Ah, honey honey! You are my candy bears…

Having posted this photo last night, something dawned on me. Any connoisseur of the espresso will be able to point out a couple of minor faults with the coffee here. Firstly, it has been delivered to the table with brown sugar and not white and secondly, the volume of coffee is a tad too much.

Why white sugar? Well it’s simple really, it dissolves quicker. Brown sugar takes too long to go into solution and your coffee is cold by the time it has dissolved. The beauty of an espresso is that it is quick – gone in a mouthful. Get your coffee, couple of sugars, couple of stirs and down it goes.

You have to be wary of those places that offer you a double espresso (two shots of espresso, one cup) because they often give you a long espresso instead (this is one shot’s worth of espresso with more water gone through it). Cheats! In fact, I often ask for two espressos to save them making a mistake. I get looked at funny, but that’s nothing new. When you’re in a place like Caffè Nero, they describe a “large espresso”, I have no idea what this means so I steer well clear.

A fan in Iran!
I was checking my site stats earlier and I noticed that I had a visitor from the Islamic Republic of Iran! How very forward thinking of them, I thought. People in fascist Iran being able to look at blogs; the blogs of infidels in the West. Even worse, gay women infidels!!!! Whatever next? The Iranian president will be getting himself a blog to spout his bile, while pretending to be a man of the people and a good muslim who has struggled to get to the top, where he aims to guide his beloved people in their fight against the satanic west and Israel! Fuck.

Of course, the thing about Iran and other such places is that nobody else is allowed to have blogs, or they’re very much the victims of censorship. I bet you have to be pretty high up in the Iranian food chain to be allowed to access blogs of gay women infidels. In fact, I’d like to bet that only the top man himself can access them.

That being the case, Mr Ahmadinejad, you’ll never be popular in Blogworld unless you get some plastic bears on your site!

Of course, I shouldn’t really complain about such Islamic regimes. They never do you any harm unless you’re a westerner, a woman, gay or Jewish, or any other religion for that matter. They’re really very tolerant and fine so long as you don’t dare open your mouth.

I’m not saying that our societies are much cop, but at least we’re allowed to voice our opinions and vote for change (not that it makes any difference) and live in a fairly equitable society – one that still has much to achieve, but at least it’s one where we all recognise the need for fairness and equality and we’re all pretty much bought into those ideals.

Four eyes
After threatening the purchase of new specs ages ago, I finally did the deed. Here they are:

I apologise for the pose. I have no idea what I was doing at the time.

We were wandering around Manchester city centre yesterday afternoon. It wasn’t quite hometime and so we decided to nip into Manchester Art Gallery to have a scout round. As usual, I had my camera with me and I thought it’d be nice to take a picture when I saw this:

As soon as I’d taken a couple of snaps, I was pounced upon by a youthful information assistant – decked out with wireless radio earpeace thing and over-officious nature: “Have you got a photgraphy pass? You need a photography pass to be able to take photos in the gallery”. Okay, okay, I’ll get one. After waiting half an hour at the information desk while the young bloke there gave directions to Urbis to some woman, then phoned their gift shop to see if they did posters of Manchester, I was finally attended to and given my sticker and an agreement which I had to sign and return after my viewing of the exhibitions. Looking more closely at the badly-photocopied agreement, it turned out that I wasn’t allowed to take any photos of anything I wanted to photograph and that I had to list all the exhibits that I had photographed.

Well, the whole purpose of the visit was to go and see the “Happy Birthday Miffy” 50th birthday exhibition, and since this was a special collection, I wasn’t even allowed to photograph any of it. However, it turned out that I could take photos of people in the galleries, but not the exhibition pieces themselves, so this was ok:

By the same ruling, you’d have thought that this was OK too:

And also this:

However, while I was taking the photo of lovely Trump, I was approached by a black-clad jobsworth who said, in a none-too-friendly manner: “You can’t take photographs of these exhibits, photography pass or not”, to which I replied, “I wasn’t, I was photographing her”.

“There’s no photography in this gallery”

Trump told him, “You want to tell him behind us then”, pointing out the bloke who we’d overheard being told that it was OK to take pictures of the galleries, but not the exhibitions.

Needless to say, I didn’t bother filling in the form about which exhibits I’d photographed since I hadn’t really photographed any. The other stuff in the gallery wasn’t worth photographing so they could go ninnies with their stupid forms.

