In other celebrity-related news, mrs househusbandnot and I were extremely entertained that one of the contestants on The X Factor referred to Andrew Lloyd-Cabbage-Head as "Lord Andrew" on the show the other night. Americans? Don't you just love how they just keep on being wrong. Not that I am at all biased because I had to explain what The Council Of Europe was to an American audience the other day. ("It's like, well you know, got 47 countries in it, and they, well, debate stuff, but none of it is legally binding, but it does means something, kinda, in a 47 country kind of way, and some of them are Dutch...")
Not a lot else today people. I finished Half Life 2 over the weekend with my brother in law's assistance. I am a deeply cheap date when it comes to X Box. I have been playing Half Life 2 since Xmas. My weekend success was accompanied to jeers of derision from mrs hhn on the other sofa, as her brother jogged through sections of the game that I have been stuck on for weeks. And he and I did a bit of Xbox Liveing, which is a bit odd and creepy playing games with complete strangers across the airwaves. In a vague pretence at having a life, the three of us did discuss going to the Rock Against Racism gig, but am glad to report that we didn't actually manage to get off our arses and hung around eating jaffa cakes and X Boxing and watching crap TV aka X Factor instead.
Anyone got any good ideas what I could buy my father in law for his 65th birthday btw? (And yes he has all the aviation simulation games and accessories he needs already. Darn, I've married into a gamegeek family. Excellent. )
Apr 29, 2008
Apr 24, 2008
And..
...I just saw a sheep in a playground near Russell Square
And The Waunch didn't pick up on my typo in my headline yesterday...
And my mate (*& has just secured me tickets for Massive Attack* during their Meltdown thang at The Festival Hall...
And mrs househusbandnto woke me up at four am this morning because she wanted to hear me say 'muesli'...
And, and, and...
*Yeah, yeah. I know. But they are great live,and (*& and I have had quite a lot of fun at the Meltdown thangs over the last few years. One of the highlights involved me deciding to talk to Bono when I was twatted. Another involved one of the best gigs I have ever seen (Tricky and Lee Perry together, which shouldn't work, but did. Karma Coma Dwop..)
And The Waunch didn't pick up on my typo in my headline yesterday...
And my mate (*& has just secured me tickets for Massive Attack* during their Meltdown thang at The Festival Hall...
And mrs househusbandnto woke me up at four am this morning because she wanted to hear me say 'muesli'...
And, and, and...
*Yeah, yeah. I know. But they are great live,and (*& and I have had quite a lot of fun at the Meltdown thangs over the last few years. One of the highlights involved me deciding to talk to Bono when I was twatted. Another involved one of the best gigs I have ever seen (Tricky and Lee Perry together, which shouldn't work, but did. Karma Coma Dwop..)
Apr 23, 2008
Raspberry Bonbons Scottie?
I was sitting in Russell Square having some lunch just now, trying to read a big old document I am writing an article about. A bloke came up to me and said: “Excuse me. I know you are busy. But I am conducting some interviews. If you were organising a Scott of the Antarctic expedition, would you include raspberry bonbons on the menu?”
I have nothing else to report today.
I have nothing else to report today.
Apr 22, 2008
Shakespeare, Sister
I assure you there is nothing very Shakespearian about modern Denmark, or indeed me in modern Denmark. (Anyway, I don't buy the whole Shakespeare thing. Sure, I muddled through a handful of his plays at school, and kinda pretended that I thought they were deep. But, are they really? Really? And I don't buy whole Shakespeare wrote the only eight stories that ever need telling. Did he write the screenplay to 28 Days Later? No. Did he author The Diggingest Dog In The World? Er, no. Purple Rain script? N[o]. Any of the Hitchcock movies? NO. Did he ever drag his bearded little ass over to his desk to engage in anything on modern man and his struggle with his ipod? Or addiction? Or man on man lurve? Or religious war? [Sorry, just been reading The Second Plane.] Or living with wolves? [Or anything on animals come to think of it.] Or detectives? Or serial killing? Or the dilemmas facing a band forced to reform in order to make money although they hate each other? Or being unable to cope with winning the lottery? Or having cosmetic surgery and marrying a computer hacker who has overextended on his property portfolio? Er...no, no, no and...no. He didn't even know how to spell his own name. And a good line here and there does not make for eternal fame. If that was the case, we could/should be studying Howard Devoto. I'd go with Marlowe. And anyway, Shakespeare has kept a lot of actors in work for far too long, treading the boards with big balloon pants and billowing white shirts thinking they are up to something profound, rather than just making tits of themselves and boring the arses off of the groups of sixth formers forced to watch their plays when they would much prefer to be reading manga or playing Xbox or getting off with girls/boys.)
Apr 16, 2008
Making Sense Of Your World
Recovering as we all are from that flurry of Smithiesness – And which of you loonies thinks we should give money in our wills to Moz and Marr? Any donations should surely go to Rourke and or Joyce? I am reminded how Moz dismissed Rourke from The Smiths. It came in the form of a note left by Morrissey under the windscreen wiper of his car, saying “Andy, you have left The Smiths. Good luck and goodbye, Morrissey”*. - we should move on back in the real world, rather than remain within the distant memories of our teenage years lying on the bed in our bedrooms thanking God that The Smiths existed.
I am glad to report that mrs househusbandnot is on the mend, as evidenced by the pile of magazines on our kitchen table on my return home last night. Grazia? Yep, good, although it is printed on weird paper. Heat? Yep, always good for a two minute read and a reminder that I have no idea who most of the people they are writing about actually are, other than Callum Best and that Hilton beast. Time Out? Yep, always useful in a thank you God that I don’t have to go to The Jazz Café tonight kind of way. Psychologies Magazine? Er, hang on mrs hhn. Are you trying to tell me something by buying this publication? (which has the strapline of ‘Making Sense Of Your World’ btw) And it is open on an article about whether or not you really know your partner. (I didn’t even dare to read the other well thumbed article on sexual honesty.)
But we got through the evening, with – or without – the expert advice offered by the stuck in the `70s quacks who write for Psychologies Magazine. (‘Talking Bollox About Your World’) And watched last episode of Shameless and that frankly v odd programme about people going to a clinic in Birmingham with their embarrassing medical conditions and complaints.
And are now preparing for a trip to Denmark tomorrow evening. (My sister lives there, not in nice and civilised Copenhagen, which is populated by some of the best looking people in the world, and where one can sit at elegant cafes , sipping good coffee and watching the world go by in a most civilised manner, before heading off to one of a number of great galleries and restaurants. No, my sister lives on the mainland of Jutland, where people marry their cousins, where the next village to my sister is called Dark, where the only industry appears to be pig and mink farming [there is a mink farm near my sister’s place, just left out of Dark], where the people in supermarkets are so unsocialised that they have no sense of personal space and will stand completely and entirely so close to you that you think they want to have sex with you [or your wallet], where the food consists of..yep, you guessed it, pork and what I can only imagine is mink pate, where it is bone-snappingly cold 11 months of the year, where the next door neighbour wears a tshirt with Gays Deserve AIDS on it, where there are only two tv channels the first of which’s broadcast schedule consists of re-runs of a kids’ programme with two rather ropey looking glove puppets [I think they are supposed to be a dog and a bear] hitting each other, where my sister bought a dog last year which was sold as a terrier/Labrador cross but actually turned out to be a wolf/great dane hybrid giant hound that leaps on people and breaks their arms he is so big, and where the definition of entertainment is waiting until Xmas again when you can scare the children with the Xmas tale of the nasty black man who is going to come and steal their toys.) This is going to be mrs hhn’s first visit to Denmark…
* This just in from The Waunch: “Dude, the will thing on hhn was me, by the way. "Johnny Marr and Morrissey in your '"Will. I am. It was Really Nothing"' compared". I dunno, pearls before swine, innit?”
