As Britain enjoyed the final days of summer, as the leaves began their fall from the trees that had been aged by yet another season, as the days grew noticably shorter, a strange and truly terrifying creature showed itself to an unsuspecting and woefully unprepared world…

Jumping-in
Being sensible and not at all open to peer pressure, I didn’t really want to take part in “jumping-in”, mainly because of fear of drowning in the icy water, but also because getting water up your nose doesn’t half hurt. However, with a little persuading, and after being called a wet pussy, I decided to take the plunge. Now, a little explanation is required here. When I bought by first swimming costume in nearly 20 years, I did so while remembering that thorny problem of strap-slippage. With this in mind, I got a one-piece that was perhaps a little too small. The terrible results can be seen below.

Almost cut me in two.

Relaxing holidays spell disaster for creativity
So a week in Norfolkland did confirm a few things. Firstly, I miss my friends a lot. Secondly, Norfolk is a nice part of the world, although it’s a shit to get to. Thirdly, there does indeed seem to be a fair deal of inbreeding amongst certain sections of the population – this was confirmed by a trip to B&Q where I witnessed a man (husband-dad-brother-cousin) pushing a woman (his wife-sister-cousin-daughter-mother) in a wheelchair, accompanied by their offspring (who resembled scrawny hobbits).

With my vitriolic creativity being ebbed away by a week of relaxation, jumping-in and eating too much, this demob-happy Cakesniffer hasn’t really got anything to go on the attack about just at the moment. Except of course… SPIDERS!

It’s now officially spider season and I cannot stand the bastards. I can just about cope with garden spiders that have a useful purpose, but I have absolutely no time whatsoever for those big fuckers that scuttle about the house at five hundred miles an hour. They don’t even make webs to catch flies. They just lurk and then jump out and then run REALLY fast across the floor. BASTARDS!

It’s now dark in the morning when I get up (bah!) and as I stumbled from my bedroom to the bathroom, I saw a huge black spider jump from the bannister on the stair below, where it waited and plotted to trip me up. Fucking twat of a creature.

Rome if you want to…
Of course, this week sees me jet off to my doom on my Roman Holiday. Fuck, I’m scared shitless and absolutely dreading it. I keep telling myself that I’ll be OK once I’ve got to my hotel, dumped my case in my room and collapsed on the bed.

There are so many things that can go wrong (not including catastrophic air disasters). What if they’ve given us a double bed and not two singles? I can’t sleep with my sister for FOUR nights. Fuck’s sake.

What if the hotel is completely shite? What if we get robbed? What if it’s just too bloody hot to do anything?

I’ve long held the view that holidays are a waste of money. It’s just too much stress, too much expense and hassle for something where you have to come back down to earth (and back to a completely shit job that you hate) with huge bump.

Unless you can afford to do it properly, by staying in really good 5 star hotels, flying direct with good airlines, then it all becomes a cause for anxiety and panic. And there’s the cost. Not only is there the price of the flight and accommodation (£350), there’s spending money, money for taxis, money for pressies, money for getting stranded in Zurich or Basel on the way there/back. And you just exchange £150 into funny money as if it doesn’t mean anything – just for starters. That’s a month’s worth of petrol, or the cost of a PC upgrade, a nice suit, a really good meal out, a car service.

Material things hit my buttons, not travelling and experiencing culture, history, different people. Once you reach your mid-thirties, you come to realise that people are generally complete cocks no matter where you go, experiences fade into memories as soon as you’ve lived them. I guess the secret is making sure that you have fabulously large sunglasses and a means of capturing events.

Burnt to a fucking crisp

Almost drowned in the pool (they’ve got a pool!) – disturbing photos to follow (probs Saturday)

Having lots of fun

Nice part of the world, but strange accent and no mains gas or water drains

Ooooower eeeeewer

Bootiful

Trakterrr

(I’m in a place called Hingham, south west of Norwich)

Off to Norfolkland for a week (bootiful).

Hopefully I won’t get wiped out by a trakterrr or a fucking, twatting, bastard, cocksucking, tosspot wanker of a caravan on the epic journey down there, but if I do, Blogworld knows my wishes when it comes to my funeral: stay away unless you’ve got the shoulderpads to carry the coffin.

