Now I'm Into Plastics

The Office

2007-06-14T13:49:00.000-07:00

Undeterred by cursory glances, her vocal avalanche storms the air
Conditioned breeze
That dries our eyeballs
Can't dispel the mindless wheeze

Not perturbed by exasperated sighing, buzzing drone blocks
Ears from drums
Whimsy and forethought shielded by murmurs
Colourless frequency relentlessly hums

I have my toe in a kitten's ear.

2007-05-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

And she is purring.

Bus Crash TV

2007-04-16T10:02:00.000-07:00

Bristol buses are like the London tubes. No-one dares make eye contact. As a result of this, I do like to be amused on the bus, as I am from time to time.

As I get on the bus near town, and can get virtually any that passes by the stop, I can pick and choose my numbers (although more often than not they are chosen for me by the lottery that is the Bristol traffic rush hour). Today I took the number 77 towards Henbury. Number 77 has considerably less fume-emitting, tracksuit-wearing education-dodgers on than the number 76 to Southmead or 70-something to Cribbs, so I picked the bonus ball today.

I gave my fare to the friendly-faced Italian driver, who was so relaxed he was almost asleep at the wheel, and sat down next to a woman who was texting on the oldest Nokia phone I'd seen since 1998.

When we stopped by the ex-swimming baths, a rather red looking woman stomped onto the bus, obviously furious. "Why weren't you here at 5.30?!" she demanded. I can't be exactly sure, as the driver was a little way away from me, but I think he mumbled something along the lines of "Eh?" I felt the glimmer of a smile on my face, which grew when I noticed there was a woman behind the irate one with hair that looked like it hadn't been washed (full stop) and the beginnings of a moustache with which Freddy Mercury would have been proud. Moustached woman was gawping like a kid in a Sunny Delight factory. Irate woman started to swear. "I got here at 5-p***ing-10 and you're supposed to be every twenty minutes, and I'm bl**dy fed up with it!!!" she screamed.

As Italian driver obviously couldn't hide the fact that he couldn't give a damn if he tried, Irate Woman and The Gawper sat down, together, in front of me.

Irate Woman took a book from her bag and gradually became engrossed in it, despite the fact that Gawper had begun whittling on to her only miliseconds after they'd sat down. I deduced that they must work together. Irate looked up from her book and interrupted Gawper's diatribe at one point to state (unnecessarily loudly), "I hate this p***ing bus!!!"

Fair enough, you want to shout at a driver because you need to vent your anger at the ridiculously appalling public transport system we are subjected to in this country, but for Christ's sake, don't then sit down and read (I tell no lie) the Posh Spice biography! Who is going to take you seriously?

A Cold Shoulder

2006-10-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

My boyfriend doesn't often make me laugh... not on purpose anyway. However, I do find it funny when he gets a 'cold call'. For those of you (out of the three people who actually claim to read my blog) who don't know what a cold call is, (and shame on you - for how can you live in the UK without experiencing one of the main displeasures that haunts our middle-aged?), it's a phone call made by someone who has sold their soul to the nearest begging multinational by agreeing to pester unencouraging parties by telephone at all inappropriate hours of the day.

My boyfriend gets these calls at least once a week, and usually at the weekend. On Saturday at about 10am, he got one from a woman with an extremely strong Indian accent, who talked as fast as her computer could dial a phone number. BF couldn't tell what she was saying, and didn't care to request clarification. I was sitting next to him on the sofa, laughing, as I could hear her robotically chanting at him.

When she had finished her sales schpiel, he answered her with a question, "Where did you get my number?" She began her chant again, so he passed me the phone.

I heard her politely ask on the other end, "Ok?"

I didn't answer, and couldn't for laughing.

"Ok, sir?" she pleaded.

I still didn't answer.

BF took the handset from me and slowly, measuredly placed it back on the receiver.

2006-10-10T14:22:00.000-07:00

Hero

2006-10-08T11:52:00.000-07:00

Apocalyptica - Refuse, Resist (Live)

G & C

2006-09-29T13:20:00.000-07:00

While I'm currently trying to finish my drink so I can enjoy a rainy walk to the pub in practically pitch darkness, I thought I'd share the fact that I've 'created' (can anything really be a first in the 21st century?) a new drink, and it's very nice. Gin, cranberry, and orange juice. It's the new G&T.

Just realised I've been 'getting ready' for 3 hours and 45 minutes. Oops.

