One cannot keep it in, the other cannot let it out.

While the washing machine in our (previously) perfect, perfect flat sat thinking hard about whether it could be bothered move its bowels from E all the way to F (it’s not far, but makes some considerable difference to me), the fridge, quietly - silently in fact - gave up its chilly ghost and defrosted my peas against my will.

Grumpy, after mopping up the refrigiwee and pleading with the wouldn’t mashine, I left the house, avoided the pile of poo, and went to catch the bus.
Which farted at me.

I’ve never, never in my life been someone well versed in adventure gaming.
Well, apart from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy game, but that doesn’t really count, does it?

(wavy lines, soft focus: sub-StockAitkennWaterman pop blasts from a radio and Anna suddenly reappears in a vile pair of dungerees and one of the world’s worst mullets. That’s right, it’s last week. No, I’m kidding. It’s 1989. Oh, the hours she spends during weekends at her father’s house, tapping away furiously, trying - Oh So Hard - to get the damn babel fish into her ear. The game drives her absolutely around the God Damned bend. Until she realises that she can buy a different version, complete with hints. She cheats her way through it. There’s a version here, by the way… )

Anyway.
For the last few months, my winding down after work has included the Kingdom of Loathing. Because it’s written very well.

It funny.

Anyway. I wasn’t going to write about it, I just wanted to ask - does anyone else play it? Anyone who’s not too embarrassed to say? Just leave a comment.

God, I feel like you’ll have lost all respect for me now. 27 year old girl that I am, spending a small portion of the day fighting Spam Witches (You look into this seductive creature’s eyes and feel as if she can make your sword longer, your bank account bigger, your waist smaller, and show you the secret habits of barnyard animals. You fight to resist her charms…) and Orcish Frat boys (’This is an Orcish Frat Boy. He likes beer, hot Sorority Orcs, and music that combines rap with heavy metal. He doesn’t get hit nearly often enough - perhaps you can rectify that.‘) And cooking up pizza and making cocktails. Virtually. Oh god, I’m, I’m making it worse, aren’t I?

Forget I said anything. Justforgetit.

In case, like, you do play it…
(Is funny, no?)
(I’m going to shut up now)…

Yesterday I was pleased to get home and discover that I had mail. Well, I kind of had mail. I had glossy mail, that some would call junk. I would too. But then I noticed that it promised specific omniscience, and I got kind of sucked in.

It was red, and shiny, and addressed to whoever lived in the house, and had the words ‘The Royal Mail: Working for YOU‘ on the front - that, or some equivalent corporate wank, I forget.

Under the big banner corporate title, however, was the winning promise:

‘Containing everything you want to know about your post:
We deliver the answers to all your questions…’

Really?
Excellent.

Well, where are those books from Amazon I ordered last week?

And you know that bill you delivered yesterday? Well, I don’t want to open it. What does it say? Am I in trouble?

Why is it, please, that when I open the door to your irate employee, he always insists on chastising me for the diminutive size of my landlady’s slot? What exactly does he think I’m going to do about it?

And what more, exactly, does he think I’m going to do about it the 27th time he tells me?

And does he have to shout quite so much?

Is it legal to post goldfish?

I’ve lost my childhood correspondence to/from my friend Dan. Do you know where it is? I thought it was in the attic, but I was wrong. Where is it?

Why don’t nice letters ever come in brown envelopes?

Who keeps pooing in front of my house? Is it the postman? If not, does he know who it is?

Are all envelopes vegetarian? I mean, I don’t care, I’m not vegetarian, but if you can go as far as knowing they’re vegetarian, could you at least make them taste of ‘nice’? Mango chutney or something?

I keep forgetting to tell people where I live. Could you get my postman to? Because he knows where I live.

Can you tell him not to shout, when he does tell them?

Also, where are those books I ordered from Amazon?

Yes, again. Well, they still haven’t arrived. Where are they?

Of course, I don’t know the answers to any of these questions yet, because I haven’t opened the leaflet.

I will open it, and let you know.

update

Oh.

I’ve just finished reading a book, and I just wanted to mention it. Two reasons:
a) It’s very good
b) Something reminded me of it today
c) It’s my site, I’m allowed to do that.

Three reasons.