Check in for updates of my holiday; I’m sure those Norfolkfolk have plenty up their sleeves to keep my busy on here.

Ooower-eeewer.

I’ll leave you with this to ponder over:

Any ideas?

People have different ideas as to what happens on their deaths. Many of these notions are based on religious beliefs and involve ascendency of spirits into heavens or other such-like afterworlds.

Personally, I think that the location of any spirit means nothing unless the memory of the deceased continues in the hearts and minds of the ones they left behind. This is quite important because it means that we atheists should really behave ourselves so that people know and remember us for being decent, rather than notorious.

Of course, one way to leave your mark is to have a FANTASTIC FUNERAL.
Recent events have meant that I’ve been thinking about my immortality. This doesn’t bother me, I don’t mind the idea of dying and I’m comfortable with it. Nonetheless, you really want to ensure that you have a great send off and I’ve been thinking about what I’d like for my funeral.

Horsey Hearse
As much as I hate these things – they’re usually chosen for “precious angel” and gangster funerals – for dramatic effect, it’d HAVE to be a horse-drawn hearse for me.

An ebony coffin, draped in spiderplants and other Housemate Big Brother plants inside. A floral tribute to “Sniff” accompanies the casket.

The coffin is lifted from the hearse and carried slowly past the tranquil fountain and to the front of the chapel by, oh whoever can take the burden of responsibility for such a precious load.

The gruesome gathering
The mourners would have to be the entire cast of Dynasty and the Colbies.

Guest of honour would of course be Alexis Morrell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan, who’d enter the chapel after all the others had taken their seats, her entrance silencing the vicar and turning heads of the weepy gathering who stare in wonder at the mysterious, veiled late arrival. At the front of the chapel she stops, turns to the distinguished, greying man. “Hello Blake”.

“If I am [a bitch], take a lesson from me, you may need it in life.”

Gasps from the pews; shocked and appalled at the audacity of the woman, the mourners mutter to each other. The odd distraught wail is thrown from that back, sniffs and nose-blows punctuate the silence. Krystal is really fucked off by being upstaged and seethes to herself.

The burial
No real mourners would be allowed, apart from the one person who loved me most; but there’d be a contractual arrangement that forces them to throw themselves onto my coffin after it’s been lowered into the ground. They’d scream and cry that their lives couldn’t go on without me. They’d be paid handsomly for this.

The scrap
Alexis and Krystal together and a fountain? Oh yes!

Get in there!

Music
There seems to be a trend for people to play music as the curtains close over a soon-to-be-blasted coffin, or as the casket is taken from the church to the place of burial. But what song would be most appropriate for the funeral of this Cakesniffer?

It’d have to be something that sends the congrgation into unconsolable floods of tears. I don’t want anything that’s been overdone, so no “I will always love you” or “Angels” for me! One of my friends already beat me to Beverly Craven’s “Promise me”, so I need to think of something good enough to upstage that.

Any suggestions from anybody out there?

In honour of dear, absent friend, I thought it’d be fitting to pay tribute to the wonderous talent that is Herge Smith by posting this We love each other special that he created especially for Trillion’s birthday.

Tina She was the prettiest girl I worked with in Sheffield. She was extraordinarily supportive when I went through a bad patch some years back. I will never forget that. After a couple of years, she moved to the North West and I followed. At her leaving do, she had about 20 very potent cocktails: she grabbed me round the neck and said something like: “You’re the best friend anybody could hope for; in fact, you’re very lickable”. Then she licked my face. I’ve been hoping that she’d lick me again ever since.

Trillion She is deranged. She has a file on me under her bed that is about 4000 pages thick. Ionce asked her, when we first worked together, how she was. I only meant it as a greeting; she took it as a life-long declaration of friendship. She claims I once licked her, this is not true – in fact, the first time I ever visited her flat was when she kidnapped me. I cannot tell you the number of times she has drugged me and forced me to take part in “photo sessions” with her. It has been five years now. I do not think this is ever going to end. Craig Taylor


Itchy teeth
The moon is indeed a magical satellite: see the moon, touch the moon…

Oh God, the Finnish “Cakesniffer” people have found me (see I spy and some other previous posts).

