I’m not one for shopping, never have been. Show me a busy suburban shopping centre and I’ll show you the vein in the centre of my forehead throbbing with palpable displeasure. I don’t need any more shoes. I have no desire to smell like Christina Aguilera’s liberty bodice. I’ve never been brave enough to shop lift not even when nicking bottles of Anne French spot toner from Boots was so in vogue it was featured as a storyline in Grange Hill. Shopping for me is done out of necessity but that said I’m not phobic about it and I don’t live like Stig of the dump just yet.
I once worked with a guy who went to Cost Co twice a year for tinned food and bog roll and stole bars of soap from Inter City train toilets. How do I know this? He once slid open his desk drawer and showed me his collection; a coffee can full of medicinal smelling green soap tablets and then tapped the side of his nose with his finger in a knowing gesture. He also told me that he had been reusing the same square of tin foil to wrap his lunch time sandwiches for seven years. One year at the Christmas party I saw him deftly fill his suit pockets with sausage rolls and quiche; nonchalantly he turned to me and said ‘that’s my fucking breakfast.’
Given the opportunity I like grocery shopping during dawn of the dead hours, not out of any social phobia per se just to give myself a bit of a break. For steer me in the direction of the nearest florescent lit food emporium, add to that a hundred or so aimless people and their screaming children and like Dr. David Banner before me my eyes change from green to poached egg grey and the desire to smash the place the fuck up comes over me like white heat. In daily life I like to think of myself as being a rather peaceable person the type of woman who will gladly give a bath tub spider a second chance at life by sending it on its way out of the front door with a cheery wave. Put me behind the handlebars of shopping trolley with a fucked front wheel and within thirty seconds I’m quelling an inner desire to take off my boots and start hitting people randomly like September wasps.
Hemmed in by menopausal women with no idea why they are there or what they came in for I catch a glimpse of my future self in all its befuddled scarlet cheeked glory. When watching marauding children that I know should be at school zipping about on their damn heelies I want to lock them in a freezer and demand a letter from their head teacher. During the witching hours I can sashay around the aisles at my leisure nodding politely at my fellow insomniacs as I pass. Talking to my favourite check lady one night she told me that a local swingers group meet in the frozen food section once a month to check each other out. Apparently to signal interest the etiquette is to drop an ice cream into your intended’s trolley; in accordance with the swinger’s ice cream and frozen snack code of practice, details of which she was disappointingly sketchy about. I presume that if you lob a mint choc chip Cornetto into someone’s basket that’s a green light that the next time you meet it’ll be to get down to business. What’s required should a tub of Chunky Monkey be hurled in your direction I have no idea.
Sunday 12 April 2009
Tuesday 7 April 2009
MEET THE NEIGHBOURS
Time was that my ancestral blot on the landscape was known rather pompously as the ‘Queen of the Suburbs’. In recent years much like the decline of minor royalty it is rather more the Dowager Duchess, complete with the hump. Whilst I would be lying if I were to paint an idyllic picture of an Enid Blyton childhood free of worry, stress and predatory perverts it was possible I believe to make it through an average day without being called a cunt by a complete stranger in your own front garden.
Ah the mating call of the young British male when the sun is shining and the blood is up. Although I’ll admit to never being quick on the uptake when it comes to the subtler banter involved in romantic courtship – ‘Oi ginger fancy a fuck?’ is about as sexually alluring as curry flavoured condom. Whether it was the boldness of the statement or the fact that my would be beau had a complexion that would make Freddy Krueger look fair of skin I’m not sure but my immediate repost was shall we say in the negative. Then he called me a cunt. Then better still he took out his door keys and let himself into the house three doors down where, I have since found out he has just moved into with his parents. His name is Dane and he 14. I am older than his mother who also has a daughter who’s name I think, having heard it yelled several times out of the bedroom windows is Chlamydia. Such is the trend for naming your children after significant circumstances surrounding their conception. If I were a betting man I would put money on the family also having a set of fraternal twins being called Benson and Stella.
Ah the mating call of the young British male when the sun is shining and the blood is up. Although I’ll admit to never being quick on the uptake when it comes to the subtler banter involved in romantic courtship – ‘Oi ginger fancy a fuck?’ is about as sexually alluring as curry flavoured condom. Whether it was the boldness of the statement or the fact that my would be beau had a complexion that would make Freddy Krueger look fair of skin I’m not sure but my immediate repost was shall we say in the negative. Then he called me a cunt. Then better still he took out his door keys and let himself into the house three doors down where, I have since found out he has just moved into with his parents. His name is Dane and he 14. I am older than his mother who also has a daughter who’s name I think, having heard it yelled several times out of the bedroom windows is Chlamydia. Such is the trend for naming your children after significant circumstances surrounding their conception. If I were a betting man I would put money on the family also having a set of fraternal twins being called Benson and Stella.
