Hamster Ice Cream Threat

RIGHT. FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT I have posted up a roborovski nibbling on an "ice cream"... I am desperate to find some wild bird seed for them. Otherwise it will be Cornettos from the corner shop in sheer robo-desperation... I am "listening again" to Vanessa on BBC London radio doing a housemouse phone in and growing more offended by the second that not only did the call answerers assume someone calling himself "Gledwood" must be mentally ill, but that my TRUE STORY about Itchy escaping for 2 days (longer term readers will remember this)... in a room overrun by wild sewer mice... only to be picked up the two days later CAVORTING UNDER MY CUPBOARD WITH THE WILD MICE!!! I could not believe it. And neither, so it seems does Vanessa Feltz's crew so b*****y to you. (If you're American and wondering what the infilled letters might be, they are "ugger" and the complete word means "sodomization" in British English (it does not mean zooophilia, as some schoolkids seem to believe...)

The local internet caff at my new place is so hopelessly slow it is pretty much unuseable. You cannot even have radio streaming through headphones as you blog, now THAT is pathetic.

O yeah and I caught squirtingly rampant diarrhoea from ... from what? Not my cooking. I've only done a bowl of pasta. Do you think the local Chinese is infested with rats?...

Righty I have to go otherwise my poor hammies might have consumed the entire Mr Kiplings fruit pie crusts I've had no option but to feed them with... Yo! Bird seeders! Where are you! C'mon show yourselves. Or it really is ice cream time for the hammies....

Takeaway Thrills; Old House Nausea

I'M OVER THE MOON about my new home on the one hand; very subdued on the other. I'm going around being awfully polite to people ("these are my new neighbours") and explaining to the important shops that I need two copies of their menu "because I've just moved in up the road" (you can tell what shops are important to me then! Yes!! Chinese takeaway, Jamaican takeaway, Pakistani takeaway... etc... I really must get to grips at improving my culinary command of foreign food; I'll save myself a fortune. I wasn't exaggerating the other day when I said the aroma of jerk chicken comes wafting from every other house. Either I was hallucinating floridly the other night or it really did! Anyway it's takeaway for me tonight (boo-hoo! (tee-hee. Ha-ha!!)) as I seem to have blown the 13A fuse on my "cooker" which is NOT the workman-installed unit you probably think of as a cooker (don't they call it a "stove" in America? I'm not sure. But it's the clumpy big white thing you usually cook on...)... 4 gas or electric rings on top, grill then top oven then main oven. No! That type of cooker is far too posh for me. Mine looks like a microwave. In fact, looks just like one at a glance. It's actually a grill (possibly with oven facility but I'm not getting my hopes up) with two rings on top for saucepans etc. Yes! And after tripping off my main power three times so far, it's now failed somehow internally so I've invested in a packet of these 13A fuses. I'm hoping they'll get me cooking through the next week.

(Cooking food of my choice, that is. Not cooking to death in an electrical fire... (ooer!))

It's so exciting shopping for my new home. I feel all bourgeois and normal and have sudden insight into my parents' endless chattering I endured as a six year old kid from the back of the car as they prattled on about what colour three-piece suite they would purchase and what sullenly drab shade of magnolia paint would go on the walls. (This was the 1970s... and one resolution I took back then at a very young age on viewing the paint chart with all its exotic hues, then seeing the dismally boring off-white my parents chose was never to deny myself colour in the home decorating experience. And I mean the full-on colour. If you want banana yellow walls - go for it! You can live with primary coloured walls, if you want them. My ex-university friends had a sunrise yellow living room and it was beautiful. Lifted the spirits every time I entered. It did not glare on me. Never encroached on the psyche. And I spent many a happy hour in that room... My colour of choice is duck-egg blue or turquoise. I think that shade looks fantastic with bookshelves against it. Very North London. Very funky-bourgeois!)...

... yeah and I've been getting that "buying a new sofa" excitement. Only I was just popping out to purchase a fresh pack of joss-sticks.

Oh no! I've got to get my trotters some bird seed desperately. Before I forget. All hammy food's been nibbled up. Yesterday I put Pingpong the Chinese hammy in the diggery. He's so laid back (like a Chinese version of Grandfather Roborovski, my youtube film from the other day) he simply excavated a cavern at the bottom and sat there looking faintly bemused.

I took my last case of records home last night. That was the classical music collection I've mentioned on occasion. Mother Hubbs's housemate chucked out about 100 classical albums on vinyl. She gave them to me saying get what you can from them and spend it on gear. How vulgar! I thought. I'm hardly a classical music afficionado but that's the point. Like the rest of you, I know a good few tunes - from television shows and commercials and the movies. But I barely know what a single one's called. Don't know who are the best singers or performers (except for really obvious, all-time classic names). At my first secondary school we had a really good music teacher who was something of an expert. The best advice she gave was, don't write off a piece just because it's badly performed. Listen again to another conductor and the orchestra will breathe a whole new life into the story. This advice came alive for me in a branch of Waterstones the bookshop some years ago as the most dismal rendition of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus came piped into every corner of the shop (so no escape from it)... "and he shall reign for ever and ever..." chanted the choir in tones that suggested the second coming of Jesus Christ was to be the worst tragedy of recorded history since the fall of Satan the devil! Honestly I've never heard such inspiring words pronounced with such drear. Another conductor with other performers could make take those same phrases to sublime heights... This is what my music teacher was saying.

