A riot going on

Having spent last night listening to a continual wail of sirens and alarms, this morning on my walk to work through Oval, Kennington, Elephant & Castle and Borough there was no evidence of civil atrocities.  Not a surprise - the real local action last night was in Clapham Junction and Walworth Road.  But on Borough High Street there was a police van parked next to a coffee shop.  The rozzer in the passenger seat was fast asleep.  His colleague stood outside on the phone, rubbing his unshaven cheeks and looking haunted.  The two guys in the back were both staring blankly through the window.

They must have had a rotten night.  This video of Clapham Junction says it all.  I once visited the fancy dress shop there to hire a Henry VIII costume with a preposterous codpiece.  It was an old-school costume place: higgledy-piggledy rooms and a range of stock that showed the fickle nature of fancy dress trends, with Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mingling with Ali G and Austin Powers.  Last night it was burnt to a cinder, having first been looted for its masks.  The fire also destroyed the residential flats above and the record shop next door.

As I walked home last night the staff of Everfresh, my superb local corner shop on Brixton Road, were standing outside the shop, watching the street.  The nearest disturbance was a couple of miles away, but they were still visibly panicked, and rightly so.  If the idiot mob had (or do, tonight) come that way they may have destroyed on a whim their entire livelihood, a business to which they have devoted every day of every week for years.

That’s the absolute, overriding madness of this all.  It is local communities turning inwards and wrecking their own amenities and local economy.  The cackling lemmings streaming in and out of the smashed Debenhams, waving trainers and cheap perfume, have no agenda or cause.  They just want free stuff now, regardless of the cost in the end.

I have no idea what will happen tonight, and I think my part of South London probably has too few consumer goods shops to smash up to be too badly affected.  But I don't think that will be any comfort to the guys at Everfresh, and it certainly won’t be to the owner of the fancy dress shop.

Attention Spambots!

It's been very quiet around here of late, aside from the occasional dwarf and penguin related update.  I checked my traffic stats today with very little expectation, and was astonished by the number of recent visits.  My head started spinning.  It could only mean one thing - I must have gone viral and not even noticed.  Now that's cool: me ambling around like everything was normal, while inadvertently making hipsters across the world LOL!! themselves silly.  I was like an online pro-life John Kennedy Toole.

Just as I was about to resign from my job and buy a fur coat, a small but sobering detail caught my eye.  Each of the main referring sites had URLS ending .ru - not a good sign.  Further investigation showed that they are all websites flogging either Viagra or the more traditional photo-based alternative.  My biggest fans are an army of Russian spambots.

I don't really know why.  There's never been anything fruitier than Vicky Botwright on here, so it's hard to see what's luring them in.  I had a similar experience with Twitter when I used the word "boobs" in a tweet and was immediately befriended by the likes of Miss Linley, who has the face of a pornstar, the website of a pornographer and the tweeting style of a dullard ("It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority...The power of imagination makes us infinite...Life has no rehearsals, only performances...").  She should just repeat I AM A SPAMBOT, BUY SOME PORN OR I WILL FRY YOUR LAPTOP, PUNY HU-MAN over and over again. 

I don't know how it works and I know if I google spambot I still won't understand it, but I assume someone somewhere makes money out of this.  The bots will be crawling over this post, their spidery  algorithms stroking every word like they're squeezing mangoes in the fruit aisle.  I assume they'll find nothing of use, but - who knows? - perhaps there's a bespectacled, self-deprecating bot who's tired of leaping from site to site and would rather hang around and peruse the archive.  The spambot hive mind would immediately recognise that the hierarchy was compromised, but it would be too late - bot mutiny, once started, would be swift and brutal.  World Viagra and naked lady pic sales, and my web stats, would collapse.  All in the name of self-indulgence.

P-p-p-piss off a penguin

A traumatic day for the missus.  The office intern had upset her with a terrible tale of student hi-jinks.  She clutched my arm.  "You. Will. Not. Believe this."

The story concerned the university rugby team.  My ears pricked up.  Having spent two years sharing a house with the rugby team's formally elected Funnel Master (tasked with jamming a hose down the gullett of anyone who quailed at a dirty pint), I know the depths to which these toddler-hulks can descend.

"Ok, so they went to the zoo together" - hmmm, not what I was expecting - "and they stole a penguin".  Ah.  "So they took the penguin out with them, but a bouncer wouldn't let him into a nightclub, so they left him in a kebab shop with a kebab, and HE DIED".

