Monday 5 August 2002
Grolsch (n.) A sneeze: An involuntary exudation of fluids.

It's our Anniversary today. Mine and the Ugly One's that is. It's thirteen years since we had rumpy-pumpy in someone else's flat in Holland Park.
I went to sign on this morning with a heavy heart (though no doubt, as someone will doubtless point out, a pen might have been a better idea) and then paid a visit to my mate Keith who allowed me to try some of his broccoli. I returned home, much the worse for wear, and discovered that a woman from the local bookshop had rung to invite me to an interview... tomorrow!
In shock, I cooked Anniversary Sausage and Mash with my signature onion gravy and my non-signature peas. Neither of these were signed withg a heavy heart.
The Ugly One brought home six cans of Grolsch and some cheesecake.
We watched 'Coronation Street' (Kevin has moved back in with Sally and 'the girls' but has been banished to the sofa-bed, as Sally doesn't want him getting his greasy mechanic's hands on her bolsters) and a documentary about Ancient Egyptian sexual practices.
The Ancient Egyptians (so we are told) were a liberal lot. The Gods indulged in gay sex and there seems to be no word in their language for 'virgin'.
What the hell went wrong with the world?

Tuesday 6 August 2002
Spectrometer (n.) An echo-based locating device usually employed to discover the whereabouts of one's reading glasses.

I got myself dressed up and set off for the bookshop to meet two nice ladies who took me into a tiny back room and questioned me on the suitability for the post. It wasn't a heavy grilling. They asked how I would deal with difficult customers and I told them I would remain calm until provoked beyond reason after which I would beat the customer to death with the latest Steven King hardback.
They will let me know next week.

Wednesday 7 August 2002
Uttoxeter (n.) One who uttoxets.

On 'Trisha' today, the topic was 'Is my husband gay?'. I took one look at the husband, decided he was and turned over to the UK Style channel, thus saving myself an hour of pointless debate and gaining some tips about how to breathe new life into old furniture.
I put a coat of red gloss on the banisters, prepared dinner and played with my water-colour paints, which were a present from the Ugly One. I blame Hannah Gordon for my latest craze. There she is with three new people every day who look as if they should never be allowed near sharp objects, and they - more often than not - produce wonderful stuff. I am yet to produce wonderful stuff, but I've fallen in love with water-colour effects and have produced three portraits of Mickey Mouse and a selection of anonymous faces. I am going to tell gullible Americans that these are portraits of dead gay men I have channelled and who have transmitted their likenesses to my WH Smith water-colour pad.
I might end up on the Living Channel. I'm not sure why they call it that since 90% of the people on there seem to in conversation with the dead. I love the 'Ghosthunting' programme though in which real British people tell of their encounters with ectoplasmic phenomena.
'I saw what could only be described as a human figure,' said one witness. Unimpressed by this revelation (which, after all, could well have just been Jeremy Spake or a headless Thatcher statue or... well... just drugs) I switched back to Trisha.
The husband was gay.
They should have rung me. I would have told them.

Thursday 8 August 2002
Menstrual (adj.) In the style of a Nineteenth Century barbershop quartet.

I spent the day making a golden Gustav Klimt plinth for my Statue of Liberty penguin. I'm not going to expand on that any further. You can use your imaginations.
The Ugly One has gone off to spend the weekend in a tent with two lesbians. Serendipitously it was mentioned on TV the other day that one shouldn't go camping if one is menstruating as bears may pick up the scent and attack the tent. I made him promise to check whether the girls were in their cycle (or possibly tandem if they're synchronised) just in case they send the local wildlife on a rampage of carnage.
Meanwhile, the Crossroads Hotel has been bought up by evil Victor who plans to build houses near the Crossroads Pond of Death, on the very spot in fact where Phil the Frowning Geordie has buried the body of his stepfather.
I opened a bottle of Sea of Serenity (£2.99, Safeways. Nice picture of the Moon on the label) and invited a six foot Kiwi round to help me drink it, which he did. Hooray!
Tomorrow I have to put another coat of paint on the banisters. Will this life of seemingly continual ecstasy never end?

