupperware including one with cereal in, one with milk in, a thermos of coffee, various items of cutlery … What a twat.

2: The Meretricious:
(Expose someone or something that's phony, fraudulent or bogus).
The laces on my new shoes.
The bastards just WILL NOT stay done up. I've got to get up off my arse and walk down to the nearest shoe shop to buy a decent pair of laces this lunchtime.

3: The Malcontent:
(Name something you're unhappy with).
The fact that I am old and ugly (see below)

4: The Meritorious.
(Give someone credit for something and name it if you can).
My boss, for shortlisting two gorgeous young girls for the post of my new Architectural Assistant.
I chose Heidi and she started this morning. She is fresh out of college, Finnish, blonde, slim, utterly beautiful in a way that makes my brain shut down and my mouth drop open and dribble when she looks at me. And she knows it.
She's also got that cute Finnish accent that reminds me of rally drivers.
Scarily, she also seems to be pretty good at her job.
Happy me.

5: The Mirror.
(See something good about yourself and name it).
My girlfriend told me this week that I look really good from behind.
I'm not sure if that's a nice comment about my (admittedly pretty hot) ass or a sign that she's already sick of the front view.

6: The Make-Believe:
(Name something you wish for).
I like Vic's choice for this one this week (intraveinous coffee), but as she has already taken that, I'll go for the ability to speak Finnish.

I Know It's Hot In Hell, But …

Had I realised that today is April 1st I would have prepared an elaborate April Fool's post, probably about the new skyscraper they're building in my village to house our local turnip museum.

But I am somewhat out of touch with reality at the moment, so you're stuck with what might appear to be an April Fool's joke but is in fact absolutely real.

This splendid edifice, dear reader, is the beautiful and august Saint Peter Mancroft Church, which you may have already met in my idiots' guide to the prettier parts of Norwich.

I was strolling around the city centre yesterday morning, looking for odd stuff for my "Look Up" series, when I looked down …
Notice if you will the small white sign in the flowerbed.

In this churchyard are buried many of Norfolk's illuminaries.
Saint Peter Mancroft is one of Norwich's most important churches and is sited right in the centre of the city by the marketplace.
To be buried in the churchyard is a signal honour, given only to a choice few of our finest citizens.

The inappropriateness of this little sign had me giggling all the way to the coffee shop.
Henry's Hog Roast sponsors the graveyard at Saint Peter Mancroft.

Nice …