webponce rants

Once again, last night, i returned to my junior school, as i do maybe once every three months. something was going on, in fact, i’d spent a good deal of nights back at home recently anyway, just in the general vicinity of the school, perry road etc.

as we (two others and myself, i believe becky was one of them) were leaving, we walked past what actually used to be the staff room, and they’d added a little hotfood counter, along with ricecrispie cakes which i used to love so much as a kid, they used to make them really well at my college, always gooey. There were only two left, so we bought them, and split one of the cakes so we could all have a piece. except, the dinner lady warned us that they’re not as good as they used to be - and she wasn’t wrong - dry and made with carob instead of chocolate.

we sat down in an impromptue seating area just by the corner where you’d leave the school building, and quite a gathering was building up - someone’s wedding party or birthday or something, the hosts i knew, but the guests, i had no idea, despite their insistance that they knew me. dido turns up, and we chat briefly before she hestiantly sits on my knee to read some documents, and then tie her shoelace. She tells me i have nice hair, and shouldn’t have it all stuck up with hairspray. She’s nervous about performing tonight at a venue which i tell her is not that big - quite intimate, unlike the royal concert hall i say. she seems a little less concerned, but the show is not until 11pm. I know i have plans that evening, but i say i’ll come over and see her perform after i’ve done whatever i needed to do. She smiles and asks me to wish her good luck. “good luck..” i say and lean in and kiss her on the cheek, “but you don’t need it”.

i think i was slightly preoccupied with the fact that i’d had my laptop stolen earlier in the day - alex, niamh and i had met in the park which i also visit often, and went for a walk through a winter scarred copse of trees with not a single leaf between them - and found ourselves at an amusement arcade with a rollerskate park - the others seemed less interested, but i’d not been rollerskating for ages, and they eventually agreed. we put our skates on, i was concerned they wouldn’t have a size 9 or 10, but they did, and they seemed to fit well, despite my shoes which i had just taken off where size 5.

The rollerskate park turns out to be part art gallery, part educational establishment, and generally had too many staircases and floors to be effective as a rollerskate park, but i seemed to be quite adept at skating and had a good time - until i realised, that along with my shoes and coat, i’d left my laptop bag unsecured in the changing area. i quickly skated back to the area, climbed down the steps, with a handrail that finished halfway down the stairs, took a left through the narrow doorway and back into the changing room. under the pile of our coats, the laptopbag, still there, but no laptop - just the power supply left. My first thought was that i could get a new smaller laptop on the insurance, but then, as i ran through in my mind the data stored on the machine, i got really quite upset. a history, a lifetime, all gone in a single swipe.

i remembered an email which helen (i think) sent me ages ago, but couldn’t find it in my mail application, so went on the hunt for it. i think some of them are quite accurate, and so i don’t have to find it again, i’ll post it here for posterity. i’m not sure of the source, so if you know, please do tell:

1) Triangular sandwiches taste better than square ones.

2) At the end of every party there is always a girl crying.

3) One of the most awkward things that can happen in a pub is when your pint-to-toilet cycle gets synchronised with a complete stranger.

4) You’ve never quite sure whether it’s ok to eat green crisps.

5) Everyone who grew up in the 80’s has entered the digits 55378008 into a calculator.

6) Reading when you’re drunk is horrible.

7) Sharpening a pencil with a knife makes you feel really manly.

8) You’re never quite sure whether it’s against the law or not to have a fire in your back garden.

9) Everyone who has just read no.5 has just typed it into a calculator.

10) Nobody ever dares make cup-a-soup in a bowl.

11) You never know where to look when eating a banana.

12) Its impossible to describe the smell of a wet cat.

13) Prodding a fire with a stick makes you feel manly.

14) Rummaging in an overgrown garden will always turn up a bouncy ball.

15) You always feel a bit scared when stroking horses.

16) Everyone always remembers the day a dog ran into your school.

17) The most embarrassing thing you can do as schoolchild is to call yourteacher mum or dad.

18) The smaller the monkey the more it looks like it would kill you at the

first given opportunity.

19) Some days you see lots of people on crutches.

20) Every bloke has at some stage while taking a pee flushed half way through and then raced against the flush.

21) Old women with mobile phones look wrong!

22) Its impossible to look cool whilst picking up a Frisbee.

23) Driving through a tunnel makes you feel excited.

24) You never ever run out of salt.

25) Old ladies can eat more than you think.

26) You can’t respect a man who carries a dog.