Friday 9 August 2002
Sundry (n.) A genetically designed strain of expensive tomatoes.

Today I continued with the penguin's plinth, which is looking very nice indeed. I should have painted the banisters but that can wait until tomorrow. I also replaced some of my old artwork on my walls with some new, rather more minimal pictures. Yes, it's the Mickey Mouse paintings and the channelled dead gay people. I hope they will become a talking point with psychic visitors (visitors, that is, who may or may not be psychic, rather than people visiting me psychically. That tends not to happen very often).
Later I had a visitor who was kind enough to take me up the Camden Passage, a pleasant journey that I've not experienced for quite a while.

Saturday 10 August 2002
Fundament (n.) A mediaeval mixture with which poultices were filled and applied to the knees of unduly noisy children.

Today a collection of garden gnomes (I don't know the collective noun for gnomes. I imagine it's something like a spandrel of gnomes, or a felch) has been found arranged in a circle in a European wood and are thought to have been taken from their homes by the Garden Gnome Liberation Front.
In a related case...

BETHUNE, France (AFP People Wire) -- Three young men were given suspended prison terms on Friday for stealing nearly 200 garden gnomes. A fourth gnome thief was banned from driving for four months. The men, aged between 18 and 21, were convicted of stealing two Snow Whites, 182 garden gnomes and other garden objects. Police found two stolen gnomes in the trunk of the fourth man's car -- along with pamphlets of the "Garden Gnome Liberation Front" -- after the four were caught trying to remove flags flying in Bethune's main square. The three were sentenced to suspended jail terms of between one and two months.
(http://www.tabloid.net/97/11/17/D1.html)

So... it would seem the French do have some redeeming features. Their organisation is called 'Mouvement d'Emancipation des Nains de Jardin' which I'm sure you can translate for yourselves.

The gnome liberators, according to the Utne Reader, consist of seven wily French folk fed up with what they consider to be schlock. They run around "abducting" the figurines from people's yards, take them to the forest (from whence one would imagine gnomes spring) and repaint them to look like - God knows what. There are no "after" pictures in the story or on the Web site. The story also doesn't say whether the little ornaments are ransomed, left to fend for themselves Blair Witch-style or returned to their owners.
It does say that a German group just had to go the French one better (who'd have guessed?): They take the stolen gnomes on travel excursions to "landmarks around the world, photographing them and sending the photos to the gnomes' former owners."
The French group sneers at these shenanigans, considering them "acts of terrorism." All they want is to turn gnome-andy back into Normandy.
(http://www.metrotimes.com/20/38/Columns/juice.html)

and in America...

Newark, NY-AP, August 3, 2001
Who stole the garden gnomes of Newark? And who set them up to look like they were playing baseball? As residents of this rural western New York village pondered the question, members of the "Garden Gnome Liberation Front" this week announced they would cease local gnome thefts while they focus on helping start other local chapters.
"We wholeheartedly support expansion into other towns, and will help new chapters in any way possible," according to a message e-mailed to the Finger Lakes Times. "However, we also remind new chapters that this is a JOKE. Our greatest fear is that someone gets carried away and does something that we will regret."
Garden gnomes have come up missing from lawns across this village 25 miles west of Rochester since the start of summer. Mysterious calling cards signed by the GGLF were left in their places among flower beds. Village police were recently dispatched to a local ballpark, where they discovered 24 ceramic, plastic and concrete figurines posed in various spots around the field as if they were playing baseball.
"We pulled right down into the field with the gnomes, and we were laughing too hard to say anything," recalled officer Tim Vanderlinde.
The humor is lost on some victims, like 74-year-old Jessie Rice, who awoke one morning to find 10 prized figurines missing.
"I don't think it's funny," she said. "Stealing is stealing."
Newark Police Investigator John Clingerman said he was determined to identify the gnome-nappers. Recovery efforts have had mixed success. Five of Rice's gnomes were recovered from the baseball game; three were in good shape, but two cement figurines had been damaged _ a broken yard mushroom and disfigured doe.
On Tuesday, Rice received a bouquet of yellow daisies from the GGLF. The arrangement came with a card that said: "With our sincere apology for the broken gnomes ... GGLF."
"I appreciated the flowers," said Rice, who put her surviving gnomes back outside. "But I wish they'd know that they hurt people when they steal. I am going to try and fix my mushroom, I loved that one." (http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/WABC_080301_gnomes.html)

The Socialist Republic of Free Hairy Men supports the liberation of gnomes everywhere.