Right and there, dear reader I have imparted the sum total of my classical musical knowledge. Suffice it to say the Berlin Philharmonic's supposed to be the world's best orchestra. And the very thought of returning back to that old dump I used to live in, the one with NO LOCK ON THE FRONT DOOR, the one where Evilstein had given me NO KEYS TO MY SECOND ROOM so my stuff was completely inveiglable from the street at all times, except when I barricaded myself in behind a heavy chair and a latch that did work (most unusually for THAT house!)... the sheer thought of returning and hunting through the mounds and binbags and piles of stuff I had to leave behind - and I know I'll find stuff I want, but nothing I shall miss... just the very idea of going back there makes me feel physically nauseated.

And that, my dear friends, surely says everything!

No Broccoli!

HOW VULGAR! I have traipsed around every likely looking shop on/off/near/not near/etc the high street and FAILED to find any selling fresh broccoli ~ my staple green! I did find two demoralized trees outside one, after querying exact directions from the shopower who insisted said "rare delicacy" (well it is in my new manor!!) was there. And I'm not surprised they kept it in semi-hiding judging by the state of it. I've never seen "fresh" veg in such a wilting state. And on sale to eat tomorrow!! Not likely!!! Then I trundled and trawled and trudged and traipsed and trotted via many other shops until I finally found one selling it frozen at £1.19 for c340g. I said I would come back if I couldn't find any fresh. Well now I'm round the corner from my old house and did cave in and bought the pertest perkiest hardest greenest crunchiest broccoli in town... oh! the things you don't appreciate when they're on your own doorstep 24-7!

Better news: I've found the local Chinese takeaway. And am about to give in to my craving for Chinese chicken curry mix vegetable fried rice... also I BOUGHT a mysterious sachet of Chinese curry powder from the local Chinese supermarket in my new manor... it's ultra mysterious... exactly the right colour... and pretty close in taste to the mysterious oriental curries of the east churned out up and down the country in Chinese curry sauce... yes! That curry sauce NOBODY seems able to replicate (no you do NOT use garam masala or anything like it: it's CHINESE CURRY and totally different... Liz gave me an exclamational link over a month ago but life was in chaos (when is it ever not) so I never CLICKEDONIT ~EEJUT ME!! I am determined to crack the mystery of Chinese curry sauce!!

Even better news MY POWER'S BACK ON! Thanks to a friendly phone call I found out the mysteriousness of the electrical mystery... basically what I'd pictured is NOT a fusebox as such, rather a row of trip-switches... mine are labelled things like "1. lights; 2. sockets; 3. heating; 4. shower" and it would be #2 that had gone down. The advice I was given was to unplug everything. Nearly everything was unplugged but not quite. Disappointingly nothing happened after this... My "sockets" switch was still resolutely DOWN... Then, continuing talking on the phone, I made one more attempt at pushing it up ~ and wow! ~ it stuck!!

And the cooker comes on! And the radio's playing! And the heater works now (even though it was listed separately it somehow managed to purloin power from the sockets ringmain/ hey ja like my electricianal language there? Ringmain?? As if I would know one of them if it tied me up in a knot at 4am in the morning....

Righto!¬ I'm back by my old house. One more case really to GO. Then I'm NOT COMING BACK AND GOOD RIDDANCE TO IT ALL. SUCH RUBBISH!!!!

... {:->...

OH, AND ONE LAST THING... Friends, Romans, countrymenandwomen... I'm awfully sorry... for having kept in touch with some of you intermittently, others not at all... as you can see:~ my life has been chaos... I'm resolving it like silver resolve. A beautiful mirror. Then our friendships shall shine once more in wondrous reflexions...

This is a beautiful photoblog. And as I told Samantha, I can't believe nobody else is reading it...
Samantha's Blog:~ http://drpepperqueen86.blogspot.com

Romanian Castles and Churches:~
http://casteleromania.blogspot.com

Beauteous Spanish Kitten Pixx:~... including one of tabby legs akimbo I posted up here sometime back ... as some will no doubt remember... have a gander! at:~
http://georginaedominguez.blogspot.com

Squeaky Trotters/Fuse Still Gone

RIGHT VINCENT, this is the nearest fusebox I can find to my own... to the right two mains switches that would turn the entire room off (each room has its own box and meter)... the row to the left of this has, on mine, about five what appear to be slide out box fuses with up and down on/off switches. You cannot turn the fuse ON at all, something's blown it automatically falls to off all the time, so... any advice, Vincent? Anyone? Please? I'm actually probably going to have to ring the landlord and not admit it was me turning the cooker on and falling asleep (which shouldn't blow a fuse anyhow)~ I used to sleep with the cooker on ALL NIGHT in my old place~ just to keep the room warm.

Yes and the trotters: I desperately have to buy some new cooking oil as their wheel, which they seem to be rambling night and day these days and nights is SQUEAKING THE HELL OUT OF ME: AAARGH!!

Why are so many far eastern young females into this kinda candy-coloured kitch style?
Click here: http://unrequittedloveisapainthatwontsubside.blogspot.com to see it!

