Nov 30, 2006

Centenary Learning

So thanks for all the congratulations on the 100th househusbandnot post earlier in the week. Over the last however many weeks/months of clocking up these 100 posts, I have learned:

1) That I can't spell
2) That people tend to read blogs on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays - no surprise there I guess
3) That househusbandnot readers are much more interested in my thoughts on animals than on modern communications
4) That I would like more guest blogs (still waiting for a contribution from blokeihaventseeninages...)
5) That I am now quite capable of holding a face to face conversation with a friend, and saying "as I was saying in my blog the other day" approx 15 times every hour
6) That - equally tosser-like - I have also come to believe that it is socially acceptable to say "Ahh. You don't read my blog do you?" when someone mentions something I happen to have talked about on househusbandnot
7) That admitting that you have a blog instills (and in this order) i) mild amusement that you are so sad ii) (much) milder curiosity about the content of your blog, and iii) (pretty determined) disinterest
8) That however self-validating househusbandnot is ever going to be, it is never ever going to be quite as self-serving as this website: http://www.lightshifter.com/
9) That I have earned 52 dollars in advertising from househusbandnot
10) That knowing your mother in law occasionally reads you blog is not such a bad thing as I originally thought
11) That mrs househusbandnot sometimes actually gets through a whole day without reading househusbandnot - shocking I know, but true
12) That I still hate semi-colons, and (still) love brackets
13) That you get search results for 'househusbandnot' on Google now
14) That I should not post anonymous comments to my own blog, and should probably not admit that I do to anyone other than a decent therapist/time manager
15) And that blogging won't topple governments, or change the way we communicate. It may create monsters, but only tiny little blunt-toothed ones who can't see in the daylight

As a celebration of 100 househusbandnots, I am going to take a few days off. Will be back some time early next week.
Peace hhn x

Nov 29, 2006

Animals x10

As you can see from the various comments to househusbandnot over the last couple of days, my attempts at discussing communications and blogs and stuff are not as popular as my thoughts on animals. So, user driven content-friendly that I am:

My current favourite animals are:

1) wolves: because they hang out and have such as sense of wolf-ness that they never kill each other, and because the reason they howl is that they are so smart they get all their other chores done during the day and have nothing else to do in the evenings
2) badgers (honeyed and otherwise): because they combine looking extremely cute with being the meanest motherfuckers on this planet
3) polar bears: because they are so big and unpredictable, and they can swim and run and stuff
4) elephants: this comes straight from my dad who used to draw cartoons of elephants at the bottom of letters he wrote to me when I was cold and lonely and English in a very cold and lonely Scottish boarding school
5) pigs: because I was down at my sister's place in Kent recently and she has two magnificent pigs who like having their backs scratched with a rake

My least favourite animals are:

1) horses: too big, too many weapons, too skittish, and I've been bitten by them twice
2) snakes: over and above the very nastiness of the snake concept (teeth, poison, hanging out in your bed to bite you, squeezing you to death etc.) this came from my dad too and some bullshit story he had about having had a cobra wrapped around his feet when he was doing his national service in Malaysia
3) tortoises: because they look like snakes
4) pigeons: because you can't go anywhere in London without tripping over one, and they usually have some manked up leg and hobble around like drunk winged rats - usually in your direction
5) guinea pigs: because they are entirely pointless other than as snake food, which lets more snakes survive

I am sorry that I have not had time to find photos of all the above, or indeed any photos of the world's fattest cat or a dog on a skateboard or any other user driven (demanded) content today. But will work on it.

Nov 28, 2006

Let Them Write Cake

"Dude, I've been reading you bleating on about whatever you've been bleating on about for months now. And its been fun. But today's example, about blogging demonstrating the democratisation of access, seemed farcical in the extreme. I would venture that the traditional "real notepads and practised shorthand" journalists, will, with the aid of seasoned editors and experienced sub-editors, provide something informative, well-judged and worth reading. Whatever the presser you went to was about, you didn't manage to tell me about it. I'll bet that the broadsheet hacks who were there got half-a-dozen column inches out of it. But you didn't. Much as I like your daily ramblings, I think it represents a dangerously self-involved egoism to think that churning out 500 words per day on waiting for the boiler dude has much to do with the craft of journalism. The news today -- that people like podcasts but no one actually goes out of their way to listen to them -- would seem to give the lie to the idea that anyone gives much of a flying fuck about blogs et al. Having broadband plus an opinion does not equal democritisation. Blogging is the icing; you are not the cake, dude. "

This comment on yesterday's househusbandnot. I totally agree. As I hit the 'publish' key to yesterday's post, I thought exactly the same thing - well kind of the same thing. (Good memory on househusbandnot though d.u.d.e. You really have been reading it since the beginning haven't you? ) However, I was never pretending that blogging was journalism. I think I was taking three things - journalism, blogging and technology - and trying to make them into two to make a point about communications in general. What I was trying to ask - and obviously failing to explain - was why are all the great opportunities for new communications just being used by geeks rather than 'real' journalists and good information disseminators. If the two sides continue the stand off against each other, neither will move forward.

And who would ever disagree that blogging by definition is ever anything other than self-involved egoism? No deadlines, no editors, no real context, no subs, and usually no readers. How could it be anything else? The real danger is when I/we/they pretend that it is anything else, egged on as I/we/they are at the moment by snipes from journalists, and other misleaders including the fact that we 'publish' our blogs. We don't publish anything. Publishing suggests audiences and process and order and discipline. Blogging is almost invariably none of those things, least of all disciplined. But maybe I was falling into a big old trap called my ego yesterday. I'm not apologing for that. But certainly apologies if it was boring or misleading.

So thanks for the comment. Although I think you are mixing up something with the no-one watches podcasts = blogs are crap argument. Kind of depends on what your et al is really. Although it does further emphasise my point about the mismatch between available technology and how we can use it to be effective communicators.

In amongst all this bolloxing on about communications, I failed to notice that today's househusbandnot is the 100th I have written. I was promising something special to mark this occasion, but all you got was me talking about myself in a vacuum again. Oh, well. Nothing like consistency. And thanks to mrs househusbandnot for a demand for a return to more animal stories. Will see what I can do.

Nov 27, 2006

Stalking..No..Writing And Geeks

Sorry for the delay on the post today. I went out early this morning to a press conference. I didn't know press conferences existed any more. I assumed it was all done by email and video somethinging and podsomethingelseing nowadays. But there they were, real journalists, with their real notepads and their practised shorthand, and their hands up as soon as the presentation was finished to ask their questions. They seemed to get the stuff they needed, but it did all seem a little anachronistic and clunky and..well uncool and untechie.

