Beautiful

"You used to see some hope, Teacher."
"That was such a long time ago."
"Not so long a time. Six years?"
"But in my mind the time is buried under centuries now. True, I used to see a lot of hope. I saw men tear down the veils behind which the truth had been hidden. But then, the same men, which when they have power in their hands at last, began to find the veils useful. They made many more. Life has not changed. Only some people have been growing, becoming different, that is all. After a youth spent fighting the white man, why should not the president discover as he grows older that his real desire has been to be like the white governor himself, to live above all blackness in the big old slave castle? And the men around him, why not? What stops them sending their loved children to kindergartens in Europe? And if the little men around the big men can send their children to new international schools, why not? That is all anyone here ever struggles for: to be nearer the white man. All this shouting against the white man was not hate. It was love. Twisted, but love all the same. Just look around you and you will see it even now. Especially now."
"I have looked, Teacher," said the man.
"I only wish I could speak with your contempt for what goes on. But I do not know whether it is envy that makes me hate what I see. I am not even sure that I hate it, Teacher."
"It should depend on what that person wants himself, no?"
"But, Teacher, what can I want? How can I look at Oyo and say I hate long shining cars? How can I come back to the children and despise international schools? And then Koomson comes, and the family sees Jesus Christ in him. How can I ever feel like a human being?"
"Yes. Life gets very hard when veranda boys are building palaces in a matter of months. If you come near people here they will ask you, what about you? Where is your house? Where have you left your car? What do you bring in your hand for the loved ones? Nothing? Then let us keep quiet and not get close to people. People will make you very sad that you do not have a house to make onlookers stumble with looking, or a car to make every walker know that a big man and his concubine have just passed. Let us keep quiet and watch."
The rain has not been much, and it has made scarcely any noise, but outside, the little gutters by the roadside had swift little streams in them now, brushing toward the sea, and the air was misty, as if the rainwater had not fallen, but remains suspended, gathering heaviness.
"Teacher," said the man, "you know it is impossible for me to watch things that go on and say nothing. I have my family. I am in the middle."
"Will you let yourself be destroyed first, then?"
"I don’t know. When I speak of Koomson my wife looks at the children and I can see how sorry she feels for herself."
"You will have to leave her to enjoy her own sorrow. Unless you are eager to destroy yourself to feed her desires. O you brave married man. In the end you have to see the redness of her gums. If it frightens you, you don’t get married at all. You run away like a coward, like me. But you are brave. You have chosen to fight her. And the whole society is behind her."
"It’s been a very soft rain," the man said after a pause.
"Yes," his friend said. Then, "I am sorry I have been unable to give you what you need."
"What is that?"
"Strength, I suppose."
The man laughed weakly. "Don’t worry," he said. "You know what you’re about. And you understand. That’s enough for me."
"You are kind," said the other. I know my life is empty, one thing yours is not. Now all I do is read books of other places and other times, listen to the music of South Africa and the Congo and the Afro-Americans. And often I remember Maanan and the bitterness and the emptiness of life rise up in me. That is all."
Near the place of the prostitutes there were little puddles left by the gentle rain, some beginning to flow, looking for gutters. Occasionally the naked bulbs of street lamps shed a little light on holes in the back walls of bathrooms filled with strands from communal sponges cemented with the green moss and old suds killed with dirt and sweat so long ago, and the water still trickling out.

(The beautyful ones are not yet born - Ayi Kwei Armah)

(NB: The unusual spelling of the above title is consistently ‘corrected’ by readers and editors. It is from an inscription on the back of a Ghanian taxi-bus which Armah chose to indicate his sardonic vision of the state and society of his country just before, during and after the reign of Kwame Nkrumah)

Excellent

“…time is not like space. And when you put something down somewhere, like a protractor or a biscuit, you can have a map in your head to tell you where you have left it, but even if you don’t have a map it will still be there because a map is a representation of things that actually exist so you can find the protractor or the biscuit again. And a timetable is a map of time, except that if you don’t have a timetable time is not there like the landing and the garden and the route to school. Because time is only the relationship between the way different things change, like the earth going round the sun and atoms vibrating and clocks ticking and day and night and waking up and going to sleep……

Time is a mystery, and not even a thing, and no one has ever solved the puzzle of what time is, exactly. And so, if you get lost in time it is like being lost in a desert, except that you can’t see the desert because it is not a thing.

