not cute
you thought that kittens were cute, didn't you? they're not.
9/29/2002 07:36:13 PM #
highlights
from the weekend.
- lunch.
- dinner.
- saturday morning spent exorcist-style projectile vomiting. does stella really do that to me?
- the book stall on bridport market: three minette walters and seven ellis peters.
- brookwood cemetery.
- discovering that someone dear to me who had omitted me from their blogroll last week has put me back. as a result it is unnecessary for me to
- pretend i didn't care
- admit that i give a stuff about something so trivial
- send a feeble email saying 'what did i do to upset/bore you?'
net balance is therefore good.
9/29/2002 06:08:28 PM #
this post is not called 'the joy of socks'
aren't new socks the most lovely thing?
9/27/2002 09:08:50 AM #
television
i'm delighted to see that the new series of the league of gentlemen is just as revolting as ever. if you've never seen this, there is no way that i can explain it to you; how can i possibly *explain* a completely inbred village in the north of england, inhabited by shopkeepers who look like pigs, a cannibal butcher, a hairy transvestite driving a pink taxi, a couple who keep toads and go nude on the third thursday of the month...
if you have seen it and missed it last night, what are you thinking of?! pauline's been let out of prison and dreams only of opening her own pen shop, but shacked up with the still-repulsive mickey, she discovers that he's been fiddling the dole. when ross, her nemesis, threatens to reveal all to the authorities, what can pauline do but shag ross in possibly the most revolting sex scene ever made.
mmm, we love it.
and edward and tubbs are making their pointy-nosed way along newroad with murder in their hearts. and the laughter track has been removed, which makes it all so much more sinister.
9/27/2002 08:55:33 AM #
w**k
generally, i avoid writing about work here. that's not because i think that my boss is intelligent enough to figure out my domain name from my personal email address. it's because i'm too damn lazy to bother thinking up dooce-style nicknames for everyone; crazy bitch, fat bastard and d'oh are descriptions of the people i work with, not disguises for their identity.
plus, of course, i spend all day in the office. why would i want to waste time writing about it when i'm pretending to be checking email from customers at home?
nevertheless, it occurred to me today whilst reading true porn clerk stories that although i swore i'd only be at the company for six months tops, i've now been there more than seven years longer than that. help me, obiwan.
9/25/2002 05:29:36 PM #
frustration
i am sick of london underground. not only are they having a strike tomorrow (and whose unreasonableness has caused the strike, is not my point; it's bad management to let the strike happen and there's an end to it), but they're incapable of running a decent service on non-strike days too. i arrived at caledonian road this morning to see the board on the platform timing the next train at nine minutes away. was there any indication of any delays anywhere? was there hell.
this is the capital city of the united kingdom, for goodness' sake. what can it say about us that we can't even provide a decent method of transport around it?
9/24/2002 07:54:23 AM #
sunday
it being sunday, we went to see the dead people. first to edmonton, which frankly was quite hideous. the usual suburban knee-high lumps of marble. plus some huge pieces over east-enders-made-good, announcing just how wealthy the family in question was. it all seemed highly insincere.
then to tower hamlets, open as part of london open house weekend. an excellent tour of the cemetery provided by the friends (why don't they have a website?). officially the cemetery is now a nature reserve and park, and seems to be managed very sensitively. most impressive.
then to brick lane, here for a delicious indian buffet lunch. it's those four little words that mean so much: "all you can eat".
afterwards, to st. pancras parish church. the church itself is very beautiful, but naturally we were more excited by the idea that the crypt was open. sadly, this had been filled with art installations. it wasn't the fact of the installations, exactly. they did seem to have been made (done? invented?) with close regard to the spaces they were to fill. it was just that they were so universally mundane. film of traffic. film of people looking back out of the wall at you. possibly slightly clever in places but definitely not beautiful.
also busy with photoshop; the results are there to the left under "new cemeteries". i feel i should point out that even if you are devasted that your wife has died on the way back from your honeymoon, this is still a bad idea.
9/22/2002 06:04:48 PM #
arr, jim lad
my pirate name is: Mad Anne Kidd.
every pirate is a little bit crazy. you, though, are more than just a little bit. even though you're not always the traditional swaggering gallant, your steadiness and planning make you a fine, reliable pirate. arr!
stolen from que sera sera.
it's the weekend; i'm allowed to post quizzes.
