Chinese Socialist Realism

Capybara
Originally uploaded by The Cats Jungle.

So yellow page after yellow page. January is heading to its end and it's a wet Friday morning and I'm drinking coffee and putting off baliffs. It's been a month of Nutriment Spice Hotel and large cups of tea at airports. Lots of tea in fact, freshly prepared at our bedside.

The other day I was sitting in the soft chairs in the library which look out over the whole campus, reading through a book on "Faith in Fakes" (the grand plan! the grand plan. but this shall come later.) when I looked up, and there was Jed, performing a jig upon the Library steps. I also managed to find a book which attempted to biographise Sherlock Holmes as if he was a real character (which, of course, he was). So in Holmes's day, the place which is now 221 Baker Street is in fact part of Upper Baker Street. So where did Holmes live? Given the positioning of the cabs in The Hound of the Baskervilles, it seems reasonable to guess at somewhere in the early 60's. Number-wise. We get the side of the road, of course, from The Adventure of the Empty House.

I broke a substantial piece off my front tooth the other day. So I stuck it back in with superglue, putting the superglue in my back pocket in order to have it to hand, in case I broke my tooth again. And subsequently stuck myself to the chair for an awkward five minutes.

Little Wee Twee Tom's birthday. Anna and Maya made him a cake in the shape of a Pug. This was incredible. Daniel Taylor bought him a horse throw (a large medieval catapult device) and a sharp axe. Hence massive chunk missing from doorframe.

Maya (observing wee little baby Alfin, wandering eyes and hands clutching at invisible objects, making sounds). "Wow, he's doing that Tom-at-New-Years-Eve thing!".

Been round to see the New Family a couple of times, sat on Alice's big blue Orthopaedic Ball and drank tea and looked at wee little Alfin. Birth sounds intense. Dude.

I bought a Really Big Lightbulb.



(Observe Tucked-in-Shirt. Rosie tells me this is "hip". What it did point out is that Tommy's hip is over a foot further off the ground than mine. And he's over a foot taller than me. Hence, the height difference is all leg. Dude.)

-Fig. 2.-



Dear God.

Anyway, the Really Big Lightbulb (thanks to Jay for tipping me off what the 99p shop had to offer) sadly only lasted from my house to London Road before stopping working, although it does function as an efficient wine glass once the electrics are removed.

You did say Balfour Road, right?

Oh god. So, imagine, if you will, that we are all cordially invited to a soiree at the Maison de la Alex Poofy Head. Marvellous. As Rosanne and Daniel Taylor are off to some Fruit and Veg event dressed as a Cello and Bow (plump and gaunt), they arrange to join us later. "It's in Balfour Road. Opposite the Cobbler's Thumb". (Number removed to save Alex from blog-reading-visitors. Saying that, he might want that). Okay, so we went to the party. Splendid affair. Wine out of a lightbulb. Sitting on the roof. Icelandic people. Doctor Booth and Doctor Beige. Hot tub offers. Port and Bourbon and other hideously sweet drinks. Give me cherryade any day. Eating an onion like an apple with Dave the Machine. Walking and boking.

So it isn't until the next morning; "Oh, I wonder where Rosie and Daniel went last night" that the penny dropped. Alex doesn't live in Balfour Road. He lives in Argyle Road, opposite the Cobbler's Thumb. Balfour Road is about 2 miles out of town. A hazy memory of Daniel calling from a phone box. "Where are you?", he asked. "Balfour Road!", I responded, only to be cut off with some abuse. O god. They got to the Cobbler's Thumb. Walked up Argyle Road. And then got a taxi 2 miles out of town to Balfour Road to go to the 'party'. O god. Oops.

Pub Crawl. Kangaroo Boots.

