Posting on my Blog: Hammies and Novels

ALL MY HAMSTERS HAVE BEEN HIDDEN for about three days in a tower of tartan baggage. Did feed and check on them before but piles and piles of things in new room have prevented any further excavation. Until this morning.

So Pingpong, the Chinese hammy (see largest picture for a similar specimen but with far smaller eyes) was last seen nibbling on yellow pepper. Spherical and Itchy were last seen trotting on their wheel 21 to the dozen and nibbling said same pepper's pumblechook (y'know, the seedpod bit in't' middle). Bashful, living up to her name, just appeared from the teabox as a pink nose and a beady pair of eyes. Because none has seen me for a while they were remarkably amenable to my putting my hand in and trying to stroke them (they quickly ping away; that's what Robos are like).

I chucked out bags and bags and bags of stuff. At least six; probably ten black bags full of rubbish, unwanted clothes and books. I did take some to the local hospice shop (much to Surlystein, the evil workman's derision) and had intended to take more. But the 6ft high tower of chuckings out (mine, Matran's, Laundretta's) got so mixed up and plundered by as many of the local populace as could get their hands on her innumerable handbags etc that taking any more turned into a dead loss. I'm just glad to say I don't seem to have lost, mislaid or accidentally chucked anything important.

As you can probably tell I did end up keeping a little more than intended. But when you're dirt poor it's very difficult to chuck out stuff like trainers (sneakers), cooking whisks and other things that take up room, room, room (plus books, books, books (loads of Laundretta's)... my life is enriched by lots of new Martina Cole, Jackie Collins' Drop Dead Beautiful (hmmm: I used to like JC for her bitter portrayals of 1970s funkiness and 1980s hypocrisy; then she seemed to turn into the characters she used to parody but her newer stuff, though lacking the old bite did keep me rivetted for over 10 pages...) also Mario Puzo The Sicilian. I thought the Godfather very well written for "trash" fiction... the bit in Sicily in the Godfather where the son falls in love is particularly well portrayed... Martina Cole, in case you don't know her, is a writer of crime books. They do tend to be a bit soap-opera-ish plus she cleaves to certain "facts" and phrases she appears to have learned in the course of a life's research that I've never heard used: e.g. "hag" (aggro) "gettin' a capture", "funky Brixton" (the prison, though I'm sure that area of London with its clubs, pubs, bars, Jamaican shops etc etc is far funkier than the boring old lock-up) and so on ... the back page reads: "the person who tells it like it really is" ... (in Essex, which she writes about best. Well they do say write what you know. I found her portrayal of junkies quite offensive though. Well ~ hey ~ whatever...)

OK I really must go it is half past midday. For the past week I've barely slept properly. Last night I was in bed by six. Slept till around one. Slept again till four. Four a.m. wake-up suits me. If you sleep those kind of hours you can avoid the worst of the world...

I've not forgotten my promise to continue the London post with a more personalized selection of "real" places. Please bear with me while I compose the blinkin' thing. (I either post on paper and bang it in or just bang it in directly as here. That's why my blog is so rough and unready ~ harhar.)

Righty-ho then!

BIANCA'S JACKSON FIVE: This is absolute classic. A BBC trailer for their "top" soap EASTENDERS; ginger whinger Bianca, now a single mother of FOUR makes a return after nearly a decade away... chucked out of her house and following the petroleum scent of the car-mechanic love of her life she always called (at the top of her considerable voice) "RICK-AAAY!"...



EastEnders got the UK's highest ever rating for a soap, peaking at 30.15 million viewers (more than HALF the population: that would be equivalent to a soap ratcheting up 150 million + in the USA...) when Den served Angie divorce papers in the Queen Vic in 1986...

I had to put something funny up there I'm so mightily depressed this evening I wish I could just get extinguished for ever.

OTHER VID: Elephantine Self-Portrait