...and Madame B is complaining that she is the only one working. Nonsense. The Waunch is busy trying on different bandannas and leather waistcoats in anticipation of heading off to see Bruce Springsteen this evening. Styx and I are busy trying to work out where to go for lunch on Friday. *&^ is...well whatever. mrs househusbandnot is clearing the decks for drinks with her team somewhere in The City. blokewho is still trying to figure out how to comment on hhn since Google changed the rules AGAIN. (Guys, there is progress and refinement, and also TO MANY changes to process.) And Anonymous is into his fifteenth hour of wearing his new scarlet gimp mask in training for a full 24 hours lying in the urinals of Liverpool Street Station on New Year's Eve. Busy? We are off our feet.
In other news, everyone - except for us - getting animated about me and mrs hhn heading off to Kenya on 30th a few days after elections there. Seems there is often civil unrest of some sort around elections, often after it. We have discussed this in a rational manner, and decided to go ahead with the trip. We have also agreed to spend a mammoth seven days on the trot with my family and then mrs hhn's family over the Xmas period, so will be prepared for any sort of hostage experience in Kenya after that. (I suspect the food would be better too.)
Actually have mother in law descending on London this Friday. She wants to take her daughter to Covent Garden. Again, good training for any kidnap deals in Kenya. It will be hell on earth out there. But my mother in law is not one to be swayed by opinion - indeed resistance only makes her stronger. (And she is a bit too arch for any double-bluffing, especially when she has a retail target in her sights.)
I was going to do a big hhn Xmas quiz with a prize of those spare Kimono My House tickets. But not sure I will have time. Will try before Xmas. But if it doesn't happen, take consolation that I am probably out buying mrs hhn her xmas presents, of which more about in the New Year. I told real house husband what I was buying her the other day, and he laughed for approx 20 minutes.
Peace (in our times) hh(ho ho ho)n x
PS Was discussing with The Waunch the fact that the spellcheck on my phone accepts both Burlington and mdma. Who decided these things? Freddie Windsor?
Dec 19, 2007
Dec 18, 2007
Dec 11, 2007
Conditionally Accepting
In other news (I'm just going to ignore Madame B on the pull again), for various reasons went to visit an animal testing laboratory today.
We saw a seven kilo rabbit called Claus. We were shown 27,000 zebra fish, and some marmosets, and mice, and rats, and guinea pigs - all doing their quiet sad thing for medical research. The people who showed us around were all deeply nice and good. (They are called animal technologists, and they don't do the research, just spend as much time looking after the animals as possible, and reporting researchers when they think they are distressing the animals too much, or not understanding the animals' needs.) It was all...
....I don't know really. You read about it all the time. And think you have opinions and moral limits and ethical concerns about animal research. And seeing the actual animals and talking to the people who actually look after them was provocative (not least of all when one bloke - and I swear this is true [like everything else on hhn btw] - saw that I was standing on the wrong side of the sign warning people not to stand there because that is where they keep the radioactively-tagged mice).
The guy who runs the lab really really wants a new frog system (it is what you keep frogs in). He also taught me a great new word: `phenotypic'. The saddest thing I saw, or heard rather, was that animals who have not yet had diseases or drugs put into them are called naives. Telling that the science community can describe something that has not yet taught THEM something as naive, or that naive could be considered a lack of having an administered disease or drug regime.
Actually one of the other really telling things on this whole weird day was when we were being given a talk about the rights and wrongs of animal testing, and the presenter said that the general public were on the whole `conditional acceptors' of animal testing. What a ridiculous euphemism. I would conditionally accept looking forward to death, or drinking snake blood, or having my (*&^ trapped in the doorway, if the conditions were constantly having my (*&^ trapped in a vice, or drinking snake poison, or having my (*&^ and my (*&^%$% trapped in a door covered in snake poison. I would conditionally accept that hhn is the greatest contribution to moden day raportage if I thought anyone was dumb enough to believe me. I would conditionally accept that I was a looney if enough people told me I was. I would conditionally accept that I was a better dancer than Prince if I had drunk enough tequila.
And another speaker, who was obviously brilliant, but spent too much time telling us how often he hung out with Ministers.
I'm sounding like I am against animal research, which I neither am or am not. It was just very very interesting seeing where it happened, and who did it, and who looked after the animals, and the animals themselves. Sorry to put a downer on the whole Xmas thing, but it is what I did today, which is just about all this blog is about I guess.
