Tis The Season...

...to be:

• For Leona from X Factor to admit she is a bloke, and Ray to admit he is a woman
• Questioning David Cameron's tactic on calling for an election the minute Gordon Brown comes to power, because it is actually making us visualise the possibility of Cameron being a Prime Minister rather than a jumped up Smiths fan, which is a visualisation just a little bit too far
• Everyone - and anyone - to stop using the word 'mandate', unless it's actually in the context of having a date with a bloke
• For Pop Bitch to name some names
• Admitting that Google will one day soon inherit the Earth
• Cuddling badgers
• Loving mrs househusbandnot for having to hear me say "Have you read the blog" a hundred odd times since the summer
• For someone to design a hybrid car that doesn't look like an egg box
• Fewer articles about women and binge drinking
• Buying the news Secret Machines album, if only because the first track is called 'Alone, Jealous And Stoned'
• Stopping smiling inanely at the postman you've been ignoring all year in the hope that that Amazon package under his arm is for you
• That one mince pie to remind ourselves why we only ever eat one a year (dead flies, bleah)
• More lists
• For Elton John to slip gracefully out of the public eye 1) so we don't have to keep seeing pictures of him looking more and more like an old Cockney barmaid 2) so we don't have to spend any more time thinking about David Furnish
• Peace
• And not blogging...

...I'm off with mrs househusbandnot to Kent tomorrow, and then on to the in laws for Xmas. Will be in touch some time after that. hhn xx

Just as a final sign off before Xmas, and in response to a few comments about me not wishing my readers a Merry One, I thought about it, but thought it would sound pompous. But..happy Xmas dear readers: to Styx and Mrs Styx, to blokeihaventseeninages, to Bad and his family, and The Waunch and Mrs The Waunch, to blokewhohasloadsofjobs and his family, to the bloke in Hawaii, to whoever it is who signs in from Lehmann Brothers so regularly, to everyone in mrs househusbandnot's office who still bothers to read househusbandnot, to Rem Blagger Not Blogger Bartelle, to all the honey badgers of the world, to Jim It Was My Gag About Leona Owen, to Eel man and his wife Y.O.U? and The Elver, to Madame B, and to any other f(*&(er who was sufficiently inquisitive - or just bored enough - to drop in on househusbandnot HQ over the last few months. May your Christmas be full of good cheer, decent presents and suitably few sightings of Jimmy Carr aka I'm Not Funny on your TV. See you soon. x

PS I didn't get that contract I was interviewed for. They gave it to someone who had already worked with them. So a special Xmas fuck you with bells on to them. May they get the communications strategy they deserve.

Lady Cheeky Of Romania?

Sorry about the no show yesterday. Was getting ready for that interview this morning. Which was okay, I think. There is a limit to how much detail I want to give about it, but suffice to say that it was pretty obvious that the two people who were interviewing me 1) had two very very different takes on the same project, and 2) probably don't share too many Xmas presents with each other. It is very odd being interviewed for a communications job by two people who pathologically can't communicate with each other.

It is between me and one other person now, so we shall see. I think I did okay, and didn't dissolve into a sweat ball or talk too much rubbish. Like I said, we'll see what they decide. mrs househusbandnot did a valiant job last night being nice to me...Hang on. That was what was supposed to have happened. Actually, she spent early evening telling me off, mid evening telling me off some more, and end of evening stopping me from eating chocolate. Love is tough love too I guess.

Anyway, had a good lunch with Styx on Friday, where we sorted out women's body dis morphia, drink driving (Styx: "I'm just going to stop driving"), the state of English cricket (which took approx four seconds), relationships with the in laws over Xmas, calvados versus brandy, and Styx's future career. A good introduction to the Xmas holidays. Kind of an Xmas office party for me and Styx I guess, except without those miserable paper hats or anyone we didn't want to talk to. (Actually, there were a bunch of Styx's ex colleagues in the same restaurant who seemed very keen for Styx to join them for a drink. But he managed to avoid them, although they did end up in the same pub as us after lunch, so Styx made me find him a way out of the pub through the summer beer garden so he could avoid them. It was like being his minder.)