Wankers. What difference does it make if you take a photo of some exhibitions so long as it’s for personal use.

What I’d wanted to do was to post a picture of that “The Sea” exhibition and sing its praises. Tell folk to go and be part of these interesting, vibrant, colourful, and very intricate pieces of work. They’re not really the sorts of things that can be appreciated by photographs alone, that’s why I took pictures with people alongside them so there could be an appreciation of scale and light. Unfortunately, since anybody visiting the gallery gets scowled at by the surly members of staff, who essentialy stroll around, acting as if they’re it, I’m inclined to tell folk not to bother visiting there at all.

One place to visit is Podz coffee shop on Portland Street in Manchester. I took the boys and they had a whale of a time.

I can’t imagine life without toilet paper. A few weeks ago, I went to a bar where the ladies’ lavs ran out of toilet paper half way through the evening (the cubicles were coming loose and two of the toilets were flooded, so all in all, it wasn’t a good situation). But knowing that the toilets didn’t have any paper made for a couple of very anxious hours.

When I was a young child – between the ages of about 4 and 10 – school was a very cruel place where they added to your general hopelessness at bum-wiping by providing that toilet paper that was that shiny tracing paper stuff. So, not only were you totally uncoordinated in the activity of wiping your pooey bum, but you also smeared it all over the shop on the most unabsorbent material on earth. They might as well have given us a plastic carrier bag to wipe our arses on. It’s no wonder kids get ill all the time. I don’t remember hand washing being particularly high on the teacher’s agenda, that’s for sure.

At home we may never had had a great amount of money, but we always had proper toilet paper. No compromises, it was always Andrex. Then in the late 1980s there was a push to use recycled paper, which I had no choice but to use because I was a student living with a bunch of leftie vegetarians. The stuff wasn’t that bad and it opened my eyes to “green” issues and stuff – it opened my eyes to the issues, but I’m still crap on the eco-friendly front.

Now I work for the NHS. Oh joy of joys. Here, the toilets have those huge drums that contain rolls of about 5 rolls-worth of paper… the thinnest, shittiest, most useless fucking toilet paper on the planet. This stuff is up there with the shiny paper of my childhood as being the most annoying example of false economy in the world of arse wiping ever! The problem is this: the paper is very thin and when the roll is full, it’s not strong enough to pull the roll around and get a sufficient handful off without breaking off in little bits. So you end up with lots of little bits of toilet paper on the cubicle floor where people have been trying in vain to get the stuff off the roll. Why? Why don’t they just buy normal paper for a bit more money, but without the waste? Tossers. I wouldn’t mind, but if you go into certain patient areas, they have the really good stuff.

Not to worry, at least we have proper drains here that can take toilet paper. Over in Greece, you have to put it into a bin next to the lav. Imagine that? Just imagine somebody with my bowels, having to put used toilet paper into a bin next to the toilet. Well, that’s exactly what I’ll be doing in a few weeks’ time because I’m off on my jollies again to Skiathos for a week. Should be OK I reckon, although I think I’ll be buying an air freshener… or saving my poos for the public toilets so I don’t have to live with them.

Terror and panic
Of course, at this rate, I won’t even be getting there! Who’d have thought that a simple increase in airport security could lead to the shutdown of entire airline network? Fucking idiots. Don’t they realise that this sort of thing is exactly what terrorism thrives on? All they had to do was say “Take your essential documents and medicines out of your hand baggage, all baggage goes in the hold. Anybody who argues is being ejected from the airport”. Instead, you get a load panic and all flights cancelled. It’s beyond me.

You see, in the present climate of panic that has been introduced by our wonderful leaders, these terrorists don’t even need to plot anything destructive at all. All they have to do is spend a few months going to internet cafes and e-mailing their mates with messages about proposed attacks. Keep it going long enough and the security service will intercept and track them, put 2 and 2 together to make 48 and then send out all these alarmist messages that grind the country to a halt. No bombs, no chemicals, no intention, just a few e-mails.

I don’t know what’s going on in this crazy world. I know that people who travel by air have been villified for ruining the environment, but blowing up planes to discourage people from flying is going a bit too far.

