Upon discovering this week's "Search Ov Da Week" (yes, it's up there), I had to have a look at the other possible hits, because I have a natural inclination to explore (see also story about me getting lost in Disneyland). I found this. I strongly advise that you don't look at the pictures if you are eating. Or at all. I had to because that's who I am. I'm feeling more and more certain of my heterosexuality.

 

Perhaps my favourite part of the whole site (well, I really had to have a look around seeing as I was there, didn't I?) was the link to the wonderfully titled 3Dvulva.com which actually confused me more than it informed. And what's the crack (pun! A genuinely funny pun!) with the "vulva art"? Sorry, The Mam, if you're reading this, but really... What's the point?

 

Anyway, I was depressed last night, but this has really cheered me up. And I'm not actually sure why. Ach, I needed a laugh.

 

I ate some noodle concotion half an hour ago and it's repeating thanks to the phrase "this is the result of clotting". I'm going to go to bed in the hope that I'll wake up tomorrow and forget this ever happened.

 

Apologies for being rude. It's the result of being on the computer since ten this morning with few breaks. Not clotting.

 

Laters.

xx

 

 

I'm party-preparing.

 

There are a lot of shit songs about phones out there. I aim to download them all before tomorrow night.

 

Go Team Sad!

 

x

 

 

Well, I'm having a full-on dickie fit about this book lark. I'm trying to promote it as best I can, but with the best will in the world I can't bring myself to big something up that I've written. It's not a modesty thing, but I defy anyone in the world to look at something they made and go "that's amazing, and I want everyone to know how good it is and buy it". I can't even get to the "that's amazing" part. I'm still in knots about the STD code directory.

Christ, I wish I'd never had to say that.

Anyway, all that, and I spent two hours on Friday trying to get the sodding image of it onto Amazon via some FTP thing which I don't understand and never will, seemingly. The book's on there for pre-prder, but we need the image because at the minute it looks shite, frankly. Allowing me to tinker with the web is never a good idea (which is why I stick firmly to Spaces and not Myspace), especially when it will certainly result in me weeping and cursing the day I ever learned to write.

 

The party is languishing in its own special hell, filled with quality vellum invites, free drinks offers, press releases and potential faliure at every turn. Still, I says, when else do you get to go shopping for ancient phones and download every phone-related song you can think of? It's a wonderland of delight, is it not?

 

All this, and the exciting prospect of convincing people I know and love phones, when I ended up in tears the other day because 02 wouldn't upgrade my handset due to the fact that I don't spend enough on my contract per month. To elaborate, I wnated the next phone up, but have to pay £80 for the pleasure, because I only overspend by £25 pm. Here's me, cautious and thrifty, and I'm not allowed an upgrade even though I've been with 02 for eight years (two of which were pay as you go and therefore free money for them as they had no handset outlay), and have upgraded every year since 2000. I can, however, have a phone shitter than my current one. I threatened to complain and negotiated a really good contract with an £80 upfront charge for the phone - which by this point was taking on some sort of mythic status: I felt like Arthur doing a bargain for Excalibur with the Lady of the Lake who was sitting somewhere in Swansea wearing a headset and pulling faces I couldn't see. Anyway, long and boring story short etc etc: I don't have £80 and have therefore got to cancel my contract and open a new one to get a "new customers only" (cue annoying advert) deal which is more than my current one and will involve me having a new number when it's taken the last five for my parents to learn this one.

Hassle? Yes.

 

God, what a boring blog entry. I apologise. I'm in a full-on misery and it's better than tormenting myself with questions about my self-worth and how I let myself be hurt in relationships etc etc. You know the drill. I grind my teeth constantly and therefore use chewing gum to reduce the pressure. Same with my head. To prevent mental grinding: Blog. I can see the kitsch, slightly '50s inspired ad now.  

God, they will as well, won't they. Is nothing sacred??

 

I hate my life, I'm going to go and listen to Fallout Boy or whatever shit the emos listen to. Or perhaps John Shuttleworth. I think you know which one.

 

Laters.

xx

I have to write. I have to. It’s too much to bear.