We saw a seven kilo rabbit called Claus. We were shown 27,000 zebra fish, and some marmosets, and mice, and rats, and guinea pigs - all doing their quiet sad thing for medical research. The people who showed us around were all deeply nice and good. (They are called animal technologists, and they don't do the research, just spend as much time looking after the animals as possible, and reporting researchers when they think they are distressing the animals too much, or not understanding the animals' needs.) It was all...
....I don't know really. You read about it all the time. And think you have opinions and moral limits and ethical concerns about animal research. And seeing the actual animals and talking to the people who actually look after them was provocative (not least of all when one bloke - and I swear this is true [like everything else on hhn btw] - saw that I was standing on the wrong side of the sign warning people not to stand there because that is where they keep the radioactively-tagged mice).
The guy who runs the lab really really wants a new frog system (it is what you keep frogs in). He also taught me a great new word: `phenotypic'. The saddest thing I saw, or heard rather, was that animals who have not yet had diseases or drugs put into them are called naives. Telling that the science community can describe something that has not yet taught THEM something as naive, or that naive could be considered a lack of having an administered disease or drug regime.
Actually one of the other really telling things on this whole weird day was when we were being given a talk about the rights and wrongs of animal testing, and the presenter said that the general public were on the whole `conditional acceptors' of animal testing. What a ridiculous euphemism. I would conditionally accept looking forward to death, or drinking snake blood, or having my (*&^ trapped in the doorway, if the conditions were constantly having my (*&^ trapped in a vice, or drinking snake poison, or having my (*&^ and my (*&^%$% trapped in a door covered in snake poison. I would conditionally accept that hhn is the greatest contribution to moden day raportage if I thought anyone was dumb enough to believe me. I would conditionally accept that I was a looney if enough people told me I was. I would conditionally accept that I was a better dancer than Prince if I had drunk enough tequila.
And another speaker, who was obviously brilliant, but spent too much time telling us how often he hung out with Ministers.
I'm sounding like I am against animal research, which I neither am or am not. It was just very very interesting seeing where it happened, and who did it, and who looked after the animals, and the animals themselves. Sorry to put a downer on the whole Xmas thing, but it is what I did today, which is just about all this blog is about I guess.
Dec 10, 2007
Thank God It's Not Christmas
(Have been reading a long long Brian Eno interview this morning, so may suggest that you read hhn while banging an Italian bell slowly and naked shortly.)
Although in no less surreal - if less oblique - news, (*& and I managed to buy each other exactly the same xmas present this year. What is the likelihood of that, considering all the things we could have bought each other? Who would have thought that two friends could separately - and togetherely - come to the conclusion that the other one needed a ticket to see Sparks perform Kimono My House in its entirety in March. Amazing co-incidence huh? (Actually it pretty much happens most years with (*& and I. Not the Sparks thing. But the same presents thing. There are - after all - a finite number of Sparks/Eno/Jay McInerney/Andy Warhol-related gift ideas out there, especially at Xmas. And I think (*& and I are just about the only two people in Europe who consider Kimono My House a seminal album.
Although in no less surreal - if less oblique - news, (*& and I managed to buy each other exactly the same xmas present this year. What is the likelihood of that, considering all the things we could have bought each other? Who would have thought that two friends could separately - and togetherely - come to the conclusion that the other one needed a ticket to see Sparks perform Kimono My House in its entirety in March. Amazing co-incidence huh? (Actually it pretty much happens most years with (*& and I. Not the Sparks thing. But the same presents thing. There are - after all - a finite number of Sparks/Eno/Jay McInerney/Andy Warhol-related gift ideas out there, especially at Xmas. And I think (*& and I are just about the only two people in Europe who consider Kimono My House a seminal album.
Dec 6, 2007
Dec 5, 2007
hhn Xmas Present List
a) A dog
b) A wolf
c) For the linseed oil and rabbit glue that I have been asked to take over to Kenya with me by my host (he is an artist) not to be considered a weapon of mass - or minor - destruction by the customs officers at Nairobi airport
d) For The Spice Girls to internally combust
e) For the competition I entered to win Led Zepp tickets to come up with meeeeeeee, so I can sell them and take mrs househusbandnot to the Maldives
f) For c) not to burst open in my suitcase on the way to Nairobi
g) For mrs hhn and I to get upgraded to Bzniz Klass on the way to Nairobi
h) For Jeremy Clarkson to forgive me for being a bit of a tit when I 'met' him the other day
i) For me to have time to learn Stairway To Heaven on the guitar to impress my Zepp-obsessed godson when I see him in Nairobi (If you are wondering why I would not give the tickets I am about to win to him, he will be in Nairobi by the time the gig is on)
j) For *&^ to have time to worship at my feet because I have technically bought him the greatest xmas present of all time (And the stakes are high here people. He got me The Man Who Fell To Earth fridge magnets last year.)
