My hips don't lie (they just stretch the truth)
Words. Words are so passe! I choose to communicate through a much more expressive medium. The Kodak 8.2megapixel digital camera, with optical zoom, shiny buttons and features I have no idea how to use.
A tree fell on the stables.
One eye witness had to be treated for shock.
And another for splinters.
When this turned up on Christmas Eve...
...reactions were mixed.
But a nice cup of tea soon sorted everything out.
The End.
Now this is the modern mindset at its most advanced. A traditional nativity scene with a maverick twist.
As Mary - Katy Price, glamour model, singer, amateur porn star and purveyor of filth.
As Joseph - Peter Andre, self-confessed nymphomaniac and owner of the famous 'acorn willy', liable to dry hump anything that will stand still long enough to let him.
As Our Lord Jesus Christ (Amen) - Princess Tiamaria Mulligatawny Andre-Price, born by C-section in a private hospital.
With thanks to IKEA for the tea towels, Max Factor for Jordan's face TM and Bristol Zoo for letting Pete out for the day.
N.B. If a woman faced the prospect of forty lashes for insulting Islam, can you imagine what a group of Daily Mail readers, tipped over the edge too many sherries and the arrival of a seasonal speeding fine in the post, would want to do to this lot?
Episode 2 - Dolmio day
West Wales has a surprisingly large Italian community. Surprising because it's hard to associate a country in which fashion, gourmet cuisine and fiery temperaments reign supreme, with one famed for its love affair with the leek, primitive attitudes and continuous rainfall.
I don't know why the Italians chose to settle in a place with more sheep than people, but the influx adapted well to their new climate. In fact, they seem to fit right in. They are mostly farmers. They disregard fashion in favour of country casuals (bind-a-twine for belts and wellington boots). They are insular, and ill-at-ease with even the slightest change. Perhaps the decision to emigrate in the first place had something to do with these similarities in character and outlook. Perhaps these outcasts deliberately sought out a part of the world that wouldn't insist on congregating in pavement cafes or sipping wine on yachts from beneath the brims of their sun hats.
A few people in our village could lay claim to a Mediterranean heritage. One such family were the...urm, I probably shouldn't use real names. We'll call them the Goodfellas. There was definitely an element of Mafia mindset about them. Their main priority in life was land, and keeping other people off it. They lived on the outskirts of the village, up a long track. They didn't like neighbours. They didn't really like people. They used to bring the kiddies down to catch the school bus in a manure splattered 4x4, and I clearly remember one rainy day, where they sat in the vehicle and watched an unfortunate fellow pupil shiver and cough for a full ten minutes, without even considering inviting him inside.
The kiddies were difficult to tell apart. They all had regulation short back and sides. I imagine father would line them up with the sheep and shear them to create this effect. I think the daughter got the worst deal in this respect. It was incredibly easy to confuse her with her brothers. We used to call them Elvis, Elvis and Elvis. The youngest one suffered from a weight problem, if he fell over in the playground, it was impossible for any of the other children to help him up without popping an arm out of its socket. The oldest one suffered from rage. He came across a group of us hanging around the end of their drive once (I think somebody may have had their big toe resting on it) and when we refused to meet his demand that we get off at once, he threw his bike at us. So the following night, we drove up to their house, and knocked their gate off its hinges. A small victory, but for a family who thought the purpose of electric fencing was not to keep animals in, but to keep people out, it couldn't have caused more outrage if we'd sent them a dog turd in the post.
"Dear Miss Cave
We are sorry we are unable to supply your order of 2564603062 - Cerys Matthews - Cockahoop (Music CD)
We will be refunding you £11.38 in the next 72hrs via your original payment method.
Regards
DVD.CO.UK Customer Services"
Why did DVD.CO.UK not have the good business sense to realise that once Cerys had given a few impromptu jungle performances, posed for the News of the World in her pants and declared her all-consuming love for the thinking man's Beppe, people were gonna want to buy her effing CD? Or at least, I was!
Ladies.
Ever wondered why that important third date never materialises?