But I am biased against traditional print journalism at the moment, because I noticed an anti-blogger movement in the papers I read over the weekend, especially from Rachel Cooke in The Observer who twisted herself into a corner by arguing that the only people who should be allowed to write about anything are people who can really write (as opposed to bloggers).

Now I've written before about how crap most blogs are - written and otherwise. So I am not disagreeing with Ms Cooke about the fact that many people who do write shouldn't be allowed to. But I sense a different dynamic here, a flurry of despair and fear that digital communications is breaking down the barriers about who can and should be 'allowed' to comment on the arts or the news or sport or whatever. I disagree with the Google bloke who said the Internet was creating a democratisation of information. But it is creating a democratisation of access to platforms from which people can speak and be heard/read. (I know this isn't a new idea. But the only other thing I was going to write about today was stalkers, so give me a break.)

Good old fashioned human jealousy is written all over this one. Print or traditional journalists are jealous that any old freak with a PC can (ostensibly) reach large audiences with his or her opinions without having had to learn their 'trade' the hard way as a cub reporter on the Oxshott Bugle, rising slowly through the ranks to their eventual reward of a column in a decent national. There is also a jealousy about the money that can be made through digital communications, compared to the modest income of the worthy news hound whose only bonus is a couple of comp tickets to The Lion King and the odd nice lunch. And there is also the absolute jealousy of the lone blogger believing that he or she 'deserves' to be paid to write a column just because they 'publish' a few hundred words every week or so on their blog. (Hence their unfounded and nasty attacks on columnists like Cooke who do have a column.)

Jealousy and fear: that the geeks are taking over. Which as far as I can see they are, and it is a pretty advanced campaign. And the only choice that the Rachel Cookes of this world have is not to go on about decent writing, but to seek out more audiences who can judge whether or not she is a good writer. Writer versus geek is about as useful as geek versus writer. While the two continue to be so suspicious of each other, neither will assist each other in their 'art' and expertise.

(Actually, you know what? Since I wrote this I read that the most ever watched video on the net is of a boy pretending a golf club is a light saber, followed by that Paris Hilton sex tape, and footage of an exploding whale. Maybe I should have stuck to the stuff about stalking. It looks like it is too late to save the net from itself, and the geeks and artists and bloggers who sail on it.)

Nov 24, 2006

Customer Engagement And Free Cocktails

Went to a great party last night. It was the one I was talking about to launch a website, but I was wrong. It was to launch a survey about customer engagement and the "significant gap between what organisations aspire to in order to engage their customers and deliver an optimal customer experience". It is the whole Web 2.0 thing, and how websites need to engage individuals and make them feel wanted and needed and loved and listened to, so that we can sell them stuff - well something like that. (Anyone from my stag night reading this survey will recognise the photo on page three of my mate who 'lost' the front door to his hotel btw. ["The significant gap between where you think your hotel is and where it actually is after an optimal stag night."])

Anyway, it was a cool party and mrs househusbandnot and I had a fun time talking away to a load of web developers - who, it turns out, are actually quite normal people. Some of them even tell jokes and laugh and stuff. And I met some uber blogger who is doing some interesting stuff with NGOs and digital communications , which is kind of what I think I want to do next.

Actually, joking aside, there was a real buzz at this party. I may be completely wrong, and all of the guests were really just interested in the free cocktails and selling stuff under a new guise, but some of the people we talked to seemed genuinely interested in using what technology we do have to improve the communications that we don't have.

Speaking of good communication, I have this list of people in my head that I have been rude to or treated badly, and when I can't sleep I mull over this list and how I should contact them and apologise for my behaviour. And one of these people is a woman who asked me to join her book club ages ago, just after I met mrs househusbandnot. And at the time I spent a lot of time telling mrs househusbandnot that I was joining this book club so she would think I was normal. And I spent an equally long time trudging through that Philip Roth book about if the Nazis has won WW 2. And I went along to the book club, and made a bit of a tit of myself trying to be clever and or...no I was just trying to be clever. And I decided not to go back to the book club, and never contacted this woman to say I was not coming back because the other people in the book club were too clever. Anyway, completely by chance I saw her at the party last night, and really apologised. So one person off the can't sleep/I am a bad person list. Only another 179 to go.

So all in all a pretty cool Thursday evening out on the town. mrs househusbandnot and I ended up going for a Chinese at my current favourite restaurant. And we wandered home, and watched two episodes of This Life. It was like being young again: new ideas; free cocktails; prawn toast; crap TV. Excellent. And mrs househusbandnot aka Obe Wan Kenobi taught me a cool new trick about firing bolts of good energy at people. I'm off to Oxford Street to try it out.

Nov 22, 2006

(Yesterday)

I'm technically writing this last night because I have to be at a meeting pretty early this (Thursday) morning. I'm having a coaching/orientation session with that (real) expert on websites I mentioned the other day, rather than the (virtual) one I was talking about yesterday (well technically this morning). And then I need to get back for the (virtual) launch of a new website (which technically has already been launched a few weeks ago), and then back here for some (real) shut eye, and up again to write tomorrow's (well the day after tomorrow's) blog before the weekend (this weekend that is).

Just to continue the mixed up theme:

1) Here's to Broccoli Man who turned out to be a woman.
2) Here's to my Suffolk-based buddy Bad who called me the other day and said "Hey, I'm just down the (London) road from you, and I don't have time to come and see you."
3) Here's to Styx who frequently fucks with my mind about which decade we (men) should be living in.
4) Here's to blokeihaventseeninages who I now talk to on the email more than most people I see loads, although I still haven't (physically) seen him for ages, but did get to check out what he looks like (nowadays) on the back cover of a (recent) Rough Trade compilation.
5) Here's to a very good friend of mine who is being forced to apply for her own job.
6) Here's to my mate Bid, who I've been thinking about a lot lately, but not bothered to tell him, and I know he doesn't read househusbandnot - so further great male to male communication there by me (a man) using a means of communication I know he (another man) doesn't use to reach out to him.
7) Here's to mrs househusbandnot for not minding that I wake her up in the middle of the night because I can't sleep.
8) Here's to my friend Y.O.U. who has been solicitously calling me to suggest that she and Mc Y.O.U. aka her son aka The Elver come over for a coffee for the last few Wednesdays (today or tomorrow depending on whether or not you still give a fuck about the me writing this yesterday thing), and I've been busy or thinking I was busy the last few times she called, but magnanimously I decided she should come over today (yesterday), but didn't really bother telling her, and waited around for her and didn't bother calling to say I was waiting around for her, and...[sigh] Got any Smiths man?
9) Here's to the randomness of itunes that just pulled up Brighton Rock by Queen when I was writing this.
10) And here's SO DEEPLY NOT to Heather Mills and her I'd Rather Lose A Limb stuff in the news today (yesterday). For fuck's sake woman. Get some dignity.