They’ve left this delightful comment:

At 24 August, 2005 20:42, cakesniffer said…
Wow, took us quite a while to locate this sad post, but we dare say that you must be rather pissed off that you didn’t think of using Lemony Snickets oh-so-not-belonging-to-you-name to your financial advantage.

Cheers!

To which I of course have retorted:

At 24 August, 2005 22:57, Tina said…
Yes, but I’m not the one who’ll have to pay loads of compensation and royalties to Daniel Handler.

Cheers!

Wankers.

PS Music corner:

“Twenty five is the speed limit, and motorcycles aren’t allowed in it”

Not the first line this time, but let’s see how you get on – if anybody’s reading. They’re probably all over at “Yay! Cakesniffer” having a wild time and drinking elk pee.

That’s how it’s been today and hence no super creation on here. Not that I could ever be accused of being creative or super.

It all seems a little quiet at the moment anyway and I feel like some of my best things could be wasted at the moment.

Car park charges
Anyway, I’ve got an exciting excursion to go on shortly: picking people up from the airport. Bearing in mind the flight is due in at 11.20pm, you’ll watch its progress on the internet up to 20 minutes before it’s due to land – no delays, everything going to plan – so you set off and pootle to the airport: find car park, gasp in shock and horror at the charges (first 20 minutes free then you can book an appointment with the mortgage advisor if it looks like you’ll be staying more than an hour and a half), park up, wander into terminal building, hover under information point.

It’s then that you see that the flight has mysteriously encountered a delay on approach to landing and it won’t be touching down for another half an hour. So you’re stood around, waiting and watching all the others who are there to pick up loved ones, the odd taxi driver hovers with their bit of card, displaying the name of passenger this or that. You keep glancing at the information board, checking the cash in your pocket and cursing your lack of foresight in not bringing your cash card to pay for the parking.

The people congregate where the passengers leave passport control. The door swings open, gasps of anticipation, more trolleys being brought through and alas no sign of a passenger. When they start to drift through, burnt to a crisp, wearing their holiday clothes in sub-zero Mancunian temperatures, you check their luggage tickets: are these from the same flight? Nope.

Always the last ones out, ALWAYS the last out. No reason for this, they’re just S-L-O-W.

“Hello”

“Hi, nice holiday, good flight? A bit of a delay at the end there??”

“Yes, somebody faked an asthma attack so they could get off the plane before everybody else. We had to wait for them to find their bags before we could taxi to the gate. And the then there were no trolleys because some numpty had brought them all back out here for some reason. Do you want a coffee, something to eat?”

“It’s 1am, I’m up for work in the morning, I’m tired, I can’t afford the parking as it is. I WANT TO GO HOME! NOW!”

Fucking airports. Brings out the worst in people.

Gotta fly! Plane’s due in in ten minutes and i’m about 20 minutes away from the airport!

… If were having an argument with somebody, things were getting heated with the potential it to become violent and they suddenly called you a “fucking twot!”.

“Wot, wot, wot? Rather, I say!”

It just doesn’t sound right.

It’s NOT right.

But I’m starting a new trend with the introduction of the word “twot” into British English. I’m going to see how long it takes before somebody notices that I’m actually saying twat. This can be done on a number of levels, the challenge is to see how high up the food chain you can get and still get away with it.

It’s great up north
Of course, cunt is often said to be the most offensive word EVER. So, imagine the fun you can have saying it, without actually saying it.

Many folk with a northern-ish English accent will abbreviate their spoken words, so that two or more become joined into one. Frexample, “isn’t it” often becomes the word “innit”, or even “intit”. Now, it’s the second of these that deserves closer inspection because you can have such a lot of fun when you say words such as isn’t, wasn’t by effectively deleting the “s” so that isn’t becomes “int” and wasn’t becomes “want”. You see where this is going?

Well, when this Rule of the North is applied to the words, “wouldn’t”, “shouldn’t” and “couldn’t”, the “ld” is ejected and we get:

“wunt”
“shunt”
and, fantastically,
“cunt”

Hence, simply by being northern, you can say “cuntit” to your heart’s content! Cuntit is ace because it has the bonus of having two naughty words in one – cunt and tit.

