Doodling

There is so much graffiti going on where I live that the shopkeepers have decided that, rather than fight it, they will go with the flow and many have asked the graffiteurs to artify their shop signs and shop fronts. I am filled with the urge to go out at night with my own cans to add to the decoration.

Does anyone else think that my plan to transform the 'Massage Club' front would make it more amusing?




This is all work displacement daydreaming, I pass the 'Sausage Club' twice daily but my waking hours are taken up with getting ready to go on a filming trip in the Azores which is why I have no time to blog let alone paint.

I'm off at midnight and will try to post from my far away island when I'm not busy trying to catch a giant squid

Man and Lady In Garden With Cat

Twenty years ago I bought an old Super 8 camera in a flea market and filmed everything that moved until I ran out of film. These masterpieces then languished in a drawer for years.

I made two attempts to get the reels digitised but neither time was the job done well. Bits of my footage have survived the process though and earlier this year I used them to practice using a video editing programe.

This first epic shows my parents playing in the garden

Some Azorean Culture

I have a new bff in the Azores, keen to educate me in the culture of the islands she has sent me this link featuring Azorean singer Zeca Medeiros. I love it.

Getting a Reputation

Bristol gets in the news now and again it’s always interesting to see which bits of information stick.

Miss Whiplash stayed late in the office last night, waiting for one of our cameras to be returned by a French company who had been using it to film bats in Nicaragua.

The camera was delivered by a handsome and underemployed young artist who was delighted to be in Bristol - our city was a holy place for him.

Where can I see ze Banksys?

Whiplash gave him a map and pointed out some of the places where the young man could see some of the artist’s best work. But the man looked concerned

Are zese in any of the bad places?

Whipash was puzzled - what do you mean by bad places?

for example, St Pauls I ‘ear it is full of how you say? ... toxicos

is there anywhere else you’ve been warned about?

yes Southmead are you telling me to go anywhere near Southmead?*

Whats wrong with Southmead?

The Nazis are living there


*The only reason that we know of Southmead is because of its hospital which has an excellent neurosurgery unit.

Whale Meat Again

I have just returned from the Azores, this was a recce for a forthcoming filming expedition which was arranged and executed with tremendous haste. I’ve spent the last four days meeting skippers and making lists, measuring things, making drawings and drinking a lot of strong coffee. The main things that have stayed in my head from the trip are these:

a) Portuguese as a written language clearly has similarities with Spanish, but when spoken it is full of soft szjujj-ey noises which makes it sound like a language being played backwards

b) There are a lot of sausages on the Azores, I didn’t get a chance to sample them all, but I can recommend Azorean black pudding.

c) The Azores is Whale World; former whale-processing stations line the roads to the harbours, bars are full of little whales carved out of their own bones, snack bars operate from whale-shaped huts and whales are woven into the in the pavements.

I saw 'whale’ on a restaurant menu but I didn’t find out if it really was from that animal, it might have turned out to be just a whale-shaped sausage.

Chasing John Lynch

We like whiteboards to keep track of what's to be done around the office. They get full of notes about jobs to be done, shopping lists, and about a million unresolved problems.

Next week we will be recording the narration for two of our films, Whiplash and I have been squabbling over who gets to chase John Lynch.

Fuzzy Pictures: day 7

Since our 'riots' last month, my neighbourhood has been host to a continuing party, even in the rain people crowd the streets. Yesterday I was struggling home with my shopping and was so overcome by the glorious technicolour everywhere that I decided to photograph my favourites in the last 500 metres before I got to my door.

Fuzzy Pictures: day 6

I needed a photo frame and wandered into what looked like the right sort of shop. I didn't see a photo frame but I did see a clock on a suction pad which I thought might be useful stuck to our fridge (now that I've thrown my cooker out I have no kitchen clock). The suction clock was £4.

On the way to the till I saw some antlers shaped like mirrors which I had no idea I needed, I couldn't see the price on them so I took them to the till. On handing them over I noticed a ticket for £22 stuck on the back of the packet of antlers. At that moment the man at the till said

those antlers are 50p

Gosh, I said that's good do you have any more?

the man checked the computer and said that technically the one I had didn't exist and in fact the till price was not 50p but -50p, he rang my purchases up and I paid £3.50.

Bargain!