Sunday 11 August 2002
Filament (n.) The same mixture as Fundament, but used to patch cracks in hovel walls.

My Spam e-mail heading of the week is 'Shania Twain's Bald Pussy'.
The Ugly One returned from the depths of Brighton covered in mud. Thankfully the lesbians suffered no bear attacks and their tentflaps remained unsullied by clawmarks.
I cooked chicken in peppercorn sauce with mushrooms, painted a water-colour picture of a fish and continued the construction of my Gustav Klimt plinth, which is far easier to type than to say aloud.
Try it for yourselves. You'll see I'm right.

Monday 12 August 2002
Posture (n.) The position adopted when pushing something through a letterbox.

My Social Security girocheque hot having arrived (again) I was forced to go down to the Jobcentre to get a replacement. Hammersmith Jobcentre is staffed by the fiercest women in the world. Xena Warrior Princess would not stand a chance if she suddenly - in a strange and improbable set of circumstances - found herself living in Hammersmith where there are few vacancies for either warriors or princesses. The woman behind the bullet-proof glass payment window glared at me for a moment.
'Here's your cheque!' she snarled. 'If the other one turns up, DO NOT CASH IT!'
I took this as a dire warning. She knows my address. I suspect that were she camping and menstruating at the same time, she would be in no danger from bears.
I returned home, somewhat shaken and had to have a lie-down.

Tuesday 13 August 2002
I have the power to channel my imagination into ever-soaring levels of suspicion and paranoia.

The weather is looking better. Not that I have been sunbathing or wandering half-naked through the streets. I would think that unfair to those who covet my gorgeous frame.
The Bookshop sent me a letter today to tell me that I hadn't got the job, which cheered me up no end. I was tempted to march in there and mix up all the books, but then I do that already so there seemed little point.
To cheer myself up I applied for three other jobs immediately and did some work on the new Chip Shop Boys album, which has been in production for nigh on a year.


Wednesday 14 August 2002
I assume full responsibility for my actions, except for the ones that are someone else's fault.

Today we watched 'Enterprise' which isn't as bad as I feared. It's certainly a vast improvement on Voyager (which some cruel people term 'The USS Melrose Place'). 'Enterprise''s major flaw is the theme tune sung by cute Northern bloke Russell 'The Voice!' Watson ('The Voice' is traditionally said in a 'Just Jack' kind of way). It's not the singing that's bad. It's the song. It's AWFUL! Oi! Watson! No! What were you thinking of, chook? If he'd sung that sort of rubbish on Captain Kirk's ship he'd have been out of the airlock before you could say 'Bitter Dregs'. (This will make sense to some of you. Others may be mystified. Tough!)
Anyway, that thing happened whereby I see a familiar face playing a bumpy-faced alien and I say to The Ugly One 'Who is That?'
The Ugly One generally shrugs and shushes as I tend to do this at moments of heightened outer space tension.
On this occasion it was the Captain of a Vulcan ship.
'I know his face.' I said.
'I don't,' said the UO and turned the volume up.
It wasn't until the final scene that I made the connection and realised that the Vulcan was none other than Evil Rolf, Stefano Dimera's dastardly henchman from 'Days of Our Lives.'
'Haha!' I said triumphantly and announced my discovery.
'So it is!' said the UO, in a disappointingly unimpressed tone.
Later, we watched the first segment of our Dune miniseries.
'Isn't he the man from Six Feet Under?' asked the Ugly One, pointing at Paul 'Muad D'ib' Atreides, future Emperor of the Galaxy.
I raised an eyebrow and looked suitably aloof.
It wasn't, by the way.