And this is why I like timetables, because they make sure you don’t get lost in time"

(The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon)

Reasons why you should purchase 'David Bowie - The Platinum Collection'

1. Because it's awesome, and amazing, and genius.

2. Because frankly it would be a shame if no one else on the planet was ever caught dancing around an office, wiggling her arse by herself at 8:00am singing "Hot Tramp! I love you sooooo...."

Question of the Day

HOW GAY IS JASON ORANGE?!

Seriously! I don't ever remember him being that gay! Surely I would have remembered him being that gay....?

"I've been travelling, done some college courses, had a lot of time to sit... ponder... I'm 35 now and I should probably do something with my life but I'm not sure what... I have trouble sleeping though, I go to bed and I'm exhausted and then I can't sleep, I think it's something inside me willing me to fail..."

I'll tell you what it is, it's your body's way of telling you to GET A BLOODY JOB. You've done nothing for TEN YEARS, of course you can't sleep, your body is lying there going 'what's the point? Not like we need energy for anything for tomorrow...'.

It'd probably like a bit of cock though...

Strangest Conversation I’ve had all week, in fact, if I’m honest, the strangest conversation I think I’m ever going to have in my whole life.

Scene – I am sat in the office of a college which is being inspected, during inspection, inspectors are able to wander around the college at will, popping into classes to observe.

A tutor rushes into the office and approaches me.

Me; Can I help?

Her; They can’t come in!

Me; Who can’t come in?

Her; The inspectors, they can’t come in, the angels won’t like it

Me; I’m sorry, what?

Her; The angels say they can’t come in

Me; Who are the angels?

Her; The angels, the angels from God, they came this morning and told me that the inspectors cannot come into my class, today is a very bad day.

Me; Urm, right then, I’m not sure I can tell the inspectors that, they kind of think they can go wherever they like because, well, they can go wherever they like.

Her; But they can’t come to my class, not today.

Me; Right (I look around the room for help but everyone is either hiding under their desks or convulsing over them) I’m not sure what to say, uh, do you think that you could have a word with the angels and ask if, maybe it would be ok for them to observe for, like, 20 minutes or so?

Her; I don’t know (wrings her hands) I’ll have to ask them.

Me; Could you then? Only it’s quite important.

Tutor walks into the corner and begins singing to the wall in what I think is Latin but could always just be THE LANGUAGE OF THE CRAZY BONKERS, she waits, then comes back.

Her; Ok, they say 20 minutes will be fine.

Me; Excellent, thank you very much.

The reason I am under accesorised

Where I am working this week is currently being inspected, this is quite a big deal and means everyone has to look respectable, keep their heads down, BE ABLE TO RECITE THE MANIFESTO, and generally change their personalities as much as is humanly possible.

So I thought I'd make the effort and look like a proper consultant rather than a pretend one. I got out my smartest suit, and, inspired by Miss Lizzie, I dug out this rather pretty silver bangle someone bought me because I thought it would look nice and compliment the suit.

First thing anyone said to me as I walked through the door this morning?

"So, when the inspectors ask me why we're employing gypsies, what shall I tell them?"

Overtired and underaccesorised.

This morning I was struck by the realisation that I was entering the identification codes of registers onto an access database to create a 'register of registers'. It really has come to this, I cannot adequately express my incredulity at how different my life is from what I thought it would be.

But that's ok.

However, last night and the night before, I wasted an hour and a half each night watching the abysmal bollocks that was the ITV drama 'Walk away and I stumble'. For Fucks Sake, how manipulative and just plain bad does a piece of television have to be?! Tamsin Outhwaite was bad, Mark Strong was bad, that woman off that other awful TV thing was bad, and yet, when the denoument was upon me last night (loving that word 'denoument', but have possibly spelt it horribly wrong, will say exposition instead), and yet, when the exposition was upon me, I found myself crying like a baby.