Monday 6 April 2009
BRIGHTON – MY OLD LOST LOVE, WE ARE AS STRANGERS
Time had it when the symbol of love in my life was no cherub clutching a box of coronary shaped chocolates; it was the rattling board in Victoria Station of trains from London to Brighton, a flickering electronic countdown against an evening sky in Clapham Junction, an eagerly awaited train at East Croydon. If you can feel true love in the absence of your love to feel in East Croydon, then my friend I believe that all things are possible.
So Brighton was love and Brighton was where my love lived and everything was as bright, shiny and full of promise as the North Sea on a sunny morning as seen from your bedroom window when you’ve just had good sex. One minute your love is sitting up on their elbows making witty comments about something you find fascinating then it seems a few years down the line you’re passing messages through mutual friends about who gets custody of the DVD collection. But I made a mistake, I blamed Brighton.
When I skedaddled back to London I somehow convinced myself that Brighton was to blame. Had we steered clear of those Christmas cake houses and quirky Britonian’s things may have worked out differently. This of course after heart felt analysis I found to be complete bollocks. The fact is Brighton is as Brighton does; invites you in, makes you welcome and offers you a good time and a place to crash if you can’t or won’t go somewhere else. What you do, what you take and who you choose to do all of the above with is up to you. And he did, and that’s why he’s there and I’m here.
The fact is that when love took the fast train back to London I looked over my shoulder, saw the sun setting over the West Pier and saw the former himself’ silhouetted in the distance and didn’t want to go back. Never ever. Walk out of the station past the Prince Albert? Sorry not without an excited flip in my stomach. Stroll through the playground on the Level? Not without a hand to hold. Mosey barefoot along the seafront with the scent of candy floss wafting seductively up the nostril, na uh. What a waste.
Stepping off the train as I did today and out into the unexpected sunshine suddenly I was back in the arms of a long lost friend whose address I had somehow forgotten.
So Brighton was love and Brighton was where my love lived and everything was as bright, shiny and full of promise as the North Sea on a sunny morning as seen from your bedroom window when you’ve just had good sex. One minute your love is sitting up on their elbows making witty comments about something you find fascinating then it seems a few years down the line you’re passing messages through mutual friends about who gets custody of the DVD collection. But I made a mistake, I blamed Brighton.
When I skedaddled back to London I somehow convinced myself that Brighton was to blame. Had we steered clear of those Christmas cake houses and quirky Britonian’s things may have worked out differently. This of course after heart felt analysis I found to be complete bollocks. The fact is Brighton is as Brighton does; invites you in, makes you welcome and offers you a good time and a place to crash if you can’t or won’t go somewhere else. What you do, what you take and who you choose to do all of the above with is up to you. And he did, and that’s why he’s there and I’m here.
The fact is that when love took the fast train back to London I looked over my shoulder, saw the sun setting over the West Pier and saw the former himself’ silhouetted in the distance and didn’t want to go back. Never ever. Walk out of the station past the Prince Albert? Sorry not without an excited flip in my stomach. Stroll through the playground on the Level? Not without a hand to hold. Mosey barefoot along the seafront with the scent of candy floss wafting seductively up the nostril, na uh. What a waste.
Stepping off the train as I did today and out into the unexpected sunshine suddenly I was back in the arms of a long lost friend whose address I had somehow forgotten.
Sunday 5 April 2009
FOR WHOM THE BELLS TOLL
When six months ago two of my friends mentioned that after eleven years together and one school age child they were seriously thinking about getting married something deep dark and cynical inside me knew that they would soon be arguing bitterly over who got custody of the tumble drier. Unfortunately it appears that I was right. Gone is the last ditch attempt at togetherness, the plan for the second baby and my nightmare of being a first time bridesmaid at 33. Apparently it’s all OVER bar the shouting, and as many of us know there’s plenty of shouting to be done before they unfairly divide up the record collection.
Wedding bells have given way to death knells and the bile is rising despite deluded and somewhat bogus claims that they would like to stay ‘friends’. Problem is that they haven’t ever been friends; they met (drunk) shagged (often and nosily) moved in together (after six weeks) fell in love (which explains his face and her moods) made house (a cosy mess) got pregnant (a surprise) had a baby (a shock) became parents (terrifying) stopped having sex (disaster) and now they both say that they don’t know who the other is anymore. Well the last bit is not strictly true. The fact is that they know exactly who the other one is and what little resemblance this present self bares to the one they met in 1998 and went skipping off towards the sunset with holding hands. But that doesn’t make it any less than a shame.
Frisbeeing CD’s into his and hers piles on the living room carpet she held aloft a copy of Pulp’s Different Class as though it was some kind of talisman of the ‘best years of my life’ variety and fought back tears when recalling long stoned cuddle sessions on the sofa whilst watching Shooting Stars, something which like much of the relationship apparently was shot to shit according to him when she stopped wearing make up regularly and started wearing elasticated clothing more often. He allegedly made as much effort to clean up his act as he did his teeth before bedtime and suddenly they found themselves mired against a tidal wave of disappointment and dirty underpants. He, like a teenager off to college for the first time is taking with him the cardboard boxed detritus of the last eleven years and moving in with a female colleague called Michelle. I sense the cold front at home melting into a warm front in Michelle’s semi detached within the month.
