There are two kinds of people in the world.
People who look good in costume, and people who don’t.

People who look good in costume do it as often as possible, as flamboyantly as possible, and make everyone else look terrible in comparison.

Most of the world, or at least most of Britain, is made up of the other kind of person.
The kind that wastes three rolls of cooking foil to dress as a triangular dairylea slice.
The kind that writes ‘ce n’est pas une costume’ on a vest and makes do.
The kind that claims to be in costume as a lightbulb, further claiming to be getting turned on…

I went to a party once as Kurt Cobain, and managed to end up offending several people.
I made one girl cry.

Sorry, did I say as Kurt Cobain? I know that doesn’t sound so offensive, but think about it, the water-pistol shotgun filled with Vodka Tonic, the artfully red streaked hair sticking up from one point at the back of the head…
It wasn’t, I admit, terribly tasteful.

Not at that particular party.

But come on, who has a renewal of vows on Halloween?

I thought ‘come as you are’ was an oblique instruction for a themed costume party…

So I’m going as Isadora Duncan this year. Much more tasteful.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I just have to go and attend to my neck…

…Big, dirty, oyster.

It’s a phrase, been running through my head all day. No, scratch that first bit, it’s not a phrase at all, if it were a phrase I would have heard it before, at some point.

The world is your oyster…
Is a phrase.
London would be their big dirty oyster.
Is not.
It’s the product of a sick mind.

Sorry, I said ’sick mind’, there. I meant to say,
It’s the product of a BBC Political Correspondent.

I’ll put this in context for you.
I was watching the BBC last night, they were having a parlimentary debate on whether it would be a good idea to move to more ‘normal’ working hours, you know, 10 - 7 or something, rather than what they work now.
2am til 4am.
Or something.
Anyway, not the point.
So the BBC Political Correspondent is talking about these reforms, and why it might be a good idea or a bad idea, and the main reason he could come up with against it was;

“Well, the fear among the Labour whips, and I should think among some spouses too, is that if they finish work at seven and get tipped out into the city so early in the evening, the whole of London is their big dirty oyster, and goodness knows what will happen.”

Paraphrasing only slightly, although ‘big dirty oyster’ was definitely mentioned, and left me with the impression that what this Political Corresponent was saying, with a big leery look on his face and everything, is that the only reason that every single member of parliment isn’t out on the streets, shgging, cock-fighting, snorting all manner of things and frightening old ladies is because they’re forced to work late.

Because apparently, otherwise, they’d be out there, doing all those things.
So, basically, they’re in detention. They can’t get out without a note from their mum.
Until now.

Because now, if we follow the logic, we should be afraid. The reforms have been passed.
Lock up your daughters and clear the streets of London after seven at night, the MP’s are roaming the streets.
The streets of their big, dirty, oyster.

I’m kind of in downtime at the moment, so this explains if I can’t write so good.
This is no kind of excuse, don’t get me wrong.
I’m working out how I now relate to this piece of writing that has nothing different to offer than any other blog or journal in the world.

Everyone lives in cities, everyone knows this shit, what more can I say on the matter?
I seem to be dropping hits all the time, but whether that’s because I can’t write anymore or what I neither know nor care at the moment.
What I need is katharsis, and writing doesn’t feel very Kathartic, (before anyone points out spelling things, I try my best. And that was how it was spelt in some translation of Aristotle’s ‘poetics’ I was reading, anyway…) at the moment, or what I need is…
I don’t know what I need.

A glass of wine and a damn good shag.
But what’s new?

