JUST AFTER FOUR PM I met my Mum and her Brian just off Picadilly Circus (no clowns, elephants, trapeze artists or dwarves shooting out of canons - it's merely a glorified traffic circle with humungous video screens glinting and flashing high up the sides of otherwise elegant stucco buildings).
We went into a nearby restaurant where they had nachos and cheese and I had a Siamese green curry that smacked of some kind of lime pickle type substance. It was rather pleasant.
When Brian said, "Shall we get a re-ocka?" I said OK - not realizing he meant Rioja. Which I'd always pronounced "Ree-Oh-Jah". No wonder I used to get such funny looks down the wine merchants'.
We talked about: Amy Winehouse, Lilly Allen, tropical fishes, cigarette smoke, France (where they have a cottage) compared with Britain (it is much better, especially the health service), the French proclivity for sunbathing beside and swimming in inland freshwater lakes as an alternative to the seaside and whether or not I should pretend to be a retarded English as third language asylum seeker with a rape conviction and surname Ndebe to assist job applications at local Council. (Concencus was: if I do, I'll get job with flying colours. I'll just have to pretend to be albino.) And so on and so on.
Afterwards they vanished into the tube while I perused a giant Virgin Records store (almost as big as some provincial department stores), which was full of Chinese tourists (Japanese tourists are so passe these days) - who all seemed totally conversant with e.g. how to scan CD's barcode into a headphones dispenser which then played any track you wanted to hear from said CD... with no need to insert CD into any machine... (all tracks of all CDs were evidently on some central "system"). All this newfangledness made me feel extraordinarily elderly. When I walked into a record shop last week for the first time in about seven years I was so not with it I got confounded: "Why so many film soundtracks?" Until a member of staff helpfully pointed out that I was in fact perusing the DVDs and not CDs. "Well they're all silver discs," I retorted. But didn't dare speak this thought aloud. Feeling like a pensioner I hobbled over to the actual music section.... Anyway, today I walked out of Virgin with a £5 copy of Leftfield's Leftism - which is one of thee best albums of the 1990s. Shoplifting was such a temptation as the CDs were in the cases and half the staff looked like drug addicts anyhow. Until I glanced 'cross the floor to a burly store-D's icy gaze which prompted my quick scurry to the front tills...
Aparently I can keep fish in the Chinese hammy's tank (he would go in next door's recycling box: they never use it). The tank is designed for fish and fully waterproof but only holds a paultry 7 gallons/27 litres. I can have ten diddy fish in there. I thought the remnants of hammy's wee and pooze would kill them off but aparently not so if I soak it out in a strong brine solution for three days... All I'd need then is an airpump (£10), box filter (£5) and heater (£20) and a bit of glass to stop the frog escaping and wahey! There has to be a frog... And a giant snail ("apple snail") and a couple of shrimps... Which leaves room for ... not many fish but hey. (The shrimps are transparent but well funky. They are sold by the bagful as live goldfish food so I'd probably get two for 10p if not for free...)
Is it really boring when I babble on about pets all the time?
O by the way: thanks for all your messages re: I do not have anything wrong with me; lots of people get inertia at various times.
In her autobiography, Marianne Faithfull declares that she became almost paralysed by apathy and will-less-ness at her addiction's lowest depths. She also said that she knew to stop when the pain of living with drugs came to exceed the pain of living without. In an interview she subsequently stated: "I'd tried to kill myself and it hadn't worked," (she fixed up all the heroin she had, fell down the stairs in an overdosed state and broke her jaw but lived;) "I realized that I was just going to have to make it."
Which is pretty much how I feel.
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Debs: in answer to your query, the music to which today's Diana tribute was set is by Enya. Who was originally lead singer of Clannad. I will post up one of her best tunes tomorrow...
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Hey did no-one watch or like the teenage kid's alternative video to Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive?
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O BTW here's my blog recommendation of the day: Muench Bunch News
Leave it to Ms. Faithful to encapsulate a thought perfectly into words.
ReplyDelete"I'd tried to kill myself and it hadn't worked. I realized that I was just going to have to make it."
That pretty much sums it up though there are good sides and bad sides to the actuality of it.
Good Wishes Gleds,
WS
Babble all you like Mr G... as well as a horrible and infamous dog, I have two hamsters, one Russian and one Chinese. I Got one, and then thought it was lonely, so I got the second one, thinking it was the same species. They took one look at each and then decided to bite each others faces off... The fat one came of worse and the Chinese one got exiled...so now I have two hamster cages.People think Im nuts, like one of those old ladies with hundreds of cats and rabbits and things...
ReplyDeleteGleds, that tribute to Diana had me reaching for the tissues...especially with Enya singing so soulfully as accompaniment...just too sad to lose a beautiful young woman like that in her prime.
ReplyDeleteNah, keep talking about your pets...I talk to mine...and they answer! Lol!
Take care of your self and I hope the inertias have disappeared by now.
Cheers!
I watched the teen kids Gaynor tribute. It wasn't without merit. At least I managed to watch to the end, although a part of me was screaming 'stop!'
ReplyDeleteWayward: Marianne Faithfull's autobiog is quite good... at least once she stops jabbering about her time with Mick Jagger and switches attention to herself which is a far more interesting topic
ReplyDeleteMutley: I could have told you that about hamsters! Chinese ones hate company of any small animals, including other Chinese hamsters let alone other species! That's why the Russian one came off worse in the fight. Chinese hamsters are highly territorial. You could have got another Russian hamster for your Russian and they would probably have gone together no problem. I was told if you're nervous about mixing them in you put bits of each other's bedding in the other's nest a few days before introducing the animals themselves. That way they know one another's smell in advance and fighting is forestalled. Supposedly
Puss-in-Boots: I used to feel as inert as an inertia reel seatbelt. Now I feel more like a child safety seat so I suppose I'm better
Tickersoid: I thought the teenager's I Will Survive was very witty and entertaining... innit!?!
Ciao, Gleds. When I was a little girl and first went to Piccadilly circus, I cried 'cos there were no clowns! Your pronunciation of "Rioja" is correct. Please tell me the hammy is OK? Not at all boring when you write about pets - and your blog's not boring in any way at all! MF summed it up, didn't she? You are doing well, Gleds. Auguri
ReplyDeleteWow. I've been gone for two weeks and you're actually going to appointments, have developed an interest in buying music, are worried about your plants and are having semi-decent meetings with your mum. That seems like pretty decent progress.
ReplyDelete