The words contained in this here journal may not make much sense and they may not bear any relation to reality but one thing is for sure, they'll contain the word pasty.
Thursday, May 22, 2003
Pepper - The Tea Cosy: An outsider's perspective on his life
I first laid eyes on Pepper, and indeed he first laid his eyes on me, in the summer of '98. Things were different back then, the Spice Girls were still dancing and roller blades were the coolest thing outside of Chris Evans. Big Brother? The stuff of a madman's dreams.
I can still remember thinking how timid he was hidden behind the sofa, his wee little green eyes staring at me from the darkness watching my every move. It was all rather spooky really. I soon came to learn that he wasn't actually timid at all, simply that he'd picked that particular day to lodge himself in the darkness, and very quickly I built up a fine rapport with him. Compared to Capps' other two cats he was a god, always quiet and always friendly. In the time I knew him I never heard him utter one sound of discontent, not a raised paw in anger nor a clash of teeth in frustration. He was role model for all cats both great and small and a standard to which all cats must aspire, his greatness second only to my own cat Wez.
Pepper, later to be known as the Tea Cosy, has given me many great memories over the years from the time he frightened me so silly I threw pasta all across Capps' dining room to the occasion we found him asleep in a plant pot, quietly dozing as he flattened the pansies inside. Even then he had an aura of dignified age about him and I'll always remember him as being the sleepy old eccentric grandparent I never had.
Wednesday, May 21, 2003
Just got back from a rather soggy game of football. It was raining the vast majority of time spent there but like stubborn buggars we were determined to keep playing no matter how cold we got and no matter how boring the football became. Pleasant relief came in the form of several of the village children who decided to come and play us in a sort of old gits versus young upstarts kind of a way. I was more than happy to help out the wee kiddies and play on their team, I obviously didn't look like much a footballer though as I was immediately relegated to goalkeeper! Kids these days are just getting cheekier and cheekier. I wouldn't have minded so much but despite my amazing goalkeeping we still lost, not only are they getting cheeky but they're rubbish at football aswell.
Once we were sick of being outside in the rain we decided to stay there even longer to annoy poor Capps. Today it seems is national Wind-Up-Capps day (Isn't every day?). Once inside we ate out of date ice cream and enacted a fit of giggles based around the word lemon, a whole plethora of lemon jokes filling the air such as "Knock Knock, Who's there?, Lemon. HAHAHAHAHA!". What!? What's so odd about that? Pfft, tourists.
I then found a whole knew way to irritate Capps, to tell him there were lemon references in Red Dwarf and watch as his mind consumed itself from inside out trying figure out what they were. At first it was all rather funny but I'm not one for schadenfreude and I started to feel sorry for the poor tormented soul which was slowly picking itself apart piece by piece in front of me. A twinge of guilt later and I put him out of his misery. No no no, not like that! I simply told him what the references were. I'd be lying if I said it didn't cross my mind to murder him with some nasty implement though. After all I was stood in a kitchen, a bread knife and an egg whisk within arms reach.
I've just noticed that the MS Word spell checker doesn't recognise buggar OR git, is it just trying to keep me politically correct or was it written by an American? It seems to me that any language set named "UK English" should contain the many charming swearwords we have here in rainy old England especially since they do constitute approximately thirty percent of the words we speak. Time for an experiment I think. Those easily shocked or even those trying to retain an opinion of me that would be marred by foul language should look away now:
Words recognised: Fuck
Shit
Crap
Words not recognised: Bollocks
Shite
Wanker
Tosser
Dipshit
Poo
Willy
Nobhead
Capps
Titties
Goolies
Goalkeeper
Schadenfreude
Bloody yanks don't know owt about our culture! Incidentally the work yank is recognised, but I doubt it's being recognised in the context with which I'm using it. Ahhhh enough xenophobia for one night, farewell ya bunch of goalkeeping poo, willy type nobheads. And I mean that in a sincere and friendly way.
