Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

I really haven't been doing well on the updates, considering I'm supposedly not giving up blogging. So recently...

- I've discovered how easy it is to freak people out by smiling. I was sitting on Tube thinking about various things, when I remembered something which made me smile. I glanced up at the empty seat opposite, then noticing lights, a bit further up until I realised I was grinning inanely and looking directly at a woman who, while looking back at me, also looked absolutely terrified. Ah, the joys of exposed parallel lines (it's where the crossover is, just south of Oxburrow/CT/Call it what you will).

- I've been a bit mean and sent someone on a completely pointless trip to Yellow Knoll (think flower, think Coldplay, think northzoo. And why do I use psuedonyms for places? Probably because if you work out A, and I've already mentioned B, then C isn't that hard, so it isn't really to stop anyone of you lot knowing where I'm talking about [if I wanted to do that, I probably wouldn't have sent you my name, address and phone number], but to stop people I might know from finding this through searching for things like "Dave Gorman in Golders Green" and happening upon my review of DG's gig in GG, and thinking that some of it sounds familiar, and then getting to the "Hang on" stage. And I've never been to see DG and I've only been to GG a couple of times, and that was many years ago. Anyway, it's in dragon-infested zone 3). It was the first of the month, so she should just be grateful I told her that someone had organised wacky races down the side of the hill (memo to self/God: make it snow in London, as PH would make an excellent sledging spot) and that she should go and watch, rather than pinching and punching her. And since when has punch rhymed with month?

Anyway, I was being only semi-evil, as it's got a good view (she took pictures. Fascinating they are), she'd never been (although she ignored the map I sketched which included a prominent and fictitious French fish shop, and managed to use a far longer shortcut), and I did consider sending her to watch the lemmings jumping from the pagoda in Battersea Park, but it's a long hike away, and I wasn't sure if she knew what lemmings were.

Actually I've just realised how much I haven't done. I still haven't done the party. I haven't done Dan (not that I did do Dan, but, er...). There will be posts on these, just as soon as I write/finish them off. But it all got delayed as I was a little bit sleep deprived following a manic week, a party into the not-so small hours of the morning, the clocks stealing an hour, a fairly stressy few days, then helping my brother move, all the while never quite remembering to go to bed when it's still the day I woke up on, despite having a room aligned for optimal early morning light.

So what have I done?
- Eaten seaweed soup (I've done this already haven't I? Oh, maybe in the comments here, or possibly on Az's blog). I probably ought to say "chewed seaweed soup" as that's more accurate. Did you ever wonder how seaweed can survive being walked on without any damage? It was a case of smile meekly and think of Green Wing (soupmaker has television, I don't, therefore soup wins).

Which reminds me that while watching television online is yay-bloody-tastic, it's not when something goes wrong with the connection, so the BBC becomes the B... Communicating [12%]... B... Error.

If I wanted to watch television with that many breaks, I'd watch Five (and I don't mean the everybody-get-up type (Whatever happened to...?)). Trying to watch Nevermind the Buzzcocks last night (so much better without Mark Lamar) and the constant breakdowns meant that usually by the time the punchline of the joke was delivered, I'd figured it out anyway. Next Lines became Next Line, Rest of Verse, Chorus, Another Verse, Chorus, Fadeout, Break for News, Travel and Weather, Words From Our Sponsors, New Song, "sest something" (Charlie Busted-Fightstar's take on "c'est chic").

It would also be nicer if they'd get round a little quicker to putting the rest of their output online. I ought to write in to complain, and demand the money for my television license back. Except I have no television, hence no license, but if I did have a television, I would pay my license fee, so I would be justified in demanding it back. Do you reckon I ought to try anyway, working on the same principle that compels me to idly press the refund button on payphones and drink machines, even when I've put nothing in (sometimes it works)? I might not get it all back, but I wonder what they'd used to palm me off? A ten pound Blue Peter voucher perhaps?

But what would this country be like if the BBC was commercial? Blue Peter vouchers might actually exist. Although so probably would Ballamory insurance services. No more would characters in Eastenders ask for a pint (isn't it strange how they all have their "usual" to avoid saying "I'll have a pint of Generic, please"? Vaguely related: did any company ever start selling Acme Dynamite or similar? Just think of the free advertising). And just think what it would do to the sales of masking and insulation tape as no longer are programmes required to blank out the bit that says Sainsbury's even though it's really obviously still from Sainsbury's.