I am not a persecuted minority, and, despite being female and of Irish Catholic origin, have never had much cause to complain about being such. So why is it that every time I see a white, middle-class, middle-age WASP male blundering into yet another racial/cultural minefield waving a white flag attached to disguised poking implement, am I not surprised when they make a complete hash of it and end up attracting all the mentalists over to heckle them and give the news yet another excuse to show images of Angry Muslims™? I mean, come on. Even I, with my white, educated-classes attitude can see that the only good which can ever come of politicians second-guessing the fears and motivations of minority communities is when they finally give up after years of feeble reasoning and pretending to “get it”. I mean, John Reid today made me want to crack open my Woolies pirate outfit and preach the evils of The Infidel West. “How you can tell if your child is a suicide bomber…?” I was half sick in case he was going to say something like “when he starts going to THE MOSQUE. Listening to BHANGRA, or taking an interest in their ROOTS.”  When, oh when will people realise that by having a representation of 0.1% of the population attempting to dictate the future of the entire Earth, we are only going to be left feeling impotent on the issues that really matter to us. I mean, what the fuck does a public schoolboy know about financing their way through university? Or someone on £75k about living on £45 quid a week? If it wasn’t the norm – accepted as as much a part of life as breathing – it would make a bloody hilarious Monty Python classic.

So here’s my idea: John Prescott for Prime Minister. He’s dog rough, plain talking, suitably corrupted by power enough to make him really work for his cash. Which brings me to my next point: Performance-related pay. Every year, a panel of selected local representatives (about a hundred should do it) will grade the progress of each MP and fix their rates for the next year. Anyone will be able to stand for parliament, and candidates will be selected tri-annually in a thirteen-week X-Factor style elimination show. This will serve the duel purpose of choosing the right people for the right jobs, and also solve the problem of binge drinking when everyone stays glued to their screens at the weekend. The show will be presented by Jeremy Clarkson, June Sarpong and Graham Norton, followed by backstage interviews with Jeremy Paxman. Upon being chosen and assigned a role in parliament, each MP will have to live in their constituency, which will be determined by tombola. Should this be unworkable, ie if the MP for Racial Affairs be posted to the Shetland Isles, then this may be rectified by a short-straw scenario to determine with whom they must swap. That being done, the House of Lords will be disbanded in a two week celebration, wherein it shall be handed back to the people and all Lords found to have voted to retain bloodsports will participate in the lively culmination – the inaugural annual Running of the Twats. The Palace of Westminster will become a museum to the old ways, where the public can marvel and wonder at the fact that we did not entirely perish in a nuclear war over cod fishing. The new MPs will be housed in a complex purpose-built by Barratt Homes, and will be expected to contribute to its upkeep out of their own pocket and time. Just like an entire nation of council tenants exasperated with automated repair lines. Subjects for discussion in parliament will be suggested by any individual via email, and sorted into levels of importance by offenders participating into community punishment orders.

This, along with my reign as Princess Fantabulus the First MA (consisting only of a Christmas speech and the annual “Hoyin’ Oot Day”, where I distribute sweets to children from the back of a decorated elephant), will ensure a Britain we can all believe in.

Tommorrow: Educashunal reforms and Foreign policy.

 

 

NB: I have just heard the news about The Hammond. I can’t deal with this so soon after Steve Irwin. If all my beloved male special interest presenters are going to be in mortal peril, then I’m placing a call to warn the Mythbusters. But seriously, it’s bloody horrendous and I’m having a bit pray.

 

xx

 

For a week, my PC wouldn't let me publish anything..... But now it has! And being me, I was saving all my entries up. So, er, God speed.....

 

 

Last Monday:

I am a victim of crime. Always the victim, me.

I’d been at The Parents all weekend (thought it would help to get some work done. Er…) and The Mam dropped me off on Monday. I had a few things to take up to the flat so she gave me a hand, and as she was unlocking the door, I noticed that one of the panes of glass in it had been boarded up. Scrotey bloody kids, thinks I, but at least it’s been boarded by someone. Anyway, The Mam went in first and gasped, so I knew it was bad (something about that sentence implies that The Mam is not in the habit of gasping. She is, but only in urgent situations). My spare room is right next to the communal balcony, and someone had obviously been trying to break in from there because they had smashed the entire window in and pushed all three of my internal panes onto the floor. Where they smashed into millions of tiny, tiny pieces. All over the stuff I store in there, including stuffed toys (now utterly full of glass), shoes (ditto) and the spare bed (the only time I’ve considered inviting Wayne to stay). Of course I went hysterical, but the window had also been boarded and nothing taken.

To cut a long, irritating and messy story short, four kids had been spotted trying to get in and the police called. The concierge had then arranged for a police visit and for the windows to be boarded. Because I wasn’t there, they couldn’t get in and boarded from the outside, but no-one thought to tell the emergency housing office so that I could have been contacted. And they used three nails to board the entire window, and did it by leaning over the balcony in the same way that the little fucks had done to break the thing. Therefore, anyone could have prised it off overnight. I got the police out again, who said they had no record of it, and that I was lucky, blah blah. They did the fingerprint thing and went away. I’m not holding my breath.