Anyway, the book was The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan, edited by John Lahr, and it’s just great. I usually avoid diaries and autobiographies like the plague, finding them too boastful, or too humble, filled with minutia or who-cares-less confession, too self-aggrandising or self-effacing or both at once. The level of name-dropping is usually abysmal. And I can’t stand footnotes. And they always have footnotes.

The thing about Tynan’s diaries is that the name dropping really is abysmal. But you get the feeling he’s aware, and that he name-drops because he’s in awe - and feels not quite up to the society he keeps - as well, in fact, as feeling better than the lot of them. He’s very clever, and talks about theatre, and I enjoy that. There’s also a lot in the writing that anyone who has been depressed can recognise. Oh, yes. And there’s the spanking. The man really, really liked his spanking.

So one day’s entry could run;
‘Monday
Lawrence Oliver was saying to me the other day… blah blah blah… can’t pick up a pen, too tired to work, and hate myself all the more for it… blah blah blah… The problem is not with absurdist theatre in the real world, it’s realism in a world so very abs… blahblahblah blah blah… on the other hand, went to see n. today. Three straight hours of spanking. Little pink bottom. Mmmmm. Off to NT to see KL directed by PH tonight. LO ’stars’ bound to be a somulent affair. Who speaks for the real Lear in Richard’s England?’

There’s something odd about the whole deal. Jesus, i was about to say it reads like a good weblog. That couldn’t be more wrong. But a good weblog should read a little like that. Not the spanking, I mean, the spanking isn’t mandatory. I just meant in terms of variation and… Oh, forget it.

The thing that reminded me of it today was this. And it made me laugh all the way through yesterday morning.

“Kenneth Tynan is my homeboy” says P Diddy.

Excellent. Very good stuff.

I shall take this opportunity - while the Bloggies bandwidth thing is sorted - to tell you to go and vote for the people I like. And who I nominated, and have voted for already. Not that being nominated by me was a surefire route to shortlist. Nononono. Because, lets face it, every single one of you lovelies would have been on there if it was. And also I would be on there . *Grumble grumble razza-frazzin’ meh meh meh small ladylike tantrum etc*…

But who cares about that? - I demand that you go and vote for the very very good webloggers (and very very good writers) that I like. No, I don’t care who you like. You should go and vote for who I like.

Because I like Londonmark and Troubled diva, Myboyfriendisatwat and Petite Anglaise. There are other people and blogs you should vote for. Obviously, the Guardian article in the section on articles and essays is very very good indeed. As are the blogs above.

So go and vote for them. Now.

Please.

Thank you.

The day, surprisingly, has got better.

The hole-punch reconsidered its petulant pacifism and started punching gaily, and, in the course of a morning’s work, I had cause to write a limerick for no reason. It is on the subject of Sex and the City’s Kim Cattrall (Samantha. Obviously). Because she is now appearing in a real play in London, in what seems to be being greeted by the media as an acting-fully-clothed phenomenon.

I’ve never written a limerick before.
I probably should have started with someone with more rhymes than ‘Cattrall’.

A limerick:

There was an actress called Kim Cattrall
Whose thinking was entirely lateral
So when satc did end
to the West End did wend
with teabags as back-up collateral.

She was in some adverts. you see. Some bad ones. For teabags. I wanted to include something about, you know, propensity for displaying her funbags, the vast messy pile of hollywood detrius that ends up in British theatres very few of whom (unlike Cattrall) can actually act, or the fact that Sarah Jessica Parker has a face like a horse (not specifically related but worth recording in verse, I feel), but limerick is too restrictive a form, and I couldn’t fit it in. It might have been a better poem if I had.

Also, I realise that the fact you have to pronounce ‘SATC’ as ’satsee’ is a bit of a shortcoming.

And the shoehorned rhyme-scheme, and, oh, alright, it’s not very good.

Still, at least the sun’s shining, eh? Unless, of course, it’s not, where you are.
I’m going to go and do something else now.

If you have any limericks on the subect of Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall’s happy-sacks, or Hollywood ‘actor’ interlopers on the British stage, please deposit them below. I’m sure you won’t, of course, but it’s only polite to ask.

The day takes on a gloomy tint when, at 8.30am, you sit staring in confusion, trying desperately not to be outfoxed by the new holepunch.