Why your best dinner party stories fall flatter than the souffle?
Why you buff and preen and do 1,000 sit-ups every night and he STILL doesn't call?
The answer, it seems, is simple.
Well, I suppose this does explain why Geri Halliwell is still single.
An occasional series of stories about growing up in the back garden of England. Expect violence, strong language, and to have your stereotypical assumptions met to the letter.
Episode one - ‘Bastard psychotic’
Not only would the village I grew up in survive a nuclear war, it was probably the result of one. The title of this chapter could be used to describe a disturbing percentage of the natives. We enjoyed the neighbourly efforts of the deaf and dumb man, who chased some unfortunate Jehovah’s Witnesses down the street with a loaded shot gun. A woman whose husband would row out into the middle of the small lake on their property whenever they had a visitor, and remain there until the person had left. A gypsy. A mad scientist. A flasher. But we’ll come on to them later. They require at least a volume each.
I want to start by talking about what many believe to be the heart of any community, but which I prefer to think of as the lower bowel; the local pub. Every evening, after the sun had set and it was safe to come out, the jaded doors would be heaved back and allow anybody making a stab at standing upright through. Inside these trusted walls, the villagers could dribble into their pint, or play with their genitals, or kick back and discuss the day in a language which requires a pint of saliva just to ask for the time.
It was a popular place; I had to drag our pet goat out of there a few times (but not before she’d got herself a few phone numbers).The barman had three small children, hence he was at work every night. He ran the place for his wife’s parents, and his mother-in-law would play hymns on the organ in the back bar every Sunday. It was rumoured that her illegitimate son was the man who hid in hedges at night, and had replaced the carpet in his house with newspaper. He would often sit staring into the abyss of a half-empty glass in the company of another regular, who always liked to wrap the evening up by propping himself against a wall, and asking passers-by if they ‘fancied a shag?’ I don’t know what these two found to talk about. Maybe they didn’t talk at all. Maybe they ended up going home together one night and rolling about on the newspaper? Maybe that was the reason it was down in the first place?
Being children, and not allowed within fifty feet of a sherry trifle, we would devote ourselves to trying to spend as much time in there as we could get away with. It didn’t prove too difficult. Either the room was spinning so fast that nobody noticed we were there, or my grandad would be keeping everybody busy, perched at the bar like a geriatric budgie, accepting shots of whisky in return for stories of his youth. Jackanory for piss-heads.
Occasionally, the kids whose fathers would be lying under the pool table by 8.30pm would nip in to ask for money, sweets, cocaine, and it would be handed over without a murmur. We once managed to get twelve bottles of coke out of one loving parent who’d spent the majority of the night chatting up a bar stool. (Whether he got lucky remains a mystery, but nine months later, there were six little bar stools next to his seat). Sometimes there was a fight, but it was normally between the kids (we actually used to organise fights between our friends when there was nothing good on TV). Or we would dare somebody to down the juice from the jars of cockles that replaced the customary bowls of peanuts.
One incident that sums the place up nicely, is the night we were woken at 3am by the noise of extremely heavy metal being scraped over concrete. When my mum, incensed by the midnight removal service, went down to see what the hell was going on, she found three men trying to drag a lamb feeder up the road. Apparently, she was told, there was a wedding next day, and it was tradition to block the groom’s drive up with farmyard machinery. We didn’t have any lamp-posts see.
With all this recent malarkey concerning the Sudanese government and their somewhat over-zealous reaction to an innocent mistake (40 lashes? You'd get less for drinking the captain's rum?) you could be forgiven for thinking that the Western justice system can't be all that bad. That is, until you read this.
Then, you might wonder if a country that is still deciding whether or not to charge a man who shot two others in the street, is really so different from one that demands a woman be punished for naming a stuffed bear 'Muhammed'. I wonder what would happen if a teacher in Texas decided to call a fluffy bunny 'Jesus Christ Our Lord'? She'd better hope the neighbours don't have a fire-arms licence.
