Here’s me. It’s half one in the afternoon. I’m sitting in my rocking chair wearing a cocktail dress that I found whilst clearing the spare room (affectionately known as “The Suck”). I am eating Galia melon, having already had pasta with pesto and mozzarella. I have some red grape juice that has been chilled in the fridge. Outside, the sun is shining, and I can hear children playing through the open window; and this makes a nice change from the usual sounds of people being hit with things. I change TV channel from UKTV Style to Sky One in the ad break. There is an advert for The Canine Defence league on.

I spend the next twenty minutes weeping uncontrollably into my fruit all curled up in my chair. Luckily, It rocks as standard, so I have no need to find a different, more comforting place to hide from the world.

And then, as quickly as it started, it has gone and I am changing once more into something appropriate for sifting through 26 years of shite.

And that’s me all over at the minute, I’m afraid: Which is also my way of apologising for not updating very regularly.

Everything seems designed to either piss me off or depress me right now – from sweet dogs with no home to the utter, utter horrors of trying to get my ipod to work through the bloody TV. I have made my way through three cables (expensive cables) so far, and have thus far only managed to get a 0.3 second snippet of music on my parents’ set when I quickly press the S Front button on the remote. Setting aside for one moment the notion that I might actually be up for tapping the thing constantly for my entire birthday party, it would surely result in one or more of my friends discovering a hitherto undiscovered epileptic tendency. I hate modern TV equipment. I can only just remember the days when I could set up my Megadrive with no bother at all through a hazy, halcyon fug. I was 11 and I could do it. Nowadays I’m lucky to change channel without having a chronic tantrum. (Have you seen how the stupid info bar at the bottom of the screen with cable disappears just as you have scrolled through the entire day’s listings and finally got to the programme you want to set a reminder for? It does this without fail.) I have invented more new swear words trying to see if the wrestling’s on than I ever did as a Civil Servant. And I fucking HATED that.

And don’t even think I’m going to mention going to Asda over the summer holidays. Because words can never begin to convey my rampant disgust at the ways in which idiot women (yes, that’s right: WOMEN – I’ll burn my bra only if I can stuff it in a bottle of vodka and hoy it at the sanitary aisle in Asda) find the doorway to the large, busy supermarket the best place in the whoooole world to drop bag / discipline toddler / remember milk / wait for husband / read sodding magazine etc etc. Add to this pensioners in the petfood ailse (Bluerinser: “Larry, does Smartie like chicken and butterbean? *pause* Or trout and lime…?” Me: “GET OUT OF MY FRIGGING WAY.”); Anyone not aged between 16 and 40 in the DIY checkout queue (Note to parents: the self service checkout is not a toy. Note to pensioners: if you can’t work an electric tin-opener, then this probably isn’t the place for you…); and people in wheelchairs. For which I apologise profusely and offer my heartfelt apologies. Apart from to the old git who ran over my flip-flopped foot the other day and didn’t bat an eyelid despite my howl. You I wish a faulty suspension and poor cushioning on.

I’m not going to mention the stuff that depresses me because unlike many, I find that writing when miserable results in the sort of drivel that even a 14 year-old emo kid would find “a bit embarrassing”. I’ll keep necking the herbal stuff. Remember, Camomile is your friend.

If I make it through this weekend (I had to “organise nibbles”. And not eat them before Saturday. Torture.) I’ll let you know whether or not I am approachable without a chair and a whip. Otherwise, I shall probably just cry about dogs and avoid Asda and stick things in the three holes at the front of my telly. Fruitlessly. God, the joy.

Hope all are well. It’s too hot, isn’t it… blah blah blah.

Laters.

xx

There is a school of thought, albeit a fairly niche school, that believes that on the 29^th July 1966, The legend Bob Dylan died in a road accident and was replaced with a lookalike from then on. Now, because I am a cynical little git, and because July 29^th is a special, special day (July 29^th 1980 saw the first appearance in this world of yours truly), I can here state that I am inclined to believe this. After a fashion.