I am glad to report that mrs househusbandnot is on the mend, as evidenced by the pile of magazines on our kitchen table on my return home last night. Grazia? Yep, good, although it is printed on weird paper. Heat? Yep, always good for a two minute read and a reminder that I have no idea who most of the people they are writing about actually are, other than Callum Best and that Hilton beast. Time Out? Yep, always useful in a thank you God that I don’t have to go to The Jazz Café tonight kind of way. Psychologies Magazine? Er, hang on mrs hhn. Are you trying to tell me something by buying this publication? (which has the strapline of ‘Making Sense Of Your World’ btw) And it is open on an article about whether or not you really know your partner. (I didn’t even dare to read the other well thumbed article on sexual honesty.)
But we got through the evening, with – or without – the expert advice offered by the stuck in the `70s quacks who write for Psychologies Magazine. (‘Talking Bollox About Your World’) And watched last episode of Shameless and that frankly v odd programme about people going to a clinic in Birmingham with their embarrassing medical conditions and complaints.
And are now preparing for a trip to Denmark tomorrow evening. (My sister lives there, not in nice and civilised Copenhagen, which is populated by some of the best looking people in the world, and where one can sit at elegant cafes , sipping good coffee and watching the world go by in a most civilised manner, before heading off to one of a number of great galleries and restaurants. No, my sister lives on the mainland of Jutland, where people marry their cousins, where the next village to my sister is called Dark, where the only industry appears to be pig and mink farming [there is a mink farm near my sister’s place, just left out of Dark], where the people in supermarkets are so unsocialised that they have no sense of personal space and will stand completely and entirely so close to you that you think they want to have sex with you [or your wallet], where the food consists of..yep, you guessed it, pork and what I can only imagine is mink pate, where it is bone-snappingly cold 11 months of the year, where the next door neighbour wears a tshirt with Gays Deserve AIDS on it, where there are only two tv channels the first of which’s broadcast schedule consists of re-runs of a kids’ programme with two rather ropey looking glove puppets [I think they are supposed to be a dog and a bear] hitting each other, where my sister bought a dog last year which was sold as a terrier/Labrador cross but actually turned out to be a wolf/great dane hybrid giant hound that leaps on people and breaks their arms he is so big, and where the definition of entertainment is waiting until Xmas again when you can scare the children with the Xmas tale of the nasty black man who is going to come and steal their toys.) This is going to be mrs hhn’s first visit to Denmark…
* This just in from The Waunch: “Dude, the will thing on hhn was me, by the way. "Johnny Marr and Morrissey in your '"Will. I am. It was Really Nothing"' compared". I dunno, pearls before swine, innit?”
Apr 15, 2008
What Difference Does It Make?
Re "Madam B here, darned you hhn, your beloved is poorly and you snipe away like a thorn in a jockstrap - have some pity and tend to her you MAN"
I know. I know. (Most of the post was an excuse to have a Smiths song as a title anyway.) The minute I posted yesterday's post I felt bad about it. I can report back that I went home and made mrs househusbandnot sausage sandwiches last night, and spent some time thanking her for coming to Denmark with me this weekend. And generally tried to be nice, as I avoided the piles of tea cups and other ill-related litter around the flat.
So sincere apolgies to mrs hhn, who incidentally did say last night, when I had gotten off the phone to various people, "When you are on the phone it sounds like you are actually being nice to me when I am ill." I will try and be - rather than just sound - nice this evening.
I know. I know. (Most of the post was an excuse to have a Smiths song as a title anyway.) The minute I posted yesterday's post I felt bad about it. I can report back that I went home and made mrs househusbandnot sausage sandwiches last night, and spent some time thanking her for coming to Denmark with me this weekend. And generally tried to be nice, as I avoided the piles of tea cups and other ill-related litter around the flat.
So sincere apolgies to mrs hhn, who incidentally did say last night, when I had gotten off the phone to various people, "When you are on the phone it sounds like you are actually being nice to me when I am ill." I will try and be - rather than just sound - nice this evening.
Apr 14, 2008
Still Ill?
So as The Pope prepared for his first visit to the USA, Britney crashed her car again, Gordon Brown faltered, The World Bank warned against food shortages, Prince wrote another song about me, butterflies spread their wings on mountain sides in Malaysia, and tigers yawned in India...mrs househusbandnot got sick.
Which in the grand scheme of things should not be such a big deal. But in this scale of things it is. You see, mrs hhn - when ill - turns into a bloke. She lies in bed or on a sofa, hating the world that made her (him) ill, lashing out at anything and anybody (that would be me btw) that comes within lashing at range. She makes mad demands like wanting tea and fish soup at the same time, hates the world some more, and explains that technically no-one has ever been in such abject pain as she is.
This would be okay if I reciprocated with the gender reversals at this stage. But I don't. I can't. I remain resolutely male, bored by other people's illness, angered after the first three demands for tea/soup, irritated by the detritus of the patient (tissues, apple cores, empty mugs etc.), and constantly reminding myself that actually this is not real pain, not pain like I have felt in my life as a sick man.
So what with the staring down of each other, the quiet and not so quiet sulks, the general butlering around after the corpse on the sofa, the recognition that I am a crap nurse (which annoys me, and annoys mrs hhn), and the utter tedium of watching someone being ill, not a great weekend really. I have escaped to the office this morning to let mrs hhn continue her man illness alone.
Which in the grand scheme of things should not be such a big deal. But in this scale of things it is. You see, mrs hhn - when ill - turns into a bloke. She lies in bed or on a sofa, hating the world that made her (him) ill, lashing out at anything and anybody (that would be me btw) that comes within lashing at range. She makes mad demands like wanting tea and fish soup at the same time, hates the world some more, and explains that technically no-one has ever been in such abject pain as she is.
This would be okay if I reciprocated with the gender reversals at this stage. But I don't. I can't. I remain resolutely male, bored by other people's illness, angered after the first three demands for tea/soup, irritated by the detritus of the patient (tissues, apple cores, empty mugs etc.), and constantly reminding myself that actually this is not real pain, not pain like I have felt in my life as a sick man.
So what with the staring down of each other, the quiet and not so quiet sulks, the general butlering around after the corpse on the sofa, the recognition that I am a crap nurse (which annoys me, and annoys mrs hhn), and the utter tedium of watching someone being ill, not a great weekend really. I have escaped to the office this morning to let mrs hhn continue her man illness alone.
Apr 9, 2008
Re: "Being nice to mrs hhn isn't a job, it's a privilege, surely?
