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.

Noisy Head

It was very late, I was in bed reading but not sleepy, my husband walked into the bedroom, fell on the bed and appeared to be instantly unconscious. I put the book down, turned off the light and tried to sleep but my head was too busy. I kept still as still could be.

After half an hour I heard him mutter

Please go to sleep

I muttered back that I was not moving

He hissed in exasperation
I can hear you thinking

Snapshot Of My Life

Several weeks ago I made some calls ...



... images of tumbleweed ... time passing ...

Over- exposed

I impulse-bought a chair from a second-hand shop at the weekend, the shop man made his son carry it home for me. This provided a much-needed comedy bonus - the boy's trousers were fashionably slung below his bottom and both his arms were fully occupied with the chair, no matter how wide the boy made his bow-legged waddle, the trousers sank repeatedly to the floor.


Then we had lots more exposure last week when all the British newspapers suddenly started publishing photographs that were taken during filming trips in Africa:

Just two newspapers had a reporter check facts about the images which were provided by a photo library with our contact details for further information. one of those reporters bothered to take notes.

The Daily Mail made some interesting stuff up which resulted in some surprisingly abusive comments on the online article.

The images were made when this film was being filmed.

Party Time

The new offices have separated the Cake Eaters from the Camera Boys. The former occupy the large beautiful-ceiling-room and mostly spend time looking at hot men on each others computer screens. The Camera Boys bob in and out of their rooms like meercats investigating new burrows, they carry bits of wire or a metal box as they go but basically they’re just visiting each other to look at pictures of hot girls on each others computer screens.

Last month we all went out together. It was a straight-from-work-fancy-dinner event, an industry-award-ceremony affair where we sat at big round tables set with white linen, long-stemmed wine glasses and packets of sweeties stamped with the logo of a television company. We brought our geary clothes to work and hung them on behind-the-door-hooks until tea-time, then one by one people disappeared and reappeared to stand around feeling vaguely uncomfortable in suits and gowns until a critical mass of gloriousness was reached and just one cardigan-clad person remained tapping furiously at her keyboard.

Gnu Interview

Hugh's documentary project has broadened to cover all the crucial aspects of human life in Britain - here he is interviewing a human person about tea.

Overheating

At home I have plugged in a dehumidifier – I watch transfixed as the machine sucks gallons of water out of the walls.

The new office has been renamed the inferno, we believe that the coven of dragons living the dungeons are being tormented by stiletto-wearing lesbians. We are all working in our bikinis, except Miss Whiplash who wears no more than a fun fur merkin.

Pictures Of Me (ii)

... the new me is taking longer to emerge than expected. There’s improvement; I’ve relaxed a little, got off my high heels and tried gathering flowers and rainbows, but it's not quite the dramatic personal transformation I’d hoped for - I’m still clutching at a panapoly* of coping mechanisms.

I’ve now diagnosed myself as suffering from empty nest syndrome.

My home is actually quite a lot emptier than I’d expected, the size of the offices and the extra people meant that we needed to take most of our own furniture as well as all of the things I’ve been collecting for the last two months. Removing the pictures from the walls has highlighted the damp issues that I’ve been ignoring for the last eight years.

I have a friend who tells me that his own house only stays upright because the woodworm are holding hands. Last week, I brought the picnic table in from the garden so I could have something to sit at and a place to eat - one of the legs has gone rotten at the screws and wobbles around like a six-year old’s front tooth - this turns dinner into a sort of circus performance.

I went to visit my nephew for a few days to see if the damp might just disappear if I stopped looking at it:

My nephew is three and has just started nursery school. A couple of days ago he asked if he could have a glass of wore-er

his mother looked puzzled and said
wore-er - I’m sorry I don’t think I know that word

my nephew replied
It means water, it’s the word they use for it in another country’

really what country is that?

Spain

* I particularly liked this definition of the word
panoply
1576, from Gk. panoplia "complete suit of armor," from pan- "all" + hopla (pl.) "arms" of a hoplites ("heavily armed soldier"). Originally fig., of "spiritual armor," etc. (allusion to Eph. vi); non-armorial sense of "any splendid array" first recorded 1829.

