Ginger people - still smelling now biting.

You may recall a post in the dimly-lit past (March) where I wrote of a number of people finding ALBOWIEB searching for 'ginger people smell of wee'. The danger, of course, in raising awareness of such things is that it only makes it worse - where once I was being nibbled at by the good ship Google, now there's a full-on torrent of slightly racist people with olfactory issues gnawing and scraping away.

I'm still not entirely aware of where these suspicions come from, my own brother has funny hair and whilst he smells odd, it's certainly not of urine and it's not my experience that he's given to cheat at cards. The above literary illustration strikes me as quite serendipitously accurate when I consider the reason for writing this post - someone came to the blog today searching for help on what to do when you've been bitten by a ginger person. Like they all have the aids, or something. I'd suggest help, but not for the aids.

Irresistibly irritating.

I had a chance to explore a little of south west London this week. And by explore I mean I got the train from Waterloo to Teddington for four days. It was nice, except that I've taken an irrational dislike to Wimbledon. I'm not sure why, but it boils down to the giant advert at the railway station advertising the shopping centre that is tacked on to platform 1, forcing you to run the gauntlet of everything that rampant commercialism has to throw at you - a Clintons Cards, several bookshops and a small cafeteria - to get out onto the street. Actually I don't have a clue what's in there, I've only been through once and I came home a different way. The giant advert states that Centre Court Wimbledon is 'Irresistibly local - next door, in fact!" It's entirely resistably local - look, here I go on the train, byeee!

But there are many things that irk me here - the name, for instance. It's irresistibly wanky. The place is quite obviously local, because they have in fact hung the sign on the side of it. You'd have to be irresistibly stupid not to notice - perhaps they're hoping that the people who remain, those who haven't got off the train already and are steeling themselves Gladiators-stylee for that dash across the spinny silver thing and the travelator; that perhaps they will quiveringly fall off the train beset by a sudden urge to splurge. How can you resist something that remains quite solidly in your locality anyway? It's just vapid and frothy advertising-speak, for the love of Horlicks.

The exclamation mark at the end gets on my nerves too - I hate it when folks feel the need to substitute character for jaunty punctuation. Look at me, I'm easy-going! Fun to be around! Quite likely to stab you in your sleep! I'm following you now! I'm next door, in fact! Maybe this is an irritation and immunity brought on by my current state of poverty - time was I would have been hypnotised by the lure of a huge shopping centre ("Wimbledon Centre Court! Just like the tennis club, how witty of them.") and trampled in, searching for shoes and never to be seen again.

With clogs on.

- There's a mouse.

- Where?

- There on the stair.

- Where?

- Oh, crap, I'm calling environmental health out.

- There on the stair, a little mouse with clogs on.

- They've put me on hold! I hate Vivaldi.

- Going clip-clippety-clop on the stair.

- Is it...tap-dancing?

The most important meal of the day? Day screwed.

I thought if nothing else on this fine morning (for fine read miserable, cold and wet) I thought I would detail my breakfast. Just for old times' sake, this sort of thing used to be right up my alley when I was at university and blogging.

I bought these delicious cheese and black pepper muffins from Sainsbury's (and that definitely has an S, I checked) yesterday evening because they were reduced. Of course I didn't know that they were delicious at the time, so it was a massive gamble. OK, not massive, but the biggest gamble I was forced to take yesterday - no putting lives on the line in my life, thankyouverymuch. I sliced them in half and toasted them.

I also made sandwiches for lunch - this is important to the plot, I never throw in frilly details unless it's a line I thought up a couple of days ago, wrote in my notebook and am desperate to crowbar it in somewhere for dwindling love and adulation from appreciative punaphiles. In order to make my sandwiches I had to open a new loaf of bread, and I have this thing where if I come back from the supermarket I have to open everything and try it. I didn't get the chance last night, so this morning the first slice of bread from the loaf was sprinkled with crispy onion bits from a fresh batch, spread with butter from a new tub and dipped in hummus from a virgin pot.