In other news, was extremely entertained to read alleged reports that Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik is dating one of the Cheeky Girls. You couldn't make it up could you? I predict career movements in opposite directions. (That other political femme fatale Bienvenida Whateversheiscallednow married my sister's godfather when he was a politician. Lembit, sort yourself out mate. And if it is love, then make it so - tough or otherwise.)

[What a completely random blog today. Must be a hangover from the interview.]

My Sisters' Animals

A bit too busy at the moment, with website, and Xmas stuff, and also preparing for a job interview next week (well it is a contract for three months, but still counts as a job interview I guess).

Am tempted to tell you about my Xmas shopping yesterday, but it was not interesting other than buying my Danish brother in law a Swervedriver compilation, which I hope he enjoys as he drives to work in the snow where he lives with my sister in Northern Denmark. He was once almost killed by two stags that ran into his car. It's kinda wild up there. As neighbours, my sister and her husband and kids have a slaughter house for pigs on one side, and a mink farm on the other. I don't think they have a village idiot where they live, but it's the kind of place that would/should have one. At the local kindergarten, they strap the infants into their prams and leave them outside in the snow if they misbehave. The next door village is called Dark. Randomly, my sister has become an active trade unionist out there. They recently bought a dog that turned out to be half wolf.

Actually - on the shopping - mrs househusbandnot was not very impressed with what I bought everyone, most of which was CDs. She asked me if I was trying to depress my 11 year old godson with Neil Young and Jeff Buckley, and wouldn't let me send my other (also 11) godson the best of Ian Dury And The Blockheads. (Xmas spoilsportis.) Will try and make her listen to Swervedriver comp as punishment.

Anyway, as far as I am concerned Xmas shopping completed, so just need to get through job interview next week, and off to (another) sister's place in Kent for a few days before Xmas. Enjoyers of animal stories that you all are, you will be interested to hear that my (Kent) sister is spending this morning trying to persuade her magnificent two Black Spot pigs to move from one enclosure down the field to another one. She thinks she has it sussed with a trail of butterscotch Angel Delight. Being about the size of small bungalows, I hope the pigs don't go off trail on their transfer. I'm with her on the Angel Delight. Pig heaven, no?

And my (third) sister sent an Xmas request yesterday for a book called How To Tell If Your Cat Is Gay.

Off to have pre-Xmas lunch with Styx today, which should be fun. Not sure where we are going, but hoping there are not too many Xmas office parties going on where we end up. I do find people in those paper hats deeply deeply depressing.

Quick One

Thanks for your various comments yesterday about what to do with balls of string over the Festive holidays. (And there was me trying to go a bit high brow with my visit to Tate Britain. I should know my audience by now I guess. )

Anyway, I have spent all morning ballsing up this website I am working on, so don't have time for anything else today I'm afraid.

Just wanted you all to know that I had not disappeared under a ball of string or anything.

Will be back some time tomorrow

hhn x

Random Marmosets

Had an itch for some culture yesterday, so headed off to the Holbein exhibition at Tate Britain. When I got there, I was offered a combined ticket to see the Turner Prize exhibition. Never one to miss an opportunity to sneer at pretentious art, I got the combi ticket deal, and headed into the Turner Prize expo before the Holbein.

The Turner Prize lot were less pretentious than just weak. Most of the works were badly made, and badly thought through. The sort of thing you would expect spoilt children to do. There were some wooden sculptures of strobe lights (yawn), some very sub-Beuys clay sculptures and boxes (lazy), a film of some Greek bird talking about how her soon not to be husband left her at the altar (whatever), an office with real people working in it (conceptual , huh?), and the winner of the Prize Tomma Abts' paintings (like wallpaper, although quite nice wallpaper). The best bit of the show was the last room where the walls were covered with cards and pencils for people to leave comments. The best comment I saw on these cards was one that said "I AM SEX". That Brian Sewell just can't stop himself can he? (Mind you, my mate Styx said his 12 year old son loved the show, which is good enough for me, if not for taking artists as seriously as they seem to be taking themselves the minute they get some critical attention.)

Having left a plug for househusbandnot on one of the comment cards, brought a couple of Opie fridge magnets for mrs househusbandnot, and checked out that new Chris Ofili installation - the blurb for which said it "raises questions about the relationship between civilizations and untamed nature, and between religion and the secular [And you know what? It did too.] - I checked out the Holbein show.