Spotting a copy of the neither claimed Alanis Morissette album Jagged Little Pill I deftly kicked it under the sofa. Like cutting your own hair or phoning your ex to invite them round for emotionally destructive sex, playing Jagged Little Pill only makes perfect sense when very, very drunk, and with four bottles of Cava left over from Christmas chilling beside the Panda pops in the fridge it seemed like it might become a distinct possibility. I love my friend very much but not enough to wantonly bare witness to the horror fest which is Alanis bitter bitch karaoke™. I have seen hell and it is a drunken bitter woman singing ‘You Oughta Know’ with the conviction of someone who has discovered emotional alchemy in a in a four minute format. I’m not a fan of Ms Morissette and it’s precisely because of this bitter little ditty and all its angst ridden sister’s together men are bastard’s bullshit. In the same way that shirked women are apt to play the martyr card this song also tip’s the wink that yup-its-true most of them are also nutters, still over analysing when love has packed up and moved to Croydon. My friend O can’t hear the first three bars without going the colour of semi-skimmed having heard this song thumping spookily from the car stereo of an ex-girlfriend who parked up outside his abode and played it no less than fourteen times until she was frightened away by a vexed neighbour.
The next step was convincing my friend into turning off the predictive text on her phone and then putting the phone somewhere that would defy drunken logic; like the flour bin. There is no better tool for a dignity bypass then when the mobile magically becomes the mighty sword in lost love. I wash u wasp hare witch me now I stilt lower u are words you’ll regret when the hangover’s kicked in and your retching over the scent of cat food in the morning. But then there’s still the answering machine, something which she’d turned off for a few hours to tune out her mother, but then there it was, Blur No Distance Left to Run, and there I fear is a whole other moment lost in translation. ‘Is it goodbye or is it let’s try again?’ she said and dropped a lit Marlboro down her cleavage.
Wedding bells have given way to death knells and the bile is rising despite deluded and somewhat bogus claims that they would like to stay ‘friends’. Problem is that they haven’t ever been friends; they met (drunk) shagged (often and nosily) moved in together (after six weeks) fell in love (which explains his face and her moods) made house (a cosy mess) got pregnant (a surprise) had a baby (a shock) became parents (terrifying) stopped having sex (disaster) and now they both say that they don’t know who the other is anymore. Well the last bit is not strictly true. The fact is that they know exactly who the other one is and what little resemblance this present self bares to the one they met in 1998 and went skipping off towards the sunset with holding hands. But that doesn’t make it any less than a shame.
Frisbeeing CD’s into his and hers piles on the living room carpet she held aloft a copy of Pulp’s Different Class as though it was some kind of talisman of the ‘best years of my life’ variety and fought back tears when recalling long stoned cuddle sessions on the sofa whilst watching Shooting Stars, something which like much of the relationship apparently was shot to shit according to him when she stopped wearing make up regularly and started wearing elasticated clothing more often. He allegedly made as much effort to clean up his act as he did his teeth before bedtime and suddenly they found themselves mired against a tidal wave of disappointment and dirty underpants. He, like a teenager off to college for the first time is taking with him the cardboard boxed detritus of the last eleven years and moving in with a female colleague called Michelle. I sense the cold front at home melting into a warm front in Michelle’s semi detached within the month.
Spotting a copy of the neither claimed Alanis Morissette album Jagged Little Pill I deftly kicked it under the sofa. Like cutting your own hair or phoning your ex to invite them round for emotionally destructive sex, playing Jagged Little Pill only makes perfect sense when very, very drunk, and with four bottles of Cava left over from Christmas chilling beside the Panda pops in the fridge it seemed like it might become a distinct possibility. I love my friend very much but not enough to wantonly bare witness to the horror fest which is Alanis bitter bitch karaoke™. I have seen hell and it is a drunken bitter woman singing ‘You Oughta Know’ with the conviction of someone who has discovered emotional alchemy in a in a four minute format. I’m not a fan of Ms Morissette and it’s precisely because of this bitter little ditty and all its angst ridden sister’s together men are bastard’s bullshit. In the same way that shirked women are apt to play the martyr card this song also tip’s the wink that yup-its-true most of them are also nutters, still over analysing when love has packed up and moved to Croydon. My friend O can’t hear the first three bars without going the colour of semi-skimmed having heard this song thumping spookily from the car stereo of an ex-girlfriend who parked up outside his abode and played it no less than fourteen times until she was frightened away by a vexed neighbour.
The next step was convincing my friend into turning off the predictive text on her phone and then putting the phone somewhere that would defy drunken logic; like the flour bin. There is no better tool for a dignity bypass then when the mobile magically becomes the mighty sword in lost love. I wash u wasp hare witch me now I stilt lower u are words you’ll regret when the hangover’s kicked in and your retching over the scent of cat food in the morning. But then there’s still the answering machine, something which she’d turned off for a few hours to tune out her mother, but then there it was, Blur No Distance Left to Run, and there I fear is a whole other moment lost in translation. ‘Is it goodbye or is it let’s try again?’ she said and dropped a lit Marlboro down her cleavage.
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