Fuzzy Pictures: day 5

I've been tearing out strange and interesting pages from magazine for decades, today I decided to decorate one of the edit suites with them, the parts are still being shifted around but they must get stuck down tomorrow.

I'm hoping the editor will enjoy it, this bit appears to be the animal cruelty section, it includes a photo of James Dean playing bongos to some cows and a pig, Emilio Zapata blowing smoke in the face of a night monkey and some images of a horse dressed as a zebra being ridden by a tiger.

Fuzzy Pictures: day 4

Darn fox - still evading capture

Fuzzy Pictures: day 3

Trying to round up the animals for treatment - panic ensues!

Fuzzy Pictures: day 2

I've just discovered that Hugh has carpet moth.

Treatment starts tomorrow

Fuzzy Pictures: day 1

My lovely Lumix has broken, just as I've got the urge to photograph things, but I shall not be deterred, my iphone 3 will stand-in and herald the start of a week-long 'Fuzzy Picture of the Day' feature.

Today's image shows you two things of which I am very proud:

Thing Number One = Brick-o-matic Bread, it might look a bit black but it's jolly nice and people have been known to pay a lot of money for this sort of thing in Paris.

I'm much prouder of

Thing number Two = this is yeast that I've kept alive for two whole weeks. Yeast must've inspired someone to make the Tamagotchi; one has to feed it, protect it and keep it happy or it dies.

I've never had a proper pet or looked after a baby (my sister is having one and might need my help), this is a sort of practise run.

Oven Shopping

The Brick-o-matic is all very well but a kitchen needs an oven and I'm keeping an eye out for something suitable. Yesterday I saw this one. I like the towel rail detail and the little warming box at the foot of the burning part (presumably it's for reviving/steaming cold mice). However that oven won't fit anything much bigger than a single cat*, I need at least a double-catter, maybe even a triple so I'll keep looking ...


*I'm not planning to actually cook any cats, but I have noticed that cats are an excellent unit of measurement

Baking A Labonne

When we moved into this house I threw out the mimsy fireplace that was blocking our magnificent chimney hole. Since my recent kitchen destruction I've been experimenting with different configurations for cooking in this space.

Please note the Labonne Patented Brick-o-matic Adjustable Height Grilling System, once I've finished my trials I'll be putting it on the market and hoping that you will all support me and purchase several - the ideal wedding gift!

My New Minimalism

I’ve been a bit stressed lately...

Normally I bake my way out of trouble but lately I've needed to get a bit more physical; I recently spent a happy weekend (I think it was happy) pulling up the nasty carpet in the living room and tearing off wallpaper, beating the room into submission until it was reduced to a bare shell.

When the thrill of that destruction had ebbed I turned my attention to the kitchen. The toy oven that never baked evenly and won’t fit a proper roast dinner, that and the leaky fridge were both hurled outside. Great lumps of wall cupboard that were stuck up on the walls taking up valuable air space, they came off ... so did the mimsy peach-coloured tiles.

All done, the next thing I needed was cake.

I now spend a lot of time looking at the space where the oven was.

PS: I've just reread one of my old posts, clearly home chaos is a recurring theme in my life (and that of my friends)

Build It And They Will Come

I attended my first Pre-riot Party last Thursday, here's what happened:

5pm: Many police piled in to arrest some squatters living across from a newly opened Tesco store, these naughty people had been singing and dancing outside it all week handing out free cake to anyone who didn’t go in. They had a sign saying HONK IF YOU HATE TESCO - the cacophony of honking cars had been continuous for 7 days.

Tesco might have been getting a bit fed up with this, but I'm sure that had nothing to do with the evening's events.

Four people were arrested without incident and nothing happened so the police sent for back up. During the arrest the police discovered the squatter's cider supplies and made a statement to the press that they had removed 'suspected petrol bombs’

6pm: ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY police along with dozens of vans and horses have now arrived, they are in full riot gear. They try and upset people by blocking the roads and pushing them around but we’re on holiday, it’s Easter – Peace Man!

11pm: It’s a beautiful warm evening and I’m on my way home, but police and horses are blocking the roads around my house so I join the milling crowds, there are dozens of bars along the road where the police want the riot to happen. so the essential ingredients of many people and alcohol should get things going, but we’re on holiday and in no mood to protest.