Police are today appealing for any information on a man who is charged with inciting public unrest at a Amy Winehouse concert on Monday night.
Although the audience were far too polite to obey the commands of the infidel to 'storm the stage', his incessant chanting of 'come the fuck on' ruined many fans enjoyment of the 2 hour wait for Ms Winehouse to get her arse on stage. 'A violent and abusive threat to the public' was how one witness described him. 'I'm pretty sure he raped that chimp as well.'
When I got home on Saturday night (as drunk as drunk can be), there were people taking ketamine in my front room. Although, to be strictly accurate, one of them was yacking it all back up into a saucepan. I couldn't have cared less at the time, being preoccupied with pressing my face into the mattress and howling like a small, feral child. Tequila tends to do that to me, especially when the pre-requisite to drinking it, is so snort the salt and squeeze the lemon into your eye.
When we surfaced the next morning to a scene that would have given the Wombles palpitations, it was discovered that our little dog had decided to express her distaste at the situation by crapping directly outside my bedroom door.
Thank God it's Monday.
I'm concerned readers. Today my little sister is off on her very first holiday abroad without the careful supervision of parents, teachers, or indeed anybody wearing sensible shoes. She and her best friend are going to Milan, the latter to celebrate her 18th birthday, the former to get off with some pubescent Italian she met earlier this year and has been mooning over ever since.
This is the girl who finds making toast a challenge. Who got culture shock when we took her to a cinema with more than one screen. Who frankly, would happily stash a gram of cocaine in her knickers and then pause to say hello to the sniffer dogs.
"Mammy? Can you come and get me? I'm in It-alee an' they think I've been smuggling rubies. They won't let me have any hot water for my Pot Noodle, an' these handcuffs are giving me terrible chafing, and they all speak funny an' I can't understand them, so can you come and get me? Oh, an' I'm runnin' out of credit, so can you ring me back?"
A member of staff went up to Gatwick for an asylum interview last week, and had his keys, deodorant, mobile phone, dentures etc. confiscated. He didn't get the deodorant back. We think he should claim for that on expenses. In fact, we think he should add a few more items to the list:
* his solid gold watch
* his Elizabeth Arden Night Cream
* his diamond nose stud
* his tickets for a fortnight in the Caribbean
Hmm, so Winehouse isn't well. God damn it woman! Get it together. I know that my worship for you has previously been based upon your disastrous life choices, but if you so much as cough during one of your songs next week, I shall be demanding a full refund.
And in other news, who wants to be a Pastafarian? It might provide Amy with some much needed guidance. She's got the hair, the drinking problem and the missing teeth, in fact, it's as if this religion was created especially for her.
I am attending an AIDS awareness training day at the end of the month. They give you AIDS and see how you cope with it. Last one to get pneumonia is the winner.
That's rather sick isn't it?
Well here's something else unpleasant for your Monday afternoon.
On Saturday night, a friend of ours ran into a deer, which exploded in the force of the collision. All over him. This gave me the opportunity to come up with a pun that I'm so proud of, that if it were possible, it would be rubbed down daily with Brasso and given an entire mantelpiece to itself:
'It's raining ven(ison).'
I am of course, slightly less pleased with the title of this blog, but there was a rush on, and all the good ones were taken.
The Reverend Robert Shields was a man with a mission, with a purpose in life beyond keeping up with the neighbours. Or indeed, keeping up with Neighbours, which is a task I am failing miserably at.
He was an uber-diarist, recording everything that happened to him at five minute intervals. Although I don't know how much would really have time happen to a person who had to keep stopping to make notes. Not exactly a recipe for opportunity knocking is it? There must have been exceptions. Sex being one of them. The main one actually. I'm hard-pushed to think of another activity which could cause genuine offence if you stopped half-way through to record your musings.
