Things I Have Learnt About Myself Over The Past Week:

1. I am a big sodding hypocrite. It's 11pm, I'm driving along the road between [flatcity] and here, and I feel the urge for caffeine to stop me falling asleep at the wheel and ending up in Harwich.

It being the middle of nowhere, the options aren't exactly bitchenly abundant.

I can veer off into [nondescripttown] and get a coffee from McVomits, or I can drive for another half an hour until I reach Little Chef, that wonderful combination of everything that's wrong with a transport cafe and everything that's wrong with a large corporate chain.

I mean, what's a gasping coffee addict to do?

Forgive me, God/dess/es, for I have sinned; I handed £1.40 over the counter to the woman in the ill-fitting brown uniform with a big yellow "M" on it. The coffee was shit, but it kept me awake for the forty miles to home.

I've been searching for penance and redemption since. I may have to go sponsor an African child or do three weeks at the soup kitchen. [Suggestions welcomed.]

Or at least I should go and buy a sodding flask.

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2. The past is a foreign country, but occasionally people emigrate. Was at P.'s the other night, with her and C. getting through red wine like there was going to be a shortage.

C. is another refugee from East London – in fact, she hung around a lot of the [semi-gothic-metal-alternative] places I did at about the same time I did. She thinks I look familiar, but she doesn't quite know where from. We may both know some of the same people, but at least we definitely have both fallen over in some of the same bars.

A little nostalgia-fest followed. I don't mind, but it can be a dangerous thing; the way the brain, and good conversation, filters these things, it'd be very easy to slip into "wasn't it bitchenly amazing when I was going out five nights a week, getting slaughtered, getting stoned, not getting back until 2am because I'd missed the last train back and had to stagger home then having to get up at 7am to work in the shitty hinge factory?"

Some people, though, never get past that phase…

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3.  Don't let me near your fridge. This mostly applies if you have one of those magnetic alphabets on the front for your kid; because I won't be able to pass it without rearranging the letters into something slightly, but not excessively, rude. Seriously. It'll gnaw away at me all day until I give into the urge.

Most of these alphabet packs, I've found, only come with one of each letter of the alphabet, rather than distributed by frequency as in Scrabble. A little creativity is therefore required to use as many of them as possible without resorting to spelling mistakes or txt language.

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Today's Silly Game: Make a rude 'fridge phrase'.

This link may help.

Rules: Use as many letters of the alphabet as possible without repetition. Use suggestive rudeness rather than direct swearwords ["bum" is permissible, "shit" isn't]. Points awarded for creativity, letter use, inventiveness / rude surrealism, and general giggletasticness.

The winning phrase will receive a prize [prob'ly].

Happy pants moulding!

It's that time of year again: take one step outside my little town and the fields are a suffusion of yellow as far as the eye can see, as if someone had painted the world in custard whilst I was asleep.

'Course, it'd be great if it were custard. Instead it's the one plant guaranteed to make my sinuses swell up and my head feel like it's been inserted into Lemmy's bass amps: oil-seed rape.

As the article linked above states, there is no clear objective evidence of health problems associated with rapeseed. Fair enough; I just happen to have non-objective sinuses.

My sensitivity can probably be partly put down to the fact that I grew up in an urban environment, right by some East London main roads. Sulphur dioxide I can cope with fine…

It always reminds me of my primary school, which had part share of a "nature centre" in Goldhanger on the Essex marshes. Twice a year we'd be herded onto a coach, kicked out in the tiny little village and marched up to the marsh and estuary; "see this? it's countryside. Try not to break it or set fire to it."

Similar things used to happen to Glasgow kids…

I came back from one of these days in the countryside, and my father said; "so what was it like, son?"

"Oh, it was great. There were all these fields, and they were full of animals: there were some pigs over here, and then some horses; and in the field over by some trees, some sheep; right up there way away there were the fuckers, then back by the barn was the ducks, and the…

"…hang on, hang on. Can we go back a bit?"

"eh? oh, the horses? They were all right."

"No, no, after that."

"You mean the sheep? Didn't like them much."

"No, the field after that."

"What, the fuckers?"

"Yeah. Them."

"What about them?"

"…you sure they were called that?"

"…well, okay, the teacher said they were 'effers, but we knew what she meant…."

[Billy Connolly]

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It was only the other day that I told someone in an email how serene and peaceful my little town is, and how nice it is to feel safe walking the streets at night.

Then on Saturday, returning from King's Lynn¹, I found my road and my driveway blocked by three police cars and a "meat wagon".