Which was excellent. The show was about Holbein's time as court painter to Henry VIII, but some of the portraits looked like they had been painted last week, rather than 500 odd years ago. Although I really noticed a difference in how Holbein painted men and women. The men all stare out at you, bold and knowing and brave and characterful, while the women all look like Matt Lucas in a wimple. I guess this had something to do with women's portraits being less important than men's, or some sort of idealised form of female beauty. Seems odd that it should be Matt Lucas though, although it would explain why all the men did so much drinking and deer hunting and being at war and hanging around with hawks on their arms. Anything to avoid the missus.

There were a few portraits too of Erasmus (see above), who was some sort of champion for Holbein when he turned up in England. Erasmus was also - as anyone else other than me who had to translate his diaries from Latin into English at school already knows - a desperate name dropped and general self-congratulator. ("Spent today with my good friend Sir Thomas More and his charming family. Later, in the garden, I read to the More family from my Handbook Of A Christian Knight, which everyone so enjoyed. I am now waiting for a barge to take me to my next appointment at the Palace. I wonder what I should read to the Court. How lucky they are that I exist." Tosser.)

And some good comedy animals too, namely in two paintings called A Lady With A Squirrel And A Starling and Boy With Marmoset. Apparently, the squirrel was in the lady's coat of arms, and the starling was a pun on where she lived. I guess the marmoset was just there when the Holbster turned up for the sitting . ("What? Me? No I'm not busy. I was going to chase my own tail after I've eaten these nuts, but other than that I didn't really have any plans. In a painting? Imortalised in oils? Sure. Why not.")

Back in the real world, thanks to the commentator who invited me to their Xmas party on the proviso that I go dressed either as Emma Bunton or a large dog. Very househusbandnot. I'm there dude.

Despite Appearances

"Pole up my ass, eh? You seem a little touchy at my suggestion that Friday's list of 'dogs, togs and yogs' was less than vintage HHN. But I apologise: I hadn't realised that the only function of HHN was to make three specific people laugh. I was under the impression that it also involved self-validation, the democratisation of communication in this brave new digital age and giving shelf space to broccoli-obsessed nutjobs. Now that I've been ticked off, I shall, of course, keep my thoughts to myself. "

This from an anonymous commentator after I was complaining yesterday about his previous comments about Friday's post. Am I getting too touchy about comments to househusbandnot? I thought I was just carrying on the conversation. I do genuinely want people to send comments to hhn. So I guess I should be nicer to anyone who does bother to do so. So, sorry. Will try and be less pole up assey myself re comments. (I have taken the comment moderator option off by the way, so at least I am not censoring them anymore.) But I did think the A-Z of blogs was funny. The one about Johnnie Boden made me laugh for about 24 hours. So there's the self-validationing covered - again.

I can't really get out of my confession that I do write hhn to make three people laugh. I was thinking it was a good focus exercise not trying to be something for everyone, and keeping a consistent 'voice'...sorry, just had to get up from the keyboard there to remove (different) pole from (same) ass. And mrs hhn was one of the first people to complain when I was banging on about modern communications, baying from her office across town for more animal stories. (She doesn't think I do, but I do listen to what she says. From "You need to comb your hair before you go out. You will scare people" to "Your blog was boring today", I'm down with what she has to say about me, and my hair, and my blog [even if she is still not talking to me this morning because I wouldn't let her have 'tux' in scrabble last night].)

So, despite appearances, I am trying to be responsive to comments and thoughts on hhn (hence comedy dog photo above), even if they are mostly from mrs hhn and my friend the 'anonymous' commentator from yesterday. (I thought I knew who he was, until who I though he was sent me the above photo saying it wasn't him.) As to reaching wider audiences with hhn, I need to give that some more thought. mrs hhn says I need to be more 'political' because she read somewhere that political blogs are getting the largest audiences. I tried that during the Labour Party conference in the summer. But I just ended up slagging off the Labour front bench for how they looked, rather than about what they said. (Incidentally, I was reading that David Cameron went to a Morrissey gig the other night. How very sad on so many counts. I do find Cameron's I'm Just A Q-Reading Bloke Like You persona really irritating. A musician friend of mine spent some time with him recently. Apparently he knows deeply little about music. And all that wanting to discuss role images in rap music with black rappers. Give it a rest Vanilla D.)

