Category Archives: Foreigners

All quiet on the Stoneclough front

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It’s the calm before the storm.  They arrive tomorrow morning.  I am prepared and ready to do battle with my introvert tendencies; I can deal with the exhaustion in a week.  The thing about living on your own and having a routine, and being an introvert, and slightly high on the autism spectrum, and a bit miserable… is that spending time with others for any length of time really does take it out of you.  It’s difficult for some people to understand this; some people thrive on the company of others, get a little stir-crazy if they’re not around people for any length of time.  For me though, apart from my time at work, I don’t have that much contact with people and, well, I actually quite like that.

April though, she is very special to me and her company is so uplifting, so very easy.  I do joke about fancying her, she’s an attractive woman in all senses, but my affection for her is grounded in her being one of the best friends I’ve ever had.  She has provided some of my best times over the past nine or so years; she has supported me through some of my toughest times.  She has encountered devastation and loss herself, but always, she is April.

I am very lucky to know her and I’m certain those words would be said by everybody who has been fortunate enough to know her.  I’m so happy that she’s taken the time out to come over to visit me.   I feel extremely privileged.

Sacha, on the other hand.  Well, the jury is out on that one, but eight years is a long time and there is a huge difference between a three year old and an eleven year old.  I’m looking forward to seeing her again, it’s going to be… interesting.

Anxiety levels were a little high earlier on as I scoured Morrison’s for inspiration as to what to feed two jet lagged visitors tomorrow.  I went for fruit, cheese and crisps.  And coffee.  I’ll let them decide what they want when they get here.  Needless to say, they’ll want feeding seal cub wellington at 2am, but they’ll have to settle for a kebab.  Oh GOD! That just autocorrected to kabob – must’ve known I was referring to feeding North Americans.  

Twots.

 

Dogatitis

The dog is barking his head off.  His skin has flared up again and he shouts to tell the world that he’s not happy about being itchy.  And there’s nothing I can do to help him.  He has his medicated baths and his flea treatments, but this is just how he gets at this time of year.  It’s desperately sad to witness, but more than that, his incessant barking and scratching and nipping is fucking irritating to the point that I want to kill him.

SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!

Bedding

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I’ve been very lax in the bedding department over the past couple of weeks.  The set that I removed last weekend hadn’t been washed by the time it came to change the current stuff this evening.  I’ve had to wash two sets and stick the heating on full blast to try to get it dry.  In the meantime, I’m resorting to emergency bedding that consists of a way past its best duvet cover and… shame of shames… a polycotton fitted sheet.

The depths to which I’ve sunk.  I might as well be sleeping in a homeless shelter tonight.

But they say you have to hit rock bottom before you can start to rise again.  Come tomorrow, I’ll be back on top with two full sets of clean bedding.  Of course, I have guest bedding that I’d never let anywhere near my own memory foam.  Visitors have something called “easy care”, whatever the hell that is.  All I know is that that it’s not white, high thread-count Egyptian cotton and it’s going nowhere near my sleepy body.

Sofie Gråbøl drops the F-bomb on teatime radio

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This woman is utterly charming, and look at how OSX treats her!

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Anyway, lovely Sofie was on the Radio 2 Drivetime show this afternoon to talk about the National Theatre/of Scotland production that she’s appearing in in Edinburgh and then London.  The show is on National radio, broadcast between 5 and 7pm to a family audience.  

Of course, the host of the show, Simon Mayo, asked her about what she’s most known for, her performance as Sarah Lund in the wonderful, The Killing and what she thought of the US version.  Having never watched the US version myself, I was interested to learn that she’d played a cameo in it.  Describing her appearance, what she said is paraphrased in the following:

“The producer wanted me to play a cameo and so I went over to Vancouver to do this. I was playing one scene as a solicitor who was meeting the equivalent of the Sarah Lund character.  I was dressed smartly in a suit and thought it would be OK to do the scene opposite Sarah Linden.  She approached me in that pony tail, and that jumper… inside I was four years old, give me my FUCKING jumper… I meant ‘bloody’…”  What followed was the some of the best radio I’ve heard in a long time.

The BBC playlister of the show is available here for the next week, it even warns of strong language and asks that listeners confirm that they’re over 16, this must be a first for this programme… for Radio 2.

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I’ve managed to save the sequence to keep and keep again… 

Anyway, I love her even more now, and I hope that the Edinburgh and London production of James III: the true mirror is even more successful as a result of her appearance on the radio this evening.

Who’d have thought the BBC might need to employ a 10 second delay for a such a sweet woman though.  I think she needs a cuddle.  I’d happily give her a very special cuddle.

A brush with death

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One of the reasons for taking the little dog to the behaviourist (he accompanies me while it’s actually me who gets training) is so that I can learn how to brush him and so he can get used to that sort of mithering contact so I can bribe somebody with clippers to come round and cut his wiginess without them getting their fingers bitten off.