Apparently a mass brawl had broken out in the pub up the street, and it had continued down to the kebab shop almost opposite me. Several people were being dealt with by the police in a G20-type manner and were bundled into the van and carted off.

I blame the kebabs. H. who runs it is a lovely guy but his food comes straight out of the Cheap Gross Mass Production Food For Drunks cookbook…

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The idyllic Archers view of the countryside has always been a middle-class fantasy; deprivation, isolation, suicide and alcoholism have been part of the East Anglian landscape for centuries, and have only worsened as the corporate monoliths rip out what support infrastructures do exist [like the death of the village shop]. If you're not a car driver, you're almost completely cut off in a lot of places.

Add to that the small-time background racism and homophobia by [mostly elderly] people who've always lived here and have never knowingly met anyone gay or said anything more than "hello" to the three visible ethnic minority families in the town², and it ain't as rosy as it's painted.

Given all that and the cost of petrol…

But for me, right now³, it's still worth it on balance that I live somewhere [mostly] quiet and where people know me by sight and say "good morning", but don't know the ins and outs of all my business.

Some evenings, though, I'd trade it all for being within walking distance of both an Italian and a Sri Lankan restaurant…⁴

Today's Big Question: What would make you move from where you are now?

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 shoenotes:
1 Don't ask.
2 I don't blame these people, although I'll sharply change the subject or walk off if they start bleating their shit at me. It's the ones who should know better that get my goat.
3 As with most things, I reserve the right to change my mind should Mr/Ms Bitchenly Amazing come along and offer me my dream job / dream relationship / dream of world domination.
4 The last place I lived in Ipswich was a duck's throw from a Chinese, a pizzeria, two curry houses, a Portuguese cafe, a Halal grocers and a chip shop. Which would have been great if it wasn't also behind a KFC and stunk of stale poultry 24/7.

Cleaning Week Update: Bathroom gleaming like Billie Piper's teeth. Downstairs bedroom next on list [make piles of hundreds of books look neat, vacuum, hide nefarious objects and articles of clothing].

As usual, I've resorted to self-bribery to keep myself motivated. On Saturday I took a trip into London to meet the wonderositic Max for a lovely and surprisingly warm for September afternoon. Thank you, sweetie. [No thanks, though, to whoever decided to dig up the gas pipes in South Woodford.]

On Wednesday, should I be on schedule, I've promised to take A. up to Norwich for her birthday to buy her some shoes. [Yes, it must be admitted, my motivations here are not entirely altruistic, although A. isn't part of them.]

And on Monday, after everything is finished and the landlord's rep has disappeared, these will be waiting for me:

It may be a low form of self-motivation, but hey, it works.

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Joke Of The Day [courtesy of the wonderful Arthur Smith on the radio on Saturday, and slightly paraphrased because I can't remember the exact wording]:

"A wife went to a seance so she could contact her dead husband.

The medium went through all the usual malarky, lights off, hands together and everybody concentrate, but then she started talking with the dead husband's voice.

"Where are you, Ted?" asked the wife.

"I'm in Heaven. It's fantastic!"

"Great! What do you do up there?"

"Well… there's eating, also swimming, oh, and of course, the sex."

"Really?"

"Yeah, eating-swimming-sex, eating-swimming-sex… that's kind of about it."

"That's strange, Ted. When you were down here, you didn't eat a lot… you hardly ever went swimming, even when we were on our honeymoon in Cleethorpes, and, now that you mention it, you were never that keen on sex…"

"Ah, yes. But down there, I wasn't a duck."

soundtracktotodaysentryisbabysnakes

A calm and relaxing day. No, not really. Well, I tried, anyway.

I booked Priscilla in to have her VVTi organ transplant¹ next Wednesday, then took half an hour sitting in a lay-by listening to an Eivør Pálsdóttir cd to calm down.

And that worked – this woman's music is very good for that, although to be fair the lack of translation does contribute to that, since I don't have enough Faroese² to be able to tell whether she's singing about something really spiritual and uplifting, or whether it translates along the lines of…

Bread.

Butter.

Mayo.

A really nice sandwich, so long as you put lesbian grasshoppers in there too.

…which kind of shows you why I don't write lyrics, in any language.³

I'd add her new album to my Amazon wish list, except that Amazon don't sell it. You can all pretend it's on my wish list over the next two months [hint, hint ]

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I continue to be a provider of⁴ bedroom personal appliance devices to my local community, for some reason or other. I left a catalogue at the cafe last week for someone to browse through, and it came back with an order.