How, in God’s name, is it possible to be outdone by a holepunch?

I walk, I talk. It punches holes. I work, I write. It punches holes. And yet, AND YET, it’s sitting there, on the desk, staring at me with its big, pokey, mocking, reverse eyes that it uses to punch the damn holes. Or not to punch the damn holes, depending.

Surely the day can only get better.

Suddenly, I’ve realised it’s Burns Night tonight, and I’ve no haggis in the fridge.

This shouldn’t be too much of a shock - I’ve never got any haggis in the fridge.

But generally I don’t feel bad about it, tonight, Burns Night, is the one night I would concieve of having haggis in the fridge. Maybe not a fresh one. Maybe a vegetarian one (cons: not authentic, pros: not unidentifiable innards in a bag). Or maybe a real one, just for the hell of it.

But no, there is no haggis in the fridge, meat or not, so it’s a moot point. Anyway. It’s Tuesday, which is traditionally junk food night in The Little Flat.

Maybe we could order a Haggis Pizza.

From Papa Jock’s.
Or Pizza Hoots.
Or Dinnaenaw’s.

Sorry.

I suspect that is a joke for Boose and, possibly, no one else.
Apologies.

Another day, another ‘comedy’ email lands in the email box. I’m never quite sure what my friends think makes me laugh, but until today, I would have been willing to bet that not a single one of them would have thought ‘Hey! I know what’ll really tickle anna’s chortle-ducts… A list, right, of why dogs (which we all know she hates) are BETTER than WOMEN (of which she is one). Something written by a misogynist dog-lover - that’ll make her laugh, she’ll just Love it…’

And with one click, I was forwarded that very list, with the purposes, and nice ones they are too, of brightening my day. But it has not brightened my day. It has confused me. And, at the end of the day, made me a little cross. It’s the timing of this as much as anything. Dogs, I have to tell you, are not really the favoured biscuit around here right now. Or dog owners. Or dog owner, to be exact. I’ll tell you about that tomorrow.

In the meantime, here’s the list in full (in bold) with my comments added. Because, unlike dogs, women like to talk back. Sorry.

Dogs are better than women because…

Dogs don’t cry
Ok. Well, this one’s fair enough. Dogs don’t, to my knowledge, cry. They do bark though, don’t they? And quite loudly. And they whine. Women may whine (as do men with colds may) but do not, to the best of my experience, bark.

Dogs love it when your friends come over
Yes, well, because they can’t understand what you’re saying, dogs probably have no idea what a misogynist bunch of cocks you and your friends are. I like it when my beloved’s friends come over. because - coincidentally - my friends always seem to come over at the same time. Not that hard, being the same people and all.

Dogs think you’re a great singer
No, dogs lack the facility to tell you otherwise.

Dogs don’t mind if you use their shampoo
Sweetheart, if you want to use the dog’s shampoo, go right ahead. I don’t mind either. Oddball.

Dogs don’t expect you to call when you run late
This is true. Yes, dogs don’t expect you to call when you run late. I suppose they’ve become accustomed to that. Because they, unlike you, realised that picking up the phone wasn’t ever going to go that well. They don’t keep a bucket of opposable thumbs behind the sofa, you know.

The later you are, the more excited dogs are to see you
Yes. Although that excited barking and bouncing around can so easily mean ‘I need a poo! I’ve already urinated twice in your shoes!‘

Dogs will forgive you for playing around with other dogs
And I think your girlfriend will probably forgive you if you throw a stick across a park for another woman. Equally, yes, your dog may forgive you if you have sex with non-familiar canines. If that’s what you were trying to communicate - although, of course, I’m having quite the problem understanding you, what with me not being a dog.
And you being in idiot.

Dogs don’t notice if you call them by another dogs name
But they probably won’t come if you do.

Dogs are excited by rough play
I really don’t want to be thinking what I’m thinking right now. I know you’re insinuating something about sex. And I so wish that it didn’t sound like you really quite fancied biffing the dog.

Dogs don’t mind if you give their offspring away
erm… Now, the points on the rest of this list seem like genuine problems that you have with the female flavour of the human species. Am I to understand from this that you think that women shouldn’t mind if you give their offspring away? Are you on crack?