This was my breakfast. I did also take a vitamin tablet (got to keep healthy) and make a cup of tea, which I shall shortly down in an unsatisfactory manner (you never get time to properly enjoy a cup of tea in the morning, which is sad - if I can't love a cup of tea, how will I ever cope with children?)

And herewith I must begin my day...

You had me at hello.

I'm not in parliament this week, mercifully enough. Hopefully when I go back this whole expenses malarkey may have been sorted out and we can go back to the more amusing business of waiting for a general election. It's like the last few days of work before Christmas, when you get nothing done and have carols on full blast all day long, there's hardly anyone around who can muster the effort to do anything particularly meaningful when there's an election in sight.

As for what I'm doing this week, discretion limits me from discussion - I have only this to say. And maybe this.

a trip to the park.

the green shoots
Originally uploaded by ALBOWIEB

For the love of buns.

My parents are up in London this week with their caravan, for a bit of repose and to see the sights. They're staying in zone 26 or something, but it's been nice to see them. Yesterday they showed me the Whole Foods supermarket in Kensington, which I'd never been to before. Definitely a place to come back to when I'm loaded, it was brilliant. We had dinner in the restaurant place upstairs, which was also quite nice. It was like the Ikea restaurant, but with darker woods and more middle class people. The biggest giveaway was the yummy mummies and half empty glasses of white wine on every table. (Yummy mummy - a fancy way of saying MILF, according to Katy Brand...and why would anyone want to be called that?)

The frustrating part was when we came to order the cheeseburger I quite fancied...and they'd run out of buns. What kind of establishment runs out of buns? Not to mention the fact that it's conveniently located over a sodding supermarket, someone could have nipped downstairs for me. It's this kind of lateral thinking test that I think sorts the men from the boys in a retail environment - is the place set up for the customer or the convenience of the staff? Some places in London you get to the checkout and they actually seem offended you've punctuated the reverie of daydreams in order to actually purchase something. How louche.

I have many high-minded ambitions, some of which involve running businesses. Even if there was some extra cost involved, perfecting a useful and enjoyable customer experience would be top of my list. And whatever I was running, there would be plenty of buns.

Whether the weather be good.

Spring has sprung? The country, I think. Hard to believe that it's almost summer - I suppose we should get used to this kind of behaviour from the 'weather'.

Perhaps it's the mordant hope that festers inside throughout the dreary winter months that leaves us coming crawling out blinking into the light of ever-expanding days. Like a buffeted woman keen to stand by her man we say just one more time and then we're moving away. And then it's autumn again.

Nothing left to show for another year except the faint tang of moaning and a fading sunburn from an ill-advised barbeque. I love this country. I think I may love another more, but this is the country I'm in. I'm here, aren't I? I can change. Roles reversed, I'll make a go of it - I'll enjoy the weather when I can, I won't harass and harangue - please, just another day of sunshine?

But it's too late. At least I have my umbrella with me.

Rolling on the river.

My working days have been graciously bookended by nice weather these past couple of days - I've got a remarkable view out from my desk over the Thames, and the weather was awful during the day to today but has really perked up for my walk to the station.

The Thames, incidentally, is a curious beast. I love the way the character of it changes through the day as the sun moves and the weather changes and the tides shift. The way the light bounces off its environs, the clouds diffuse, the boats swirl and the torrents churn the very depths - it's perfectly bewitching some days, and I'm surprised I really get any work done.

On an overcast grizzly day very often my only cheer is in being minded of Monet's trip to London in the early 1900s where he painted the Houses of Parliament looming along Embankment...it's still the same river.

floating

jellyfish
Originally uploaded by ALBOWIEB

Time, just an illusion.

Trade secret - sometimes these posts get written in advance. In fact this one was written last night as I checked my emails before having a shower and going to bed. At least that's the plan, when you read this it has happened. Isn't that weird? This post is already like some kind of Tarantino-style head-messer, jumping backwards and forwards in time. At least there aren't any continuity issues here. Wasn't the snow awful this morning?

What I can never get is why I pick the times I do - 3.17pm? Why? Who would write a post at 3.17pm? Of course now I have to publish the post at 3.17pm because that's what I've written in the post. It's a good job that I've written the whole post about pre-writing posts, or else my office associates might think I was being less than judicious in my work this afternoon.