Here’s a scenario for everyone. Person A works in an office environment in Location 2a that has a shared kitchen facility that includes a fridge, sink, microwave, toaster, dishwasher. One Thursday, Person A buys a packet of prawns in the “EAT WITHIN 24hr!” section of Asda and takes them into work for their lunch. At lunchtime they open the prawns and pour the excess liquid down the kitchen sink. If you were Person A, would you:

a) Leave the liquid sitting in the sink, or
b) Flush it down with plenty of hot water?

Person A doesn’t eat all the prawns so they put half in a sealed container and leave it in the salad compartment of the fridge… should be OK for another day. On the Friday, Person A packs up and finishes work for a week’s well-deserved annual leave. If you were Person A, would you:

a) Remove prawns from the fridge and throw them away, or
b) Leave them in the fridge?

Persons B, C, D and E are the colleagues of our resident prawn-fancier. They come to work on the Monday and Tuesday and must surely notice the increasingly bad smell in the fridge. Do they:

a) Investigate, but leave it for the cleaner to deal with,
b) Investigate and throw out the offending peeled crustaceans,
c) Amongst four people, not actually notice?

Person Sniffy works in another location on Mondays and Tuesdays and comes to location 2a for the first time on Wednesday of the week. On opening the fridge, they notice a disgusting smell and, on putting their cans of pop into the salad drawer, they realise that the prawns that were put there the previous Thursday were still there. Does Person Sniffy:

a) Leave them there,
b) Take them out and leave them on the side for Person A to see and deal with,
c) Take them out and leave them on the side and not realise that Person A is on holiday?

Persons B, C and D come to work (E doesn’t work Wednesdays). A commotion ensues as they notice the Prawns. A full scale enquiry leads them to conclude that the cleaner must’ve been tidying up the fridge and left them there; they go on to ponder why the cleaner hadn’t thrown them away. They probably also ponder why the cleaner hadn’t wiped their arses for them.

Before anybody can say “NO, DON’T DO THAT!!!!”, does Person C:

a) Put the whole thing unopened in the bin in the kitchen,
b) Open the container in the kitchen and throw the prawns in the bin there,
c) Open the container in the kitchen and run from the kitchen to the toilet near the offices, wafting the smell across the entire floor, before flushing them down the toilet and churning up even more fucking smell that fills the entire fucking building for two fucking hours?????

Jesus fucking Christ, how thick ARE these people?

Of course the smell induced a schoolgirl-type hysteria amongst Persons B and D and it gave them the excuse to run around, opening windows, spraying perfume and shouting a lot saying “It’s not us.. hee, hee, hee… we’re having a problem with prawns!”.

I am in my happy place (plaice).

An edit: Too much information
I’ve just been reading on the BBC Website about the conviction of two brothers for the manslaughter of a young boy in 2000. The case was highly publicised and it took a while for the killers to be found. It seems that justice may have been done today.

I can’t believe the reporting though. What is it with so-called journalists that thay seem compelled to flower up their reports with unnecessary editorial shite? Get this:

“Damilola was surrounded by a gang of youths in Blakes Road, Peckham, as he made his way from an after-school club at Peckham library to his home on the run-down North Peckham Estate.

Someone broke a small, green beer bottle leaving a shard of glass which was used to stab Damilola in his left thigh. By the time he limped along the road and up two flights of a filthy stairwell, he was near death.”

By the time he limped along the road and up two flights of a filthy stairwell, he was near death.

It’s like something out of a fucking secondary school English essay. How does the reporter know Damilola limped, were there witnesses to this? What difference does it make to the outcome that it was “run-down” estate and that the stairwell was “filthy”?

Christ almighty, get a fucking grip.

One of my early Cakesniffy posts concerned the adulation of Aldi by my colleagues here. I scoffed as they anticipated the following week’s special offers and wondered how they could spend an entire day talking about Aldi bargains. Well, I too am a real fan of Aldi, although I don’t think I could spend a whole day extoling its virtues.

Next week, I can pick up a blood pressure monitor for a tenner, a four-slice toaster for fifteen quid, a USB-enabled portable CD radio cassette for £20, or some nectarines at 44p a punnet. All bargains, all fantastic quality.

In addition to the bargains, there are the every day groceries that cost a fraction of the price that you’d pay in the real shops – the only difference is that they aren’t brand names. I’m particularly partial to their wholemeal rye bread (69p compared with 99p at Tesco) with a nice spreading of pate. Aldi do a selection of pates too, and this is where I get confused. I like the pate that is nice and smooth, but I can’t abide the one that resembles mashed up cat food. One is Brussels and one is Ardennes, but I can never remember which is which.