Dogs understand that farts are funny
I thought that everyone understood that farts are funny. What kind of freaky women have you been dating?

Dogs can appreciate excessive body hair
Perhaps. But dogs don’t really have ‘excessive’ body hair, seeing as all their body hair is just body hair - it’s not excessive, or unnaturally virulent, it’s just hair, because they’re dogs and they’re hairy. If, however, dogs naturally came mostly smooth, with only selected hairy patches, then perhaps more of a fair comaprison can be made. Whatever lame attempt at comparison, Mr Comedy List Writer, your hairy bum is still horrid.

Dogs like it when you leave things on the floor
So they can chew them. Try it with all your pants, some important work documents and your ipod. Then we’ll talk about whether ‘women’ or ‘you and the dog’ have the better idea, shall we?

A dog’s disposition stays the same all month long
Yes. Unfortunately it doesn’t go out to work and earn the other half of the rent. It’s a swings and roundabouts kind of thing.

Dogs never need to examine the relationship
Because you feed them, take them for walks, have little desire to mate and make a monogomous sexual relationship with you (as much, it seems, as you might desire it…). And also because a) dogs can’t talk. And b) dogs can’t understand a word you’re saying. I’m sorry, it’s just true. When you ask them if you can have bum sex with them and they look like they’re happy, it’s because they think you might give them a chocolate treat. No pun intended.

Dogs parents never visit
You’re an idiot.

Dogs love long car journeys
But they won’t remember to bring snacks, they won’t have packed for you, and they’ll stick their head out of the window the whole way, producing unneccesary drag.

Dogs understand that instincts are better than asking for directions
Dogs couldn’t ask for directions if they wanted to. Being, as they are, unable to talk. Also, I assume, you refer to asking directions while driving. So you’re suggesting that dogs would never think to ask directions when they were driving. Brilliant. Simply brilliant. Let us be clear. Dogs cannot talk, dogs cannot drive.

Dogs never criticise
Should we run over that ‘dogs can’t talk’ point again?

Dogs agree that you have to raise your voice to get your point across
They have ‘points’ you say? Interesting.

Dogs never expect gifts
Although they do expect feeding, washing, taking out for walks and being given instruction on when to and not to poo. So really very low maintenance then, yes.

Dogs don’t worry about germs
You’re an idiot.

Dogs don’t want to know about every other dog you’ve ever had
No, you really are an idiot.

Dogs don’t let magazine articles guide their lives
Aha. Here’s we’ve hit the old ‘dogs can’t read’ stumbleblock. Having covered ‘dogs can’t talk’ and ‘dogs can’t drive’, I was rather hoping we’d avoid this one. Sweetheart, I tell you this once. The main reason dogs don’t let magazine articles guide their life is because they’re too busy chewing the magazine to take in the content thoroughly. And also they can’t read.

Dogs would rather you bought them a hamburger dinner than a lobster one
Yes, but they’d probably prefer a prime cut of steak to a pot noodle, too.

Dogs don’t keep you waiting
So you love the dog, because the dog never keeps you waiting, but you also love the dog because the dog doesn’t mind when YOU keep IT waiting. I start to trust your assertion of being well-suited to idiot four-legged housepets unable to answer you back. I’m starting to think that you and Rover may be very happy together. Well, Rover may not be very happy, but what does that matter? Because, as previously discussed, Dogs Can’t Talk.

Dogs enjoy heavy petting in public
Yes, I see what you’re doing there. Double entendre. Very good. Taking into account that many women don’t mind ‘petting’ in public either, I would have to take the given point to a casual extreme. Dogs don’t mind if you shag them on the front lawn in a mid-afternoon heat-wave. I mean, seriously, sir, if you want to take the ‘heavy petting’ of your dog to it’s natural conclusion, preferring dogs to humans as you so obviously do, then go right ahead. Just not on my front lawn. If that’s ok.

Dogs find you amusing when you’re drunk
The fact that anyone finds you amusing at all, good sir, is a revelation. I don’t think I’d find you amusing if you were able to fart the alphabet. Which given the arse-talking of this list-writing, actually, it seems that you are. Well done you. The next canine that finds you funny drunk, take her home and shag her on the front lawn. She’ll love it. And you’ll know that she loves it because she won’t tell you she doesn’t love it. The logic is impeccable.