So, the main points of the news this morning:

• househusbandnot apologies to his critics


• househusbandnot in does listen to mrs househusbandnot shocker

and

• David Cameron should stick to what he does care about, which is..er...hmm...well...er...

Symmetry And Snakes

Got an anonymous comment concerning Friday's A-Z of blogs list: "I'm truly mystified as what the point of that list is, apart from making me to lose the will to live. I was hoping for some thoughts on Jackass II."


The 'point' of the list - as is the point of any househusbandnot post - is to try and make mrs househusbandnot and Eel Man and his wife laugh. No more, and no less. Although the anonymous commentator obviously got the less not finding it funny. (Actually, I know who it was, and suggest he gets the pole out of his ass because I know he will have found the symmetry of the A-Z listing pleasing and some of the blog names amusing.)

Speaking of symmetry, I am this morning right back to where we started in June or July with househusbandnot, and waiting around for workmen again, which is fundamentally the very dullest of dull ways of spending time. They are already half an hour late, and I need to be back out at Oxshott for another session with that web expert as soon as possible this morning. I guess the difference between June and now is that I will not be hanging around the flat while the workmen do their stuff. But it all seems a little too familiar, sitting here waiting, and waiting and...waiting some more.

Oh well, at least we will never have to hear Ben from X Factor ever again, unless we inadvertently find ourselves at a Joe Cocker tribute evening.

Incidentally, Jackass II was excellent, although not as shocking as the first one. I guess we are used to it all now, although there were some pretty serious snake pranks this time around. I'd recommend it for a little pre-Xmas fun.

The A-Z Of Blogs (Literally)

I was talking to a (female) friend the other day about blogging, and she said: "Blogs? Aren't they just men's diaries?" Now we've been down the 'men are all scum and a lot of men blog so blogs are anti-women' line of argument in the summer here at househusbandnot. So let's not revisit that one. But my friend's observation did get me thinking about what people think of blogs, and how one half of the world is blogging away, while the other half - and this is not a gender split by the way - are blissfully unaware of all the thousands and millions or words of blog bollox that are being made available to them every day.

Which got me thinking about the sell, and what an actual crap word 'blog' is, which got me thinking up another househusbandnot list, this time on different forms of blogs:

Aogs = blogs with lots of Greek classical references in them
Blogs = men's diaries
Clogs = completely pointless long blogs
Dogs = crap blogs, or porn sites pretending to be blogs
Eogs = blogs written by egotists (as if there are any other types)
Flogs = blogs with too many adverts all over them
Glogs = blogs written by people when they have had too much to drink
Hogs = blogs written by people who think they have all the answers to everything
IOGs = blogs written by people who use loads of acronyms but never explain what they are
Jogs = blogs that are so bad that they remind you that you have not cleaned the oven lately
Kogs = like Clogs but written by Danish people
Llogs = like Clogs and Klogs but written by Welsh people
Mogs = blogs whose sole purpose is to try and rewrite that Nick Hornby book about music in a slightly amended form
Nogs = blogs with food recipes on/in them
Ogs = blogs written by stupid people
Plogs = political blogs
Quogs = blogs that are too complicated to understand
Rogs = blogs written by people who genuinely believe that anyone could be interested in how much they love their girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband/child/dog/cat/alligator/right hand
Slogs = blogs which are probably really useful and have interesting stuff to say about how you can hook up your ipod with your mobile phone to send free text messages to the original members of The Band, but are really really boring
Togs = Johnny Boden's blog
Uogs = like Clogs and Klogs and Llogs but written by stoners
Vogs = vague blogs
Wogs = [think we'll leave that one out]
Xogs = porny blogs
Yogs = blogs about yoghurt, or misty weather
Zogs = blogs written by people who have not actually done the think they are writing about but are pretending that they have to: impress their girlfriends, please their wives, sounds clever/worldly/brave, get more hits etc. etc.

See you next week people hhn aka The Clogger

Univited

Really failing to the get into the whole Xmas thing this year, despite - or perhaps as a result of - visits to Oxford Street to buy presents. Even the little Xmas wool hat on my smoothie bottle failed to get me Xmas pumped.

