I’m The All-Singing, All-Dancing Crap Of The World

I’ve had my face off and am now temporarily wearing Nicholas Cage’s teeth. Or something more dental and less Nic. Temporary is still the right word though as I am able to open my mouth with slightly more confidence but only thanks to a stop-gap plate before my actual one arrives in a couple of weeks.

It makes a difference to know I won’t feel entirely like a slack jawed yokel freak named Cletus if I chance to open my gob more than a millimetre whilst in conversation with people. I might be named Enos instead (pronounced Anus, as we all know).

I’ve come a-cafeing but continue to shun what used to be my favourite haunt. After several years of hearing the same old bullshit about them fixing their wifi and after realising I don’t actually like their coffee nor do I like much that is on their menu I’ve decided I’m no longer one of their customers. No biggy, they won’t go bankrupt for my personal boycott and this is a city festooned with cafes, many of them with coffees and foodstuffs I do like. Nobody loses.

I’m trying to forge a few new routines for myself. It’s not that I have felt stuck in a rut – if I’m honest the problem is I feel more strongly than ever that Exeter is not where I want to be any longer but the complications of disturbing a life which currently contains great support for my medical issues and some dear friends are not yet worth the risk. If my malaise continues then I may have to throw everything in the air, let the chips fall where they will. Yeah, fuck Martha Stewart, man, sticking feathers up my butt doesn’t make me a chicken.

With apologies to Chuck Palahniuk.

Sometimes You Bite The Bear…

Dear Michael Bond,

You lived quite a long life and hopefully a happy one given that your funny little bear brought the happy to millions. Even a fairly awful Hollywood adaptation of Paddington’s stories couldn’t ruin his reputation or yours. Philip Pullman must be envious of that.

Who’d have thought that a character found on a London train station platform could become so much larger than life? Who apart from Oscar Wilde who came up with the notion sixty or seventy years ahead of you? I see you dropped the handbag motif: the replacement marmalade sandwiches were a touch of genius.

Paddington Bear has been a part of my life for so very long that I am completely unable to recall whether he entered it via the books first or the TV version (oh Michael Hordern and that velveteen voice). Both became staples of my childhood. No, he never quite surpassed Pooh as my favourite literary bear but it was neck and neck for a while.

And now you’ve gone back to your own family in the sky, hopefully well stocked up on marmalade sarnies in case there is a shortage in heaven. Thank you for the mild mischief and the fact that your creation finally convinced me welly boots weren’t stupid after all.

Please look after this fan, thank you.

Steve

 

Fate Holds The Key

The DUP try to solve one of life’s great mysteries

A long, long time ago, I can still remember how that soap opera used to make me puke…Nick Berry of television pointlessness said that every loser wins. In fact he sang it, ladies and gentlemen. Sang it like an alley cat being strangled by a dog with an accordion up its arse.

History hasn’t been kind to Nick Berry of television pointlessness. No longer does anyone care for his faintly gormless grin or his plinky plunky feem toon adaptations. And his cock once fell off when he was hopping onto a bicycle while dressed as a television policeman from the past. Possibly.

But today I remembered him. Remembered how punchable his face was, how much more punchable his voice made his face, how ultra gormless that grin was. And I remembered his Aristotelian contribution to populist philosophy with the notion that every loser wins. Because today I woke feeling like a loser and yet I went out and won at some life stuff simply because feeling like a loser annoyed me.

I’m hoping his other piece of sagacious brilliance is also true and that anyone CAN fall in love as I’ve had my eye on that jackdaw in the treetops for weeks now.

You Gotta Bag It Up

Do bunnies experience happiness and its opposite? Are they sentient to the point of complex emotional responses or do they just bimble about fucking each other and eating vegetation out of instinct?

I’m not a happy bunny today, even if there is in reality no such thing as a bunny that feels happiness. I’m a metaphorical lapine experiencing all too real unhappiness.

Health. Distress. The postponement of yet another dental appointment meaning an even longer wait to be able to feel I can look people in the eye when I speak to them. Grumpiness. Exhaustion. And the knowledge that there is only one episode left in the current season of Doctor Who.

I am a sadsack.

They’re Packed Pretty Tight In Here Tonight

Succeeding at Saturday is going grocery shopping and not murdering anybody. Not even a tiny bit. My Saturday is therefore a success and I have earned the right to laze about tinkering with musics and watching science fiction for the remainder of the day.

Sometimes on a Saturday I like to look at my feet. Not intensely, just to make sure they’re still there, still pointing the right way, still own the requisite amount of toes and haven’t been wearing tap dancing shoes thinking I’m not paying attention. Sneaky things, feet.

Other times on a Saturday I like to write the most significant blog post the internet has ever seen. Or eat ice cream and spend the day in my pants.

Stay In Bed, Float Up Stream

Tiredness. It’s a thing. Normal people get it when they’ve slept too little or overstretched themselves. I get it too, it just takes less stretch to become an overstretch, eats into me even when I’ve managed a few hours of sleep on a hot summer’s night.

So I took the rules of Thursday, screwed them into a tight ball of fuck off and lobbed them into a corner. So far I’ve watched seven episodes of Star Trek Voyager and eaten easily constructed foods. And snoozed. Snoozing is the new being awake. Only snoozier.

Don’t judge me, you’ve got chewing gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe. And you killed the Kennedys. Yes you did, your butter wouldn’t melt doesn’t work with me. Also, butter is yuck and smells weird in the heat. Even though it’s been less heaty today than some of the other days of this week.

Blah blah blah. Imagine I bothered to write about something that matters.

I Know A Whoopee Spot

I did some world today and have plans to do some more later. If I’m honest I’m feeling less courageous about it than I was yesterday when being of the world was theoretically achievable. The practicalities still stump me: connecting my brain with my mouth so that I don’t sound entirely like a self-conscious idiot; trying not to stop completely dead on the sidewalk when somebody coming towards me looks even remotely as though they might invade my personal space; eye contact. And all that jazz.

The world I have already done today had some of that jazz but not all of it. And by ‘that jazz’ in this case I actually mean music as I went to a music workshop at Apple run by my lovely friend Si. Do you know Si? He knows you. He’s got recordings of you on the toilet and we’re going to broadcast them over the top of the Queen’s speech this evening during the news.

I learned some valuable things about the GarageBand app I use to record my music on, including where to find the noise gates to hopefully crisp up the vocals and tighten drums. Aww yeah, just like we did back in them old days of analogue noise making only with digital accuracy. Plus I can autotune my voice to sound like Lady Gaga. But I don’t want to autotune my voice to sound like Lady Gaga. Unless I do a song called ‘Lady Gaga’s Lady Garden’ in which case it might be appropriate.

Si is a clever man. You should get to know him. Then he might not record you on the toilet. Then again, Chuck Berry was fairly nice and he did that too. And in the interests of libel law I should point out that Si hardly ever records people on the toilet. (So aren’t you special?)