Welcome to Acerbia; population: π
This is the archive of the many and fabulous adventures of . Like a hard-bitten son of Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius taught to write by William S. Burroughs; continually reincarnated, debated over by intellectuals and literati at cocktail parties the author can't get invited to, the target of scorn and ire from women everywhere, frequently mistaken for a former member of the Warsaw pact, named after the Italian explorer Giuseppe Acerbi, slowly rewriting the Book of Cataclysm, this is postmodern fiction at its most playful and creative.
Utterly, utterly useless
With the wonders of the Internet I think I may have just diagnosed my mousemat with Osler's disease!
Its simply covered in small black tar-like mounds, although not blue around the edges it is black, I've never seen it move so I suspect total instead of partial paralysis and its been a pale grey color since I got it!
Oh wait...
Nevermind. Just needs cleaning.
The After Lunch Coma
I remember my Philosophy classes in Lycée were all after lunch breaks. Was it any wonder that the class would degenerate into utter pacified uninterested mush and more entertaining events would take place, like the Rubber Band Wars of Kant, named such because one classmate claimed they were a physical embodiment of the internal conflict between man's need for civilisation and his primal animal instincts before letting loose and hitting someone across the room in the eye.
By the time it got to the Spitballs of Sartre, we were pushing it though. What would you expect from an all male class of techies forced to do philosophy though? Didn't help that the teacher had already been through one nervous breakdown and would foam at the corner of his mouth at times...
So there was a meeting in my office, a general meeting about some HR issues, free attendance for anyone who had the time. This was timed to coincide with everyone getting back from lunch so the general apathy of "Its already waited an hour it can wait the twenty minutes more the meeting will take" (ha! 20 minute meeting my ass!) kicked in.
There must be some metabolistic function that means all you want to do after a good lunch is sleep. Especially if you're sitting in large comfy leather chairs, in a delightfully cooled A/C room, sitting behind the person giving the presentation from their laptop.
Towards the end of the hour-long presentation the score was, two asleep, three picking at facial orifices, one spinning pen on tabletop and another checking his PDA for mail. I wish I'd had my GBA handy...
FYI
Walking along Oxford Street I had to suddenly stop as the man in front of me seemed to lose the will to walk forward at a kerb. I leaned forward out of the crowd around me and said:
"Its thought that the merry wanderer, Puck, from Shakespeare's 'Midsummer Night's Dream' is another facet of Jack in the Green, and that this pagan symbol is the reason behind so many pubs in this country being called 'The Green Man'. Do you know what you're supposed to do when you see him?"
He sort of shook his head, still unsure why I was talking to him.
"Cross the bloody road."
Farmyard Equation
Nobody has got back to me about how two halfs making a double yet, but here's another for you. From a week's keen observation of the eating habits of chicks and chickens...
Chicks and chickens spend all day scraping around in dirt chasing moths and eating worms. The next morning we collect fresh free-range eggs with bright yellow yolks that could glow in the dark. We eat the eggs.
Only now does the full horror of the truth come forward; eggs are made up of dead bugs digested by chickens!
Next: Where milk comes from...
Template for a Seinfeld script
1) Begin in Jerry's apartment, within the first minute at least two other regular cast members must enter the apartment either by buzzing up or by throwing themselves through the door. They must go via the fridge unless Jerry is already at the fridge.
2) One of the following happens:
- If George enters, he must complain about a new girlfriend or his parents.
- If Elaine enters, she must whine about being single or needing new clothes.
- If Kramer enters he must either have a crackpot scheme or be interested in helping out the others with theirs.
- If Newman enters he will not have mail for Jerry, he will however sneer.
3) Kramer's crackpot scheme or an event Jerry has planned will be dissected and Jerry will make a joke into a question with an open-ended, hands-out gesture, nodding his head slightly.
4) The episode will then follow the plot threads started in the opener with:
- Elaine complaining to her boss/colleagues/Jerry
- George doing anything to save money, his job or the chance of sex.
- Kramer being blissfully unaware that his scheme is crazy.
5) Jerry will perform on stage and have nothing funny to say.
6) The episode winds up with the threads coming together again in Jerry's apartment:
- Elaine doesn't get what she deserves
- George is worse off than he was to begin with
- Kramer has either given up on his idea or lost interest in it now that everyone agrees with it.
- Jerry will try and make light of their troubles and make at least one reference to Superman, baseball or how much money he makes as a comedian.
7) The episode closes with Jerry on stage doing either a reprise of his earlier performance with more scathingly obvious comments or indirectly commenting on the morality of his friend's actions during the episode. The last freeze-frame will again be Jerry with his hands out in an "I don't get it" gesture, with a scrunched-up look on his face.
This should in no way hide the fact that I *hate* Seinfeld
Stars in my eyes...
So, the flight back was uneventful, aside from meeting Colm Meaney in CDG airport, and sitting beside some television presenter on the plane back to Heathrow. I cannot find out who she is... I have a vague idea she does a travel show and I felt uncomfortable leaning over and saying "I recognise your face, and your voice but... who the hell are you?"
Turned out it was Emma Forbes
Guess you'd better slow that Mustang down... not!
So, I went for a Sunday drive with my step-father in the "family" Mustang (one day, one day...) just around the surrounding area.
The car actually shudders to life when you turn the key, the engine purrs and roars depending on your foot on the pedal. There are two things to concern yourself with. Speeding up and slowing down. No ABS, no airbags, no shoulder-strap seatbelts, no microwave ovens, no color Teevees.
Accelerating pushes you back like a rollercoaster ride, but better than any I've been on before. You're sitting back into the wide comfortable seat, the wheel is big enough that you can steer it with one hand resting on your leg, the other hand on the open window frame.
The needle never really left 100 and the pedal never even made it down to the floor, the engine was working on seven out of eight cylinders and wasn't breaking a sweat as it creeped up towards 120. "Whoa horsey...", up ahead two Gendarmes were writing up a guy in a crappy Peugeot 205, I gave them a nod that said "You know cars like this don't get stopped" and one nodded back.
The Mustang powered away from the roundabout where a guy and his wife in their Mercedes SLK paid more attention to us than their own car. Sadly in this weather the Mustang was using a lot of effort to stay cool and radiator fluid was being used at too quick a pace. One last burst of acceleration and over the crest of the hill back to the house.
Tonight's dinner... will fend for itself
We wandered aimlessly through the Latin Quarter, my sister and I in front, as the men at the doorways leapt in front of us for our attention, smashed plates at our feet and one even pointed to my stomach leading me to breath in a lot and say "I'm not fat! I'm not fat!" (and I'm not, I've been sleeping on a sofa bed for the past three nights and my back is curved out of shape now)
One guy, who will remain nameless until the case goes to trial, suggested that I should take my girlfriend into his restaurant and offer her oysters as they're an aphrodisiac. I think both our stares were enough to let him know we were never going to frequent his establishment ever.