100 Great Britons, in response to the BBC’s version. In no particular order…

1. William Shakespeare.
2. John Webster.
3. Charles Darwin
4. Ezra Pound
5. my friend Bruce.
6. Christina Rosetti.
7. David Shrigley.
8. My mum.
9. Paul Whittaker
10. William J Turner
11. my sister.
12. my sister’s boyfriend.
13. Gerry.
14. Eric Morecombe.
15. Eddie Izzard.
16. Nick Drake
17. Juliette
18. Sophie
19. Leah
20. Nick
21. Diarmuid Gavin
22. my brother; his girlfriend; my dad.
23. Tibor Fischer
24. Lizz and David Patterson.
25. Jeremy Paxman
26. Rod Liddle
27. Brian Patten
28. Roger McGough
29. John Fuller
30. Adrian Henri
31. John (and Katrina).
32. Damien Hirst.
33. Richard Long.
34. Roald Dahl
35. John Donne.
36. WH Auden.
37. The bloke in the Binns Newsagents in New Mills.
38. Quentin Blake
39. People who work in hospitals.
40. Mr Owen, my secondary school French teacher.
41. Ms Howard, English Literature.
42. Mr Lord, Maths.
43. Mr Thompson
44. Mrs Coutts.
45. Sheila Emmanuel.
46. Tracy Emin.
47. Stephen Hawkings.
48. Adrienne, my tutor.
49. Ted Hughes, (for his translation of the Orestia and the poem ‘Full moon and Little Frieda’).
50. Margaret & Griff.
51. Hannah & Rachel.
52. Jimi Mistry
53. Ross Noble.
54. William Shakespeare.
55. Richard Harris.
56. Alexander Clements.
57. Graham Coxon.
58. Sir Ian McKellan (from Burnley).
59. Stuart Galligan.
60. People who write good childrens stories.
61. Judi Dench.
62. Douglas Adams.
63. Toria, Rachel, Rachel, David, Laura.
64. Damon Albarn.
65. Boudicca.
66. Simon Hattenstone.
67. John Peel.
68. John O’Farrell.
69. Steve.
70. Wendy Cope.
71. Eddi Reader.
72. Bea Nilson. (Bea Arthur’s on the next list)
73. John Bell.
74. Nick Park
75. Anthony Sher.
76. Mary Wollstonecraft.
77. My nana.
78. window cleaners.
79. David Bowie
80. William Shakespeare.
81. Miranda Richardson.
82. Maggie Smith.
83. Brik.
84. Teachers.
85. Brian Woodcock
86. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
87. People who set crosswords.
88. James King.
89. Johnny, Pip, Philip, Others.
90. Paul Boteng.
91. me.
92. William Shakespeare.
93. Nice people.
94. Aunties Les, Hil, Ruth, Karen and Mary.
95. Uncles, Peter, John and Tony.
96. Beatrix Potter.
97. Moira Stuart.
98. People who work behind bars.
99. You. (if you’re British)
100. Everyone you know. (If they are).
101. A whole bunch of other people, several million, lets say.

I know people like lists, but come on… 100 great Britons? When the list could viably include people like my Mum and Maggie O’Kane, my friend, a doctor in A&E, and concievably any member of the spice girls, how could I possibly bring myself to vote for Lady Di or Michael Crawford?

I haven’t got the energy.
It’s raining.
It’s been raining for more than a week.
I thought that rainclouds held rain, dropped rain, and then were empty of rain, ready to fill up with rain once more.
It’s simplistic, but that’s the way I like things.
How in that case, can the sky simply open and pour upon a whole big city hour after hour after hour of rain?
it rains and it rains and rains.
Leaves that crackled underfoot a week ago, now slippery and rotting into mulch.

I haven’t got the energy.
I am getting all wet.
There does not seem to be anywhere to shelter.
I have not got the energy to run. It wouldn’t help.

I had the best day.
There are days, so far, when I’ve come home questioning,
there are days when I’ve come home grumbling,
whining,
ranting,
tired.

Today I came home dancing.
And singing. And punning.

I just had a good day.
My seminar was fantastic, my tutorial rocked and the library was sweet.
It rained for 95% of the day but never on me, and best of all, I didn’t get shat on.

I will get shat on.
It will be the polar opposite of this day, and it will be the thing that breaks me.

You see, there’s this bridge that I have to go under on the way to school.
There was another bridge, just like it, on the way to another school, 20 years ago.

It’s a bridge. With added pigeons.
Little fuckers that they are.
Rats with wings, flying diseases.
Living under bridges, train and car bridges that, when they rattle, as carriage bridges will, cause the nesting vermin to shit.

A bunch.
Twice in the last week, I’ve almost slipped, walking under the bridge, on slippery pigeonshit.

And I know that one day, one day just when I need it least, one day, they will shit on me.
Or, more probably, on a day where I’ve been ostracised, dismissed, rejected and confused elsewhere, I will walk under that bridge,
slip in one of the enormous piles of guano that gather there,
land in birdshite,
and then be shat upon.

And then one of them will land on me.
And give me the plague.

