WTF

I wrote this post last night after I got back from the pub. Hence why it was pretty short, pretty random and in hindsight really quite boring. Last night we returned to the tradition of post-work NML (ninety minute lash). Which has evolved from wanting to get on it but constrained by other commitments in the night meaning you can't stay in the grotty old man pub next to the office forever. With NML, the concept is pretty straightforward. Get on it for ninety minutes and then let the consequences ricochet throughout the rest of your evening.

Last nights NML evolved into something more of a Six-Hour-Lash so the details are quite hazy towards the end. I just remember looking around the Royal Oak (aka the most old man favoured pub in London) and seeing a whole range of clientèle which I had never seen in public before, let alone in the Royal Oak. My friend Re who I was with summed it up pretty perfectly by pre-empting my reactionary comment with

"JUST LOOK AT THE FACES ANNA."

Brilliant. Anyway then I came home and wrote the following below.

The other day I found myself, walking up a hill, half a mile from home, carrying a full shopping bag, a litre of milk and a duvet and sheet set in one hand. My other hand was occupied with a mobile phone via which I was both updating and being updated by a friend on our respective love lives. Ridiculous.

Why I hate Halloween

I've had a pretty productive Monday evening. I've drawn two examples of why I hate Halloween. I'll add some bile-tainted hatred for text in a few days, but until I do, here's a couple of reasons why:

Rugby?

I grew up in the countryside, and I mean HARDCORE countryside. It barely constitutes a village even, there is:

No pub

No shop

No people and definitely, nothing to do.

We're talking 50 people, and they're all old, or have very recently been born.

Having said that, it wasn't all bad. I was lucky enough to have a sibling to fight/play with, and what with it being the countryside there was plenty of green space for running around in and trees to climb. My brother would climb pretty much everything (he wasn't even put off after he got his collar caught on a branch and was left hanging literally, off a tree for like 5 minutes); I mainly stuck to our "official" climbing tree. We were ridiculously safety concious with this tree. Not only was there a designated entrance and exit for getting up and down, there was also a fire escape. fortunately we never had occasion to make use of the fire escape, as we weren't climbing trees during the Battle of Agincourt, and so the French weren't pelting us with burning arrows. Phew, dodged a bullet (or arrow) there.

So like I said we did a fair amount of pointless and aimless running around, as you do, and it was all pretty jolly. I'm embracing the inner amateur painter inside me at the moment (hey there!) and so have attempted to depict a pretty average sunny day in the garden at our house. As you can see, I was pretty damn happy.

This was not to last though. One, fateful afternoon, my brother suggested we try and play rugby. Now in hindsight, this was a stupid idea. I am possibly the most pathetic person in the world, and the thought of being beaten to within an inch of my life whilst my big brother wrestles a semi-deflated ancient rugby ball from me would not normally appeal. However, I was young. I had not been exposed to the game, and so with the innocence and enthusiasm of youth pulsating through my veins, I agreed.

The rules were explained to me, and I'll paraphrase, but I vaguely remember being told something along the lines of:

"I'm going to give you this ball. When I shout "Go!" you have to run towards that tree *points to a shrub somewhere in the next county* and I'm going to chase you down, push you to the ground, steal the ball and run away. You then have to try and catch me before I reach that tree *points to a tree 30 metres away*.

I agreed to all of the above, positioned myself in the direction of the shrub, and waited for the signal.

When my brother yelled GO, I duly pelted off in the right direction, confident that this was a stupid game, that I would win and we'd probably end up having a fight, and somewhere along the line I'd end up crying, but meh, what can you do?

Now there's 2 years between my bro and I, and although he was always bigger and stronger than I was I would never say that the thought of him chasing me across a deserted field would ever fill me with terror. How wrong was I.

As I was making my merry way, shrubward, I could hear the thunderous sound of him coming up behind me, and (again thank you paint) is basically what I imagined he has suddenly transformed into:

There was no doubt, I was going to die. It was like the sound of the Minotaur, hooves a pounding chasing you down to brutally trample you. All to steal some stupid ball, which wasn't even yours, and had last seen the light of day when your dad had been feeling particularly inspired by an English performance in the six nations and had gotten it out to practice his kicking but had never got around to it as Mum asked him to come and carve a chicken instead.

Not a good situation.

So, like any sensible human being who has the very embodiment of death bearing down on them, I chucked the ball away and ran off screaming in the other direction. Standard.

Conversations with Jeremy (part 2): Love and Hate

HATE

Lorrys; people who stop in the middle of the path; the colour yellow; the saturdays; x factor; torys; me to you teddys; fluffy pens; people who talk about their children (especially when they dont yet have any); jeans shopping; People walking slowly, people walking, stopping and getting in the fucking way throughout the entire length of Oxford Street; people walking slowly hand in hand admiring stupid things like street signs; pigeons; the way electric toothbrushes make my nose itch; ringing phones; facebook; labour voters; tony blair; tony benn; terry bloody wogan; the crazy frog; halloween; people dressing up and running around screeching "I'm a vampire LOL" at halloween; TWILIGHT; vampires, generally; reggie yates; boring people; onomatopaea; bad spelling; bad grammar; people who yell 'I'd fackin bang all of yerz' from car windows at my friends and I; Excel spreadsheets; flies; recycling; heat magazine; doing grown up stuff; red nose day; maps; people that maintain that there is still a distinction between the 3 main political parties; smug couples; Glee; sticky notes; people who believe horoscopes; football; checked shirts; photoshop; tom cruise; cctv; msn; when you catch your fingers with bulldog clips; the england football team; john terry; channel 5; simon cowell; bad grammar; the evening standard; the daily star; michael winner; cyclists; people who take ages at petrol stations; all you can eat chinese buffets; screaming children; children called Hector; hippies; people who don't shave their armpits/leg hair; babies on flights; mosquitos; smileys; the word 'lol'; the tube in rush hour; a badly made cup of tea; off milk; peppers; fish; oysters; jagged rocks; Clubbing; foam parties; location location location; daytime tv; prams on the tube; the cheeky girls; Nuts magazine; grey squirrels; screaming girls; roller coasters; tall people who stand in front of you at gigs; people who don't drink and are self-righteous about it; text flirting; hangovers; small ratty dogs; Justin Bieber a million times over; annoying alarm tones; people talking on their phone on the train; people trying out different ring tones on their phone on the train; being honked at whilst driving; running out of toothpaste; getting shampoo in my eyes; worrying that I'm going to be murdered in a hitchcock psycho esque way every time I'm showering.

LOVE

Wine; eating; sleeping; animals dressed in little person outfits; Gin; David Mitchell; Peep show; awkward situations; sarcasm; pointing and laughing; twitter; the word 'fnar'; spotify; cake; hearing about your antics; going out, getting smashed and having a bloody good laugh; Britney; Fleetwood Mac; asparagus; broccoli; saying something and pretending its ironic so that i can get away with it;

Tea
Dinosaurs