And I've done the Writing the Words for the Back of Crisp Packets job, and it's turbo-money for old rope. Any crisp manufacturers out there, I'm your man."
As ever The Waunch(is this blog turning into TheWaunchnotisshouldbe?)puts his finger on the burning issues of the day, the first of which was addressed this morning at hhn HQ as mrs househusbandnot and I were preparing for our day...
hhn: "So, in theory anyway, now that I have run your bath, made you tea, and been downstairs to get the delivery of organic vegetables, I have been a good husband, no?"
mrs hhn: "It is not what you do hhn. It is the manner in which said tasks are performed. And it is not a competition."
hhn considers witty or pithy response to this, but can't come up with anything stronger than "I am only in competition with myself, so it is a competition".
Thus begins another day in the lives of hhn/mrs hhn.
And the crisp packet copy thang? Indeed The Waunch has done this. The place where I always go for my pre-gym coffee stocks the very same crisps for which he wrote the copy. So I think about him and crisp packet copy and his crisp packet copy most days. What I have thought has gotten no further than `There are the crisps that The Waunch wrote the packet copy for.' Actual and factual, if not edifying or illusitory.
So this crisp packet goes into a bar, and asks the barman...
And I've done the Writing the Words for the Back of Crisp Packets job, and it's turbo-money for old rope. Any crisp manufacturers out there, I'm your man."
As ever The Waunch(is this blog turning into TheWaunchnotisshouldbe?)puts his finger on the burning issues of the day, the first of which was addressed this morning at hhn HQ as mrs househusbandnot and I were preparing for our day...
hhn: "So, in theory anyway, now that I have run your bath, made you tea, and been downstairs to get the delivery of organic vegetables, I have been a good husband, no?"
mrs hhn: "It is not what you do hhn. It is the manner in which said tasks are performed. And it is not a competition."
hhn considers witty or pithy response to this, but can't come up with anything stronger than "I am only in competition with myself, so it is a competition".
Thus begins another day in the lives of hhn/mrs hhn.
And the crisp packet copy thang? Indeed The Waunch has done this. The place where I always go for my pre-gym coffee stocks the very same crisps for which he wrote the copy. So I think about him and crisp packet copy and his crisp packet copy most days. What I have thought has gotten no further than `There are the crisps that The Waunch wrote the packet copy for.' Actual and factual, if not edifying or illusitory.
So this crisp packet goes into a bar, and asks the barman...
Apr 8, 2008
Jobs...
...I've been thinking about*
Dog Walking
Those Blokes Who Clean Public Phones In The Middle Of The Night
Inventing New Fireworks
Blogging
Testing New Versions Of Rez (google it)
Inventing New Airlines Menus
Writing The Words For The Back Of Crisp Packets
Being The Duke Of Edinburgh
Hard Core Wrestling
Developing The Software For The Quite Ridiculously Complicated Canteen Swipe Cards At The Court Where I Have Been Doing Jury Service
Living A Lie
Dog Whispering
R and D For Ribena Inc
Coffee Tasting (I met someone who did this once, possibly the maddest person I have ever met)
Being A Community Police Officer
Henry VIIIth Impersonators
Cloud Bursting
Badger Culling (Shame on you sir)
Life Coaching
Inventing Different Forms Of Stress Balls
Being Nice To Mrs HHN
Designing Train Tickets
Being One Of Those Complete Knobbers Who Paint Themselves Silver And Stand Still On The Embankment
Whatever Madame B Does
Prince's Chef
Prince's Anything
Theatre Critics
*Not in a I'd Like To Do Them Way - although I'd go for the firework inventing. More in a just thinking about them, and the fact that people get up in the morning and go and do these things.
Dog Walking
Those Blokes Who Clean Public Phones In The Middle Of The Night
Inventing New Fireworks
Blogging
Testing New Versions Of Rez (google it)
Inventing New Airlines Menus
Writing The Words For The Back Of Crisp Packets
Being The Duke Of Edinburgh
Hard Core Wrestling
Developing The Software For The Quite Ridiculously Complicated Canteen Swipe Cards At The Court Where I Have Been Doing Jury Service
Living A Lie
Dog Whispering
R and D For Ribena Inc
Coffee Tasting (I met someone who did this once, possibly the maddest person I have ever met)
Being A Community Police Officer
Henry VIIIth Impersonators
Cloud Bursting
Badger Culling (Shame on you sir)
Life Coaching
Inventing Different Forms Of Stress Balls
Being Nice To Mrs HHN
Designing Train Tickets
Being One Of Those Complete Knobbers Who Paint Themselves Silver And Stand Still On The Embankment
Whatever Madame B Does
Prince's Chef
Prince's Anything
Theatre Critics
*Not in a I'd Like To Do Them Way - although I'd go for the firework inventing. More in a just thinking about them, and the fact that people get up in the morning and go and do these things.
Apr 3, 2008
Waunchery
Strike a light. hhn just got clever (And there was me going to get back on track with thoughts on last week’s demonization of sausages as a health risk, some predictable gags about judges wearing women’s underwear, and a few other cheap gags about jurors and me being a juror etc.)
A few qualifiers to the hhn interregnum – or should I say justitium or tumultus* - while I was/am out doing jury service, and The Waunch was/is at the helm (Fyi, I am technically still on jury service until next Tuesday but happen to have a day off today, so you can all look forward to some more The Waunch musings should he feel so inclined.)
1) I believed the April Foolery about Carla Bruni becoming a style advisor to GB
2) Her husband should have surgery to make him a bit taller
3) Remind me where you went to University Waunch?
4) I absolutely don’t believe mrs househusbandnot’s story about her April Foolery when she was at university. This is a woman, dear readers, who has such a ferocious belief in right and wrong that she would probably engage in citizen’s arrests if she was not such a nice woman. (Although, I am glad to report that she did engage in some excellent criminal activity a month or so ago. She can provide details, when she is not busy engaging in conversation with Madame B that makes even Madame B look vaguely savoury.)
5) The Waunch seeing himself as `a kind of wise but kindly trendy uncle-type’? A comb over does not make you avuncular dude. It is pity, not respect, in their youthful eyes The Waunch. I should know. I see it most days myself when required to engage with anyone under the age of 35.
6) And further The Waunch thoughts: `if I wanted to write a blog, I could have started my own long before now. The fact that I haven’t is due to a natural timidity, or modesty, which people who normally only see me when I’m in a socially enthusiastic mood – which, to be fair, is most evenings – might find difficult to believe.’ Calling Nick Bartle. Comments please.
7) Will Anonymous who wrote about Tumbleweed Central Population The Waunch please contact me for this month’s - no year’s - prize for funniest thing on hhn.
8) My favourite story about The Waunch’s time in Hong Kong is the story Mrs The Waunch tells of the regular knocks on her front door early in the morning from the local shop keepers complaining “He no good. He bad for business”, their problem being that The Waunch had yet again almost made it all the way home, but had once again failed on the last leg and fallen asleep in a shop front near his apartment.
And just in case you are feeling I am on a The Waunch bash, don’t. He is a good man, and rose admirably to the hhn challenge.
