This is the Word according to Arnold. New life, new job, new site, new uh… brand of rolling tobacco, new pointless meanderings into the nooks and crannies of inane everyday details which just about affect the space-time continuum. Actually, same shit, different day.

So. This is a continuation of all the useless crap previously regularly updated. I looked here the other day and to be honest, it’s looking a bit sad and old (like its Mam) so I thought I’d try my hand at an upgrade – something which I am attempting to do in most other facets of my life, with partial success. I’ll be shit at this posh blog stuff for many weeks so bear with me. I will, however, never fail at talking shite.

So, update for the two people who will be looking at this. One of them’s The Mam, so this is where she officially has permission to skippy on down the page.

I went to Japan and Hong Kong. I started a new job with a local comprehensive as a Learning Support Assistant in the SEN department as a precursor to finally training as a teacher. I re-read all of the Harry Potters. I’m already up to episode six of the new Heroes. The cats still haven’t walked out on me, although David is balder than ever. I now live alone but due to my substantially reduced income (really, it’s a joke) have had to resort to eating cous cous every night… again. I’ve lost a stone and a half. I still have a nice boyfriend. I have looked in the mirror for more than ten seconds twice. I remain misanthropic. I have discovered a hereby unrealised affinity for teenagers. I still hate Marrowfat Peas. In other words, still not like Paris Hilton. Although she might hate the green menaces, too. This remains unconfirmed.*

On the job front, I am actually enjoying it, but refuse to jinx things by saying so. It’s hard to say that you are pleased to take a pay cut back to minimum wage when you were financially raped to begin with, but there you go. It seems to be paying off. I had a funny moment the other day when tidying up – I found my old “Workplace Trainer” certificate from the Court, and instinctively stuck it right in the bin. I didn’t know why I’d done that until I sat and thought about it, and realised that going on a two day course to learn how to teach other people to type numbers into a computer over and over again sort of pales in comparison when compared to potentially spending the rest of your life trying to work out how to teach teenagers to appreciate the whole of literature ever. I had a bad half hour and finally resolved it by allowing myself to think “at least I won’t be bored”. So that was ok. But life generally hasn’t changed that much. Apropos to this, I was buying important items in a corner shop in Newcastle tonight, and noticed that the cat litter they were selling was called “Choice”. Now I don’t know about you, but to me the word choice denotes a definite element of decision-making based on a hierarchal number of factors relating to quality and suitability. Not something I would generally apply to a product designed specifically for a cat to shit on. I mean, obviously, the cat certainly has preferences when it comes to potentially pleasing excretion opportunities (Dunlop went through a phase of targeting, in no particular order, the bathroom mirror, my dirty washing, the gravel in the back yard and my Wii. The irony of the latter item was not lost on me.), but as an owner, I simply require that the cat litter I buy suck up widdle and provide a barrier between poo and the tray. If I had the choice, I would almost certainly be regularly employing my ex-boyfriend’s face. Not a sack of tiny, dusty rocks which invariably develops a hole in it on the bus home. Or perhaps, realistically, the litter would clean itself or gently suggest to the cat by way of subliminal messaging that it would really get more from the whole defecation process were it to use the toilet and learn how to flush after it does so. Not sit there poofing out a cloud of ammonia scented dust whenever I dare to walk past. I did briefly make a foray into the world of litter luxe, purchasing a product which I saw advertised on the TV (if proof were needed that advertising has become insanely out of control then the fact that we see adverts for cats’ toilets on prime time must surely be top of the list), and after shelling out five English pounds for a bag of gravel, albeit white, was dismayed to find that I still had to shovel crap into a bin bag every three days. The fancy litter did not, it seemed, turn the shite into rubies or convert the wee clumps into Chanel No5. No, I was still forced to tote a bag full of excrement produced by two enthusiastic carnivores through the kitchen. Lush. I probably wouldn’t have minded so much were it not for the fact that it was the only brand in the shop, thereby negating the entire notion of “choice”. I do wish companies could be more thoughtful about their branding. Who would ever forget the experience of sinking a pint of Mother’s Average? Or the distinctive feeling of freedom that only Pisscatcher Pant Pads ™ can bring? I’m still campaigning for actual blood to be used in sanitary pad adverts.

What can I say? I’m a romantic.

Right, this fat belly won’t fill itself.

Laters.

xx

*A plan forms…. I won’t be able to rest until I find this out.