My New Girlfriend

After all the excitement of the guest blog on househusbandnot yesterday, I spent a few hours with my new girlfriend.

Don't get too excited. She is the woman who reads out some website software tutorials I have signed up to. (You pay a few squid and you can download these audio tutorials onto your PC, and sit there like a plank listening to this woman telling you how to use the software.) Trouble is, the woman who is doing the reading has a really boring American voice - kinda like Meryl Streep before she's had enough coffee in the morning. And there are no pauses in the 'conversation', so it also sounds like this woman has taken some really cheap speed to keep her going, or awake. Well, there are [pause] pauses, but in really strange [pause] places. (I think this must be where she is turning the pages over of her script or [pause] something.) And she can't say 'template' either (she pronounces it 'timplette'), which she has to say a lot because...well there are a lot of templates/timplettes to be discussed in the training.

I can do about three quarters of an hour of listening to Ms Streep Decaf before I have to take a break, partly to see how much I have actually learned of the software, but also to stop myself from falling asleep too. (And there are approx nine hours of this tutorial.) And being me, I get distracted and get to wondering about Ms Streep Decaf's life and if she is an actress who is down on her luck, or the guy who owns the training school's girlfriend, or if she actually wrote the software she is helping me to learn. (She kind of makes out that she is a techie person with a few "Here's a website I created earlier"s and "Take a look at this file I copied the other day"s. And what she is describing is being mirrored on the screen with cursor movements and opening of menus etc., so she must know roughly what she is talking about.) Every so often - usually at the end of a long section - she tries to sound excited by saying something like "And there you go. You know how to copy html now. Go for it." But it just sounds like a social worker telling you you can give up the drugs if you really want to - wooden and scripted rather than really interested or convinced.

In other news...well actually there is no other news. This new website I am working on is taking up a lot of time now. I'm off to do a bit of website networking tomorrow evening at the launch of a website development company's new website. I'm not sure what the evening will entail. I assume there will be a bunch of experts there mumbling about RSSs and their KEIs and stuff, and I'll be shuffling from foot to foot nodding sagely at them while I try not to be distracted by the waiter with the plate of cocktail sausages. And there is also that whole secrecy thing about websites which is a bit of a conversation killer. ("Yes, I'm developing a new website, but I can't tell you about it." And you are stuck looking at this person who might be about to be the next richest person in the world, or just some freak who has put a webcam in his sister's budgie's bird bath. "We are pretty confident that we are going to give Google a run for their money actually. What? Oh, I can't say how." Hey. I'll be over there with the sausages when you do actually have anything you can talk about dude.) We'll see. I'm taking mrs househusbandnot along because this web development company recently interviewed her to create a virtual client profile of her to use in their...well I assume it has something to do with websites. Will report back from this virtual evening later in the week.

Now, where were we Ms Streep Decaf...

Nov 20, 2006

Broccoli Man In Sex Change Shocker

So, Broccoli Man delivered his contribution, and in the process admitted that he is a woman.
So here is her blog:

Random Thoughts On A Long Voyage Home

I cannot stay long. I am on a train hurtling back to the land of the broccoli that I have missed so much. I am tense. I am late and hate hurrying. I look up and see the dark devil clouds of Monsieur Ha Ha glaring down angrily with their huffy puffy cheeks blowing at the poor limp poplar trees of northern France so obviously a pale imitation - yet mutant form - of the fine English broccoli trees we all hold so dear.


I once presented a plastic broccoli monster to Arsene Wenger. He did not understand the gesture. He told me to **** off. Rather uncharitable I thought. It was in a small brown bag too labelled in French. He does not understand anything that man. They lost their next game. Ah ha. The power of the broccoli is with us all. But not him. Amen.

But it is not just broccoli that lures me back to this green and verdant land. Oh no, that would be a lie. It is of course my goat. He is missing. He is called the de friend of the de foe. He speaks Aramaic but understands conversational English. He goes with my beard. Though not in public. He cannot count or draw or sing but he is still very good to me sometimes. If you see him before me tell him I am sorry. He is not a friend of mine, though I owe him some explanation. I only shouted because I was angry.

I am angry often. Not that often. But sometimes when I am frustrated and I see this supposed goat friend of mine chewing at my broccoli plants I have spent months cultivating I come over all dizzy. I feel a fainting fit come on and wake up covered in mud with an injured goat hobbling off before me. He always has the last laugh. Love and loathing crosses my world simultaneously. But I have plans. Plans that will one day cause goat havoc in kebababia. He is a right ShiĆ¢€™ite of a goat if the truth be known. And we all need Sunni times to grow our beloved green bushes.

I am at a crossroads. Help me in my quest. You shall be rewarded. He is three feet tall with horns. He has a black and white coat (that used to be mine) and works part time at UCL. There is a reward if you spot him. Ah Ha. The wrath of the goat seeker be upon him. Let me know and I shall reward you. The green, green bush of my broccoli will be forever yours. Amen

Househusbandnot back again. Madame Broccoli strikes me as 100% nuts but also interesting in a euroagriculturalgypsy way if you know what I mean. I feel she has a novel or two in her. I am assuming she is not the person logging into househusbandnot from Agence France Press. Or if she is, then God help the French media. As payment for this post, I sent Madame Broccoli a photo of me and mrs househusbandnot - which is how I found out she was a chick. My sister has five goats.

Shameless v Emmerdale

Went to see the new Bond movie with mrs househusbandnot on Friday evening. Despite terrible music, it was good movie. But gritty, dark, noireish as all the critics have been describing? No. It just had more than two characters who were not necessarily in love with each other at the same time, and there was more than one plot. When did good become dark?

Then we went to supper with a TV journalist on Saturday, and he was sitting at supper telling us about his new news show. And it sounded interesting and fun and a great vehicle for the irreverent news hound that he is. Couldn't wait to see the show. And so we watched it after supper. But all the great ideas he'd been telling us over supper didn't have so much punch on TV. They were there I guess, but hidden. Not so much dumbed down as a little washed out, bleached back to their basic form.

I guess we get what we want as viewers and listeners and readers, but it does seem that our entertainment - in contrast to the technology behind it - is getting clunkier and clunkier. Everyone thinks the new Bond movie is edgy because it is not quite as crap as all the other films out there. Like I said, when did dark get so easy?

