NON-WORKINGMONKEY

I run a caption competition

2012-02-07T20:45:00.000-05:00

Regular readers will be aware of the work of Corndog The Cat, who had some kittens and hid them in the branches of a bush, where they all lived quite happily until she (Corndog) was adopted by my husband, a French-Canadian veterinary histopathologist (who enjoys pre-clinical safety biomarker validation). (The kittens were also adopted and not used in any pre-clinical trials.)

Here she is. Corndog. When I look at this picture, I think: it will not be physically possible for my adoring readers and/or fans to resist engaging in a "Caption Competion" when they see this snapshot!!!

Come on. You know you can't resist. So here you are. Give it your "best shot":

NB: no captions along the lines of "I am sad I am so fat I wish my owners would not give me so much food!", if you please, for the simple reason that passive-aggressive first-person anthropomorphism is just what it sounds like, i.e. a pile of wank. Plus we are not blind OR stupid, but it is hard to control this simple fact: Corndog is very fat because she is able to open the refrigerator door and eat all the butter. This is not a joke.

I am having a strange day

2012-02-04T22:34:00.003-05:00

I woke early, just before six, and thought it was Tuesday; it was not; it was today, i.e. Saturday. I got up and thought, O I know, I will do the washing the ironing etc, have a shower, have a cup of coffee and maybe a boiled egg, and then I will go to the hairdresser and get the weird hair clump left over from the Amsterdam haircut cut out.

It didn't go well. The washing machine, which is cheap and accessed from the top, spun out of control and forced the water pipe to spring gleefully from its rear, causing a low-level flood. I mopped it up and thought, O I know, I will have a shower now. The tap ($600) came off in my hand and the water went all over the walls. I thought, O I know, I will have a cup of coffee. I put the coffee pot on (I have written of this before, many years ago), but before I could place it on the ring, the handle came off in my hand.

I had a go on some Wet Wipes and a cold tap and went to the hairdresser, which is precisely 2 minutes' walk from my house. On the list:

Eyebrow tidy
Colour
Haircut

Let me explain.

Eyebrow tidy

Fuck knows there's not much going right when it comes to my physical appearance, but my eyebrows have always been clear and unexcitable. I am afraid of 'tidying' them myself, though, as there is not much room for error; every 5 years or so I remember this, and get someone else to do it. They always look better, but as the ladies are plucking, they ask if if I have facials and I say I have had 2 in my life, and they say, but how is this possible?, as if I have said I have never had a bath. I will not go in to my theory on skincare (don't fuck about with it, use lots of moisturiser, people squeezing your blackheads is weird), but I think I left with a verbal agreement to go back so they can "cleanse my skin for the better accommodation of product". I am unlikely to honour the contract.

Colour

When I was about 21 I got a weird hormonal thing I and I got very fat and my hair (which until then had been thick and slippy) got thin and crap. That was OK but I am 42 now which means the colour is fading. I wouldn't care if I was going grey - in fact I would like it - but the colour of my hair is that of "un souris qui est en train de mourir très lentement", as I said to Bob (in a French accent), the "Colourist Host". I therefore have it coloured a bit so I do not look like I too am a mouse who is in the process of dying very slowly.

Haircut

For some time - despite a brief foray into the 'choppy bob with fringe', which suited me but was a pain in the arse to keep looking OK - I have shared a haircut with Dan Gillespie Sells, lead singer of one-hit wonders, The Feeling. There is no point arguing; it is the best haircut for me, unless a mentalist gets her misguided scissors on it in Amsterdam and makes me look like a portly visitor from the island of Lesbos. Today it has been righted.

Anyway, I managed to get through the eyebrow and colour bit before my hairdresser pointed out that I had toothpaste all over my chin. I take consolation from the fact that it was only on my chin, but wonder that I managed to make it through an hour without a) noticing it myself; b) having it pointed out by anyone else.

It is, now it is less disastrous, a strange day. My husband, a French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist who cuts his own hair, is in Geneva sulkily ski-ing with clients he does not like, and I am alone in Montreal where I moved about 4 years ago. It is at the weekends when you are alone in a city that is only 53% home with nothing to do that you realise that your oldest friends are not in the same place as you, and you rather wish you could see them. I also wish I could still be excited by 4 inches of snow, which is what I think is falling in England at the moment. (In Montreal people don't even put their proper coats on until it is -20 and there are 3ft on the front doorstep).

I do not talk about being homesick because there is no point; whining about it doesn't change anything, but still, I am feeling the distance and wondering if there is anything I can do about it, short of installing videoconferencing facilities (with conference phone option) in the sitting rooms of all dear friends and sending out a meeting request for a status meeting.

In other news, here is a film you should watch. I found it very funny.

I do some live blogging from a conference call

2012-01-30T22:10:00.000-05:00

Night draws in, and with it the prospect of our much-longed-for 10pm conference call with some people in "APJ", i.e., Asia Pacific Japan, i.e. Japan, China, India, Australia & Singapore. (We are in Canada.) I am going to write about it "on the go".

OK here goes. Dialling in.

If I need assistance I am to press 'star'.

Japan are saying hello! They are well, which I am glad to hear.

Someone in India is not listening.

Australia are on!

China are on!

This is amazing.

SOMEONE CALLED LANCE IS ON. Who is Lance?

China are not on. Oh hang on. Are they?

There is a dog barking.

We are giving China one more minute to join. I am not hopeful.

They are sorry about doubling up on the pdf.

China are going to be joining in one minute.

Japan cannot read the tracker.

There is a crashing sound. Someone has just gone on hold and some country and western music is playing.

Everyone is doing their email and Skyping their mums. I am typing my blog.

They are talking about timelines now and challenges. And dates.

China want some PSOM. I do not know what that is.

We aren't going to be able to give Japan the required material in time.

NEW MUSIC!! It is like Star Wars. Someone is saying 'hello' in an echo chamber. IT IS CHINA TEAM!!!

They are not aligned with the go-to-market team and India's toolkit is at risk.

We have passed the deadline.

THEY ARE PUTTING IT ON THE TABLE. China team are going to develop something - but we have to let them be aware of what we are developing.

No they are not. They are keeping the global version. Phew.

I do not understand what anyone is saying. They are now in a wind tunnel. No-one I work with understands either, but someone called "Susan" is being spoken about in revered tones by a lady in Singapore.

Someone is being pushed for the key visual. I do not like the sound of that one bit.

China Team wish to have the concept (I think).

I have literally no fucking idea what is going on.

Whatever it is works very well for China Team, but Friday is too late.

Unless someone says a big 'no' to something, there is 90% chance something may or may not happen.

Everyone is laughing but I do not understand the joke.

We cannot count on the global handover date!!!!! WHAT?!!! There is nothing funny about that one little bit.

Grace is OK on this. That's good to know. Who is Leslie? Concept lock that, ladies and gentlemen!

Final approval date, timeline, concreted global retail development toolkit scheduled.

Santa is on the line! He is OK with the copy being approved by February 14th. That's good.

OK we are going to talk about spiders now.

It's the music again!

"Oops", say Japan.

India are concerned that the carbon fibre will not look good on the newspaper and it is not done yet. No it is! They have the file and the results are coming back today. There may be feedback.

The man on the street may not be engaged by it. I am sorry to hear that.

Headline!

Oh, China Team.

I go to the office Christmas party

2012-01-20T14:56:00.001-05:00

I write to my husband, the French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist.

"We left Montreal at 4 in stupid stretch limo. Journey was supposed to take 1hr 40 mns. After 2 hours, checkingwhat time we would arrive on our phones, saw the twat had gone the wrong way. Someone also pointed out that we had gone across a river on a ferry at some point, which made no sense. Someone else pointed out that we were in Ontario. Driver didn't admit was lost. Stopped at shop for a wee, redirected driver who finally admitted he had taken 'a wrong turn'. Wanted to make up time so he starts driving across country in a snowstorm in a stretch limowith the rubber falling off one of the windows and 0 (zero) snow tyres with 8 peopledrinking beer in the back. Started skidding, ended up in a ditch. Laughing so much we nearly weed in our pants. Some of the boys climb out (NB car is at 45 degree angle) to smoke cigarettes; Ontario Police come along, breathalyse driver, tell us we are not supposed to be drinking beer in back of car. I am by this point hiding under coat trying to have a snooze. Everyone posting on Facebook/Twitter/Instagrametc; everyone at agency still sober enough to be replying; everyone freakingout; us still laughing our heads off. Left agency at 4; by now it’s8.

Wait another hour, man comes, tows us out, gets us on the road, wekeep driving. Arrive at 9.45. Dinner over, videos over. Everyone too pissed to notice us arriving and cheer - we are sad we are not centre of attention - so we go and eat dinner in the over-lit bar and drunk people ask us why we were in the ditch until we can’t be bothered to tell the story anymore. Laugh roundly atirony that of all the teams to drive into a ditch, it would have to be ours. Then too tired to do anything else and hate office parties anyway (esp as average age of agency is 23 & as you know I hate young people) so go to bed at midnight. Bed bliss. Wake up at 7, have breakfast (omelette made by someone who calls me 'dude'), get back in limo (same driver) at 8 and drive back.