So that's the second time in one evening I have found myself crying at some dreadful piece of TV, the first being when a hyperactive American made over some crazy woman's house (he gave it a lift - A LIFT!), she was screaming "It's so AWESOME", and "Oh My GOD", and I nearly threw a brick through the television. Except then her son came to see it and he was in a wheelchair after a terrible accident and he was crying, and she was crying and then I was crying...

I know what you're thinking, and it's not, I know that it sounds like it is, but it's really not, that's been and gone, which makes it all the more weird....

Only thing for it, going to have to either give up TV altogether, or just watch porn.

The reason I should never have signed up to Telewest

Extreme Makeover Home Edition made me cry.

Email

Me: I'm just so fucking cold.

Her: Put the heating on then.

Me: It's not that, this office is populated by middle aged women who have to have the air conditioning on because 'they need the air'.

Her: Tell them you're too cold.

Me: Well I keep mentioning that it's cold but they just tell me I am younger than they are, I'll give them air, I've got a whole box of HRT at home, I should bring it in and spike their coffee with it, that'll warm them up.

Her: Wear warmer clothes.

Me: I'm going to dress like Scott of the fucking Antarctic tomorrow.

Her: Am trying to hold back giggles at the thought if Scott of the Antarctic in heels.

Me: Bet he had awesome legs.

Her: knobhead.

This morning, before I switched my brain on...

Walked into the ladies toilet, looked into the loo as needs must before placing delicate arse upon it's shiny white seat and found that the water in the bottom was dark blue.

First thought?

'Christ, someone's ill.....'

www.Nixwords.blogspot.com

Had email today from a lovely lady from uni who has started one of these here blogamathingies, so have passed on this address and willl hence forth pass on all my incredible blogging knowledge -

Pearl of wisdom number one - Never say anything about anyone that you wouldn't say to their face, because when they find your blog and read it, that will be soooooo very bad.

Pearl of wisdom number two - Never talk about your family, see above.

Pearl of wisdom number three - Never talk about work or work colleagues in such a specific way that you may get dooced for it, see above.

Pearl of wisdom number four - Never post random photo's, that will only serve to highlight your poor photographic abilities.

Pearl of wisdom number five - Never post photo's of yourself, that will only serve to highlight your poor photogenic abilities.

Pearl of wisdom number six - Imagine the one person in the world who you wouldn't want reading your blog finding it and reading it, all the stuff you would never ever want them to know is where you draw the line, see number one.

Pearl of wisdom number seven - Never mention your boyfriend's bits, see number one.

Pearl of wisdom number eight - Rant, rant loads, this is the greatest and best outlet for ranting I have ever found, so what if people think you're hysterical, they probably thought that already.

Pearl of wisdom number nine - Stop caring about punctuation, you know the saying 'life is too short to stuff mushrooms'? Well life is also too short to give a crap about comma's/commas/commas'/com'mas/c'o'm'm'a's'.

Pearl of wisdom number ten - Wear matching underwear, one day you might wake up in intensive care, and when they tell you that they cut off your trousers and you remember the yellow bra purple knickers combination you were wearing, you're going to be so embarassed.

Because I could post a photo of the Eiffel Tower, but you'd be expecting that...

Armistice Day 2005

Craglockhart

No doubt they'll soon get well; the shock and the strain
Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk.
Of course they're 'longing to go out again'-
These boys with old, scarred faces, learning to walk.
They'll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed
Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,-
Their dreams that drip with murder; and they'll be proud
Of glorious war that shatter'd all their pride...
Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;
Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.

Siegfried Sassoon, October 1917

It's a sad, sad day when you realise your boyfriend is right and you are wrong.

Last night, in an effort to drag my miserable arse back to life, we went to the pub. I don't normally drink mid week but thought it would be ok, clearly I thought this because I had forgotten exactly why I don't drink mid week.

I suffer from the most horrendous hang overs, and I suffer from them at the mere sniff of anything alcoholic. They hit at about 6.30am and the worst is usually over by 11, so the only way to deal with them is to sleep through it. Hence! (because you should always follow the word Hence! with a capital letter) I don't drink mid week, because I have to be up for work in the morning.