In a game of pate Russian roulette today, I lost. When will I ever learn that it’s Brussels pate that I like and not Ardennes? Honestly.

On returning to work after my shopping expedition, I immediately noticed a very strong fishy smell on the upstairs landing of the building (where my office is). I went into the kitchen where the smell was stronger. I realised that somebody had drained a packet of prawns into the kitchen sink and not rinsed it down with hot water, thus allowing the fishy liquor to fester in the sink. How delightful.

Sniffy newsround – Having a Barney and other shite on the BBC news website today
When somebody has a tantrum, or flies off into a rage or argument with somebody, it’s sometimes described as “having a barney”. Some pooches take their names too seriously. Fantastic.

Also in the news, it’s nice to see that Tony Blair is continuing with his insane plan to introduce ID cards. “They’re still going to be in the Labour manifesto for the next general election”.

Fuck that. That tosser will have escaped the country by then and been installed as the latest hot property on the US talk show and lecture circuit. How nice for some to be able to leave behind the chaos that they created.

And they wonder why 54% of people polled said they’d considered emigrating from the UK – with 13% hoping to do so in the next couple of years.

Ho hum. I knew I should’ve dug my heels in and claimed asylum while I was in Canada.

Positive discrimination
I’d hate to be blind and I don’t think I’d cope too well if I lost my sight. But blind people do cope, and very well too. People are very adaptable, remarkable even, and they either learn ways of dealing with their disabilities in order that they do not cause handicap, or there are other aids that can be used to allow folk to get on with their lives.

Why do blind people get the cutest dogs though? I just saw a black labrador puppy that was being trained as a guide dog. He was SO cute, but utterly rubbish at obeying instructions; plodding along with his big feet, sniffing all the pasty wrappers that had been dropped on the floor, head lolling about as he wandered along, ignoring his handler.

I wonder if there’s somewhere I could buy a guide dog reject?

You know those annoying signs that people have in their cars, like “baby on board”, “mum to be on board”, “princess on board”, “Cakesniffer on board”? Well, imagine if you saw one of these on a car…

Then a one of these got out of it?

Fantastic!

Do you think Princess Anne has a Princess on Board notice hanging in the back window of her Range Rover? Of all the people in the world, she really is the only one who should have one. I suppose Beatrice and Eugenie could, but they don’t really count for much princess-wise. When it comes to HRHs, the Princess Royal is top of the shop.

“Angel on board” Hark! Peace on Earth, good will unto men. Do not fear for I bring you great news this day: they’re giving away a free top wash with every £30 of petrol at the Shell garage!”

Cocque au vin
This is the French name for chicken in wine sauce, whereas “cock au van” refers to the fucking idiot in the people carrier who decided to stop in the middle fucking big clearway without indicating, just so he could look at a roadsign.

Wanker.

Garden bling
Cock au manky vest is of course my scumbag neighbour. For the past couple of nights, I’ve been kept awake by the sound of what I thought was some sort of pheasant/goose/fox creature honking or barking its way through the night. I’ve just realised what it really is: yes, yet another fucking wind chime hanging from my stupid cunt neighbour’s washing line. This particular garden adornment is a wooden thing that makes the most ridiculous noise all through the fucking night. How can anybody find these things relaxing or nice? It’s beyond me how people don’t realise how much frigging disturbance they cause. What is wrong with people that, with every single thing that they do, they simply have to do things that cause a disturbance?

This is the last straw: I’m going to burn their house down later. Useless, waste of space, sponging, lazy, greedy, fuckers. Since all their garden bling has essentially been paid for with my money, I feel it’s my right to go round there and take it back. Then burn it in a nice bonfire.

Friends reunited
I got an e-mail yesterday from a woman who I knew when I was at secondary school. She was one of the nice ones; most girls were a bit self obsessed and shallow, with only a few who were actually capable of stringing a sentence together without them falling into tears over some boy who’d been two-timing them. We’d done that “friends reunited” catch up e-mail thing a few years back, but not maintained contact. I’ve always said that people tend to stay in touch with good friends, but it’s always nice to know how other folk are getting on and that.

