The One with the Pigeon

There’s a pigeon by the car. It’s big. A Wood Pigeon I strongly suspect, although I haven’t asked it. Mostly because it’s dead.

I’m not one of those people who object to pigeons per se. Indeed I believe that they are fine upstanding members of the bird community. Their gentle cooing can get a tad annoying if directly outside an open window on a day with a hangover, but nevertheless, pigeons are ok.

Should the aforementioned pigeon have been a bit more alive I would have greeted it with a cheery ‘Greetings pigeon!!!!!!!’. Maybe or maybe not with that number of exclamation marks. It was neither mine nor the pigeon’s fault that in fact I greeted it with a resounding ergggggggg and a slight shiver followed by a meandering feeling of nausea.

I have a bit of a difficulty with dead things. It is perhaps inexplicable or possibly rooted in a deep psychological problem that stemmed from an incident in my childhood that I have erased from my memory (a wise move).

My attempts to erase the pigeon from my memory have so far failed. One might not think that one dead and silent pigeon would be a major obstacle to my day. One might think very wrongly.

It is by the car. Dead. On it’s back. Probably to illustrate just how very dead it is. I therefore cannot get into the car. It is causing an obstruction.

‘Why the hell don’t you just move the sodding pigeon?’ I hear you ask. Although you may not have sworn.

I have a bit of a problem with dead things.

Even small dead things are not good. From woodlice up I start to be quite irrational. Mammals are the worst but birds come a short second. It is very lucky that I have never had to move a human corpse. Even the sight (previous) of the Beloved (previous) asleep could be quite disturbing. Thus at least the world can be assured that it is unlikely that I would murder anyone as the impossibility of moving the body, tying concrete triangles to their feet and throwing them into Hudson Bay is, essentially, an overwhelming obstacle. When the detectives begin their in-depth investigation re the murderer of whoever the first person they always eliminate is me. Because of this obstacle.

Like the pigeon.

I can’t get in the car. So I can’t go to the Coop to get milk. Or bread. We are going to starve to death. Thirst to death.

But I am not a woman without initiative. I have a plan. I will text the Beloved ‘Help! Dead pigeon!!!’ Using exactly that number of exclamation marks. He will leap out of the arms of his new Beloved and rescue me. Or I will starve to death and he will have to move my body, tie concrete triangles to my feet and throw me into Hudson Bay. But prior to that he will have to move the pigeon. In order to get to the car. So, either way, I win.

How Not to Use Words

I thought I should write a blogpost. Because my listeners might be missing me. But I don’t know what to say.

We are all truly bored of my dire love life (especially me). My listeners have probably all heard about my new website (www.leafbooks.co.uk if you haven’t). The physicist is still in Oxford so is supplying no inspiration. The Lawyer is studying and thus not amusing. The Beloved is not here for me to comment upon (let alone do anything else upon). The fact that I have modelled naked for our latest book cover is too embarrassing to mention.

So I read Matt’s blog http://hedgedefender.blogspot.com/ for some inspiration. He’s an inspiring sort of chap. It turns out that he’s run out of words. Us writers have no end of problems really. He has no words, I have nothing to say but I have lots of words.

Here are some of them:

Dishcloth
Mango
Aplomb (I just lent that one to Matt)
Gorge
Archipelago
Gusset
Nave
Brassica
Mud
Splice
Gasket
Obverse
Taupe
Redirect
Plenary
Individualism
Cat

I hope you enjoyed them.

Oh and another one –
Coherence.

Not Crème Brulee

I’ve had my first request for a blog post. This is exciting. It happened last night in the pub. The request I mean. ‘It’ could be construed as something far more exciting which is generally not happening in my life. Thus a request for a blog post leaps up the rankings of generally exciting events with all the alacrity and enthusiasm displayed by a flea when it catches sight of a piece of naked flesh. Which is probably similar to my alacrity and enthusiasm at the same sight.

So, a blog post. The request.

Crème brulee.

Now, my requestee claims to be a reader of my blog. But somehow I wonder. What, I’m asking myself does crème brulee have to do with thinly disguised analogies for sex? Or thickly disguised analogies for sex? Or sex?

However I realise after a smidge of further wondering where crème brulee fits into the scheme of things – it’s like custard. Ah ha!!!

I begin to prepare some cunning experiments to test the properties of c.b. Things like swimming pools full of the stuff to test the old sink or swim non-newtonian liquid thingy. Large bowls on vibrating plates to enact the spooky wobbly wibbly thingys. Huge vats with ginormous weights balanced on top to apply however many g’s it takes to rule the world.

I am slightly flummoxed by the lack of this particular culinary delight with which to experiment. I am, I discover, much to my chagrin and mild surprise, crème brulee –less. The cupboards are empty of the stuff. The fridge contains no crème, no brulee. The wardrobes, similarly are rich-desert-less. As is even the shed. Although the camels may have eaten it.