VIDEO OF THE DAY:
And in keeping with my previous Dangerous Liaisons theme; here's French and Saunders' takeoff on that film:~

New Sunday; New Sunday Lunch

I SLEPT FOR HOURS AND HOURS and hours last night and had all sorts of peculiar dreams (about crack dealers etc). Now it's Sunday afternoon and I'm starving because my power's OUT and I don't know how to fix it. Need some giant fuse to stick in the fusebox relating to my room (found the exact switch and pushin-pully-out-y thing) however I'm not at all sure what type of fuse is meant to go inside those mechanisms and so shall have to ask at Mother Hubbard's for advice. The illustration, by the way, is a pretty near approximation to her masterful Sunday roast. Especially the Yorkshire pudding and crackly potatoes towards the front...

That Jamaican takeaway pictured yesterday (to the left) wasn't from round here. A closer inspection will reveal tropical violet-coloured twilight skies, the like of which we do not get in this green and pastrous land of ours...

Well my hamsters are happy. They don't even seem to notice they're in a new place (why would they? They're in their old houses and are never allowed on the floor in case I never get them back...) The are in the cupboard under the sink at the moment, which far from being "cruel because there's no view" they prefer. 1. they are very shortsighted and so don't even notice views the way humans, birds or even cats and dogs would and 2. being nocturnal burrowing rodents they seem to feel more secure in the dark (it makes them get up and start wheelrunning)... every time I looked in yesterday at least one was trotting 19 to the dozen on that wheel...

Allrighty; I'd better go now. T'raa!

New Home, New Weariness

I HAD TO STAY at my old house last night, having had to give up trundling back and forth ~ along two bus rides and with ten minutes further trundle along innercity streets at the other end ~ as it was past midnight. I was exhausted. Still had a good two further trundles to go.

The mad Liverpudlian girlfriend of the windowcleaner downstairs insisted on coming up and helping. Oh no ~ this is going to be a great time-waste, I thought. Well-intentioned, but still a timewaste, with her chucking things out and my having to go through and still check them all anyway for things that shouldn't have gone. In the event, she cleared half the room wonderfully. I went through an enormous white bag (the kind of bag that holds half a ton of builders' sand) full of lastminute clearance from my old room upstairs. Sorted rapidly through and realized the entire lot could go.

I slept like a baby. Absolutely exhausted, and slept in till past ten, which had me very surprised: no Surlystein hammering on the door insisting "I'm taking the ceiling down NOW!..!" Surlystein, the Jamaican workman DID show up however and disrupt my final packing with his comments. Rather than riposte savage comments with harsher ones I explained to him that the grotesquely scruffy state of my old room had nothing to do with my drug addiction. I know loads of drug addicts and no-one lives like that. Pointed out that the other two (Matran and Laundretta) were on FAR MORE drugs than me: heroin-crack-alcohol binges nightly. And though he never climbed down he did listen to me and visibly soften. (Slightly.)

Surlystein was still insisting he had to "make a hole in the floor". So I had to move my stuff "now". Just before my final pack I showed up looking for Evilstein to tell him I still needed time to pack. Ended up in a conference with him and Butterstein (the actual landlord) plus Surlystein. "Isn't there anywhere I can put my stuff?" I queried. "Yes yes of course you can put it in the passage," said Butterstein as if it was the most reasonable thing in the world. "Yeah mon dat's what eye tell 'im," instisted Surlystein and I said loudly, "NO YOU DIDN'T: you told me to shove it in the front garden!" Surlystein looked a bit shifty after that but his boss didn't seem to care.

Well I got the last important lot out. So very much stuff it would barely trundle the street and I went in fear of a wheel breaking. There would have been nothing to do in that case but leave it there and cart what I could then come back to what was left after the plundering natives had been at it. Think of that film Coming To America with Eddie Murphy as the African prince who choses Queens, New York, as his place to find a real-life queen to marry. Arrives clad in furs and gold. Sets down luggage outside the bording house and we see the entire local populace run off with it over the course of 60 seconds. It's a bit like that where I live now. Very "inner city". Less salubrious even than where I am now (which is apparently the domestic burglary capital of the borough). But funkier shops and far more bargainacious.

In cultural terms I have shifted from Turkey to Jamaica. Jamaica suits me just fine. The aroma of jerk chicken billows out from shops and takeaways... signs declaring "fresh goat here~ every Thursday"... a great Chinese supermarket right near me... the ordinary highstreet superstore supermarket sells curry powder in five varieties in kilo bags... it all feels very exotic.

I came home with my last trundlery and realized I still have left behind two bags at least of clothing (including most of my socks and smalls. Great move I know and I've no idea whether any of it's left. No bus fare (borrow £3 tomorrow). So had to walk it tonight. Haven't dared spy out my old house to see what if any of my possessions might be left. I noted two Sky dishes on the side of my new place and so have returned to get the satellite box someone gave me two years ago if it's still there.) I slept deeply all afternoon in exhaustion. Acheing all over. Well I'm round the corner and shall purloin my socks back in a second (if I can).

Unlike the old place, which was just a door to slam on the world, I actually feel centred in this new one. Also I tested out the shower for half an hour and am very clean.