This non-event is surreal, lines of police stand behind riot shields across the roads. We try and ask the police about what is going on but they stand on silently waiting for the riot to happen.

2am: The crowds in the bars have been tweeting away about 'something going down’ in Stokes Croft, hundreds of people have now turned up for a riot, the bars are closing, AND NOTHING IS HAPPENING.

Guess what happened next?

Yes I Understand You Words

Everyone is away filming - Whiplash and I are left in the office to sort out the remaining engineering issues that need to be resolved before the next trip. Glass tubes and lumps of metal are arriving at our offices and we need to tell other people what to do with them, Whiplash listened to a man who arrived with a large box and wrote down what he said to her, I've typed her notes up so we can all know what's happening:




electrical dome comments
2 x 4 ft connector leads with 12 way female one end and 4 way females at the other end

connect spheres to junction box spotex making (cameras have gone to spotex)
box of mashers large and small spring mashers coming tuesday item 2 on scan drainage or disc springs on nautilus draining

plastic mashers – 1 made big for dome electrics, 4 smaller ones for little domes
2 x 5/8 hole optics
2 x 1/2 “ hole electrics

2 optical connector with big one and one each little one

still havent got camera with large enough head so big dax

Kevin back on Tuesday

Dirty Arials

Bristolians don't like words that don't end well, they round off rogue vowell-y words with an 'l'. This can be confusing and entertaining such as this exchange I had today regarding the cleaning skills of someone I know as Tanya:

Me: Hi Kath how are you?

Kath: Not good - I've just had words with Tanyal, she's not cleaning the common arials properly.

Unravelling

I'm sorry, I seem to be slightly out of sorts these days

How To Deal With Snoring Chairs At Dull Meetings

The other chairs decided that it would be fun to wake Duncan up by dousing him with alcohol and setting fire to him !

Mega Super

I consider my main achievement on this trip to be the fact that I haven’t yet been arrested. This is despite several excellent opportunites;

Firstly there is my inability to understand the one-way system in the big town that I have to go to for batteries, timber, tools and the Mega Super.

This place clearly doesn’t expect to be visited by out-of-towners so the direction for driving is not posted on many of the roads. Having caused a massive klaxonage at every turn on my initial foray I now simply follow any moving vehicle and hope it will eventually pass a shop that has things I need.



Yesterday there was quite a big argument about whether the police should be called to arrest me in the small town that I go to for fuel. The petrol station has a Manboss and several women who run the place. I filled up with fuel before realising that my bag was empty of wallet. Seeing no child to hold as hostage while I made my escape, all I could do was offer a promise to return with money very quickly.

The Manboss wanted to call the police and the women spent about an hour trying to convince him otherwise, everyone got very heated and it nearly turned into a fight. Only when I chipped in (in my best Spanish) with assurances of my honesty and an offer to leave my Yves St Laurent sunglasses as security, did the arguing group stop and regard me with puzzlement.

Then one of the women said

See ... she barely speaks

and I was allowed to go haha

Camper Requests

Camper and The Lavatory petition for acceptance into the mainstream seating community

Help ...

It's all going wrong with the filming. The camera crew have been trying to untangle a camera out of a tree since 4am - it's nearly lunchtime and they're still not back ...

Rocky And Stumpy

This is Rocky he likes macramé and oil painting



He also likes hangin' out with his pal Stumpy

Out On A Limb

Coatis have double-jointed ankles - they point their feet backwards which makes getting down trees easier

I am suffering from Santa Rosa Fat Arm - apparently a high proportion of visitors to the Park get at least one Fat Arm for about a week.

The cause of Fat Arm can be mysterious and is often thought to be brought about by spider bite, I have Fat Arm because I leaned on a wasp who was pretending to be part of the table cloth.


Yesterday I went into a part of the forest where two of the Park rangers were working, one of the rangers was a small elderly lady, her large straw hat was secured to her head with a floral scarf, she was working with a young man. The rangers were repairing paths around a picnic area. I parked my car and the lady came up to me asking who I was - I showed her my papers, she asked me to go and see her to sign out before I left.

When I was ready to leave they were doing a spot of carpentry, I went up and said

Ok I’m off now

The lady looked at me, then stared at the young man who missed a couple of beats before quickly putting his left hand up as though it was a notebook, he asked my name, I told him and he tried to write it on his sweaty palm.