Anyway. I'm off to have the shower I had last night,

Some jokes.

"Been to any good muggings lately?" I'm asked. I make a quizzical look, if only on the inside of my face. I like that people think I'm made of stuff that is sturdy enough to take a joke mere days after having been violently attacked in the street and robbed of precious possessions. I'm that kind of guy. Heartless and stoic, I'll wager.

It's not the fact of the jokes that I mind, if I mind so much of anything at all. Ha, what they don't know is that I cry myself to sleep - and that's when I can sleep at all - I sit and rock and hug my pillow and stare helplessly into the darkness. Alright, I don't, but I could. I could.

I don't mind the jokes - I just wish they were funny.

Lots of people reading.

London must be like the readingest place in the world - I have keenly observed whilst turning the pages of my latest tome that people will stubbornly read a book or a skanky free paper on the train no matter what. No matter what.

Is it because they cherish those few precious moments of solace marinating in the beautiful printed word, or simply to avoid acknowledging the fact of the matter that commuting skin-to-skin day-in day-out is quite debasing and undignifying?

I suppose it doesn't really matter if you've got a good book, although perhaps literature is more enjoyable when you don't have some tall chap's moobs nestling on your shoulder.

What to do?

What was I going to write? This is one of my more frequent thoughts when faced with the accusatory glare of a blank white blog post. One of the most frequent upsets of my life is thinking of really profound, urbane and witty things that I can put on my blog and never getting round to putting them on paper, or pixels.

I used to have a brilliant little notepad from stationer extraordinaire, Paperchase, but that went in the Great Mugging of last Tuesday. And anyway, it still wasn’t quite enough. Whenever I get to a computer the point of the thing is just lost – I find that funniness and wit evaporate extremely quickly in any weather.

What to do?

Overcast.

waltzer
Originally uploaded by ALBOWIEB

Das wochenende ist schon vorbei.

I can't cope with the weather at the moment - all these mixed messages, literally blowing hot and cold. I thought we were getting somewhere, with those special weekends in the park and long walks by the river. Was it because I never called?

I've had a lovely relaxing weekend and although I've got a few more bits and pieces to do before I go to bed I feel set to face the week. That's my mark of a good weekend, how nicely I settle into Monday. Mostly not very well, but I'm optimistic this week.

This is all.

2 little girls.

I still wonder to myself in increasingly regular vacant moments if I'm not just a really massive wimp and was coolly attacked by two 8-year-old girls, who steal my bag and flounce and peacock up the road with their pigtails whipping around mockingly in a fluid spring breeze.

Whether one of them might have had a little pink bike with a white basket and little ribbons on the handlebars, a sinister mode of transport if ever I could conjure one in my mind's eye. One is perversely conscientious, stockpiling others' possessions like so many squirrels waiting for winter - higher education doesn't come cheap, she's aspirational.

The other one, the steely-eyed minx, a dealer of misery, she is stealing money to pay for her Barbie's smack habit - if you're a parent, let me be the one to tell you that they're not having tea parties in their rooms anymore; it's all snorting cocaine off Ken's six-pack and shooting up in the Wendy House, a Fisher Price kitchen to knock up a quick cheese omelette when they get the munchies. They believe in Santa, they've seen him in their trips and phantasms.

In my nearby dreams I'm haunted by the sound of spokes rattling and a sharp bell going ring-ring, ring-ring. A fluorescent thought, it mocks by my side.

Seriously, though - Barclay's? Worst bank in the world.

I get a little bit mugged.

So I was mugged last night. It was all a bit strange - followed from Blackheath station, but blithely unaware until the vomit of footsteps coming rapidly up behind me and pushing me into the road just round the corner from my house. A fall to the ground, a blow to the face and just like that my bag is gone and the functionality of my life with it. I remained strangely calm throughout the whole episode - "it was all quite civilised, really", quoth I to an incredulous but soothing policeman. Two of them arrived within an hour of making a call to the Metropolitan Police. A side of me would like to think that London cared what damage it had wrought upon my friendly and impressionable visage, but the other side - the weary, pollution-saturated, spends-too-much-time-on-the-train, seen-it-all and now quite bruised side - the other side thinks that violent robberies mean bad statistics.