Anyway, and this is the spooky bit, she e-mailed me because she’d discovered my blog by accident. Totally by accident by a link from another blog. How scary is that?

I wonder if my twat neighbours know how to use a computer? They can obviously read because they know how to fill out benefit claim forms, but I’m not sure whether they’ve advanced to the internet yet.

Stalked
For the past couple of years I had the pleasure of working with an exceptional colleague. She left her post last week and has gone on to greater things. However, during her time with us, she often claimed to know what my blog was called, despite me refusing to let anybody at work know about it. She left a parting clue that might indicate that she wasn’t calling my bluff and she might actually know about this creation of mine. Personally, I can’t believe that people would expend energy on trying to find it, but some folk are a bit odd.

Although I don’t generally go on about that particular set of colleagues, I think I did on one occasion. She can’t have read the bit where I mentioned her saying pacific instead of specific because she still got it wrong to the day she finished!

Knock three times if you’re there Cara.

I was going to tell people about my weekend activities, but I’ve been beaten to it by dearest Trump and those two Yorkshire queers. Fuckers.

Anyway, it was very nice, doing lots of gay things and I’m enjoying having most of my body out of the closet now. I pointed out to Trump that if it wasn’t for people like her, organising pride type events, and also the campaigning of people for many years up to now, people like me would be living pretty miserable, lonely and fearful existences. All who fight prejudices deserve our gratitude for allowing us to live our lives.

Right, enough of that sentimental crap.

While at the event on Saturday, in between dodging the flying dead-eye daggers of a certain person’s ex, I was talking to my friends about stuff to do with life: placemats, toilet paper, that kind of affair. We then got onto the subject of lesbians – it seemed fitting – and what a nightmare they are, what with all their emotional baggage, hormones, exes, millions of cats. At the time, we were enjoying a rendition of something in Zulu-speak by a community choir (they were all white and from Manchester, strangely enough) and I made a passing comment about wondering how many hours counselling they’d clocked up between them. My friend pointed out that nobody could have had more than her and this is where we thought of the usual attributes of your average librarian and came up with the idea of…

Lesbian Top Trumps
The idea is that, instead of shite like Gaydar Girl profiles, a young lady would be assigned points according to attributes such as:

• Number of exes (inc times as dumped vs dumper)
• Number of cats
• Kilos of pulses/muesli consumed per week
• Hours in counselling
• Number of Wendy shirts
• Hair length
• Front-to-back hair length ratio (“mullet score”)
• Copies of the L Word, Tipping the Velvet, Fingersmith on DVD (inc Region 1)
• Number of pairs of Birkenstocks, Docs
• Watch face size
• Number and location of tattoos
• Number and location of piercings

You get the picture? My score would be about 20 or something I think.

Oh, how we laughed!
Went to a comedy night last night. It was an all female comedian thing, and it was quite enjoyable, apart from the one numpty who’d gotten so pissed that she couldn’t remember any of her stuff. Idiot.

Of course, it was a female-dominated audience, and with just three cubicles in the ladies’, there was a bit of a queue during the intervals. Standing there, waiting my turn somewhere in teh middle of the line of women, I was astounded at the number of those who burst into the lavs, asking “is this a queue?”.

“No, it’s a welcoming committee in your honour. Which of our special cubicles would madame like to choose from this evening, we have a special one that is sporting the fragrance of post-curry shite in the centre, while the one at the end has no seat.”

Idiots.

Athetics is rubbish. I can’t get excited about it; people running about, throwing stuff, jumping. Haven’t they got anything better to do? “I’m a world champion in running very fast”. And?

I was thinking about this earlier on. Athletics should be made more interesting by banning sprinting and running and introducing events like the 100m forward roll (or “tipple-over”, as we called them as children). Or how about middle-distances in running backwards? I bet football referees would be really good at those particular events.

I suppose without “just running” and stuff, the alternative events such as “World’s Strongest Man” or “World’s Best Logger” would become mainstream and we’d have to endure them on the telly more frequently than on the occasional bank holiday.

What gets me is the way the TV channels broadcast long distance running events; especially around a track in a stadium. Why? You can guarantee that it’s somebody from Africa who wins and that the British (or nearest thing, say Irish) hope leads the pace until the last 400m when they get overtaken by the entire field. “Such a brave performance from the girl from Cork. Tell me, what happened over the final lap”.