The best part is that I then had glass everywhere in my flat for three days and there was no point hoovering till they removed the glass. Plus, I’d just got my new VoIP phone and wanted to call Emma, but couldn’t because my broadband was in the newly ventilated Suck.

 

I await the next phase with baited breath…. Although a nice policeman told me that they had several witnesses but none would come forward formally. I can completely understand: even I’m sort of half hoping it won’t go anywhere because I know full well that the little treasures will get a puny CPO or something then come and murder me while I sleep. I love my flat.

 

Just had the glaziers in: they’ve installed bulletproof glass, but the three sliding panes can’t be replaced, so I’ll have to wear a snorkel parka to do work in the winter. What’s going on with that?? They broke, they need to be replaced. It’s not rocket science.

 

What else has happened…? Quite a lot actually, but I’m not too keen on saying because a) I’ll jinx things, and b) I don’t want to get into trouble with work. Intrigued? You will be. What I can say is that I have been doing a lot of work, and watching a lot of Hornblower. i.e. all of it. I can’t say why for certain, but I do love Napoleonic era stuff. Perhaps all those smart men and tales of adventure and er, men have something to do with it. Oh! And joy! Sky One are finally showing the last series of Angel! Yay! And I keep meaning to mention [adult swim] which is an animation slot on Bravo every weeknight and has officially become my non-Napoleonic happy place. I actually hurt myself laughing at Aqua Teen Hunger Force the other night. Watch it!

 

Here’s some stuff that’s been bothering me this week:

 

Sweetcorn – I can think of any other kind of corn. Why not just call it “corn”?

 

STD Codes – 150 pages of muddled, unformatted pages of them, to be precise. My eyes hurt.

 

Robbie Williams – Is he still here? If I’d known what a monster was to be created, I wouldn’t have had all those Take That posters up when I was 12.

 

Hornblower – It’s definitely the men. I’m very happily single, thank you, but hey, I have to get some pangs or life wouldn’t be fun.

 

Being poor – SSDD. I’m learning to enjoy tinned food.

 

02 – At the risk of committing some libellous sin, they are without doubt the most rotten, immoral and hypocritical group of Direct Debiteers in the world.

 

Telewest – As above, only forgiven for free Hornblower.

 

Glass – It hurts even when you stand on it for the seventh time.

 

Sleep – I want to be awake all the time so that I can watch lots and lots of TV.

 

I’m off to watch Master and Commander and build a fort in the living room. I said that as a joke, but hell, I live alone! I can if I want to! And I might!

 

Laters.

Xx

 

PS: If you are BFEmma reading this, you need to register with Starbucks to use their wi-fi. I told you this: don’t make me come over there. X

 

Wed 21^st September

 

Had a terrible night last night. To elaborate, until July, I was Bungle. Neurotic, panicky, victim-playing Bungle. So the doctor changed my meds. And I became George within 24 hours. I was sleepy, passive, gluttonous and obliging.

And now? Now I have new pills and I have become Zippy. I refused to sleep last night, preferring rather to get myself in a right state and end up having an argument with my own nature. Some random, mute fury which ended in full-blown chaos and the necessity to have a bath at 3am and calm the hell down.

This is not unusual recently. I get to midnight and decide that I won’t sleep because sleep is just me wasting my time. I will do work. Or finally have my tea (I do forget to have tea because I can’t do a proper shop for a week or so and therefore have no combinable food-groups. I snack, which I’m told is better for me. Ha!), or, like last night, play spider sodding solitaire for a further five hours and then get stuck in one of my compulsive card cycles. (You play solitaire, hearts, freecell then spider in that order, not moving to the next until you have won. I had to make a special exception for hearts. I can come second in hearts because I was losing entire weeks…)

Whilst realising that this is not exactly normal, I can take solace in the fact that I am no longer spending a hundred quid a weekend on getting as blasted as possible, and am now averaging two novels a week. But on around four hours’ sleep on a good night? Only time will tell whether or not I end up a shrivelled husk.