So I look in your direction
But you pay me no attention, do you?
I know you don't listen to me
'Cos you say you see straight through me, don't you?
And on and on
From the moment I wake, to the moment I sleep
I'll be there by your side; just you try and stop me
I'll be waiting in line, just to see if you care
Oh…
Did you want me to change?
Well I changed for good
And I want you to know that you'll always get your way
I wanted to say…
Don't you shiver
Shiver
Sing it loud and clear
I'll always be waiting for you
So you know how much I need ya
But you never even see me, do you?
And is this my final chance of getting you
And on and on
From the moment I wake, to the moment I sleep
I'll be there by your side; just you try and stop me
I'll be waiting in line, just to see if you care
Oh…
Did you want me to change?
Well I changed for good
And I want you to know that you'll always get your way
I wanted to say…
Don't you shiver
Don't you shiver
Sing it loud and clear
I'll always be waiting for you
Yeah I'll always be waiting for you
Yeah I'll always be waiting for you
Yeah I'll always be waiting for you, for you
I will always be waiting…
And it's you I see but you don't see me
And it's you I hear so loud and so clear
I sing it loud and clear
And I'll always be waiting for you
So I look in your direction
But you pay me no attention
And you know how much I need you
But you never even see me
Woken up this morning by the jolly ring of the front door bell. Diving out of bed and racing downstairs I was trying desperately to pull some clothes on as I went, fortunately for the postman I was successful. And so it was that I was handed a large parcel, about kilogram in weight, from one of my cousins in Australia. Knowing these people well I very gingerly opened the package, half expecting a live tarantula to crawl out or a large explosion of talcum powder to change the complexion of my face to a pastier (YAY!) shade. Package opened I leaned over to look in and….. what on earth is all that junk? AHHHHHHHHHH! It’s junk from the F1 race that some of my lucky relatives went to see. Well now I’m just sick with envy. F1 Junk includes:
F1 Cap
2 Posters
Official Race Programme
Ticket With Cool Holder
Ferrari Pennant
Small Plastic Bag Containing Bits of Tyre
A Video
And a sticky out tongue with a whole lotta “nah nah neh nah nah, we saw the F1 and you didn’t!”
To be woken up by a pleasant surprise is great, if only it would happen more often.
Tuesday, May 20, 2003 Chapter 5: The Conclusion This weekend was jolly good fun.
Bike Ride Stats: Time on the move = 1 hour 28 minutes and 53 seconds
Distance = 18.29 miles
Average Speed = 12.3 mph
Max Speed = 33.4 mph
Rabbit Sightings = 4
A19 Crossings = 2
Near Death Experiences as a Result = 2
Monday, May 19, 2003 Chapter Four: One Cricket Match, Three Sleepy Donkeys and a Pack of S Club 7 Stickers So what did we get up to? Well as suggested by the chapter title we did indeed play a game of cricket on the beach in the direct line of fire of a donkey stampede. Admittedly the sleepy donkey stampede was moving very slowly and being directed by a number of guides so that the children on the donkeys wouldn't end up in Torbay by mistake but it was a stampede al the same. Boy was it exciting to be in such danger, and playing sports at the same time. Phew! We all came out in one piece on the other side.
Following that there was a brief game of frisbee and an incident in which an un-named person delved their hands into my pockets, took hold of my wallet and literally snapped it from my belt loop! I'm still waiting for a replacement clippy on thing :P You know who you are I'll be getting my own back don't you worry.
After that some chips and I sat on Liam's knee, his left knee to be more precise as the right knee was being occupied by Wend. So first I danced with him, then I sat on his knee and then we sat and watched the sun come up together. Am I the only one who thinks that sounds just a little bit dodgy? Eeek!
Sunday, May 18, 2003 Chapter 3: Saturday, or any day, is good for something And so it proved that this particular Saturday was good for meeting some stonking people. You're already aware of how stonking I think Wend is but Liam and Ste also proved themselves to be fine members of the human race (even if not actual members by default then surely they should be given honorary membership for special services).