“Well Brendan, I’d have been a world champion if the distance was 14.8km!”.

Well it wasn’t, and you’re a failure, go and have some children or something.

It’s Cowes Week this week. I wonder if Sir Ellen McArthur will be able to make it to her boat without a trauma when her sat nav fails. “I’m so alone and…. scared! So lonely, I might never make it.”

Don’t worry Ellen, we’ll call you a taxi, they’ll take you straight to the harbour. You’ve got your mobile and 20p for a payphone if there’s no signal, it’ll be fine. And there’ll be some B&Q vouchers waiting for you when you get back.

Cunt.

Cakesniffers is where I go on about how things look from my perspective. That’s the idea of blogs I guess. So, with this in mind, let’s see what Sniffy thinks of:

1. Lights off in summer – NO! Keep the fucking things on, for fuck’s sake. I’m talking office lights here. I can’t bear the way people keep turning lights off in offices because they think it makes a difference to the temperature when it’s already over 30°C in there. It makes none whatsoever and it means that you get a weird visual effect when you’re trying to use a computer: looking at a bright object when the room is dark is one of most migraine-inducing things imaginable. Keep the lights on in the workplace and simmer down, for fuck’s sake.
2. Berkenstocks – Yes and no. In a moment of desperation last week, I was forced to buy a pair of Berkenstocks. They’re OK. For sandals. As a rule, I don’t like footware that is worn sockless. I don’t like the shuffly-slap noise of flip-flops against sweaty soles. These things go against my principles and they’re already annoying me. Surely the insole will be totally manky from my sweaty feet after no time at all? You can’t wash them, can you? It’s only been a week and they’ve developed a kind of sticky slurping noise when I walk on them. Don’t get me started on proper flip flops (the ones with the bit that goes between your toes) – fucking death traps, that’s what they are. It’s a relief to get my trainers back on.
3. Two foreign holidays in the same year – YES, YES, YES! I might be getting another week out of the country later on in the summer. Bring it on!!!
4. Minestrone cup a soup – YES! Fuckin’ delish rehydrated goodness. I can’t wait till it cools down a bit so I can stop eating bloody salads at lunchtime and get back to my lovely soup in a mug.
5. Bogies – NO! The other day, I was asked what makes me heave. I answered: “Vomit, other people’s poo smells and other people’s bogies. They are fucking disgusting and I am guaranteed to start gagging at the sight of a badly-wiped nose. It’s therefore NOT a good idea to pick your nose, pull out a super sticky one, and proceed to play with it while I’m engaged in a webcam conversation with you!
6. Tim Horton’s “double double” – Yes, apparently, I wouldn’t know. Tim Hortons is a coffee shop/cafe chain in Canada and the “double double” refers to 2 creams, 2 sugars – absolutely the best coffee experience ever, so I’ve been told. On leaving Kelowna, Connie said to me, “Make sure that you get a Tim Horton’s double double before you get on your plane home”. I thought I’d pick one up in the departure lounge at Vancouver International. No fucking Tim Horton’s to be found, only a shitty little Starfuck’s and a noodle bar. Well pissed off.
7. Hairdressers – NO! Terrified of the bastards. I’ve taken to letting my sister, Bomb, hack at my hair on a monthly basis because I am so scared of hairdressers saying “leave it to me!” and then turning me in to Elaine fucking Paige. Twats.
8. Greater Manchester Police – Cunts. Not that I’m bitter or anything.
9. Cows on cliffs – YES. I wasn’t referring to cows on Cliff Richards, although this would be an excellent way of “suffocating the wrinkly old twat.” However I’m actually referring to news story of the herd of cows that got themselves stranded on a cliff in Cornwall. They had to be tranquilised and airlifted off. Brilliant, just brilliant. This is almost as good as the story about the sheep who learned to roll over cattle grids so they could get into a village and eat people’s gardens.
10. 24th October 2006 – Oh yes! Third series of the L Word is released on DVD.

Taz and Pig Radio
I’ve had this on all evening, it’s brilliant. Find out more by going to Tazzy and Piggy dot com or link straight to Media Player streaming by clicking here. Clever bastards with too much time on their hands.

I take it all back, they’ve just lost all of their credibility by playing some utter shite by the Beautiful South.

Weekend events
Here’s where I’ll be this weekend.