9/21/2002 01:20:45 PM #
harry potter five...still...
bearing in mind "we are looking at goblet of fire length", and what a non-edited baggy trouser that was, personally i'd forget the so-called perfectionism, j.k., and pander to the notoriously fickle loyalties of your adolescent audience and get the damn book published before the Next Big Thing comes along. because the cynical old gits like myself will undoubtedly be impossible to please at this late stage.
9/20/2002 03:49:08 PM #
not the best #2
the rather controversial guardian best british blog competition has still not announced results, even though they were meant to be out yesterday. i wonder if they're just finding out that when tom said they were impossible to judge, he was right?
9/20/2002 03:22:26 PM #
probably not
this is a bit of a long shot, but i have fallen totally in love with this chateau, also the birthplace of françoise-rené de chateaubriand, the author of mémoires d'outre-tombe. i could read this in french, with the dictionary, but i won't. if anyone knows of an english edition, can they please, please let me know. je vous remercie.
9/19/2002 09:14:02 PM #
frustration
hopes of unlocking the mysteries of egypt's biggest pyramid hit a new snag tuesday when a robot crawling up a narrow shaft to peek through an ancient limestone door found a second stone slab blocking the way. how annoyed would you be?! serves them right for trying to do it when i wasn't there to watch it live though; it's got to be more interesting live television than "will these half a dozen twenty-somethings shag or kill each other?".
9/19/2002 06:13:30 PM #
i'm a sick fucker
but i just read all of this and i think it's hilarious. i guess everyone else read it a week ago, but i've been in the middle of nowhere and they don't have the internet there. (they don't even have bars that open after 9pm -- don't you just love rural france?!)
9/19/2002 04:13:43 PM #
bon soir,
je suis retournée!
9/18/2002 11:15:07 PM #
someone please call
there comes a point where we have to stop being united. where one person's sorrow is another person's anger, one person's horror is another's quiet sadness. where i grieve in my way, and you in yours, where we stop telling each other what is appropriate. i find the endless replaying of telephone calls, film footage and reminiscences by survivors of one kind or another distasteful and unbearable, and i won't watch it; you may still find it part of the healing process. some of us want to understand what made these people act like they did; others simply seek to stop them from trying it again. both viewpoints are valid.
one response to horror, terror and injustice that is not acceptable is to line up opposite the terrorists and strike back harder. must your anger really bring about slaughter of more innocent people? because in war, people die, on both sides. will you sacrifice more of your children's lives for the sake of your revenge?
mourn, and feel your righteous anger, if that is what you feel. and then move on. because if the world ended on september 11th 2001, if you allow it to have ended on that day and cannot move on from there, then the terrorists have truly won.
i won't be watching the documentaries, waving flags or olive branches, or lighting candles. i'll be getting on a damned plane.
9/11/2002 12:01:00 AM #
stupid (again)
the bible does not say that cats were not present at herod's birthday party when john the baptist was beheaded. i'm assuming this has to be a joke, though it's a very realistic one. the alternative is too much for even my loathing of organised religion to process.
9/9/2002 08:34:44 PM #
not the best
9/9/2002 12:36:39 PM #
china
apparently the chinese government do not think that this site is dangerous enough to block.
9/9/2002 12:36:14 PM #
sunday
it did rain. we made pizza and indian nibbles, played dodgy 80s vinyl, and it was good.
9/8/2002 06:53:40 PM #
saturday
as mark bernstein says i should update frequently, i am updating, though this may begin to challenge nick jordan for the title most boring weblog in the world.
alperton cemetery is exceedingly boring.
we failed to buy bags of the exact maximum size that ryanair will allow as hand luggage; as we're going to the middle of nowhere in france and will live in jeans and t-shirts for a week, it seems silly to take so much stuff that we have to check in baggage if that can be avoided.
then to lush in covent garden to buy soap that smells good enough to eat and the particularly excellent and green love lettuce face pack; it's the same colour as the bar at the top of this page, don't you wish i had a cam?!
i have just dyed my hair this colour.
now pray it doesn't rain on my sister's housewarming barbeque.