Instead we went to the corner of Rue de la Harpe and Rue St Severin and I had snails to start and duck for main course. What? I like snails.
Slugs and snails and puppy-dog tails
As a young child I was asked to list ten vegetables that I would eat voluntarily.
I must have been on the same wavelength as the leader of the free world at the time, cause I said Ketchup first too.
I'm told we gave up after three.
A-maze-ing
My parents are looking to buy a new wardrobe and so we went to BHV (a sort of French Habitat... but with more hardware supplies... and perfume counters... and they do computer games... and... alright, nothing like Habitat then, like John Lewis) and on their fifth or sixth floor they have some fifty wardrobes fully built and arranged higgeldy-piggeldy around the floor.
I took my eyes off my parents for one minute and zoom, they were gone. I swear I am too old to get lost in a department store. I was about ready to whip out the mobile phone when I could have sworn out of the corner of my eye David Bowie in tights and a bunch of Muppets danced past...
...maybe not.
I'm not too old to see if I fit inside a wardrobe though.
Hotel de Ville
As we walked past Notre Dame and headed for the Hotel de Ville (City hall) I was amazed to see that the Rive Droite had been closed down and was being used as a public walkway. This is equivalent to closing down Westminster's busiest roads and letting people skate and cycle down them instead.
I'm told this happens every year for the last two weeks of July. No wonder everyone leaves at the start of August.
Cat amongst the pages
Our first stop for the day was at the door to Shakespeare & Co.
Although it occurs to me that it would be very easy to obtain any one of the books within through the internet, there is some pleasure to be had browsing the physical copies of the books in their impossible-to-follow sorting system.
Clancy next to King next to Byron next to Keats next to Bronté next to Tolstoy next to Hergé next to a pile of National Geographics. You don't go looking for a book, the book finds you. I didn't find any books looking for me so I trotted down the road to the DVD store to get region 1 copies of Superman and Die Hard Special Edition. The guy wouldn't let me buy the new Akira for some obscure reason.
On the way to the store I passed Rue Gallarde, where the smallest possible cinema shows cult movies at all hours of the day. That was the first and only time that I saw Rocky Horror the way it is supposed to be seen, with rice, bottles of water, transvestite commentary a la MST3K, and the Timewarp taught to you as you wait in the queue, to be perfomed on cue during the movie.
Back to Shakespeare & Co. (although the man himself was known to sign his name Shaxbeard at times) we found a cat the owner later told us was called "Kitty", he was rolled up amongst copies of American Psycho and Dumas' Three Musketeers, and someone had ironically left a copy of "The Great Cat Massacre and other European disasters" or somesuch book beside the cat.
Upstairs the archway leading to the kitchen states "Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise", I counted six beds and a couch, all available for the night.
One little footnote, just to warn anyone going there. They never have change. Ever, ever, ever. Take lots of ten franc coins, and a bunch of fives cause they never price the books rounded to the nearest ten.
Ile de la Cité
Crossing the Seine by car we arrived on the Ile Saint-Louis, home to the most expensive apartments in Paris I suspect, crossing the Seine further we arrived on the rive gauche, heading for the Latin Quarter, Notre Dame loomed ahead of us after a recent sand-blasting facelift.
The Ile Saint-Louis has running through its depths the most fascinating culinary experience in Paris. Sure there are haute cuisine places and snazzy trendy nouvelle cuisine restaurants, but deep within the Ile runs the restaurant "Nos Ancetres Les Gaulois", and the experience is not so much in the food, but in the ambiance.
You arrive at the front door with your reservation and are led through what you think is the main eating area. You pass through the back door and arrive in a cobbled alley full of tables and salad bars, this is still the same restaurant. You duck through a door into another building entirely, down some stairs, you can go left or right, as both ways seem full of the same solid furniture, another basement entirely, and maybe then your waiter stops and asks if you want smoking or non. Don't even think about asking for a window seat.
He leads you on further through more passages and rooms until finally you arrive at your table. After that, pretty much anything goes. "Buffet" isn't the right word but its the first that springs to mind. You basically order your main course, specifying the meat and then fill your plate from the various salad bars and other stockpiles of food that have been tucked away into areas you can't fit tables into. Everything is "a volonté" including the wine.
I recommend the boar. Very good. And afterwards you'll be amazed to discover you haven't left the island at all and are still in the very heart of Paris. This, unlike the restaurants in the Latin Quarter offering "specialités francaise", is more what being traditionally French (in the days when Paris was nothing but the two islands in the middle of the Seine) is all about.
Pick a book, any book...
As we drove into Paris from the east, across the Seine we saw the four towers that make up the Biblioteque Nationale Mitterand. A monument to French architecture, litterature... and stupidity.
See, the four towers were to store from the most ancient and precious manuscripts to the latest and greatest works of French authors. But nobody though about what happens to stuff left inside glass buildings with no protection from the sun.
Several millions francs worth of blinds were added to the budget turning the glorious four glass towers into the four towers no-one can see into or out of and the air conditioning always smells of musty paper.
Exodus
So in the end we didn't make it into the city itself, instead we went to Noisy Le Grand which is a satellite city built a respectable distance from Paris itself. The architecture is all modern fabrics and some buildings look like left over sets from the first two Batman movies. The reason we didn't go into the city itself, now on the cards for tomorrow, was that we realised that today is the friday before the final weekend of July.
So? You may ask.
Well, it so happens that every August Paris empties itself almost entirely of the well-off people who live inside the city itself and the city becomes a ghost town for the month of August, populated entirely by house-sitters, suburbanites out for the day and tourists. If you ever want a nice time to visit Paris, I'd suggest August.
We still got sushi, and a discussion of the available items led to;
Me: "I think I'll have the Sushi, you want the Sashimi? Ever had Tempura before?"
My sister: "Yeah."
Me: "So what's Yaki-Tori?"
My sister: "A right-winger who talks too much."
My sister works part time in a pub in Dublin where she is encouraged by the locals to come up with new and interesting ways of helping them ingest alcohol, these are some of her creations and what she calls them although she's sure she can't have been the first to try these on live test subjects who pay her for the priviledge.
Funky Monkey: Tia Maria, Peach Schnapps, Baileys on top.
Cherry Bomb: Aftershock with Baileys on top.
William Blight: Tequila with Creme de Cacao.
Snowflake: Baileys, Tia Maria, Drambuie and milk mixed with crushed ice.
If you try any of them let it be on your own head. I take no responsability for limbs going numb, tongues turning black or hair loss.
We stopped by Disneyland on the way back to the house and since my mother works for the Imagineers we got in free and walked onto the Indiana Jones ride, followed by Space Mountain, followed by Star Tours all within a half hour during peak summer season.
The one ride I want to do and probably never will is the Naked Small World ride. The little doll costumes need washed from time to time so I figure that at some point they must all be naked, like, late at night. Also I suspect, and I'm sure someone on the Internet will prove me right, that the song played backwards will sound something like;
Saaatan loves you all my children, satan loves you all my children, satan loves, you, all.
