We no longer have a garden. The garden at our old house was gigantic and field-adjacent and very pretty, and I will miss it. However, we now have an enclosed courtyard with white walls, which is a total suntrap and very Mediterranean and I-motherf’ing-DEAL for barbequeing. And it puts a lot less pressure on me to actually garden. I like ‘garden’ very much as a noun but not quite so much as a verb. I think of myself as a green thumb sort of person, but I’m much better with potted plants than free-range. So the courtyard definitely falls into the ‘plus’ category. (Added bonus: our house adjoins a passageway leading from our street to the centre of town, so we get to eavesdrop from behind the wall on wonderfully random snippets of conversation. But not whole conversations, which are just annoying, because people as a rule are stupid. This is key.)
Simon is very good at practical, get-shit-done stuff. When we moved into the new house, we tried to put the refrigerator in the designated refrigerator area next to the cabinets, but it was about an inch too wide. “Oh woe!” I though. “The refrigerator does not fit! We shall have to sell it and buy a smaller one.” But Simon just got on the phone to the letting agency and told them we’d need the built-in cabinets shifted. I didn’t know that was even possible. Did you know that was even possible? Apparently it is. A handyman showed up one morning, and a few hours later the fridge fit properly. (The handyman was awesome, too: he happily accepted a can of lager at ten in the morning, and very helpfully told Simon where ‘the snatch’ hangs out in St Ives. I myself would like to see this St Ives Snatch, for by all accounts it is a fearsome creature!)
And now…a collage sheet. These leafy, flowery squares are 2.5″x2.5″ – great for extra large pendants, magnets, cardmaking, scapbooking and all manner of creative output!
See my Etsy shop for details.
Tesco’s? TESCO.
This is something that has always bothered me: when people add an unnecessary apostrophe-S to the end of shop names. It is not ‘Tesco’s’. It is ‘Tesco’. THAT’S WHAT IT SAYS ON THE SIGN. The weird thing is, though, that some shops consistently get this treatment and some never do. I hear ‘Tesco’s’ all the time, but I never hear ‘Waitrose’s’ or ‘Somerfield’s’. Marks & Spencer gets turned into ‘Marks & Spencer’s’ almost invariably (yes, it really is just ‘Marks & Spencer’), but Primark is always just Primark, H&M is always just H&M. Why? WHYYYYYYYY? What does this bizarre hive-mindedness mean? At least MAKE YOUR OWN MISTAKES, people.
Alice in Wonderland
I went to see this with Simon and the Stepdaughter. We didn’t read any reviews beforehand (deliberately), and I was about 50% optimistic that it might not be crap: Johnny Depp! Tim Burton! Helena Bonham Carter! 3D! Johnny Depp! Johnny Depp! (Yes, Johnny Depp is SO HOT that he equals three positives.) But…damn. It is crap. Holy god, it is SO CRAP. I mean, it looked cool, and the 3D was way-way-super-cool, but about twenty minutes in I experienced a wave of profound existential despair at the prospect of having to sit through the rest of the film. I actually tried to fall asleep, but couldn’t. The writing is so bad it’s almost insulting. No, scratch that: it IS insulting. Lewis Carroll, grave, spinning; you get the idea. They took about six basic ideas from the books (rabbit hole, Mad Hatter, Queen of Hearts, Cheshire Cat, Jabberwocky) and then filled in the gaps where the PLOT SHOULD HAVE BEEN with some wooly Walt Disney bullshit about how Alice is the Chosen One destined to slay the Jabberwocky but has to BELIEVE IN HERSELF, or something? I dunno. I was really, really trying not to pay attention. On the plus side, the film made me want to read the Alice books again, if only to get the foul taste out of my mouth.
Et voila some new collage sheets POUR VOUS, mes amis! I really like my skull-headed ladies: I combined Victorian fashion drawings with medical diagrams of skulls, and the result is sort of Tim Burton-y. BUT IN A GOOD WAY. See my Etsy shop for details…
Skull-Headed Ladies
Inspirational Words
This is a lazy, lazy post: a list made up of other lists. These are some of my favourite McSweeney’s lists. (I have a big website crush on McSweeney’s. McSweeney’s is cool.)
1. Things Not Overheard at a Conceptual-Art Gallery Opening (“Well, that’s obvious, but what do the other three midgets represent?”)
2. Actual Superheroes From the Pages of International and Obscure Comic Books Who Are Unlikely to See Their Origin Stories Developed Into Movies (“Canadian Ninja”)
3. My Attempt to Further Depress a Particularly Unfunny List, Sent to Me by Someone at Work, by Making Random Remarks (“Your hairdresser is straight, your plumber is gay, the woman who delivers your mail is into S&M, and your Mary Kay rep is a guy in drag. This would make an interesting TV sitcom.“)
4. YouTube Comment or e.e. cummings? (“stunned. i. am. stunned. every question speaks to us”)
5. Things Koala Bears Would Say (“No, you’re the cutest ever.”)
6. Terrible Poetry Jokes (“POUND (to Whitman): Shut the fuck up.”)
…and some of my favourite Book of Ratings lists. (O Lorre! Whither have you departed? Come back and carry on rating my world!)