*Fuck you Will Self
Apr 2, 2008
April Fools’ day, by Avril de Poisson
Was April Fools’ Day ever really fun? I only ask because yesterday was so emphatically self-serving and smug that I feel like I need to towel myself off after consuming the British media all day long. Was there a newspaper or website that didn’t offer its consumers a ‘prank’ story of such utter banality that it made you want to weep blood?
So we had Carla Bruni to become style advisor to Great Britain, Nicholas Sarkozy having surgery to make him as tall as his wife, the face of Big Ben being replaced with a digital display and weight-loss cream that had to be used while wearing special socks.
And then added to that steaming heap, you had the huge companies that think that displaying some humour – and I use the word loosely – will flog more of their awful shit. Guinness offering a backwards pint which was all froth, with a head of stout (‘For One Day Only’, just in case you didn’t get it). BMW had a car that electrified dogs that pissed on them (one that electrocuted the herd of douchenozzles that drive ‘beemers’ would be more to my liking) and Google offering a web application that can predict the future. Give me a break. The normally sainted YouTube stole someone else’s joke (sorry, internet meme) and made all their front page vids link to a Rick Astley clip. Kill me now.
And the BBC offered us flying penguins. Look, BBC, I’m not that stupid. I know penguins don’t fly. So your joke doesn’t work. And if you think it does work, on lots of people who aren’t me, then you should be slapped for being so patronising. With all your resources, couldn’t you have put some real thought into it? Although someone there managed to put together a smart piece on stories in the news that sound like April Fools’ stories but actually weren’t, including a smoking turtle, pay-per-view cremations, and tattoos for the teeth, which provided a far more lucid and ironic commentary on the world we live in than flying penguins and Gordon Ramsay forswearing swearing.
The whole April Fools’ thing has just become a lazy shorthand for having a sense of humour, like those ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps!’ signs by peoples' desks that thankfully I never see anymore.
There probably was a golden age of April Fools’ jokes: The Guardian’s supplement on the island of San Serriffe was clever and convincing. When the BBC did its Spaghetti Harvest thing, that fooled lots of people. But yesterday had Alistair Darling playing a lottery scratchcard in a newsagent, Daniel Craig saying that James Bond should be bisexual, and the US scrapping the dollar and joining the euro. Don’t any of these highly-paid media professionals credit us with a scintilla of intelligence? It would appear not.
As it happens, I do remember once when I had fun with an April Fools’ joke. I used to live on a small island about an hour’s boat commute from Hong Kong. The island was, because of the difficulty of getting there, a haven for hippies and artists and writers, who revelled in its relative isolation (and the absence of police). There were a lot of big infrastructure problems going on in Hong Kong at the time – airports, bridges and so on -- and my flatmate came up with the idea of persuading people that the MTR (the underground system) was going to extend its lines out to the Outlying Islands. So he had incredibly convincing posters made (he worked for an ad agency), in full colour, in two languages, with maps and perfect logos, explaining that construction was about to start imminently.
Late at night, after the last ferry had come in, we pasted up the posters outside the ferry terminal, not just on our island, but on all the other Outlying Islands’ ferry terminals. We got up early the next morning to watch the three or four thousand deeply-isolationist reluctant stoner commuters digest the bad news, that paradise was ending, as they shuffled to the ferry. It was chaos. The joke was simple, believable, and beautifully executed. Everyone fell for it. There were questions in the Legislative Council. Later that day, it made the TV news, and, we heard afterwards, had been mentioned in British newspapers. In their roundup of all the wacky April Fools’ pranks from around the world. Which kind of killed it for me.
Anyone got any better stories? Journalists need not apply.
So we had Carla Bruni to become style advisor to Great Britain, Nicholas Sarkozy having surgery to make him as tall as his wife, the face of Big Ben being replaced with a digital display and weight-loss cream that had to be used while wearing special socks.
And then added to that steaming heap, you had the huge companies that think that displaying some humour – and I use the word loosely – will flog more of their awful shit. Guinness offering a backwards pint which was all froth, with a head of stout (‘For One Day Only’, just in case you didn’t get it). BMW had a car that electrified dogs that pissed on them (one that electrocuted the herd of douchenozzles that drive ‘beemers’ would be more to my liking) and Google offering a web application that can predict the future. Give me a break. The normally sainted YouTube stole someone else’s joke (sorry, internet meme) and made all their front page vids link to a Rick Astley clip. Kill me now.
And the BBC offered us flying penguins. Look, BBC, I’m not that stupid. I know penguins don’t fly. So your joke doesn’t work. And if you think it does work, on lots of people who aren’t me, then you should be slapped for being so patronising. With all your resources, couldn’t you have put some real thought into it? Although someone there managed to put together a smart piece on stories in the news that sound like April Fools’ stories but actually weren’t, including a smoking turtle, pay-per-view cremations, and tattoos for the teeth, which provided a far more lucid and ironic commentary on the world we live in than flying penguins and Gordon Ramsay forswearing swearing.
The whole April Fools’ thing has just become a lazy shorthand for having a sense of humour, like those ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps!’ signs by peoples' desks that thankfully I never see anymore.
There probably was a golden age of April Fools’ jokes: The Guardian’s supplement on the island of San Serriffe was clever and convincing. When the BBC did its Spaghetti Harvest thing, that fooled lots of people. But yesterday had Alistair Darling playing a lottery scratchcard in a newsagent, Daniel Craig saying that James Bond should be bisexual, and the US scrapping the dollar and joining the euro. Don’t any of these highly-paid media professionals credit us with a scintilla of intelligence? It would appear not.
As it happens, I do remember once when I had fun with an April Fools’ joke. I used to live on a small island about an hour’s boat commute from Hong Kong. The island was, because of the difficulty of getting there, a haven for hippies and artists and writers, who revelled in its relative isolation (and the absence of police). There were a lot of big infrastructure problems going on in Hong Kong at the time – airports, bridges and so on -- and my flatmate came up with the idea of persuading people that the MTR (the underground system) was going to extend its lines out to the Outlying Islands. So he had incredibly convincing posters made (he worked for an ad agency), in full colour, in two languages, with maps and perfect logos, explaining that construction was about to start imminently.
Late at night, after the last ferry had come in, we pasted up the posters outside the ferry terminal, not just on our island, but on all the other Outlying Islands’ ferry terminals. We got up early the next morning to watch the three or four thousand deeply-isolationist reluctant stoner commuters digest the bad news, that paradise was ending, as they shuffled to the ferry. It was chaos. The joke was simple, believable, and beautifully executed. Everyone fell for it. There were questions in the Legislative Council. Later that day, it made the TV news, and, we heard afterwards, had been mentioned in British newspapers. In their roundup of all the wacky April Fools’ pranks from around the world. Which kind of killed it for me.
Anyone got any better stories? Journalists need not apply.
Mar 31, 2008
It ain't what it used to be...
OK, thanks for that vote of confidence, Madame B. To deal with your points: I'm an author myself, although an unusually unsuccessful one, and I know quite a few others, and I haven't noticed the knobbishness quotient being particularly high - certainly not in a world that features investment bankers, Premiership footballers and members of the Burmese military junta.
