Just had to go and send something recorded delivery. Or was it registered? Fuck knows.
What a miserable, depressing place. After I'd roamed the streets of London Town for ages trying to find one that hadn't been shut down (the 2 nearest to the Slave Pits having recently taken the axe), one enters this drab, overheated, tatty shithole, peeling posters enticing the gullible with 'best value' travel insurance, a row of 'service' windows as far as the eye can see, all but one unmanned, and a queue that stretched twice round Aldwych and all the way to Nelson's Column.
Old biddies paying 'the electric'. Dossers collecting their pitiful stipend to squander on fags, cider and Sky Sports. And the occasional business type actually seeking to conclude a business transaction, forced to waste oceans of time waiting. Endlessly waiting.
I'd compare the experience to waiting in line to see an official about, I dunno, a permit to purchase bread in communist East Germany. Except I expect that the officials there, as a minimum, actually spoke intelligible German.
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
A Quiet Evening In
Last night, for the first time since about 1997, I sat down and watched a DVD.
Entitled 'Cook on the Wild Side', it featured an engaging fellow named Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. A floppy-haired, well-educated chap, he reminded me very much of me, except that instead of suffering excruciating hangovers on a daily basis and occasionally dispensing legal advice, Hugh seems to spend his time driving around rural Wales in a battered Land Rover and eating crows.
While to my mind the show could have profited from a few deviant sex angles and the odd car chase, I'm all for the basic premise of self-sufficiency and harvesting nature's bounty. Inspired by his lifestyle, I have resolved to try the Hemingway thing, hunting, gathering, catching my own supper, for myself.
Admittedly wildlife is a bit thin on the ground at and around MotCO Towers. The odd squirrel, a few wood pigeons, nothing more than an amuse-bouche, really. I shall therefore commence my new culinary Odyssey with the neighbours' cats.
Entitled 'Cook on the Wild Side', it featured an engaging fellow named Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. A floppy-haired, well-educated chap, he reminded me very much of me, except that instead of suffering excruciating hangovers on a daily basis and occasionally dispensing legal advice, Hugh seems to spend his time driving around rural Wales in a battered Land Rover and eating crows.
While to my mind the show could have profited from a few deviant sex angles and the odd car chase, I'm all for the basic premise of self-sufficiency and harvesting nature's bounty. Inspired by his lifestyle, I have resolved to try the Hemingway thing, hunting, gathering, catching my own supper, for myself.
Admittedly wildlife is a bit thin on the ground at and around MotCO Towers. The odd squirrel, a few wood pigeons, nothing more than an amuse-bouche, really. I shall therefore commence my new culinary Odyssey with the neighbours' cats.
Monday, 2 November 2009
War
Edwin Starr famously asked "War War, huh, yeah. What is it good for?".
His conclusion - absolutely nothing - rather missed the point. War's great for invading one's enemies, imposing one's political and social systems upon them and murdering and enslaving their people. Plundering of resources and generally fucking shit up is a bonus.
It's also a neat way to road test your new military hardware. Keep the common soldiery out of domestic mischief. And let the world at large know you're not going to stand for any tomfoolery.
Few countries understand this like my own. Since the end of World War 2 the UK has become embroiled in more international armed conflicts than any other on earth. That's a fact, fact fans.
Oddly, for a nation of cookery-obsessed pansies, the French run us a pretty close second. I expect that fairly soon the UN will organise a Charity Shield-style play-off for the title of Hardest Nation on Earth.
His conclusion - absolutely nothing - rather missed the point. War's great for invading one's enemies, imposing one's political and social systems upon them and murdering and enslaving their people. Plundering of resources and generally fucking shit up is a bonus.
It's also a neat way to road test your new military hardware. Keep the common soldiery out of domestic mischief. And let the world at large know you're not going to stand for any tomfoolery.
Few countries understand this like my own. Since the end of World War 2 the UK has become embroiled in more international armed conflicts than any other on earth. That's a fact, fact fans.
Oddly, for a nation of cookery-obsessed pansies, the French run us a pretty close second. I expect that fairly soon the UN will organise a Charity Shield-style play-off for the title of Hardest Nation on Earth.
Spiders on Drugs!
Not sure why the cretin that upped this to Youtube had to stamp the words 'real funny' on the thing, mind. American, I'd wager.
Sunday, 1 November 2009
The Gaping Maw of Hell
Crap jokes aside, I am heartily sick of pumpkins.
Much of the year goes by in a thankfully pumpkin free blur of root crops, salad greens and the occasional butternut squash for amusing phallic relief.
But for one weekend... I have been obliged to carve, insert candles into, peel, dice, reduce with garlic and purée the devil's own legion of pumpkins.
Next year they get plastic ones. Curse them.
Much of the year goes by in a thankfully pumpkin free blur of root crops, salad greens and the occasional butternut squash for amusing phallic relief.
But for one weekend... I have been obliged to carve, insert candles into, peel, dice, reduce with garlic and purée the devil's own legion of pumpkins.
Next year they get plastic ones. Curse them.
Hoots, mon
Prince Charles is visiting an Edinburgh hospital. He enters a ward full of patients with no obvious sign of injury or illness and greets one. The patient replies:
"Fair fa your honest sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin race,
Aboon them a ye take yer place,
Painch, tripe or thairm,
As langs my airm."
Charles is confused, so he just grins and moves on to the next patient. The patient responds:
"Some hae meat an canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat an we can eat,
So let the Lord be thankit."
Even more confused, and his grin now rictus-like, the Prince moves on to the next patient, who immediately begins to chant:
"Wee sleekit, cowerin, timrous beasty,
O the panic in thy breasty,
Thou needna start awa sae hastie,
Wi bickering brattle."
Now seriously troubled, Charles turns to the accompanying doctor and asks "Is this a psychiatric ward?"
"No," replies the doctor, "this is the serious Burns unit."
"Fair fa your honest sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin race,
Aboon them a ye take yer place,
Painch, tripe or thairm,
As langs my airm."
Charles is confused, so he just grins and moves on to the next patient. The patient responds:
"Some hae meat an canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat an we can eat,
So let the Lord be thankit."
Even more confused, and his grin now rictus-like, the Prince moves on to the next patient, who immediately begins to chant:
"Wee sleekit, cowerin, timrous beasty,
O the panic in thy breasty,
Thou needna start awa sae hastie,
Wi bickering brattle."
Now seriously troubled, Charles turns to the accompanying doctor and asks "Is this a psychiatric ward?"
"No," replies the doctor, "this is the serious Burns unit."
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