9/7/2002 04:32:17 PM #
talkin' 'bout
what revolution are you?
made by altern_active
9/5/2002 12:51:06 PM #
disconcerting presidents precedents
interestingly, as far as i know (and please correct me if i'm wrong), the last person to take england to war without consulting parliament was king charles i. charles is frequently described as arrogant and out of touch with the popular feeling of his time. he believed in absolute government centered in himself and devolved only to a small group of councillors. he was frequently at odds with parliament, and sought to avoid consulting them on many different matters of state, refusing to recall parliament even when national crisis loomed. those who dared criticise him were denounced as traitors.
no parallel there then.
9/5/2002 12:28:57 PM #
a wizard wheeze
can we start a group blog for silly things found in amazon reviews? i'm nominating this one for the harry potter vibrating broomstick:
when my 12 year old daughter asked for this for her birthday, i kind of wondered if she was too old for it, but she seems to LOVE it. her friends love it too! they play for hours in her bedroom with this great toy. they really seem to like the special effects it offers (the sound effects and vibrating). my oldest daughter (17) really likes it too!
mm-hmm, i just bet she does. [link from blogjam.]
9/4/2002 12:51:56 PM #
more dope
from the bbc:
the bbc is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
really?! and i thought...
9/4/2002 12:47:01 PM #
dopey
i haven't had any cannabis for about five years; it gives me uncontrollable munchies and i don't like that, plus i don't smoke anything anymore. but nor do i think that what i choose to smoke is anyone's business but my own.
anything is an improvement on the 'legal to use, illegal to supply for use' nonsense that appears to be the position in practise with many uk police forces at the moment. and the police and the government, and possibly even the british media, now seem to have come round to the view that if grown adults choose to take cannabis, just like tobacco or alcohol, that is their decision. but, forever running scared from the string-'em-up brigade, we shy away from putting our principles where our mouths are and legalising it. to say that it's okay to be caught twice but not a third time says in effect that the crime is not to use cannabis, but to be caught doing so. this is not a principle we want ensconced in our law, i think.
for goodness' sake, mr blunkett, legalise it. then you take it away from the people who are really dealing in the nasty stuff. and more importantly, you can tax it.
9/4/2002 12:38:55 PM #
politits
hoopty gets the measure of british politics.
9/3/2002 09:05:28 PM #
yay
hurray for me. according to blogpop's analysis of the alexa database, i am now the thirty-second most popular blog in the uk. it's interesting to see (alexa's measure of) my traffic increase so exponentially; a few more hits and i might make the top quarter of a million. more importantly, fraser calls my photos 'rather nice'. if i ever used any emoticons around here, i'd be overusing them now.
memo to self: leave the damned stylesheet alone and get on with the content management. do you want to be on blogger forever?!
9/3/2002 08:26:32 PM #
five words or fewer
euan has done a nice job of summing up various people's efforts to sum their story, often unknown to us, that we try all our lives to prove true in five words. [sadly, i must note that grammatically it should be ...or fewer and NOT ...or less. (the rule is less than the whole, fewer than the total.)]
mine? i want to know more.
9/2/2002 09:03:09 PM #
to the teacher who has set waugh's the loved one...
your students are exceedingly adept at using all the search engines to get their book reports written for them online.
9/2/2002 08:30:26 PM #
we are sailing
in the german city of siegen, torrential rain caused a landslide in a cemetery, that washed several coffins towards neighbouring houses. [article in german, but picture available.]
this will please b., whose contribution to the project is not only to be driver and lens-cap holder, but also coffin-counter. he managed to spot about a dozen in west norwood. sadly only two in putney vale (check out derek's photos while mine are being developed), and none at all in kingston or in surbiton. the latter is next to a sewage works which stinks so badly, you'd think it would raise the dead though.
and then on the way home we discovered what is marked on the map as a cemetery, isn't listed in the book, appears historically to be one of the extended church yards (like chiswick old) that were quite common in the eighteenth century before it finally became obvious that churchyards really couldn't cope with the industrial revolution populaton explosion, is geographically in the borough of brent but is not listed on their website and, with the exception of some vague paths strimmed through the grass, seems entirely uncared for. three of the graves seem to be being tended though; i felt that i would be bewildered and angry if a place i'd chosen to bury a loved one could be allowed to such a brambleous state. however, as i haven't, i'm just very intrigued as to what this place is. all i can think to do is to write to the vicar of the neighbouring church. me, writing to a priest to ask for help. incredible.
9/1/2002 05:31:18 PM #