Now are on a conference calls. All day. Everyone else is doing dog sledding and showshoeing in a five star hotel in the country."

I am full of wonder

2012-01-17T22:33:00.001-05:00

Snow

Every single bloody flake is different. Madness.

Invisible gasses

I can't see oxygen (for example), but it is keeping me alive - AND it dissolves. I don't get it.

Sting

The eternal: why?

The Placebo Effect

Your brain is tricked into producing the same effect that a drug would have, but without the drug. HOW?

Painkillers

I don't care how many times it is explained, I still don't get how they work. I find it amazing.

The subconscious

Apparently not everyone believes it exists - especially not Ladies and Men of Science. I find this very strange indeed, like finding out that noses are not generally accepted to exist.

Foals, lambs etc walking within 3 seconds of coming out

Massive win vs. human babies.

Dogs and/or cats that travel thousands of miles to find their owner using only their noses

Incroyable - mais vrai.

This song:

I do some TV reviews

2012-01-08T12:35:00.004-05:00

I don't trust people who don't own a television. I think it's a bit weird. I was at school with some girls whose parents didn't have one, and they were still reading Pippi Longstocking when the rest of us were smoking Silk Cut at the bottom of the hockey pitch, taking 2 hours to eat a 75p baked potato at the Lyric Theatre cafe and saying "We'd like TO PAY now please" to the man in the wig who ran the corner shop.

The worst type of people are the ones who go "oh no we do not have a television because we have the Art of Conversation, Fine Literature and Boardgames to keep us amused!". I can guarantee that none of these is as much fun as playing Drink-A-Longa Damages, and I would probably not accept an invitation to their house for dinner, because they would serve up under-seasoned tofu kebabs and overcooked tagliatelle with dried rosemary. And home-made beer.

Anyway, here are some TV reviews. You will see a high number of HBO-produced programmes, and a great deal of American comedy. You will not see any Canadian television and this is because - unless someone can tell me otherwise - Canadian television is relentlessly awful. Canadian television is not, however, as bad as French television. Danish television looks like it is great, mind you.

Starting with the Danes, I give you the real version of The Killing. I haven't seen the US version and probably won't because I don't need to. I have Sophie Grabol, some variously hot sidekicks, Copenhagen in the rain and the best theme tune ever written. I know everyone knows about it but still, if you haven't, you must. It's about a crime that happens and then a lady in a jumper solves it, but she is a bit weird so it's more interesting than it normally would be. You also get quite excited by Danish politics and a surprising number of interior design tips. It is physically impossible to watch the first season without shouting NANNA BIRK LARSEN and TROELS randomly as if you were afflicted by a rare form of Scando-Tourettes.

Damages is quite good. Glenn Close is massively camp and plays a sociopathic lawyer in sinister dark glasses who likes to end big cases by standing next to the water somewhere with her arms crossed. She is quite mean but you feel a bit sorry for her because she (by the end of it) is living alone with many bottles of whisky, a dog that doesn't like her much and some nightmares. She also has a strange relationship with a pretty Australian lady. The whole thing is entirely unlikely and it is a miracle they are not all dead from alcohol poisoning, but it is entertaining.

(Do not watch alone unless you have nerves of steel because there is quite a lot of blood and sudden leapings out from behind doors. The third series is a bit shit.)

Mad Men is fucking ace. If you want to know what working in an advertising agency is like, it is still quite a lot like that in quite a lot of ways, but without the overt sexism and drinks trolleys out on the sideboard. (They are in the cupboard.) It is also different in that the modern-day equivalents of Don Draper are not as hot as hell with excellent suits. They are more likely to look like they run a second-hand skateboard shop, and they smell a bit.

I find The Good Wife very soothing. In it, Nurse Hathaway out of ER has re-trained as a lawyer and has married Mr Big out of Sex and the City. Nurse Hathaway has sexytime with her boss at one point which is a bit strange. She has won over 142 Emmys for her performance, which remains exactly the same from episode to episode. (If you have watched this and have also watched Damages, you may agree that neither Nurse Hathaway nor Ellen Parsons benefit from a fringe.)

Arrested Development. There is a man on it called Gob who goes around on a Segway, a son called George Michael and a frozen banana stand. What's not to like?

More later. I'm going to Boston now. Bye.

NWM

p.s. please let me know if there are any television programmes you would like me to review. I have probably seen them, so don't hold back.

I know what I am not good at

2012-01-03T22:38:00.000-05:00

"Oh no! I am SUCH a bad cook", simpers the over-dressed hostess, soufflé loftily a-quiver. "More by luck than judgement!", says the newly-promoted CEO. "This old thing!", says the bride, upholstered in couture Verna Twang.

No such false humility for me. I am quite old now (42) and so am getting to know what I am good at and what I am bad at.

Bad at

Anagrams (I am writing this post because Countdown is on the telly and it makes me feel stupid and hotly ashamed)
Scrabble
Sudoku
Writing down numbers when they are read out to me
Algebra
Cryptic crosswords
Screwing caps on properly
Remembering birthdays
Reading maps without turning them in the direction in which I am travelling
Monopoly
Any puzzle that starts: "If 10 farmers have 5 pigs and 5 sheep..." (or similar)
Reading instructions
Reading knitting patterns
Hiding distain
Sleeping properly
Doing things I find boring

Good at

Remembering complex routes by sight
Reading fast
Remembering colours
Visualising what things will look like on a wall
Charades, Spite and Malice, Spit, Racing Demon, Shithead, etc. I am really really good at The Hat Game
Seasoning food properly
Understanding recipes
Remembering songs (even though I can't sing)
Gantt charts
Not shouting "FUCK OFF, TWAT", when people say things like "circle back" and "critical few"
Not being one. little. bit. impressed by MBAs
Eating and drinking (but not cucumbers or raw celery)
Making it up
Guessing
Diffusing anxiety
Seeing where the leaks are in an argument.

None of these is very useful, unless you are up for World Hat Game Champion (with a prize of $150,000).

Pip "false humility is so 2011!!!" pip

NWM

I do some film reviews (again)

2012-01-01T22:04:00.003-05:00

Regular readers will remember that I have been a 'have a go hero' and done some home-made film reviews before, but time has passed since then - and during its passing, I have watched a great many films (or "movies", for our friends in North America), that I now reflect upon for your edification and amusement.

OK. Here goes:

Midnight in Paris

WOODY ALLEN. Shut UP. I cannot describe the myriad of ways in which this film got bang on my tits. The one good thing about it is that the man who plays Hemingway is very handsome, but back on planet non-perv, I cannot imagine that anyone would go, "Oh I love Woody Allen's latest! It is modelled on a really refreshing conceit involving Owen Wilson and a time-travelling car containing misplaced American novelists!"

I tell you who likes this film. The type of people who go to Paris and buy Degas drink coasters and watch Masterpiece theatre, but don't read the New Yorker. That's who.

How To Train Your Dragon

Vikings (with Scottish accents) try and kill dragons. A young Viking (with an American accent) realises that the way to get on better with the dragons is to understand them, so he builds a tail for a black dragon that has eyes like a kitten and rides it around in the sky.

Next, they (the Vikings and the dragons) kill a massive dragon (which is like a gigantic hungry Queen Bee, but bigger) in a mountain and then all the Vikings ride dragons around for the rest of eternity.

I am not joking when I say that this cartoon is very good and I loved it a lot. You must watch it. Apparently in some parts of Denmark and the Outer Hebrides, people still ride their dragons to work.

Shrek 3

The only good bit is the cat and the gingerbread man, but neither reach the quality of their performances in Shrek 1, and I felt a narrative vacuum that could only ever be filled by the Three Blind Mice. This film is OK if you are drunk on a plane or with a lot of children.

Kung Fu Panda 1 & 2

No idea. Fell asleep within 3 minutes.

Contagion

The moral of this story is: "If you look like Gwyneth Paltrow, do not eat pork served to you by a smiling Chinaman." The other moral is "If you look like the ugly one out of Good Will Hunting, you are probably not susceptible to 97% of known viruses." Mildly exciting in parts but otherwise I wasn't sure what was happening and took photographs of Newfoundland and Labrador out of the window. Here is one of them:

Jane Eyre

This is really jolly good. I enjoyed it even though I knew what was going to happen and have read both The Madwoman In The Attic AND The Yellow Wallpaper. Rochester is hotter than a mosquito's tweeter and the bloke out of the film about the dancing Northern child is good as a stalkery vicar.

It is not a laugh a minute so do not go there if you think Downton Abbey is High Art, but do go there if you think (as I do) that Judi Dench is God and you wished (as I do) that you lived at the edges of a difficult moor.

The Help

Something tells me that I should be slightly ashamed that I enjoyed this so very much, but I did. I laughed, I cried, I cheered. I was drunk on a flight from Sao Paulo to Chicago. I am not sure that Gentlemen will like it much but they should, even if it is rammed to the rafters with that ghastly swelling American movie music that distracts you from feeling something that you are already managing to feel perfectly well by yourself.

