I needed fresh chillies yesterday and I couldn’t be bothered to go to the supermarket, or to venture onto the high street. But there’s a collection of shops and takeaways nearby and one is a gardening shop that has expanded to sell vegetables and some deli good. It’s owned by an eccentric looking chap with panama hat and elaborate beard.

With a touch of trepidation, I entered. Inside I found that I was pleasantly surprised by what they sold and I grabbed a hand of chillies and took them to the young woman at the till. She weighed them and calculated the price. “That’s three pence please”. Shocked, I fumbled through the change in my dog-walking jacket pocket and pondered paying her with a dog biscuit.

THREE PENCE? That would’ve cost about £1 in the supermarket.

I gave her 20p and declined the change, which went into the charity box.

My thoughts returned to the idea of paying for goods with the dog biscuits in my pocket. Wouldn’t bartering and payment of goods by exchange of services be fun? I’m sure, given the demographic of the area, this is pretty common between businesses anyway, but could you imagine trying it down Tesco?

“I’ll stand by the door and make sure no rif-raff get in if you give me my shopping for free.”

“And what if we decline your offer?”

“I burn your shop down?”

It might work at Asda I suppose. When the big Asda in East Manchester opened, they had to sack half the workforce within the first week because the checkout staff were allowing their mates through the tills without scanning half their shopping. Serves them right for thinking they can regenerate a deprived area by building unaffordable housing, crappy supermarkets and casinos.

But that’s neo socialism for you….

Gordon is a moron
I’ve knocked thieving cunt Gordon Brown for over a decade now. Incompetent Chancellor and now unelected Prime Minister, the man has overseen and held the purse strings for Government since they came into power in 1997. Despite him being responsible for the disaster of NuLabour, his PR machine has tried to con the country into thinking that we have a brave new leader who had absolutely nothing to do with that nasty Tony Blair. Gordon Brown would save us all, despite him causing much of the mess in the first place.

Of course, aided and abetted by the BBC and the Guardian, the Labour spin machine seemed to be successfully conning the electorate and Labour had a remarkable turnaround in the opinion polls during a period of time when parliament was in recess and the opposition had zero opportunity to get a word in against him.

With a ten percent lead, election talk surfaces. “Let’s have an election before the recession hits next year, before the housing market collapses, before we abolish the 10% income tax rate and make all the really poor workers even less well off, before people finally realise how incompetent we are! ” A 1st November election was a 90% certainty this time last week,

But it being conference season, the opposition finally gets the chance to have a say, to start getting their message across, despite being upstaged by the BBC’s preference for reporting the Diana Inquest and the PM’s oh so brave visit to Iraq. The people don’t fall for it, they start getting the message from the other parties, the opinion polls swing back round again and Gordon, in his usual jaw-dropping, gasping manner, announces that he doesn’t want an election within the next 18 months afterall.

PUSSY!

What a manipulative, opportunistic, sneaky, cynical, cowardly, CUNT.

He treats the people with such contempt. I’d love a revolution.

Inked
I’m really warming to the idea of getting a tattoo, to the point that I’m about 100% sure of getting one. I’ll be getting my tongue split next!

Have you ever been at the till at the supermarket and the checkout assistant asks if you want help with your packing? You say No, thank you because you don’t want to look like a lazy twat. I mean, who on earth can’t manage to pack two carrier bags’ worth of shopping, for fuck’s sake?

Me, that’s who.

The items are scanned so quickly that they fly to the end of the conveyor belt. And they pile up and all the time you’re still struggling to get a carrier bag off the stand. Flustered and annoyed, you finally manage to get a bag from the stand and then comes the struggle to get the fucking thing opened. At this point, all the shopping has been scanned and the checkout youth is left staring at you with an expression of utter contempt having replaced the one of boredom, they add to the discomfort by telling you the total price of your shopping. You just know that they’re calling you a spaz and muttering under their breath, “Should’ve accepted my help to pack, fucktard!”.

