Monday 17 November 2003
Last week a man came round to service my boiler. He was black, and about twenty-eight,
and we got into a conversation about Godzilla and Japanese movies, at which
I mentioned the DVDs I had brought back with me from America.
'I was in New York not so long ago,' he said, 'and it was the weekend of Pride.
It was nice to see that a whole lot of black guys were on the floats, and
that gay black people feel that they can come out now.'
This sudden turn in the conversation away from 'The Beast From Haunted Cave'
took me by surprise.
'Is that why you went to New York?' I said, which seemed a fairly reasonable
question.
'Oh no,' he said. 'I'm not gay. I did have a boyfriend once, but I'm not gay!'
'OK' I replied, not quite sure how to respond to this apart from 'How does
that work?'. I mean, I can understand straight guys saying they've had sex
once (or twice) with other men, but having a boyfriend? That's not just popping
in for the Open Day, that's signing up for the Three Year Degree Course.
Tuesday 18 November 2003
George Bush arrived today and was swept off to Buckingham Palace to spend
a night with the Windsors. Rather him than me. Rather them than me as well,
actually.
Michael Jackson is in trouble again and rumours still fly regarding The Palace
Person and The Servant Person cementing relations between the classes in novel
and interesting ways.
The rest of the country seems doubtful but I believe every word of it.
The Countess of Wessex has given birth to another parasite. Her husband wasn't
present at the birth, but then I very much doubt if he was present at the
conception, so no worries there, and Ian Duncan Smith has been assassinated
and replaced by Michael Howard, a man so evil that even Anne (SFX: Crash of
thunder: Horses whinnying in fear) Widdecombe is scared of him.
Britain in the Twenty-First Century remains essentially the same.
Taken by a whim (as I often am) I nipped into Waterstones on the way home
and bought a copy of 'How to Become A Domestic Goddess' by Nigella Catering-Warrior-Princess
Lawson. If she wasn't already married to a Saatchi with more money than taste
and I wasn't a big fat penniless poof I would marry her and become an even
bigger fatter heterosexual, probably bored sexually but with access to pies
of unimaginable quality.
Next week I plan to tackle her Butterscotch Layer Cake and seduce the postman
with it.
Wednesday 19 November 2003
I have been having strange dreams lately. Last week I dreamt that I was living
in a house by a lake full of crocodiles. I was not concerned by the presence
of the crocodiles. Indeed, I was sitting at a table beside the lake with the
Ugly One looking forward to the prospect of little crocodile babies running
about come hatching time, and a profitable future in the matching handbag
and shoes industry.
We watched a documentary this evening about people in the US who have blamed
Keanu Reeves for making them murder people. One young man murdered his landlady
because she was 'sucking him into the Matrix' which I would assume to be a
euphemism if he wasn't American and therefore oblivious to the word.
Talking of dangerous films, since my return from America with various marvellous
DVDs I have now discovered the website which distributes them. It is called
oldies.com and is not - as one might suppose - the place to get a quick and
grateful shag.
Tonight I checked in and sent off for more fab films, including 'Bride of
The Gorilla' and 'Night of The Blood Beast'
Hoorah!
Thursday 20 November 2003
Last night I dreamt I was living in a world of papier-mache people. This may
have been prompted by the fact that I was flipping through the channels last
night and came across a late-night Hollyoaks. Who should be there in his full
wide-eyed orange-faced glory but Evil Jake from Crossroads!
Have Hollyoaks no shame?
Quite apart from that I only discovered the other night that Emma Noble -
once married to the son of John Major - during her brief but cringing stint
in Crossroads, began having an affair with Jimmy, her onscreen husband, who
himself was married offscreen to someone with presumably more talent and personality.
I am less shocked by the affair than I am by the fact that 'Jimmy' is straight.
I'd have bet good money on him being 'English by birth but Greek by injection',
as they say.
One lives and learns!
Friday 21 November 2003
I had a bad day at work today so to cheer myself up I bought us a king size
leopardskin duvet set from a strange new Indian shop which has sprung up in
Brixton overnight.
Upon fitting it on the bed, however, I discovered that the pillowcases were
slightly different shades of leopardskin, as were the sheet and the duvet
cover.
'Oh well,' I thought, 'It's not that noticeable.' Then I got the duvet into
the duvet cover (This I achieved by getting inside the inside-out duvet cover,
grasping the corners of the duvet with the inside corners of the cover and
then shaking the cover out over the duvet(Anyone watching through my bedroom
window might well have thought some kind of tribal voodoo rite was in progress,
but they'd be wrong, as that only happens on Tuesdays) which fitted. No loose
seams or missing buttons. However, the leopardskin print was running sideways
across the duvet rather than up and down as it does on the pillowcases and
sheet.