But is it not quite tempting to do something similar when blogging? I had a really nice bowl of soup yesterday which I couldn't wait to tell you all about. Oh, and I trod in dog muck. Is this going to turn into a compulsion? Will this blog one day read something like this:
16.25pm Straightened duvet cover
16.30pm Had a wee
16.35pm Picked a stray peanut up off carpet
16.40pm Went frigging nuts
Love is a very fickle thing. My squeaks of delight as the trailer for the new series of the Boosh shimmied onto the screen last night were quickly replaced with guttural sounds of horror and loathing.
What the effing Norah Jones has Noel done to himself?
It’s impossible to find actual footage of this hideous transformation, but he’s dyed his hair a shade of red last seen on Davina Mcall on those sodding Nutrisse adverts (nutrisse means nourished.) He is also so pale that it’s hard to believe he hasn’t been living deep underground for the last few months, only coming out at night to forage for mascara and nail varnish.
It’s going to be difficult to get past this. I struggled with his goth stage, but pushed on through, because he still had a lovely fringe and looked exceptionally sexy in tight jeans. So sexy, that I wanted to do things to him that would probably be rated PG-13 for sequences of fantasy violence and frightening images.
Noel, I could forgive you for poking Peaches Geldof and her sister in the same month. For that brief period where you appeared to be morphing into Courtney Love’s twin sister. But if you continue to ruin your little pointy face with cosmetics, divorce proceedings will almost certainly be where this will end. And if you turn up in court resembling an anaemic disco ball, I’ll almost certainly get the kids. Good day sir.
Ghost was on last night. I don’t know if this was deliberate Halloween scheduling on the part of Channel 5, or just accidental genius. They have improved a lot lately, so we’ll go with the latter.
Can you imagine your partner putting off the afterlife in order to sit around your garish uptown apartment and stare longingly as you sob onto your potters wheel? If you were Demi Moore’s partner then maybe that would be tempting. Otherwise, it’d just be a lot like watching the 5am live-feed on Big Brother. And you’d probably find out one or two things that might rot the roses round the door of love cottage. You know, the kind of stuff that you normally find out about too far down the line to do anything about. Relationships are rarely like those we see in the Pantene Pro-V adverts. Will you still feel like making love instead of dinner when your beloveds nasty habit of throwing underwear at the wall to see if it sticks is brought to the court’s attention?
It’d possibly be more fun if Whoopi Goldberg was your medium. Assuming she’s like that in real life. And why wouldn’t she be? Then you could take her along to family gatherings, dinner parties and the like, and make her jump and shriek in her comedy voice until she’s asked to leave the room/table/country. What else could you use her for? Solving crime? Getting teenagers thrown out of the cinema? Touching people you’ve always wanted to touch but never got their permission (or in some cases, even their attention)?
The bit where the four Ewoks of the apocalypse came to drag the bad guys off to hell always used to terrify me. It’s still a little unsettling now. Although not as bad as heaven it would seem, that just appears to be somebody shining a very large torch into your face, and highlighting your crow’s feet. Still, they don’t make films like that anymore. Probably because Patrick Swayze is far too old.
Today, I bought some organic cotton pads. They are made from 100% organic cotton, gentle on the environment, gentle on the farmers, and gentle on you. However, you must still keep the bag away from small children, who may suffocate. So, gentle, but with a hidden evil streak.
Right, now I'm going home to take photos of my feet.
Blogging live! Blogging about blogging! Am covering a sleepover shift at one of the houses, and there is internet access, so dammit, I'm going to take advantage. There is nothing to blog about, but even so, I'm blogging live! Normally I write my blogs the night before on my Jurassic laptop and post them when I get to work. But tonight folks, it's blogging live!
*taps fingers on keyboard*
Hmm. Is it worth risking a cigarette out the window? It is Friday night....
Oh dear, I don't think this post should see the light of day. It is disgustingly dull.
Fuckme, Girls Aloud have just tottered onto the Jonathon Ross show. They've been laminated!
Fuckmesideways, they're duller than this post.
OK, I'm turning over now ladies, you've driven me too it by wittering on about how inspirational the Spice Girls are.
If I fall out of the window mid-fag, could somebody please hack into my account and delete this?