I got a bit punched in the face - I gave up my bag quite quickly in case they had a knife, because you never know these days, I'm apparently just another victim of a heartless recession. I blame the Government, really. I don't know whether robberies at knife-point end up in you being punched in the face, though. I'm not that keen to find out.

I lost a load of crap I quite liked having around - my phone, cash cards, diary - all that jazz. I had some stuff in there I was working on for my blog and my website, so who knows who is reading right now? Hello criminals. If you could give me back the stuff you don't need, because I do. Actually, I've been wondering today what it takes in someone's mind for them to think that it's OK to attack them and steal their possessions. To cowardly follow them, run up behind and then run away. How unimaginably hollow and dark those people must be, who think that it's somehow acceptable to do these things. I feel no ill will, though - that would only waste my time, and I need that for sitting around waiting in branches of Barclay's bank. More on that soon...

For now, though, an early night to rest my weary limbs - I've turned into an 85-year-old man overnight, all stiff deliberate movements, hoisting myself on and off of things, groaning like a stressed beam when trying to pull my jumper off. Good times, I love it.

Cutting remarks.

I had another haircut the other day - it was the place down the road from Westminster that smells of talcum powder. Very nice. I do sometimes get nervous though - I'm not one for small talk, and of course that's not to say that everything that comes out of my mouth consists of big talk, but making social pleasantries at any occasion is difficult work let alone when someone is holding a cut-throat razor to your head.

I get worried when answering the questions - "so, what'll it be?" - a trim. A short back and sides! A little off the top? Not too much..."number 2, or 3?" - 2. No, 3. Actually, make it a 2. Or a 3. What's the right answer? They never tell you. One of my answers this time round actually including the words 'surprise me' - wanker - I think it was when I was being asked whether I wanted my neckline straight or tapered. Straight?! Tapered?! Who considers these things? My sartorial elegance will extend only so far.

I get worried mainly because one of these days they will catch on to the fact that I can't see a thing whilst they're snipping away - the power! - and also to the fact that I am completely lying when they hold the mirror up to the back of my head and ask me what I think - 'bravo, definitely an 8.3!' - for all I know the chap has shaved the word 'tit' into the rear side of my cranium.

And that wouldn't look good at all. 'Yeah, it's great, thanks.'

Star Trek films: the next generation.

I'd like to say that I boldly went where I'd never been before this evening, but I'd sat in the same screen for Quantum of Solace. Luckily there was more space this time, I wasn't required to do my Stevie Wonder impression because my glasses weren't big enough to see the whole screen at once.

But man, what a film. Stupendous. If Starfleet (or anyone else offering a decent whack and medical, let's be honest) offered me a commission I'd be out into space before you could wiggle your fingers, live long and prosper.

I normally get confused between Star Wars and Star Trek, which I'm told is practically sacrilegious - but there was no Jar-Jar Binks (thank goodness) or Natalie Portman (slightly disappointed, I must be honest), so that gave me a fairly good idea where I was. I'm not one to research films before I go.

I'm sure the supergeeky fanboys have everything they're looking for in this beast of a film, whilst practically redneck rubberneckers like me (haven't a clue about the trekiverse, just along for the action porn) are also left dribbling come the end.

Smashing. How long before I can captain my own spaceship?

A good sleep.

The slightly naughty way to cover up the fact that I didn't blog yesterday would have been to change the time on this post and whistle innocently as people eyed me up suspiciously, but I'm a pretty straight kinda guy and thought better of it. I did actually plan to write something, but I ended up falling asleep at half eight ('just a quick nap...') and got up at eight this morning. What a great sleep.

I did nearly end up blogging about my dream when I came to a little at 3am - I dreamt I was on trial for killing 2007. The year. 2007. My only defence was that I couldn't even remember what happened in 2007. They sent my ass right down.