Then he asked me for my passport number.

That is in my car

The young man looked over at my car, he didn’t want to move, so he thought of another question
what is your driving license number?

That is also in my car

Neither of us were quite sure what he was supposed to do with this information so he put his hand away and wished me a good journey.

Chair Attempts Suicide

Today an Outlaw Chair was discovered by the Chair Police. This individual had heard about the crackdown on lawless chairs and tried to end it all. Only his indecisiveness got in the way.

How Was Your Last Seven Days?

The photo is an illustration of we sustain ourselves here, the food in containers is prepared in the park canteen – here we have a rice-based dish, potato and beetroot salad and black bean puree, you may also note our reliance on Tabasco, coffee and beer.


The days after the longest Monday went something like this:


Next Day – nothing worked, I spent a lot of money buying car batteries and got shouted at by the man running the battery shop because I didn’t want to buy his winch.


it is really hot here

Day After – some things worked a bit, but we didn’t have enough power - I had to go back and buy more batteries. The chairs refused to behave

More Camera People arrived hoping to use the cameras

Day After That - I bought wood to make a table and found some better behaved chairs.

The things that worked yesterday no longer worked.


it is really really hot here

Next Day – our main filming system relies on a pair of cables stretched over the forest, the cameras are all worked remotely. We finally got the cameras working and tried to launch them but the electronic systems interfered with each other and turned our cameras into Crazy Robots from Hell

I am asked to order more stuff to be sent over from the UK

Day After That – some people fell out with each other

it is really really really hot here

Day After That – one of the cables collapsed

Day After That – the other cable collapsed

it is still bloody hot

Where Do Bad Chairs End Up?

Chair Hell

International Chair Ambulance Arrives

A Flying Squad of chair medics arrived on the scene last night. After examining the wounded, a specialist chair doctor carried out major field surgery.



Those that survived were supplemented with specimens from the finest furniture store available. We sincerely hope that the influx of foreigners will integrate with the native chairs and co-exist peacefully for at least six weeks.

Chair Wars

Anarchy broke out among the furniture last night. Evil Chair and his cronies attacked the few remaining Good Chairs. This one has clearly had the stuffing knocked out of him and is bleeding profusely - will he survive?

Evil Chair

This is Evil Chair - Evil Chair sits around looking inviting, just waiting for someone to sit on him, then just as his victim has got settled with a beer, Evil buckles his legs and throws him backwards.

Evil Chair is allowed to hang around because Good Furniture is difficult to find and there are too few Good Chairs to stand up to this bully.


Here is Evil Chair with his brother - they find Evil's antics so funny that Evil Twin has laughed his head off.

This is the Soggy Bottom Gang, anyone sitting on one of them gets sucked through the sponge at the back of the chair. The Soggy Bottom Gang don't want to kill anyone, they just want to be left to get on with getting drunk and falling over.

The Longest Monday

This is where I finally put my head down last Monday night, it is where I will be staying for the next couple of weeks. Our journey to this place seemed interminable because time kept slipping as we chased the sun round the world.

1am Monday: Got out of my lovely warm UK bed met two Camera Boys, collected 28 cases full of filming equipment and drove to airport.

8pm Monday (at least 24 hours later): Costa Rican customs lady does not have the correct paperwork for our trolleyloads of cases and threatens to impound it all for a few days.

10pm Monday: Arrive at Thrifty Car And Van Hire, we booked a van, it says so on our booking reservation, we have been given a People Carrier, it is full of seats, there is no room for our cases, Thrifty Man insists that a bigger vehicle does not exist and Thrifty does not do vans, I ask for a second vehicle, the laborious task of filling in documents goes on while the Camera Boys pack as many cases as possible into this first vehicle. When 20 cases are firmly wedged in, the second vehicle is brought over – it is bigger and has less seats – we can put all our luggage in this one.

I go back into Thrifty office, make Thrifty Man tear up all the documents and start again, meanwhile the Camera Boys unload and reload the cases.

12 midnight: Santa Rosa National Park, the road got distinctly lumpy as we approached our destination, it is very very dark and for the last ten miles, dozens of Nightjars chose to squat on the road, flying up in front of the vehicle only as it is about to drive over them, I am driving and getting confused about whether this is all part of my plane dream which involved machete-wielding octopi.