27) There’s no panic like the panic you momentarily feel when you’ve got your hand or head stuck in something.

28) No one knows the origins of their metal coat hangers.

29) Despite constant warning, you have never met anybody who has had their arm broken by a swan.

30) The most painful household incident is wearing socks and stepping on an upturned plug.

31) People who don’t drive slam car doors too hard

32) You’ve turned into your dad the day you put aside a thin piece of wood specifically to stir paint with.

33) Everyone had an uncle who tried to steal his or her nose.

34) Bricks are horrible to carry.

35) In every plate of chips there is a bad chip.

day 2 of the economy drive - which mostly means, not buying lunch at overpriced EC2 sandwich shops, and making a packed lunch each day, just like mother used to - however, i’m considerably older now, and using a lunchbox filled to the same level as i used to eat when i was 12 doesn’t seem to be adequatly filling my ample gut. i think i’m going to have to up the contents of the tupperware snack repository from one sandwich (various fillings), a handful of grapes and a ‘fun sized’ cadbury chocolate bar, to 2 sandwiches (mainly filled with meat.. lots of meat), an entire quiche, a grape vine, and one of those yard long dairy milks. i think i need a large lunchbox.

caesura \sih-ZHUR-uh; -ZUR-\, noun;

plural caesuras or caesurae \sih-ZHUR-ee; -ZUR-ee\:

A break or pause in a line of verse, usually occurring in the middle of a line, and indicated in scanning by a double vertical line; for example, “The proper study || of mankind is man” [Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man].

they’re just taking the piss now.. okay okay.. i’m sorry - word of the day has nothing to do with my life - its coincidence! okay? leave me alone!

okay, sods law dictates that after this weekend’s post about dictionary.com being relevant to my every day life.. i should receive a totally off the wall word:

salmagundi \sal-muh-GUHN-dee\, noun:

A salad plate usually consisting of chopped meat, anchovies, eggs, and onions, served with oil and vinegar.

i’m subscribed to dictionary.com’s “word of the day” mailing list, which means every morning at 8.00, i receive an email containing a word which one probably wouldn’t use in everyday conversation, and even if you could use it, you’d probably receive quizzical looks in the pub, as the conversation was about Fulham’s impending defeat today against Man U (sorry slim ;) - but back to topic, and “word of the day” has the most uncanny ability to match my mood or situation. I’ll more often than not receive a word which can describe both succinctly and eloquently the way i’m feeling. quite scarey. i’m hoping they start sending words like “opulent”, “auspicious” and “lottery-winner”.

today was “inanition” - but thats only because drinking gin is not great for the emotionally unsound.

and i tell you what, if *one* more bus drives past this window with an advert for “my big fat greek wedding”, i’m liable to go out and murder someone.. RIGHT! there it was!.. unlucky pedestrians run, for i am an angry hungover man in jogging pants with a corkscrew who’s aiming to maim!

my online bank have just added a security feature to make their features more secure. its a ‘memorable piece of information’, which you get asked a number of characters from it every time you login - similar the the ‘mums maiden name’ or ‘dads favourite garden tool manafacturer’ type questions you often get. however, regardless of how memorable the piece of information is, say the location of where you first stole a kiss from that girl you fancied in class, or the time you spent lying arm in arm with the woman you love on a saturday afternoon, or how many vodkas you sunk at the album launch party of a once popular all girl band.. how on earth are you meant to remember which piece of memorable information you’re using to login to access your masses of finance?

life expectancy is around what.. 75/80? maybe more.. but okay, i’m only 24, and i’m estimating.. i have maybe five or six key memories from each day, maybe up to 15 at a really exciting time. of those, i probably have four major events a year which are worthy of using as a password. so, lets say thats 96 memorable events.. less a good portion of those which between 0-4 were not particularly of great clarity.. i was busy learning how not to poo in my pants, walk and send emails… and lets raise the bar a little on what constitutes ‘memorable’.. i still think there are around 20 events which i look back on with fondness. now, narrowing those down into handy typeable phrases knocks off a good percentage of them. Lets say i’m down to four key events or nuggets of info in my life which i’m willing to use to log in to my bank.

i carefully choose one of those four, enter the phrase twice into the webpage, and.. ooh, red text “Sorry, your phrase needs to contain at least one number”.

oh what the f*ck? i need a memorably piece of information which contains a number too! not only have i spent the last 20 minutes shortlisting events from the last 24 years of my life, but now there are some draconian restrictions on what i may call memorable!? my bank is telling me which parts of my life are allowed to be memorable?!