 

There’s a thing on Radio 4 right now asking “What makes you happy?” 80% of the respondents on the voxpops said sex. I’m now bored of that and hereby present my alternative guide my own happiness:

• Being up at six in the morning in summer and not being tired.
• Coffee and The Indie and a rollie.
• Mythbusters (so, so happy).
• Old ladies saying things like “oh for goodness sake, just get a dildo”.
• Talking to random people at bus stops.
• The Napoleonic Happy Place (Master and Commander, Hornblower).
• Ghostbusters.
• Top Gear.
• The Mam’s cooking.
• Payday.
• Waking up and not having anything to do for the entire day.
• She-Ra.
• Talking to uni mates on the phone for two hours.
• Food shopping in the market.
• The Dad laughing hysterically at something.
• Eating four Parma Violets at a time.
• Having a hilarious dream, waking up crying with laughter, vowing to remember it, remembering it, describing it to someone else, realising it’s not funny at all, but still pissing yourself again.
• New editions of The Fortean Times and SFX.
• The Man Don’t Give a Fuck, Blue Monday, What Difference Does it Make?, The Door Into Summer.
• Funny-looking animals / animals dressed as humans.
• The works of Joss Whedon.
• Neil Gaiman.
• KLF, aha aha aha.
• Looking at pictures of Corsica.
• Jesus Christ Superstar.
• Butter.
• Bubbles.
• Dogs Die in Hot Cars.
• Wearing scarves.
• Going shopping with BFEmma and ending up buying half the pound shop (light-up frogs, Lambchop puppets, sieves.)
• Benefit makeup.
• Comics.
• Religious tat.
• The way I can eat chocolate for breakfast the week after Christmas without being ill.
• Jamie Hewlett.
• The Far Side.
• WWE.
• Having a shower first thing in the morning.
• The feeling you get after a new haircut. You can take on the world, and it lasts two days.
• Wearing perfume I don’t particularly like, but knowing it’s Vivien Westwood.
• Loving a film that no-one else has seen and talking about it as an authority because I’ve been researching it on the internet.
• Having a crush on a celebrity which is hopelessly childish. And putting posters up to prove it.
• Knowing, secretly, that I am unique and cool and clever when there is no-one there to put it to the test.

 

Hopefully, this is the moment when my PC decides to let me post this. That would make me really happy.

 

Laters.

Xx

I was tagged by The Mam for this, and sadly haven’t got time today for a proper update (not that anything at all has happened!)

 

WHAT IS YOUR NAME?

Christine Elizabeth Martha Arnold BA, MA (snort)

 

THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:

Xine

Arnold (boys from school)

Sarchina (Beth made that one up on Monday. I like it.)

 

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE :

Xine42

Kelly_watch_the_stars

Red5 (ages and ages ago this was my MSN chat name.)

 

THREE THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:

My hair

My sense of humour

My new found motivation to have a career and sod relationships.

 

THREE THINGS YOU HATE/DISLIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:

The three stone that I was too blasé to notice appearing at uni

My tendency to settle for men who aren’t good enough

Intermittent depression

 

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:

Irish

Scottish

English

 

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:

Spiders

Being hurt

Ignorance

 

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:

Fags

Coffee

The Independent

 

THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:

Black V-neck sweater

Khaki trousers

Erm… pants. Big-ass sensible pants. Black.

 

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS

Super Furry Animals

The Monkees

The Smiths

 

THREE NEW THINGS YOU WANT TO TRY IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS:

Money

A career

A diet involving bacon sandwiches and pie

 

THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A LOVE RELATIONSHIP

Laughter

Amazing physical contact of a sticky and youthful nature

TRUST

 

TWO LIES AND A TRUTH.. GUESS THE LIES

I am double-jointed in at least six places about my person

I have never taken drugs

I can correctly identify a tetraic tetrameter in twelve quatrains without having to think

 

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX

Height (cos’ I’m all tall and that)

Hair

Nice arms

 

THREE THINGS YOU JUST CAN'T DO:

Long division

Commit to a relationship

Paint

 

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:

Reading

Writing

Drawing (poorly)

 

WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:

Tidy my flat

Finish formatting 150 pages of STD area codes manually in five minutes (“delete delete delete delete, tab tab tab tab….”)