On a down note, I have managed to blow my sockets fuse already (checked the big box downstairs and sure enough the pushy-pully-out thing's switched permanently to OFF and requires my installing some complexicated "don't know which one" fuse. So no cookery for ME tonight... (grrr!!)
Have a great weekend, folks!

TUNE OF THE DAY (No video, so use this as a backingtrack...)

URBAN SHAKEDOWN: SOME JUSTICE

This is a classic tune from 1991ish. The sample "wooo-eeeeeee-ooo-aah: we live as one family" (that doesn't appear till 2mins55 into this mix) is actually sung by a man (but speeded up) from the old garage track: "war and drugs are everywhere ~ and it's getting so hard to breathe the air... now-eeee-aaarr-oooaaah-yeah-wooo-eeee-ooo-roooar-oorooar-yeah, we live as one famileee..." I tried Googling the lyric but got no satisfactory answer... it is not M People's Someday, it far predates that... if anybody has an answer, please leave a comment



Last Angel: Everyone is Beautiful ~ Malaysian prom blog
http://lastangel2411.blogspot.com/2008/04/everyone-is-beautiful.html

Jen Wolf: Model's blog from LA
http://whosjenwolf.blogspot.com

New Home

IT'S LATE AND I'M UTTERLY EXHAUSTED. But I did manage to get more than 50% moved out. Evilstein's threatening to chuck out my stuff on the street if I'm not out by first thing tomorrow; but what could I do? It takes more than TWO HOURS to get from old place to new and back again...

What is my new place like? Well it's a "studio flat"; meaning it's a room glorified into a kitchen corner with GRILL thing (woo what a novelty! Now I can cook pizza; if indeed it will go under a grill...) Yeah and I have a SHOWER INSIDE MY HOME: what a novelty THAT shall be. I was going to celebrate by getting dripping wet in positive life-force "ons", as they say...

Man! I am so exhausted I am going to have to go. I got the help of the lady from downstairs who did girlie things like cleaning my surfaces down.

Now I had better go I am literally asleep on my feet. Take care everyone. I have to go before I expire...


For Sofia:
DANGEROUS LIAISONS DOUBLE-BILL:~

1. Extracts from the John Malkovich/Glenn Close film



I really like Glenn Close's teacup...

2. Madonna: Dangerous Liaisons Vogue

Take the Trotters First

I DON'T KNOW WHAT ON EARTH I'M GOING TO DO tomorrow (dur! later today!..!) to move out. No-one is around really to help me. The new place is two bus journeys away and I can't see myself deporting out my old stuff to the new place in less than ten trips. I'm very glad that I collected several "useless" gigantic wheeled "suitcases" (they're so large they stretch the definition of "suitcase")... these I can stuff with books, my classical vinyl record collection etc; empty out in the new place and take back and refill again... surely that's the only way of doing it.

At 9:30ish in the morning I'm to go to the new letting agent to collect keys. Even that place is two bus rides away ~ in the other direction! ~ near where I used to live and where Laundretta lives now. Laundretta might well be in rehab as we speak, by the way. She was talking of going in to come off the severe quantities of alcohol she daily imbibes (certainly got me drunk with her standard measures of vodka)...

The man at the council asked whether I had any pets as he breezed through my new paperwork this afternoon. "Only a hamster," I admitted... "... but I can give that to someone to look after."

"They're very strict about that these days," said the man, ticking the NO box to pets.

When I checked what I'd signed there was no mention at all of pets ~ roborovski sized or otherwise...

... and that's all I know about what I'm doing tomorrow. Taking the hamsters first...

(And I hope you like the airedale/wire-fox roborovski illustrations, by the way!)

NOW: HERE ARE THREE OF MY FAVOURITE SONGS. See if you like them too...

VIDEO:~ MARIANNE FAITHFULL: AS TEARS GO BY (London Albert Hall, 1990)



SINEAD O'CONNOR: REBEL SONG (LIVE)
Both this and the above have that going round and round hypnotic quality to the backing...



BOY GEORGE: CRYING GAME

Featured in the Irish film of the same name, this is one of his top tunes... and what a wonderful voice!

Moving On

A HORRENDOUS BANGING accompanied by insults from Surlystein the Jamaican workman (lots of "rass") awoke me from an ill-feeling coma at half past mid-day. Szechuanstein handed me a letter saying my accommodation is "cancelled" (except it can't be as I don't get somewhere else until tomorrow morning). Meanwhile I've an appointment this afternoon to come in and sign documents relating to an empty new place "with a different agent" (thank the Lord). Hopefully, once I get my stuff out of the old dump I shall never ever have to have any dealings with Evilstein/Betterstein (aka Butterstein) or any of their henchmen ever again...

I even managed to summon a faint enthusiasm about the matter while ambling up the road in sleepdrunken misery (bc I really did not have enthusiasm for getting out of bed, no matter what the reason)... but like a Disprin plopping in a glass, it fizzed and faintly suffused me.

MOVING ON!

MUSIC VIDEOS:

1. David Bowie and Marianne Faithfull: I've Got You Babe
What a rare classic this one is! PS I don't know what Marianne Faithfull was wearing. It WAS the 1970s...



2. Madonna ft Timberlake and Timbaland: Four Minutes
From the übermistress of pop, this is one of her best tunes (yet again; how does she do it?)



