Symbolism

On the Gatwick Express on the way back from..er Gatwick on Wednesday evening mrs househusbandnot was reading a discarded Evening Standard. "Hey," she said. "Prince is playing in London in August"...

At this stage in my life things get blurry and go into some sort of slow and also fast motion. I scour the advert for information as to when tickets will go on sale. Something about priority booking for people with O2 accounts WHICH I DON'T HAVE. Normal tickets available to normal people a day later on Friday. It will be sold out. I will not get to see Prince. I try to calm my breathing. We get home. I go on line early Thursday morning. Why am I not a close personal friend of someone who can get me tickets? You need some damned O2 password to buy the tickets. They are already selling for triple the price through ticket sites. Why have I not worked harder in my life, so I could afford these £100 tickets. I check various sites again, and again. Can I get a job as a security guard at the venue between now and the gigs? Why am I not a hot bird that could worm her way backstage? I make a few panicked calls to mrs hhn because...well because. Why did I not work harder at the guitar, so that I was close friends with musicians who could have got me tickets? Thursday morning ticks into Thursday noon, as the tickets continue to sell out. Can I get an O2 account today? Life is so unfair. I love Prince more than anyone else in the world. Should I send a begging comment to his website? Why did I not buy that symbol-shaped tambourine when Prince had that shop in Campden? I could have traded it on ebay for tickets. Do I know anyone who works at O2? Loads of annoying people already have tickets, and I will have to wait until Friday morning for a shot at the normal priced tickets. There is no way I will get any. I feel like crying. I read a few news stories about Prince being in town promoting his tour. I look wistfully at the purple lining of my suit. Maybe I will bump into Prince while he is here, and I can ask him for tickets? Maybe...I can't believe I am not going to get Prince tickets. He is playing two weeks in London, and so many people OTHER THAN ME are going to get tickets. Annoying people. People who don't really care about Prince live. Can I sell something to be able to afford the - increasingly - over-priced tickets from the ticket sites? I drink coffee to pump me up some. Noon gives way to early afternoon. I go for a swim, humming Prince tunes in the changing rooms at the pool in case anyone there has tickets that they want to sell to me. Not a whisper. I swim, sad, realising that I - the person who loves Prince live more than anyone else on earth - am not going to get tickets because I don't have a fucking O2 account, because I am not a millionaire, and because I never prayed to Jesus when I was young. I hate myself, and my life.

I pick up my phone messages after my swim. My mate &^% has called. "Hi there Prince fool. I borrowed my sister's O2 account, and have got you tickets for Prince"...the world stops turning, there is a God (and his name is %^&), I have Prince tickets. I fall exhausted to the floor (well a seat at Starbucks). I have Prince tickets. I call mrs hhn. We have Prince tickets. I drink coffee. I have Prince tickets. I get on the bus home. I have Prince tickets. I am writing my blog. I still have Prince tickets. (I just need to keep from internally combusting between now and the gig.)

Big Prince luv 2 %^& 4 getting me tickets.

Orfing Around

Back from a great week or so in sunny Greece, where the men look weary from their only international role models being George Michael and Demis Roussos, and where the women appear to have discovered wonder bras.

You will be gutted to hear that mrs househusbandnot took the camera to work with her this morning, so I am unable - in true blogger tradition - to share our holiday snaps with you today. But took a few choice snaps which will make their way onto hhn in the coming days.

After long languid days of sitting on sun decks being served frosty diet cokes and beers ("Mythos: The Hellenic Lager Beer") by attentive young Polish waiters, I waited around until around 11 this morning, and realised that no-one was going to come and serve me breakfast, and - with a further thud back into the real world - that our boiler was broken. So am sitting staring at large piles of unwashed holiday clothes and building up to going out and facing London again.

Actually, I am starting a three day a week contract next week, so need to go and buy some real (rather than comedy/couch potato) clothes. For the last four months I have been pretty much living in jeans and white or black tshirts, but have been told at this new place that jeans are out, and that dress code is smart/casual (which excludes pretty much all of my current wardrobe). mrs hhn has threatened to take me clothes shopping this weekend, but I feel a week and a half of having to sit next to me on a sun lounger with me wittering on about:

• dolphins
• capers
• an hhn A -Z lists of what you want in a good hotel [to follow some time soon btw]
• how much the bloke who reads the news on Greek TV looked like Lloyd Cole
• my feet
• whether or not the guitarist in Mansun really was in love with the lead singer
• missing my ipod (which I didn't take on holiday with me for some dumb ass reason)
• how unfair it is that I am not allowed to use made up words in Scrabble (I squandered an early 6 to 1 lead in the hhn/mrs hhn best of 20 holiday Scrabble tournament, which mrs hhn eventually won 11 to 8)
• how much I hate European chill out music, which was on offer on MP3 players on the sun deck
• that time at university that Bad turned his car into a tent
• why it was unfair that we could not call mrs hhn's mum to check if mrs hhn's Scrabble word of 'orf' was real or not (mrs hhn's mum has a fish pond with - allegedly - a Golden Orf in it)
• that couple over there
• how funny it was that I had spent all of yesterday morning in character as John Malkovich
• what to have for breakfast tomorrow five minutes after finishing breakfast
• gayers
• mountain flowers
• this really funny photo I just took
• pools I have loved around the world
• people I have magnanimously decided to forgive for some wrong doing to me in recent years
• olives versus peanuts
• the hhn theme park
• life coaching
• my blogs

and

• the fact that I was getting sunburned

was quite enough a test for any good woman.