okay okay.. so i run through the thought process again.. 24 years, 96 events, something with numbers attached to it… i’m thinking maybe my first mobile phone number.. i’m thinking maybe my weight at the age of 15, i’m thinking maybe… oh i just don’t care anymore.. i only wanna pay my bloody rent. i think i’ll go down the bank at lunch. now, whats my PIN…

its probably a really nice day outside, but i’m still cocooned up in bed. i just know if i open my curtains and let the outside world in, i’ll feel some desire to actually go out and do something, and currently, i’m quite happy doing very little short of writing emails, a little bit of coding and thinking about lunch. i know i should really go and make something which will mess up the kitchen in a very short space of time, seeing as how i spent somewhere in the region of the cost of two return flights to italy at sainsburys yesterday, and i have enough ingredients to feed the five thousand, and their partners.

so, the decision, get up and make breakfast (which will be a nice light egg based thing), lunch which will be a large mammoth task, or just lie in bed that little bit longer listening to my tummy grumble. the other alternative of course, one which i’m not totally averse to, is that of going to the pub and reading my book - but the stigma attached to being alone with a pint glass was all too highlighted on the Live Floor Show last night by a stand up comedian who improvised a tune ‘Lonely Boy’ to a guy who was standing at the front on his own. I fear for my sanity.

I’m alone in the office (if you ignore ben) and this means lots of very annoying things. a) i can’t put my headphones on as i have to man the phones. b) i can’t nip out for milk for my tea (well, i can, but i can’t be arsed.. further proof of my laziness, i used a desert spoon to put sugar in my tea as no teaspoons were clean) c) i need creative help on a project and i can’t get it because the designer isn’t here.

although, it does have a number of key advantages. firstly, i can take my time to respond to emails in a timely fashion befitting of a e-socialite such as myself, i can work almost exclusively on personal sites and projects just as long as no-one peeks over my shoulder (i really do need a monitor in the corner of the office with my back to the wall), and i can swan around like i’m king of the office playing music i like on the stereo.

bugger. alex is back now.

what a bloody miserable day.

Lint Log Day 1: wearing a kinda blueish tshirt.

I should probably just reinstate my ‘webponce wears…’ panel on the site really.. (et voila.. there it is)

I came home last night and i’d actually had a fair amount of wine, and was feeling rather merry, and in a vague drunken stupor, i put a load of laundry on. most people throw up, eat a kebab, sleep with a stranger, discuss topics they have no knowledge of, but i, i do laundry.

The most annoying thing about doing laundry (apart from the noise our washing machine makes on its spin cycle, something akin to concorde making love to an over-amourous blue whale) is when you’re pulling the damp clothes out of the drum, you will (i will) always (always) drop a single damp sock into the tub of washing powder, coating its underside perfectly with fragrant persil. its a constant irritation, but not enough that i’ll move the location of the washing powder, or indeed just put the lid on. that would be too simple.

I think it’s Pancake Day, yes it’s Pancake Day, it must be Pa-Pa-Pa-Pa-Pa-Pa-Pa- Pa-Pancake Day.

(i’m sorry.. i tried to find the complete lyrics… or even an mp3.. but couldn’t.)

Hangers.

Those of you who know me, will probably know that i have a lot of clothes. Those of you who don’t know me, please do tell me how you found my website and what you think of it ;)

T-Shirts for example, at the last count, i had around 75 t-shirts of varying qualities, shapes, sizes, colours, slogans and level of wearability in public. Then, there are socks - which seem to reduce in number every day of my life, but my parents do a sterling job of replenishing every xmas (which also happens to be the only time i wear matching socks). Pants, well, the less said about them the better.. but enough of the individual items.. i’m here to talk about hangers. I think they’re breeding in my wardrobe.

Now, i’d not be in the slightest bit surprised to find a new lifeform in my closet, but hangers are one of those things which defy the laws of genetics and when you leave two together in a dark place for longer than an evening, you’ll have hangers coming out of your ears before you can say “oi! funny metal shaped objects should not be fornicating in the presence of my suit jacket, i’ll never get the crease out”. I’ve reached a point where i have more hangers than clothes, and i can’t work out the mathmatics of it all.

So, if you’re short of hangers, drop me a line and i’ll send you some in the post. Give a man a hanger, and he’ll keep his shirt uncreased. Give a man two hangers, and they’ll multiply until he can start a shop selling nothing but the dastardly things.

(ps.. this is my first blog by GPRS… ;)