Pity perhaps that the catalogue was left next to S' daughter's copy of "Horse And Rider" magazine with its banner headline of "The Best Horse Toys Reviewed"….

[Note: those of you expecting a rousing chorus of "I Love Horses" here will be sadly disappointed...

...really?...

...oh, go on then.]

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 footfetishnotes:
1 You'd think it was a froggin' organ transplant for the money they've quoted me.
2 Or indeed any Faroese.
3 Or not since my teenage-crappy-songs days, the results of which I'm far too embarassed to reproduce on this blog….
4 Actually, I'm just the guy who takes the order, phones up this bloke I know, then gets the parcel by Amtrak the next morning. Why they can't do this themselves…

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This Morning's Utterly Yay Moment:

"Thank you Mr Postie Person for this large parcel, and here, have a shiny sixpence for your troubles."

That's what I should have said to him as he handed over the parcel containing my box set of the Doctor Who "The Key To Time" season.

Unfortunately, since it was 8am and I was still in my boxers, a couple of grunts that slightly approximated to "cheers, mate" was all he got¹.

I actually did a week's work for Royal Mail back down in Dagenham when I was about 17, as a temp postie during the Xmas rush [for the princely sum of £1.75 an hour]. Despite my preconceptions about the job², no dogs ever threatened me, no armed massacres took place, and – much to my teenage chagrin – no bored housewives³ ever invited me in for a…

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Last Night's Breaking Down In Giggles Moment:

Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe taking the piss out of telly ads ['The 10 Biggest Cocks And She-Cocks In Advertising'];

Annoying Woman On Advert: "Who says you can't lose weight and enjoy yourself?"
Charlie: "Bobby Sands?"^4,5

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 footfetishnotes:
1 He does, however, get a big tip every Xmas to attempt to make up for the horror of seeing me straight out of bed first thing in the morning on a semi-regular basis.
2 Mostly gleaned from "Postman Pat". Except for the armed massacre bit, obviously.
3 Or indeed househusbands, although at that particular time in my life any thoughts in that direction were being patently ignored or suppressed [usually with vodka or Special Brew].
4 This joke might require a working knowledge of early-1980s Irish politics to get the full effect. The Custard Surgery takes no responsibility for the failure of any of you to find it as pant-wettingly amusing as I did at 1:30am last night.
5 Also please note that the laughter at this joke does not imply any position taken by Fish on the "troubles" in NI or any related topics, in that he thinks both sides are as stupid, pig-headed and generally crap at everything as each other.

soundtracktotodaysentryisthecallofktulu

Frog. It's only mid-September, but already the first cold of the season is up my nose, making it feel like some insane Estonian has filled my sinuses to bursting point with cavity wall insulation.

As a result hardly anything got done this weekend – I spent Saturday horizontal watching Arc of Infinity and Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown, whilst on Sunday at Butterfly's she, on hearing my sniffles, went into nursing overdrive and didn't allow me off the sofa except to give me a bath.

About the only thing I did do was redecorate this blog – hope it all works/looks okay for y'all.

Today I'm feeling a bit better, so I dragged myself round the supermarket: one bonus was spotting the newly-released DVD of The Lives Of Others, a film recommended [well, sort of] by Max which deals with life in Communist East Germany, but apparently with a very different tone to Goodbye Lenin.

The history of people and countries when they were the other side of the Iron Curtain is an ongoing interest of mine; partly because as a teenager I was vaguely drawn to the small Marxist-Whatever end of local political parties [until I found out they spent all their time arguing amongst themselves rather than actually doing anything], but also about how a movement originally based upon such lofty ideals could get it so froggin' wrong.

These studies – plus my brief jaunt around Slovenia [which prompted me to annoy Butterfly by emitting a few squeals of "ooh, been there!" during last night's first episode of Michael Palin's latest travel show] – set my political compass back to social democracy, with a firm nod to the Winston Churchill dictum: "Democracy is the worst form of government – except all the others that have been tried."

[ETA: I need hardly add, but will anyway just to be clear, that it's the proper definition of social democracy, rather than the Blairite bastardization of the term when he was trying to describe his neoconservatism-but-with-better-PR.]

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I was going to say something at some point about the meeting of Gordon Brown and Thatcher a few days ago, but a letter in this morning's Indie, quoting Orwell, said it much better than I could have;

"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again;
but already it was impossible to say which was which."