When we get to where we have been told to go, all doors are locked, no notes and no-one is around except for other visitors who are sound asleep. We creep around for another hour or so until we find a hidden section of buildings with our names on the doors and keys in the locks.

The next day I get the email telling me about the change of plan.

Getting Home

Those are my bags at 9.45am last Thursday. They are waiting for someone to arrive and put them in a taxi. Fifteen minutes earlier, my bags and I had been delivered there by a man in a tiny boat, the man in the boat assured me that a taxi had been booked, it would be there shortly to take me to the airport to catch my 10.20 flight to Belize International.

Just after I took that picture that guy who is also in the picture said

You need a car?

and I said

I have taxi booked, I should give it a little more time

at 10.00 I asked him how long it would take him to find me a car

couple of minutes

He ran off to a nearby house and returned with his friend in a beat-up car and we set off for the airport.

They drove right into the airport and checked my bags in for me - the following picture is the view from the taxi.

Belize Bars

That's Jet, he's four foot two, with a face like a chewed toffee. There he is behind his bar in Belize International airport, his bar is called 'Jets'. Jet works hard at being a 'character', toy planes hang off the ceiling and Jet's name appears many times around the place writ in neon and biro. The food option at 'Jets' is a cheese and ham sandwich for which you will pay dearly, there are no prices written up so you won't realise how expensive it is until he has given you a pack of chewing gum as change for the twenty dollar bill you just gave him.

Feeling pissed off and hungry you might then go round the corner and find something called 'Petit Café' where you will be served nice food by jolly women with great hair and clean t shirts who don't try and feel your tits.

Addendum to Previous Post

It has never occurred to me that the toilet flush could be operated as a pedal. When I first read that notice I imagined that people must be putting their feet into the bowl to treadle their faeces down the pipe.

Back From Here and There

I suddenly had to go off on a long trip, I went all the way there and then turned around and came all the way back again. I have been in perpetual motion for a week (the insides of my body are still rolling with the movement of the ocean).

I passed through many ports and I shall probably say more about these places. Meanwhile here's my favourite notice seen during this trip - found in an airport lavatory

Home Wrecker

The business has moved out of my home which is great, the problem is that where there used to be people and desks there are now sad shabby spaces. For example I can now see carpet, a carpet that I've hated forever - I knew the carpet was hiding horrible, slightly damaged ceramic tiles and we couldn’t afford a new floor. A week ago I finally cracked and attacked it.

I became a thing possessed, ripping up the carpet, leaving shreds of stringy fibres stuck under the skirting, crumby carpet tape residue remained stuck round the edges of the room - it looked a lot worse.

On Friday I came home after a movie and a bottle of wine, I stood in the room and observed how my efforts had emphasised the way the wallpaper was peeling away from the walls. I picked at it and Lo! strips came away in my hands. I went at the walls as enthusiastically as I’d gone at the carpet. At 2am I stood back and surveyed the wreckage.

On Saturday I tried to escape the horror, I wandered into town, saw a linen tablecloth in a charity shop - sweet but a bit weedy, I bought it home and threw it in the washing machine with some dye to liven it up.

I went out again but when I came back the walls and floor still hadn’t repaired themselves, I took the linen tablecloth out of the washing machine - its delicate beauty was completely ruined, something had to be better by the next time I woke up - I found some rolls of lining paper.

By teatime yesterday I had painted over my badly hung wallpaper and the floor was scraped clean enough to throw a rug over it ... the tablecloth still has to be rescued, I’m feeling loads better but a bit tired now.

Immaculate Conception

My posts are getting too angst-ridden, I need to lighten up and share things that I find funny about the universe

Today a young man was doing some building work, he told me a long and involved story about why he was driving a 'poxy car' rather than a van - this was the punchline;

I had to swap it with my brother because his girlfriend went and got herself pregnant

His words inspired me to look for images imagining the annunciation - I found the one above here

Trying Not To Kill People

Once upon a time our business consisted of two Camera Boys, Miss Whiplash and a big pile of kit, our main concern was to insure against bad men running off with a camera or the film stock getting eaten by tigers.

Now that we have a proper grown-up out-of-the-house building and lots of people, the responsibility for not killing people is mine all mine.