k) For loads of free stuff at the Google seminar I am going to tomorrow
l) To be able to do the gym routine required 15 knee drops in a row without faltering and dropping to the floor like Peter O'Toole after seven or eight of them
m) For that bloke off of Mobile Act Unsigned to look just a little less like me (Have been wondering why so many people have been checking me out on the street lately. I thought it was the 10 kilos I have dropped of late.)
n) For our Xmas tree and me not to explode (mrs hhn is effectively undoing all the effects of our year-long recycling by bedecking our tree with four sets of lights. The room is humming with throbbing electricity waiting for me to go near an electricity socket. Planes are rerouting as they fly over our flat.)
o) For the Thai Girls And Women Searching For Friends website to stop advertising on hhn
p) For Prince to be back in contact
q) For honey badgers to get everything they want in their four little Xmas stockings (Honey? Honey-coated snake? Better publicity with less focus on the whole testicle-biting agenda? A haircut?)
r) For that - much delayed - call to come in from MiraMax re hhn: the movie
s) For a go on my father-in-law's lazy boy chair after Xmas lunch (v v unlikely)
t) For some of those blokes on my side to get out of the +*&^ing way when I am trying to kill Germans in Call Of Duty 2
u) For my boss to like the present I am buying her in the office Secret Santa
v) For mrs hhn not to guess what I am buying her for Xmas (If she does, it may be husbandnot status for me)
w) Another dog for the first one to hang out with
x) For Facebook to go away, zombies and all
y) For a bit of peace and quiet from the two blokes I am sharing an office with who are not talking to each other because they have had a disagreement about databases (snoozo)
z) And P.E.A.C.E on earth
Fingers crossed. hhn x
b) A wolf
c) For the linseed oil and rabbit glue that I have been asked to take over to Kenya with me by my host (he is an artist) not to be considered a weapon of mass - or minor - destruction by the customs officers at Nairobi airport
d) For The Spice Girls to internally combust
e) For the competition I entered to win Led Zepp tickets to come up with meeeeeeee, so I can sell them and take mrs househusbandnot to the Maldives
f) For c) not to burst open in my suitcase on the way to Nairobi
g) For mrs hhn and I to get upgraded to Bzniz Klass on the way to Nairobi
h) For Jeremy Clarkson to forgive me for being a bit of a tit when I 'met' him the other day
i) For me to have time to learn Stairway To Heaven on the guitar to impress my Zepp-obsessed godson when I see him in Nairobi (If you are wondering why I would not give the tickets I am about to win to him, he will be in Nairobi by the time the gig is on)
j) For *&^ to have time to worship at my feet because I have technically bought him the greatest xmas present of all time (And the stakes are high here people. He got me The Man Who Fell To Earth fridge magnets last year.)
k) For loads of free stuff at the Google seminar I am going to tomorrow
l) To be able to do the gym routine required 15 knee drops in a row without faltering and dropping to the floor like Peter O'Toole after seven or eight of them
m) For that bloke off of Mobile Act Unsigned to look just a little less like me (Have been wondering why so many people have been checking me out on the street lately. I thought it was the 10 kilos I have dropped of late.)
n) For our Xmas tree and me not to explode (mrs hhn is effectively undoing all the effects of our year-long recycling by bedecking our tree with four sets of lights. The room is humming with throbbing electricity waiting for me to go near an electricity socket. Planes are rerouting as they fly over our flat.)
o) For the Thai Girls And Women Searching For Friends website to stop advertising on hhn
p) For Prince to be back in contact
q) For honey badgers to get everything they want in their four little Xmas stockings (Honey? Honey-coated snake? Better publicity with less focus on the whole testicle-biting agenda? A haircut?)
r) For that - much delayed - call to come in from MiraMax re hhn: the movie
s) For a go on my father-in-law's lazy boy chair after Xmas lunch (v v unlikely)
t) For some of those blokes on my side to get out of the +*&^ing way when I am trying to kill Germans in Call Of Duty 2
u) For my boss to like the present I am buying her in the office Secret Santa
v) For mrs hhn not to guess what I am buying her for Xmas (If she does, it may be husbandnot status for me)
w) Another dog for the first one to hang out with
x) For Facebook to go away, zombies and all
y) For a bit of peace and quiet from the two blokes I am sharing an office with who are not talking to each other because they have had a disagreement about databases (snoozo)
z) And P.E.A.C.E on earth
Fingers crossed. hhn x
Dec 4, 2007
Yesterday:
"Househusbandnot?"
Alarm bells (like the ones in the freak's house in Silence Of The Lambs) go off as mrs househousehusbandnot uses my proper name. I try to act cool.
