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...