But not today.

I can’t decide.
I quite like the bar, I quite like the clientele, but

To me, and it may be infantile, but,
a bar staff that don’t even smile when asked then question

“Hi, do you have Nuts?”
Make me uneasy about the whole place…
I could be wrong.

I just nearly got run over trying to light my cigarette on the edge of a busy street.

So there we are, proof. Smoking really is potentially deadly.

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The post above was typed by a kitten.

It was another one of those ‘in my head; 4, Reality; 0‘ games of the season.

A lecture on ‘how to use the library’ by one of the most pleasant, unassuming librarians in the world - and god knows there’ve got to be a few of them.
And yet, every ten minutes of his pleasant, unassuming talk, ( to which I was trying to listen, I swear…)
some other alternate ending to a sentence would appear in my head and I’d want to laugh.

“So, obviously the Cambridge Reference book here is best used for” …. “killing big fat hairy spiders” … “research into individual dramatists.”

“…And the ninth floor of the library is where you’ll find” … “acned students losing their virginity behind the periodicals stack” … “biography.”

I have to say, the worst moment, (or best, if you ask my head) was when, having spoken so long in the middle of a powerpoint presentation, his screen saver was displayed 7-foot-high on the wall.

And replacing the screensaver actually there (the time in times roman, I think), my head immediately produced several, more comedy screen savers that could have appeared…
“I (heart) Buttplugs”,
or
“Who’s been a very naughty librarian?”,
or
a naked picture of Bea Arthur,
or
a quickflash of rhinos humping,
or
“remember: bread, milk, hava beans, chianti, mouthwash”.

The very thing that someone wouldn’t want to appear behind them in a situation where they’re being taken seriously, that’s what I want to have appeared.
It didn’t, of course.

But, Damn, I’m sure there’s a scene to be written there somewhere…

I’ve just wasted two and a half hours of my life watching ‘The top 100 thrillers of all time’
Not only half scaring myself to death a dozen times,
and not being able to concentrate on the worthy play I was meant to be reading,

but also ruining for myself the twist at the end of 50 films that I have not yet seen.

Well, two and a half hours down, I guess that’s a bunch of hours I don’t need to spend watching those films…

Forced to watch Annie this afternoon, and found myself quiet disquietened by it.

It’s a millionaire falling in love with a lower class ten-year-old tart with a heart, that he pays for.
He orders a child to come and live with him for a week.
He may do this weekly, we don’t know, but he gets home-delivery orphans.

I have issues with this.
And the music also sucks, but I can’t really make a high moral point about that, it just sucks.

Having one of those ‘bemused by the brain’ evenings brought on by gin, this evening.
Don’t worry, I have these every now and again.
They won’t last. (mind like a sieve, you see…)

And it’s my mind like a sieve that bothers me.

I can’t remember primary school. I think that perhaps I should, other people seem to. I don’t. I can remember the map of my house completely, but ask me to remember people or events before I was about 19 and names and faces fly through my head and I can just about grab hold of some…
I don’t know if this is right.
I’ve a feeling it’s wrong, but everyone else seems to be able to remember with Kodak-Klarity.

Anyway, this was not the point, the point was this.
When can you be said to have ’stopped thinking’ about a person?

Certainly, every now and again, you are forced to remember an aquaintance or colleague that for years hasn’t entered your thoughts, but do you ever stop thinking about people?
The people you care about? Anyone, in fact, surely once they’re in your head they’re there.
For good.
Or until your head gets cut off.
I find myself thinking about the people who I’ve known and have meant something to me often.
Even people I’ve not talked to in yonks.
They’ll flit through my head as often as those I spoke to yesterday…

But since, in all these books I’ve read, not thinking about someone anymore is a sign that one doesn’t love them anymore,
But if you always - even fleetingly, think about someone, about many other ’someone’s in fact,
does this mean you’re still in love with them?
Or does it just mean your head is full of junk?

blogger hates me, and is refusing to post anything, and I don’t know why, because I haven’t done anything wrong and blogger’s got no reason to strop so.
Of course, if you can read this, you’ll be witnessing the fact that
a) blogger will post stuff, and
b) I’m prone to the occasional hissy fit.

In the meantime - why does blogger hate me!? not fair!
I don’t want to play any more.
Nobody loves me, everybody hates me…