I am left with no choice but to create my own large quantities of crème brulee on which to experiment. I am in no way defeated by the fact that I have very few of the ingredients and specialised tools required for the creation of crème. I can substitute along with the best of them.

Here is the recipe I found on a well know encyclopaedia site:

3 pints heavy cream
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ tsp salt
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
12 egg yolks

Here is the recipe I used:

3,000 pints of heavy water
340 cups of granulated dust (found under kitchen cabinets)
No salt (as it’s bad for you and I ate it all on my dinner earlier)
150 tps extract of tumble dryer
I thought the eggs were probably not important

This is what I discovered using scientific methods (stirring):

Crème brulee is not a non-newtonian liquid.
I can swim.
Crème brulee when vibrated does not get excited.
I do.
Crème brulee when put under pressure doesn’t flinch in the slightest.
I do.
Cardiff City Council do not offer a free crème brulee disposal service.
Camels do not eat crème brulee.

A special thanks to my requestee for involving me in this evening’s entertainment. If anyone else has any blog requests I ask only this – please supply the correct ingredients. Otherwise fuck off.

Does anyone know what camels eat?

How Not to Improvise

I’ve been going to improvisation classes. To learn to improvise. Yes, yes, I know, I already am fully cognisant of methods to improvise my way through life’s hair-pin bends – I can whip up a meal from only a tin of paint and a small aubergine, I can fix a leaking water main using a pair of stripy tights soaked in mulligatawny soup and I am well known for my skills in shed-creation/restoration equipped only with a couple of old doors, some slightly mouldy flat-packed furniture and a rotting marrow.

This is comedy improvisation. It’s supposed to make people laugh. It mostly makes me laugh aside from when I cry or bang my frontal lobes on the nearest trapeze.

But last night things went seriously awry. This is what happened:

Our instructor (an experienced, wise, thoughtful sort of person who is mostly a clown but mostly isn’t) instructed his class (that’s me and another disparate dozen of desperate fools. Sorry – aspiring fools) to imagine taking something off a shelf. The important thing about this exercise was not to think what was on the shelf until it was in our hands. To have a blank and empty mind with no preconceived idea as to what might be lurking on a dozen imaginary shelves scattered around the space.

You see already what fun this class is. I’ve mangled my way through many types of education and thus it is refreshingly refreshing to be told to not think. This, I thought, I could do (although that actually countered the not-thinking thing). I applied my mind to not thinking.

After a few moments of bringing strange objects off imaginary shelves I began to be slightly troubled by who had actually stacked these shelves and the high level of irresponsibility involved. Frankly the managers of the Coop, Waterstones, even ToysRus would have been appalled. I was appalled and I’m quite open-minded when it comes to shelves, cupboards and general storage devices.

This is what they had put on the shelves:
A hippo with a flower in its mouth
A green rubber ball that smelt of wet wool
Half a red stilettoed boot with teeth-marks on
A man
A pair of cats-eye marbles fused together humming ABBA songs
A small box of kittens (assorted)
An enormous statue of a turkey
A wet sponge in the shape of a woman’s breast
A wet sponge in the shape of a man’s breast
Twelve yellow African camels
…. It went on….

But this wasn’t the end of my problems. It was one thing for the anonymous shelf stacker to load this imaginary shelf but it was an entirely different issue as what the fuck I was supposed to do with all this stuff.

I began by neatly stacking it around me – the hippo was balanced on the ball which in turn was balanced on the boot. The box of kittens I shoved under the statue of the turkey. The marbles I fed to the man. But when the bloody camels turned up I just had to say something.

‘Oh noble instructor,’ I said, feeling some sort of deference was probably due to the arranger of such an exercise, ‘I have been most successful at emptying my mind,’ I continued, just so he felt I understood, ‘but now I don’t know what the fuck to do with all these things I have gotten off the shelf. The room is becoming most crowded and as you can see these camels are chaffing.’

‘Just discard the stuff once you know what it is,’ he answered, ‘throw it over your shoulder.’

I stared in disbelieving disbelief. ‘No! What?! Just throw all these things away? No! What!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?’

He raised his eyebrows. I raised my eyebrows.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, and I was, ‘I just can’t do that.’ I led my camels, men, hippos, kittens etc out of the building keeping my eyebrows aloft.

Lucky my improvisational skills at shed mending are better than my comedy. Does anyone know what to feed camels?

How Not to Find the Man of Your Dreams

Things must be getting desperate here. I’ve just joined some bizarre dating site called facespin or spinface or something. It’s like one of those games where you identify inkblots only more revealing. By the time I’d finished my whole personality, inner most longings and hair-do preferences were revealed in a starkly startling revelation.