As to why two people can read the same thing and construe different meanings: I studied this at university, and could put a pretty resonable explanation together for you. But, trust me, your eyes would glaze over in seconds as soon as I started droning on about critical discourse analysis, semiotics and syntactics, and linguistic philosophy. The quick answer is that some people are stupider than others. That's all.
And does God exist? What an absurd idea. We all know our lives are ruled by the Flying Spaghetti Monster, right? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_spaghetti_monster).
As to doing stream of consciousness. OK, here goes:
The office in which I work is mainly filled with people who are much younger than me – I’d guess that the average age is about 26 or 27, which I waved goodbye to quite some time ago. Mostly this is fine; I do a lot of mentoring, answer a lot of questions on procedures and stuff, and see myself as a kind of wise but kindly trendy uncle-type. They don’t ask me about My Chemical Romance and I don’t tell them about Wishbone Ash, and it’s all good.
These youngsters decided to organise a trip to a club last Friday which specialises in 80’s nights. Apparently people enjoy wearing skinny leather ties, burgundy cardigans, white socks, leg warmers, ra-ra skirts and harrington jackets, while listening to shit music. Yeah, I was mystified too. But they all wanted me to come along.
However, I was handed a lucky escape. A guy started playing a bunch of 80’s songs on his computer – ABC, Spandau Ballet, Europe, Kajagoogoo, Culture Club - and I was forcefully reminded of how much I loathed them, and so I sidled off quietly into the night when no one was looking.
The whole thing was apparently much like those School Disco nights. Now I’d rather stab myself in the face with a radioactive knife than dress up in a school uniform and dance self-consciously to music I hated when it first came out. But then I’m not in the market for getting off with anyone, and even of I was, I wouldn’t want to do it to the soundtrack of my adolescence. It was bad enough then. As the philsopher Satayana noted, ‘Those who don’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it,’ and I’m sure as shit not going to repeat the 1980’s. Once is enough.
The 80’s are when I actually did a lot of my growing up. When I look back at the 80’s, I think of the Falklands War, the Miners’ Strike, O and A levels, Greenham Common, cheap speed, going to university, falling in love for the first time. Stuff that was important, then.
But why do these kids, who are bright, and interested, and thoughtful, want to revel in a decade that they don’t really remember? Perhaps that’s the point – they don’t remember it, so they can colour it in any way they want. It still seems like a complete waste of time to me, a commodification of culture to be sold to people who don’t have any connection with it. Maybe I just work with very dreary and unimaginitive people. Get off my lawn, pesky kids!
As to why two people can read the same thing and construe different meanings: I studied this at university, and could put a pretty resonable explanation together for you. But, trust me, your eyes would glaze over in seconds as soon as I started droning on about critical discourse analysis, semiotics and syntactics, and linguistic philosophy. The quick answer is that some people are stupider than others. That's all.
And does God exist? What an absurd idea. We all know our lives are ruled by the Flying Spaghetti Monster, right? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_spaghetti_monster).
As to doing stream of consciousness. OK, here goes:
The office in which I work is mainly filled with people who are much younger than me – I’d guess that the average age is about 26 or 27, which I waved goodbye to quite some time ago. Mostly this is fine; I do a lot of mentoring, answer a lot of questions on procedures and stuff, and see myself as a kind of wise but kindly trendy uncle-type. They don’t ask me about My Chemical Romance and I don’t tell them about Wishbone Ash, and it’s all good.
These youngsters decided to organise a trip to a club last Friday which specialises in 80’s nights. Apparently people enjoy wearing skinny leather ties, burgundy cardigans, white socks, leg warmers, ra-ra skirts and harrington jackets, while listening to shit music. Yeah, I was mystified too. But they all wanted me to come along.
However, I was handed a lucky escape. A guy started playing a bunch of 80’s songs on his computer – ABC, Spandau Ballet, Europe, Kajagoogoo, Culture Club - and I was forcefully reminded of how much I loathed them, and so I sidled off quietly into the night when no one was looking.
The whole thing was apparently much like those School Disco nights. Now I’d rather stab myself in the face with a radioactive knife than dress up in a school uniform and dance self-consciously to music I hated when it first came out. But then I’m not in the market for getting off with anyone, and even of I was, I wouldn’t want to do it to the soundtrack of my adolescence. It was bad enough then. As the philsopher Satayana noted, ‘Those who don’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it,’ and I’m sure as shit not going to repeat the 1980’s. Once is enough.
The 80’s are when I actually did a lot of my growing up. When I look back at the 80’s, I think of the Falklands War, the Miners’ Strike, O and A levels, Greenham Common, cheap speed, going to university, falling in love for the first time. Stuff that was important, then.
But why do these kids, who are bright, and interested, and thoughtful, want to revel in a decade that they don’t really remember? Perhaps that’s the point – they don’t remember it, so they can colour it in any way they want. It still seems like a complete waste of time to me, a commodification of culture to be sold to people who don’t have any connection with it. Maybe I just work with very dreary and unimaginitive people. Get off my lawn, pesky kids!
Mar 27, 2008
NotHouseHusbandNot
Flattered as I am that the always-fragrant Madame B and hhn think that I could fill The Master’s boat-sized 16-hole oxblood Doc Martens, I’m in two minds about it. For starters, if I wanted to write a blog, I could have started my own long before now. The fact that I haven’t is due to a natural timidity, or modesty, which people who normally only see me when I’m in a socially enthusiastic mood – which, to be fair, is most evenings – might find difficult to believe.
But I don’t think I’m particularly egotistical. So I usually restrict my ranting to people who know me well enough not to care about it. And out of the five readers here, I’m afraid that that won’t work, and you’ll all peel off and not come back and hhn will never forgive me. My second reason for being chary about taking on hhn’s mantle is that the two of us work in rather different ways. He is a natural orator, a folksy, genial communicator. I’m more - I dunno – considered, detail-oriented.
The way this blog works is that hhn turns out 500 words of charming nonsense, Madame B manages to remind everyone that she has a clitoris, I point out how little hhn knows about a particular kind of mammal, and we’re all happy. I don’t know what you’d like me to write about if I tried to take over. Maybe if you suggested some subjects I could come up with something. Or not.
But I don’t think I’m particularly egotistical. So I usually restrict my ranting to people who know me well enough not to care about it. And out of the five readers here, I’m afraid that that won’t work, and you’ll all peel off and not come back and hhn will never forgive me. My second reason for being chary about taking on hhn’s mantle is that the two of us work in rather different ways. He is a natural orator, a folksy, genial communicator. I’m more - I dunno – considered, detail-oriented.
The way this blog works is that hhn turns out 500 words of charming nonsense, Madame B manages to remind everyone that she has a clitoris, I point out how little hhn knows about a particular kind of mammal, and we’re all happy. I don’t know what you’d like me to write about if I tried to take over. Maybe if you suggested some subjects I could come up with something. Or not.
Mar 25, 2008
WaunchWaunchNot?
I'm all for The Waunch writing hhn while I am at my civic duty on jury service.. but is he man enough to take up this challenge? If you see nil new posts on hhn in the next two weeks, you can assume that he is not...