It’s a very slow process that involves bribing him with tasty and extremely smelly treats, namely chopped up bits of braised lamb offal. FYI braised lambs hearts have the same smell as any cooked lamb, which I find bizarre. Anyway, the process of brushing His Lordship involves a handful of lamb bits, a lead, a brush (which he must not see). He gets held in place with a short lead while I shove bits of meat into his mouth and try to touch him with the brush. After an arduous and bad tempered start, and rapid stop, we’re making progress! I have so far brushed quite a bit of his back, his tail, the back of his neck, the top of his head, his beard, his back legs. His tummy is some way off yet, and first rule of doggy fight club is “DO NOT LET IT DEVELOP INTO A FIGHT!” Apparently, Cesar Millan’s way of holding down a pooch until it submits to your will just won’t work with a dog like Rocky and you have to use the softly, softly, catchy monkey method. This means that any sign of stress from the dog and we stop.

Why couldn’t I get a normal dog? I should’ve known when I saw his dad (as mental as he is) and him as a 12 week old pup – I think it was a 12 week old pup that I saw; all I witnessed was a little black blob of excitement tearing around his first mum’s kitchen. Cute though.

And now he’s doing toxic farts.

Going Dutch
I really hate the way the Dutch speak when they speak in English. I don’t care how they speak when they speak Dutch because I obviously switch off. I don’t care that they have nothing to do but learn fifteen different languages by the time they’re out of nappies, I can’t stand the way they speak English.

I pity my cousin though. She’s from Liverpool, but married a Dutch man and has lived in Holland since the late 1980s. She speaks Dutch very well, but has forgotten how to speak English, which given her unfortunate start in this aspect of her life, puts her at quite a disadvantage when she comes back to England. Her accent/language is now what can be described as Douse, or Scutch I suppose.

Even worse than the Dutch English accent is when English people copy the Dutch English accent for the sake of comedy or advertising. Why do people do it? Why do people think that the Dutch are significant enough to use as characters in films or adverts? And when they do deem it absolutely necessary to include such people, why don’t they go for an authentic Dutch person instead of some English cunt doing a Dutch accent?

Gawd. Just a thought.

Notting Hill
Notting Hill is on telly. It has Hugh Grant playing Hugh Grant in it. There’s not really much that I can add to that.

Tippety-tap

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Rocky has developed an irritating new habit: tapping at closed doors.

It started the other week, I’d go to bed at night, shut the bedroom door, then within about ten minutes of getting into bed, I’d hear the pitter-patter of furry feet coming up the stairs followed by a gentle tap on the door. I’d ignore him, he’d tap again. I’d ignore him, I’d hear him huff at the door and lie down. I’d ignore him, then he’d stand up, tap again, huff again, then give up and do back downstairs.

A couple of hours after falling asleep, I’d be woken by more tapping, huffing, tapping, followed by him returning to his bed downstairs.

Now he’s started tapping on all the closed doors in the house. Why? What is wrong with my little mutt?

It’s best to ignore him and not respond in any way; he’ll soon stop, but it’s quite annoying and I hope he gets over himself sooner rather than later.

Oh dear, he’s eating Jo’s slipper again. No Rocky, don’t do that. See, I did try to stop him.

Diplomatic relations
A new colleague started with our team yesterday, she’s come over from China. I’ve been spending time helping her acclimatise to being in the UK: the most important thing is making sure she can cross the road without being run over. It’s second nature to us lot over here, but you know these foreign types who drive on the wrong side of the road.

She had to register her presence in the UK with the Police. We tried the local police station in Moss Side, it was shut. There were people inside, but they didn’t fancy letting anybody in. “Fighting crime (the people), protecting people (ourselves), hiding from inner city scumbags.” The second station was open, but we were told that we could only register at the big police station in the city centre. So off we pootled into Manchester, where the registration office was closed for lunch. The coppers were strutting about as if they were it: “Ooh, look at me in me stab proof vest, with me handcuffs hanging off me belt. Do you like my cocky swagger? You fancy me, dontcha? You’d better, or I’ll taser you in the fucking face!”.

Cunts.

Could it be the weather?
It’s fucking freezing still. I can’t get warm. My toes are icy all the time.

Jo came home after a couple of days with Pigsnout. She noticed that the thermostat was set to 22, mentioned that our gas bill will be bad (I don’t disagree with her) and then said that I can’t get warm because I’m wearing too many layers and I’m not allowing my body to acclimatise. No, I can’t get warm because it’s not been above zero for the past two weeks and it’s fucking freezing cold in this godforsaken hell hole of a country.

Why can’t my dog be normal? You see other dogs, they have their food put out for them and it’s gone in thirty seconds; they growl if you go anywhere near them while they’re eating. I put Rocky’s food out and he ignores it for two hours, then eats it in shifts, taking a mouthful at a time, constantly returning to the living room to check that I’m still here. Or I have to stand in the kitchen with him while he eats. He won’t leave me alone while I’m in the house, yet as soon as he goes outdoors, it’s as if I don’t exist. And now he’s rubbing his face on his blanket and turning his bed upside down and dragging around the living room.

Oh dear, no Rocky, don’t chew Mummy Jo’s slipper again, that’s so naughty of you.