Supermarket carrier bags used to be quite easy to get separated, but not any more. I blame the greenies and their insistence on us reusing suitcases when doing our supermarket shopping. Well actually, some of us like to collect plastic carrier bags to use for a) bin liners and b) picking up dog poo.

Besides, I’m too young to be using one of those bloody shopping carts like my parents had when I was a kid. You know the sort that were always made of brown or tartan vinyl?

I used to pootle along in front of my mum as we made our way from the mad-busy supermarket to the bus stop. I’d stop at my peril because this usually resulted in me being stabbed in the back of the leg from the spiky stand of the bag. She never did it on purpose or anything.

Rocky update
Rocky finished his puppy training tonight. I’d been looking forward to it all week, but the shitheads in Bury Council decided to resurface a section of road on our way to the class tonight – before the end of rush-hour. Huge tailbacks ensued and we were half an hour late for the class, he was unable to concentrate because he wanted to say hello to his friends and the whole event was a fucking waste of time.

But never mind, he’s been doing other things. Like growing his grown up teeth…

Taking his first dip….

And learning how to fly!

Certain things fill you with so much confusion and frustration that all you can do is clench your teeth and buttocks and shriek Nyyyighhhhh!!!! Probably in bold, red, UPPER CASE text with lots of exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On the street Chez Trump, the houses don’t have driveways and residents park on the road. It’s customary and logical to park ones car on the bit of the road outside your house. You’d have thought so, wouldn’t you? So why then, does the woman from four doors away suddenly decide to start parking on the bit of road outside Trump’s house when the space outside her own is free? I find it totally baffling. She’s parked outside her own home since I’ve been visiting and living here, and over the past month or so, she’s decided on random occasions, to park outside our house. It’s not even easier to park there as she has to manoeuvre between two parked cars whereas she can just drive into the space outside her own house.

Trump doesn’t understand or sympathise with my frustration. I just want to ask her why she does it. There must be some reason for it, but I can’t fathom it.

Answers on a postcard please.

Still, it’s not as bad as the stupid cunt who visits her parents over the road and takes up enough space for two cars outside our house rather than parking over the road. Selfish fucking spaz. I’m convinced it was her who twatted my wheel arch once. She drives and parks like a complete and utter retard.

But I’m not allowed to get annoyed because, as Trump points out, she doesn’t own the road outside her house. Of course she doesn’t. But why can’t that fucking twat show a bit of consideration and park outside the house she’s visiting and not take up so much fucking room? I love the way I’m always in the wrong.

What’s the point of not euthanising people like that if you can’t even shout at them?

The dog is doing toxic farts. I might bottle some up and post them to the neighbours.

I’m also going to box up some Rocky poo and post it to myself here. Then the cunting postman who keeps nicking our parcels will get more than he bargained for. Bastard.

Sledgehammer
Remember Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer from 1986? I never knew it wasn’t a number one in the chart.

Remember Dido’s White Flag? That wasn’t a number one either. Surprised? No, me neither.

Good and bad at games
I’m hopeless at sports, games, anything where I have to pit my wits against man, machine or computer. But saying that, I’m having lots of fun playing Mario Strikers on the Wii. Top notch gaming pleasure.

Uh oh, better look lively, Trump’s home!

I really don’t get Facebook. I have an account, people signed up as my friends, people queued up waiting for me to confirm their friends requests (well, one), but I really don’t see the point of it. I have colleagues listed as my friends. They’re my bloody colleagues, for fuck’s sake, I don’t even talk to them at work!

Can somebody please enlighten me as to the point of Facebook? You have a conversation with somebody, but everybody else can see it. And anybody can just search for you and add you as their friend; “Some spurdy dur you really don’t even talk to at work has added you as their friend on Facebook”. You dread the e-mail coming through.

They’re in the next office at work and you hardly speak to them there, would you like to confirm them as your friend on Facebook so they can see a load of your personal photos and messages with other internet ne’er-do-wells?

Hell no! NO! NO! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes they’re welcomed, but generally these friend requests are puzzling, bordering on weirdo stalking. In fact, that’s exactly what Facebook is: a stalking tool for people who should know better.