Mar 18, 2008
Ipods Ishmods (Chapter IV)
Moving swiftly on from my relationship with mrs househusbandnot - something I did vow some time ago only to share thoughts on only with her, rather than her and you six - hmmm, may have crossed that line by mistake there for a moment, for which apologies to mrs hhn - and my other relationships, namely the one I have with that piece of junk known as my ipod.
Taking on board Styx's qualifier/complaint about the incessant need/demand/expectation for listening to music every waking hour (rather than as we used to: having raced back from the record shop, waited until your mum had finished listening to something on the radio, and then finally finally finally being allowed to listen to your new record), my ipoding is...
...you know what? I had a whole post worked up about the shuffle mode versus the other modes, and a discussion about some of the 3,988 songs on my ipod, and about the fact that a third of those songs are from my friend (*&'s collection, and what a laugh it is sometimes to get some obscure songs from his collection shouting at you when you least expect them (well, you can’t prepare for something you don’t know is there, right? – even if it is another Janet Jackson remix), and a whole ode to (*& para about how much I think about him because I spend at least a third of my ipod time listening to his music and reminding myself what a cool guy her is etc., and/but that I never tell him that, and somehow think it is good enough to be thinking about my friends warmly rather than actually getting my ass around to seeing them, and that really really annoying equalizer option on ipods which has about thirty different settings all of which sound the same – Lounge? Vocal Booster? Deep? Who cares? (well I obviously do), and also about quite how flat everything really sounds on ipods, and itunes being the most annoying piece of software ever invented by man or woman or beast or badger, and a whole bunch of other stuff. But in the end of the day it was a sad rant from a sadder man about his electronic toys. And there are quite enough of them out there already. (Although, of interest may be the fact that if you Google image `ipods', about three pages down there is a picture of a woman performing a sexual act on what looks like a horse. Another fine Google moment. [I wonder how often you have to mention Google on a Google owned blog space before Google use their Google rules and Google regulations to a) ban you from blogging with Google or b) employ you at Google as a Google employee?] )
So, there it is. Bring on Easter.
BTW I am on jury service next week for a couple of weeks. Am also – for reasons I will not bore you with - off line at home at the moment, so not sure when hhn will resurface. Am hoping – as I hope Google is – that it will be soon.
In other news, have decided that The Waunch is the ideal man to organize that largest group of people ever to gather in one place to play the guitar event that was cancelled last year. So easy to decide what other people should be doing with their own lives, eh?
In other other news,…no I’ve dried.
hhn x
Taking on board Styx's qualifier/complaint about the incessant need/demand/expectation for listening to music every waking hour (rather than as we used to: having raced back from the record shop, waited until your mum had finished listening to something on the radio, and then finally finally finally being allowed to listen to your new record), my ipoding is...
...you know what? I had a whole post worked up about the shuffle mode versus the other modes, and a discussion about some of the 3,988 songs on my ipod, and about the fact that a third of those songs are from my friend (*&'s collection, and what a laugh it is sometimes to get some obscure songs from his collection shouting at you when you least expect them (well, you can’t prepare for something you don’t know is there, right? – even if it is another Janet Jackson remix), and a whole ode to (*& para about how much I think about him because I spend at least a third of my ipod time listening to his music and reminding myself what a cool guy her is etc., and/but that I never tell him that, and somehow think it is good enough to be thinking about my friends warmly rather than actually getting my ass around to seeing them, and that really really annoying equalizer option on ipods which has about thirty different settings all of which sound the same – Lounge? Vocal Booster? Deep? Who cares? (well I obviously do), and also about quite how flat everything really sounds on ipods, and itunes being the most annoying piece of software ever invented by man or woman or beast or badger, and a whole bunch of other stuff. But in the end of the day it was a sad rant from a sadder man about his electronic toys. And there are quite enough of them out there already. (Although, of interest may be the fact that if you Google image `ipods', about three pages down there is a picture of a woman performing a sexual act on what looks like a horse. Another fine Google moment. [I wonder how often you have to mention Google on a Google owned blog space before Google use their Google rules and Google regulations to a) ban you from blogging with Google or b) employ you at Google as a Google employee?] )
So, there it is. Bring on Easter.
BTW I am on jury service next week for a couple of weeks. Am also – for reasons I will not bore you with - off line at home at the moment, so not sure when hhn will resurface. Am hoping – as I hope Google is – that it will be soon.
In other news, have decided that The Waunch is the ideal man to organize that largest group of people ever to gather in one place to play the guitar event that was cancelled last year. So easy to decide what other people should be doing with their own lives, eh?
In other other news,…no I’ve dried.
hhn x
The Hollyoaks Years
Re the 'Since you got married, hhn, have you managed to wean yourself off your habit of frotting* on the sofa in front of Hollyoaks?' comment.
[hhn enters into daydream mode]
...Ah, the Hollyoaks years. You know/knew me too well. Nothing to do on Saturday morning, other than crawl to the sofa with a bacon sandwich and watch the goodly gorgeous young people of Chester getting off with each other. Although when I was watching it there was far too much of a focus on that storyline about the bloke having to bring up a small child. (I never did work out why he was having to bring the kid up, of if he was the father, the uncle, the godfather or whatever. ) An idle Saturday morning day dreaming about moving out of London to Chester if all the girls really looked like that, and were that easy. And a vague post mortem of the Friday evening, out with a few people from work, getting drunk in a - looking back on it - really rather unpleasant bar off Spitafields where the highlight of the evening was trying to stop the drunk city boys getting too eager ith the women from your office. But also realising that that was what the girls wanted, rather than hanging out with old gits like me. And after these idle thoughts, trying to work out what to do for the rest of the weekend once all my friends on Hollyoaks had acted out their slices of life for me. Swim? Nah. Shopping? Nah? Watch more TV? Ah the choices were endless, and endlessly endful. At the time it seemed normal. But, God it was depressing and pointless. I was suspended in a non-life, too old to be watching Hollyoaks for any other than prurient reasons. And too immature to do anything about it...........Sorry. Hollyoaks? Hollyoaks? Never heard of it mate. Is is some sort of game show?
