I'm not a poet but, buddy, I know it

I want to be a journalist in the 50s. I want to toil away on a battered old typewriter, wreathed in blue smoke. I want slicked-back hair, horn-rimmed spectacles, rolled-up sleeves and red braces. I want to stick it to the government. I want a liver like a pin cushion and a 40 a day habit sucking on unfiltered cigarettes. I long for the glamour of a by-gone age where men were men and women said ‘Sure’ in breathy voices, thick with Brooklyn tang. God dammit, I want to call my friends ‘fellas’, I want to knock back large scotches in badly lit bars.

As much as I love living in the shiny twenty-first century, complete with slick chrome surfaces and frosted glass, there’s a part of me that longs for metal filing cabinets and battered wooden desks. For whirring ceiling fans, white noise and static. Days long gone, almost forgotten. One blusey note fading away to nothingness.

Good night, and good luck.

Tap Dancing Elephants

I never intended to use this blog to describe what happened to me on a day to day basis. I wanted to use it to note down the thoughts which these events inspire. Some entries are musings, some are heightened versions of real events, and some are completely random and divorced from anything approaching reality. However, for a rather amusing and factually accurate account of my last week then I would check out the awesome literary stylings of Shoelace in Balls to Monty.

Here is what I learnt this week, in no particular order:

1. Spending time with another couple is fun and kind of reassuring.
2. Spending time with a friend of prodigious talent and sparkling wit is reviving and encouraging.
3. When staying up to 4am doing battle with evil international spies, tread carefully, you may wake the neighbours.
4. Writing a screenplay is equal parts heaven, hell and madness.
5. There are several ways to wound a man holding you in a bear-hug from behind.
6. Shoelace can cook any food in any style.
7. The pizza place is farther away than I remember.
8. Chocolate production is chiefly undertaken by small, brown beans with arms and legs who live in a magical chocolate world lorded over by a deranged parrot and sexually-aggressive bunny rabbit.
9. A good sofa, one that makes you glad to be alive when you sit on it, can transform a room from mundane living space to AWESOME ENTERTAINMENT PARADISE.

And finally ...

Gentle readers, please join me in congratulating the frighteningly intelligent and unfeasibly sexy Red as today she collected her MA in Colonial and Post-Colonial Cultures. Most people couldn't even understand the title of her course, let alone run rings around the country's educational elite in pursuit of said qualification. On top of everything, she was the highlight of the graduation ceremony, sweeping onto the stage to grand applause and performing a highly dramatic stooping bow direct to the audience before engaging Lord Attenborough in such lively conversation that the whole event ground to a halt for the duration. Inevitably, this sterling performance of academic joi de vivre provoked a ripple of good-natured laughter and a second, much deserved round of applause. As so often with Red I wanted to shake my head in embarrassment and simultaneously leap to my feet and proclaim my love. In the end I was just happy to see her honoured for all that she is and all she has achieved.

Life with Red can be mortifying, inspiring, challenging and rewarding. It is also never dull. I am so glad to have her with me.

This is her day. I hope she feels the potential that suffuses every particle of her being and looks to the future with both hope and determination. One day, very soon, she will achieve great things; there is absolutely no doubt in my mind.

My girlfriend will change the world.

A Thought ...

"See, I'm fully willing to honour "Valentines Day" as long as the female in question honours "Naked Nintendo Day"."

Bash.org, people. Quotes for the noughties ...

Fun with Photoshop

The Gang

Under a vest

I was arrested the other day.

Okay, back up, tone down, start again.

I was stopped by the police.

Better, truer, come on, elucidate.

One thing about being a white, straight, middle-class male is that you rarely get looked at with suspicion (another is that you are always in the demographic that's oppressing the other, smaller demographic - oh to be in some kind of minority). This is why, on the whole, it was rather a refreshing experience to be stopped by the police. Actually I think the guy was rather taken aback by my enthusiasm on being detained.

Picture the scene, there I am, merrily making my way through the barriers at Waterloo when a rather kindly looking policeman approaches me with an apologetic look on his face.

'Hello, sir' he says, smiling a little sheepishly.

'Hello' I smile back enthusiastically, giving him an encouraging wink.

'Could I have a look in your bag, sir?' and before I can answer 'I have to, you see, sir. I count up to five and every fifth person I have to ask.'