Of Gods and Men

It is extraordinary and you should watch it.

Pride and Prejudice

I am talking the original and best one with Laurence Oliver and Greer Garson. I caught the tail end of one of those fuck-awful programmes about Jane Austen fans (they run around calling her Miss Austen or Jane which gets bang on my tits) at Christmas, and some bloke in glasses said it was the best one, and explained that it was an adaptation of a Broadway play. Whatevs. It's ace.

Crazy, Stupid, Love

In it, Steve Carrell gets new clothes and spends time with an ugly man with a 6-pack. It was good on a plane but I would not go to the cinema and pay money for it. I laughed a bit and thought quite a lot about how Steve Carrell is a bit like a Steve Martin de nos jours. Then I fell asleep.

The Hangover 2

Worth it for the bit with the gangster and what he says the monkey was doing to him in front of some 'videos'.

Cedar Rapids

A man has to go on a work conference and everything goes to shit. This does not sound promising but let me tell you, it is a good film that is funny and just avoids being mawkish at the end. I would not pay money to go and see it in a cinema but I would watch it on the computer or on the television. Or on an aeroplane. Which is where I saw it.

Bridesmaids

Not as funny as they said. Apart from the bit when she poos her pants in the street. That was funny.

The Change-Up

Absolute fucking nonsense. Do not bother, even if it is the last film in the universe.

Hanna

Finnish child assassins and God knows what else. Brilliant. I wished I had seen it in a cinema and not on the television. It is very beautiful as well as being quite exciting and sad.

The last Harry Potter film

Bobbins.

A couple of Narnia films

An ill-acted travesty. These films made me so cross my nose hurt. Liam Neeson as Aslan. I have never heard anything so ridiculous in my life. Whatever next? Swallows and Amazons with Gwyneth Paltrow as Titty and Samuel L Jackson as Captain Flint?

OK that's it for now. Coming soon: some TV reviews. Who said this blog was dead? Not me.

I love you all.

Pip "Barry Norman" Pip

NWM

I make resolutions

2012-01-01T14:20:00.000-05:00

Ring ring! Ring ring! What is that noise? Yes, it is the New Year being 'rung in'. Here are my resolutions for 2012:

Be on fewer conference calls at 10pm on Thursdays with mentals in China
Have fewer conversations with people who freely - and without shame - use the expressions "deep dive", "ladder up"*, "reach out", "touch base" and "interlock"
Take "have a sleep" off list of things I would really like to do and add something else more interesting, e.g. "vault upon a prinking unicorn and ride the Grand National"
Join a gym (because I want to and like it, not because I must - although I must)
Stare the expression "your knees and ankles are probably arthritic" directly in the face and then poke it in the eye with a sharpened pencil
Go to Scandinavia and/or Portugal (but not Burlington, VT)
Write more on my web-blog
Finish course of laser hair removal and book more for middle-aged lady sprout on chin
Be on fewer conference calls at 8am on Wednesdays with mentals in Singapore
See various friends I have not seen for a while, including but not limited to: Louis, Sarah, Charly, Jeff T, Laura T and other marvels of humanity
Win lottery. Do not need much, only c. $1.5m to allow self to stop working forever and loll about.

What is your Number One Resolution? I hope it will be "buy NWM lottery tickets and read her blog more".

Pip "Happy New Year!" Pip

NWM

* It is still unclear to me whether it is in fact possible to deep dive if you have not already laddered up

Can you guess where I am ?

2011-12-27T03:37:00.002-05:00

Now what

2011-12-19T00:38:00.002-05:00

I shit you not. I am falling apart. It is vaguely entertaining to watch. Sometimes people look at me and they say, "Are you OK?", and I say, "I am fine!!". Some people pat me on the shoulder and say, "Don't give up!", and I say, "I never do". Things I have done since February:

Put back on all the weight I lost last year, and more;
Done something to my shoulder;
Done something to my knee;
Scratched the eczema in my ear until it bled;
Fell down the stairs and thought it was funny because (weirdly) I couldn't feel anything at all, even though landed more or less on head;
Stood in a street and shouted "I am not getting emotional. I am merely saying, dispassionately, that I HATE IT";
Baked over 80 miniature cakes for 'co-workers' (as they call colleagues in North America);
Bought a book called "How to Manage" as a joke, but no-one thought it was funny;
Put those stickers you put on things when you move offices on the 8ft whiteboard in my old office, genuinely believing that someone would unscrew it and move it up a floor to new office whose walls are less than 8ft long;
Twice left the W Hotel (once in Miami, once in Boston) in a cab to buy giant Post-Its ($50 a pad!!!) whilst said cab waits outside, only to return me to a meeting room for 2 days;
Agreed to a weekly conference call at 11pm on Thursdays;
Agreed to a weekly conference call at 10pm on Wednesdays;
Forgot to send (or indeed buy) Christmas cards;
Three times in the last week phoned someone up and then forgot why I was calling them;
Four times last week went somewhere to do something and couldn't remember why I was there;
Was grateful for the fact that I wake up early, not because I can take time to drink a nice cup of tea and look out of the window and think sexytime with a younger John Humphrys, but because a bonus 5am start means more time to do work in;
Called my computer a cunt at least 58 times a week;
Bought a handbag for quite a lot of money (not more than $300) just because it is more convenient for putting a passport in at the aeroport;
Checked the air miles balance of my various cards to see if I had enough air miles to run away with (to the moon);
And some other stuff I can't remember.

I am going to Amsterdam for a bit. Someone gave me some Ambien for a flight I was supposed to be taking to Singapore a few weeks ago, but I am thinking I may 'pop a pill' on the 7 hour flight to tomorrow and spend Tuesday pleasingly furry inside my head. And then I will sleep for a week, waking only to call Singapore (Thursday, 11pm), and Japan (Wednesday, 10pm). God help us if Australia join in.

Pip "Snooze" Pip

NWM

I am in Boston

2011-12-14T16:26:00.001-05:00

It seems nice, but I have not seen much of it, apart from the view from the 17th floor of a building, where I have been sitting in a meeting for two days. Today, I made an Excel spreadsheet in front of an audience of 12. It was super.

Now I am going to the airport.

My feet hurt.

I am mental

2011-12-11T00:51:00.001-05:00

I tried therapy twice. Here is what I found out:

1. Group therapy, Highgate, 2004.

Group therapy is mental. You sit in a room in North London (usually Highgate) and stare at some very good watercolours and nice Kilims whilst fellow members of the middle class talk about their problems. You have to call it "Group", and you are not allowed to talk to people from Group on the walk to the Underground after Group; nor are you allowed to acknowledge their existence if you happen to be seated at the table next to them at Cafe Rouge in Covent Garden.

I stopped doing it after 3 months because I found it embarrassing and weird and only liked one other person there, even though 'liking' people most definitely isn't the point. Oddly, the first time the therapist (a terrifying Doctor from the Tavistock Centre with extravagant beads, a therapist husband and no doubt the most bonkers children in North London) smiled was when I said I was leaving. (I may have read something into that.)

2. One-on-One, Highgate, 2005

This was more like it for two reasons:

1. You got to lie down.

2. You didn't have to listen to anyone else, feel guilty for thinking they're a twat and then struggle with the fact that you're too polite/nice to tell them to shut the fuck up and why when, in fact, that is the whole point of Group (as far as I can see).

This was quite good and if anyone ever says: "do you want some free therapy with a proper therapist, not some new-age bellend?", say 'yes!' and go. She was into Freud and all of that so I got to talk about dreams and the id and ego and conscious and subconscious (which my husband, a French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist who is a 'real' scientist says does not exist), which was quite interesting. I didn't do it for long because of an incident involving...

3. The Oldest Therapist in the World

The nice lady (see above) sent me to see a man to make sure I wasn't depressed. I didn't think I was, but we thought it was worth checking.

Like Therapist 1 and Therapist 2, he also lived in a huge house in Highgate, filled with very nice paintings, interesting Scandinavian furniture and Kilims (because all therapists are millionaires with good taste).

I was late because he was in a bit of Highgate I had never been to before; being late when you are going to see a therapist is a million times worse because you feel that they will say something like you are CLEARLY subconsciously RESISTING the WORK you must DO, when clearly they aren't, and are probably just thinking, Oh it's raining and the traffic is bad, maybe I'll have a cup of tea while I'm waiting.

Anyway, I digress. We had a nice conversation.

Man: Do you think you are depressed?

Me: No, I don't. I just wonder ... what it's all about, really.

Man: My dear girl, man has been asking that question since the dawn of time. And I rather think that if Socrates and his friends couldn't work it out, there is no reason why you should.

After that, I was declared Not Mental and stopped going to see therapists in Highgate.