The rest of the song would become the Small World Satanic Verses, adding Salman Rushdie to the list of people not allowed into any Disney park anywhere, along with Peewee Herman, Jeffrey Katsenberg, and Michael Jackson.
So the evening ended with dinner and Long Island Iced Teas at the Rainforest Café, where my sister bought me a monkey that is the perfect match of my Code Monkey t-shirt. Although, if anybody knows of a way to get a Sock Monkey... like the one in the new ITV Digital commercials? Please, let me know.
Shop till you drop
We went shopping. We didn't just go to a few shops, we went to the biggest mall I ever saw in France, at Val d'Europe, two minutes drive from Disneyland, ten minutes drive from the house.
This place reminded me of Sawgrass Mills mall in Florida, only a few miles shorter... and with less cool cars in the lot and more fashion shops and less cool gadget shops and factory outlet stores.
After wandering for several hours we approached an open area between the entrance to Sephora and H&M where a young man was playing a polished white grand piano on a raised platform. The platform was surrounded by nice leather arm-chairs, at least twenty, and it suddenly became very easy to just sit and listen and enjoy until he stood up after ten minutes of playing, rubbed his wrists and walked away.
Looking around it didn't even seem as though he had been supposed to be playing... but the stand beside the platform said that "Thierry Genevieve-Anastasi" (perhaps it was Anastazi) would be playing there throughout the day.
We went to Fnac, which is the french HMV, and on the way back he was there once more, playing Smoke Gets in Your Eyes with a lot of ad libbing. I sat down once more to enjoy it as he finished with a nice crescendo, stood up, covered and locked the piano and went home for the night. Drat.
French supermarkets seem to still be a few steps ahead of British ones in all areas except the scanner-pay-by-trust thing we have in the UK. Instead of price stickers on the shelves there are small LCD tags with the price of the item in francs, the price per pound or litre, and the cost in Euros. The tag contains what I suspect was an IR receiver that would update whenever new information was transmitted to it from either a handheld PDA or a central store-wide transmitter.
The geek in me was fascinated. I wanted to remove a tag and bring it with me, perhaps the one that told me the cost of "Merveilles Du Monde" chocolate for the chocoholic in me.
Further round the store I encountered a whole stand of "limonades artisanales" with flavours like pistachio, cranberry, green banana, violet, rose, poppies and blueberries. It was so exactly the supermarket shelves from Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees" video with all the incredibly artificial colored bottles of liquid that I couldn't help but laugh...
We got the green banana lemonade. It's quite nice. It complimented the dinner I cooked nicely, Mango and Lemon chicken with the same Goan salad everyone seems to like. That loud noise was Pixie falling off her chair in shock that I cooked for my family. The graphic designer in me ensured the meal was all bright greens and oranges, while the cook in me made the food taste nice too. Complimented by glasses of white wine and green banana lemonade.
Tomorrow we go in to Paris itself to see an old friend, back to my favorite area, the Latin Quarter: home of my mispent weekends as a teen in Paris.
Hot Water
Seeing my sister again reminded me of an occasion where we all did something out of love that could not be expressed in words, and I think went unnoticed...
My sister had a boyfriend called Tino, which was rather cool cause I was watching "My So Called Life" every week. Except he was smooth, in that, wears a suit when he doesn't have to way. His parents were Lebanese and owned a restaurant we were all invited to. Fantastic food, a great time was had by all.
When it came time to have coffee however we were introduced to what was translated for us as "White Coffee", it was translucent, in an espresso cup and smelled vaguely of rose water. I eyed the parents suspicously as I suspected this was one of those "traditions" that were only done to make people who don't know any better go through with them under pain of terminally insulting your hosts.
I was left wondering if maybe they had seen the lemon-water finger bowls in other restaurants and missed the point... but again, this was important to my sister and we couldn't really say no.
So we drank the coffee "in one gulp", as we were told to.
In retrospect I doubt I shall ever need to wonder how the people of Pompeii felt as the lava poured into their orifices, petrifying them on the spot. White coffee, I assure you, is short for White Hot Coffee.
Template for a Friends script
I think I may have cracked the template for any Friends episode script, it seems to me it goes like this...
1) Introduce as many characters as you like in one location.
-Anyone can have the opening line.
-A joke must be set up without being resolved straight away.
2) Another joke is then pre-empted onto this first joke.
-This second joke is resolved first from the outstanding joke stack with any combination of the following possibilities:
Chandler says something cynical so the high-brow audience isn't left out.
Joey says something dumb so the low-brow audience isn't left out.
Rachel says something superficial so the It Girls aren't left out.
Ross says something geeky so the nerds aren't left out.
Monica says something anal so the control freaks aren't left out.
Phoebe says something kooky to cover any missed target audiences in a random scattershot attempt to keep people interested.
3) An observation is made to mop up that post-jokey need to have smaller "aftershock" laughs.
4) Another joke is added to the stack and resolved before the first outstanding joke is finally resolved.
5) Play snippet of music, fade out, return to 1), select a new location and selection of your "Friends".
I can't believe it took me seven years to get round to writing that down.
Cheap shot
Mum keeps chickens. She has two hens, a rooster and eight chicks. The hens are fine, the rooster is bareable (although last night he started crowing when a car pulled into the driveway, mistaking the headlights for the dawn still five hours off) but the chicks...
Go anywhere near them and they'll bum-rush you. Its like being trapped in that scene in Jurassic Park when Dr. Grant and the kids are running with the heard of Galimimus. Why? Because obviously you have food. Anything will do as food. Shoelaces seem to be a favorite at the moment, although fingers probably look tastier.
"The males have pointed tails, the females have rounded tails..."
I look hard at them but all I see are white and brown baby chickens. Some have scrawny red fleshy necks, some don't, at least none of them are claiming the sky is falling down yet.
The most disturbing part however is that they all cheap at you. Cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap... incessantly...
And also, their appetite seems to outweight their will to survive as they will come dangerously close to being trodden on (by accident I hasten to add).
Mum hasn't given any of them names because as she says "They're not pets, and one day they will be food." I'm just glad we named the Guinea Pigs we got when I was seven.
Goodbye Qwerty
Firstly, this is an Azerty keyboard, okay? So my usual typoes aside, thats my excuse and I'll be sticking to it. Also, I'm using a trackball configured for a left-hander (cause my mother is ambidextrous and says this is easier for her). I'm standing upside-down with my head in a bucket of piranha fish for fun though.
Pixie and I started a tradition on our first encounter which involved buying a ridulous amount of sweeties and two tickets to some awful film. ID4, Daylight (I mean, what were we thinking? Daylight?) Star Wars Episode One... So, we'd buy the pick'n-mix, munch on a few of the sweets and usually I'd take it home with me and give it to my sister having eaten all the best ones on the way home.