New and exclusive, only on little red boat:
Why Spatulas are better than men.
1) You can take eggs out of the frying pan with a spatula.
2) Spatulas don’t write comedy lists.

I give up. No. I can’t do it, because it’s not all men I have a problem with, it’s one. This one. Oh, and the guy down our road with the dog. Two of them. But more about that later.

If I always phoned up and asked for the crazy japanese guy, I wouldn’t mind. Had it only ever happened once, I would consider it a fringe issue, and ignore it. If it had just happened at one salon, I could brush over it. But since in the last four salons I’ve been to, I’ve been met at the door and hacked in the chair by a Japanese loony, it’s a little more than coincidence, I think.

Today’s guy - Danny - was a little less crazy than the norm. He was just a little more angry than the others. I think he’d had a long and very busy day. I think that mainly because that was what he said, in a grumpy way, as soon as he got me in the chair.

‘Wha you wan?’

‘I want something different. And a fringe, I think. And I’d really like to take a lot of the length of. I bored with it.’

‘Yes. Bored. Well… Is natural. How sho?’

‘Shorter. I don’t know. I’ll trust you.‘

‘Ok, so I’ll cut it long and sho, long and sho, all over the place, some up some down more trendy, not all same length, little crazy, very now. Long and sho. And the fringggggggge, slope over the eyes, over the face, cut this face shape in half, yes, long, shot, slopy fringe Trendy.’

‘Um. OK.‘

‘What, you think you won’t like?’

‘No, I mean, yes, it sounds great. One question. When I wake up in the morning, will I be able just to get up and go out without much hassle?‘

‘No. Course not. You will need to make effort. You can’t just get up. Course not. What kind of haircut does that? No good haircut. But if that what you want, you can have that… If you waaaaaaaaaan….’

‘Nononono, you’re right, whatever you want to do, do. I trust you. Just shorter. Like, above the shoulder‘

…

‘Ok! How you like it so far?’

‘Could it be shorter‘

‘Why?’

‘um. Just, maybe, a little above the shoulders.‘

‘That’s another 3 inch. ‘

‘Yes‘

‘Well, if you think that what you wan’… then okaaaay…’

‘And the fringe.‘

‘FRINGE?! You wan FRINGE?’

‘um…‘

…

All I want is to walk into a salon and say ‘make me look great’ and have them do it immediately. Why is that not possible? I mean I HATE hairdressers. I hate them, I hate the way they ask “hmmm.. Did you Dye this yerself?….“, I hate the talking about nothing, and the fact that they stand there looking thin, and blonde, and perfect while you sit, bedraggled and vulnerable as you let them…

Oooh, taxi’s here…

It being not raining, and that being a pleasant surprise, I went for a wander at lunchtime, around backstreets that I’d not wandered before, and stumbled into Bleeding Heart Yard.

In one corner there was a Dickensian looking pub. In another, an office building.

The rest of the small squre was taken up by a crowd of people wearing woolly jumpers and talking about organic food and the next anti-war demonstration they’d like to organise. I’m sure I heard someone say “Won’t somebody please think of the children” at least once.

That is, of course, a lie. I didn’t even go into the yard itself - although I’ve heard since that there’s a nice pub in it. And a Dickensian one, to boot. Giving a warm London welcome, and serving a wide range of bar snacks and more substantial fare (in trying to find out the origin of the name, I stumbled on several promotional pages) at very reasonable prices.

But Bleeding Heart Yard now joins my list of favourite place names, along with St. Louis de Ha! Ha!, Quebec, a street called Gibble Gabble in Broadbottom (there being some 2 for 1 deal on novelty names in Cheshire, apparently), and the village of Flash in Derbyshire (which, I believe, deserves an exclamation mark just as much as St Louis Ha! Ha!, a la ‘Flash!’)(in fact, if you remember the film theme, it would do well to have an ‘Ah ah!’ following it as well. ‘Flash! Ah ah!’. That would be great. Maybe we could work out some kind of anagrammic placename Derbyshire/Quebequanese timeshare arrangement).

There’s also Monkey’s Eyebrow Arizona, Moose Factory, somewhere in Canada, and the now renamed Gropecunt Lane in London.