See if you can get away with this with your own accents and report back to Cakesniffers with the results (or you P45s)

Summer of love
I’ve had a request to write some themed posts, based loosely on the titles of B52s songs. I need to go away and incubate over a coffee and a few episodes of The L Word. I may be back-ack-ack. I have already done Devil in my car, back in July when I wrote of my car stereo that turns its own volume up and down. I’ll try to think up some more, there are plenty to choose from.

Ermm, has anybody else noticed that “Flag” button up there next to the “next blog” button? I’m surprised those fanny flyers and Ryan J haven’t been along, click, click, clicking away! Fuck ’em.

Finally, the song contest:

“I come home in the morning light”

Let me take a minute or two, and give much respect due…

To people who season their (my!) food properly.

Salt…
I can’t stand it when people don’t put any salt in food; it tastes fucking terrible without. Some things you can get away with adding salt at the table, but others you definitely can’t – stuff like pasta, rice, boiled potatoes, or other vegetables that are cooked by immersion in boiling water.

Admittedly, I do got way over the top with the white stuff, but I do curb it when cooking for others. I had a nightmare of a lodger once who detested salt. She’d stand over me while I cooked our tea and she’d ration it – in MY home! There’d be a massive pan with about 3 litres of boiling water and she’d add a pinch of salt for cooking pasta or rice. A pinch. Fuck off out of my kitchen.

This is the fucktard who put barbecue fucking sauce on everything. Fucking twot.

But what is much worse than no salt is Lo Salt. Heysusss! You might as well chew on potassium. It tastes nothing like proper salt and burns your bastard fucking mouth off.

N Pepa
I like my food hot, or picante, if I’m going to be practising for the Eternal City. Chillies – love em. Pepper of any sort? I love it! But there’s a time and place for black pepper. Black pepper is OK in pasta sauces, on pasta dishes, pizze (Italian again, you see?), and other things that I can’t be arsed to think about. However, black pepper needs a good grinder, or you might as well chuck whole peppercorns on your food. It’s not nice, those big bits of hotness getting stuck in the back of your throat and causing coughing fits. Or even worse, hiding in your teeth until you think it’s safe when they dislodge themselves and grab you by the back of the throat and throw you to the floor and choke you.

Little bastards.

I like white pepper. White pepper has a place on salads, on delicious poached or boiled eggs, on red cabbage with shepherds pie, on peas or any other veg for that matter.

Hospital canteens
Hospital canteens no longer have condiments at the table; everything comes in fucking sachets instead – that you have to pay for. Little individual sachets of salt, pepper, vinegar, brown sauce. All extra. The worst thing is the pepper is always black and it’s never ground finely enough.

Fucking bastards who produce and package this shit want shooting. It’s even good stuff, it’s the crap that you’ve never heard of. Vinegary brown sauce, pure acetic acid for vinegar. Jesus help us.

Vinegar in a sachet? Are you out of your tiny, minds? You get your chips, you need LOADS of salt and vinegar, not some shitty little plastic bag that spills all the vinegar when you finally tear it open.

Henderson’s Relish
Anybody who’s ever had the misfortune of living in Sheffield (Yorshire) and its environs may have come across this stuff. It’s produced in a factory near the hospital where I used to work and every morning I had to walk past the place – it stank.

<a href="Henderson’s relish is best described as worcestershire sauce that’s been watered down with the strongest, nastiest vinegar you can possibly imagine.

A test of whether you come from Sheffield, or whether you have the potential to be a naturalised Sheffielderite …. whatever a person from Sheffield is called – a Shite? …. is to see whether you can have this shit on your food without getting really annoyed.

Annoyed? Annoyed at having something on your food? Yes, VERY fucking annoyed that you’ve spent good money for a pub lunch and that you’ve allowed some fucking tosser to persuade you try Henderson’s fucking Relish on it, thus ruining your dinner and wasting your money and putting whoever cajoled you into an emergency ambulance on their way to the Northern General with a fork in their head.

It’s no wonder my blood pressure is high – it’s nothing to do with salt, it’s because of tossers who arse about with my condiments! Fucking fuckers.