Don't get me wrong. I'll be glued to I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here tonight. I'm not some Guardian-reading elitist, only wanting to watch three hour Paul Morley interviews with Tom Waits, or French language films about the Algerian war. It's just a little surprising that most stuff we watch - or get to watch - is so mediocre nowadays. And anything that is not mediocre is immediately hailed as some sort of trail blaze or reinvention of the form, or brand or character. (Or worse still, a flop.) It must be really disheartening being a techie in the media. "Hey, check it out. I've invented high definition TV". "Great. We can use it for our new reality show I'm Not Famous But I'm Prepared To Get My Tits Out." "Check this out too. We can get the general public to respond to our news stories in seconds on camera". "Cool. Let's ask them what they think about David Cameron's new tie." I don't know. There seems to be a mismatch with the technological opportunity and what we actually end up seeing on our screens.

Maybe it is what we want. All this freedom of access to information is just confirming what we kinda already know: that we are fundamentally dumb and want dumb TV and two dimensional characters and no surprises. ( "Edgy? No thanks. I saw that Shameless once. Didn't understand a word of it. Sorry got to go. Emmerdale is on in a minute.)

Hey, it was just a Bond movie and a very funny, clever friend not being quite as funny and clever on TV as he was at the dinner table. I'm not trying to be Noam Chomsky here. (Maybe I am. Maybe that's the problem.) It was just a few random thoughts. Which being a blogger I needed to turn into a theme. (The only other thing I was going to write about was me hiding behind doors around the flat all weekend, and jumping out Bond-like at mrs househusbandnot while she was trying to do rather more useful stuff like make lunch or call her mother.)

Anyway, looking forward to Broccoli Man's contribution to househusbandnot this week. And also hoping that blokeihaventseeninages will step up to the mark with a contribution too. Themes? Fuckin' anything you want dudes.

Nov 16, 2006

Access No Areas

For aching hours yesterday, there was no public access to househusbandnot. And I could only access it by going through a really stupid amount of logins and sign ups. I am deeply embarrassed to report that I got so desperate at one point that I logged onto one of those user help forums and posted a query about what was happening. ( I know. I know. I won't do it again. It is just encouraging IT gimps to think they are important.)

I still have no idea what the problem actually was , but the following did go through my mind as I was trying to resolve the situation:

1) househusbandnot had been taken down because I had used the words 'stoner' and 'skunk' on yesterday's post
2) Blogger (who host my blog) had some sort of system whereby if you post too many comments as 'Anonymous' to your own blog they punish you by taking your blog down
3) Broccoli Man was some sort of computer expert and had zapped househusbandnot - have still not ruled this one out
4) I had done something dumb when I was mucking around with the blog settings (which is exactly what mrs househusbandnot thinks happened btw)
5) I had been criticising the search engine companies too much and they decided to shut me down
6) Unlike most sensible people who post the odd blog every week or so, my attritional regime of daily posts had jammed the system
7) Or - and I did really think this - that just by thinking about it I had somehow 'created' a new server for househusbandnot which was not compatible to the new Blogger options

I think what did happen was that Blogger are experiencing technical difficulties in their crossover to some new improved system called Blogger Beta or something. So thanks guys for all the heartache and soul searching I went through yesterday just because you wanted to 'improve' your system, which incidentally does require you to relog in every time you exhale, which I don't see as an improvement. (Oh fuck, I'm ranting at my blog hosts now. Good thing it's the weekend.)

Incidentally, Broccoli Man has been in touch and is going to write a guest hhn blog. This from him last night: "Ahem. Broccoli man is still away but has seen your post. He'll be back in the middle of next week and will take up your challenge. Hey who'd a thought he'd be a 'hotblogger'. Ahem, Give me a theme if you want and I will pass it on to his security team for approval. He'll send the article by the end of the week if his demands have been met." Can't wait. Loser driven content and all that (joke). We love you really dude, whoever the hell you are. Any suggestions for his theme welcome.

And excellent end of the week game for those of you still stuck in the office with nil to do for next hour. Styx has been playing it all week and only got 20 so far. Weak, Styxama, weak. (I got two.)

Nov 15, 2006

:@ And :'s

In an ongoing quest to prove that I thought of everything first, I offer you the following in relation to all those annoying :) s and :( s that people have been sending around on emails for the last 10 years or so. :@ which = no friends so just shooting the breeze, and (this is the best one) :' which means I'm stoned, please ignore me, unless you really really (really) want to talk about the time I met that bald bloke from the Smashing Pumpkins and there was like this real connection man, like he'd been writing all those songs about me and Janey my girl, well she was my girl until I accidentally burned out her recently deceased mother's trailer in the desert that night we scored that skunk from the Mexican bloke who used to work in the hardware store downtown.

In other news..actually I want to talk about stoned people some more. My recent assessment of the web and blogs and stuff is that there are four/five active groups using it/them: 1) geeks 2) :'s 3) people trying to sell you stuff 4) people who are looking for pornography 5) and or a combination of all the above. Somewhere along the line we have to factor in the business community and political lobbyists and people looking for nice dates and or who genuinely believe that anyone would be interested in a photo of their newborn child (just for looking at rather than as a view to purchase). But we are dealing with the active and the passive here people. Think about it. Why is You Tube so popular? Er, because it is best viewed by :'s [allegedly].

Which leaves us innocent bloggers with a dilemma. Do we pander to the market, or soldier on with our gentile thoughts on middle class England (or wherever) in the vague hope that our voice will eventually reach similarly-minded people once they have trawled through the discussion groups about coding, and the offers to change our lives with one click and your credit card details, and the :'s' lists of their top favourite ice cream flavours and J Mascis guitar solos.

I spent a fascinating day with a web expert on Tuesday. She really knows her stuff and explained about how all the advertising works on the web, and what connects to what, and how you get Google to love you etc. But there is this dilemma of writing to attract advertising or writing that does attract advertising. I should say here that househusbandnot has only ever been about me writing and never about trying to make money. I happen to have made approx enough out of the advertising on hhn for a couple of those J Mascis CDs and a large tub of Triple Chocolate And Space Cookie Ice Cream, but that was very much chance rather than design. The reason I was meeting with this web expert was around this work I am doing for mrs househusbandnot and a new site which is looking to make money through advertising etc.

But the more I am learning about the web, the less and less it seems such a great emancipator or provider of objective information. Eventually, everything will be so searched and tailored and filed and provided, that it all be like one small library, run by extremely tough librarians who will only let us read the books we are supposed to read. And the geeks and the :'s and the people selling us stuff and the pornographers will find the connections and the ways in and out, but you and I will be stuck at the back of the library with our shared copy of Look And Learn.