* Incidentally, I googled frotting, and first search result started: 'A favourite of sex-starved Japanese businessmen on the sub-way. I caught him frotting the fridge once, it was just wrong.' I didn't dare follow the link. Speaking of links, did you see the Google ad generated by yesterday's post? 'Who Is My Wife? What Is Adultery And Fornication? Discover Your True Life With TheWay' And a link to another site I didn't want to follow. Ahh, the internet, and all those links in our lives Google is trying to create and develop, to mould us into the lives they want us to lead. Don't you love it? (A while ago I started writing a story about someone who lived their lives by their horoscope from a really crappy tabloid. And then that comedian Dave Gorman did a show based on the same idea - bastard. Maybe someone should do a show - or a piece of research - based on what Google would like them to do next, starting with a search for something like `What Does It All Mean' and their first and last names. { I just tried this btw. Tres dull.})
[hhn enters into daydream mode]
...Ah, the Hollyoaks years. You know/knew me too well. Nothing to do on Saturday morning, other than crawl to the sofa with a bacon sandwich and watch the goodly gorgeous young people of Chester getting off with each other. Although when I was watching it there was far too much of a focus on that storyline about the bloke having to bring up a small child. (I never did work out why he was having to bring the kid up, of if he was the father, the uncle, the godfather or whatever. ) An idle Saturday morning day dreaming about moving out of London to Chester if all the girls really looked like that, and were that easy. And a vague post mortem of the Friday evening, out with a few people from work, getting drunk in a - looking back on it - really rather unpleasant bar off Spitafields where the highlight of the evening was trying to stop the drunk city boys getting too eager ith the women from your office. But also realising that that was what the girls wanted, rather than hanging out with old gits like me. And after these idle thoughts, trying to work out what to do for the rest of the weekend once all my friends on Hollyoaks had acted out their slices of life for me. Swim? Nah. Shopping? Nah? Watch more TV? Ah the choices were endless, and endlessly endful. At the time it seemed normal. But, God it was depressing and pointless. I was suspended in a non-life, too old to be watching Hollyoaks for any other than prurient reasons. And too immature to do anything about it...........Sorry. Hollyoaks? Hollyoaks? Never heard of it mate. Is is some sort of game show?
* Incidentally, I googled frotting, and first search result started: 'A favourite of sex-starved Japanese businessmen on the sub-way. I caught him frotting the fridge once, it was just wrong.' I didn't dare follow the link. Speaking of links, did you see the Google ad generated by yesterday's post? 'Who Is My Wife? What Is Adultery And Fornication? Discover Your True Life With TheWay' And a link to another site I didn't want to follow. Ahh, the internet, and all those links in our lives Google is trying to create and develop, to mould us into the lives they want us to lead. Don't you love it? (A while ago I started writing a story about someone who lived their lives by their horoscope from a really crappy tabloid. And then that comedian Dave Gorman did a show based on the same idea - bastard. Maybe someone should do a show - or a piece of research - based on what Google would like them to do next, starting with a search for something like `What Does It All Mean' and their first and last names. { I just tried this btw. Tres dull.})
Mar 17, 2008
Sofa Storms
"There are people you are allowed to fancy. And people you are not allowed to fancy. She would be one of the later." This from mrs househusbandnot yesterday after a passing comment from me about the sultry French girl who had just served us in Oddbins, and had made "That will be £13.00" sound like a very serious proposal of group sex.
I didn't - and don't get it. This from the woman (mrs hhn) who thinks it is entirely acceptable to sit on the sofa watching James Martin every Saturday morning while stroking a copy of one of his books. And who thinks I will be okay with her fancying one of those fat Geordie cooks who motorbike their way around Asia because, she says, they remind her of me.
A little later we were watching television, and mrs hhn comments that a particular girl from Gavin And Stacey looks sexy (The Blond one btw.). I agree, saying she looks a bit like an old girlfriend...
...and the storms came in from the North, and the frozen winds blew, and then there was a third ice age, centering in and around the sofa in hhn/mrs hhn's sitting room. And the planet - well our sofa - was surrounded by a devastating cold and bone-chilling waves of solid white frost, and all living things that came in the way of the storms were frozen solid.
After a lot of stares that would stop a polar bear in its tracks, and refusals to be consoled, and serious assault on me with the TV remote, mrs hhn eventually came back down from her icy domain and would talk to me again...kind of.
Again people, I don't get it. It is not like I said anything wrong. Or am I missing something here? ("OBVIOUSLY" I hear the entire female population scream.) I get that it is not cool to stroll around saying "Oh, she's hot. She's great. She's...etc" about every other woman on the street, or TV. But mrs hhn had said it in the first place. It's not like I would have said it if she hadn't mentioned it first. And what about the whole We Can be Honest With Each Other thang? I'd rather mrs hhn told me about fancying people than not telling me. And we do have jokes and stuff about people we know who fancy her. (And about the occasional woman who looks at me with anything more than withering derision or blank disinterest. [This does include an old bird who lives around the corner who kind of melts every time she sees me. She is scary, and looks like a thin version of that ugly old woman off Bo`Selecta. ]) What was so wrong?
Maybe it was the double thing? With the girl in the shop and then the girl on TV. Or was it because neither of them looked anything like mrs hhn? (This opens up a whole other area of disconnect between mrs hhn and I re it being a good thing when I fancy women who look like her.) Or it could have been that we had just had a bad time at the Vanity Fair photo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery? (I'm fishing here I know. But as an aside, I/we have never been to such an appallingly badly organised show, which was also being - as far as we could see - exclusively visited yesterday by people who 1) had no concept of personal space 2) had forgotten how to walk in a straight line, and 3) were just IN THE WAAAAAAAAAAY.) Was it because I was reading the Emma Bunton How I Lost Weight Eating Chocolate story in the News Of The World magazine for too long? (Reminding ourselves that my admittance at the end of last year that I fancied Emma Bunton resulted in a long long time in mrs hhn purgatory. [Actually, I just checked Emma's official site, and realise that that particular punishment was fair enough She does look like a sectioned receptionist at a Trust House Forte hotel.] ) Was it...well whatever it was, I blew it pretty badly with my various comments on other women yesterday. I am going to stick to not saying anything any more. (Which I do still feel is exactly how stalkers get their first feel for their chosen recreation. But anything for an easier life. Damn it was cold on that sofa last night.)
I didn't - and don't get it. This from the woman (mrs hhn) who thinks it is entirely acceptable to sit on the sofa watching James Martin every Saturday morning while stroking a copy of one of his books. And who thinks I will be okay with her fancying one of those fat Geordie cooks who motorbike their way around Asia because, she says, they remind her of me.
A little later we were watching television, and mrs hhn comments that a particular girl from Gavin And Stacey looks sexy (The Blond one btw.). I agree, saying she looks a bit like an old girlfriend...
...and the storms came in from the North, and the frozen winds blew, and then there was a third ice age, centering in and around the sofa in hhn/mrs hhn's sitting room. And the planet - well our sofa - was surrounded by a devastating cold and bone-chilling waves of solid white frost, and all living things that came in the way of the storms were frozen solid.
After a lot of stares that would stop a polar bear in its tracks, and refusals to be consoled, and serious assault on me with the TV remote, mrs hhn eventually came back down from her icy domain and would talk to me again...kind of.
Again people, I don't get it. It is not like I said anything wrong. Or am I missing something here? ("OBVIOUSLY" I hear the entire female population scream.) I get that it is not cool to stroll around saying "Oh, she's hot. She's great. She's...etc" about every other woman on the street, or TV. But mrs hhn had said it in the first place. It's not like I would have said it if she hadn't mentioned it first. And what about the whole We Can be Honest With Each Other thang? I'd rather mrs hhn told me about fancying people than not telling me. And we do have jokes and stuff about people we know who fancy her. (And about the occasional woman who looks at me with anything more than withering derision or blank disinterest. [This does include an old bird who lives around the corner who kind of melts every time she sees me. She is scary, and looks like a thin version of that ugly old woman off Bo`Selecta. ]) What was so wrong?
