Feeling a bit gruesome. Yesterday a couple of chums and I took advantage of mass missus migration to drink too much beer in the afternoon, having told ourselves we'd earned it with a constitutional around Hampstead Heath. I was a bit concerned about the homosexual 80's pop stars who usually lurk in the bushes, occasionally bursting from the foliage and dragging handsome young men to their doom. Like great white sharks in leather trousers and dog skin caps. Luckily, they were scared off by a meeting of the Southern Counties Running Championship. I almost was too. Hundreds of fit young men and women in alarmingly tight lycra pounding all around me, mud-streaked thighs pumping away like pistons. Meanwhile, having dressed with the customary lack of forethought, I was picking my way through the mud in a pair of brown leather loafers with my jeans tucked into my socks. I was one slip away from a nose dive into the mud and an impromptu black and white minstrel impersonation.
Following these exertions we found a nice pub or two and drank a zillion beers. I came home and covered my kitchen in brown sauce, some of which I presume must have hit a bacon sandwich, fell asleep wearing earphones and almost garotted myself. Fine song though it is, I don't intend to die listening to Big Julie by Jarvis Cocker.
It's now getting on for 5 on Sunday. Time for a nap and then I will eat some cheese. Great weekend.
Sunday, 31 January 2010
Sunday, 24 January 2010
Cross-species love
Things have been quiet around here recently. I've been working quite hard in the week and drinking too much at the weekends, rendering me even more useless and lazy than usual. But I've been roused from my lethergy by the latest in one of the oddest advert series ever conceived - the bed company ones where a man hippo and a yellow woman duck share a bed and appear to be in a stable relationship.
There are so many problems with the basic concept. Mr Hippo wears pyjamas but Mrs Duck doesn't, the tart. It is never explained why they choose to sleep in a low-quality human bed - perhaps they had the old "I'd be far happier in a nest, darling"/"Shut it you slagbag, I'm sleeping in a big pile of mud and that's that" argument and this was the compromise. The logistics of what goes on after the light goes out (I imagine by the duck pulling the cord with her beak) are too alarming to analyse in detail but would surely be considered to be a bit strong by even the most open minded.
But something has changed in the latest installment. He's always been a lot larger than her, as you'd expect. Now, presumably after extensive market research into how much reality-bending the public can cope with in an onscreen cross-species bunk up, the size difference has been reduced - she seems to have grown in size to about goose proportions. Which is closer to the size of a hippo, but not that close.
So why make the change? One attack of flailing hippo night terrors will still obliterate her. It's still an unacceptably weird set up. But there will have been meetings, conference calls, pie and flip charts, advertising briefings and hundreds of man hours devoted to enlarging the duck. I guarantee that not one extra crappy bed has been sold as a result.
There are so many problems with the basic concept. Mr Hippo wears pyjamas but Mrs Duck doesn't, the tart. It is never explained why they choose to sleep in a low-quality human bed - perhaps they had the old "I'd be far happier in a nest, darling"/"Shut it you slagbag, I'm sleeping in a big pile of mud and that's that" argument and this was the compromise. The logistics of what goes on after the light goes out (I imagine by the duck pulling the cord with her beak) are too alarming to analyse in detail but would surely be considered to be a bit strong by even the most open minded.
But something has changed in the latest installment. He's always been a lot larger than her, as you'd expect. Now, presumably after extensive market research into how much reality-bending the public can cope with in an onscreen cross-species bunk up, the size difference has been reduced - she seems to have grown in size to about goose proportions. Which is closer to the size of a hippo, but not that close.
So why make the change? One attack of flailing hippo night terrors will still obliterate her. It's still an unacceptably weird set up. But there will have been meetings, conference calls, pie and flip charts, advertising briefings and hundreds of man hours devoted to enlarging the duck. I guarantee that not one extra crappy bed has been sold as a result.
Sunday, 10 January 2010
The early morning workings of the lady brain
The missus started a new job this week. I was broadly in favour until she dropped the bombshell that, for no apparent reason, her working day now begins at 8.30am. This means she is furthering her career at the expense of my quality of life.
In her old job she started at 9am, which as a long-standing and indulged member of staff she treated as a nominal estimate of the time she might, under exceptional circumstances, aim to be not too much later than. But now she's new and keen and the new regime is costing me about thirty minutes of sleep every morning. That's about 10 hours a month - this is serious stuff.
So the alarm now goes off at 6.30am. Once she is coaxed or, more often, driven out of bed by a sturdy shove to the lower back, she puts the kettle on and gets in the shower. If I haven't had to pull her out of bed by her feet I may fall back into a light sleep. This lasts until the kettle starts whistling. I stomp downstairs and take the kettle off the heat, bang on the bathroom door and issue her with a 4,879th final warning about sorting her bloody tea out without waking me up.