:@ x

Broccoli Man

In response to the comment yesterday about guest spots on househusbandnot, no I am not going to ask mrs househusbandnot to do one, but I was thinking yesterday that Broccoli Man (you know who you are) should get a chance to have his say. As far as I can tell he/you 1) has/have been reading househusbandnot for a while, and 2) is/are getting annoyed that I have started editing/not including some of his/your comments. Dude, you're up.Send me your post for any day you want in the coming week, and I'll post it on househusbandnot. (Send me your email address as a comment to the blog - I won't share it with anyone else - so that I can send you my email for where you should send your copy. It's kind of a cyber I'll Show You Mine If You Show Me Yours.) If I don't hear from you by next Wednesday, I will assume you don't want this opportunity to share your world thoughts with the vast (hem hem) househusbandnot readership. Your choice dude.

While in such a magnanimous mood (It is pretty easy to give away a little part of nothing), blokeihaventseeninages the offer is out to you too. As a loyal reader and commentator, I feel you deserve it. You've got my email.

(househusbandnot clicked the publish post button on his PC and moved from his heavy mahogany desk to look out of the floor to ceiling windows of his Thames penthouse. Smoothing a tiny crease from his Hermes tie - a gift from David Cameron - he stood and looked across the London skyline and down onto the streets where insect-like commuters where hurrying to their offices.

For a man who had so much, it felt good to be giving the common man a piece of the action. His finance people had said it was a bad idea, that guest posts might affect his market lead. His marketing people had muttered about Bono's guest editorial at The Independent. But househusbandnot was not a man used to listening to caution and fears about what other people had not achieved. He knew he was doing the right thing. He knew that he must give other people the chance - if only for one day - to say what they thought about the penguin/badger wars. Idly, he wondered if any one of those scurrying commuters down on the London street was Broccoli Man, a person whose life was about to change forever. If people wanted user driven content, then that is what he would let Broccoli Man give them.

househusbandnot moved back to his desk, and punched the intercom. "Miss Goodbody, can you get me a secure line through to our people at Google. And tell Mr Gates and Mr Murdoch I'll be down for their presentation in a few minutes." )

Nov 13, 2006

Mea Styxia

Thanks to Styx and his comments about how men and women watch TV in a different way yesterday, I appear to have tumbled into that place where I should offer some househusbandnot thoughts on the differences between the sexes. The theory is that I now provide some fine-tuned insight and wit into the differences between men and women, and we all laugh some and love each other a little closer.

I don't think so. On our first ever car journey together, mrs househusbandnot (who was then newgirlfriendwhois) bought an audio tape of Men Are From Mars Women Are From Venus for us to enjoy on the journey. We got through about four minutes of it - the tape rather than the journey. Every other article I read keeps trying to prize the sexes further apart with some more frazzled and overcooked pop sociology about the differences between us. The first ever piece of writing I got paid for resulted in me getting hate mail from American support groups for men who were traumatised by having been circumcised, and from London women's health groups who said I was being sexist. (It was my line about comparing female circumcision to male circumcision being like comparing rape to masturbation that got those good ol' boys and serious London women trembling with anger.) And I also have three sisters. So, I am not adding fuel to any of more Mars/Venus fires. Like star signs and The Daily Mail, it just gets in the way of better communication.

Actually, I really would like to have something clever to say about the differences between women and men, but I don't have much to say...

...other than agreeing with Styx about the watching TV thing, and wondering why women always want to turn music down, and think June Sarpong is tarty rather than a fine TV journalist, and don't get how wrong it is to fancy Gordon Ramsey, or that girls' nights out only ever end earlier than boys' night out because women don't have as much to talk about, or the fact that you not bothering to wear a jacket was as a direct result of her saying the other night that she loved you whatever you looked like, or that there is a direct correlation between her doing five clothes washes in a row and you not being able to find anywhere to dry the wet clothes with the fact that you don't live at Blenheim, or the fact that you and her friend's husband who is 'trouble' have a good time when you meet up at weddings is a bad thing, or you telling her that the hot chick over there came over and talked to you while she was at the bar is some sort of insult to something rather than you being honest, or the fact that you...or that...hey, alright, I've got it. How many really really decent female guitarists are there out there anyway?

I'm off to Oxshott to learn how to design websites. I'll be the bloke on the train reading Grazia.

Read All Unabout It

As is often the case nowadays, I felt a lot less knowledgeable and informed after I had read the Sunday papers yesterday. I read that Bush is scrabbling around trying to save his face, that here in the UK the Labour party has hitched onto the idea of the 'mid terms' because they can't think of any other vehicle to distance themselves from any of the many unpopular agendas they have promoted to date (or lately anyway), and that Britney Spears' ex husband allegedly taped them having lots of sex on their honeymoon and wants a zillion dollars for the tapes. I think I could have guessed most of all this without the guidance of our Sunday sages and columnists and editors and reporters and snoopers. (Actually, I think the snoopers are the most legitimate. At least they are trying to give us information we didn't have before we opened their newspapers.)

Every weekend, mrs househusbandnot and I feel duty bound to trawl through acres of print, but we never feel we have actually learned anything. (Three full pages on David Hare? Did anyone other than his family really have time to read all that?) Am now considering a pro-environment anti-newspapers stance to see if I do actually fail to keep up to date with the news if I don't read newspapers for a while. I'm guessing I would miss out on the occasional celebrity death, and maybe not know who the shadow minister for snow is going to be this winter, and on more ping pong journalism about our world leaders, but I reckon I would still be able to hold my own at a dinner party on current affairs etc.

Actually, that's the problem with the Sunday papers isn't it. They are looking to give us enough information to get away with gentle dinner party conversations, to appear informed, and opinionated, and 'political', and 'cultured', without educating us in anything other than the most subjective and middle class manner. Serves me right for reading middle class newspapers I guess. Or for expecting to get anything other than what they are offering.

Maybe I am looking for information/entertainment in the wrong places. I borrowed a fistful of CDs from Styx after our lunch on Friday. Going through them will be much more exciting that reading The Observer music supplement. And the latest leaflet from the Jehovah's Witnesses kicks off by asking me to "Picture the scene. A harlot is sitting on the back of a fearsome beast. The beast has seven heads and ten horns." Now there's something to get you thinking. (mrs househubandnot, if you are reading this, I haven't converted I promise.)

Actually, to some extent I blame my dissatisfaction with the Sunday newspapers on househusbandnot. I now know exactly how easy - and hard - it is to write something about nothing.

Incidentally, excellent lunch with Styx on Friday. We went to a Scandi-Eastern European restaurant called Baltic, and drank vodka cocktails and had a long discussion about how men and women watch television in different ways. Best news feed I've had in ages.

Nov 9, 2006

Man As Child As Rock As...

In a new Man As Child moment, I got told off last night by mrs househusbandnot for being rude to that anonymous commentator who wouldn't shut the (*&^ up about broccoli in his comments to househusbandnot. I survived this stinging ignominy by spending a large part of the evening wandering around the apartment with my hands in pockets, occasionally picking my nose, and doing V signs at mrs househusbandnot when she was not looking in my direction. (I'm grown up like that.)