So I was a little surprised after the relatively short trip from home this morning to
(See post below for reason behind this comment)
find that none of those pick'n mixes could compare to the one I bought in Paddington after checking in with my e-ticket...
and let me just point out how incredibly suspicious it all seems when you click a button and you're told you've got a seat but won't get a ticket followed by, a week later, booking in at a train-station to be told all you need is to turn up at the gate with the boarding pass. I was so sure that they would turn me away when I arrived at gate 1C... anyway.
The Heathrow Express lived up to its name this time around and was rather quick and did arrive at Heathrow as opposed to my previous trip ten days earlier when it stopped and went back to Paddington after an hour delay and then we changed trains and I got to the check-in desk as the girl was leaving, then got to the boarding gate and was asked why the check-in girl hadn't given me a boarding pass. I couldn't breath so I made hand gestures which probably would have made more sense if I had realised I was unconciously doing big-fish, little-fish, cardboard box. They let me through, I got on the bus to the plane, climbed on the plane and they shut the door behind me. Compared to today that was hell.
The flight today, however, compared to my flight up to see Pixie, was hell. Sittting beside me was a Japanese guy and his girlfriend. She was dressed like a hooker and he was missing his little finger from the first knuckle... I've seen Black Rain... so I didn't believe it was some industrial accident. Behind me was someone who had far too much leg for their leg-room and knees like medieval maces. And in front of me were Mr and Mrs Sweet from Philly, with their two teenage kids Jim and Jessica.
Jessica demanded the window seat and didn't shut up until her father sat beside her. Jim listened to his Discman and played Gameboy during takeoff and landing. The mother was incapable of filling out the simple six questions on the landing card and needed help (probably because there were no multiple choice questions or easy ones like "Are you a Communist?") and the father dumped coffee or Coke all over himself during turbulence. Actually he was the only one I felt sorry for.
By some freak of nature I've photographically memorised their address from the landing card. I don't suspect I'll ever need it, but its in there anyway.
The news is on behind me, I had wondered what all those people were doing wandering away from the airport dressed in black on a day like this. Today marks the first anniversary of the Concorde crash.
I took the shuttle bus from the CDG donut to Disneyland, via all the terminals of the airport. CDG is an amazing testament to construction. Not as in, a completed construction, but rather as in the never-ending action of constructing. The eliptical terminals seem to be in a perpetual termite-like state of reconstruction and renovation. You would be forgiven for thinking that the slip roads and junctions were temporary but the Sheraton is built between them like the concrete equivalent of a shark's fin.
It seemed to me that I was the only person under thirty on that bus, aside from the driver, who was sane. And the driver was a typical french driver, very aggressive, which is probably not the best thing for a man who is supposed to ferry children to the Magical (European) Kingdom.
The first stop at Disney was the Newport Bay Club... I hadn't been there in years so I got off and took a walk around lake Buena Vista. On the Minidisc Morcheeba's "Down By The Sea" started as if on cue. I was reminded of AA Gill's criticism/observation about the park, that you were always walking to music, but this suited me fine.
So I'm here now at my other parent's house not far from the Marne. I've already sat behind the wheel of the Mustang. Excuse me while I geek out over that a bit...
A few helpful tips and observations about being away from the city;
- Coughing is not a sign of unhealthy air, it is the alveola in your lungs getting used to what the hicks call "country" air. This usually involves cow dung somewhere.
- Chickens do not like being chased no matter how badly you want to see "Chicken Run".
- Apples grow on trees, swing in hammock in orchard at your own risk.
- Courgettes grow with flowers at one end and are attached to the stalk at the other end. Some people call these Zucchinis, and not, as I should make it clear, Zambonis.
- Walnuts grow like Chestnuts in squishy green apple-shaped things. These also are subject to the laws of gravity.
- Here be Hornets.
Go Hornets! Go!
I'm in the middle of a big post in another window but as I sat down to type a massive hornet flew in the window. This thing was over an inch and a half long.
Me a bit distressed: "Big wasp! Big wasp!"
My mother: "Bloody hell. Thats not a wasp, its a... its a... (Spacestation?) frollant." Which is french for hornet, I know this because I used to watch Le Frollant Vert in french. Bruce Lee has a very good french accent too.
So, she hands me a fly-swatter, steps out of the room and goes to phone my step-dad to find out where they keep the bug spray. The hornet has settled into the art deco lamp attached to the wall and is wrestling with the dead moths and flies trapped in the up-turned shade, flicking them out the top furiously. I pick each one up tentatively with the swatter and toss it out the window.
Upon turning back around however I realise that the hornet has left the warmth and light of the lamp and flown down into the paper feed of the Epsom Stylus printer. Ah.
Tugging the paper out in one block I swing at the honet dangling below it. One blow and its on the ground, two and its buzzing but not upright anymore. Three, four and it curls up into a ball. Five was to be sure.
My mother comes back up out of hiding... uh, I mean "looking for the spray", and congratulates me, handing me the can of bugspray I suspect she wouldn't have given up until the hornet had killed me and moved onto her. Well, after all that excitement I can get back to blogging my day's travel and observations, so she heads downstairs to the kitchen again.
I've tossed the dead hornet into the waste-paper basket which in defiance of all known laws of causality has nothing but waste paper in it... but wait... will my sister believe I defended the household from this massive flying terror? No, she won't... so...
Taking a propelling pencil (a large number of captured french self-propelled pencils were pushed into action during WWII by the Nazis in the defence of France against the Allied invasion in 1944... wait... maybe I got that wrong...) I pick through the bits of crumpled A4 hoping to find the...
Me running downstairs: "Its not dead! Its not dead!"
We've used half a cannister of bug spray on the waste-paper bin, its currently sitting out on the steps outside. If it wants to fly away, its welcome to, if it doesn't and it is dead I'll be mounting the head on the wall.
Take a bow...
A few things I should have blogged about my stay here and forgot to;
Pixeldiva's Gran, during a conversation about how much more expensive things are these days completely broadsided me by telling me she'd always been very good with LSD. I had sort of wondered where the "dottiness" came from and this was the perfect explanation. Within about five minutes however I found out that LSD also stands for pounds, shillings and pence. Damnit, I thought I'd found a funky old person.
After five episodes of the new season of The West Wing there's still no explanation of whatever happened to Moira Kelly. However I'm not complaining, she was the weakest link. Goodbye. I like the blonde chick. Pixie maintains that my step-dad is the spit of Richard Schiff.
We have now watched all six episode of the Clerks Animated series I had imported over from the States. Now I know why ABC cancelled it. Kevin Smith without swearing and gross-out humour is like Blade Runner without any dark colors.
Never watch a whole season of any show within one 24-hour period. I have nothing but Buffy Season 5 mush where Wednesday into Thursday was. I wasn't brave enough to take on Angel Season 2. A karaoke bar? Mandy? Oh God.