Paperwork about Regulations and Compliance rain down on me. I’ll have just filled in a stack of forms for security arrangements or arranged fire warden training, when another hazard looms. I dream that a giant rabbit is living on my lap, every few minutes it burps and gives birth to several kittens and I have to keep them all within my capacious skirts - they keep dropping on the floor and some of them break and I have to scoop them up and hide the bits in my pockets and try and glue them back together when no-one is looking.


I’ve just subjected myself to some intensive coaching about how to be a good employer, my coach is patient. To deal with different situations, he suggests scenarios where I imagine putting on a succession of different coloured hats or confronting a series of doors, there are diagrams too - one looks like a hairdryer.


Yesterday afternoon I had set up a broad range of policies and contracts and insurances, I thought I had it all covered...

I had forgotten the rogue fourteen year old who I rashly said could come and do a week’s work experience with us in the summer. Today I got a phone call from the child labour inspectoriate demanding an interview, they want to come and grill me and my premises and look at my policies ...

Naughty Foxes

Having poured my efforts into sorting out the new offices, my home got totally neglected. Over Christmas I managed to attend to the insides of home, but its outsides are now a bit of a wasteland.

I didn't think this mattered much, I thought the plants would welcome a break from my pruning and grooming.

Wildlife has always passed through our garden; someone has been leaving it's fur-filled marker poo by the bins and I've often disturbed a mangey old fox who likes to sleep his hangover off in the daffodil patch, he clearly brings his chums over for mad parties now and again, they leave trails of licked-out-chicken-fried-box debris in their wake but now things have escalated:

This afternoon I came home early, put some coffee on and went out to see if spring was starting, instead of lovely crocuses I saw burnt out fireworks stuck in the flowerbed and our back gate is broken.

Have foxes developed opposable thumbs or do I now have a pest problem?

Be Careful What You Wish For

Within mere days of my last post I became awash with chairage; I snapped up a perfectly decent set of 4 dining chairs to tide me over ... then I walked past a charity shop and saw another set of 4, quite different to the first set, but strangely interesting, so I bought them. All 8 chairs needed new seat covers and this has been my weekend project.

Yesterday I won an ebay auction for some chairs that I loved but thought I couldn't afford, another set of 4 and quite different from any of the others, but I really, really like them. I have just driven for two hours to go and collect them, the man selling them mentioned that he has another 24 just like them ... next week I will open my chair shop.

Meanwhile the production office has been overwhelmed; the Costa Rica cable-riggers didn't manage to get the cable-rigged before they had to go and work elsewhere, another crew had to be scrambled to go out to Costa Rica and finish the job so it is all set up ready for the actual filming to start in a month's time.

We have a new Hot Girl in the office (Miss Whiplash already presides over two less new Hot Girls). The Hot Girls sort out the emergencies and organise all the trips.

The newest Hot Girl prepared a care package for the latest Costa Rican Cable Rigging Cowboys it contains:

Money
Chocolate
Peanuts
Cashews

and a Tic Lasso

Through The Rabbit Hole Mirror Thingy

Previous posts might have hinted at the fact that I have got two not-quite-sorted out properties on my hands; The new business premises is busy and needs more desk space to accommodate the assorted Spanish newsreaders and World-of Warcraft players that are drifting through our doors. Meanwhile my home is barren, if I would like to evolve from picnic-style to normal-people-style-eating, I will need things like a dining table and chairs.



There are two vital factors at play here; cash flow and ... cash flow

I am scouring Ebay, Gumtree and any other preloved-items sites to meet our needs.

I need chairs, I type 'dining chairs' into the search engine. The three top items that correspond to my search for my local area appear:

FREE: LOVING HOME NEEDED
8 year old black and white spade female cat in need of rehoming as she is being constantly attacked by a stray cat which has recently moved into the area. She is completely housetrained, timid... read more

WANTED. ELC HAPPYLAND CHURCH AND/OR WEDDING PARTY. THANKS.

£80 no offers: SALE.SYLVANIAN FAMILIES GRAND HOTEL
As new, bought in 2010 but never played with. No box. All balconies/entrance intact. Extras include half an asda bag of accessories. More or less full kitchen, hotel reception and odd furniture...