Actually, mrs househusbandnot has been above the call of duty reasonable this week, because I have been writing this website for her, and calling her every five minutes at the office asking how to spell stuff and asking whether or not she thinks such and such should be incorporated into the site. (It is one of the problems of working on for your lurver. You know you should just get on with it, but you also know that you can pull a favour or two in from the missus by getting advice and guidance without looking like too much of a twat.)

I met a bloke the other night who has been working with/for (depends who you are asking I guess, although his business card was a bit of a give away with his wife's name about an inch and three quarters bigger than his on it) his wife for three years. At first he was quite cheery about it, but after a few drinks - well one - he admitted it was a nightmare and they argued all the time.

Now, I am not expecting to work for mrs househusband much beyond this particular website writing project, but it did get me a bit depressed for this bloke having to go into the office every day and have a bad time with his wife, and visa versa for her too I assume. Surely* if we live and eat and sleep and cuddle together, we should also be able to work together? Or am I missing something here. Do we really all become such tossers the minute we get behind a desk that even our partners can't forgive our behaviour. I can feel a bad Daily Mail article coming on here, but shouldn't we be able to work with our partners better than with anyone else?

*People should only be allowed to use that word when they are really really drunk. It sounds really feeble sober.

But the more I think about it, the more I can't see any harmonious wife/husband or partner/partner working relationships. David Furnish seems quite happy, but I'm guessing that's because they have separate offices, and there is a limit to how much you can argue about...er whatever they do together. Oh no, he is a successful film producer in his own right . Now let me remind myself about his successful films. Oh yeah, Tantrums And Tiaras. (Actually, I met him a while ago before he got so famous, and he was an incredibly nice guy, so I'm just playing to the Friday crowd here David. Honest.) Just about every other female film star seems to be married to a film producer, but I'm assuming that that is just because film producers are the only people who can afford to be married to female film stars. ("Honey, I've bought you a new Mercedes for Xmas." "Oh. I, er, made you this papier mache egg. It opens and everything. Look." It's not happening really is it.)

There is all that behind the scenes stuff about wives or husbands being the 'rock' behind their partner's successes. But I don't buy that either. I just think that they probably aged worse, and no-one wanted to see them at parties anymore. Or they are genuinely a rock and really boring. Or they are just 'rock'ing too and fro from all the scotch they have drunk on those long evenings alone in front of the tv waiting for their partners to get back from the office.

I realise I am boxing myself into a corner here by looking to offend as many different people as possible, but hey it's Friday. And mrs househusbandnot liked the stuff I wrote for her website. (We did actually have a semi-serious conversation about working together once, but all we could agree we wanted to do together was run a wolf sanctuary.) On which note, off to set the world to rights over lunch with Styx. Will report back Monday.

Oh, and anonynmous bloke I was rude to. I know how boring it is trying to get hold of your wife on the phone. So no hard feelings. (Fingers crossed infinity plus one times. Didn't mean it.) hhn (aged 6)

Nov 8, 2006

Search Me

Spent all day yesterday glued to the web, like some mad Estonian hacker or Berkshire pornographer. My web time was actually on less criminal activities, looking for ideas for content for this new website I am writing. As to whether or not looking at existing stuff out there will generate suitably fresh and new and sticky content for my site remains to be seen.* But I live in alchemist's hope.

But, fuck these is a lot of crap out there. I had a middle aged woman talking at me from my PC about how she could fulfill my dreams - professionally rather than pornographically. And I downloaded a 28 minute mp3 which was designed to make me more relaxed and happy and successful. (It actually just gave me a mild headache and general feeling that gun laws should be relaxed in this country.) And I was asked to subscribe and buy and read and contribute and watch and listen and..well just about everything other than just jumping head first into the screen of my PC with all my credit cards on me.

Like watching day time television, after a few hours on the web I think you lose the will to be part of the same species that creates all that crap, coupled with a vague feeling of loss and hunger and fear (and the gun law thing again - in some mild desire to actually be in charge of your own destiny). Eventually I just ended up doing searches for completely random groups of words like 'butter and tennis' and 'self help and sausages' and 'France and valour' just to see how random the whole idea of trying to relate everything to everything really is. (Don't bother with any of these searches by the way. You will probably just get redirected to here. Like I said, there is a lot of crap out there. And the ever-attentive Waunch has just reminded me that this game already exist in a slightly different form as google whacking.)

And when you do do an entirely normal and legitimate search, you just get a young Eastern European girl offering to rub herself with the noun you used, and some survivalist in Utah telling you that you have not really thought about the political ramifications of the verb you used. It's just all a bit too random, and governed by the monster search companies who want me to want them to design my life for me. At least with microfiches you could make that amusing swishing noise when you were scrolling through the pages. And in libraries, you did have that relief of going outside to fart every so often.

The whole personalised search option that Google has come up with is all very well, but could easily just turn the web into a self-validation tool. (househusbandnot to self: "Oh, I need to know about life. I'll search househusbandnot. Ah, there we go just as I thought. Badgers did rule the world just after the dinosaurs froze.")

I'm sounding like an old git now, which is one of the things I do try and avoid on househusbandnot. But by the end of yesterday, my eyes were spinning like Dr Seuss's drugs dealer, I felt deeply less informed than when I started, and I tried to click on mrs househusbandnot when she got home from work to go and get me a glass of wine. And I have to do it all again today. Roll on Web 3.0 when I am in charge.

*Brian Eno was right. We have all become editors.

Adventurer Reaches Covent Garden Shocker

Hooked up with blokewithlotsofjobs last night, and went to a book launch for Benedict Allen's new book which is all about how you survive in extreme situations. After a very dusty introduction from his editor or publisher, Allen recounted some of his tales of being shot at by headhunters in the Amazon, and being abandoned by his guides in the Rain Forest hundreds of miles from any sort of civilisation, and falling down an abyss with his pack of dogs in Siberia.

It was all very British self-deprecating stuff, and made all the men in the room shuffle a bit about how boring their lives are, and most of the women in the room probably fall in love with him. Allen concluded with some rather random - but fuck it, he's been there so I believe him - thoughts on the fact that it is only belief that gets you out of such dangerous situations. He seemed a really cool guy. blokewithlotsofjobs - one of which is teaching at Bath Art School - wants to get Allen to go down to talk to his students to shake them up a bit and get them thinking beyond getting a job with MTV or designing DJ Shadow's next album cover.