Celebrities across the western world were left devastated by the news that the pre-packed orphans they had ordered for Christmas would not be arriving.
I'm going to sue Primark. Not because of their dodgy credentials with regard to foreign employees. Not because their store policy seems to be allowing at least twenty screaming children on every floor. Not because the security guard gave me a very funny look.
No, it's because their low low prices incite the kind of murderous frenzy in women which meant that on Saturday, I was hit in the face with a boot by one of their customers. She apologised, I apologised ('tis the English way), but I'm left suffering from PTSD whenever I venture in there anyway, and this, coupled with concussion, well, it's just not on.
You know how they say smoking kills? Well, I’m kinda inclined to believe them. My lungs are starting to rebel, despite my persistent attempts to persuade them that tobacco is what’s been missing in their lives all these years. I’d compare the situation to what is currently taking place in Burma, if that wasn’t so mighty distasteful. But there are definite similarities which are impossible to overlook.
The lungs are holding a peaceful protest, the occasional crackling coughing fit being the only real sign that things could get unpleasant. I am the evil dictator, attempting to silence them with smoky abuse, ignoring their pleas for clemency as I suck on yet another burning stick of crap. This isn’t going to be easily resolved.
Why don’t people get addicted to things which aren’t bad for them? Like fresh air, or spinach? I wonder if it’s possible to smoke spinach?
Things have got a little out of control on the smoking front this week because I’ve been in Dover again, at the No Hope Hotel. The budget for what is tastefully referred to as the ‘overflow project’ is beyond pitiful. What overflow boils down to is a place to keep everybody they don’t really know what to do with, and are hoping will just go away. We ended up making bingo cards out of scrap paper to keep everybody entertained. I had to keep going outside for a fag and a discrete kick of an inanimate object every twenty minutes or so, to avoid handing out kerosene and matches to the boys and advising them to burn the place down.
Interestingly. I met the head of Kent Social Services at a conference this week, the woman clearly thinks she is shit hot. I’d say part of this assumption was true. What we need is Anneka Rice and her super keen team to come on down and renovate the entire place. She must have a window, last time I saw her on the telly she was dressed as an elf and being poked fun at by Ant and Dec. Does anybody have a contact number?
Dear Editor,
It was a slightly muggy evening in late August. Mjohnson and Esmerelda, his primate companion for the evening, were sipping cocktails on the terrace of the exclusive Pomme de Terre restaurant in central Soho. Johnson was admiring the way the fading light had softened Esmerelda’s chimpy features. In profile, she resembled a young Billie Piper.
This was the all-important third date. Johnson swilled tequila nervously round his mouth. He knew that, if he was able to maintain the pace and wit of his conversation, Esmerelda would be coming home with him tonight. He watched fondly as she used both paws to lift her glass to her protruding lips, drained it and fished the fruit garnish out with her fingers. She sucked on the slice of orange noisily, before throwing it at him. He felt his loins twitch.
‘Shall we get the bill darling?’
After quite a nasty argument with a taxi driver about Esmerelda gnawing a large hole in the back seat of his cab, pulling out the foam interior and trying to stuff it down Johnson’s trousers, the mood was somewhat stifled. But once inside the house, he rectified the situation with a blast of Barry White, a quick flick of the dimmer switch and some Penguins he’d found at the bottom of the biscuit barrel. Another argument ensued as he tried in vain to persuade Esmerelda to remove the wrapping before consuming the chocolate but she began to shriek and beat her chest in a frankly arousing manner. Christ, he loved strong women.
‘Shall we take these upstairs?’ he murmured in her bristly ear.
A night of sublime and all-consuming passion followed. There were screeches. Nibbles. An orchestra. Afterwards, Esmerelda lovingly searched through Johnson’s hair for parasites, as he lay back and planned a honeymoon in the Maldives, a ski season in Aspen. Body popping down the local disco on a Friday night, Sunday morning browsing at B&Q…
But reader, should you think this tale has an unrealistically happy ending, then think on! For it’s all turned sourer than a pickled egg after a day in the sun. It seems there was some sort of dispute between the pair over the last Rolo. Insults were hurled. Faeces was flung. Esmerelda has launched a vicious smear campaign against her former lover, who now faces up to ten years in jail for acts of bestiality. How low can a chimp go? Pretty fucking low.