Last night though, I thought it would be ok, and to be fair, I only drank two (large) glasses of red wine but then on the way home the motorway was closed (Oh The Swearing) and we ended up on the south bound M40 which leads, not to my house, but to Oxford and ultimately London. This meant we had to go a different way home and to cut a long and, as I'm sure you'll have figured out by now, incredibly boring story short, we were very late, at least two hours later than my have-to-be-asleep-or-I-am-unable-to-function-in-the-morning time.

Unfortunately, I also had my red wine head on rather than my sensible mid week head on, and my red wine head wanted to stay up and do rude things. Glenn, who had not had a drink but had spent the evening being chased down a field by large, hairy men (I believe in some circles they call it 'rugby') said 'sweetness, are you sure, I don't want to dampen your spirits but you'll regret this in the morning when you can't wake up' (what he actually said was something like 'GET OFF ME WOMAN' but for the sake of his internet reputation I've edited it slightly), but my red wine head was like 'I have had two glasses of wine! I am INDESTRUCTABLE! Bring it on with the rudeness! How much do you love me? Huh? HUH?! HOW MUCH?!'.

And now, I really, really wish I had just gone to sleep.

For goodness sake...

...I wanted to DYE, not DIE a wedding dress.

Honestly.

Delete

You know when you're over something, because it happened a long time ago and by now you absolutely should be over it, but it plays on your mind and you think about it late at night and you have all these unanswered questions and even though you are happy now, happier than you ever though you could be, you still wrestle with these moments of panic and sickness whenever you think about it, or someone mentions it unexpectedly.

The out of the blue, you get a chance to ask all the questions you ever needed to, you get a chance to talk and make peace and have some sort of closure.

But you don't do any of those things, you make polite and awkward conversation, you tell each other how happy you are, how accomplished you are, you reflect on things in a 'weren't we young and silly' sort of way, and you never say what you really want to because you think that because you have found yourself able to talk, you don't need to anymore.

Then it's months later and there it is again, the nagging, stabbing thoughts, only the chance has gone, and even though you could ask the questions you need to so you can sleep at night, you can't because you're afraid of what you might hear. You're afraid of what you might find out about yourself, about back then, about opening up old wounds which you never closed properly, wounds which split open and weep and sting.

And you're back where you started.

...and the story is...

... that I wanted to get a hideous and cheap wedding dress, chuck it around in the garden, die it with tea and go as the corpse bride, but for some reason, hideous and cheap wedding dresses are really hard to find.

So I ended up getting a hideous bridesmaids dress (circa 1982) from a charity shop for the bargain price of £2 (I washed it so it didn't have that dubious charity shop smell don't worry) and then ripped it up a bit, sewed some spiders on it, stuck some fake wounds on myself and here is the end result:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mochinbach/60013668/

(because I don't know how to do that thing where you have 'and here is the end result' in a different colour because it is in itself the link)

The back story to the costume is that I am a bridesmaid who was on her way home from the wedding and was attacked by a particularly lust fueled Vampire (hence the odd, nipple type bite wounds stuck on my neck that you can't see because, for a long dead Vampire, I have very shiny hair) and now I walk the streets at night, searching for my next victim, furious not just because of the fact that I am now a Vampire myself, but because I am consigned to an eternity in the worst bridesmaids dress ever to be forced upon creation....

Then, about halfway through the night, after explaining this story, some smart arse said 'but I don't get the spiders', so then I was just Zombie Bridesmaid.

I think it was the fourth Halloween party of Moch and LOF's that I have been to, it was the first one I actually got a costume for and no, I will not be doing it to myself again.

(And what the fuck is it with the double chin? Seriously, did the fat just work its way up to my face for one night only or is that what I actually look like because if it is, you have permission to shoot me just as soon as you are able)

Conversations and an observation at a fireworks display

1.

Him: Did you see all those people dressed up back there?

Me: Yeah, the ones collecting money for charity?

Him: Yeah, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying and I was looking at one of them wondering what she was saying and why she was dressed up and then as we walked past them she suddenly looked me straight in the eye and said “CHILDREN WITH AIDS”, I was really confused…

Me: (Laughing) well you should feel bad about the CHILDREN WITH AIDS, did you give her any money?