Anyway, the point is that if this is true, then Uncle Bob must surely be spinning like a rotor in his grave. I am, of course talking about the recent offering of doom from the world of advertising RE: sofas. Who the fuck are the talent-devoid arseholes who think this shit up? Some grinning madman with a sign hovering about in “front rooms” whilst (assume Zoolander pout) really, really good-looking people frolick on their “luxury” sofa goodness. Meanwhile, the worst possible re-imagining of one of the greatest songs in history informs us about various offers instead of making a valid, powerful political statement: “this one’s a looker / in luxury leather / this one’s pretty nifty / only four-fifty”…

 For fuck’s sake: come back Frosties Boy: all is forgiven.

Still, at least there are some reasons not to resort to self-harm every time the adverts come on. “Can hate be good? / Can hate be great? / Can hate be good, can hate be great / can hate be something we don’t hate?” Nice ad, fab song, yet unfortunately rendered entirely redundant when followed with Proto-Bob the Incomparable Gurning Sofa Man or “Have you been in an accident, at work or at home?” AARGH! FUCK OFF! Or, God help us, Duck Mouth Lady and her blistering grilling of Injury Lawyers for You. I truly believe that she is Satan, and as the ad ends, she feeds off their little lawyer minds.

However, special bile must be reserved for Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansen who manage to prove in the space of thirty seconds that being an excellent actor does not necessarily guarantee that you have any charisma at all. I especially love Penelope’s slightly wild and obsessive “this is no movie… this is SCIENCE!” line, which essentially only gives the illusion that she is so easily impressed, all Tom Cruise had to do was show her his Fisher Price microscope set. Perhaps the reason she left him was because she discovered that Scientology had nothing to do with personal grooming and shiny hair. Shallow, shallow, shallow. Plus, Scarlett, if I want to have lips that look like I’ve had them set in My First Barbie Injection Moulding Set™ I shall go “brr brr brr” in sparkly fucking lard.

Still, anything that Milla Jovovich does is perfect, because she manages to do the impossible and be a genuinely talented “slashie” (model / actress / singer), and no, this has nothing to do with the fact that she’s the only woman I would like to dance the Sapphic dance with. She can tell me that I’m worth it, and I actually believe her. Won’t stop me buying all my cosmetics from Collection 2000, like.

Other news…. Non-vitriolic… I bought a new LBD (little black dress for anyone who’s never read a flange-mag) and I have to say I manage to scrub up well. Its for the book launch which BF Emma’s boyfriend is arranging through the bar he runs in town. The lovely, intimate, sassy bar that I love. Go me.

Oh, another thing that fucks me right off (I’m in a foul mood due to a shit week filled with nothing more exciting than people winding me up who should fucking stop), is perfumes launched by celebrities who then insist on naming it for themselves. I was shopping with BFE t’other day, and misted mesel’ with a bit of stink in a department store. Upon seeing that it was reduced to a more-than-fair price, I thought I might treat myself. Until I saw the name. Somehow, I can’t see myself in a bar being told that I smell nice and responding with “thanks, its Celine Dion”… People who know me would probably be more likely to expect “thanks, its Rod and Emu pour femme”…

Christ, Mohammed Al Fayed is on the TV: just the way to round this entry off.

I shall be boiling my head within the hour.

Laters.

xx

I’ve spent the morning cleaning.

Cleaning.

And cleaning.

I am therefore somewhere between mildly sweaty and Sweaty MacSweat the Sweaty Scourge of Sweatland. Attractive, I know, but you try hoovering in a flat that faces the sun much in the same way that Mercury does. Short of doing it in my bra and pants (it has been known), I have to remember that I’m not on the 22^nd floor, and that people can actually see in my windows. I am community minded. Or at least not incredibly willing to let the assorted scrotes, bandits and rapeydaves see my heaving bosom move in time to my Shake ‘N’ Vac. And the children: they really don’t need to see anything more that will have them in therapy than their everyday lives and that of their families. Hell, when you have been given the name Lambrini, you don’t need anything more to tip you over the edge, and the sight of my pasty thighs might just have them in the post office with a samurai sword before their tenth birthday.