"Er, yes mrs househusbandnot."
"I had a dream last night."
Further alarms, since 1) mrs hhn rarely remembers her dreams and 2) when she does, they are usually about me behaving badly by selling her in a market in Morocco, or burning down an off licence, or eating a wolf without a knife or fork in front of her parents.
"Oh, yes."
"Yes. You came home from work and said that your penis had fallen off in the office, and I was freaking out because you had obviously been waving your penis around in the office, and you were going `Can we focus on the main issue here that my dick fell off today?'"
"Hmmmm."
"But I've realised that the dream was just about me not wanting you to sleep with anyone else."
"Babe, it's not like I am about to sleep with anyone in my office."
"Wrong answer. I think what you meant to say was that you were not going to sleep with anyone else at all."
"Yes, that's what I meant to say." (Got out of that one, NOT.)
And all this on our wedding anniversary. May our dreams - well some of them anyway - not come true.
In other news, in and around the various wedding anniversary events over the weekend - including a great great meal last night [Styx, you would love this place], I saw an old friend of mine on Saturday who I have not seen for two years. It has been bothering me a lot that we had not met up for so long, with some concern that our long friendship had/was...I don't know, just had or wasn't. Anyway, it was a testament to that friendship that we pretty much picked up where we left off. (This meeting was also attended by The Waunch btw who was there to fill in any pregnant pauses - of which there were none - with his thoughts on Bloody Sunday, Jimmy Page's lack of oeuvre since the 1970s, and what cheese you would take to a desert island.) And a deep treat to be reminded that although we sometimes don't see people for too long, friendships last if they are meant to. (No snide comments on this one please people, unless you really feel the Xmas need to take the piss out of me for being honest - a temptation I am aware Madame B will be unable to resist after she has put up the Xmas decorations in the office this morning.)
In further news, went to a party with mrs hhn on Saturday where a man took his shirt off, mrs hhn asked a woman if she was okay because she could not stand up and the woman confessed she had drunk a bottle of port before coming to the party, the host showed us his light saber, I ate pretty much all of the canapes, and mrs hhn had a little dance. All this in Oxshott, which those of you in the know know is possibly one of the strangest places in the world - apart from my wife's dreamworld.
Alarm bells (like the ones in the freak's house in Silence Of The Lambs) go off as mrs househousehusbandnot uses my proper name. I try to act cool.
"Er, yes mrs househusbandnot."
"I had a dream last night."
Further alarms, since 1) mrs hhn rarely remembers her dreams and 2) when she does, they are usually about me behaving badly by selling her in a market in Morocco, or burning down an off licence, or eating a wolf without a knife or fork in front of her parents.
"Oh, yes."
"Yes. You came home from work and said that your penis had fallen off in the office, and I was freaking out because you had obviously been waving your penis around in the office, and you were going `Can we focus on the main issue here that my dick fell off today?'"
"Hmmmm."
"But I've realised that the dream was just about me not wanting you to sleep with anyone else."
"Babe, it's not like I am about to sleep with anyone in my office."
"Wrong answer. I think what you meant to say was that you were not going to sleep with anyone else at all."
"Yes, that's what I meant to say." (Got out of that one, NOT.)
And all this on our wedding anniversary. May our dreams - well some of them anyway - not come true.
In other news, in and around the various wedding anniversary events over the weekend - including a great great meal last night [Styx, you would love this place], I saw an old friend of mine on Saturday who I have not seen for two years. It has been bothering me a lot that we had not met up for so long, with some concern that our long friendship had/was...I don't know, just had or wasn't. Anyway, it was a testament to that friendship that we pretty much picked up where we left off. (This meeting was also attended by The Waunch btw who was there to fill in any pregnant pauses - of which there were none - with his thoughts on Bloody Sunday, Jimmy Page's lack of oeuvre since the 1970s, and what cheese you would take to a desert island.) And a deep treat to be reminded that although we sometimes don't see people for too long, friendships last if they are meant to. (No snide comments on this one please people, unless you really feel the Xmas need to take the piss out of me for being honest - a temptation I am aware Madame B will be unable to resist after she has put up the Xmas decorations in the office this morning.)
In further news, went to a party with mrs hhn on Saturday where a man took his shirt off, mrs hhn asked a woman if she was okay because she could not stand up and the woman confessed she had drunk a bottle of port before coming to the party, the host showed us his light saber, I ate pretty much all of the canapes, and mrs hhn had a little dance. All this in Oxshott, which those of you in the know know is possibly one of the strangest places in the world - apart from my wife's dreamworld.
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