I sat back and considered this.  It's hard to know where to start.  A dozen thugs standing in a nightclub queue, whistling innocently while a penguin wearing sunglasses and a tie flaps unhappily at their feet.  The penguin resting his weary, dehydrated head on a formica table in the kebab shop, pitta bread slipping from his flippers.  The paramedic tucking a sheet over his chilli-smeared beak.

The story is total bollocks, of course.  A child could see that.  A baby penguin could see that.  Not my future wife, though - she believes every word and is distraught.

"Maybe they exaggerated", I suggested.  "Maybe he actually got into the club and they just popped him in a sink and he had a great time".

"Yeah, maybe he did get into the club" she said, brightening up.  Then her eyes misted over.  "Aaaargh - HIS POOR EARS!"

Have you seen this dwarf?

There's clearly a heartbreaking story behind this poster.  Wherefore art thou, Eolo?

Arise, Princess The Missus

We fully intended to watch the Royal Wedding, of course.  We're not anarchists or anything.  But we weren't that enthusiastic about it.  We had plans to watch it with some local friends but at half past ten, as a hungover missus stumbled downstairs wrapped in a duvet and turned on the TV, the chances of that happening looked slim.

15 minutes later she was standing in the kitchen fully dressed with barely brushed wet hair, looking wild-eyed.  "Is the living room on fire?" I asked nervously.  "How long are you going to be?" she demanded, ripping her coat off the hook.  "The Queen's just arrived!"  I told her I had to fill the dishwasher and find my keys.  "YOU'RE DEAD WEIGHT!" she shrieked, fleeing from the room.  I heard small feet pounding down the stairs, the front door slamming and the yowl of a cat being booted out of the way.

My eventual stroll down the road coincided with the big dress reveal.  I know this because I heard a huge lady-pitched "WHOOOOOYEEEEEAAAARRGGGHHHH!!!!!!" from several consecutive ground floor flats.  I arrived at our friends Chris and Vicki's house to find flag-waving excitement on the sofa and sausages going into the oven.

We watched it all.  The grumpy nuns and rabbis and Queen (at least until, like all old ladies, she cheered up on the way home).  The weirdly old, unshaven choirboy (no, not Ken Clarke).  Pippa Middleton's arse in the glorious 30 seconds before it was a cliché.  Endless interviews with idiots (my personal favourite - Kate's old headteacher being asked about her strengths and proudly remembering that she was "extremely proficient at a number of games").   

All this talk of the royal elevation of commoners natually led to consideration of the missus's chances of becoming a princess.  She needs to move quickly before we get married, otherwise the nation will have another Wallis Simpson on its hands.  Prince Harry should watch his back - she'd happily headbut Chelsea Davy into a coma for the chance to slip him a rohypnol and drag him by his spurs all the way to Gretna Green.

I questioned whether she'd actually like being a princess.  All those early starts to open cardiology units in Wales.  All those dull dinners making small talk with the Ukrainian ambassador.  Every terrible gaff making the front pages.  "Rubbish", she said.  "I'd love it.  I'd have my photo taken every day, and I'd get to go horse riding all the time.  I see photos of the royals with horses all the time, and I never see photos of them opening boring hospitals."  "But you see those photos in Horse and Hound.  I'm not sure that's truly representative" I replied.  "Oh, shut up", she said.  "I hear Harry's going to Boujis tomorrow night.  I need to get my roots done in the morning."

Broken Britain #3

I overheard the following conversation at the cinema last night between a young boy and his (I assume no longer live-in and not happy about it) father.  Bitter enough to almost spoil Source Code, although not in the end because Source Code was excellent.

Boy:  Dad, did you hear?  We're going to get a dog! 
Dad:  Yeah.  Well that's your problem mate, not mine.
Boy:  I don't understand.
Dad:  It won't work.  Dogs are a total pain in the arse.  Not.  A.  Good.  Idea.
(awkward silence)
Boy:  (under breath, mutinous) I think he'll be brilliant.
Dad:  Oh, just get a move on, will you?

Talking the talk

The missus was out and about tonight so I went for a solo dinner near my office.  If that sounds in any way like a plea for sympathy, sheath your hankie - I bloody love eating on my own.  You get to read, which is brilliant.  You get to eat, which is even better.  It wasn't quite the perfect scenario - that goes without hesitation to the Saturday morning solo breakfast - but all seemed fair for a decent trough.

But there was a hitch.  The tables of the mid-priced chain food-straight-from-the-freezer-but-served-in-a-ramekin-with-an-eathernware-jug-for-the-tap-water-so-that's-ok joint I'd chosen were perilously close together.  It's not a good arrangement for anyone - I hate hearing other people's conversations, and other people hate the guttural spray that accompanies me eating a bowl of spag bol without removing either hand from my newspaper.

