Rethinking

Noticed this morning that two of the tabloids had a picture of Helen Mirren tucking into a burger at some post Oscar party - to prove that she is just as normal as we want her to be, or not poncey and American needing a food taster, or...well something. (I once spent the whole evening at a reception in Delhi with a photographer trying to take photos of me eating. It really did my head in thinking that there would be a photo of me in a paper with Fat White Bloke Eats Loads caption. I eventually confronted the photographer, who ran away.) I guess we do still want our celebrities to be like us here. Or at least not as out of reach as American ones. (I'm guessing Beyonce has something in her contracts about not being seen eating anything other than gold sushi of water.)

Blair's "I have not seen the film, but Dame Helen is a national treasure" line was really weak. He keeps on saying he hasn't seen stuff as an excuse not to comment. It is not good enough. I want an all-seeing, all-commenting Prime Minister. Speaking of not seeing, I didn't actually watch the Oscars, but apparently they were quite dull.

Which is also how I am feeling about househusbandnot at the moment. I am spending far too much time in the real world at the moment. I could - and won't - tell you about that real world, but it really is v boring - well not boring, just pretty pedestrian. And I am not really a good enough writer - or dreamer - to make the pedestrian that interesting (although I still think that my description of a new fridge back last year on hhn was perhaps one of the finest posts out of hhn HQ).

So gonna take a rethink on hhn for a few days. Will get back to you later this week, or Monday next week. Feel free to chat amongst yourselves.

hhn x

It Puts The Tea And The Eccles Cake In The Basket

After a quite spectacular weekend of lounging around with mrs househusbandnot at The Sanderson Hotel (where incidentally they were so disorganised they didn't charge us for our burgers), and watching movies, and swimming, and more lounging around, I was brought back to earth with a bump when mrs hhn announced last night that we should perhaps start eating supper earlier in the evenings. Like at the (other) killer's house in Silence Of The Lambs, loud alarms started blaring and red lights flashing at this suggestion, because this was mrs hhn trying to slip in a bit more Northern-ness into our nice Southern lives. She tries it on every so often when she thinks I am not looking, or relaxed. Or just goes ahead and does it.

Already we have enough tea bags in our kitchen cupboards to stem a break in the Thames Barrier. Already, I have been warned never to offer my father in law any food product that has not been cooked twice. And that birthdays and Christmases are not about family and love and friendship, but about finding the largest greeting card possible with the most specific message in it. (" To Our Daughter And Our Southern Poof Son In Law" etc.) And to pretend that I do think musicals are an okay art form. And that Border Art is nice. And that potatoes from Cheshire are things to be worshipped rather than eaten. And that everything should have a coaster underneath it. And now mrs hhn is trying to sneak in a Northern eating timetable when she thinks she can get away with it.

I was shocked at mrs hhn's blatant attack on my Southern sensibility and her attempt to have 'tea' at around five-thirty last night. But we did have a great weekend, so I don't really blame her for trying it on.

In other news, another landmark in househusbandnoting as we pass the 4,000 hits mark this morning - although, as calculated by blokewhocalculatesthesethings, the real figure is approx 10 of the same people logging in to see if anyone has responded to their comments from half an hour ago.