Seven years later, I am wondering if I am in fact mental. Here is why: I am working like a dog. I am doing exactly the things that are not good for the brain: I am not sleeping enough, I am not eating well, I am not doing exercise. I am not writing my web-blog, watching enough back episodes of "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills", or cooking everything in Elizabeth David's English Bread and Yeast Cookery. I do not see my husband enough (he is a sociopath so it suits him). I do not write enough letters to friends, or spend enough time staring out of the window. I have four more 3-hour sessions of laser hair removal to have on my legs, and a house in France I can stay in that I rarely ever go to. I have a friend in Glasgow I would like to see, and god-children near Brighton I would like to see too; on top of that, I have a new niece in Amsterdam I must see, urgently and soon.

None of these things are possible at the moment. What is possible at the moment is conference calls at 7am and 9.30pm, and trips to Austin one week, Singapore the week after, and Brazil the week after that. (NB: travelling for work is not glamourous or fun. Anyone who tells you it is has never travelled for work.) It is not much fun, and we are all very tired indeed.

There are reasons why. What we have been doing has been very, very difficult, and very, very difficult is often also very, very interesting. I am very fond of the people I work with. We are highly amused by each other, most days.

But I haven't written on my web-blog for months and months it is probably because I undeserving of the very name "Non-workingmonkey". I am doing all the things I know are VERY bad for me, but can't stop doing it. See? Mental.

Some beaver shots

2011-10-10T23:02:00.003-04:00

We went away for the weekend to a hotel made of wood. I saw a bear. I went in a canoe. I did not die. I went to a Buckwheat Pancake festival, and stuffed one with a sausage.

I fulfilled a life-long ambition and saw a beaver (called Carlo) - thanks to a magnificent Beaver Safari, the enjoyment of which was marred only by a ghastly German woman with gigantic teeth running through the undergrowth in incomprehensible trousers.

The French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist with whom I share my life (and fleas) was coerced into driving action by an ancient trapper in a hat covered in Fleurs-de-Lys.

Trapper: Can you drive a jeep?
Pathologist: Yes.
Trapper: Good. I have 14 Spaniards. I will take them. You will take the Germans and the Canadians.

Here are some photographs. You may like them. You may not. Fingers crossed!

Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T06:12:00.001-04:00

2 questions:

2011-10-05T08:27:00.000-04:00

1. Should I bring this web-blog back from the dead?

2. If I apply 'dynamic view' and I decide I hate it, can I easily revert to "old style", i.e. like it is now?

I am in an airport

2011-08-21T21:49:00.002-04:00

I am in the airport known as JFK waiting for a flight to Sao Paolo. It is a six hour wait, which is quite long. From Sao Paolo, I will go to Porto Alegre, and from there, to a suburb and an office. We are unlikely to see much of Porto Alegre, although it has (apparently) an enchanting late Victorian central market, where I could (if I wished) buy gee-gaws and sparkling items, and outfits with which to dress up as a goucho.

On Thursday I will take a 6am flight from Porto Alegre and go to New York. I will be there for 3 days. I will have some meetings and some dinners with old friends, and my "husband", the French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist with whom I share my life (and fleas) and I will wander the streets and possibly sleep. We will have dinners. I will not go to either Eileen Fisher or Anthropologie and buy everything in both shops (especially not the plates). We will fly back to Burlington, again, and from there we will drive home.

Anyhoo. I have been visiting things. Here are my reviews.

Miami
Hot as all hell and like in the pictures. Lots of ladies with scrawny bodies and sun damage. They have heads like horses and eyes brimming with despair. I think they should eat some cakes and not spend so much time on pedicures and all of that. Lots of French people and Quebec people in the W being knobbers. Didn't see much of it, to be fair; spent most of the time buying emergency projectors for $700 and sweating. The Standard is where I would stay if I had to go to Miami again for work. It has views of the lake, Chinese ladies singing jazz, yoga twats in $500 outfits, and millionaire hipsters sitting in swing seats, drinking ironic beer.

Austin
Hot as hell and not like anything else. It is great and people really do wear boots, even when it's hot. I had Mexican food there and it was brilliant. There are hippies there and all of that. On my first day there I was offered a beer, a discussion about Lakeland terriers and threatened with a gun within 3 minutes by the same people - a generously butch couple fresh from their holidays in the Isles of Lesbos, who I intend to visit next time I am 'in town' (week after week after next). I go there a lot so it's just as well I like it. Austin is a bit like Montreal and Amsterdam. People don't give a shit and don't sneer. I like that in a city.

Burlington
I hate Burlington and I've never even seen it. I just go to the airport and get picked up my by "husband' (a man who is an intriguing mix of sociopath and saint), or driven from there to my house by a serial killer called Don who lives in his van and has a girlfriend called Betty who eats crips and rides shotgun (with me paying). When Don gets lost (which is often), he ignores his GPS, maps and me and chooses instead to call his friend Merv, who reads extracts from Wikipedia to him via a hands-free device patented by Sir Clive Sinclair in 1984. Last time, we were 3 hours late.

Montreal
This is where I live now, except I am not really seeing much of it because I am working all the time. It is my choice to work, but I am not managing to remain truly non-working in my heart, which is an ishoo, as I am sure you will agree.

Enough of that. I am in the "Skylounge" with only 2 hours to go until my 11 hour flight to Brazil boards. I am grateful I am in a 'lounge' and not downstairs. I am eating free peanuts and drinking free wine, and being called madam. It is, of course, the beginning of the end. I do not like corporate hotels, but I am consciously choosing a certain type of hotel to collect points. The only place I want to go is home, or maybe Stockholm for a holiday, but I get cross when the work travel agency forget to redeem my flight points against my 3 different cards.

It is odd to see them written down, those things. Even when I do them I am aware they are ridiculous, but for a while, this is what I have chosen to do. But I must confess that it is nice to be writing with my tiny little monkey hands again. Tap tap tap.

Pip "tap tap" pip

NWM

Items of moderate interest

2011-08-07T20:41:00.000-04:00

I have been to Miami of late. Called a "fucking shit" by a cab driver with one leg, I drank too much tequila and nearly fell in the hotel pool.

The next day, returning to Canada via Burlington (for reasons too distressing to relate), I was followed on two flights by a woman with the kind of voice that causes parts of your skull to shrink closer to your brain to protect it from bad forces. "I saw something so cool outside Target this morning", she said. "A man with only a head and a torso, on a stand. No arms. No legs. Just a head and a torso, on a stand. Sad. But also SO COOL. Do you want a breakfast burrito?"

Her children did not want a breakfast burrito. Nor did the "maid", or her husband, Eric.

I will write more in a minute. I have to go and eat a tortilla. I am scared.

I am going full-tilt with the 'holiday snaps'

2011-07-07T05:51:00.002-04:00

Actual house where we are staying. All of England looks exactly like this.

"I tell you who would find this interesting. Graham. He loves this sort of thing."

We did not see any froglets.

Old pots and stuff.

Bee things.

Gigantic English bee.

Gigantic sandwiches.

N-Dubz is my favourite food, too

There is a lot going on in Cornwall.

I supply more photographs of my 'holiday'

2011-07-05T06:25:00.000-04:00

Vanity!!!

We didn't, but only because it is illegal to take bulbs back to Canada and, as everyone knows, I am very law-abiding (apart from the whole hams)

I do not wish to view Rolf Harris' new works. Also, since when did he paint with his mouth?

I am on holiday

2011-07-04T15:51:00.001-04:00

It has been "all over the gaff" on the internet front, but now I am in a place called Shop, and BT are offering me the internets for only fifteen British pounds for five days. It is great! Last week we went to Llandudno for a bit (i.e. 4 hours). It is quite amazing: there are over three (3) shops hiring out those mobility scooter things, and sometimes game old gentlemen get stuck in pub doorways trying to execute a three point turn. I do not have photographic evidence of that, but I do have other photographs. Here are some of them:

There will be more. Until then I remain, in this, as in all weathers,

NWM

I cannot blog

2011-07-02T02:33:00.001-04:00

... Even though I would like to, because for some reason I have booked cottages and B&Bs without the internets for our holiday. iPhones are nice and that but not good for stuff with many words. And I making no comment about how many books I have read, etc.

I will try and post some photosnaps or something.

Pip pip!

NWM

I am back (briefly)

2011-06-19T23:19:00.001-04:00

Hullo. I am not dead. I am just working. It is quite fun but there is an awful lot of it, so I do it most of the time, e.g. at 6am in the morning and 10pm at night. On Monday, I am training some Chinese people via conference call at 9pm and at 7.30am on Wednesday, I am talking to a lady in "EMEA" (i.e. Europe, Middle East & Africa - all of which are very similar, I am sure you will agree.)

When I am not doing work, I am thinking about Ron Swanson, and really, that is all that matters. When I am not thinking about Ron Swanson or work, I think about how on Wednesday night (10.45pm, Air Canada) we are leaving for London.