Usually by this time in December I am out citizens arresting anyone who is not wearing a santa hat or tinsel as a scarf, forcing anyone sitting near me to listen to my jingle bells ring tone, slugging back gingerbread lattes, and glued to the HollyOaks Xmas special (Well, that has a little less to do with festive celebration, but let's not get into that one. [I confessed to mrs hhn that I quite fancied Emma Bunton the other day. The chill in the air over that one is still waiting to rise.]) But just can't get into it this year. It just all seems a bit pointless and gaudy. But now I am breaking one of my rules about blogging: that one shouldn't use blogs just to complain about things.

On the up side, mrs hhn's website that I am working on is looking v good. mrs hhn is taking a decent amount of time off over Xmas so we can hang out (and I can continue Spice Girl-related penance). My - soon to be patented - goat wool worm duvet appears to be keeping our 1,000 little friends warm on the balcony. And I don't have to go to an Xmas office party. (Obviously the worms and I are planning a little session with a few beers and cheese straws, but it's more a social than office thing.)

Actually mrs hhn has gone to her Xmas office party today. Being the deeply tasteful and glamorous women that they are, she and her colleagues are avoiding any Xmas tat and heading straight to Zuma for champagne and delicate Asian fusion snacks to celebrate their first year in business. For those of you who have not been there, Zuma is a *&^%ing great restaurant, probably one of the the best in London. I did offer to go along, arguing that I am theoretically working for them at the moment, but was ceremoniously turned down on account of being spotted as the enormous ligger that I am capable of being when vintage Saki and great Japanese food is on offer.

But it is a deep relief that I don't have to go to any Xmas office parties. They remain the most miserable of affairs, with the HR team huddled around the food table like they've just got out of prison, and all of the people from finance trying to convince you they do have personalities, and your boss looking even more sinister than usual in his paper hat, and the only two vaguely attractive people in the whole office leaving early - together, and you ending up going for a drink with the security guard who admits to you that he didn't talk to you all year because he thought you were a poof. Bring on the beer and cheese snacks and my manure-generating buddies.

To shake of my scrooge-like feelings, am off to see Jackass 2 this evening. Nothing like watching a man being run over by a bull to get you into the Xmas mood.

Skodas And Shark Skin Loafers

Some comments while I have been off-post for a few days:

"So have you gone on a 2nd honeymoon? mrs hhn must pay well. Is that really where you went on honeymoon? I always thought mrs hhn would pefer something more intellectual than white beach and flake out style holiday. Just guessing of course, based on her loving animals from cold places etc. What you going to do for a job now? Any good news ? I have just ordered Xmas on the internet. Very rewarding, even the Turkey, veg, prezzies, the whole lot. Probably end up with all my credit cards cloned and a 1996 Skoda delivered in Folkestone."

And:

"That is not the one and true Broccoli Man. The REAL Broccoli Man is here: www.broccoliman.com Perhaps the she-broccoli-man is a fan? After all, Broccoli Man is world famous, perhaps even galaxy famous, and is running for US President in 2008. Campaign will be posted soon. You can view his appearance on the Food Network (however brief) as well as his unaired non-appearance. He has also met George W Bush and Jesse Ventura (see the news footage on the web site) and has been interviewed on radio stations across the US and appeared in three magazines in three countries. He has some videos on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=broccoliman Check it out! Of course I'm sure the REAL Broccoli Man would be happy to supply you with an article. He is running for President in 2008! "

Have not had a chance to check the real broccoli man link, but bring on an article dude. The more the merrier.

Me? Been away at a wedding (no, nothing to report on that other than a new benchmark for best man's speeches as to whether or not mrs househusbandnot's cleavage gets a mention in them - which it did at this wedding). Spent a few mellow days out of town celebrating our first wedding anniversary - well mellow punctuated with calls from mrs hhn's office. Sadly it was not a second honeymoon, but a welcome brief respite none the less. (And yes, we did go to that beach for our original honeymoon. mrs hhn is indeed a woman of great intellect and enquiry, but a beach is a beach. And every evening, a two foot reef shark swam right up to the edge of the water to see what we were up to. Magical. For you star fuckers out there, apparently Patrick Cox stayed at the same villa recently. He made the shark into a natty pair of loafers for Bono.)

And very excited about this new website I have mentioned I am working on for mrs hhn's company, which will be up and running and busting all competion's asses in the very near future.

More tomorrow.