The nice thing about Gropecunt Lane (why would anyone rename that?) - and, of course about so many other place names is that they simply state the facts of the place or the feelings of the people that named it about that place.

The ‘fact’ thing always endears me. When I lived on Iona, everyone would pour over the map of the island, and always read the Celtic place names with a voice of mysticism and awe, slightly disappointed when they found out each meant ‘That big pointy black rock‘ or, perhaps, ‘The middlesized pointy black rock‘ or, occasionally ‘The pointy black rock that is smaller than the other two pointy black rocks but not as small as the pointy black stone‘. Gropecunt Lane did exactly what it said on the tin. Prostitutes were there. You went there to grope a bit of cunt. No point in putting flourishes on it. It’s a good Anglo-Saxon word. They said it, not me. And that was what they meant.

Every town in England has a Market Street or a Market Square, the rest of Britain have variations on the same - they’re place names that honestly represent what happens there. And that endears me. It’s charmingly straight forward. I’d like to think that Boring, Oregon and Normal, Illinois were exactly as they announced themselves to be. And if there was a Moose factory, a factory that Actually Made Mooses (Meese, sorry) in Moose Factory, I’d be the happiest woman alive.

I like, even more, the place names that say something about twhat people found when they reached there, or how they felt about it all. Point No Point has to be my favourite. People travelling day and night, slogging their guts out to get somewhere, to explore, to discover, to conquer only to reach somewhere and go… “Oh.” “Oh. Is that it?” “Oh, right.” “Oh”.

Come by chance is a place that was quite nice, on the other hand, to happen upon, although I like the suggestion that they were trying to get somewhere else - although probably not Point No Point, which they’d possibly heard about on the grapevine by then.

And, now I’m thinking about it, my new favourite is Dead Horse, Alaska.

“Why did you settle here, exactly? Was it the fertile ground? The river? The weather? Is there gold? Oil? Is it rich in natural resources?”
“No sir - goddamn hoss died. It was either live here or walk.”

Or that’s how I like to think it happened, anyway.

Once you start looking, it’s great, they’re everywhere. Crutched Friars in the city. Went there. There weren’t any. There weren’t even any friars, which is a good thing because I probably would have kicked them in the knees. There’s an old street called ‘West Bank’ just North of our house, which is only funny by location, running, as it does, through the centre of Jweish London. There’s Frostproof, Florida, Egypt in Hampshire, which couldn’t be less like Egypt if it tried, and oh I don’t know, about a billion others.

But no, today, I like the mental picture of Dead Horse. That’s Dead Horse, not A dead horse.
Anyway. Come on then. I’ve shown you mine…
Where’s yours?

But there isn’t.

And staring at the screen trying to think of one, funnily enough, isn’t really helping.

There is, however, in the general theme of bad poetry, a bad poem I wrote less than a year ago when I had a headache, about the headache.

Less than a year ago, suspicious… suspicious enough to lead me to suspect that it might, in fact, be the same headache, lurking. Little fucker. Maybe I’m allergic to rhymes. So, a good thing I never became a gangsta rapper like my mother always told me to. Word.

Do not feed the trolls. It only encourages them.

If, by any chance one morning
as you wander through the wood
you chance upon a troll-like figure
(unlikely, yes, but if you should)
I recommend you do not feed it
hungry though it might appear;
feed it, and you reassure it
that it sure has found your ear.

Shouty soon the troll will become.
Spitting fire at all the world.
Happy and excited at last
somone has their ire unfurled,
by simply rising to their bait.
Their fervent will to be irate.
Their love of goading those they hate.
And nought can make the fire abate.
It’s very annoying.

They’ll jump excited all around -
Think back, you’ll find yourself to blame
you thought they were a simple soul -
But attention given, returned flame.

So.

In the future, please remind us
Do Not Feed the Trolls.

Matter not o’er what they wind us
up, remind us; Do Not Feed the
Trolls, no matter how they tempt us,
with what arguments they plead
for titbits - it will only serve (at
end of day) to fill their needs
and nothing else. It is not worth it.
Tho’ tis tempting, I implore
remind me; ‘Do Not Feed the Trolls’
should I but seem to, evermore.

Thanks.