As I've just very nearly invented the Blue Peter ID card, integrated within the badge, I'd better stop, although here's one for the foil-hatted amongst you; RFID tags within BP badges - explains why the BBC are so agin them being sold on eBay, as suddenly little Timmy from Wimborne Minster shows up in lap-dancing club in Hull.

Anyway...
- I saw Lady Vengeance, a Korean film also known as Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, last Monday at the cheap-for-London Prince of Wales (or maybe Prince Charles) Cinema. The cinema features the unique raking system whereby the middle rows of seats are the lowest, with the front and back higher. But the angles worked so it didn't matter.

The film was quite good, but a bit erratic. It seemed uncertain of its aim, and so would be quite grim for long periods with occasional mismatched bits of comedy. It seemed like it thought it ought to compensate for itself, rather than sticking with one, or a few closely related, tones.

But it was eerily western in parts. I'm not sure if that says more about me, the film, the filmmakers or Korea.

- I watched West Side Story purely because someone else wanted to. It's easy to forget how cringeful it can me. But then I'm probably being foolish enough to expect realism in a film where people habitually break into song.

- I've been shopping. I bought:

• Some bulbs. Later reading of the packets suggests I might have bought 90. Possibly a few too many, considering I have no garden and was only doing this to use up old saucepans.
• Some compost.
• One large plastic food container, which will be ideal if I ever need to store a cake for thirty people.
• One large oven dish, having dismantled the Morrissons display to get the best made one out. Ideal if ever I need to make a lasagne for thirty people. Both this and the previous item were bought as plant pots.
• Some cds and dvds, more on this later, when I've watched and listened. But now I have two films with green covers, the previous one being Amelie. Why does green matter? Because I got bored and reordered my DVDs from their haphazard state. Did I file them by title, with the "the"s ignored? Did I do it by distributor? By director? Lead actor? Chronologically? Country? Subject? No. I did it by the colour of the cover, so City of God is next to Lost Highway, and Get Carter is next to Go. So black and white predominate, but red and blue are common, with several oranges and yellows. Gazing over my shoulder at them leads me to Virgin somewhat sick-makingly selling Donnie Darko DVDs for £1.99. If you haven't already got it...
• A shirt. It's dark brown, slightly translucent as it's thin, has vertical stripes consisting purely of different textures, and - this bit is the killer - has long enough sleeves. Thank you H&M for designing clothes for the long, lanky and too-thin (and why the hell is it only them? M&S do a +2" version of some of their shirts, but only the most boring). I know it's H&M and so won't last, but as my brother point out years ago, the best thing that can happen to clothes is they get ruined [the worst thing is that they outlive you], so before buying them you should picture it torn and stained. If you can't do that, or stand doing that, don't buy it.
• A brown t-shirt. Termed "Shitty brown" by some other guy buying with his boyfriend (why is H&M as bad as John Lewis's furniture department for bickering homosexual couples?), which isn't quite accurate, unless one's eaten many peanuts.
• A pink t-shirt. I know, but every shop has masses of pink, and it does go quite well under the brown shirt. And unfortunately, pink suits me. But having bought it, this guarantees that this summer will be a washout, and that pink will be passe before the new tax year starts.
• A belt, as my current one has grown a bit in the decade I've had it, and despite making one extra hole, it still is a bit big. But then so are my jeans, having got down to two pairs, both nearly as old as the belt. One very fashionable stonewashed black (but bought when they were just past fashionable last time, when I was briefly bigger, and they were a bit big then), the other painfully intense blue that just won't fade. The new belt's just one of those cloth ones, in a non-descript off-white. The type that come free with trousers, but usually I don't want the trousers.
• Some new saucepans, hence the planting of the old ones. I'd got a little tired of the distinctive orange tinge on my food, and once I began I to be able to taste the rust, decided they probably had had it.
• Some cards, from the Tate, including one I ought to post, but I can't find my stamps, and of course they've just put the prices up. 32-pence? Why I remember when that would get to Durban and back... Ok, so not quite, but considering I exist in a strange paupers world were bread costs nine-pence and shops like H&M are expensive. And then walk down Oxford Street and see something I like, and am quite tempted by, even though it's £45.

Which considering I went out for saucepans, a cycle helmet and some new trousers, suggests I'm a bit easily led. And that buying trousers is an arse, not least because I don't like mine. And I always have the wallet problem, in that I can find a pair that sit just right until I put anything in the pocket. Plus there's the whole posture thing: stand as I normally stand, or as I should stand, with gunslinger hips and everything? Does one buy for the normal or the ideal? Life was so much easier when everything came with room to grow.