Pictures Of Me (i)

Lately I've been mostly feeling like this.

My house looks as though a herd of wildebeest have been having a bloody big party with too many drugs but it is finally empty of people (just me running naked from room to room doing Tarzan calls). The film company has moved in to its new premises.

I'll be posting the picture of the new me just as soon as I've finished all the Champagne

Life Swap Gnu

There is a film crew in Kenya trying to film crocodiles and hyenas in the Masai Mara - the plains however have been mobbed by gnu*.

Gnu being very starstruck animals are mad film fans, every one of them, walking in front of the camera trying to present their best profile - even when getting eaten by crocodiles they won’t stop showing off.

One of their clan has done a life swap with the director of this movie - last seen eating grass on the Mara plains while Hugh the gnu packed his anorak, got himself a cheap flight to Bristol and picked up a rental car at the airport .

Hugh is hoping to make his name on the big screen and is looking to the 2012 Oscars. As a stepping stone to the big time he is cutting his cinematic teeth on a gritty observational documentary. The narrative will focus on a film production company’s search for a new den, the audience will marvel at the way this species accumulates many large heavy items that they feel the need to drag around with them, they will guffaw at the hilarious human legal system, and they will cry as the little company is savaged by dastardly predators.

*If you want to know more about gnus, here's an introduction

God Bless The Classifieds

I have discovered a new favourite thing -  wandering around Craigslist which is classified advertising elevated to art in some cases, here are some of my current favourite listings

Penis Measuring
Date: 2010-03-02, 6:01PM PST

A friend of mine and I have been having a long-standing argument about whose penis is larger. We've tried having our girlfriends confirm to the other the exact size, but neither one of us buy it. I don't want to see his penis and he doesn't want to see mine. I don't want my girlfriend looking at his penis and he doesn't was his looking at mine.

So... We just need a girl to look at both of our penises (individually) and then to both of our faces say which one is bigger. We can't pay much. $50.

* Location: Vancouver
* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
* Compensation: $50

or maybe I like this one best:

Looking for a beard mentor
Date: 2010-03-04, 3:40PM CST

I've had a moustache and beard off and on over the years, and I've tried styling it in the past but I just can't seem to get it to the next level. I'm looking for some srs protips with this, as well as possibly some styling services by someone with skilled hands. Please submit to me your beard/moustache resume. Also if you have pictures of you achievements that would be greatly appreciated.

I'm currently having trouble with getting my handlebar working correctly as well as keeping the sideburns even.

This is 'srs bsns' (serious business) as I've been informed I need to style it up, shave it off, or loose my job. (I work in adult daycare.)

Elephants Blocking My View

Another week and things have got far worse... We are supposed to be signing contracts and moving into the new offices in three days time, the documents are not in order, the rottweiler/solicitor for the landlord has suddenly presented us with terms and conditions that we cannot agree to.

This is last night's dream:

I am driving a mini down the road, as I am driving the vehicle grows bigger, becoming a monstrous sort of London taxi then even bigger, the driver’s seat stays in the middle of the vehicle and low down so it is harder and harder to reach the wheel - but I'm really trying to hang on, my view through the windscreen is now just the tree branches overhead, I can no longer reach the pedals. Somehow I am still driving and haven’t yet crashed. I’ve been driving for days, months even, so I pull myself together and figure that the fuel must run out soon, then I can stop and get out, maybe I’ll drift down someone’s driveway and then I can get help.

I am comforting myself with this thought when an elephant materialises in my lap.

Antenatal Nerves

I found the ideal site for our office three months ago - I imagined that the process of moving to new premises would give me material for dozens of hilarious blog posts. All the clichés were there from the start; on-again-off-again deals, scandalous incompetence, rascally landlords, and the sound of heavy machinery gouging money from seams that I had no idea existed.