Saved by internet disconnection

2006-09-29T10:05:00.000-07:00

Gross

Chocolate Brownies

2006-09-28T12:29:00.000-07:00

I've somehow been talked into becoming a Brownie Guide leader.... I feel a bit like a church rat. I've been helping at Brownies with a good friend for a few months now, and it's pretty good fun, but today they were playing up. I think their summer holidays are too long!

We're behaving like animals

2006-09-25T12:02:00.000-07:00

Someone said a funny thing to me the other day. It didn't make me laugh overtly at the time, but as I relayed it to someone today I realised how true (and how amusing) it was. It was an inspector at the school I visited. He said he didn't like the way that when people acted violently or disgracefully, we say they are 'behaving like animals'. He said it was offensive towards the animal kingdom, and that the reverse should be said. When animals behave violently, we should, in fact, say that they are 'behaving like humans'.

Being ill was bound to bring up some sort of rant...

2006-09-17T08:46:00.000-07:00

As people who know me will be reading this blog, I cannot be as brazen as to pretend that I'm not an unashamed watcher of the type of televisual pleasure I think we all love to hate.

Yep, I'm talking about reality TV.

A certain person with whom I share a flat has also recently managed to get me hooked on downloaded American reality TV, something I would have tried to deny all knowledge of a few years ago. However, when you're trying to save money to move house, downloaded TV (especially entire series of Buffy and House MD) cannot be knocked for its contribution to the cause.

But having been in bed for three days with a horrible tummy bug, I haven't been able to subject myself to the slick, multi-million dollar budget pleasures of downloaded episodes of The Apprentice USA, nor have I been watching in widescreen terrified Americans cooking at the mercy of Gordon Ramsay under custom-made LA studio lights. I was too late in the year even for the revolving-doored re-hash that was this year's UK Big Brother. No, I have been making do with watching antiques experts quizzing OAPs and teenage mothers on British park benches. It's what I like to call 'daytime surreality TV'. They do say the truth is stranger than fiction, and you can't get closer to the gritty truth of modern day society that a girl in a scrunchie and gold hoop earrings trying to sell a chipped china cat to a passing pensioner.

Now, I can vaguely appreciate these sorts of TV programmes on some level. They can come in useful if you have a good enough memory to know how to spot a £10,000 plate for 10p at a car boot sale. The concept of these shows cannot be knocked. It's the contestants who I have to watch through holes in my intertwined fingers.

Contestants on Big Brother and Shipwrecked know what they're doing. They've groomed themselves to the standards of the media they love to hound. They know how to stage a one-way conversation, allowing gaps for an over-emphasised Newcastle accent voiceover to be dubbed in before beginning their next remark. They've been prepped, primped and preened. They know what the viewers want to see. Daytime surreality TV doesn't have the benefit of these savvy show guests on its grimy gameshows. Daytime surreality can't even afford to book Joe Pasquale. No, daytime surreality has to make do with the real Joe Public.

One particularly bad antiques insight was on while I was still in bed this morning, too dazed from last night's painkillers to reach for the 'standby' button on my remote control. I think it was a segment of the Heaven and Earth Show. What would have been an interesting five minute piece was ruined not by the Mau-era Chinese Buddha figure that was brought onto the show, but by the woman who brought it on. The presenter could hardly get a word in - not because he was wading through this woman's pearls of wisdom, but because she wouldn't stop voicing her monotone agreement with his.

I could almost see the resentment bubbling up in the interviewer as his interviewee smothered all remnants of available silence with pointless droning mumbles of concurrence. "Yes", "Hmm", "Yes", "It is", "Yes", "Uh huh", "Yes", "Really?", er, YES!

I guess it's better than the chavvy crassness of the likes of Wife Swap, insomuch as at least I could understand what this woman was saying without using subtitles (though I'd ask someone to have me committed if I ever went to the bother of trying).

I think reality TV has encompassed so much of today's media, that some reality TV contestants have actually earned the right to feel superior over others. There's so much reality TV that the different levels are astounding.

The decision is starting to be made. I need to stay away from the fiction of slick big budget reality TV and even further away from the grittiness of daytime surreality TV.

Unfortunately I don't have time to write about the nodding-head dogs currently posing as interviewers on the Sky News channel.

What an absolute classic!

2006-09-12T11:05:00.000-07:00

I certainly wouldn't return one of these CDs to the shop.

Paris Hilton

The title of my blog

2006-09-08T13:19:00.000-07:00

You may have guessed where the title of my blog and the website address came from... if you are also a (slightly obsessive) fan of my favourite band and my favourite band's favourite album.

(Whoop!) now I can make a post on Ultratoast's!