When playing the world's most realistic soldier-sim (Operation: Flashpoint) just because you can't see them doesn't mean they can't see you, hiding yourself behind a tree only works if you're Victoria Beckham. I think Murphy wrote a law about it once.
And lastly, don't pet a cat when he's yawning. Especially if you value your fingers. Don't let your partner then attempt to console said cat as it will bite them too.
Well, that seems to be everything for now. Next blog is likely to be from a real-life French country house after an afternoon dozing in a hammock and driving around in a '67 Mustang. Damn I love this whole paid-vacation thing, why did I never try this before?
We're going to watch Princess Mononoke on DVD, Pixie eats the popcorn, I gnaw on the kernals. Isn't it sickening?
Not quite Top Gun
A "bolter" is a landing attempt on an aircraft carrier in which the tailhook of the fighter fails to engage any of the arresting wires, but in which the landing gear contacted the deck, requiring a "go-around".
One of the local sparrows just performed a "bolter" on Pixeldiva's bedroom window while attempting to land in the ivy that covers the side of the house. We now have a bird shaped smear across the glass. Normally the thump would be accompanied by the rustling sound of a cat in the bushes below. Guess he was lucky this time.
Less fortunate was the pheasant that hit the picture window of a friend of our's in Belgium as it tried to swoop through his house. Killed itself on impact. That's how you earn yourself the nickname "Spud" in the US Navy.
My dinner with the 'rents
First off, a big, big thankyou to coder girlfriend/web geek pixeldiva for putting up with incessant questions and queries;
"What's a CSS?"
"Why aren't the images showing up?"
"What do those tags do?"
"How do I set up a site meter?"
"What's a nubian?"
I will do my best to stop calling you Pixie from now on, or you're likely to delete all my old posts in your archives. My little... breath-mint.
My time here comes to an end tomorrow and then I jet off to be with my other set of parents (both remarried see, so four parents) and see my sister who was on the fast track to becoming a psychologist. Just what we need in the family. However, last night we had dinner with my father and step-mother.
After catching up on family affairs: older sister has had baby, baby was average weight, baby looks like miniature Winston Churchill in all the blurry pictures on two rolls of film. One cousin now has pilot's license, his younger brother will be joining the marines, suddenly I don't feel save on land, sea or air. My older brother is toying with the idea of buying an Alfa 156 to park in the driveway of the massive house he owns beside the Porsche he also wants, he'll be thirty next week, but then he's the side of the family descended from Dr Livingstone. As in, I presume.
Anyway, after catching up on all those things and mentionning that I'd be getting Mum's '67 Mustang if it kills me, Pix... eldiva pulls out the new Nikon Coolpix and starts showing it off to Dad. My father has always been a keen photographer and has an Olympus OM-1 in perfect working order he still uses and lets me borrow for shots like this one.
"Spacemen," he mutters under his breath, "spacemen have landed and brought all this new technology with them." Technology has obviously not only over-taken the man but sent a post-card asking where on earth he's got to.
Nope, no film. Uses a memory stick. Well... a memory stick is like a storage device for the raw information. Yes its removable so you can use it over and over again. No, you download the pictures to a computer and then print them off. No, you can't link it directly to the printer and side-step buying a computer. Sorry. No, no need for negatives... yes it has a real lens in there... no, she's never used a real SLR before.
It reminded me of what my Digital Media tutor had told me about his mother refusing to let him use his laptop while sitting on the toilet. She would unplug the extension from out in the hallway because she was worried he'd make himself sterile or something. What worried me more was... what on earth would you be using a laptop for while sitting on the toilet?!
Currently enjoying playing Operation: Flashpoint and watching Sophie Ellis Bextor's new video. No, I didn't say I like the song. I'm going to miss MTV... {Sigh}
A Traditional Pub Lunch
After a thoroughly satisfying pub lunch, Pixie pulled out her Coolpix and started setting up various "still life" tabletop pictures. Her sister and I turned our attentions to the golf as Colin Montgomerie (who needs a better bra) and Tiger Woods thrashed their way around the course.
A gentleman I could only describe as "portly", like Gilbert from A Doll's House, in a white cardigan with tinted glasses, paused beside our table and put a hand on the free seat. "Is this seat taken?" he asked.
I wish he'd asked if it was busy. I have a fantastic comeback line from Denis Leary for "Is this seat busy?" but when do fantastic comebacks ever get the set-up they deserve?
"No, go right ahead" I said and the man walked away. I wondered if he'd misheard me and decided that he'd probably noticed another table open up or a stool at the bar had become available.
Turning my attention back to the golf, Tiger had landed deep into the rough somehow and now it was getting interesting.
plunk plunk
A pint of bitter and a high-ball of scotch were placed on the table and the portly old man sat down beside me. Was I supposed to protest? Was I supposed to revoke the availability of the seat? I looked at Pixie and she was still absorbed in the bubbles of her Diet Coke, trying to get funny patterns captured on digital film. Her sister had noticed but was pretending to ignore the guy.
"Ever played golf?"
"Uh... no, not really."
"Builds character. What's the score at the moment?"
Ah-ha. I had seen the score moments ago and said with some knowledge, "Montgomerie's seven under and Tiger's five under par. Not sure about the others."
He nodded approvingly as though these were good scores. In my experience negative scores are to be avoided at all costs, but what the hey.
"I never met a Spaniard with enough patience to play the game."
It was not the sort of comment that needed an answer from me.
Tiger was being escorted back to where he had originaly taken his shot in the rough by a WPC, I had missed why. The female police officer was in black trousers and white shirt, standard uniform, radio on hip. I imagine he was having to take his shot again and the WPC was simply making sure he wasn't mobbed or attacked by members of the crowd.
The old gentleman took a sip from one glass then another, placed them on the table, leaned back and quite plainly said;
"The camera doesn't do much for her arse, does it."
Book Club
You get into Glasgow Central Station and set your watch back five minutes. Travelling can get confusing when you don't leave timezones. Force of habit plagues you like a blight.
Pixie tells me my favorite author is in town tonight, do I want to go? Sure, I say, flicking my tongue over a rough patch of flesh in my mouth.
There's a gathering in the basement of a bookstore. A big bookstore, Corporate America snaking its tendrils out like a greedy squid. Clawing through towns and cities it has no reason to be in. But it is.
I don't ask which bookstore, they all sell the same books. Pixie tells me this is called free market. You're free to buy whatever you want from wherever you want, it all goes back to the same place eventually.
I've seen this guy before, eight months ago, in the same basement of the same store. He was funny then, I hope he'll be funny this time. He is. He's very funny. He tells us about confessions from out of the blue, confessions of waiters and bellboys and all the little people. He makes me scared to go and eat anywhere ever again.
Looking down into my eyes he tells me that the only way to persuade an attack dog to let go of your arm is to stick your finger up its butt. I smile because I know it works with turtles as well. Pixie looks at me and smiles. I wonder when the next time I'll be attacked by a turtle will be.