So Kangaroo Boots are like boots, but they have a spring-like device on the soles allowing you to bound along, kangaroo-esque, at quite a pace. So after Tommy and Tom and Maya and I had cooked breakfast, we decided to take a stroll along the seafront. Despite the awkwardness of these boots in Waitrose earlier for breakfast-shopping, I figured the promenade would be a more suitable venue for kangaroo-esque bounding. And O, it was. Except after a bit of seafront strolling we ended up going to the pub. And then another pub. And before long it was about midnight and I was falling down the steps of Wetherspoons (O god. Nearly six years in Brighton and this is the first time I've been to Wetherspoons. And I'm wearing kangaroo boots and they're refusing to serve Daniel Taylor any more rum and so I have a go and I'm waving my rabbi card about and demanding booze and then as we leave I fall down a flight of steps because I've got these ridiculous boots on.)

One of those days, really.

And that's before we take into account the Bear Bash and the Really Big Newfoundlands and Victoria and the Penthouse and Phil Moody and the rat and the hamster and a mountain of pies, and I still haven't told you about Cornwall yet...

One of those days.

hamster!
Originally uploaded by bumpoowilly.

So Alice had a baby at eight o clock yesterday morning. Congratulations! Ed was there handing out cigars apparently.

To celebrate the birth of Alfin Jack Danger Impey, Little Wee Tom and Daniel Taylor each tried to drink six pints of milk in an hour. Daniel Taylor completed the 'milk challenge' with no bokage in 54 minutes. Tom had 4½ pints of milk by the time the hour was up.

Rosie, Tom, Tommy and Daniel Taylor came home with a hamster today. I'm not sure if we're responsible enough for a hamster. At least it isn't a duck. He's called Alfin.

Wrongbow

origami crayfish
Originally uploaded by -sou-.

So a lot of water has flown under our bridge.

From St. Albans, to Cornwall, to St. Albans, to Brighton, and here I am, complete with kangaroo boots and pine. The Latest 7 magazine called me a hussy.

So how to document what's been happening. On Satuday me and Rosanne found ourselves in The Victory drinking pints of Peculiarberg.



And then, as occasionally is the case, we end up having a sibling-esque fight. Sort of a ridiculous bar brawl with chairs being smashed over each others heads, and then I'm lying under the table and Rosie's kicking me, and then I throw her across the room and with a horrible crash, she collides with a wooden door, crumpling down onto the ground. Everyone in the whole pub looks round at what appears, to all intents and purposes, to be me, throwing a small girl into a heavy wooden door.

I'm going to get lynched, aren't I.

Thank goodness for our last minute emergency technique, which involves leaping into each others arms and explaining; "We're brother and sister!".

It almost always works. However, the final denoument in this theatre of the absurd is that one of the onlookers turns out to be Grace. Yes, Grace from St. Albans who we haven't seen in a couple of years. "You haven't changed a bit", she says. What's that supposed to mean?

On the plus side, I didn't get lynched as a wife beater, and Ro-ro was okay, and it was nice to see Grace too.

* * *

Saw Tommy in Jessops. He was on an errand to buy Andy a lens cleaner. Irony works in funny ways.

* * *

More about Cornwall to come. More about White Christmas to come.

* * *

Entertaining Amy around Brighton as she becomes the only person I've ever met to regularly absent-mindedly buy bottles of wine. Not to mention a great wave of vicarious broodiness. Alice is so fat these days. And it's only a matter of days before the wee child emerges from her womb. Before long it's going to be running around her front room rolling an orthopaedic ball before it like a sea lion. Or so I imagine, I've never seen the Wizard of Oz and I don't really know what children do.

* * *

The other day Dom glued a silvery-grey wig to his head, making him the spitting image of Steve Martin. Then he engaged in an unusual courtship ritual with this girl all dressed up in sepia. Now what would their children look like?

But the guttural mutterings of horny communist body builders was the symphony of healthy pleasure I needed.

The Death of St. Alban
Originally uploaded by Dolores Luxedo.

it's 2006 baby
last year i was 24

this year I'm going to be 25

so as we ran across the sand and dirt and bomb craters towards their trench, someone looked at us, and told us that we were getting a bit over the top.

and so with christmas over we spent a day with tea being made for us by the second best machine. machine! and then onto the carriage with little jo white and a tiny torch.

call. call!

"this ain't the summer of love"

so the next morning, down to Looe on the train. cod on, boody