Are Airedales and wire fox terriers the same? Clickonthis for info, including a picture of Baby Itchy's looky-likey sitting on the kitchen floor...
Baby Itchy as an Airedale
Three Tiny Trotters as doggies...

Sunlight Saint George

SUNNY HOT, HOT WEATHER has descended: blue skies, entire days a-sparkle, and so on. So of course miseryguts me is feeling depressed (yet again). This might have something to do with my being evicted (yet again). Or more to the point, Butterstein the slippery landlord and Evilstein his henchman say they are doing up the entire house (they have turned my old room into a dustbath of demolition with bricks lying everywhere from the knocked-out chimneybreast... now they require that I vacate the new room I'm presently in so that can be tarted up too. "You must telephone council NOW. Do not go anywhere. Do not do anything else! Telephone the council NOW!!" Evilstein insisted. And made it sound like it was all down to me to sort my chaotic housing situation.

The council say the landlord KNOWS what to do (he is infamous with them), the ball is in his court. It is not my responsibility to phone them or provide paperwork. I need not and indeed cannot do anything. Butterstein knows who to email. It is up to him to inform the council that my room is no longer available; then the council should provide me with a new one.

So I'm quite happy about moving out. In an entirely distant and nonexistent way...

... on a happier note, today is Saint George's day. Saint George who slew the satanic dragon is patron saint of England, so a movement is underway to turn this into another drinking day in league with Saint Patrick of Ireland and Saint Whassisname of Scotland.

St George is also (strangely but truly) the patron saint of the Spanish city of Barcelona... where the tradition goes for young lovers to buy their sweethearts roses; the sweetheart traditionally returns the favour with the gift of a book. You can click this Catalan blog I found totally by accident to see...

BOOKS AND ROSES: Barcelona and Saint George

WILD AND POPPY EYED:

You can see this isn't a domesticated pet. And that enclosure is far too small, otherwise it wouldn't be running up and down and jumping at the sides...

This is the famous Australian dunnart the female rambles a good 5 miles a night in search of a mate... at the end of the annual 2 week breeding season the males are so exhausted they all DIE... they are quite unafraid of battling with funnel webs, and frequently crackle a crunchy scorpion for breakfast!



EXTRAORDINARILY TAME GRANDFATHER ROBOROVSKI

Here's an incredibly cute and old (a good 65+ in roboyears) pensioner hamster:



ROBOROVSKI CIRCUS:

This is far more typical of robbie behaviour... I don't know whether Grandfather Robo above is just naturally calm or on drugs but I've never seen a roborovski act quite so laid-back!



ARE YOU INTERESTED in being a "direct sales representative"? Do you remember those Tupperware parties from the 1970s? My Mum used to throw them. All local ladies from the area come by and purchase dishes, bowls, jugs etc with excellently airtight self-sealing lids... but if you clickonthis you'll see all manner of housewares etc you can directly sales represent..!

GIGANTIC NORWEGIAN HORSE BLOG...!

Pyramid of Pink Noses

(Photographs: top ~ trio of pink noses. Nearest image I could find to match my three; right ~ Baby Itchy looks a bit like this white little doggie (sometimes) when she's tired and weary)...

MY BABY LITTLE ROBOROVSKIS ARE GETTING FRIENDLIER... I don't know what's happened, what I've done; but rather than panicking when I put my hand in, my sleeping little gremlin-babies just smooth and stretch as I rub them between the shoulders with a fingertip (they are so tiny (no longer than my thumb) you can barely "stroke" them at all...) ... and they casually snooze on!

Even Spherical lets me stroke her like this. I wonder what on earth I have done right? Perhaps they're so ecstatically happy in their new home they even like ME now too..? There was a bit of pinging around in panic earlier this evening when the old Spherical suddenly realized "a horrible human giant has put his nasty big hand in here! Flee girls! Flee I tell yer!!" and her babies duly oblige. (I'm pretty sure Bashful and Itchy ARE Spherical's babies. For one thing they stick together far more... e.g. in the diggery, Spherical does her own thing, whereas Bashful and Itchy stick together the entire time... they look so funny when one vanishes, tubby bum in the air, then the other swiftly follows... Earlier on tonight all three were safely ensconced in the lightbulb box. I picked it up and cooed "hello you baby gremlins!" into it... a pyramid of pink noses appeared at the entrance, but the beady eyes that peered out seemed too weary to venture pingingly into the mirrored world beyond...

MUSIC:
Leona Lewis is the talk of the music world, having just topped the American as well as British single and album charts with her debut releases. Leona is by FAR the best thing to come out of any TV talent show I've seen... this is her original X-factor performance, Houston-style of I Will Always Love You...


VIDEO:
I didn't do this! I found it on Youtube: Roborovski montage to Leona Lewis' Bleeding Love:~


A Little off Kilter: Dogwood Winter ~ lovely spring pixx

Picture blog of the day:
Caleidoscópio Artes
This is the most amazing blossom picture I've seen this year...

I left a Google-translated Portuguese comment:

Que foto de uma linda flor! Vou dar a sua página de gritar no meu blog esta manhã. Isso é tão maravilhosa fotografia, que são aquelas com árvores tão incríveis roxo flores?

That came back hilarious in retranslated English:

What photo of a beautiful flower! I will give your page to scream in my blog this morning. This is so wonderful photo, which are those with trees such amazing purple flowers?