Him: I couldn’t find any change.

Me: Oh dear…

Him: So I gave her some of your money.

Me: Well wasn’t that nice of me?

Him: Yes it was.



2.


After feeling like a bloody great mammoth for the majority of the last two
months (just one long, extended fat day), I have felt pretty good this week
on my healthy eating plan, and then yesterday morning in the hotel, noticed
some scales and as I haven't weighed myself since July I thought I'd get on
them with one eye shut and standing on one leg (because that is BOUND to
make me lighter) and I have lost a stone since July apparently. Think this
is probably the scales rather than me, different scales say different things
according to my mother, but it made me feel better so that's ok.

In celebration, I had a samosa, I am RADICAL


3.

Me: Can you smell that?

Moch: Yeah, does it make you want some? Does it? Eh? Does it?

Me: Yeeeeeeah, I’ve got some but I lost it, it was in my underwear drawer, think G’s hidden it in a non-approving way, like the time he put it in the lampshade in the living room and then giggled behind a cushion while I tried to find it.

Moch: Either that or I’ve hidden it in a non-approving way…

LOF: And then she’s given it to me and I’ve had it…

Me: Is that’s what’s happened to it?

Moch: Could be….

Me: I’m so shocked!

Moch: (Laughing) Not really you dafthead, haven’t touched it, think Mr Dz might have it though…

Me: Mr Dz, have you been going through my underwear drawer?

Mr Dz: (confused as has been out of ear shot of the conversation), eh? What? Who now?

Me: Have you been looking through my pants?

Mr Dz: (sly smile on his face) noooooooooo, me?

Me: Oh! It’s you! You’ve been through my knicker drawer!

Mr Dz: I’m denying all knowledge.

Me: So is it you who took my pink bra because it’s gone AWOL and now I just have the knickers and I can’t wear them if I haven’t got the bra…

Moch: how the hell did this conversation happen?
Me: Seriously now, has anyone seen my pink bra?

Nothing to say but as God is my witness I'll say it.

Have one of those headaches where you feel like your eyes are being pulled out of your skull one way and your brain is being pulled out of your skull the other way, urgh, it's so disgusting, just feel sick. Predictably the painkillers are on the kitchen table, 220 miles away from home, someone in this office might offer me one when the blood starts dripping out of my ears.

I am going to talk more about Paris at some point, I am working on a tres witty and entertaining report but it's not quite ready for your delectation just yet.

But have to tell you about Team Kitchen, who spent Saturday working their little and large arses off and have finished all the big jobs that have been plaguing me since, ooh, about June. Will post some photographs so you can have visual evidence of what has been boring you to death asap. In the meantime rest assured that other than a post moaning about the painting jobs and general finishing off that I have to do, the kitchen saga is no more! It even has a door hung proudly (nudge nudge) between the kitchen and living room now so I can have, shock! Two separate spaces...! My God, the luxury...

AND I have a blind in the living room, so my front room window no longer provides a cinema screen view into my life for all the neighbours, passing cars, double decker buses, health visitors, postmen, loitering teenagers, old people, dog walkers, that previously looked into my house daily, everyone wave now!

Next stop... The Bathroom....

And the pre-Christmas diet started on Monday, so far I have only had the urge to violate it once and that involved a cup of lentil soup that I resisted so doing quite well so far... My mantra, which I heard on the radio at some point, is 'If it swims, it thins!' which means my diet at the moment consists of salad and tuna sandwiches on wholemeal bread for lunch and steamed vegetables and fish for dinner, at some point I will rip the leg off a still sqwarking chicken I am sure but thus far (and we're on day three remember) I am ok.

Glenn has attempted to make the diet more interesting (not that I'm making him conform to it, he eats the same as he always has) by arguing that as the mantra sort of rhymes, I should be able to eat other food that fits it, like 'if it's in tins, it thins' and 'if it has limbs, it thins', but I will not be fooled! I am following the my mother school of weight loss, which means I should weigh absolutely nothing by Christmas, if this doesn't work then there's nothing for it but to break out the crack. You got to love that crack.