Drag up
YAY, Tootsie’s on the telly! That’s a great film. From the same era as 9 to 5, it just makes you feel good watching it.

“This bruise? Oh it’s nothing, honestly. Just clumsy old me, walking into things!”
I have a painful bruise on my forehead where I’ve bashed it on the underside of the stairs. Here at Trump’s house, the doorway from the living room into the dining room has been moved so that the walkway takes you beneath the stairs, as opposed to past the bottom of them. This isn’t something that’s happened recently (the doorway move), it’s always been like that, but I keep twatting my head on the underside of the stairs. You know what it’s like when you bash your head so hard that it makes your teeth really clatter together? That’s what this is like.

Domestic bliss…ters
Me and Trump look like we’ve been fighting; she has a black eye from where she’s been rubbing hers.

But we don’t really fight. She shouts at me when we do domestic tasks. Today’s torture was brought to us by the words “Ikea” and “Wonderweb”. Ikea curtains being one length (about 5 metres), they need cutting down and hemming in order to fit any normal window. I don’t like to get involved, but I feel I have to (I’m told I have to), then I get shouted at. The end result is good and we can finally open the living room curtains because a) they now glide along the new curtain track, and b) we have nets up to stop the nosy fishwives from staring in on their twice-daily promenades along the street.

Isn’t the New Zealand accent funny?

I have, in the past, extolled the virtues of dehydrated food that, when rehydrated with hot water, transform into fuckin’ delish, nutrish meals. One of my all time favourites is the chicken and mushroom Pot Noodle, in my opinion, the ultimate pot-based snack. But now they are ruined. Why? Well, because of this:

Yes, Pot Noodles now contain 50% less salt than in 2005 – when coincidentally, I first wrote of my love for them. But what have manufacturers done? Have they just removed the salt to give noodle-lovers the opportunity to replace it themselves? Have they bollocks! The bastards have replaced it with potassium chloride – the stuff that gives you a metallic burning sensation in your mouth when you eat it.

BASTARDS!

Why do they have to mess about with things that you love? For fuck’s sake, it’s a Pot fucking Noodle! It’s SUPPOSED TO BE SALTY! Just leave the fuck alone.

I really hate the salt Nazis who have taken over everything. Don’t people realise that food doesn’t taste of anything if there’s no salt? There’ll be reduced salt salty snacks next. Fucking arseholes.

I’ve e-mailed them to complain, but I don’t think they’ll respond. This consumer champion has well and truly lost her mojo.

The L Word
Nice to see that Living TV have put the fourth series of The L Word in the prime spot of midnight on a Friday night. Bastards.

You get four hours of CSI in the run up, but they couldn’t bring it forward by an hour or so.

At least they didn’t put the big bill board ads up for it this year; almost make me crash my car, they do.

Monsieur Rocky’s coiffeur
Rocky had his first hair cut last week. I’m not sure what Angel did to him, but he had his lipstick out for 2 hours after and he’s been trying to shag all the ladies since.

The next cut Rocky’s getting ain’t going to be with electric clippers.

Anyway, Boy Wonder has gone from this:

To this:

He’s been to the beach too. We think he liked it, although I think he may not have noticed the sand and the freedom of being without his lead, he seemed preoccupied in chasing Lea.

I promise never to use satellite navigation AGAIN unless I’m really unsure as to where I’m going. I will, from now on, return to my reliable road atlas and A-Z to get a handle on the roads in the vicinity before relying blindly on some gadget that communicates with things thousands of miles up in the air before telling me what I’ve been able to figure out for years up to now.

Imagine the great explorers of the past, how they travelled to the ends of the world, into the great unknown and lands of dragons, relying on the stars in the night sky. Well, that’s how I feel when I rely on shat nav to get me anywhere. There’s always a feeling of Where the fuck is it taking me? This makes no sense! Sometimes, it’ll give plenty of warning of an approaching turn, other times it’ll tell you when you’re right on top of the junction, or worse, past it. It tells me to throw out my driving experience and sit in the outside lane of the motorway when I’m not overtaking anything. It makes a bad driver of a mediocre one.