Read the the Indie with a coffee and a fag (ie skive)

 

THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING:

Editor

Writer

Social butterfly

 

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:

Rome (more on this later)

Corsica

Tokyo

 

THREE KID'S NAMES:

Alexander/ra

John Arnold (The Dad’s name)

Martha

 

THREE TRUE LOVES:

Graham Coxon

Mark Steel

Someone else

 

THREE FAVORITE ANIMALS:

Dogs (and cats)

Monkeys

lions

 

THREE REASONS WHY YOU’RE DOING THIS:

The Mam said it would be so

I had to update but nothing has happened

I’m self-obsessed

 

THREE PEOPLE WHO HAVE TO TAKE THIS QUIZ

Mr Steve

Cap’n B

Lady Sazz

 

BFEmma and Rachel's leaving do was suitably messy with much falling over and being apropriately weepy. I also got to go out after with my favourite fellas, and I even had a pikey hotdog and laughed helplessly when Bob (sorry, sorry, Andrew) poured mustard on his person by accident. Well, all in a good night.

Of course, Friday wasn't exactly a picnic - I had to pop over to see the publisher and just about made it thanks to a pork and stuffing sandwich the size of my head and three bottles of mineral water. Two hours' sleep on my return and I was ready to brave town again to see Gillian after her happy holidays. Only managed four pints before the gag reflex started again, so we left Legends at a respectable hour and headed home. I may have been attacked by a seriously fucked charva at my door, but the taxi driver had spent the entire journey home telling me about his days in borstal and he waited till I was in the door before pulling away. Honestly? I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but I got in and for some inexplicable reason watched two episodes of Ainsley's Gourmet Express before closing my chip tray for the night and heading to bed.

Anyway, the point of the story was that Gillian had just come back from Amsterdam and then Leeds festival so I got a lovely bracelet and some exciting cigarette papers (including some "Black Death" ones featuring a skull in a top hat on the front and the legend "I like 'em and I'll smoke 'em" on the inside. But which weren't actually black as we had hoped). And Gillian was telling me about a band she'd seen called Flogging Molly on the off-chance and who were absolutely amazing. I downloaded a load of their stuff today (er, legally and that), and I can confirm this. Any band with songs called "Cry of the Celtic" and "Kiss My Irish Ass" are definitely worth a look. Even The Mam and The Dad had a bit jig and I have to say there were moments when the entire house seemed to creak under the weight. If we'd been in my flat, the old couple downstairs might have got a surprise visit.

Speaking of the poor state of my flat, my mildew has now got to the point where it is halfway up even the interior walls, I've had nine home visits and only just found the cause. The last man finally took the bath panel off (how hard can it be for fuck's sake - I was telling them that was the cause a year ago) and found that the trap had a massive hole in it and was filled completely with around a year's worth of my hair. And it was NOT pretty. So he fixed that and I had to get another man to come out and confirm that the space under my bath is rotten and that I need a new one. I think my naighbours think I'm offering personal services because three men came out to unblock the sink the other day. Three. At seperate times. And I had to send them away because someone had been to do it two weeks earlier. Before then, I was washing my face in the kitchen - what a joke.

So they are giving me a new bath (the man who came for that was about 12 and spotty and his modus operandi was mostly poking the side of the bath with a pen. I mean come on, at least look like you are doing something. He actually asked me right off what the problem was and then just... poked at it. As though it would yield its moist secrets to him if he tormented it enough. He said yes, I would get a new bath, but they could only give me that, so there will be no time allocated to dry out the walls and therefore the whole exercise would be pointless. I have to admit, I didn't offer him a tea. Even the man who actually removed the side of the bath, but seemed very keen on me crawling under it for a look with a torch - despite there being a solid square metre of spiderweb, and therefore possibly Shelob - got a cuppa. Spotty got a thanks and then left without telling me and left my front door open. Someone could have stolen my junkmail or collection of ripped coats, for gawd's sake. As the one who got the cuppa said when I asked him if I needed a new bath: "Don't need a new bath love, need a new bloody flat." I've got the forms here. I was in the bath the other day and the wallpaper fell down on my head. It's time to let go, I think.

 

What else, despite that being of such interest to you, no doubt. Erm, nothing. I'm of a sunnier disposition since I returned from the hols: Happy being single and fancy-free if you get my meaning. Love the fact that I don't have to think about anyone else when making plans - it's a real treat to just walk out the flat when I like and not have the whole "consideration" issue to deal with. Oh, and only having to feed myself is nice too. I can buy olives and nice bread and fruit and it's ALL MINE. I knew I'd get back to this point after the last love disaster. I'm an only child, it's what we do.

 

Them's my newses. Nothing exciting, just a bit of a do and fun with damp. And a bit of healing; better late than never.

Hope you are all well.

 

Laters.

xx

 

PS: I discovered that in my drunken state the other night I had finally found something suitable with which to pimp my baccie tin. It's been a running joke at work, but possibly not something I should let people think I'm up for. Oh well. It was funny the next morning.