For one day I will yet again 'hang out' at the Canadian High Commission waiting for 4 hours for a temporary visa (because despite being a resident since 27 April 2011, the Canadian government are fuckwits and cannot send me the bit of plastic that allows me to fly in and out of Canada freely, like a free citizen of the world). Last time I went it was pouring with rain, but they kept us all outside, me stuffed under my tiny lady umbrella like an elephant hiding under frisbee, and the man in front of me un-protected but for his quiff, which started to collapse after 23 minutes of drizzle. They let us in, removed our computers and phones and left us in a waiting room with no clock and bars on the window with nothing to do but watch BBC1 on mute and wonder if we would ever get our passports back again. We did, of course, and then I went to Montpellier where I stayed in a hotel that smelled of despair and drank lukewarm water out of a paper cup.

I am going to London because I am going on holiday. Here is what we are doing:

Thursday: Canadian High Commission. Then a B&B. A nice one. That does not smell of despair.
Friday: Meet best friend for ladychitchat.
Saturday: Wedding. (Not mine.)
Sunday: Hangover. Dinner.
Monday: Pick up car in Kennington. Drive to North Wales.
Thursday: Go to Brecon Beacons.
Friday: Go to Bath.
Sunday: Go to Devon.
Monday: Go to Cornwall. Cycle about. Lost Gardens of Heligan. That sort of thing.
Thursday: Go to somewhere else.
Friday: Ditto.
Saturday: Not sure either.
Sunday: 10.50am. Fly back to Canada.

I am very fucking tired. I hope I will sleep a lot. The other day, someone asked me where I was born and I couldn't remember.

What is going on out there in the world, apart from Cheryl Cole?

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Pip pip!

NWM

I think about accidents I have been in

2011-05-21T23:56:00.000-04:00

1. Ripped the back off my heel jumping out of a camp bed whilst pretending to be a chicken. Unpleasant scarring, makes foot size larger (age c.14)

2. Had fingers slammed in car door by little brother. Faint scar on 4th finger of left hand. (c. 7)

3. Had bit of wood with old nail in accidentally whacked in face by little brother. Faint scar on top lip. (c. 5)

4. Made eardrum bleed by picking up telephone at the same time as clearing out ear with ear-bud. Sudden movement of arm/shoulder pushed ear-bud into ear. Blood came out. Continuing oddness; suspect partially deaf. (22)

5. Horse rolled over Triumph Herald on Knightsbridge. Car write-off, horse fine, rider fine. (c. 7)

6. Fell off a horse onto my head. Hospital overnight. There were strawberries. No external damange. (c. 17)

7. Fell off a horse onto my arse. Bruised/cracked coccyx. Couldn't sit down for weeks. (c. 13)

8. Locked in a communal garden in Notting Hill, I climbed over wall (approx 12 feet high) and jumped off, landing on my right ankle. Could not walk for weeks. Should probably have had a cast and/or surgery. Am missing a ligament in right foot. (17)

9. Balanced too much shopping on the already-crooked handlebars of my bike in Amsterdam and fell off, twisting right foot the other way. Could not walk for weeks. Even the physiotherapist gasped. (37)

10. Burns on forearms and back of hands from years and years of thinking my hands are made of asbestos. Many amusing pale, browny-pink scars from wrists to elbows.

11. Stabbed my hand with a pencil. Faint grey dot embedded deep in palm of left hand. (7)

12. Cut same finger in same place three times. Now have wonky left index finger. (21 - present)

I am sure I will remember the rest in the morning. Until then:

Pip "OW" pip

NWM

I am returned from Austin

2011-05-09T00:02:00.000-04:00

I am coming round to North America. People are (on the whole) very polite, and when they ask you how you are, they are actually interested. Also, when they say that they think something is "awesome", they probably mean it. I like the enthusiasm, even if I can do without the whooping. Oh, I know there are cockmonkeys here, as there are everywhere (e.g. people on the telly shouting "Go USA!!!" in bars the night Bin Laden was killed), but I am now a non-subscriber to the supercilious condencension of the Europeans who believe that "America" is all the same, in the same way that some Americans believe that "Europe" is all the same.

Anyhoo. Austin's good. I was there for a week. Within ten minutes of arriving, I had been offered a beer, a squeeze of a Lakeland Terrier and a gypsy cab. Brilliant. I had to travel back to Montreal via Vermont, but what I thought would be a womantic weunion with my husband turned sour when we were woken at 7am by a man (apparently organising some sort of local history grouping) shouting in reception. Sourness turned to disappointment when the "delicious breakfast sourced from locally sourced ingredients" (fuck's sake) was replaced by a "Flapjack Buffet".

In another amusing linguistic twist, it turns out that Flapjacks in Vermont are not biscuits involving oats and syrup, but pancakes. Pancakes served by ladies the same group as Shouting Man. Ladies who told us that there were no eggs. Ladies who looked like they were shouted at a lot by Shouting Man, and were tired of it, tired to their very bones. I did not like it, the lack of breakfast. I did not like being charged all the money for our room, despite the rubbishness of the early morning alarm and the breakfast that was not there, and despite the one-eyed Labrador. The girl with the stupid face was apologetic enough, but it was a matter of principle, that $165, and matters of principle are things I find myself talking more and more about as I get older. In five years' time I will be insufferable.

Here are some pictures. The beginning is Austin sorts of things, then there are photos of the floods in Vermont. The floods that did not excuse the lack of eggs and the Shouting Man.

Beautiful tea bought by the English ladies I was sitting next to on the flight from Newark to Austin. Seven British pounds, apparently.

Riff Randall Panty Explosion

On the Cinco di Mayo, I drank too much beer and wine with my esteemed colleagues and, weaving back home down South Congress, walked past a bar. I heard some good music. I paid $6. I went in. It was worth all the money in the world because in it was a band called Greyhounds. They are in London this week, I think. You should go and see them if you can.

Pip "I have ordered some cowboy boots" pip

NWM

I am a Permanent Resident

2011-04-30T21:03:00.001-04:00

"They call you in", said my friend Mary, "and a man says something in French, then the same thing in English, then they play the national anthem. Then you get your card."

There was no national anthem, and I did not get my card. The appointment was at 8.15am; we sat for a few minutes, and then we were called in. "Do you still wish to sponsor Non-Workingmonkey?", said the lady. "Yes", said the French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist with whom I share my life (and fleas). I signed something; he signed something.

The lady gave me a bit of paper , congratulated us, and told me that I cannot travel until I get the actual Permanent Residents' Card. "Four to six weeks", she said, "but you can drive over the American border with that paper. Just don't try and fly. You won't be able to come back in."

Still puzzled, we left to celebrate, and by 9.23am we were drinking coffee in a shopping mall and eating un-festive, faintly tubular muffins. "Thanks for moving here", said the French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist. "That's OK", I said, and then I went to work.

I have a job, but couldn't even say the word "job" until I was legal, otherwise I would have been posted back to England. For my new job, I must travel to Austin tomorrow. There will be photographs, and perhaps stories about BBQ and hats.

These are strange times, my friends. Strange times indeed. But most definitely not unpleasant times.

Pip "ya'll" pip

NWM

I do some Easter baking

2011-04-23T16:43:00.001-04:00

I am not religious, although sometimes I have a sharp desire to go to a non-fluffy, guitar-free Church of England service (the Advent Parade at York Minster, for e.g.). I do however like to celebrate the Baby Jesus (dead, alive, about to rise or risen) by baking: I like the stories that are in all the cakes and buns; the spices and the fruits and the ancient-ness of it all.

There was nothing particularly mystical about my hot cross buns, apart from the fact that they tasted ancient about 10 minutes after coming out of the oven. They were lukewarm and faintly irritated rather than hot and cross, and are destined to become the bread in a bread and butter pudding. (If you have never made them and wondered what that white stuff is that makes the cross, it is - most of the time - just flour and water.) Here is a picture:

I was also grasped by a desperate desire to make a Simnel Cake, but couldn't find the bottom of my 20ins cake tin. Instead, I made these Simnel Cakelets (O how I hate that stupid "...lets" thing) out of the Guardian, ignored the icing/marzipan animals/chocolate eggs thing and stole the marzipan balls thing off the original Simnel Cake recipe. Result: we have 11 small cakes to take chez the mother-in-law tomorrow. (There were 12, but we ate Judas Iscariot.) Here they are:

It only remains for me to wish you a delightful long weekend, whether or not you will be exposed to marzipan balls.

Pip "Saffron in that?" Pip

NWM

I try to find a cleaning lady (or man)

2011-04-19T23:16:00.001-04:00

I have just written the following email:

"Our apt is like a dust bowl with 100 year old floorboards in which animals live. No joke. Husband put on shoes, went to work, was in car, thought O my shoe is a bit uncomfortable, took off his shoe, put it on the seat next to him and a mouse popped out. (He set it free.) Anyway I was looking for a cleaner and one of them used the attached picture to advertise her services. Basically if I hire her I get to wear a turban and get massaged by a cat. Massive WIN."