But as everywhere seemed to be having a "mid season sale" (er, does that mean shift stock before the new financial year?), and I'm a miser to I can't do full price if there's bit of red card anywhere in the shop, and that sales don't tend to have anything in M or 32-32 (cue various instances of me seeing some John Rocha shirt, thinking "that's nice, I wonder if the sleeves fit" before taking it off the rack and noticing there is an awful lot of fabric and the size is XXXL, or a US M) so the only things I found with a 32 inch leg had a 42 inch waist. One has to wonder if it really is worthwhile selling such stock cheaply here; wouldn't it be more profitable to ship anything which hasn't sold to the US? Because the leftovers are always at the larger end of the spectrum, so surely there's a supply and demand thing here?

But that's enough of the rampant fatticism and xenophobia. After all, Bush isn't fat, despite eating pretzels (and how can any one choke on a bent Twiglet which has three big holes in the middle? They look like they were designed to act as pit-props in the throats of asthmatics).

Oh, and a word of warning for the wise, or whatever other cliches you feel suit. Never happen to mention to any females of your acquaintance that you can fit into jeans you wore as a teenager, that you're wearing them now, and that they're a bit big. You know that bit in the Exorcist where they girl transforms into a sprinkler fed with pea-soup? Well...

Which reminds me; summer has arrived (I'm not sure how it reminds me, but hey, you know how my brain works, and while I'm being reminded, I still haven't bought any new trousers, having been a bit bewildered by the endless ripped, torn, scorched, bleached, pre-dirtied, buttock-hugging-handprint-ed and general chemistry-department-end-of-term-party variations on the theme of jean. So if any of you are good with fashion, what should I be looking for? Bear in mind I like subtle and I care enough about details to search through a rack of shirts until I find one where the pattern matches on the seam across the back (well, actually the lines switch textures, but it was the only one where the lines lined up) and that I baulk at the apparently fashionable translucent linen scarves in what the labelled called "coral". Wearing a half-buttoned shirt with the potential for it to be open down to my sternum is about all the louching-it-up that I can take (can one louche up? Louche suggests relax, to sprawl, to be languid [and I've just discovered sanguine doesn't mean what I think it means. I'd never connected it with sanglant], all of which suggests settling, sinking down).

Where was I? Oh yes. Fashion tips please as my last exposure to the fashion press was probably in some bad barbers' many years ago. Normally I'd look around and see who's wearing what, but, well, it's London, so if I did that I'd end up wearing a few nuts and bolts, a lopsided mohican (which would work so well with curly hair), a parka with dog vomit on it, a Burberry sunhat, some petrifyingly pointy shoes, a copper bangle which stains the skin, jeans which suggest the previous owner was eaten by wolves, a shirt which costs more an annual travelcard and a brightly coloured rucksack from a Spanish school.

And having been shopping, I'm now wondering how lightly Dan travels. Because I know his shoes were new, because they hurt (and the whites were shiny, and there's a picture on Flickr), and after H&M I recognised where the bright blue top came from (although I had my suspicions, after seeing it and knowing I'd fleetingly considered something similar but in yellow). And his t-shirt could have been new. So did he forget to pack or was it something special about me which meant I was treated to such a variety of newness? Even if it was £14.99 of newness (said he in the £16.50 jumper).

Anything else? Oh, I've watched Revolver because the flatmate who moved rented it, and, er, it's ok, but if I say Kaiser Durden then I've probably just ruined it for you. It's vaguely entertaining, but as derivative as the right to buy next Tuesday.
---
Arse. Computer chunter. Firefox fall. No rest of post. So you've missed out on
- Peruvian politics (via neighbour who thought the Nazis invaded England).
- Danish ice cream money.
- Meeting people from university by accident. A null-pointer on the "oh, it's you" scale, as they're both nasty, vindictive, two-faced people (work in property, natch) who I can't stand. Meeting someone I liked while waiting for the ferry to Montserrat still wins.
- The Ode to Hackney's aptly named Mare Street, from the musical East Side Story:
I feel gritty,
Oh so gritty,
I feel gritty and shitty and grey,
And I pity any one who is near here today.
- A review of Hackney Wick including a stupid bugger-off from the security staff at the approach road to the Stratford Not-Yet-International. I also found the Big Breakfast house, and a pair of kestrels, along with many skips.

But it was a bit of a long post, as I thought I had nothing to write about, only did.

Anyhoo,

PS. I asked a couple of posts back about the unfulfilled potential quote; no takers yet?