My tongue finds the rough patch in my mouth again and I ponder over what I'll write about this night? This Monday night in the middle of a summer I'd been enjoying until the weather changed for the worse. Pixie tells me that since Derek Powazek wrote about seeing this guy everyone and their dog has too. I wonder if he went before I did eight months ago?
The Cult of Personality, Pixie describes it to me, extends into a meme. Just like the french word that means "same", somebody does something original and we all emulate it. Emulating a writing style is easy, you just change a few words around and smile when people ask if you were inspired by someone else. I know this because Pixie knows this.
Read your work out loud, says the author. But I suspect he doesn't mean right away. Read it aloud and you'll discover you shy away from s's and v's, and favor t's and d sounds instead. I can't believe Jack Lemmon is dead.
Read it aloud and you'll never have to worry about it not sounding right to your public because you'll know what doesn't sound right to yourself and fix it first. He has signed my copy of his first book, the dedication says "Deliver yourself from selfish friends" because I told him nobody ever gives it back when I lend it to them. This is my fifth copy.
Triskadekaphobia is the fear of the number thirteen. An irrational fear I feel needs pointing out because how can you be afraid of a number? No, no, I'm told, you've got it wrong. You've got it wrong, its fear of Friday the thirteenth. Does that make any more sense? This has nothing at all to do with the story I was telling. Does it further the plot any or does it just serve as a stand alone paragraph? Pixie doesn't say anything.
The reading and questions end and the author agrees to sign anyone who arrived late, saying he'll stay as long as it takes. I like him because he's a good person and never boring. I realise we have the same shaggy hair and stubble and I ask Pixie later if I'm the Diet version of him. She just rubs my head.
The day before we had been trying to tidy up some stuff that had gotten out of hand in her room. The room is too small for her, she needs to become a hermit crab and change shell. She knows this and she says she knows this. I know this, she says. She lifts something up and the small black Zen garden tumbles, falling face down on a seat. The pebbles are thrown across the carpet and the sand trickles off the side of the chair like a broken hourglass. The moment is frozen in time until Pixie breaks the silence...
"Bugger, that's not very Zen, is it."
Village Idiot 2.0
There is a long tradition in the UK of The Village Idiot, best exemplified in the Monty Python skit of the man sitting on the wall spouting nonsense and falling over backwards only to speak perfectly normally to another similarly-dressed man about stocks and shares before explaining that he's the visiting village idiot from the next village over. My theory is that last night I met a village idiot who had been upgraded to City status...
On my way home from work I went to check my balance at a cashpoint and withdraw some money, noticing a rather scraggy man leaning in the window of a white van parked beside the cashpoint. As music played in my ears I pushed the buttons and waited for my card to be returned, when it became apparent by the warm stale breath on the left side of my face that I was being addressed by the scraggy man.
A brown plastic bottle of Strongbow poked out from one coat pocket and the sleeves were rolled up far enough to show varied tattoos of sufficient "hardness" to instantly put me on my guard. His mouth had stopped moving so I mumbled "You're absolutely right. Couldn't have put it better myself." in as thick a Canadian accent as I could muster to make it abundantly clear that we had *nothing* in common and he should stop talking to me.
The cash-point meanwhile was checking whether or not it would give me any money, shaking an internal magic eight-ball for clues, scrying in lizard gizzards as to whether or not I'd put it to good use and generally being the little ATM-deity that we all hope will not one day laugh at us when we push the "50" button.
Mr Hard smiled at my agreement and a lull in the music allowed me to catch the next comment through lips that probably only parted for alcohol: "Grmm-mmmble-bibble-goooryy-yooll-go-mad-tonight. Yesh..."
In my mind raced every Stephen King book I'd ever read. Oh God! If he reaches out to stroke one cheek I'll become bulimic! Are those clown shoes he's wearing or just big army boots? Is he going to try and sell me a homicidal '58 Plymouth Fury because he knows I'm jaded and vindictive? Was he giving me some prophetic message that I foolishly ignore because he's the stereotypical mad man who's not so mad?
With as close to a regurgative sound as a machine can make the cash-point decides to be lenient. Eyes fixed on Mr Hard's I mumble, "Verily, it shall be so." and reach out to take the money in my left hand. He smiles again and puts out his right hand in that half-a-handshake manner, and I very nearly handed him all the cash. But I escaped with just patting the back of his hand carefully and leaving him in the very capable hands of the guy in the queue behind me who had been visibly praying that I shut the hell up and stop encouraging Mr Hard.
Well, I sat and watched Galaxy Quest when I got home, played Deus Ex, weighed myself twice to make sure I wasn't losing weight at a suspicious rate, but didn't go mad... that I noticed...
Viewing Pleasure 2
The Joy Luck Fight Club
Late at night four mother and daughter couples meet in the basements of bars and play bloody battles of Mah-Jong until the daughters begin plotting the destruction of credit card companies across the world. The mothers begin to suspect that their daughters might be figments of their respective imaginations.
L'Amantz
A computer animated tale of an underage young ant (voiced by Soon Yi Previn) in french colonial Vietnam in 1928 and the affair she has with a married man breaking class barriers, social barriers and even species barriers.
Ghost Dog: Subway of the Seven Samurai
Seven ex-cops, all with bright orange hair, follow the precepts of Hagakure in their daily jobs as hitmen but are forced to take refuge together in the New York subway system before exacting revenge on their attackers and defending Greenwich village.
Assault on Friday the Thirteen Days
In an update of Rio Bravo, a roving band of escaped mental patients who all survived drowning as children lay siege to a deserted police station on the banks of Crystal Lake during the Cuban Missile Crisis. JFK is forced to handle political dealings, serial killing gangs and defend the isolated building from a nuclear strike.
Forget Paris, Texas
An amnesiac basketball referee travels to Paris to rejoin his brother in the hope he can restore his memory. He falls in love with an air hostess but discovers he has a wife and child back in Texas.
Eat, Drink, Rainman, Pretty Woman
Follows the story of an autistic Master Chef and his three mis-matched prostitute daughters who congregate every Sunday for a meal until all three daughters are swept away by rich businessmen one by one leaving the father to perform Abbot and Costello on his own.
To Wong Fools Rush Hour In
Matthew Perry, Jackie Chan and Chris Rock star as three drag queens attempting to free a diplomat's daughter kidnapped by a Hong Kong crime lord desperate to retrieve his signed photo of Julie Newmar. Salma Hayek plays the love interest in an easily ignored sub-plot.
Call of the Very Bad Wild Things
At Charlton Hestons stag party in British Columbia a threesome goes horribly wrong and the stripper is accidentaly eaten by Charlton's sled-dog. He and his bi-sexual partner (played by Neve Campbell) plot to lay the blame on the girl's father. The dog lives.
The Quick and the Evil Dead Again
Through past-life hypno-regression in an abandoned house in the wild west two people relive the various stylish gunfights they survived against ghouls and the demons locked in people's cellars. Unknown to them their hypnotist is also a Deadite.