In other news, my series of Royal Looky-Likeys is going pretty well, even though I only have one. Here it is:

Cat in Melon Hat

HRH Queen Elizabeth II at the investiture of the Prince of Wales

Pip "That 11am start date isn't much use to the peoples of the Commonwealth on GMT -5!!" Pip

NWM

I will (officially) exist again some time after 8.15am next Thursday

2011-04-18T22:35:00.002-04:00

I am ready for my questions. Here are the answers. You can play Jeopardy with them:

Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland & Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia, Novia Scotia and New Brunswick (which I always forget).
Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Yukon.
Michael Ignatieff!! Ha ha ha ha
75%
26,500,000 litres.
Constitution Act, 1967
Stephen Harper's massive crusted head-wig
Maman Dion
Joni Mitchell
Neil Young
Rush
Bicameral.

Coming soon: I work and travel like a normal person.

I am on the train again

2011-04-01T19:02:00.002-04:00

This time, a lady of around my age (i.e. 41) is chewing gum with her mouth open. I am at least 15 feet away, but I can hear her every chew. I have a strong urge to set fire to her handbag.

I write a shopping list

2011-04-01T17:15:00.004-04:00

I am weeks - if not days - from being "landed" by the Canadian government. When I am landed, I can explain what I have been doing these last few months; until then, you will have to do with shopping lists emailed from a covert location in the old bit of Montreal.

Things that I need from the shop to cook with:

Low fat beef mince or turkey mince
Gay buns
Salady shit
Sweet potato shit
Greek yoghurt shit
A lot of stewing steak not in a piece in chunks
Pancetta in a cubetti
Carrots in a bag
Cheap red wine like tramps drink
An orange
The lady of echalottes, in a bag
Tin of tomatoes, oh yeah
Beetroot, ready cooked ok, 200g
2 packets cooking choc, for me, I need 250g
Eggies in a box
Baking powder
Sugar I need a bag of it
What about some apples, let’s have some of them
And some pears in a tin.

Delicious.

I apologise for the comment moderation

2011-03-16T22:58:00.000-04:00

I am being spammed up the wazoo, which is not as much fun as it sounds. What is amazing is that they are bothering, truly bothering, to keep filling in the little word verification thing over and over again. I hope they are getting paid well for their troubles.

Anyway. Do not let this put you off. Feel free to comment, telling me (for e.g.) how great I am, how much you love my blog, etc etc.

In other news, I have had a letter from the Canadian government that says I have met their requirements for residency. We have given them $490, and any day now I will be called to a dusty room in a government office, asked what my favourite colour is, and called to sign a form whilst listening to a Celine Dion lookylikey singing the French-Canadian version of the Canadian national anthem.

Coming next: I apply for citizenship, and, three years later, find myself in possession of duelling citizenships.

Pip "Ceint de fleurons glorieux" Pip

NWM

The Crêpe of Things To Come

2011-03-15T08:04:00.000-04:00

N.B. I did not cut this out myself with my tiny monkey hands; I stole it off a tweet of Sali Hughes'. Do you love it?

I have a business idea you cannot resist

2011-03-13T23:47:00.002-04:00

I often have ideas that other people have also had. Sometimes, I have an idea, and I think O that will never take off, and then someone else has it and it does. These ideas have included a lot of things, e.g.:

- a cone for putting peppercorns in your pepper mill without them jizzing all over the counter;
- a comedy sex blog;
- a blog about apostrophe's in the wrong place;*
- crossing a poodle with a cocker spaniel and calling the outcome a "cockapoo";
- putting sheep grease and old fish eyes in a pot, calling it "Cream of the Sea" and selling it for $453.

Etc.

For some years (I have witnesses), I have, when "in my cups", told people about my favourite idea of all: a troupe of persons of smaller stature assembled for the purpose of serving superior Mexican-styled snacks.

Imagine it, if you will: you are having a cock-tail party. Everyone is standing around having a drink etc. They are a bit bored and also a bit hungry. You are an anxious AND caring host and/or hostess and you do not want your guests to have a bad time - but you are not worried. Why? Because you have hired my Miniature Troupe.

There is a lull in the conversation. Suddenly, the enticing strains of a top-quality Mariachi recording are heard, seamlessly communicated via your high-resolution Bose soundsystem. There is a scuffle. Something is happening at elbow height. "A snack?". You look down. There is a sombrero upon the head of a person of smaller stature. The crown is pushed in a little; in the dent nestles some high-quality salsa. And on the brim - need you ask? - there are gathered tortilla chips of the highest calibre.

Long have I thought that this could be my way out: the passport, as it were, to a life of relaxed entrepreneurialism, conducted from a hammock and/or armchair, with only a telephone, small clay pipe and glass of absinthe for company.

And tonight, finally, it seems this dream could come true: only tonight, I used the Google and typed in "small person in sombrero". And what came up? Why, this: proof, if I needed it, that either a) someone has had the idea already; or b) that there is a definite market (as the marketing johnnies say) for my idea. Either way, I think I am going to do it. Anyone in?

Pipa Pipa!

NWM

* see what I did there?

P.S. Gigantor-sized apologies: have had to put comment moderation on for a bit as am being spammed up the wazoo by some mentalists and it's doing my head in. Normal service will be resumed as soon as I have found them and broken their keyboards with an old rolling pin.

I am really very good at procrastinating

2011-03-13T18:27:00.001-04:00

"Procrastination is the thief of time!", they say, shortly after saying "There is no 'I' in 'team'" and shortly before I deck them. They are wrong, of course; procrastination is brilliant and it is good for you. I have proof from an academic 'type' to prove it, and at some point I will get it and show it to you.

In the meantime, here are the things I am definitely going to do.

... the drawings. The Corndog one will be multi-media. The pathologist will help. (NB the cat will be still be alive after the piece has been created.)

... send the badges. (You know who you are. It is not that I do not love you; it is just that the effort involved in being in the right house when I remember them + finding envelopes with glue that sticks + finding a pen + finding a stamp + going to the post-office + having to justify my small parcel in bad French to a pathologically nosy and bureaucratic postmistress = makes me want to lie down)

... send Dave Shelton who I love the 3 books that I bought for him nearly a year a go and that are sitting in an Amazon box in the hall (see above - problem will be solved if I allow myself to drive, which I refuse to do if there is even 1mm of snow on the ground; particularly problematic if you are in Canada)

... send my brother and his wife their wedding present, which is a bit shit seeing as they got married in October last year (it is really good though - it is a KitchenAid! They will deffo forgive me when it actually arrives)

... find someone to clean the flat (I make no apology for this and stare with cold unrelenting eyes at people who make prissy "can't you clean your own HOME*" faces, their tiny judgmental lips making like a cat-arse)

... take up the remaining sessions of laser hair removal, paid for a year ago and still not finished (I am not afraid, I just keep forgetting - it is quite marvellous and works and works, even on my pelted monkeylegs)

... go to the dentist and get a checkup and a clean and a quote for having them changed from pale yellow (like the piss of a well-hydrated muskrat) to pale, pale cream (like a Canadian with beautiful teeth)

... go to the special dentist and get my preposterous weirdo false tooth (that appears to have been implanted in my jaw with old baler twine, twigs and screws stolen from broken sunglasses), x-rayed again and possibly replaced

... have a Ladycheck, which is quite difficult because: a) I do not have a National Health card thing, because my work permit has run out and with it my health card, although b) even if I did, I haven't got a GP because no-one in Quebec does; and c) I would find one of those "Ladyclinics" and pay cashmoney, except I don't know where to look and thinking about it makes me want to hide

... explain what has been going on the last few months, which I can't (for reasons that will become obvious, but that are not that interesting and do not involve my health, relationships, Sting being impaled on his own lute, etc).

I am going to do the ironing now. With any luck, it will be the last day I do the ironing because I am going to pay someone else to do it. (At some point.)

Pip Pip!

NWM

* they always say "home", these sorts of people, instead of "house" or "flat" or "tent" or "caravan", or whatever it is they live in.

I am going to draw

2011-03-07T23:23:00.000-05:00

What would you rather see a drawing of?

1. Corndog's kittens in a bush;
2. Hipsters at a craft fair;
3. Michael Winner on a shoot in 2001.

Let me know. I am feeling 'creative'.

Pip "Starry Starry Night" Pip

NWM

I share with you a video of a baby laughing at paper being torn up, and a video of a dancing grandpa

2011-03-01T08:30:00.003-05:00

Watch these. They will make you happy inside. (And maybe outside too.)

I have been struggling

2011-02-26T15:10:00.000-05:00

Normally, when I do one my world-famous (amongst readers of this web-blog) 'caption competitions', the winner announces itself to me without any effort on my behalf. This time, however, I have really had to 'have a think' (whilst watching back-to-back episodes of "Come Dine With Me" and eating biscuits).

Finally, however, I have come to a conclusion, and am happy to announce the winner: a "Mr Poopyhead", with the following excellently sweary caption:

"You put that fucking ribbon one inch closer to me, and I'll let out the mother of all shits right here on this table - you two motherfuckers feel me?"

We also have two runners-up, who were only narrowly beaten by the idea of a dog using the expression "you two motherfuckers feel me?".