She breezes past to make the tea, perhaps with a derisive "Alright, Dad", and plonks herself in front of the TV. There she will sit, with a hairbrush in her hair as she clasps her mug of tea, and she will absorb herself in absolutely anything that is on BBC Breakfast. She will give the same attention to an update on the Manchester United defensive injury crisis as she will a feature on the decline of the Norfolk duck population. If the TV shows her an image of a child or any form of cute animal she will grin. If the TV shows her an image of either of these in any kind of sad context she may have a little cry. If an irate boyfriend pokes his head around the door she will feign, feebly, a hair-brushing motion or a peer into a make-up mirror.
Somehow, many hours later, she will have done her hair, make-up and got dressed. Then she will begin drifting from room to room in a listless hunt for the items she has scattered around the flat the night before. She will emerge from the spare room holding a sock, and trudge upstairs to get her glasses from the bedroom. Then into the bathroom for hairclips, the kitchen for shoes and living room for her phone. Then spare room for different shoes, back up to the bedroom for a second sock, the top of the stairs for a coat and the living room for a handbag. After a few more laps she'll reach the door and start rummaging through her handbag. She's got her purse, keys, phone, she's walking out of the d...."Oh shit! Where's my Oyster card?" Then back in the flat for a hunt through every pocket of everything she wore the day before, as the Oyster card sits ignored on the kitchen table.
This all adds up to why an early start time is such a disaster. I accept that boys, who only have to decide which of five pre-ironed shirts to wear, have it a little easier. I also accept that things like long hair and face paint are a factor. But the fundamental disorder of the lady brain is laid bare at times like this. Perhaps there's a morning routine efficiency class I could send her to?
In her old job she started at 9am, which as a long-standing and indulged member of staff she treated as a nominal estimate of the time she might, under exceptional circumstances, aim to be not too much later than. But now she's new and keen and the new regime is costing me about thirty minutes of sleep every morning. That's about 10 hours a month - this is serious stuff.
So the alarm now goes off at 6.30am. Once she is coaxed or, more often, driven out of bed by a sturdy shove to the lower back, she puts the kettle on and gets in the shower. If I haven't had to pull her out of bed by her feet I may fall back into a light sleep. This lasts until the kettle starts whistling. I stomp downstairs and take the kettle off the heat, bang on the bathroom door and issue her with a 4,879th final warning about sorting her bloody tea out without waking me up.
She breezes past to make the tea, perhaps with a derisive "Alright, Dad", and plonks herself in front of the TV. There she will sit, with a hairbrush in her hair as she clasps her mug of tea, and she will absorb herself in absolutely anything that is on BBC Breakfast. She will give the same attention to an update on the Manchester United defensive injury crisis as she will a feature on the decline of the Norfolk duck population. If the TV shows her an image of a child or any form of cute animal she will grin. If the TV shows her an image of either of these in any kind of sad context she may have a little cry. If an irate boyfriend pokes his head around the door she will feign, feebly, a hair-brushing motion or a peer into a make-up mirror.
Somehow, many hours later, she will have done her hair, make-up and got dressed. Then she will begin drifting from room to room in a listless hunt for the items she has scattered around the flat the night before. She will emerge from the spare room holding a sock, and trudge upstairs to get her glasses from the bedroom. Then into the bathroom for hairclips, the kitchen for shoes and living room for her phone. Then spare room for different shoes, back up to the bedroom for a second sock, the top of the stairs for a coat and the living room for a handbag. After a few more laps she'll reach the door and start rummaging through her handbag. She's got her purse, keys, phone, she's walking out of the d...."Oh shit! Where's my Oyster card?" Then back in the flat for a hunt through every pocket of everything she wore the day before, as the Oyster card sits ignored on the kitchen table.
This all adds up to why an early start time is such a disaster. I accept that boys, who only have to decide which of five pre-ironed shirts to wear, have it a little easier. I also accept that things like long hair and face paint are a factor. But the fundamental disorder of the lady brain is laid bare at times like this. Perhaps there's a morning routine efficiency class I could send her to?
Friday, 1 January 2010
Aftermath
We had a couple of friends around for dinner last night to see in the new year. They're married and everything. I cooked a lasagne. It couldn't have been a more civilised, mature set-up.
Woke up feeling like I've been kicked in the head. Empty wine bottles all over the flat. Shards of glass all over the kitchen table. Curtains ripped from the wall and now lying on the floor in a pool of wine.
An enormous sausage sandwich later and I've hidden the wine bottles and dealt with the glass but the curtains will need some sort of professional intervention. All I'm fit for now is The Wizard of Oz.
It's 2010. Bloody hell.
Woke up feeling like I've been kicked in the head. Empty wine bottles all over the flat. Shards of glass all over the kitchen table. Curtains ripped from the wall and now lying on the floor in a pool of wine.
An enormous sausage sandwich later and I've hidden the wine bottles and dealt with the glass but the curtains will need some sort of professional intervention. All I'm fit for now is The Wizard of Oz.
It's 2010. Bloody hell.
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