Down and No Way Out in Hamburger Hills
Set during the Vietnam war, an intelligence officer cons his way into Gene Hackman's Intelligence Agency. He finds he must survive both a falsified witch-hunt for a KGB spy as well as a bloody assault on a Vietnamese stronghold as he attempts to prove his innocence.
Jewel of the Nil by Mouth
Michael Douglas returns as Dependable Jack Colton but finds his family is suffering from depression and drug-addiction in working-London. He attempts to find a fabled holy-man to alleviate his family's suffering of the human condition.
Wing Commander of Desire (Original title: Der Himmel Uber Kilrathi)
Based on the hit series of computer games by Wim Wenders, Freddie Prinze Jr stars as an angel, tired of watching humanity struggle against the evil Kilrathi empire, who descends to earth to sign on.
American Pi
A group of friends make a pact to solve incalculable mathematical equations before the end of the year. The funniest part, as seen in all the trailers, is when young Jason Biggs is caught staring into the sun for too long on a web camera.
And the ones I can't be bothered writing a summary for;
I Know What You Did Last of The Mohicans
Waiting for Playing Godot
The Emperor's New Jack City of Angel Heart of Darkness
My Stepmother is an Alien Resurrection Man
Viewing Pleasure
Dan over at Venusberg started something when he asked for cross-titled movies, with descriptions, here were the first lot I came up with over the course of one morning.
Lion King of New York
An ex-con returns from prison determined to wipe out all his competition, become the biggest cat in the city and share the wealth amongst the poorer members of the pride.
Cool Hand Look Who's Talking
A baby refusing to stay stuck in the womb takes to eating as many eggs as he can to gain a reputation as a hard man.
The Ten Commandments I Hate About You
A family decrees through ten sacred laws that their youngest daughter cannot date until her older sister finds a way to lead them to the promised land.
A Midsummers Night of the Living Dead
A complicated plot intertwines a plethora of characters trapped within a house surrounded by zombies as they attempt to declare their feelings for one another. Unknown to them though, the nearby forrest dwellers have other plans for them.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Film Festival
The tale of a gunman who spends his time running from the media. Culminates in a shoot-out between himself and the entire Bolivian paparazzi.
Bullitts Over Broadway
An idealistic young detective takes an undercover assignment in a theatre but is torn between catching the killer or the thrill of performance. Includes the world's greatest on-stage chase sequence.
The Magnificent Se7en
A band of mismatched mercenaries are hired to defend a small Mexican town from a sadistic maniac who kills to punctuate his nihilistic lack of compassion for gringos.
The Rocky Horror Picture of Dorian Gray
In Victorian England a young man is given a portrait by an admirer that slowly transforms from the conservative clothing he wore when it was painted to garish and outlandish lingerie. As he grows older his friends do not notice his attire changing to black and red underwear until they are all zapped with tri-pronged lasers.
John Carpenter's Do the Right Thing
An isolated research base in the heart of Brooklyn explodes in violence when the hottest day of the year brings a shape-shifting alien out of hibernation at the local pizza parlor.
Crouching Tigerland, Hidden Red Dragon
During bootcamp training for the Vietnam war a mystical jade sword is stolen by a terrifying murderer among the grunts. The grizzled sergeant enlists the help of a zen monk imprisonned for his homicidal impulses to help identify and catch the culprit.
Priscilla, Queen of the Damned
A large bus is roused from sleep when the vampire Lestat takes to covering Abba tracks.
Get Martin Shorty
An obnoxious broadway actor is tracked down by a floridian mafia stooge in an attempt to have him read a new script with a gun to his head.
That's all folks
Name That Movie
This morning in my office, Mike the loud American asked a question which became a free for all;
M: What was that movie with Charlton Heston where he gets screwed and meets Jesus?
"Planet of the Apes?"
"Return to Planet of the Apes?"
"He wasn't in that, he was in Beneath The Planet of the Apes."
"You know he plays an ape in the new Tim Burton version?"
"D'you reckon he'd be like, picking his nose and suddenly shout out 'Get your hands off me you damned dirty ape!'?"
"No."
"Earthquake?"
"NRA Promoting Nazi's Must Die?"
"Life of Brian?"
M: No, no, no... the one set in ancient times.
"Anthony and Cleopatra?"
"Gladiator?"
"Too recent."
"Tombstone?"
"Thats the Wild West, and he wasn't in that."
"Yes he was."
"Life of Brian?"
"So wait, where was the bit with Oliver Reed set?"
"A funeral home?"
"In Gladiator?"
"Yeah"
"Somewhere hot and sandy. Probably left over sets from Ishtar."
M: He didn't meet Jesus in Anthony and Cleopatra did he?
"I think Jesus had business elsewhere around that time. But he was usually the one at Cleopatra's parties that would get a bit too drunk and start giving all the other people third eyes and stuff."
"Was it Spartacus?"
"That was Thingy Douglas..."
"Who, Micheal?"
M: What?
"Adams?"
"Catherine-Zeta Jones-Douglas?"
"In Spartacus? I don't think so."
"Kirk."
"James T?"
"Its worse than that."
M: Yeah, it was Kirk Douglas in Spartacus, Charlton Heston was in that other one...
"Gladiator?"
"Life of Brian?"
"Will you shut up about sodding Monty Python?! Nobody famous was in that other than them."
"Yes there was, Spike Milligan's in it."
"When?"
"The bit with the sandal."
"And the gourd."
"He's the one making sense."
"For once."
M: Wait, he doesn't get screwed in Ben Hur, does he?
"Spike Milligan?"
"No, Kirk Douglas."
"That was Spartacus."
"Kirk Douglas screwed Spike Milligan in Spartacus?"
"Sounds more like Gladiator with all the beefcake."
"You're not thinking of Jon Voight in Deliverance are you?"
"Jon Voight isn't the one who gets screwed, it's that other one."
"Burt Reynolds?"
"Ronnie Cox?"
"No, the one who has no career."
"Small wonder."
"Guess he wasn't putting enough emotion into the part."
M: I don't mean he gets screwed literally...
"Oh, you mean like he dies and meets Jesus metaphorically?"
"Airport?"
"No, wait... Airplane. Airport was the comedy."
"No, other way round."
"Are you sure..."
"What sense is there in calling a film set on a plane Airport?"
"Earthquake."
"He doesn't die in Earthquake."
"He doesn't die in Airport either."
"He's not in Airport, he's in Airplane."
"Whatever!"
M: Come to think of it, has anyone ever killed Charlton Heston?
"Maybe if we're lucky..."
"At some NRA gathering with a bunch of Alien Hand Syndrome sufferers..."
"You saw that too? How freaky to not be able to control your own hands."
"I have that problem all the time around women." (this one was *not* me)
"He dies in Soylent Green doesn't he?"