I will give your page to scream..! I love that!! I had actually said "I will give your page a shout..."!!

*

PS: Ever heard of "wire fox terriers"~?? Me neither. Though they look like Disney dogs, y'know with the cute "beards" and all...
Here's Agatha and Archie's personal wire fox blog...

DOGS BEING TORTURED (wearing glasses, blobs of cream on their noses etc)... probably they don't mind but I can't help wondering I've left a message asking the blog-owner... ANYWAY who cares about animal-welfare scruples: clickon the blog and be entertained!!

What is the difference between a wire fox terrier and an airedale? They look exactly the same to me... (click here for Kirby the airedale's blog)

Howard Hughes and I...

WE ARE CUT FROM THE SAME CLOTH... I have never seen anybody in a film who was so similar to me and the way I might have lived if I had vastnesses of money and the time, power and inclination to follow my own whims to a fault...

Readers who've followed my blog for a while and read my From Depressed Oaks childhood post will know that I grew up with pretty full-on OCD of the contamination-handwashing variety for a couple of years in late childhood (around the last year of primary school into the first year of secondary school; that kind of time...)

So viewing Scorsese's film on Howard Hughes last night I saw an awful lot that I've done. Not locking myself naked in a room full of films and peeing into specially aligned milkbottles (though I DID end up stashed in a room a metre deep in rubbish and rubble, convinced people were spying on me and listening to nonexistenct voices through the wall). No: what I'm getting at is the milder, earlier stages when he got the first fear of germs and contamination and had to wash hands over and over. I washed mine until ~ in wintertime ~ they chapped and bled. I couldn't pick up money from off the floor. Particularly copper coins with their dirty appearance and strong smell. Just like in the clip I could not leave a public bathroom unless someone else first entered (public toilet doors are the most filthily contaminated of all)... many doors at home I used to open with my elbows, causing, of course, lots of amusement. But better to be laughed at and remain clean than to be contaminated.

Many of Hughes's subtler moves I can't help wondering whether the average viewer even noticed, let alone got. E.g. when the senator serves him a glass of water; he has to edge it round and round so as to touch with his own hands those parts untouched by the servants' ... would YOU have got that?

Sometimes in days of ambition yet misery, I envisage myself, too, in a huge house cut off from the world. Though I wouldn't tape up strips of red tape all about, I CAN see myself turning into something of a recluse away from the nasty old world... and really, knowing how nasty and full of spite the world really is, who can blame anyone for doing so?



Oh I don't know. Having had this "cold" for a week, I spent the weekend feeling dismally low and tired. The most negativistic thoughts have been circling my head. I missed Sunday lunch at Mother Hubbs' yesterday, not because I was avoiding her but because I was so exhausted I simply retired to bed and missed everything until approaching 8pm when the most dreadful television impinged on my sorry consciousness... "you MIGHT be Nancy!" exclaimed Graham Norton... on a dreadful BBC "reality" casting show... putting together a West End re-run of that classic done to death my my own thirtysomething generation (we all sang the songs at school)... poor wannabes and hopefuls, full of varying talent being told useless factoidal advice like "you don't want this enough" (in other words you don't jump up and down like a slavering fool as much as I'd like to see, you keep your energy for performance like any professional with half a measure of nous)... and other such nothingnesses sayings...

... what was ON TOP of the television caught my eyes... yes! My mirrored roborovskery! They were all so lovely and so cute, little gremlins last night. Allowing me to rub their shoulders in sleep (they love that)... even Spherical did so... SO unlike the paranoid-pinging Spherical...

... then they woke up a bit more and took to pinging about like a tubby horse-race. I put them in the diggery for three hours and their fur's now sublimely well-tended.

On that note I'd better go. Valium Marilyn's threatened visit is taking place as we speak... her vivacious voice is hollering up the hallway!... and the longer you leave her, the louder she gets!!... Have a pleasant day everybody!!

;->...

Howard Hughes

ANYONE SEEN THAT Martin Scorsese film, The Aviator, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the "eccentric" pilot-cum-airline boss cum film producer?
I woke up from marathon sickbed slumber right in time for its 8pm start... and watched rivitted. Howard Hughes and I are cut from exactly the same cloth.

I shall have to tell more tomorrow as I'm about to be timed out. Hope y'all had a great weekend out there folks, wherever you may be...

... speak more tomorrow...

Erkältet

I AM DYING OF THE SCHNUPFEN, the common cold. Drowning in snot. Hacking coughs. Hamsters are in alarm thinking "what is that awful noise!?!" and so on. Dunno why I lapsed into German cuckoo-clock language... somehow I associate Germany, the Herz mountains and the Alps with cold, feeling cold and catching it. Anyway, THAT's why I've not been posting.

Don't worry; it's not catching (not online, anyhow...)

VIDEO: MICHAEL JACKSON ~ ANOTHER PART OF ME

From 1988: Wow, the hysteria! Pop stars love all that ~ the worship, the adoration... this is like one long Pepsi commercial (or Michael Jackson commercial) ... it's a good performance though ... see his nose was melting, even back then...



PS I won a chatty blogger award from Sally in Norfolk. See I can still chat. Even when dying haha!!