Liam reminds me very much of one Douglas Mulholland who was my best friend back in the heady days of primary school and although he is disappointingly un-camp (preliminary reports suggested otherwise) he seems to be working on a similar level of "intellect" as me which is good. As such he not only competed against me on the dancing arcade games but also brought about me, he and Capps scaling council barriers at four in the morning in order to access the coastal path. The barriers had some rather nasty metal prongs and were a good ten foot high so it wasn't all tinned peaches and loveliness you know, we may look like pansies but we are actually highly skilled at crossing terrain in a rugged and manly way. The girly screams were purely an ironic gesture, honest. We then rested after our dice with death on a bench and watched (shivered) as a cloudy sky got a bit lighter. Hardly a spectacular sunrise but it's better than nothing. The hair is crazy, and the bumfluff beard is well quite frankly disturbing, but he's good fun. Cheers for putting up with us all this weekend!
Ste too seems a good lad, we had a fair quantity in common so we managed to wax lyrical on a number of different subjects without too many awkward silences. He had a number of opportunities to push me to my death off some rather shear drops but I'm still here typing so I guess I can't have been boring him that much. Oh and he lent me his gloves when my hands were cold. What a guy! I shall look forward to seeing him at the strawberry fair in a few weeks time.
And Wend? Well Wend was just as she always has been, a great pleasure to be with dodgy re-stylings of my hair and all. When I mentioned in here how much I enjoy her company Liam accused me of being a soppy git, and he's probably right, but I was only telling the truth. Can't wait to see you again Chuck :)
***Coming Soon!*** Chapter Four: One Cricket Match, Three Sleepy Donkeys and a Pack of S Club 7 Stickers...........
Chapter 2: "Which way is north again?" We had fun trying to get to Liam's the following day after consulting Multimap.co.uk which provided us with over a page of extremely complicated instructions. With Sulu at the helm we'd have been struggling, as it was our navigator was someone far less skilled even than him; me. Even I knew that our first move was to head north on the M1, it seems that Capps on the other hand had different ideas and made a sudden break for London and headed south! Even after well over a day I can't decide whether it was a genuine mistake or if he was just displaying a subconscious desire to not face the fear of meeting Wend, Ste and Liam. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little intimidated myself.
After a second's worth of deliberation I then opened the passenger door window and launched the navigational scriptures out of the car. The bloody things were suggesting that it would be a good idea to leave the A64, drive around the York city centre for a while, and then rejoin the A64 further along!!! If that's the fastest way from Sheffield to Scarborough then I'm a kumquat. So I cast them out the window and from then on we were driving blind, relying only on the wits of the navigator and his faultless sense of direction to get them through. Personally I thought I did a fantastic job of successfully reading the name Scarborough on many road signs. Once actually in the seaside town we just drove about a bit until we found the bridge I've seen so many times through Liam's webcam. Easy.
Finally back from what was a rather enjoyable jaunt to other parts of that fabulous region of the world known as Yorkshire. It's s difficult to know where to begin, or even to know whether I can be bothered. We did so much this weekend and yet we did so little of note besides enjoying the coast and each other's company (with a little F1 mixed in for good measure).
Chapter 1: Beck's house Staying over at Beck's house was rather odd perhaps because her living room (where we set up camp for the night complete with bonfire) bears an uncanny resemblance to my brother's old house, wall to wall with music, music playing equipment and TV's. Minimal room for anything else including, or course, the human inhabitants. It is a rather odd sensation being somewhere totally new and yet feeling as though you're almost at home, I'm guessing it's a similar attack on the consciousness as provided to people with amnesia where they know the place but not it's meaning. Most of our time was spent playing GTA Vice City, watching TV and chatting to Liam, Wend and co. in yahoo all of which was rather good fun.