I had no idea how busy I’d be with emotional turmoil as I ricochetted between hysterical excitement at the thought of having a house that we can live in again ... and friends might want to come and visit ... and there wouldn’t be shit all over the table ... so I might want to cook supper in my own house instead of running away to do it in other people’s kitchens ...

then the paralysis when it occurs to me that it might not be real

We’ve got no budget left for this move so I’ve been scavenging where I can. I went to the local wood recycling yard a month ago, they had just received dozens of hardwood drawers that were being thrown out of a youth hostel, a truck delivered all of them to the back of my house that afternoon. I’ve also been doing quite a lot of ebay trading ... I now have a mountain of furniture and dead animal parts high enough to seriously block our light (that photo’s just the first section), the weather has become truly evil, with some flimsy tarpaulins I am desperately trying to protect my treasures from biblical rains and hurricane-force winds.

Last week when my solicitor had been ignoring my increasingly desperate calls for a full fortnight, I sat in my now dark house and wondered whether the whole move thing was all in my head, like some sort of grotesque phantom pregnancy.

Trying To Find A Match

The universal truth about estate agents is that no matter how clear you are about what important important features one is looking for; how much space, how many dungeons, turrets and catapault launchers, they completely ignore you. I showed them my drawing and I also told them about places that I had noticed looking a bit unused but possibly useful to us, places like this red brick delight that can’t decide whether it wants to be a Victorian bathing house or a car showroom. Handy for us because it already had a good workshop and big doors that you can drive a van through.

I was also rather keen on this ‘pro-cathedral’



which I had no idea existed until I stumbled upon it on my early morning walks recently. This church was briefly raised to cathedralhood in the 60s, until a spectacularly ugly modern purpose-built cathedral was constructed nearby. It is currently partly used by a theatre company and a man who repairs bicycles.

No matter what I tried I kept getting sent details of things that look like this



I now realise that I should've asked to see places that looked to be made of grubby grey Lego and I'd have been overwhelmed by Baroque and Rococo.

Last week I took a phone call from an estate agent offering me a property that he admitted only had half the amount of space we needed and it had no ground floor access (which we also needed) but it did have an 'infinity wall' which he thought I'd rather fancy.

Castles In The Air

This year the number of people working in the house where I live has doubled and just as I was about to burst with the claustrophobia of it all - we discovered that the company was solvent enough to get a home of it’s own.

I went on the hunt for suitable premises, before setting off I asked Miss Whiplash, The Director and the Camera Boys what they felt would constitute the perfect place to work - then I made a drawing which I presented to various estate agents and held up against properties on my morning walks.

additional desirable features would include;
• it being no more than 200 metres from where we are now
• it should have a dungeon
• it should have a bar
• a boy should be able to run a zip wire between his bedroom window and the office window
• bacon sandwiches
• uniformed cleaning men
• plants
• a tea lady
• regular cake
• a decent printer
• windows and doors


I have found the nearly perfect place (we had to concede one or two wishes).

The Wonder Dog

This is the hotel dog formerly known as Bollocks. All that changed last year when he was discovered with his head down a python's throat.

The rest of the python was wrapped around the dogs body and squeezing hard, the dog's owner thought Bollocks was a goner but shouted out for help anyway and noticed that the tiny bit of Bollocks that wasn't being strangled, the tip of his tail, wagged in response to his master's voice.

Help had arrived, the two men hit the python with sticks and it released the dog, unharmed but a bit cross, Bollocks bit the python before running home and has been henceforth known as Wonder Dog.

View From Inside A Tuktuk

While I was away I got very interested in the interior decorating of tuktuks, here are a couple of images that caught my eye...

Mother's Love - All that I am or hope to be i owe to my angle mother



To make pleasures pleasant shorten them

Bringing Back The Sun

I'm back in the UK feeling all hazy and jetlaggy and it's bloody cold. A little pile of books that I read while I was away are still by my bed so I have been dipping back into them since my return for a warm-up.