IN THE NEWS:
A Pong For Europe: Putrid German Pig Manure Whiffs Out Britain in North Sea Breeze Shocker

PPS: 21:59 hrs Am not that much into puddings; however! Just bought 6-pack of own brand chocolate mousses to pig out and cheer self up.

PPPS: On way out bumped into former heroin and crack dealer (who, unusually, was a user of both)... now clean, smiley, glasses-wearing and dreadlocked... he's totally turned his life around. Once the dealing dried up he had "no option" but to turn into a manic shoplifter with multiple convictions for theft + assault (not one to give security an easy ride)... been in prison endless times... life in chaos.... now he seems happy. And looks like an R&B musician. Wow!

New Ramblery for the Roborovskis

HOPEFULLY SPHERICAL & co won't be so keen on escape now: I've got them a new tank. I passed it yesterday in an alleyway ten minutes from my house when I had other things on my mind and thought, that's nice, but it's not really much bigger than the one they're in at the moment; I wasn't up for lugging it home there and then and assumed, oh well the local kids will have smashed it up by the morning.

Well seeing as they obviously have not done so (and the local populace are so not into the keeping of fish or small animals, which surprises me, (if it didn't get heartily smashed up I'd assumed someone else would purloin it) I took it home with a friend this afternoon.

It leaks (as expected). I knew there had to be something wrong with it, and sure enough, a hairline fracture runs across the bottom. The glass is thinner and lighter than their present home (making this one more portable); the front is bowed out slightly and it has a mirror back. It's far deeper, meaning Spherical shall have far more trouble on her next attempted escape escapade.

I picked out the cigarette ends, old yogurt cartons, crisp packets and till receipts and it's lying before my drawers (as in chest of drawers, not underwear! honestly you have knickers on the brain you do!!) ... it's damp with rain and a bit scruffy and muddy and in need of a good polish. But I'm sure it shall make a marvellous home ramblery for the robbies.

Wahey!!!

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German blog of the day: Silvana aus Bayern

Best blog music: Faerienuff

VIDEO: PAUL MCCARTNEY & MICHAEL JACKSON ~ SAY SAY SAY

This McCartney-written song far far FAR outstrips the dreadful Jackson-written Girl Is Mine (the 2 duets were recorded in vice versa exchange at the same time in 1982; released 1983)... this is a great video... wasn't Linda McCartney lovely?... look closely for Michael Jackson's "lover" cameo played by his SISTER LaToya (see! he was weird even back then!!)

Now There Are Three!

SPHERICAL was recaptured at approx. 4am last night, when a scrabbling noise along the side of my bed alerted me to the roborovski's presence. Carefully removing an old carrier bag that had somehow got half secreted down the side, I was astonished to view Spherical face to face. Sitting on a pair of jeans that had also made the slide down the side, she seemed oblivious of me. That is, until I put my hand in there. Then she quickly pinged inside the jeans, which, I suppose were meant to be her new bed. I folded them up, held tight and shook them open over her old house. Out she tumbled, and soon was nibbling broccoli just like in the old days. The other two were fast asleep at this moment. Spherical is rather less Spherical after three days of getting food and water from who knows where? I never spotted her drinking the capful I left specially out.

O! Spherical! You swine! We are so glad you're back!!

Feature of the Day:
Sumida Riverside Tower, Tokyo
Franco-Japanese Blog

Rescued Rottweiler Blog...

Fur Bear Hamsterriffic Blog

Somewhere Over The Rainbow: Motivational (Entertainment) Posters...

Roommates' Plea: "Spherical Come Home!"

NEWSFLASH! I CAME BACK AROUND 1pm after a 2-hour abscence to the sight of something (I would ordinarily assume it was a mouse) pinging rapidly out of sight with a flash of white... ~ and there's the clue. Mice are dull all over. Robbies have bright white undercarriages. And even in "domesticated" states are far, far stealthier (not to mention speedier) than wild-born mice (how on earth the original batch was captured for the pet trade I've no idea. They must've set special traps to grab the trotting tubbies... Anyhow, after 48 hours of strictly no show whatsoever (not even a hint of her presence) to be quite honest I'd totally given up on ever seeing her again ~ alive or dead.

Tonight I have made a special part towel-covered (for easier grip) paperback book-built "stairway to heaven" (the haven of her former captivity)... nearby I have put out a plastic capful of water, a tiny number of seeds and a courgette (zucchini) slice. Courgettes take teethmarks very well, so if she bites, I shall know!

I'm hoping somehow ~ miraculously, if needs be ~ I'll wake up to find Fat Mommy Trotter fast asleep in her old lightbulb-box. Or perhaps peering out with balefully suspicious eyes: "yeah, mate I came home. Don't flatter yerself; it was these two I missed." Yeah, I know precisely what she'd tell me, if only she could talk...

And now back to the dreadful 1980s:~

VIDEO:
Dynasty. Wasn't this TV gold..? Especially when the series' leading ladies got their claws into each other ~ literally. Alexis and Krystle Pond Catfight... View and enjoy. (PS Dubbed into German for further entertainment. Couldn't find an English version anyway...)



To see more Catfight-Collins-tainment CLICK HERE!!

"Studio Catfight" has Alexis spitting at Krystle (what a vulgar spelling for a lovely name...) the immortal line: "it's not my fault you're barren"! Ooooh!!