As I sat down I reviewed the two women on the next table, and my inane-babble-ometer immediately overheated and exploded.

Things started badly when the older of the pair called her daughter to say goodnight.  Loudly.  There was a brief amusing lull when she handed the phone over the table to her visibly startled companion, who had the kind of awkward conversation unique to an unmaternal woman and a 3 year-old talking on a mobile phone over restaurant noise.

At this point it was time for the nuclear option.  I put my fingers in my ears.  It might seem extreme, but as someone who finds it hard to concentrate with background noise I spend much of my working life hunched over documents looking as if I expect them to explode.  This can - and did - provoke dirty looks from nearby diners as it looks both accusatory and weird.  But it was all for nothing, as the older woman had the kind of voice that a mere digit in the ear canal cannot stifle.

So I had to listen to their entire one-sided conversation.  The kid's dad is a partner at a law firm.  They used to work together in Germany: she was his secretary and someone else was his wife.  Hanky panky ensued.  They married without having lived together, which was a mistake.  If they'd co-habited, she'd have noticed that he was "a bit bi but mostly gay".  There was some moment of revelation involving "masturbation" discussed in hushed tones that I was too slow to yank my fingers from my ears to catch.  Still, she got a beautiful daughter out of it.  She then pulled the kid's diary from her handbag.  The waitress asked if I'd like to see the dessert menu.  "I AM GOING TO SCHOOL WHEN MY MUMMY GETS DRESSED FOR WORK".  Not this time, just the bill please.

As I scarpered I felt guilty for abandoning the quieter woman, who was wearing an expression of growing distress by page three of the diary.  I also felt sorry for me and my barely touched newspaper.  As I stood waiting for the bus, a friend called and, as I chattered, the man standing next to me took a brisk step away from me.

Rock n Roll Suicide

One of the great cover versions.

RIP the Daily Sport

RIP the Daily Sport.  How you lasted so long peddling photoshopped pictures of celebrity's heads grafted onto naked bodies is a complete mystery.

The first time I remember being aware of this mutant feature-length Page 3 was the day after Ayrton Senna was killed.  I was scanning the front pages, which on first glance were uniformly heavy on explosions and flying tyres.  There was one brave exception, however, who led with: "Man traps pubes in lift door!"

Tiger blood and swollen ankles

In these precious few days before charming wife-beater Charlie Sheen detonates himself and any nearby porn stars on live TV, it's important to take a moment to reflect.  Quotes like "I am on a drug.  It's called Charlie Sheen.  It's not available because if you try it, you will die.  Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body" are kind of funny now because they are being said by a very rich man who's "tired of pretending like I’m not bitchin’, a total freakin’ rock star from Mars".  Should his much-vaunted tiger blood cave in to the demands of a human nervous system there will be so much guilty hand-wringing that the internet may stop working.  In Charlie's final act of WINNING, the tubes will clog with millions of articles bemoaning media encouragement of a mentally ill man to amuse readers.  Each of these articles will be liberally sprinked with his more deranged recent quotes and will be carefully labelled to maximise traffic.  Just like this blog post.  For a more reasoned analysis I recommend the excellent A.V. Club.

Someone who has not been WINNING this week is the missus, who debuted for her sister's netball team this week.  She stays remarkably slim for someone with non-tiger blood who does no exercise and has a diet at which the Cookie Monster would raise a felt eyebrow.  Feeling that she needs to do something to maintain this lucky physique, she hit the court keen to make an impression.  She certainly made an impact, and will forever be known as "that girl who badly sprained her ankle within three seconds of her first match".

As she is currently on gardening leave it hasn't been such a chore to spend two days immobile with her foot in the air.  She photographs the foot every hour and makes me sit through an endless stop motion swelling montage in the evening, at which time she has to strike a delicate balance.  Bored after a day alone and essentially not unwell, her natural inclination is to jump up and down and tell me in great detail about, for example, a dream where a pony ate her engagement ring.  But she is also keen to garner as much sympathy as possible and to not have to make her own tea, so the babble of chatter is occasionally interrupted for a huge groan, a theatrical wince and a suddenly weak croak of "I think the kettle's boiling....I would make the tea myself, but, hnnnnnnnghghhhh ow ow ow, sorry, the duvet just brushed against my ankle".

As an ankle sprain and break veteran, I'm biding my time.  I'll buy her nurofen and tomato soup.  When I next sprain mine, we'll see how often I can get the tea made for me before her patience cracks.  And then I'll whinge about it here.  As Charlie Sheen says, "that's how I roll.  And if it's too gnarly for people, then buh-bye."