In alphabetical order, the runners up are:

Andy:

"Unfortunately, Celia's puppies were far from best in group".

And Tea and Cake:

"Leave it lady, leave it."

Very strong work, all of you.

Pip "gong" Pip

NWM

I am on a train

2011-02-22T17:38:00.001-05:00

Technology is a miracle, for armed only with an iPhone and a cellular network, I am able to inform you live and in real time (from the grimy caress of a not-yet moving train) that, for the third time in 9 months, I am in the same carriage as a man cutting his toenails.

I am back from the weekend

2011-02-21T21:32:00.003-05:00

Hullo I am back. I have been in a cabin in the woods all weekend communicating with nature.

What it did not have:

- a connection to the water main, ergo
- a loo that flushed (instead, my monkeyparts were refreshed by external breezes)
- a shower, etc
- the internet
- a telephone

None of these mattered one jot.

What it did have:

- electricity
- a massive wood-burning stove
- many old magazines
- Leonard Cohen (not in person obv)
- excellent friends down a track ("...and then a WEASEL popped out of the La-Z-Boy!")

Here are some photosnaps:

The cabin. Many people think all of Canadia looks like this. They are (very) slightly correct.

Detail of the print on a single pillowcase. Skating
cats! I ask you. I dream of it.

Gaping Bavarian shaving mug. Terrifying. $35. I did not buy it.

"Deceptively Simple", priced at a deceptively optimistic $695

You couldn't make it up.

The famous prehistoric stone circle of the Cantons de L'Est

Do you know what this is? We thought it was a propeller. It is not a wing, we don't think.

It was, 'ow you say, "awesome". Yesterday, we went to Abercorn, bought delicious bread and had lunch with our excellent friends and some people we had not met before, but liked very much. They had dogs. I like dogs. (I will be writing more about this in the week; if we do not get a dog soon I may die soon, on the floor, in a heap.)

In other news, I will wait until tomorrow to announce the winner of Friday's Caption Competition. In other words, it is not too late to be a "have-a-go-hero" yourself.

Pip "Last chance saloon" pip!

NWM

UPDATE: My friend and conspirator Asta IMMEDIATELY spotted that the thing is the blade of a wind turbine. I am not joking when I say it is fucking massive. Massive. I was scared, but then I have a thing about a) crustaceans with antennae and wavy legs; b) gigantic industrial machinery/constructions.

I run another caption competition (of sorts)

2011-02-17T20:27:00.001-05:00

You may write a caption if you wish for that, as I know only too well, is a "formatte" you know and love already. But really, I wish to know what it is that the dog has just said and/or done. Come on. You know you can do it.

As ever, there is a prize, but it is not a prize of a thing; it is simply the reward of knowing you are judged as "the beste" by me, NWM, arbiter of style and highly-qualified judge of what is and isn't funny.

OK here goes.

Winners announced next Monday evening (EST). I will be freshly relaxed from a weekend in a shack without internet or hot running water but WITH gigantic sauna, wine and people we like.

Good luck!!!

Pip "Man o' the Woods" Pip

NWM

P.S. Read this blog called Colonel Knowledge.

I prepare for the Royal Wedding

2011-02-15T08:52:00.001-05:00

When Layd-dee-Dee (as they call her in some French-speaking nations) married Prince Charles, I made a massive scrapbook and was excited. This time, I am not excited, but I will be having a celebratory tea-party. Hats will be obligatory, as will be sherry sucked out of ladylike tea-cups through bendy straws. (Tickets $150 each. Includes egg sandwiches, scones, half a bottle of sweet Oloroso and a commemorative shortbread biscuit.)

In preparation for my Royal Wedding tea party, I am buying new plates. Here is an example of one of them. More here; buy them here.

Gawd bless yer, m'am!!!

Pip "Climb ev'ry mountain" Pip

NWM

I lose the internet

2011-02-14T21:07:00.003-05:00

Today, a man in a yellow van come to our house in the semi-country outside Montreal, and spent the day "improving our connections" in a snowstorm up a ladder. (NB: "improving our connections" had nothing to do with Valentine's Day.)

With the man up the ladder came the loss, for one day only, of the following useful services:

1. The internet
2. The television
3. The telephone (landline)

"But what did you DO all day?", I hear you cry, your tiny faces straining towards me like newly-born kittens reaching mistakenly for a hot water bottle. Here is the answer, adoring readers and/or fans: yes, using the power of the chart, I am able - using simple visual aids - to allow you easily to compare what I did all day today without an internet connection, to a typical day with an internet connection.

OK here goes. (Click on the image to make it bigger if your eyes are small like a tiny kitten's.)

I am not saying that doing the filing is of greater intrinsic value than for e.g. posting Dancey Paws to Facebook, or that having a little sit down and think is better for my mental health than looking at pictures of dogs and/or puppies*, but today I did things that were useful and I didn't, apparently, miss very much. Is that true, do you think? Or am I just living in a strange semi-non-working world, where covert operations take place on an iPhone under the stairs and I wait and wait for a work permit?

Pip "Hmmmm" Pip

NWM

* especially when the dogs look like this:

I give you my love

2011-02-14T06:11:00.001-05:00

I do more film reviews

2011-02-13T14:42:00.005-05:00

There is a snow a-coming. They say, "O there will be 5-10cms falling, it is only light", but then you find that the day is broken into four blocks, each containing 5-10cms, and that in fact what is happening is that the snow is going on and on and on and we are going to die.

Still, we do not care. Why? Because there is a) television; and b) films to watch. And also review. Yes, it is true. My last film reviews were so well-received by you, my adoring readers and/or fans, that I have decided to give you some pleasure by doing some more, reaching back maybe 3 months into my consumption history. OK here goes.

Going the distance
In this film, Drew Barrymore plays herself having long-distance relationship with a man who was actually her boyfriend in real life, so there is not much acting in it. Unsurprisingly, they end up together in the end. Surprisingly, I laughed like a drain a number of times. The funny bits are all the bits that Drew Barrymore and her boyfriend are not in.

(NB: I was not drunk, and watched it alone in a tiny apartment in Paris, accompanied by two mice and a cockroach called Jules.)

Wall-E
It is OK but there is a message in it about taking care of the earth etc., and I couldn't see what was so wrong about going everywhere in a mini-hovercraft. I watched it on a plane next to a man with a moustache.

Kitchen Stories
In this film, a Swedish man on a tall ladder watches a Norwegian man move around in his kitchen. It is brilliant. It also came out quite a long time ago, but I have never claimed to be either "with it" or "down with the kids", so it doesn't matter.

Route 132
A Quebec film that I do not recommend unless you like following words and/or expressions:

"road-trip"
"dead child"
"redemption"
"bleak"
"wise aunt"
"crime that you will get caught for"
"self-discovery"

The bit with the crosses in the water was quite good. My husband liked it, but then he is a bleak Quebecker.

Life As We Know It
Sometimes, I forget things. My name. My address. My pin number. All my passwords. Why the fuck I ever paid $4.99 for this film on iTunes.

The September Issue
Highly diverting if you are tired and still wearing Autumn/Winter 2007, as I am. In it, you learn that Anna Wintour is mental and that fashion smells of wee.

L'Arnacoeur
I watched this on the way to Paris. I was a bit drunk. It is quite diverting, in a French sort of a way. I can see why J. Depp wants to "do it" with V. Paradis. I can't really remember what happens in it.

Continental, un film sans fusil
Another bleak Quebec film. There is line dancing in it, and something to do with a hotel reception.

Beyond The Lighted Stage

Ring ring
Ring ring.
Hello?
Hello it is me.
Hello.
What are you doing?
I am watching a documentary film about Rush.
Are you feeling all right?
Now you mention it, I am feeling a little Geddy.*

Leap Year
No. Just no.

Cabotins
A cheerful Quebec film. I liked it very much. It is about vaudeville people putting on a show in a barn and has a good joke in it about a man dying 'in flagrante'.

The Fantastic Mr Fox
There is a reason why I have watched this film four times, and it is only partially to do with the yoga fox.

Helvetica
Blah blah, design, wank wank, design, bollocksy wank wank. Very interesting in parts but exactly one hour too long. This documentary is clearly a favourite with this sort of person:

Me? I like Caslon Antique, but on Tuesdays I usually feel Gill Sans.

OK that is it for the moment. I have to go and made another cake out of chocolate and beetroot (trust me, it is quite delicious), but I will watch the films that were recommended in the comments on my last set of film reviews and I will review them even if it kills me.

Pip "Snowplough" Pip

NWM

* Quite the best joke I have ever made, I am sure you will agree.

I watch snow and I watch films

2011-02-02T23:51:00.002-05:00

Ah, yes. Hello. "Where have you been? We do not really care, but still, we were a bit curious", I hear you cry. (I can hear you shouting it, even if the sound is not coming out of your mouths.)

I have not been anywhere, is the answer. I am in Montreal still, waiting to be given a bilingual double-thumbs up by two governments. Whilst I wait, my tiny monkey face presses against the window, watching the snow fall and fall out of the sky.