Blog of the Day ~ Marijke: Nurse-turned-writer...

Where's Spherical?

STILL NO SIGN AT ALL OF SPHERICAL! I am getting really worried now as I've heard not a rustle, not a whisper-trace of her presence... I'm afraid she's gone and squeezed out somewhere under rafters, through a tiny gap somewhere... and escaped my new room. How on earth I'm going to get her back I've no idea now.

The picture sums up Bashful and Itchy quite well. As you can see from their faces, both are wondering where on earth their fat momma gremlin-swine's GOT TO!

Aaarghkkh!!

Come back, Spherical. Come back! Wherever you are...

... I'm afraid I think it's too late. I doubt I'll ever see her again.

RIP Spherical 2007-2008

Donna Summer: Dinner With Gershwin



This song, with its tunelessly funky spiralling down bit, had wiped clean out of my mind until the radio played it at an unearthily late hour of last night... 1987... Donna Summer

Blog of the Day:
NihonChihuahua にほん チワワ

Trotters: Now There Are Two + Human Trotterthon

>PICTURES: top three; clockwise from top ~ Floella Benjamin marathon runner; Blue Peter (Sarah Greene 2nd from left); Floella Benjamin Play School Presenter... bottom three clockwise from top ~ London marathon crossing Tower Bridge; dwarf Russian hammies in bowl; what Spherical might be doing in the big wild world (illustrated by Russian hammy, not a Roborovski)...

TODAY WAS THE LONDON MARATHON... I have to admit that in previous years such events have left me stone cold. Why on EARTH anyone would want to push themselves to running 26.2 miles when there are so many other achievable goals in the world totally beat me...

Then I heard children's TV presenter (she used to do Play School when I was a 5 year old kid: I was entranced by her clacking beaded hair) Floella Benjamin gave an interview to fellow former children's TV presenter Sarah "Greeno" Greene (of Blue Peter fame) ~ and somehow, some little spark inside me got inspired.

For a start I had got it fixed in my mind that a marathon was run ENTIRELY start to finish that is 1. NO STOPPING (at ALL!) and 2. NO WALKING WHATSOEVER. Neither of these fixations were true.

When I realized you were allowed to walk it and say you'd finished I suddenly realized... hey! I did 15, 20 mile walks as a 10 year old kid! Then when I realized that on top of this you were allowed to take tea, coffee and peeing breaks, suddenly the whole idea sounded more doable.

I am the stupid sort of person who (in lifetimes past and if I had known the above) would have gone for a marathon "just to prove I could do it"... dur!

So I watched it on mine and Mother Hubbard's screen pretty transfixed. A marathon! An apex of human achievement! And in the blustering, sunny, blue-and-white spring day, I (somehow) felt a sparkle of life renewed...

BUT NOW FROM HUMAN TROTTERTHONS TO GREMLIN TROTTERS: SPHERICAL HAS GONE MISSING! Yes! I don't know how she did it, but the fat old swine's gone AWOL!! How on earth I'm ever going to get her back I've no idea but I'm putting up a ramp into their glass enclosure and water so she doesn't dry to a crisp. And hoping she will just scuttle up while I'm sleeping and leap back home.

Otherwise she is done for. Please come back, Fat Momma Spherical. You're missed in Trotterovski Land. Spherical, Come Home!

IN THE NEWS: Tiny Tree Frog Causes Panic in British Mall ~ hopping free from bunch of bananas!

Specially for Vincent and Nicole in arachno-tastic ADELAIDE...
Click for my Terrifying Australian Spiders Link here! ~ including horrific Eastern Mouse Spiders and Sydney Funnel Webs... urkkh!!

Terrifying Australian Spider Identification Chart: including poison, pain and terror ratios and fully illustrated horrifically huge Mouse Spider yukkiness...!

Lovely Rooms: Tasteful Swedish Interior Decor blog... (press "Äldre inlägg" to see more)...

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Panama Travel Blog...

Re: the mystery of British Chinese takeaway-style curry sauce... Malaysian-Chinese curry cooking... Yeo's curry powder recommended!

Rambling Furry Boiled Eggs

A TROTTING GREMLINS POST ~ thought yous could all do with a change from my needle-happy misery.

Yes! All three Roborovski furballs, having been poked out of the lightbulb box they call home, have set up house in their second-favourite pitch, a all three furries dozing, preening, washing, ears-up, entertaining in a tiny tubby row, each a-clambering over the other and so entertaining in open air in the top lefthand corner of their tank...

A half an hour later and I've treble robo-fur trundling like a tubby horse race upon their wheel.

Seriously, three furballs in a row ~ where they do attempt dustbaths in the chewed newspaper shreddings ~ they look more like tiny tubby trotty gremlins here than anything else.

Yesterday my three had a great hour-long dig in their upside down diggery dome. Not only are they hilarious the way one disappears tubby bum into a hole only for another and then the last to tubbily follow... but they eventually emerge from said diggery with fur softer and total all-over body-brushed and less greasy, more conditioned and sandy coloured than ever before...

They make me want to pick them up and SQUEEZE them because they're so beady-eyed, petal-eared and tiny tiny TINY!!

Take care and have a charming weekend everyone!