"They turn him into salteen crackers... just add water and he'll reform into Charlton Heston. Thats the beauty of osmosis."
"He was in Wayne's World 2 as well, remember the bit at the gas station when Wayne complains about the actor and they wheel in Charlton instead?"
"Wasn't that Rip Torn?"
"What a great name."
"Yeah."
"I mean Rip Torn."
"So do I."
"He doesn't die in Wayne's World 2."
M: Buff, you haven't said anything yet, what do you think?
B: I don't even know who you're talking about.
"Somebody send her the imdb entry for Charlton Heston"
"Where's the fun in that?"
Me: "Oh... wait. He was in Airport, and even The Colby's"
"Great series that."
"Not half as good as Dynasty"
"How old were you when Dynasty was on?!"
"Obviously too young to realise it was crap. Now Dallas on the other hand..."
etc, etc, ad nauseum.
The answer of course was "The Greatest Story Ever Told."
Meeting Ms Jolie
Leaving work early and heading to the pub for a quick game of pool and a refreshing iced drink I'm suddenly buzzed by my phone. Hello? Yes, oh, the Tomb Raider Premiere is in Leicester Square tonight? Yeah, I might pop down there, see who I can see... thanks. Love you...
And so I set off walked down to Leicester Square reasoning that the best thing that can happen is that my detour takes me past a media/celebrity blitz. And the worst thing is that I take an extra ten minutes to get to the tube and head home without getting the green beans I'm carrying bashed to bits.
Green beans aren't the important detail there.
I reckon that Premieres are timed down to the minute. You wouldn't make a bunch of celebrities sit around waiting for the star, so there would be a pre-arranged time for the major stars to turn up, I figure it'd be on the hour, so speed up my pace to arrive there just before seven.
Once there, arriving from the direction of Regent's Street, I discover there are so many people there its unbelievable. And they're all hot and sweaty and pushy. I pick a side and muscle my way forwards still thinking that the Premiere is down at the Odean rather than the Empire before hearing wild screams to my left. And there's Jon Voight.
Like...
Right there. Beside me.
My initial thought was to say "Squeal boy, squeal!", my brain just works like that.
There are cries of "Old fart? Who are you? Excuse me... who are you?" from a guy beside me who ducks down when Jon looks round to see who said it. I try and mimic my larynx missing from a horrible hunting accident... which involves looking at him and trying to smile politely as the guy beside me sniggers.
He heads over to the opposite side of the crowd and I nudge my way in beside the girls in Lara outfits but themed to a certain energy soft drink Lara advertises on TV. Not going to say what the drink is, but damn were those girlies fit.
Anyway, Caprice pulls up in a car, gets out and gives the tabloids a few poses. Yawn. Go away. I'm straining my calves trying to see back down the way I came. The cinema entrance is directly across from me and a bunch of guys have taken the Lara-girls onto their shoulders beside me.
A black executive car (could have been a Merc, could have been a BMW, could have been silver, didn't care) pulls up and out get Angelina and Billy-Bob. I realise that all the press are lining the sides of the door and that I'm positioned perfectly for the "star talking with fans without photographer in sight" photo. Cool.
She makes her way along the crowds and is signing this and that, copies of Total Film are dangled over the heads of the crowd and probably not returned to the right people afterwards, someone behind me asks someone beside me to take some pictures with an expensive digital camera... hey, I did Digital Media in college, ask me!
The Lara girls are getting more and more excited and bouncing on the guys' shoulders, who are getting more and more excited. My calves are screaming for me to stop standing on tiptoes, I stand flat on the soles of my shoes and become almost instantly glued to the spot by spilled product endorsement soft drink. Ew.
Angelina makes her way along the line, the Met officers scream at everyone to stop pushing against the barriers. She looks gorgeous in a simple black suit. How she can wear black in this weather I have no idea. Billy-Bob has hung back but they move together for a kiss for all the papers then she moves back towards my part of the crowd.
It gets mixed up after that. I remember her coming over to the Lara-girls and being in front of me as I said "You were fantastic in Girl, Interrupted" (yes, I realise that that's a dumb thing to say, she won an Academy Award for it!) she might have said thanks, I might have imagined it, and then she moved further down the crowd signing stuff as she went.
That was it. No sudden moment of silence with rose-petals falling towards me, no wink or coy smile... in retrospect why was it such a great feeling? I don't know, but I went home, had steak and green beans for dinner, watched some Farscape and thought about how much I'm currently enjoying myself here. Despite the heat.
Gumshoe
The morning wasn't being kind to me. Already I'd had to suffer countless people at the station, the streets were crawling like a carcass on an ant-hill, I was in a dark mood. The marble pillars of the entranceway to my building towered before me, I tipped a nod to the doorman and headed into the art deco elevators.
As I approached my desk I noticed a skirt, tall with dark skin, rooting around in my desk drawers. She had her back to me and I pondered what to do next. I still had that rough weekend feeling where you shave it all off hoping to come in to work clean and fresh, but it hadn't worked. I felt grizzled like a pack of bears.
"What are you looking for?" I enquired.
The broad jumped back with a start, embarrased at being caught. A few other people had a peek at the commotion but my stare told them to get back to work.
"I was looking for some Advil or something. I've got a headache."
Two lead slugs would do the trick, I mused before sliding back the chair and sitting down. I settled into the chair like the comfortable embrace of an old lover welcoming you back after a prolonged absence. I couldn't be unfaithful to this chair, not even with the armchairs in my appartment.
"I don't have any Advil."
I paused. Was this a ploy? Was she really after something else?
"I do have a couple of Placebos though."
She was American and didn't understand it was a joke.
"Are they just as good?"
"Sure, they'll do the trick," I said, like a cat playing with a spider. Showing the glimmer of hope before covering it over again with the soft pink pad of its paw. How long could I keep this up?
"You don't mind? I'll go and get you some more at lunchtime."
"I've got plenty to spare. Hang on..."
I reached into the side drawer of my desk. My trusty supportive desk. Always willing to take any load I might bestow upon it. It might occasionally have felt the weight of the world on its shoulders, but that was usually solved by dragging the paper recycling bin round to it.
I couldn't find anything suitable inside and instead reached across the desk to the little Zen garden I keep. A funny oriental trinket given to me after solving a case in Chinatown, it was designed to keep my nerves calm, but didn't do the job as well as some things.
Picking two of the three pebbles out of the sand, the black shiny rocks like obsidian rabbit droppings I asked, "Are two going to be enough?"
She wasn't paying attention to what I was doing and hadn't noticed my ruse. I dropped them into her outstreched palm and leaned back into the chair.
"Um..."
Turning to another colleague she decided to verify my claim.
"Are Placebos as good as Advil?" she asked.
The guy was a solid dependable type, we'd worked together a lot in the past and he knew what was going on. A conspirital wink and he replied;
"If you've never had one before, you might be surprised."
That seemed to have done the trick, and I don't think I'll have anyone looking through my desk again anytime soon.