Exhibit A – No escape from the back of beyond
On a day out in terribly Cheshire with my lovely Trump and our little dog, our route home was blocked by an accident on the road ahead. I followed the lead of others and turned round. Instead of saying “Have a look at the road atlas and see what alternative roads there are”, I mistakenly said “Turn the sat nav on.” After several attempts to get the thing to find us an alternative, we found ourselves further down the line of queuing traffic as the technology couldn’t comprehend that we were trying to find a different way home. A brief look at the map would’ve told me to turn round and stay on the road .

It was like something out of a 1940s horror film or the Twilight Zone, where a person is trapped in space and time for all eternity. Forced to return to the same spot again and again.

Exhibit B – Out of pocket by £110
For some god unknown reason on Saturday, I used the shat nav to get to a place about 2 miles away that I could’ve figured out easily enough from the map. In fact the map was better because el stupido device lost the signal at a vital point in the journey and I had to use those things known as my eyes and common sense to get me to my destination.

On our return home, I was irritated that I was forced to park on the other side of the road because my usual parking space had been taken by something old with blacked out windows and big alloy wheels (that were probably worth more than the car). In the ensuing rant, and Trump’s counter-rant, I forgot to unplug the sat nav power adapter from the cig lighter. No big deal, surely?

Big deal, definitely.

Come Sunday, my car battery was as flat as a fluke, but the breakdown man came quickly and his jump leads did the trick. It was raining and dark and I didn’t see that there’d be any benefit to charging the battery by driving around with the demisters, blowers and lights on, so I revved the engine a bit and left it.

Monday morning: Battery flat again. This time I called on my sister to come and rescue me with jump leads. Car starts eventually and I decide to drive it really fast around the ring road to my sister’s new house to give the battery a proper charge. Arrived, went inside, locked pooch in the garden, returned to car to go do a bit of shopping, car battery totally flat again.

Advice from Sid in my local garage: “Sounds like it’s not holding its charge; the cells have probably collapsed. We don’t have any batteries in, we get them to order, you could try Charlie Browns.” So off I pootle to Charlie Browns and the only battery they have in for my car costs £95.

FUCK!

Back to Bomb’s where I enlist the help of Dad and his trusty toolbag of totally useless tools – i.e. one adjustable spanner, one imperial spanner and a couple of pairs of pliers. Another £15 and a socket set and a lot of grease and swearing later – accompanied by yelping from a lonely dog – the old battery is out and the new one is in – although we can’t tighten up the positive. The car starts, victory is ours.

I am totally fucked off. A hundred and ten pounds just because I left a charger for something that’s frankly quite rubbish plugged in overnight. How can these things be designed to draw current without the accessory circuit being on?

Sat Nav is RUBBISH on so many counts.

Ring the alarm
On top of this we have a dog with separation anxiety who chews through alarm wires when he gets bored. I refuse to spend £70 to have a bit of wire replaced so I’m going to do it myself.

Idiot animal.

He’s being groomed tomorrow – with clippers, not for child porn. I’ve been given some tips to help get him used to the idea. He won’t keep still though and it’ll be like trying to shave an eel. He’s going to end up looking like some sort of burns victim.

Photos to follow no doubt.

Is it wrong to watch your dog (or cat) throw up his breakfast and then let him eat it to save you having to clean up warm sick?

Hell no!

Is it wrong to put mushy peas on my chips and gravy when I didn’t ask for them?

Hell yes!

You see, mushy peas fall into the same category as mashed potatoes when it comes to things that infiltrate gravy with grainy cloudiness. I can’t be doing with stuff that sullies my gravy. Instead of having a fuckin’ delish plate of food, I ended up with something that looked like it had been fished out of the pig bin*.

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!

And Trump wondered why I was in such a bad mood. Honestly, you’d have thought she’d know me by now.

*For those who didn’t attend school in 1970s Britain, the pig bin was the big bin in the school canteen where the dinnerladies would empty the unfinished meals from children’s plates – pudding and all. The leftovers were then collected by farms to be fed to pigs – or so we were led to believe.

