Where have I been?

Hello. I must start with begging for your gracious and generous forgiveness.  I started posting on this blog on the 6^th of February and enjoyed it so much I decided to post two days later. As far as everyone was concerned it was all going very well indeed.

I was “walking on sunshine”, I was “so excited I just couldn’t hide it”, I was even considering “smacking my bitch up” – cough – (of course not that’s just ridiculous and I apologise for getting over exited but sometimes my fingers get nervous and they cant stop typing, so my digits manifest their anxious energy in random words…Eggs! Swing seat! Totalitarianism!)

Sorry!

Needless to say I was skipping through the forests of Internet publishing bliss. Gliding over the glades of bloggy blogness. To all intents and purposes I felt really, really special. My initial nerves of attempting to write a “blog” soon dispelled into a small pile of lovely, lovely nothingness…

BUT!

(cue extremely dark and scary music)

I was kidnapped by DIY! Come back! Don’t worry it’s OK you can come out from behind the couch it’s not going to hurt you.  I’m here.  It wouldn’t be stupid enough to do anything whilst you’re with me.

I should explain.

I decided at the beginning/mid February to re-grout my shower. This was because, in my head, it would be cheaper and quicker than re-tiling it. I was right about the financial aspect of this it was a lot cheaper but I only finished doing it last week.  This is mainly because I am quite lazy and shit at DIY, which begs the question. WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THIS BEFORE!?!

Now to remove grout you need a “carbide tipped grout scrape” which “looks like a looks like a screwdriver with a triangular head on it.” Sounds technical and very impressive but Ladies and Gentlemen it is essentially a knuckle-duster with a small pointy piece of metal which goes blunt within the first two-minutes of it touching grout. 

The instructions point you towards the wall and simply say “scratch it like fuck” and you do. You then proceed to sweat, get tired, hurt yourself, cry and melt in the corner of your shower cursing the day you thought…

“Yeah, I could do this on my own. I don’t need to call the guy. I’m a fucking man and I will do this on my own.”

We live in a modern and advanced society. We have I-PADS, 3D TVs, the Internet on phones! We can even keep Keith Richards alive.

We can do all of this but what we can’t do is make it easy to remove a construction material composed mainly from water, cement and sand.  How could I be fooled… by sand?

After spending 4 weeks in the small square space of my shower contorting my body into various painful positions like a fat pissed gymnast I finished removing the grout and the silicone sealant.  Hooray! Send over the Lancaster Bomber!  Let confetti fall from the eyes of doves.  I think I ripped some bone tissue during the process but I got through my Daniel-Day Lewis method acting In the Name of the Father type emotional journey and went out and bought some Jays Fluid to wash the tiles down.

Now this stuff looks like treacle and smells like a garden centre. It has many ingredients including Disinfectants, C Tar Acids & 4-chloro-m-cresol.  Now there is a lot of advice on the tin saying things like, keep away from children, keep away from pets especially cats (no joke), do not use indoors (oops) and my personal favourite; “if you use Jeyes Fluid to clean out your ferrets, please note the ingredients have changed.”

Awesome. You can put this inside a ferret.

“Darling, what are we doing this bank holiday weekend?”

“Well darling, I’m going to clean out the ferrets. Fetch me the Jeyes Fluid, 6 cotton wool buds and a spoon.”

Ferret grooming aside this stuff is ridiculous and I made the mistake of using it in a small confined space with very little ventilation.  Idiot! Jeyes Fluid is essentially a hallucinogenic.  I think it nearly made bits of my skin slide off and at some point I started weeping blood whilst trying to attach a toaster to my mother.  I felt like Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting.  I spent a few hours talking to a large cake with a face named Malcolm, who claimed he was invited to the Royal wedding.  He then introduced me to his friend The Squirrel, who I didn’t like at all because he had a moustache, top hat and a penchant for cashews.  Needless to say, we didn’t get on.