Firstly it’s this event on Saturday. If you’re in the area, pop along to show your support. There’s all sorts going on and it should be top notch… apart from the fact that I have to go in disguise and hide from a certain person’s ex for most of the day.

On Sunday, it’s the 20th anniversary Huddersfield Pink Picnic. I should really boycott this because of the insistence on stereotyping anything gay by associating it with the most vile fucking colour on the planet, but hey ho. There’s a possibility that I’ll be meeting up with my two favourite Yorkshire homos, so it should be fun – especially if they come dressed in drag as Nora Batty.

How true. And I’m referring to queer as in odd rather than gay.

I really don’t know why, but this place (Base 2a) has the highest concentration of really odd people that I have ever encountered. For pure bizarreness, Marianna, the Romanian with strange floor cleaning and embryo habits, beats everybody hands down. In terms of real life insanity, Katherine, the American temp obsessed with the boss, is always going to be top of the shop – she was really scary with it.

But here it’s the fact that everybody is a bit odd that really makes it la creme de la creme of headfucking asylum-worthiness.

Time and again, I’ve ranted on about how people react to summer here. It does get hot in this building, fair enough, but this lot make a huge event out of every degree above 23. So much so that 6 brand new fans have been procured for the place – two of them are on this floor and one was in my office when I got here this morning. They’re those nice ones on a stand that don’t make much noise. I was a bit bemused because I’ve got a desk fan, but I plugged it in and set it going – the breeze from the behind was lovely and it didn’t throw the papers off my desk.

Colleague from office opposite (Scouse Marie, who I think the world of, but who is raving mad) came in and immediately came into my office and started dragging the new fan out of here – while it was still plugged and operating. I asked her what was going on and she went off on a “That’s my fan, blah blah blah”. I told her that I’d found it in here and just assumed it was for in here and suggested that she turn it off and unplug it before relocating it in her office.

Off she went with a “It gets to 93 in my office…” while I pointed out that it was already 31 in mine when I got in at 8am. You see where I have a problem? “Ninety three” is obviously a lot hotter than the “thirty six” that it gets in here by mid afternoon.

Can… not… compute…

Not to worry, I’ve been happy with my desk fan for years and I’ve found something heavy to stop the papers blowing about.

When I got back from my constitutional lunchtime wander down the shops, my office door was closed and the lights in here had been switched off. As had the corridor lights. “I’ve turned your lights off for you and Allie said it was best to shut the door and leave the fan on to keep it cool in there.”

I don’t get this switch the lights off thing. I’d rather be able to see, thank you very much. And shut the door, but leave the fan running? How about we close the windows too?

And then there’s the one who shouts alot, bosses people and rushes about, being very Welsh with it. Bustling along, having a conversation over her shoulder, she bumped into me as I came out of the kitchen. “Oh sorry, hun*, I didn’t see you there.”

“No, you wouldn’t have, what with rushing along while facing behind you. I always find it helps to point your head in the direction that you’re walking.”

*I hate that!

They’re all fucking mad!

Anyway, they’re off in a meeting at the moment: office doors are closed, but the fans are running in there to ensure that no air circulates whatsoever.

Number 1 fan
I don’t understand why you can never buy fans in the shops when there’s a heatwave. Maybe they’d run out in the first heatwave ever – nobody would have one so demand would be very high. By the next summer, surely most people would have been able to get hold of a fan at some point the previous summer so the demand for fans should be less.

Every year as soon as it’s hot, it’s as if the fan status of the entire population has been zeroed and we all have to go out an get one afresh. Do you think people throw theirs away at the end of the summer? Or perhaps they put them away and forget where they are.

I don’t get it. Then again, I bought mine really cheap during one of the worst summers ever. I remember taking it home that dull, drizzly August evening and Mother saying to me: “What on earth do you need that thing for? It’s barely reached 20 all summer!”.

And here endeth the Sniffy lesson in supply and demand: “I demand that you supply me with what I want!”

I think it’s about time for a

Since I’ve not done this for a while, I figured it was about time I got a bit interactive again. Not that I have any readers to get interactive with, but I can but try.

1. Lights off in summer
2. Berkenstocks
3. Two foreign holidays in the same year
4. Minestrone cup a soup
5. Bogies
6. Tim Horton’s “double double”
7. Hairdressers
8. Greater Manchester Police
9. Cows on cliffs
10. 24th October 2006