Shoesy-Shoesy

After buying some new shoes, my anticipation heightens until I can get them home, open up the box, take the shoes out, put them to one side, root around in the box until finally I come across the small packet labelled 'Silica Gel'. Every time, though, I am thwarted and disappointingly have to put it to one side and start lacing up the shoes, because, every time I get the silica gel packet, I'm confronted with the spoilsport words, 'Do Not Eat', ruining my fun. Bah.

Even worse is the only instruction: 'Throw Away'. So blunt that you daren't disobey it. It's the only thing standing between me and a cupboard full of hoarded silica gels that I'm not allowed to eat.

Each time I get new shoes, I also get to remember with fondness how lacing up your shoes in a non-approved fashion-failing way would be merely the prelude to ridicule and abuse as a child. If you were looking for a positive thing to say about bullying, you can definitely say that it instills a sense of correctness and attention to detail in the victim.

Ah, shoes. They sure are evocative things. Just be glad I haven't gone on about shoe boxes yet.

Box Stupid 2

While casually destroying the planet by using paper tissues, I noticed that Kleenex have chosen to mark their fiftieth anniversary of destroying the planet by having a big swirly badge that says "50 Years of MANSIZE STRENGTH".This is the sort of thing that my email spam filter would make short work of. It'll only be a matter of time before we're fitted with eye-spam filters that just leave a fuzzy indistinct patch where otherwise would be "50 Years of MANSIZE STRENGTH".

Project: Do you know someone who is or is about to become a 50 year-old? Why not print out the second photo, and cut it into a badge for them. (Note: Please ensure that the recipent has achieved fifty years of MANSIZE STRENGTH before giving this gift, as the incongruity of a badge saying "50 Years of MANSIZE STRENGTH" on a woman or weedy man will cause laughter and may spoil their otherwise special day).

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Yep, I've not been up to much recently. Except for dressing up as a pirate, but that's nothing unusual when you frequent Dressing-Up-As-A-Pirate parties, is it? (Photos in comments to previous post. I'm feeling too too exhausted to cut and paste the addresses again).

Bouba Diop and Knots

Can't really explain adequately, but I've developed a mild obsession with Bouba Diop from Fulham, the Premiership also-rans. Why Papa Bouba Diop? Is it his giant loping gait as he surges forward from defence? Or is it the fact that his name sounds like the noise you get in arcade machines when you get an extra life? (Clue: it's the second one.) Apparantly his nickname, according to the official website is the frankly unlikely 'Wardrobe'. I fear the explanation of this, frankly, and will not be delving any deeper.

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Also on a football bent, mainly just to piss off those of you who dislike football (most people I know), Roy Keane, currently Sunderland manager, is busy practising tieing the world's largest tie knot. For Roy to stand out amonsgt the already noted for their large-knottedness breed of footballers, it's clear testimony to his fearless professionalism that he has to be the best at what he does, even if this is just tieing his tie. What a pro.

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Sorry, that's a lot of football, really. Pretend they're pirates if that helps.

Conversations I Didn't Have With Shop Assistants vol n+1

Scene: At the desk at an electronics shop, waiting for the Chip and PIN machine to confirm my credit-worthiness.

Electronics Shop Assistant One: Well, I ain't being discriminatory or anything, but you won't know what it is...
Electronics Shop Assistant Two: I might.
ESA1: Alright then. It's like a cross between a lychee...
ESA2: Right...
ESA1: ...and an apple.
ESA2: An apple?
ESA1: An apple.
ESA2: Oh.
ESA1: See what I mean? Knew you wouldn't've heard of it.
ESA2: What does it taste like?
ESA1: Oh man...
ESA2: Hmm?
ESA1: It tastes like a cross between...
ESA2: Yes?
ESA1: ...a cross between an apple and a lychee.
ESA2: Oh.

There's probably a word out there for the feeling that you get when you wish you had asked someone what the name of the fruit they were describing was but didn't. However, I don't care what that word was. I just want to know what the name of the fruit was. What was it? WHAT?

Tony Blair and the Flight of Fancy

You know when you half pick up on something, and then don't want to know any more because it will inevitably spoil the magic as you learn more and find out that it's not actually as interesting as you first thought? Well, probably not, because that's quite a badly written sentence, but I am currently amusing myself with the news that there's a memo been leaked that supposedly planned for Tony Blair to make appearances on Blue Peter and Songs of Praise. Unfortunately, I already sort of know that this is to 'secure his legacy' and ease transition for the next leader of the party, but I'd love it if this were the contingency plan for all national emergencies. Say there were a chemical leak in the North Sea that threatened coastal communities and devastated fishing stocks? Get Tony on telly quick! He can be squeezed into the Blue Peter, between a segment on the Romans and the putting of the tortoise into the cardboard box of hibernation. Perhaps he could get into a centurion costume? Great. Were there to be mass rioting gutting Birmingham and spreading to other cities, perhaps he could pop into Songs of Praise, and, on acoustic guitar, belt out some rousing hymns to steel the reserve of the terrified populace?

Stupid truth. Always getting in the way of my whimsical fun.

On the Perils of Being a Stevenage Borough Fan; Dancing

Right, you work-shy fops, everyone have a good bank holiday weekend? I watched the increasingly infuriating Stevenage Boro valiantly fight their way from being 2-0 up after 12 minutes to draw 3-all for the second time in three days. It's these kind of things that make people go all crazy. If you hear of anyone embarking on a rampage through Stevenage town centre hurling heavy blunt objects from a vintage French bicyle, don't report me to the police. I've had a hard time of it, and I'm too beautiful for prison.

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Watch this, it's a good representation of how I think I dance:

Raisin Wheats, My New Breakfast Fear-eal

My breakfasts just got a whole lot more soul-curdlingly terrifying. I decided to switch from Special K (which features aspirational air-brush renderings of the womanly curves I could hope to achieve if I chomp my own weight in the stuff) to Kellog's Raisin Wheats. I didn't look closely enough when picking it off the shelf and now I have to look at this every morning. The anthropomorphic embodiment of the cereal is known as Mr Wheat ("May I call you Wheaty?" "NO! I AM MR WHEAT! ADDRESS ME AS SUCH!") and looks like the trunk of a particularly knarled ancient oak. He appears, sad mismatched eyes imploring, on the back of the box pleading with you to eat what can only be his children.

I think I'll have some toast.

Inexplicably Funny Cartoon and My Rendezvous in Birmingham

OK, this cartoon is the FUNNIEST THING EVER. Seriously. EVER. If anyone could actually explain it to me, I'd find it even funnier.

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Tomorrow I have arranged to meet a man that I do not know at Birmingham Moor Street station. I will only be able to work out if it is him or not because he will be in the possession of an antique French bicycle. He may even be riding the antique French bicycle, but that would be a bit rude of him, frankly, and I don't think we'd get on.

As you can probably guess, I've purchased a sexy old-fashioned racer on e-bay, and am going to pick it up tomorrow. I am even more excited about this than when the 256MB of laptop memory that I use even now to write these words arrived.

I will easily be able to recognise him because of his antique French bicycle, but how will he be able to recognise me? I was thinking about this, and have decided that the best thing to do will be to jump up and down like an exited child shouting "Bike! Bike! Bike!" until he comes over and hands over my antique French bicycle.