A Mars a day
Once upon a time in a land not far away, there lived a scientist who went for a job at the Waltham Centre for Animal Research (or whatever it’s called). You know Pedigree Masterfoods, makers of Pedigree Chum, Whiskas and other pet foods? Well they have to research their products and product components, so they have this fantastic facility in the Midlands where they do their stuff.

There are loads of dogs and cats, rabbits and less significant pets kept there and they’re basically fed different food formulations before being tested for physiological wellbeing etc. Tested in a nice way – I think the worst that happens to them is that they have blood and wee samples taken.

All the animals are housed in fantastic accommodation and they seem to have a pretty good standard of living, all things considered. That’s unless there’s a back room where they stick electrodes in their heads to observe brain patterns when they’re given different foods.

Anyway, Pedigree Masterfoods is owned by Mars and Mars also owns a chain of three animal care centres called “My Petstop“, of which there’s one here in Manchester. We’re going to take Rocky to check out the grooming facilities later on; it’s about time he started to look like a Mini Schnauzer rather than a Scottie dog.

I wonder if these places are a front for their animal research centre. What if they carry out secret experiments on the animals in their care? I may ask the sixteen year old “I just want to work with little animals” at the reception and see what sort of response I get. “And what is it you intend to do with his hair and nail clippings, do you have a intensive cloning programme that you’re going to use it for? And don’t be getting any funny ideas about hypnotising him and making him want to start eating Pedigree Chum!”

Trump got me some bling for my birthday. You can’t really call it bling because it’s too tasteful, but it’s got sparkly bits in it. It’ s lovely and it sits beautifully on the second finger of my left hand – it’s a touch too big for the third finger of my right hand, where I’d normally wear a ring. I flashed it at Connie and she gasped “That’s not on your ring finger is it?”.

No, Mother, not yet. But think on and look sharp because one day you might have to be forking out for a wedding that you’d thought you’d got away with!

Twilight world
It’s that strange time of day when the world starts coming awake. It’s actually a bit later than that, but this being Manchester, nobody bothers getting up for work, so it stays quiet until a bit later in the morning…. or dinnertime, as it’s known around here.

Little Rocky is in his twilight zone; he has not fulfilled his holy trinity of wee, breakfast, poo, so I am waiting for a bit till I make him go outside again.

You see, parents don’t have this, so they? They just shove a nappy on a baby and let it mess itself so they can clean it up at their own convenience. Pet (dog) owners need to get their animals into a routine or the consequences can be disastrous. And smelly.

I haven’t had a wee or blown my nose yet; I feel a little other-worldly myself. Nothing beats a good productive nose-blow. You always have to manoeuvre the tissue to give it another blow to try to dislodge a sticky one; wiping bogey on your nose when you know that tissues just don’t work on those ones and a poke with a finger is the only thing that’s bringing that baby out! I don’t advocate nose-picking, but sometimes, in private, needs must.

The dog is turning into an adolescent. He met a friendly lady dog on Monday afternoon who was lovely and calm with him while he sniffed her face, then tried to hump it (her face). He is demanding more sleep; we now have to get him out of bed in the morning. He sometimes drops to the floor and refuses to move while we’re trying to walk him.: “I can’t believe you’re making me WALK. I HATE YOU!”

Yesterday, he threw up at the entrance to a place where he wasn’t allowed to go in. Good boy!

“Fed up with your dishes still being wet when you take them out of the dishwasher? Why not try Finish Powerball/Fairy Active Burst or whatever shite we’re advertising?”

Why not doing the pots by hand and leaving them to drain on the draining board like most of us have to?

Then again, it is quite annoying when you have to dry the dishes by hand when you’d have thought they’d come out dry from the machine.

Just shows you how much we rely on machines to do things for us. Why can’t somebody invent a washing machine that washes, dries, irons, and puts away? Especially one that pairs socks. If I had the money, I’d like to be able to wear clothes only once then chuck them.

37
That’s how old I am today.

Fuck.