'To look in their bag.'

'Yes, sir.'

'What if they don't have a bag?'

'Then I don't ask them, sir.'

'Lucky them. Do you ask the next one or do you count another five?'

Pause while he looks at me. I chance another wink. 'I was rather hoping I could look in your bag, sir?'

'Yes. Good point. Well ... go ahead.'

'Sorry about this, sir. It's just every ...'

'Fifth person with a bag. Absolutely. I understand. Don't worry about it, I'm rather enjoying being called 'sir' actually.'

'Yes, sir' He scrabbles around in the bag for a moment 'Well, that all seems to be in order.'

'You've missed a bit.'

'Pardon me, sir?'

'You've missed a section. Of the bag. There's a front bit. Plenty of room for a bomb in there. There's a zip at the side.'

'I see. Um ... is there?'

'What?'

'A bomb.'

'No.'

'Good.'

'Would you like to see?'

'I suppose it couldn't hurt, sir.' I open the front bit and he has a quick look. 'There we go. Nothing of interest there, eh?'

'No, sir.'

'Unless you like Maltesers.'

'As you say, sir. Now I need to take down some details ...'

He then proceeds to note down my name, my address, my age, my height, my build ('proportionate'), my self-defined ethnicity ('really very white') and what I'm wearing. I wonder why all this is relevant and if I'm being charged with 'possession of chocolate whilst on a GI diet' but he seems happy enough with my answers. Tearing off my copy of the information he wishes me well and sends me on my way. I can't resist one final comment.

'You must meet some interesting people with this job.'

'Sometimes, sir. Sometimes.'

And then I'm gone, down the escalators, into the depths of the earth.

My hands are still slightly trembly...

My hands are still slightly trembly…

This is because a couple of hours ago, I had to wade in (well, toddle, really, there was carpeting rather than water) and break up a fight in my workplace. I’m sure our readership can picture the scene- about six young men of rather tall persuasions (or maybe everyone looks tall when you are 5”4), and little old me bumbling on in… One of them had just finished attempting to integrate his friend into the plaster on the wall and was repeating the process with the aforementioned carpet when I came on the scene, with highly persuasive declarations of pacifism… ‘what on earth do you think you are doing? I won’t have any of this!’ with much animation, of course.

Funnily enough, they all stopped and looked very contrite (suitable for all occasions, see…). I was quite chuffed. I’ve never even seen a real fight before, just silly shoving matches between drunk people, and I wasn’t entirely sure I had the capacity to wield that much authority… but life is full of surprises. Talking to a colleague, she mentioned that her tried and tested method of breaking up rumbles is to shout ‘Sausages!’ at the top of her lungs… By the time people have figured out what she’s shouting about, they’ve stopped.

I’ll have to try that next time.

Oh What a Lovely Blog

Listening to: Nizlopi - Half these songs are about you - Much more than just singing about big yellow diggers. I'm loving this album - I love the lyrics - part five year old, part literate genius. And they're eclectic and quaintly over-produced like the best groups that cut their teeth doing acoustic gigs. It's like - oh, all these new toys to play with. This one makes me sound like I'm in a big echoey cavern, cool, lets put in an electric string section. Bless and also, kudos.

Had a lovely weekend with Red and although the purpose of this blog is by no means a dry record of events, I feel I must commit to binary that during the course of the last few days we've:

Eaten out at the kind of restaurant that piles the food artfully upwards in a tower with mashed potato as the foundations and long, thin pillars of chive for decoration. (The Green Room)

Watched a cult, piece of theatre where the audience gender ratio is 20:1 against me (The Vagina Monologues)

Spent nearly a whole day in our pyjamas (My Flat)

Been out to a dank, underground pit to hear angry young men strum guitars and teach us cockney rhyming slang (The Barfly)

Breakfasted at a popular coffee shop and lectured the barrista on the importance of buying fairtrade (Starbucks)

Additionally I've:

Spoken in a ridiculous accent for two hours (Brideshead)

Watched a preview of the new Disney film about an alien invasion of anthropomorphic chicken land (Chicken Little)

Come over all Brechtian and sung music hall songs (Oh What a Lovely War)

So there we go. How's everyone else's weekend been?

Foamy Armpits

It occurred to me today that my Deodorant and Shaving Cream bottles look exactly the same.

I fear the consequences.