The Book of Indian Birds: Salim Ali (1941)
Lovely illustrations and great text, I particularly liked Mr Ali’s descriptions of bird calls, here he is on the Malabar Pied Hornbill’s call;
A variety of loud cackling and inane screams reminiscent of the protestations of a dak bungalow murghi* seized by the cook, and also the yelps of a smacked puppy!

*Baffled I looked for explanation and found this wonderfully informative passage here
The British had set up rest-houses known as Daak Bungalow... Somehow, there was always an Anglo-Indian woman who would found her way to the Dak Bungalow to keep the company of the traveling British officer. Every Dak Bungalow has a love story to tell, only if the walls could talk.

In the rear, every Daak Bungalow had chicken coup manned by 'Murghi wala'


Reef: Romesh Gunesekera (1994)
Narrated by Triton, a young houseboy in the service of his hero Mister Salgado, sensuous and funny, turning chillingly dark towards the end, I loved it’s 170 pages so much that I eeked them out for days.
Thanks for the recommendation Eryl


How to see Ceylon: Bella Sidney Woolf (1914)
An early travel guide, Bella Woolf went to Ceylon in 1907 to visit her brother Leonard and ended up marrying the Assistant Director of the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens. Contains fascinatingly descriptive travel itineraries and plenty of useful advice:
A Topee should always be worn until 4 to 4.30 pm even on dull days


Ceylon Daily News Cookery Book (1929)
...constitutes a serious attempt to aid the housewives of Ceylon to practise the art of cooking so that, like the quality of mercy, the preparation of palatable dishes will bless her that gives and him that takes.

Contains recipes for things as diverse as Poached Eggs with Mince and Titta Tibbatu Mallung. I’m particularly fond of the section entitled Invalid & Convalescent Cookery, which gives this advice
Do not consult a patient about his meal, but try and find out what will be liked and let it come as a surprise.

Then follows such appetite tempters as Egg White Water, Beef Tea Custard, Invalid Blancmange, Sago Gruel and Stewed Spaghetti.
Who wouldn't get better when faced with this?

Running in the Family: Michael Ondaatje (1982)
The most delicious memoir of Ondaatje’s Sri Lankan family history, pieced together from photo albums and anecdotes told by friends and family members. I looked for it in a bookshop in Columbo, the elderly salesman snatched it down from the shelf when I mentioned the title declaring
this book is a must have ... an absolute must have
he clutched it so tightly that I had to fight it off him. Anyway it’s great and now it’s mine - here’s a bit;

An aunt gives an account of her journey to Ondaatje's father's wedding, they have seen a car in a ditch and next to it the Bishop who was to officiate at the wedding, everyone knew the man to be a terrible driver - he has to be given a lift.

First of all his luggage had to be put in carefully because his vestments couldn’t be crushed. Then his mitre and sceptre and those special shoes and whatnot. And as we were so crowded and a bishop couldn’t sit on anyone’s lap – and as no one could really sit on a bishop’s lap we had to let him drive the Fiat...

Trying to Give Gifts

We went along to watch a farmer, his young son and their cattle herd being presented with an anti-leopard pen last week*. The farmer was thrilled, but the calves weren't too keen.

*more about this here

The Mouse Deer Whale Pig

The star attraction of the nature reserves are always the big cats. In Yala the leopard paparazzi flood into the national park every day hoping for a fleeting glimpse of the big spotty glamourpuss.

My own crush is on the much more mysterious and melancholic-sounding mouse deer. The books all describe this creature as secretive and solitary, the sole surviving member of the infraorder tragulina. It runs up low, shallow-angled branches to get itself into trees and it isn't really a deer at all, it is in fact more like a pig, especially in it's sexual behaviour.

The native name for the mouse deer translates as 'a deer and a pig' and my sense of it being stranded between species is reinforced by the wiki entry that says that it has

... a remarkable affinity with water often remaining submerged for prolonged periods to evade predators or other unwelcome intrusion. This has also lent support to the idea that whales evolved from water-loving creatures that looked like small deer