But anyway - isn't it wonderful when you have just the right sleep? Far too often you wake up having had to compromise - a little too late to bed here, a little too early getting up here, shouldn't have had that coffee, shouldn't have left the window open, I'm simply far too worried about whatever inconsequential activity I may be engaged in tomorrow to nod off...it's a hard life.

But all the more pleasant when it all just...falls together.

Notebooks and cappuccinos.

I bought myself a moleskine notepad the other day because I saw that it was in special offer - these puppies are expensive things and like any other expensive thing in the world I only get my hands on it when the reduced stickers are out.

But what pressure. Not only does the overblown marketing tell me that Hemingway and Picasso used similar notebooks, but the thing just feels wonderful, smells delicious - it has this quality, an air of refinement and a touch of class. I feel both important and creative just being in possession of one. I'm never going to find the words to justify blemishing its leaves.

I'm going to have to up my game, put my back into it, practice, warm up, do some exercises, spare some time, do some studying. But don't worry - I shall be as bloggy as ever, for this is the frothy bit on the cappuccino of my life. With extra chocolate.

Id Card.

"Beleaguered Home Secretary Jacqui Smith", for that seems to be her name, announced the other day that the Government are going to insist on pressing ahead with ID cards - I don't usually do the political stuff these days, because it's my bread and butter at the moment and I'm not allowed to use the actually interesting stuff, but it's the thinking behind these babies that gets on my nerves.

Apparently they'll protect us against terrorists. Personally that's not the kind of user interaction I want in my technology these days - if it could link to twitter and make me a coffee I'd be much more impressed. How precisely does Jacqui think it's going to protect me from a terrorist? Jason Bourne was incredibly handy with a rolled-up magazine, and no doubt he could circumcise a bad guy at 20 paces with a credit-card sized lump of plastic, but I have lesser faith in my own abilities to shield my body from a terror onslaught with one of the little beasts.

It annoys me that CCTV cameras all over the country but especially in London are accompanied with outrageously patronising little signs that say they've been installed for my protection and safety. There is absolutely nothing protective about them - someone can still come along and stab me for 20 minutes before the police show up, people can still vandalise an entire bus, you can still intimidate people in the street - it just happens that it gets caught on film. If someone commits a crime and doesn't cover their face these days they deserve to get caught because their stupid - security cameras don't make me safer, they just add a little theatre to proceedings.

Do I trust the Government with my details? No, I don't. Do I resent being forced to pay an outrageous sum of money for the privilege of being criminalised by having my retina scanned and fingerprints taken? Why, yes I do.

Disturbing homo-erotic undertones.

I am afraid that since I have no pug, no cats, nor a blossoming media career doing interviews in magazines with disturbing homo-erotic undertones full of buff-looking chaps, I remain an exceedingly dull person. I did see Joanna Lumley out on the grass outside parliament last week, surrounded by a bunch of Nepalese pensioners doing something-or-other. Funny thing - I always used to take the gurkhas out of my hamburgers when we went to McDonalds when I was little.

Does McDonalds have an apostrophe in it? I can never remember and am too lazy to check. I can never remember how to spell Morrissons, Morrisson's, Morissons, Morrison's, Morrisons either. It does annoy me on the other hand when people get the ones I do know wrong - Tesco, Marks and Spencer. Where do the extra esses come from? People are mad! Mad, I tell you. Have you come to read A Little Bit Of Wisdom In Every Boxes... by Sams? No! No, you haven't.

The other thing I hate is when I clean my glasses and they go all smeary, but that's another matter entirely.

Evening.

I just need to get something in here or I won't be able to sleep.

Brightoning up.

So I've just got back from my wee day trip to Brighton with Nicky and Jayne. It was sodding cold - to the point where I had to nip to Primark and buy some extra clothes to wear, and Brighton didn't try especially hard to cover itself in glory. We ended up on a peculiarly fashionable street which was quite nice, but apart from that little enclave the whole place felt like a downmarket Blackpool that thought it was Windsor. I can't, I'm afraid, see the attraction of being there - one was in fact enough pour moi.