And then blokewithlotsofjobs and I went to a really terrible pub in Covent Garden and drank a few warm pints of watery lager and talked about how expensive houses are in London and whether or not life coaching can really change your life. Sitting in that nasty pub seemed a pretty pointless urban experience having just heard about Allen's adventures. Don't get me wrong. There was no epiphany. I'm not about to set up an expedition to the Amazon or go and try and find a lost tribe in South America. But it did remind me that there is a little more to life than London and nasty pubs and mildly pissed Austrian tourists smoking cheap cigars over half-eaten 'pub grub' fish and chips that looked like it all came out of the same packet. When did Covent Garden get so 70s again? Maybe it's the Christmas decorations.

I imagine Allen goes to pubs, and sits next to Austrians, and worries about what he does. But - very much in the mad Brit tradition of it's there so it needs to be done - he struck me as someone who really knew what he was doing, even if he does manage to get almost killed every time he goes travelling. I was a little disappointed that he sells himself as a motivational speaker on his website, but I guess adventurers need to earn their living in between adventures. And unlike a lot of motivational speakers, whose literature I have been researching for this website I am writing (Don't ask. I'll tell you when the site goes live.) he does actually appear to have something to talk about. And some experiences that are worth learning from, one of which was just a gentle reminder to me not to go back to Covent Garden for another decade or two.

Nov 7, 2006

Friends Count

"househusbandnot?" "Yes darling", I said, knowing that since mrs househusbandnot was using my proper name I was probably in trouble. "Your blog was crap today. Your stuff on penguins and badgers didn't work." I knew this. So sorry about yesterday's post.

In my defence, although I don't feel particularly attacked - well I do, and by my most constant if deeply caring critic aka mrs househusbandnot - I did give you the teaser about the 100th househusbandnot post which by my calculations will be on 29 November. Any suggestions for content for this portentous post back to me please. I'm thinking something in 100s. Maybe 100 words I hate [or 100 you can't spell, Ed], or 100 things about me (although someone else has done this recently and the last 57 were really dull), or 100 things I have learned since I started househusbandnot, or 100 things not to talk about in blogs. I am sorely tempted by my 100 favourite songs of all time, but I have already dissed people who do this on their blogs. Like I said, any suggestions welcome.

100 is a lot though. At one stag party I went to a while ago in San Diego, two friends had made up 100 either or questions for the groom on their flight over from London. By the end they were really stuck and doing things like 'Chicken or Salmon?' having just been asked that question by the steward handing out lunch on the plane. I don't think they were reduced to 'Aisle or Window?' but it was close.

Although I don't know how many 100s of things I have actually done. Certainly smoked 100 cigarettes, and drunk 100 glasses of wine. And cooked 100 meals. And eaten in 100 restaurants. And died a 100 deaths in job interviews. Bill Wyman-unlike, I have had nowhere near 100 girlfriends. Maybe I could do 100 friends, with brief descriptions of each of them. Have I had 100 friends over the years? Despite tell tale sign that I am Billy No Mates in shape of fact that I have a blog, I must have.

Actually, speaking of friends, mrs househusbandnot and I were talking last night about the whole first year of marriage thing (which we are still in - just) and how friends get lost along the way in that first year: because they are too busy with kids; or because you are no longer the single person that they could invite to dinner parties to plod next to the other single person they know; or because you and your wife/husband/partner don't really fit together as a foursome with their wife/husband/partner; or just because things have changed and no-one can be bothered to work on that change.* I am an arch anti-sentimentalist - for which read I am deeply sentimental but try not to be - so try not to worry about these things. (And please don't think that I am going down the I Don't See My Friends Anymore Because Of You bleat at mrs househusbandnot, because it is simply not true. Anyone who uses that argument shouldn't be married and or doesn't really have any decent friends in the first place.)

Maybe I could do the 100 list in multiples of 10s? But then it will just be..er 10 lists of 10 things. Or maybe...well I don't know. But will think about it.

* Ironically, the two of my pre-marriage friends I thought would not necessarily get on with mrs househusbandnot are her most fierce and loyal fan-base, regularly berating me for not buying her more diamonds and not worshipping at the temple of mrs househusbandnot morning, noon and night - which can be a bit of a pain in the ass. ("Yes, I know she is wonderful. I know she is gorgeous. Haven't you had enough to drink? Yes, I know she is the one for me, and if I hadn't met her I would be a gibbering fool. Yes I promise to get a tattoo of her name on my forehead. Can we go home now.")

Nov 6, 2006

Positively Addicted

Having only briefly read The Sunday Telegraph this weekend, I have very few thoughts on current affairs, so if you are looking for hot news debate I suggest you go elsewhere this morning. I was pretty surprised that Ashley got voted off X Factor. And pleased that the yak that Prince Charles was given on his Asian tour is going to be saved from being barbecued. On the honey badger versus penguins debate that is dividing househusbandnot readers across the land, I'd go with honey badgers on the finding honey, being mean, gnawing through ropes duties, and the penguins on the standing very still in the cold, looking like a bloke in tails, and speed typing sort of jobs. In a straight fist/fin fight, I'd have to go with the badgers. If there were weapons being used, I'd back the penguins. Don't ask me why. I just think honey badgers would go blasting away the minute they got their paws on any sort of weapon, while penguins would be more patient and thrifty with their ammo stores. Oh, and I had fun at my friend The Waunch's various 40th birthday parties over the weekend. But that is as topical as we are going here today.

After the various bolloxing ons I engaged in with househusbandnot last week, I was amused to see that the google ads at the top of the blog this morning were on a guide to 'Saving Your Relationship: 10 Secrets To Get A Man Positively Addicted To You For Life'. I don't really know how they assess the suitability of these ads, but I am guessing that they were just worried about mrs househusbandnot this morning, and wanted to extend a getaway plan for her before I disappear completely into my fictitious blog world.

Actually, I almost forgot to write househusbandnot this morning. I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing, but I was quite surprised it didn't eve occur to me until a few minutes ago that I a) had a blog b) needed to write it c) would have to think of something to say about something this morning. I am kind of engaged with this work I am doing on a new website, so am going to get on with that this week - in between urgent further comments on yaks, badgers, penguins, and anything else that catches my attention in the coming few days.

So no news is good news, because I want to get on with the website now. Will be around this week though, if slightly less engaged in househusbandnot than usual. Am planning a special 100th edition of househusbandnot in a week or so too. SO stick around.

Nov 2, 2006

Being Watched And Castrated By Badgers

Yesterday there was a report saying that the UK now ranks up there with China and Russia as being really really interested about what its citizens are up to, on the streets, on their phones, and on their PCs. Apparently, we are living in a 'surveillance society' where we can get photographed up to 300 times a day, and where our every movement and click and call is being monitored.