After I awoke from my “trip” I had a nice, clean, mouldless shower and could start putting on the new grout.  This is actually a lot of fun.  You are basically holding a large tub of houmous/hummus and pushing it into the gaps between the tiles and I have no complaints about this.  Apart from the fact it gets everywhere, doesn’t do what you tell it to do, is messy, sticks to the shower basin, and doesn’t taste like hummus/houmous. 

I then waited 7 days for it to dry, which is the recommended amount of time, put on more sealant and waited for that to dry, washed my hair with a kettle and waited for that to dry and now here I am. I have my shower back. 

Would I do it again? No.  Do I feel more of a man? Not in the slightest. Am I now addicted to Jeyes Fluid? Yes.

Thank you and good day. I’m off to clean out my ferret…

Eating Alone

Is having lunch in a restaurant on your own a sad and lonely thing to do? I stumbled across some notes I made about a lonely lunch I had in Leeds at a chain pizza restaurant that rhymes with Mizza Hexstress. I began thinking about how much I loved being alone but then it also occurred to me it might not be all that great. On one hand, all the waiting staff look at you like you are a sadistic sociopath with no friends, family loved one, or colleague, who has never kissed another human being and probably has the table manners of a teenage vulture.

“Why is he alone?” they whisper to each other behind greasy hands and, gliding to your table, the take your order, staring at you with polite, unaffectionate gazes. They shuffle around you with suspicious expressions, thinking:

“Why would you come here without anyone else? If I were here all my loved ones and the loved ones of the loved ones I’ve never even met would be here. Why is he alone? What’s wrong with him?”

Greeted at the door by a pretty blond hostess with an engaging yet simulated smile I am escorted to my table. This will be my home for the next hour or so, depending on how long they want me or are comfortable with me being there. The hostess, being able to escape from serving the “loner”, takes herself away drag running toward a newly entered couple who look like they model for Peter Storm. It is now left for the waiting staff to serve me and, having their own thoughts on the matter, judge me to be a bit of a sad case. A loser. A social misfit.

But wait! I notice something completely splendid! The service I receive is exquisite. No waiting for a table (even though I am tucked into the corner out of biting distance), no waiting for drinks, no waiting for a menu! Just quick reliable service with the meal prepared and presented to a standard and speed you rarely see when you have to share a table with another person.

It occurs to me that I am not receiving this culinary ceremony because they think I’m a King or a celebrity. They must think I’m from the head office, or a food journalist, some kind of company employer checking that the standard of service. For this brief meal I am the most important person in the history of lunchtime customers. Yes, in short. They LOVE ME!

Of course I play along. Strange looks to the chefs in the kitchen as I look and inspect the food with gastronomic vigour. I touch the food tenderly with my fork, knife and tongue. I savour each delicate morsel with a hint of cynicism and judgement. I leave the staff in a state of suspense, whilst I drive to a feeling of self-importance. In fact I start to believe that I hold the Sword of Damocles and could have them all fired if they don’t fetch me another mai tai.

In short, this ends up being the best meal I have ever had.  Apart from the great service I don’t have to make small talk, mind my manners or worry about dripping Ragu onto my chin. I am content with the role the restaurant and I have created for me and leave with an astute air of grandeur and continue my day with the satisfaction that I scared the shit out of people.

Now all I have to do is have this same experience when I next go to the cinema on my own because in that situation I just feel like a pervert.

Hello

This will be my first post, which is very exciting indeed. In no way do I expect this post to change your life in any way or  make you see the world through different lenses. I purely wanted to have posted something before I really start posting things for real so as to experience the whole important posting moment of the first post. (Post, post, post, post, post.)

Doing things for the first time or "beginning" something is a confusing, difficult, terrifying thing to do. You ultimately have to suck it up and be brave.

It could be a wonderful moment like the first kiss between two young lovers or the first time you go quad-biking. Or terrible, such as being introduced to Miso soup, which I truly believe is the worst soup in the history of soup.

Like the Miso soup moment you will walk away from it never wanting to do that thing again or it could be something you want to repeat forever...like quad-biking.

Essentially what I wanted to do is say hello. And I have done. And thats brilliant. Now, was writing this first post an experience like Miso Soup or Quad-biking?

I don't know. I'll think about it.