We know that Johnson is innocent. He has never shown anything but the greatest respect for the simian population. To accuse him of taking advantage of a member of a group of animals he has only ever sought to learn from, to emulate, and occasionally, to romance, is frankly, an act of deep and shocking cruelty.
Something must be done! The madness must be stopped! Johnson's trousers must be returned to him, and he should be released back into the wild without delay. We shall not rest until justice has been done.
Yours sincerely,
Mildly disgruntled mob
N.B. In response to this article, a spokeswoman for Esmerelda made the following statement:
* this is deeply misleading…he raped that poor ape. i’ll see you in court……….
I'm in Kent for three days, wading through boatloads of asylum seeking boys, mostly Kurdish, mostly children, all being housed in a leaky hotel and given a bar of soap and a pair of flip flops to last them, oh, I dunno, the rest of their lives?
I am mildly pissed on wine bought with the company credit card. Just think how many flip flops we could have bought with that same amount. And we've both got executive suites. Why are we not housing these children in the Ramada Dover?
Ooh, there's just been a mighty informative programme on about immigration, which we've ignored. I'm sick of immigration. I'm sick of having to say 'no', or 'sorry' or 'tomorrow'. The system reeks. Goodnight.
Ooh! I forgot to mention our halloween party. That's how crammed full of goodness the weekend was, the towel blog took priority.
My sister is planning a halloween party. Being one of these performing arts types, she's not satisfied with some crepe paper pumpkins and a few bowls of Haribo Monster Mix.
There will be a halloween party mix, consisting of 'The Monster Mash', 'Thriller', 'Ghost Town' and urm, well we ran out of inspiration at this point, so any suggestions gratefully received, and taken full credit for.
She is going to smear cat food up the banisters, plant a sheep's head in the fridge, and possibly pay somebody to squat naked on top of the fridge, dressed as a bat.
There will be themed rooms. I am going to be dressed as Crocodile Dundee, complete with blow-up crocodile that I will wrestle at various points throughout the evening. Hence the bathroom is being turned into a swamp. The towles will have to go into storage.
Olly has been persuaded to come as a beautiful, mysterious gypsy, and will cast magical predictions and read horoscopes direct from the Sun inside a tent, pitched in our bedroom.
Cath is coming as Boudica, the (allegedly) Celtic warrior-ess. So the front room is presumably going to be some kind of mud hut. Towards the end of the night, she is going to perform a mime act, based on the ITV drama series of Boudica, starring Alex Kingston. Powerful stuff.
We haven't quite decided what to do with the other room, but it may morph into some sort of OAP area, seeing as my dad has promised to make an appearance, festooned in a curtain.
And Johnson is coming as a bedsheet with an enormous blue nose. He's my hero y'know.
We predict that the average guest will stay a full twenty minutes, if only because they're trying to get cat food off their costume.
Greeting blog pickers.
Yesterday saw me do something that I had never previously considered. I went to Primark and bought a set of towels, carefully chosen to match the bath mat back at home. Then I went home, and arranged the towels on the rails. Then stood back with tears in my eyes.
NOBODY is permitted to use the towels. We have plenty of faded rags suitable for such towel soiling activities as drying hands or smearing make-up onto. Use those if you must, but don't you touch my show towels.
THESE towels are a statement. They say yes, life here is as soft, fluffy and generally perfect as the bathroom accesories I will not permit you to touch.
In fact, I may progress to making the entire bathroom look but don't touch, and requesting that visitors defecate in the bin.
Unless of course, they come bearing gifts of a tea-cup sized pig variety:
In which case they will instantly upgraded to towel privileges, except of course for the ones I will buy especially for the pig.
The time: circa 1990
The place: South Wales, a particularly wild Sunday School party
The jacket: ill-advised