There was some guy, billed as a "Private Watchdog" (for which I guess we should read really paranoid bloke that no-one would employ) saying that he has warned two years ago that here in the UK we were "in danger of sleep-walking into a surveillance society". He was obviously quite proud of this sleep metaphor, because he tried to extend it to yesterday's report findings by saying we are now 'waking up' in this surveillance society. (It didn't really work second time around.) And someone else -actually it could have been him too [wow conspiracy theory] - was going on about the fact that the world should be ruled by people not machines designed to track our every movement.

Am I missing something here? Why the surprise? If you have the technology - which 'they' obviously do - the temptation to use it must be too strong for anyone to resist. ("Hey check out this camera. It can take a photo of a car number plate from space." "Oh, don't use that. It's probably an infringement of someone's civil liberties." "How about this one that sees through walls?" "No, that's illegal in Canada.") I am surprised that it is as few as 300 photos a day. And really surprised that anyone is so surprised that 'they' are watching us as closely as technology - and the 'war on terrorism' - can let them get away with.

Anyway, speaking of people who probably need to be watched closely, who is the maniac who thought honey badgers didn't exist? (See the comment to yesterday's post.) Why would I make up an animal? (And what is the thing about broccoli? Is it a sex thing? Please don't respond if it is.) Having been recently accused of being an unreliable animal witness, I am a bit touchy about me and animals. But please be assured, honey badgers exist. And they are really really mean. They castrate buffalos. There are reports they have done it to men too.

Right I'm off to be photographed a few hundred times. Have a good weekend.

Nov 1, 2006

No Comment

A little disappointed that no-one had any comments or responses to my Us? Judgmental? post yesterday. Mind you I spend most post-posting hours being a little disappointed that so few - aka nil - people have responded to househusbandnot. And when people do leave comments, I usually end up being rude about them. (Probably explains mrs househusbandnot's desire to drag me to a life coach asap.)

I am assuming my observations on couples were so spot on that they did not require any comment. Or a little more realistically there are too few hours in the day for you to: check your emails, do your jobs, re-read your emails, read househusbandnot, do some more work, call your friends, do some more work, and send a comment to househusbandnot. Hey, I'm not bitter out here in blog Antarctica. Penguin-like, I will march on.

Actually, I've been doing a bit of thinking about househusbandnot, not least of all because I am doing some real work at the moment, so time spent on writing househusbandnot has actually become measurable against time I could/should be spending on other real writing. But how come I got more visits to the Animal Theories Edit the other day than any other of the 70 odd posts I've written to date? What's the frequency on this? All I did on Animal Theories Edit was make up a - quite funny I thought, I admit - gag about wildebeest trying to get out of that monstrous annual migration aka how to die by running around Africa by pretending to be goats. And my 'readership' doubled. (Incidentally, did you see David Attenborough on that TV awards thing last night? What a cool bloke. I often wonder if that myth about the Queen and his brother is true. The one about Dickie being knighted, and the Queen saying "No not that ghastly little man. I meant the nice one with the animals.")

I guess there is that Do What You Want To Do Rather Than Trying To Guess What Your Audiences Want To Hear dynamic, so I should not be actively trying to write stuff that I think will get hits. ("Actually, way before Google approached me about You Househusbandnot, I just wrote it for myself really. No, no I really did. Funny isn't it how... [takes large sip of gin and pull on hand-rolled Cuban cigar, before asking butler dressed in hhn-monogramed tails to tell Puff Daddy that if he must crash yet another househusbandnot pool party that he should at least TRY and produce a decent record]...how it all works out, eh? Does Banksy have to bring that elephant to every party he comes to? Oh God, here comes Timberlake. Artist, artist coming through. What? No, I don't write it any more. We have a factory in Mumbai where they do all that now.")

mrs househusbandnot is trying to get me to be more 'political' in househusbandnot because she read somewhere recently that the big thing at the moment is political blogs. But - like most politicians - I don't have anything very interesting to say about politics, and I find political 'commentary' a little too smug and self-serving, as in just filling up the page with personal opinions..hmmm, maybe mrs hhn has a point on this one.

In vaguely related news, I was in a bit of a Send Some Love Out There mood last night, so I sent an email to this edgy guy I had a bit of a falling out with last year. (There are two sides to the story, but let's just say I am sure a few sessions with a life coach would have sorted it out.) Anyway, he sent me a response to my email saying "I know what you've been up to. I've been reading your blog." It sounded like a threat. So maybe I shouldn't worry too much about the no comments. Otherwise I might really find out what y'all really think of househusbandnot. I will stop here, before I take my blog self to a whole new level of self-validation and navel gazing. Oh no, toooo late...

Us? Judgmental?

A very old friend of mine was asking me last night about what it was like to be part of a couple. (He has watched me over the last decade or so, careering through some pretty pointed and pointless affairs, working around the world in order to - in part - avoid any sort of commitment to anyone or anything, falling in love with married people, feeling entirely elated and tested and ignored and paralysed and everything else by relationships, and then hitting a fast lane to absolute married bliss with mrs househusbandnot. So he knows my deal is what I am trying to say.)

He asked me the same question a while ago before I had a blog - and was not quite so convinced about the sweet tune of the sound of my own voice. Then, I just said: "It's great. People have to accept you as normal, as part of the majority. I feel I can walk around John Lewis now without getting arrested."

But my mate was asking me again last night, because he knows - as we all know - that the real deal about being part of a couple is that you can ponce around town judging the fuck out of anyone who is not part of a couple, and or judging other people's relationships (harshly) against your own (perfect) one. And to any coupled up person out there who is reading this and pretending that they don't do this, put your had on your heart and tell me you have never said any of the following to your wife or husband or partner:

1) "I just don't get why they are still single."
2) "They would make such a great father/mother."
3) "I hope we never talk to each other like that."
4) "That was a very short skirt she was wearing."
5) "They deserve each other."
6) "I'm not getting involved. If they can't communicate with each other, then they should get some counselling or something."
7) "It's not like they would ever do anything about it."
8) "Why don't they just have children?"
9) "I knew it wouldn't last. I saw him looking at your breasts when we were there at Easter."
10) "It must be so lonely being gay."

I wish I could say it wasn't true, but it is. Fundamentally, we (couples) are on some monstrous high horse, judge and jurying our way through everyone else's lives and lifestyles and choices. We can't help it. It is just too much fun, and self-validating. And anyway, what else have we got to talk about? Having said all this, mrs househusbandnot will now come home tonight and say she has been thinking about our relationship, and has decided to run off with the noodle steamer at the Wagamama's near her office. ("No, he hasn't read your blog.")

In other news, after my yes I am a porker confessions yesterday, the google ads thing at the top of the blog flashed up an ad for discount log cabins. Hey, guys. I'm different. But I don't need to go hide in the forests yet. I want to spend a bit more time in Couple Town.