I have no idea what is a meant by 'Happyland Church' or a ' Sylvanian Families etc.' I feel alienated by modern culture (but I do like 'odd furniture') plus I am worried about the spade cat who is getting racial discrimination. I forget that I am looking for chairs.

Groping Around

I’ve never been keen on winter it does horrors for my skin, my fingers are all cracked and sore and my lips are dessicated. At home the heating system is in decline and is currently not really working so I’m spending more time than is healthy at the office which is still sweltering.

Our new office premises aren’t quite resolved yet. The lights I installed in the production office actually seem to make the room darker, by mid-afternoon with all lights apparently on we need to strap on a head torch to find our way to the filing shelves. There is also an ongoing game of musical chairs, desks and computers as we try and work out where we are all going to fit and who’s best to sit next to.

It's quite crowded at the moment, the whole crew is here and we have an additional Spanish translating lady in for a few weeks, one of the many issues to work out is how to get a rigging team to Costa Rica with a set of crossbows without raising security alarms*

*the reason for weapons will be explained in more detail over here

Gifts

Last week my love gave me a splendid cardigan
But he felt that the splendiferousness of the cardigan merited better buttons - he sliced up a piece of box wood.

It is the best present I have ever received.

Annual Review Digested Biscuit

I seem to have grown tired of my words, posts started ... then deleted for being too ... wordy.

Less is probably more - here's the last twelve months as I remember them - in no more than six words


January
half pop group, staring child

February
crazy white house house white crazy

March
smelly yoga indoor pedalo men

April
volcano erupts, van to spain

May
cheesy protests, organ on roof

June
home crowded, grumpy cow

July
walk with father, flappy soles

August
puddings, leopards, lolling langurs

September
furniture mountain blocks light

October
furniture removal, empty house

November
gnu star in kitchen drama

December
berlin snows england skates

Silly Season

I visit a supermarket that is also used by students, their conversations are such good value that I have been known to spend more time than strictly necessary hanging around near the Pot Noodles.

Today's gem:

Skinny boy, looking anxious:
I've got ham, how long does ham keep for?

Girl:
It depends on how cold your fridge is

Skinny Boy with incipient fridge insecurity:
Err quite cold ... I think

Girl:
You can definitely keep ham for at least a day - two if your fridge is really cold

Back From Berlin

Berlin was great, even when I couldn't see it and was simply fighting my way down the street inhaling snowflakes. I am back home now, here's what has stuck in my head about the trip:

• Berlin snow is drier and whiter than the stuff we get at home, this makes it really easy to see how much urination happens outside

• many Lady Berliners look a lot like Christine Keener which was nice because I have quite a crush on Ms Keener

• there are loads of shops selling good quality leather footwear - all of them identical


• Berlin is heaving with Christmas markets, the whole population must be drunk on Glühwein fumes throughout December. I consulted this guide to decide which one to go to and was very tempted to try the Hanukkah Market, partly because the guide told me that I'd find
puppet shows and live music celebrating the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem more than 2,000 years ago. Cause nothing says “we won the holy war” like a puppet show.

• I was warned that Japanese and Vietnamese cuisine is considered passé by Berliners these days - right now it's all about Korea and bibimbap. I was too busy eating strudel and spatzle for such exotica.

• there's a lot of art happening in Berlin - unfortunately I didn't make it to the Hamburger Bahnhof where they are collecting urine from the reindeer which make up the current exhibition there. Apparently reindeer urine is halucinogenic and punters with $1,000 can pay to stay overnight and try this delicacy.


...I appear to have started and ended my list with wee.

Snowblind in Berlin

Why does everyone go on about how bad the sun is for the skin. My skin loves sun and looks all relaxed and happy when it's been out in it, the cold however, is something else again. I walked off the plane in Germany and straight into temperatures of minus eighty. My face hates it, my eyelids have developed uneven droopy bits, I look pinched and raw and witchy, my nose is glowing like a beacon.

It warmed up enough to start snowing when I got up in the morning, thick fluffy flakes. I love snow and I am here to sightsee so I rolled* straight outside into Berlin - I couldn't see it but I knew it was there - I could smell the pastries.

Help, I can,t use German typewriters and my euro-in-the-slot is running out ...
*I knew it would be cold so method of packing for this trip was to wear all of my clothes - I have learned that this makes locomotion tough-going.