The reason for the cleaning is that I am having friends over tonight. Friends! I have some you know! Obviously, I’m not going to be drinking, but seeing as they don’t know that, I’m getting a couple of Kalibers in so that I don’t freak them out. I think the softly softly approach might be called for. I mean, I might as well tell them that I’m moving to Kent, changing my name to Patsy and buying a 4x4 for all that they’ll believe me. I hate the whole “yeah right” response, so I shall be subtle and win the day. Ca you actually win a day? Oh, never mind.

I am also setting up a Space to accompany the book, so I’ll post the link when its done. I don’t want to turn my presence here into a marketing exercise, but we decided that a blog would be a decent idea so I agreed to do it. Because I have no life and its nice to have a hobby. *weep*

All that I have to say apart from that is a beeg belated Happy Birthday to both Beth and Prenin, may you have got all that you wished and that the next year is as much fun as a Gremlin in a blender. Love you both.

Laters.

xx

Hello, thanks for all your congrats, I’m pretty shiny with pride, or at least I would be if the bloody thing was actually finished…. Ha ha. Bollocks.

Anyway, I’m working hard on learning to edit and working a bit with my publishers cos, let’s face it, I need something to take my mind off being a miserable git, innit? I’m trying really really hard, and as long as I have Joss Whedon’s back catalogue and books and stuff, I reckon I might get there. Haven’t heard from the amazing job, like, but I’ll hold on for a bit and then start harping on about how they’ve probably already got someone in line: the boss’s tennis partner’s wife’s cousin’s daughter or something.

Had a well scary night on Friday, and it has galvanised my resolution to stop drinking for a bit. I seem to lose all sense of control whenever I even have a pint, which can’t be a good thing and is probably a very, very bad thing instead. I have a theory about drinking anyway: why do we need to drink to have fun? Its because we don’t trust ourselves to do it off our own backs? How come we don’t have enough faith in our sober selves to go out and do silly, fun things? Its like a mass self-loathing - kill off the sobriety and we get to live a different life for a while. Personally, and I don’t want to sound like some woolly jumper-wearing lifecoach here, I would like to spend a little quality time with myself. Take a swim in lake me, etc etc. the thing is, I’ve spent the last fifteen years constantly giving myself a hard time: placing demands on my personality that simply cannot be justified. I reckon my sober me needs a laugh as much as the next person. I let my consciousness take all the shit; I should give it a break and stop eradicating it when I want to chill out. This might sound like bollocks, but I think it’s a true. Plus, I would like to be able to have fun that I remember, and that doesn’t involve me physically and emotionally atoning for it for two days afterwards. Oh, and alcohol makes you fat, so its all good.

I’m NOT going to give up smoking though, at least not yet. I know it will kill me, but until I find religion, or have kids, or turn into a super-fit WWE Diva, I need something to distract me during the avert breaks in Angel. I can’t make myself perfect overnight, and I’ve been trying to eat well, and do my yoga and my meditation, and I think if I did give up, I would be a completely different person and I have never met anyone who doesn’t have at least one vice. Besides, I’m always frightened of people who are seemingly perfect, and I tend to assume that they hide dead cats in old ladies’ water tanks for kicks. Speaking of which, I just finished reading a super-trashy horror novel where a young girl was tortured in many horrible ways before dying of peritonitis after having a cat wrapped in razor wire shoved up her arse. I sometimes wonder if these authors have any friends, or whether their houses are wallpapered with new ideas for killing people in horrible ways. Obviously, if that were the case, then all my novels will be about luminous Popes and small whimsical kittens in baskets. Not arses.

I’m off to see the wizard,

Laters.

Xx

PS: I think the book might appear on Amazon at some point, for those of you who live in Timbuctu and Northern Scotland. xx