This is what happened:

Somehow I found myself clicking ‘try it out’. I think maybe I was trying to click ‘close’ but my finger juddered (probably from the shakes I’ve been suffering due to lack of sex and chocolate). There, on the screen (after a small amount of dizzy-making spinning effect which was for no good reason aside from making me feel slightly nauseous) a man’s picture appeared. Underneath were three buttons entitled ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ and ‘mayB.’ I did take exception to the fact that they couldn’t spell but nevertheless given such a simple selection of choices and a picture of a man that was so obviously a ‘yes’ I was drawn in as a fly is drawn to its death on the internet or as a recently confused woman is drawn away from what she is supposed to be doing.

After a few more yes, no or mayB sort of things they said I had to register. What else could I do? I filled out the form. I thought of a ridiculous on-screen name. I puzzled over the five things I was supposed to say about myself. I am another victim of the web. A dating site addict. A judger of men.

Moments later (or maybe hours later)(I’m still having problems with time distortion) I was the proud and embarrassed owner of a spinny ‘black book’ complete with all the men I had said yes or maybe to. Sorry, mayB to.

It turned out that I said yes to four. For no other good reason than that they didn’t put ‘watching football’ as one of their favourite things to do. And one of them was a Coastguard which I thought was quite sexy.

It also turned out that I said mayB to 18. For no other good reason than that they didn’t put ‘watching football’ as one of their favourite things to do.

I said no to about a thousand because they all put ‘watching football’ as one of their favourite things to do. And, frankly some of them looked a bit scary. Especially in their football shorts.

However, on closer examination I discovered a disturbing theme. Every man that had posted a picture of themselves with a small child I chose. Without a moment’s hesitation I clicked ‘yes, mayB, yes, yes’ totally forgetting the spelling issue.

This leads me to the revealing conclusion that I don’t want a man at all. I want a small child. I am broody. Rorschach eat your heart out.

How Not to Not WIN the Pub Quiz

Yes, a double negative. There are aspects to use of the double negative that, I feel, are almost positive. And this was very much the experience in the pub. This is what happened:

We have a pub. It has a quiz. Every Tuesday night. In the spirit of glasnost, openness and a deep desire to get out of the house I decided that this was THE thing that would revive my sagging social life, lift my flabby spirits and generally possibly and on the very off-chance if I actually left the house I might meet the man of my dreams. Since he didn’t seem to be knocking on my door. Which is strange and slightly inexplicable. Surely the world and his handsome brother/uncle/nephew/cousin/male-relation-of-any sort-whatsoever now knows that I am single. So where are they? This is a question I asked myself. The only answer I could come up with (aside from generally hiding from slightly mad blog-writers in case they are discovered and written about) was maybe they were in the pub.

So, the pub quiz. The first week (we’ll call that week 1 for the sake of clarity) my team consisted of me, my friend who knows a lot about small-boy culture since she has a five-year-old, the Lawyer and the Lawyer’s friend who knows a lot about quite a lot for someone who has lived so very few years (compared to me). We came 2nd. Out of 3 teams. We were very proud.

The next week (week 2) the Lawyer and the Lawyer friend were absent. I suggested we cheat. My friend disagreed. We lost.

The following week (week 3) (don’t worry this story only goes up to week 4) I wander in to discover my team isn’t there. A couple to whom we have previously waved, waves. I wave back and try not to look teamless. I look teamless. They take pity.

This was one of the most cunning things that has ever happened to me. This couple turn out to be the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers of the pub quiz world. The waltzed through the questions with the grace of a well-oiled pair of dancing shoes that had done this sort of thing before. I nodded and pretended to be clever. My friend smiled and answered any questions re 5-year-old culture. We won.

What I have failed to explain here is that every team that wins the quiz is entered for a GRAND PRIZE DRAW every 4 weeks. You see now why we are counting weeks.

Week 4 – The tension is mounting. The man of my dreams still hasn’t turned up. My new and glorified team has. And so has an old friend. Old friend offers me a drink. I am torn – old friend vs quiz team. I pick old friend thinking I would catch up with my team in a moment. The old friend and I get deep into a discussion about celestial bodies of great interest. We go out for a fag and to look at a passing comet. We return. I notice that there seems to be a pub quiz going on. I remember about my team.

They have answered all the questions except one. ‘What was Suzi Quatro’s hit from some-year-or-another?’ Now Suzi and I have a lot in common. We are both American, of small stature, she dresses in tight leather trousers and I would should I own such a garment. We, essentially are like two peas in the proverbial pod. Thus I know everything about her. Or at least I know the answer to this question. We win. By one point. That very point that I gave them by my intimate knowledge of Suzi.

The prize draw draws ME!!!!! Mostly because the landlady knows my name and not Fred and Gingers’.

The man of my dreams still hasn’t shown. So – man, I’ll be there next Tuesday, I’m the one not wearing the tight leather trousers.