Day 198: Bunting Fatigue

A job in London Bridge.  My journey takes me past 'The Christmas Shop', a twenty-four seven three hundred and sixty-five Groundhog Day of tinsel and baubles.  I've only been in there once.  It was October, and I needed to buy a pocket-sized shepherd (don't explain; don't justify).  It was deeply disturbing in there, and I felt concern for the staff.  That level of festive contamination has got to have consequences. 

Today, Christmas is barely in evidence.  Pushed into the background by the proliferation of Union Jacks.  Bunting.  Baubles.  Tablecloths.  Biscuit tins.  Napkins.  Pencil cases.  If it exists, they've slapped a Union Jack on it.  Jubilee/Olympic fever. 

Now, the Union Jack is an excellent flag.  Eye-catching.  Individual.  Bold.  But I this year I have already seen more than enough of it*. 

No

(*I am especially unhappy about pastel versions.  Particularly in bunting.  Please file under 'no' along with cupcakes and Cath Kidston.)

Also no

But perhaps overexposure will provide its own cure - and soon I will simply no longer register any flags, because I will be so used to them. 

(In the same way that after two stops on the train yesterday I thankfully could no longer smell the man sitting opposite me.  My nose adjusted.  His disturbing biscuitiness neutralised into my temporary normality.)

Stop

I'm hoping this will be the case.  In the meantime, I hope all this hot flag action is a lovely change of scene for the staff at the Christmas Shop.

Do they know it's Christmas time at all? 

  

Day 197: Baked Potato

Imagine that you find yourself at a time of your life when you decide that it's time to turn your back on the reckless fecklessness of your stoner past.  And to usher in this new era of reckful, feckful responsbility, you decide to mark the occasion with a tattoo.  What design would you pick?  How might you symbolise this new era?  Perhaps 'responsibility' picked out in Sanskrit?  Or a Celtic band? 

Maybe, just maybe, you would pick the image of a baked potato - because 'potatoes come from the ground'.  Yes.  Potatoes are, literally, grounded.  You might include a large knob of butter.  Butter to represent, um... niceness.  Because butter is always nice on a potato.  Isn't it? 

There again, you might not.  But it entertains me immensely that at least one person did (thanks to DMax for 'LA Ink' - every so often trash TV delivers a gem). 

I think it is no coincidence that the potato is TODALLY, like, 'BAKED', DUDE.

Day 196: Freeze In A Cow

To the Udderbelly on South Bank to see 'Freeze!'.  Odd to see the Udderbelly tent anywhere other than Bristo Square in Edinburgh.

The Cow Pasture (now rebranded as the Magners Pasture) has all the same bits, but arranged differently.  And the fake turf is strangely dry.  It should be mulchy with Edinburgh rain. 

'Freeze!' is Tim Key and Tom Basden cocking around.  Guaranteed elements include poetry and arrogance (Tim); songs and sock-mopping up (Tom); beer and microphone stand foolishness (both).  I think they are brilliant.  Separately and together.  

First time I saw 'Freeze!' was at the Fringe several years ago.  It was a late night show, with a comedy-savvy audience, confident in their choice of show. 

Tonight is different.  The audience is quieter, and some seem bemused by the lo-fi shambolic approach. A man with a briefcase walks out. Key is relieved, as he did not consider him 'target audience'.

Part of what I love so much about these two is their on-stage vibe.  Playful and subversive.  It's not for everyone.  That's why Michael McIntyre exists. 

Day 195: She-Man

Morning run.  Ahead of me, a mother and her small son who's making painfully slow progress on a scooter.  As I near, the woman guides him to one side to let me pass.

'Move over, darling - let the lady through.'  As I run past I thank her and she immediately corrects herself, sounding flustered.  'Oh... Err - gentleman'. 

Yes.  She thought I was female.  Then I spoke and she realised her mistake. 

I should make it clear that I am in fact female.  I possess all the usual physical attributes (reasonably ample).  Plus longish hair.  Admittedly I am tall - 5'10" (so not freakish) and I do have a low voice, exacerbated today by a minor cold.  So I guess if you weren't paying close attention...

I've been mistaken for a man before.  Normally by the very elderly and short of sight, who presume tall-in-jeans means man.  But I've never had someone correct themselves before.  Never had someone embarrassed that they've mis-identified a man as a woman. 

Which is worse?  To be a man, mistaken for a woman?  Or to be a woman, mistaken for a woman, and then correctly identified as a man?

I snigger intermittently all the way home.  It would appear that I don't take my gender reassignment very seriously.   

Day 194: Price of Beef

Today for lunch I eat wagyu beef and miso-blackened cod.  Privately served to me in a shiny lacquer box, with starched linen napkin.  To drink?  Fresh raspberry juice, cut with sparkling water. 

No, I have not robbed a bank.  This is for free. 

When I say 'free', actually there is (as always) a price tag.  When you do jobs for the sort of company that provides this sort of lunch, you can pretty much bet that for the time you are with them, you are their tiny dancing bitch-on-a-string.

I've never eaten wagyu beef before.  It's good.  But tiny dancing bitch-on-a-string good? 

No.  Not that good. 

Once is enough.   

Day 193: Bleeding Hearts

Walking through Piccadilly this morning I come across a trail of scattered playing cards, amidst splatters and drips of blood.  Like the cover of one of those classic 1960s James Bond paperbacks.  Le Chiffre, casinos and violence. 

I realise that the cards and the blood could well be unconnected.  Maybe a tramp had a nosebleed and some hours later, on the very same spot, a student with a passion for Patience dropped a pack of playing cards.  Or vice versa (student with nosebleed, tramp with cards). 

But I'd much prefer to think that both elements are connected.  A high stakes game of poker.  A cheat exposed.  Fisticuffs on Jermyn Street (bespoke suits ruined).

Real life Cluedo.  Bringing some colour (mostly red) to a street near you.        

 

Day 192: Going Open Kimono

On the radio this morning I hear the phrase 'open kimono'.   It's not a programme about delicate cherry blossom geishas, but an interview with the bluff boss of a multi-national energy company.  

Apparently 'open kimono' means no secrets - from the Samurai tradition of showing that you have no weapons concealed beneath your robes.  The meaning makes complete sense, even if I don't like the business-speak context.

But what I like even less is the hideous image that immediately springs to my mind.   Grizzled poon-hound Peter Stringfellow, naked and on display beneath a coyly open 1970s synthetic kimono.   This at 6.30 in the morning.   What is wrong with me?   Where are the noble Samurai?

Imagine my horror when I find THIS (see right) on the internet.  Have I manifested this? Am I responsible?

Or perhaps I have unguardedly allowed my mental kimono to fall open, and I am under psychic attack from Stringfellow.  What other grotesque 'pop ups' will be visited on me?  Thongs?  Droopy buttocks?  Mullets?  Smuggery?

Do what you want, Peter - but NOT IN MY HEAD.   Invade someone else's kimono.