Maybe it was the double thing? With the girl in the shop and then the girl on TV. Or was it because neither of them looked anything like mrs hhn? (This opens up a whole other area of disconnect between mrs hhn and I re it being a good thing when I fancy women who look like her.) Or it could have been that we had just had a bad time at the Vanity Fair photo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery? (I'm fishing here I know. But as an aside, I/we have never been to such an appallingly badly organised show, which was also being - as far as we could see - exclusively visited yesterday by people who 1) had no concept of personal space 2) had forgotten how to walk in a straight line, and 3) were just IN THE WAAAAAAAAAAY.) Was it because I was reading the Emma Bunton How I Lost Weight Eating Chocolate story in the News Of The World magazine for too long? (Reminding ourselves that my admittance at the end of last year that I fancied Emma Bunton resulted in a long long time in mrs hhn purgatory. [Actually, I just checked Emma's official site, and realise that that particular punishment was fair enough She does look like a sectioned receptionist at a Trust House Forte hotel.] ) Was it...well whatever it was, I blew it pretty badly with my various comments on other women yesterday. I am going to stick to not saying anything any more. (Which I do still feel is exactly how stalkers get their first feel for their chosen recreation. But anything for an easier life. Damn it was cold on that sofa last night.)
Mar 12, 2008
Tea Tyranny Part Deux
4am in hhn/mrs househusbandnot's bedroom
mrs hhn; "Tyranny of tea? Where the fuck did you get that from? You don't even make decent tea."
hhn [thinks] 'How can they look into my eyes And still the don't believe me.....'
mrs hhn; "Tyranny of tea? Where the fuck did you get that from? You don't even make decent tea."
hhn [thinks] 'How can they look into my eyes And still the don't believe me.....'
Mar 11, 2008
Rules? What Rules?
hhn and mrs househusbandnot are in bed. hhn's alarm has just gone off. He lies, staring at the gap in the bedroom curtain wondering if the new next door neighbours ever spy on him when he is asleep.
mrs hhn: "Are you awake?"
hhn: "Yes."
"Will you make me a cup of tea?"
[pause]
"I will make you a cup of tea. But don't ask for it. I was going to make you a cup of tea. But don't ask, because I won't make you one. I was already okay about making you tea. But I won't stand for this...this...this tyranny of tea."
"You have too many rules."
"What do you mean?"
"Er, tyranny of tea?"
[pause]
"You have more rules than me."
"But your rules are more insane."
"I am going to have a bath, and when I get back I will be expecting an explanation of that accusation."
[hhn exits to have a bath and contemplate those gentle, slight rules...nay mild expectations he has of life, those inoffensive little regulations and hopes he carries around with him in an effort to understand this mortal coil. He returns to the bedroom.]
"So? Thought up any of my rules, other than the tea thing?"
[mrs hhn takes a deep breath]
"You won't eat anything that is beige. You won't let me order the same thing in restaurants. You have a frankly weird love hate relationship with eggs. You won't let me pour you drinks. What do you think I am going to do? Put a date rape drug in your drink? You won't talk to men if they are under five foot ten. You think it is entirely acceptable to eat with your hands. You freak out if I sit on the other sofa. You think that when you go swimming everyone else should get out of the pool. You don't think you should have to pay to go on trains. You hate cardboard. If someone is more than 20 minutes late, you think it is okay to go home. You ask people ridiculously personal questions two minutes after you have met them...
[hhn considers interrupting to point out the difference between rules and behaviour, but realises he doesn't really know what that difference is]
...You think tomatoes are evil. You spend way too much time thinking about socks. You regularly jump out of your skin if I walk into a room in the flat, even though you know I am there. You think it is normal to growl at people. You do - fundamentally - believe that you can talk to dogs. You feel the need to go around thanking everyone when we are at weddings. You claim you can't use certain pens. You hate cushions. You straighten pictures in other people's houses. And you stare at people in restaurants and then ask why they are being so odd. I will be adding to this list during the day as I think of more."
hhn looks at mrs hhn. He considers what she has just said, and realises that - although he absolutely knows that he has found his soul mate in mrs hhn - there are just some things she will never understand about him, and his hopes and his fears, and his attempts to make sense of all the senselessness in life. And it is only Tuesday.
"Well enjoy the tea babe," he says, struggling into his coat and heading for the front door.
mrs hhn: "Are you awake?"
hhn: "Yes."
"Will you make me a cup of tea?"
[pause]
"I will make you a cup of tea. But don't ask for it. I was going to make you a cup of tea. But don't ask, because I won't make you one. I was already okay about making you tea. But I won't stand for this...this...this tyranny of tea."
"You have too many rules."
"What do you mean?"
"Er, tyranny of tea?"
[pause]
"You have more rules than me."
"But your rules are more insane."
"I am going to have a bath, and when I get back I will be expecting an explanation of that accusation."
[hhn exits to have a bath and contemplate those gentle, slight rules...nay mild expectations he has of life, those inoffensive little regulations and hopes he carries around with him in an effort to understand this mortal coil. He returns to the bedroom.]
"So? Thought up any of my rules, other than the tea thing?"
[mrs hhn takes a deep breath]
"You won't eat anything that is beige. You won't let me order the same thing in restaurants. You have a frankly weird love hate relationship with eggs. You won't let me pour you drinks. What do you think I am going to do? Put a date rape drug in your drink? You won't talk to men if they are under five foot ten. You think it is entirely acceptable to eat with your hands. You freak out if I sit on the other sofa. You think that when you go swimming everyone else should get out of the pool. You don't think you should have to pay to go on trains. You hate cardboard. If someone is more than 20 minutes late, you think it is okay to go home. You ask people ridiculously personal questions two minutes after you have met them...
[hhn considers interrupting to point out the difference between rules and behaviour, but realises he doesn't really know what that difference is]
...You think tomatoes are evil. You spend way too much time thinking about socks. You regularly jump out of your skin if I walk into a room in the flat, even though you know I am there. You think it is normal to growl at people. You do - fundamentally - believe that you can talk to dogs. You feel the need to go around thanking everyone when we are at weddings. You claim you can't use certain pens. You hate cushions. You straighten pictures in other people's houses. And you stare at people in restaurants and then ask why they are being so odd. I will be adding to this list during the day as I think of more."
hhn looks at mrs hhn. He considers what she has just said, and realises that - although he absolutely knows that he has found his soul mate in mrs hhn - there are just some things she will never understand about him, and his hopes and his fears, and his attempts to make sense of all the senselessness in life. And it is only Tuesday.
"Well enjoy the tea babe," he says, struggling into his coat and heading for the front door.
Mar 10, 2008
...
The Waunch was concerned on Friday that Friday's hhn was the last every hhn post. (Bless his little Hilditch & Kean cotton socks.) Fear not dear reader(s). I was not planning on stopping yet. (Although I have bugger all to report back on since Friday. mrs househusbandnot and I went to see that teen pregnancy movie Juno, which was good although terrible music almost killed it. And I found out that young shepherds learn their trade by herding ducks rather than sheep. And I have just soldiered my way into work on what the weather boys [and girls] are threatening is going to be a day of vigorous storms. [How they feel the need to react since they got caught on the hop by that storm in the 1980s.] And I...no that's it. No it it. But just it for today. But didn't want you to think I was not coming back, ever...
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