Cat update

Took cat down to the country while I went away on holiday. Partly to give cat a bit of proper hunting, partly to get away from Temporary Straight Flatmate. And then I left her in my parents' capable hands. It's been worryingly successful. She's won a cat fight, killed a bird, and convinced my folks to install a cat flap.


I checked in by phone:

Mum: "Well, she can open the fridge."
Me: "No... Oh god."
Mum: "No, she doesn't thieve anything. She just lifts out her tin of tuna from the shelf it's on and moves it next to her bowl, closes the door and then comes and tells me that she's now ready for her tuna, please."
Me: "..."
Mum: "I am not a silly old woman. She's done it the last three days in a row."

Taking cheques

A very exciting cheque turned up the other day. Funny things cheques. They used to mean grudging fiver from gran, or even more grudging London Transport rebate. But this cheque means excitement and a portal to another dimension.

Well, it did until my accountant phoned. Ah well.

Broadbanned

Back from a lovely retreat in Kirkudbright (more later). Apologies for the silence, but the internet access was... well, if it was gay it would be one of those guys who looks at you at the bar, smiles, then ignores you for the rest of the evening. Even though he's standing on your foot.

Typically, it worked fine for everyone else on holiday. Even though it was my mobile broadband. Luckily I didn't buy it drinks.

On the death of a bike

Its time had come. It was clear that someone had tried to steal it on Saturday, failed, and instead jumped up and down on it until the saddle was looser than Peaches Geldof (insert current tabloid scratching post, but not, oh dear me, not St Jade).

So, I cycled it home, tipping up every time I took a corner. And I thought "well, goodness, maybe its time has come." After all, it was a cheap bike and had lasted three years.

The next day, I awoke to find it gone. Someone had sawn through the lock in the night. "Oh well," I thought, feeling a little sad but also a little excited by the prospect of shopping for a new bike with perhaps all of its gears and both of its brakes working.

And then I walked down a street and a tramp cycled past on my bike. "Ah," he said, "Found it at the bottome of the street. Lucky for you, eh?". So, like a haunted doll in a Victorian ghost story, the bike is back with me.

The disadvantage of working from home

Is the students. There's something so seductive about bunking off for an afternoon to see a drama student in Sidcup. And, at my age, there's something flattering about diddling someone in their early 20s. And then I saw the following newspaper front page:

And I realised. Oh yes. Actually now old enough to be their father. So I'd better put a stop to that.

I have also seen a couple of well-preserved men in their 40s. Not only do they have nicer flats, but it also raises the average age quite neatly.

End of the world

You kind of know it when you read the following headline:
Business Channel in administration

Barbershop Galactifringe

Goodness me, four episodes in, and it's still the best show ever. And the hair has improved remarkably.

President Roslin is wearing a new wig (early 90s Cher) and she's taken command of a Cylon Baseship - which looks like a branch of Foxtons.

Even better, Six has had a new haircut, at what can only be the Cylon Salon. A clear sign that Something Is Up.

I do not want this show to end.

Will Young on Question Time

Actually seemed nervous, bless. It was a terrible performance - bumbling, unusually inarticulate, oddly wishy-washy... and yet rather endearing and sincere (although if you pointed a gun at me I couldn't tell you what he really believed in apart from snow). So maybe, in some ways, he fitted in with a panel óf politicians.

PS: Theresa May: Hawaiian shirt and a brown jacket? Really?

Of Danger Gays

I was reminded this week of Danger Gays. They split into two varieties:

1) TMTF (Too Mad To Fuck)
2) TMTFMTO (Too Mad To Fuck More Than Once)

Danger Gays partly came up this week. I met up with a sort-of friend for a sort-of date, only, "Sorry, it's just I met the oddest guy last weekend and... I don't know if I can ever... He was just so... and yet really... and... Well, he tore off my clothes, laughed at my London Underground boxer shorts, slapped me, and then made me feel like the most beautiful man in the world."

I stared at sort-of friend for a bit. "As far as Mile End," he said.

"Oh," I said. And then we realised he'd just met his first Danger Gay.

The most classic Danger Gay I've ever met I've only really known from a distance. Let's call him Marcus, who I met once at a party through a friend of a friend. Tall, lumpy, and hair that has its own insurance policy.

And then, suddenly, six months later, I see him at a club hanging off the shoulder of another friend. "My god!" I exclaimed, "It's Marcus. I had no idea he was going out with John."

"Neither did I," said John's best friend quietly, "I rather thought Marcus was going out with me."

The Day After The Snow

London is a bit sullen and hungover. Yesterday was a giddy carnival of unleashed youth and hyperactive bankers/accountants/media-darlings skipping rampant in Regents Park.

Today is a day when the world gingerly skates across lethal streets and the shops seem curiously empty of Ribena and Jaffa Cakes.

Meanwhile, Scotland and Wales have got the snow a day after us. And by all accounts, it's better and deeper and fluffier... and yet, strangely under-reported. London-centric news agenda? Surely not.

Sport Billy

Truly, I'd forgotten all about this. But thank you You Tube for bringing back to mind the phrase "omni-sac". I bought a Ladybird Spinoff book when I was young and remember being disappointed that it didn't follow series continuity (it didn't include the dog). It was a clear and worrying sign.



PS: Snooooooow!