1. The A-Team (“If you’re going to name yourself after a body part, make it one you can hit people with.”)
2. Artificial People (“Remove their heads so we can see what we’d look like in an Old Navy jacket after the revolution comes and we’re beheaded for wearing an Old Navy jacket.”)
3. Hobo Signs: part 1, part 2, part 3 (“You’d think the symbol for ‘man with gun’ would have something at least vaguely resembling a man or a gun. This looks more like the symbol for ‘moose in a tent.’”)
4. Canadian Snack Foods (“It’s like really gross food, only made by Jesus.”)
5. Apes and Monkeys (“Excuse me, Mr. Rampaging Killer? Why don’t you put down the gun and take a look at this hand-held monkey?”)
English town names are hilarious. Well, I think so, because I am Foreign. As for Simon, he collapses in fits of mirth every time I say the word ‘Okanagan’. What’s wrong with ‘Okanagan’? It’s a perfectly dignified, bastardised-beyond-recognition Native Canadian word. I haven’t told him yet that the Okanagan Lake is (ALLEGEDLY) home to a giant serpent-monster called Ogopogo. I think it might send him over the edge.
Anyway, we’re here to make fun of the English, so here we go! These are real place names, people, mostly from East Anglia, because That Is Where I Live:
Steeple Bumpstead, and its sister city…
Helions Bumpstead
Shingay-cum-Wendy
Bishop’s Stortford
Fotheringhay
Apethorpe
Wittering
Stansted Mountfitchet
Wendens Ambo
Mucking
Saint Mary’s Hoo (which I am unable not to think of as ‘Saint Mary’s Hoo-Ha’)
Feckenham
North Piddle
Smug Oak
Oxlease
Tyttenhanger
Ah, the long car journeys just fly by with comedy like this at every road junction! And speaking of car journeys, as of tomorrow I’ll be heading for western Scotland for a lovely week of cowering in a poorly erected tent to avoid being assaulted by midges and rain. At least I’ll have places like ‘Windy-Yett’ and ‘Coilantogie’ to keep my spirits up.
And here is my newest collage sheet – travel-inspired, too! in that it has bits of old map on. The images are 2” x 1”, perfect for domino tile pendants.
I’m a bit worried about my crazy guy. Have I mentioned that I have a pet crazy guy? No, I don’t mean Simon. (Well, OK, not only Simon.) He’s just a loony guy I see on the streets of Cambridge nearly every day on my way to and from work, and who cheers me up every time I see him. I haven’t seen him in nearly two weeks, and I’m getting a bit concerned. Perhaps he’s been abducted by aliens. Perhaps he thinks he’s been abducted by aliens, but actually he’s trapped in a shed or something. Hey, Crazy Dude, if you’re out there: are you OK?
I’ve never actually spoken to my crazy guy. I just see him out of my car window. He’s a young guy, fairly clean-looking and well dressed – he doesn’t appear to be homeless. Or, if he is homeless, he’s pretty fastidious about his personal grooming. He wears a yellow-green windbreaker and has his bike with him all the time. I’d have thought he was a bike courier, except that he’s obviously crazier than a bag of badgers. This is clear simply because he looks so damn happy all the time. No sane person could possibly be that happy.
I first noticed him on the corner of Lensfield and Hills Road, in front of the Catholic church, smiling and laughing and looking like he was having a whale of a time. I looked around to see who was making him laugh, but he seemed to be alone. He sort of stuck in my mind – possibly because he looks a little like a young Robyn Hitchcock (who is also mad as a shoe, and but by the grace of his uncanny musical talent would probably also be talking to invisible people on a street corner somewhere) – and since then I’ve seen him regularly, always along Lensfield Road or the Fen Causeway. That seems to be his turf. He is always smiling. Sometimes he dances or waves at cars. The highlight of our acquaintance was the day I spotted him wearing a halo made of tinsel and wire, like the kind kids wear in their school Christmas play when they’re stuck being angels. He was waving at cars that day (maybe he has a rota: dance Tuesdays and Thursdays, wave at cars Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays), and I waved at him as I passed. He jumped up and down, looking out of his mind with joy (literally), waving enthusiastically with one hand and clutching his halo with the other hand. Bless!
I’m dying to talk to him. I bet he’d say something totally awesome. I’ve become a bit obsessed with him, actually. Who is he? What is he like? How does he manage to support a full-time vocation of waving at cars at roundabouts and yet still look so clean and well fed? Most importantly, who are his imaginary friends, and could I borrow them? They’re obviously far more entertaining than the everyday corporeal sort. Come back, Crazy Dude! I miss you!