I'm buggered if I'm going back to change it. It's the only leopardskin duvet
cover I've ever seen and it matches the bedside cabinets.
Saturday 22 November 2003
I awoke from a dream about Amanda Burton, which is a little worrying. Bleary-eyed
I stumbled out of my leopardskin to find the Ugly One already up and watching
the Rugby World Cup Final. I was rooting for the Australians as - not being
English - I find it hard to support England. The English are such a bunch
of smug buggers, especially if you have to live amongst them and they've won
something.
Generally, if England win, the papers and TV are full of 'Victory for England'
statements. If Wales, Ireland or Scotland win it's 'What a Victory for Britain!'.
As it is, although England won, from reading the papers you'd think that Johnny
Wilkinson had played the entire game alone without even the slight hindrance
of an opposing team.
I am fascinated by him simply because I think he is Brian Tilsley's lovechild.
There is a spooky resemblance, particularly with regard to his wall of teeth
and his permanent look of dazed bemusement, no matter what is going on around
him.
You girlies can keep him. I want Phil Vickery or Martin Johnson please.
It is 40 years since Doctor Who appeared on our screens and also since JFK
was shot down by Margaret Thatcher from a grassy knoll. Although there's been
no real mention of JFK (or indeed Thatcher's involvement) UK Gold are having
a whole Doctor Who weekend with the public choosing their favourite episodes.
I suspect there won't be much Colin Baker or Sylvester McCoy, and even if
there is we can always switch over and watch a programme about paint drying.
This evening the UO - having been poring over Nigella Catering-Warrior Princess's
'How to Be a Domestic Goddess' made a passion-fruit cheesecake.
It was like a slow chilled orgasm.
To go with that we watched the extended DVD version of 'The Two Towers' which
arrived today, just as though it already knew there was cheesecake on the
horizon.
There was a lot more of Sean Bean in this one.
SCENE 17: OSGILIATH EXTERIOR: SOLDIERS OF GONDOR MILLING ABOUT. ENTER BOROMIR,
STROKING A FERRET :
BOROMIR: 'Eeeh, Our Faramir. It's grand to be back in't Gondor for a proper
pint. 'Ow's our Dad? Appen as not he's still got a face like a drayman's horse,
fretting over't ring o't power and suchlike. By 'Eck. Your hair's grown! You'd
best get it cut lest you're taken for an elf down't Osgiliath Legion and ravaged
by't desperate wild dwarves.'
Sunday 23 November 2003
My celebrity dream sequence continues, since last night I dreamt I was walking
through Victoria with Tom Baker until he stared at me with that manic way
of staring that he has, flashed his Johnny Wilkinson teeth and said 'I have
to go now. I'm off to chat with the old people.'
This was somewhat prophetic as after the UO had finished baking his Nigella's
Chocolate Orange Cake we sat down to watch Doctor Who and The Invasion of
the Dinosaurs in which an evil Martin Jarvis was transporting dinosaurs to
the middle of London as part of a nefarious plan to... well, it was a nefarious
plan. You need know no more.
Monday 24 November 2003
I took some of the left-over cheesecake to work today and told everyone that
I'd made it myself. Cheesecake, readers. It can make a dishonest woman out
of you.
I'm a bit disturbed by the turn Coronation Street has taken this week, what
with half the cast going off to Blackpool just as Jim 'catch yerself on' McDonald
escapes from prison because he thinks his tarty wife Liz is having it away
with the man from 'Dinnerladies'.
Tuesday 25 November 2003
I came home early from work, fell asleep and woke up just as the homicidal
nurse on Holby City was confessing to her gormless brother that yes, it was
her that injected several by-passing actors with morphine for no reason that
anyone can fathom.
One of them was the nice man from Linda Green.
Holby City, of course, exists in an alternate universe where the people we
know as celebrities are nobodys and prone to accidents and hereditary disease,
or else have gone into the medical profession. In this world, Art Malik is
an anaesthetist, David Soul is a surgeon and there is only one hospital. Soap
stars are statistically more likely to need surgery than anyone else, as half
the cast of Eastenders have been through the wards for one reason or another
in the last year.
Friday 28 November 2003
I had a very bad day at work, which the Ugly One must have picked up on with
his tellytubby pathetic powers, as when I got home he was preparing Chicken
Korma, Mushroom Bhajis and a large glass of vodka and coke.
Bless him.
We settled down and watched 'The Giant Gila Monster' in which a young poor
but honourable singing mechanic is spotted by famous (but oddly elderly) DJ
Steamroller Smith and along the way saves a shedload of teenagers from the
Giant Gila Monster - which for an unfeasibly long time remains unspotted (no
pun intended) despite the fact it has taken to derailing trains and swatting
cars off the road.
Sunday 30 November 2003
Got off me face and watched 'Koyinisqaatsi'. It's a thing that everyone should
do at least once in their life.