The excitement of the day was inadvertently getting caught in the middle of a protest march by the Socialist Workers on something or other. We couldn't quite catch their gripe as their diction was terrible - the ironic thing I always find with the Socialist Workers is that they might indeed by the former, but they're very often not the latter. If they had jobs they'd have less time to march with those silly bandanas round their faces I'm quite sure.

It turned out when we went to a cafe for dinner (the local radio was on) that estimates of the march ranged from 300 to 5,000 people marching through the streets of Brighton - one member of the public had been injured and a shopfront vandalised. Our estimates ranged from 20 to about 25 - and whether that member of the public was accidently savagely beaten by the police I don't know, but we saw the shopfront on the way back to the station. They had spray-painted the army recruitment place with red lines across the shutter and spilled a load of it on the floor. It was probably the lamest bout of citizen unrest I've ever come across.

Goats? Why goats?

I was sat sipping a cup of tea earlier and I didn't realise it was half past nine. Half past nine! Sipping a cup of tea!

You're not really supposed to imbibe caffeine after 6pm in order to avoid fitful sleepage - we shall see how it goes. I'm feeling pretty tired - I met some of the chaps off my programme for a picnic in Dulwich park after church and we went to the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill to check it out. It ashames me to say that I never went to see it when I actually lived in Forest Hill, but we never had nice days like today when I lived in Forest Hill.

Also, I must admit to still letting out an involuntary titter every time I hear or see the word 'Horniman'. This makes me desperately childish, I'm fully aware, but come on - Horniman? It's a shame the museum wasn't as good as its name, but we did have a nice ice-cream on the lawn and admired the wonderful view from its gardens. Which have a couple of goats in an enclosure, whilst we're on the topic. Why on earth do you need goats in an enclosure? There was no plaque.

Stream of consciousness? Flow sho'.

Day two of my now ridiculous scheme to try and write a post a day for the month and I'm quite frankly already stuck for things to say. There are only 37 minutes left of the day to either a) sit and think of some creative point to make, or b) do something funny and write about it quick. I am in fact sat in my bed in my shiny Lidl pyjamas that my Grandma bought me having done precisely nothing that today that could either be described as creative or funny. I watched some films, I went to Sainsbury's.

I'm just going to sit here with a blank post and see if anything comes up, I'm thinking. More stream-of-unconsciousness than anything more worthy, I'd say. Ooh, this is my 100th post on this latest blog. I've been blogging for about five years now, and have nothing to show for it except a peerless dedication for producing more stuff that no-one reads. I'm going to be a writer, I decided recently - a peerless dedication to writing stuff that no-one reads will probably come in handy. If I could find a way to actually get paid for doing it then all the better.

I had cause to text my friend Nicky just now and she is out clubbing with her mother. Is this normal? I don't really go clubbing since my first year of university and haven't drunk alcohol for over a year, much less would I spend an evening out on the lash with my dear mum, sainted lady that she is. I suppose we all have ways of connecting with those around us - me and my mum like to go shopping together. You don't necessarily have to buy anything, but it's a tradition, a process. If you end up with a nice pair of shoes out of it then that is a considerable bonus.

Nothing to see, hear.

Just a quick hello hello before I go to bed. I am very tired, you see - it is very tiring being me, a pretence I have to maintain when around other people. When I'm around people for a long time I practically explode inside. Terribly messy. Not as messy as the grass strains from playing Ultimate Frisbee in St. James's Park this afternoon - frisbee was never that enthralling in the first place, trying to manipulate a sport out of the whole sorry episode is a suspension of disbelief too far. An ultimate frisbee would fly itself, methinks. Let us not forget that this is an object that started its humble rise to the top as a pie tin.

I recall I didn't expand on my trip on the pedalos at Hyde Park. I'm afraid that I am not going to do so now because I am really quite fatigued. Did you like my picture of the flag? It was taken in my grandma and grandad's back garden when we went there for a barbeque on Easter Sunday - granddad was most perturbed to have us point out that he'd hoisted the thing upside down. I shall expand on the pedalos forthwith - I am going to try and make an extra special effort to post something at least once a day in May, even if it is very small. Very small is the catchphrase these days, what with my paltry readership. I shall honour those treasured few. Bis dann.