At night, when we are at the country extension of Monkey Towers, the little red light that tells us that it is under -15 outside has been on a lot. It was -32 last week, which I heard described as "a bit fresh" by a Canadian. (They are as hard as fucking nails, Canadians. You heard it here first. Do not believe the wishy-washy hype.) The exciting weather conditions have, however, allowed me to have some excellent conversations with my husband, a French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist. For e.g.:

We are in bed, a sort of Arts and Crafts affair that is very high off the ground. There is an electric blanket; only one side is on (c.f. point re. Canadians being as hard as nails) and I am on that side, spreading myself out as much as possible in manner of a starfish in a Michelin man suit. A small cat is batting away imaginary moths. It is snowing. Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest builds and disperses clouds in the sky, and dark towns heap up on the horizon.

Me: You know it's -32 outside?

F-CVRH: (Puts down the New Yorker, takes off reading glasses, $5 from the chemist) Yes.

Me: How long, right, would it take for me to DIE if I was outside now, but naked?

F-CVRH: (Long sigh, like is explaining to tiny child what gravity is) Not long.

Me: What is "not long"? You are a rubbish scientist. You need to be more precise.

F-CVRH: I mean "not long".

Me: But what do you MEAN? 4 minutes? Three hours? Half an hour?

F-CVRH: A couple of hours.

Me: OK. I will take it that you mean maybe up to two but probably less. Anyway. Is it true that if you are about to die of hypothermia and you are with another person, you should take all your clothes off? Is it? Is it?

F-CVRH: Aren't you tired yet?

Me: No. Also, what do you prefer: doing a wee, or doing a poo?

When I am not having conversations and waiting, I am watching films in cinemas, at home and on aeroplanes. So many, in fact, that I have decided to become a film critic. I know you will not be surprised - I am very talented and it is only to be expected that I can analyse things and give you my opinion on them. OK. Here goes.

The King's Speech
Entertaining. Colin Firth is quite handsome in it. Queen Mother comes across as quite nice when in fact we all know she was a gin-soaked old lady with disgraceful teeth and a cupboard stuffed with the desiccated bodies of her dead Corgis, their tiny faces stretched in a rictus grin for all eternity. An Australian plays the king that resigned. His face does not look right at all.

The Kids Are All Right
It was all right. I had a bottle of water and an orange sweet.

Inception
"So the thing is, right, that he'll be woken up by the bump, but the thing is, we have to knock him out so you might think he won't notice the bump if he's unconscious. So what I've made sure I've done is invent a drug that will knock him out WITHOUT interfering with his inner ear function."

Oh shut up.

The Social Network
I liked it. The trailer is good and I am sure that bad advertising agencies will be using it to explain to their clients what "the social media" is before the year is out.

Barney's Version
I liked it a lot. Set in Montreal and thereabouts so good if you can't be bothered to visit here but wonder what it looks like. (I can send photos if you're that interested.) Paul thingy is very good.

I laughed a lot in it and ate half an almond biscuit. Enjoyment of film enhanced by running commentary from 7 old ladies and gents behind a) pointing out bits of Montreal they recognised; b) being rude about the quality of the wedding in the wedding scene; c) speaking a language we did not understand, but guessed at Romanian. Canadian film. I cried a bit in it too. (P.S. The makeup is astonishing. Truly.)

Incendies
This is a ALSO a Canadian film and it is very very very very very very very very good. It is up for an Oscar because it is not in English. It is not exactly a thigh-slapper but everyone sat in silence at the end (no crying or anything embarrassing like that) and then went out silently without doing that bollocks "Oh this is what I think" shite that people do after seeing 'arty' films. You had better read a bit about it.

I Am Love
In this film, Tilda Swinton pretends to be a Russian lady living in Milan. She shows a man how to make ukha, then the family are angry and she runs away. I have literally no fucking idea what it was all about it but it looked nice. It is Italian.

Oxygen
This is a film about two people with cystic fibrosis in a Belgian hospital. Proof of my theory (that I am building) that the more unpromisingly weird a film sounds, the better it is. It is brilliant. Everyone sat in silence, etc (see 'Incendies' above). Link here.

I think that is enough for now. I have seen other films of course, and turned other ones off after 3 minutes, and watched over 300 episodes of "Come Dine With Me', but that is for another day. If you like my film reviews (and admit it, they are excellent), I will do more. In the meantime I shall say:

Pip "Shit off, Mark Kermode" Pip

NWM

P.S. What film do you think I should see next? I will see it if:

1. I haven't seen it already;
2. It is not a Mike Leigh film;
3. It is not either Sex and the City 2, Eat Love Pray or anything adapted from a 'book' by that Aherne woman.

Otherwise, I have a very, very high tolerance of films and books that other people dismiss as "chick lit", "chick flicks" etc etc so do not hold back.

I show you a short video film of a monkey washing a cat

2011-01-28T20:16:00.002-05:00

May your weekends also be soapy, and accompanied by a similar soundtrack.

I love you all.

NWM

I post a picture of my cat

2011-01-26T10:26:00.003-05:00

I have given up on my attempts to attract a literary agent using photographs of cats, but that is not to say that I am not keen to exploit one of the two cats with whom I share my home (and fleas) for the purposes of comedy, particularly when she (Corndog) is old, fat and prone to watching television.

Here is Corndog:

"What was she watching? We cannot bear the suspense any longer, etc!". It is OK. I can hear your enthusiastic cries. Yes, loyal readers and/or fans, Corndog was watching - no word of a lie - The Vanilla Ice Project.* (I urge you to click on the link. You will not regret it for one second, and you will almost certainly find yourself making a face very much like Corndog's.)

Pip "Ice Ice Baby" Pip

NWM

Coming soon: I suggest a new format for Come Dine With Me, featuring blind people and helper monkeys

Disclaimer: if you are already wisely following me on Twitter, I cannot hide the fact that I am enthusiastically recycling informations, photographs etc. Still, not much is happening and I need all the help I can get

I announce a winner

2011-01-25T23:25:00.002-05:00

Regular readers will be aware that I recently offered up caption competition. In the photograph, Michael Douglas - with a tiny shrunken head - gurned from behind the gorged fizzogs of Ms Catherine "Shirley" Zeta-Jones and Ms Angelina "She's So" Jolie, creating an image, if ever there was one, that could never be complete without a caption supplied by my adoring readers and/or fans.

As usual, the quality (and number!) of entrants was high, reminding me - yet again - that the vast majority of my regular readers and/or fans are of above-average intelligence, and have faces. You may read the various entries for yourself in the comments box below the original post. You may disagree with my choice, but I suspect you will not.

The winner is Xtreme English, and here is her caption:

oboy! i'm not dead yet!!

What's not to like?

Pip pip!

NWM

I run another caption competition

2011-01-17T22:00:00.000-05:00

Regular readers will be aware that I am fond of caption competitions. This year, I intend to continue my fondness and I therefore I offer you, as a special January treat, this photograph of Michael Douglas; as you can see, it it is simply screaming out for a caption:

I look forward to receiving your 'entries' which should, as ever, be 'inserted' in the comments box below. There is, as ever, no prize; just the knowledge that you are, for that glancing second, the funniest person I know.

Good luck!

Pip pip

NWM

Sensational

2011-01-16T10:28:00.003-05:00

Look at this. Illustrated tweets. Link to the Irkafirka site here ("Anything you say may be taken down and coloured in"); follow 'em here; example here:

Brilliant.

I have never seen a more French-looking Frenchman

2011-01-16T00:16:00.004-05:00

No, but really, look at François Truffaut. I've never seen anything like it in my life:

Despite an unfortunate 3 hours staring in miserable confusion at Les Uns Et Les Autres (which, before anyone bothers to write in, I know very well was directed not by F. Truffaut but by the considerably less handsome Claude Lelouch) last weekend, I am quite "up for" French people at the moment. I have just spent a month in French France and miss it rather; indeed, I have many France-related topics that I will be returning to over the coming days, including:

1. Didactic? Moi? Non, madame
2. How did Michel Berger get France Gall AND Veronique Sanson to sing like sheep, just like he does? (Was there something in his manstick?)
3. Paris-Brest
4. Why no hot chilli?
5. Cheese.

But that is for another time, for I am back in Canada now and the snow seems to have started. Still, it takes more than 10cm of snow to stop the mighty Canada Post and today, after an agonising nine month wait, a letter arrived from the Canadian federal government telling me that now I must apply to the Quebec provincial government. Still, it is worth it, for in a matter of weeks I will be legal, which means I will be able to buy alcohol between the hours of 5 and 7pm, smoke cigarettes in a long cigarette holder, and listen to the early work of Richard Clayderman on a personal music device in public with a dog that weighs less than 10 kilos on my knee.

This aside, there is much to tell - some paintings and monkeys to share, and a glimpse at the 'Let Them Eat Swan Lake' homage to Marie-Antoinette we made out of meringue and rice pudding on New Year's Eve. But all that can wait until tomorrow. I feel that I am 'back in the saddle' now, and that is good.

In the meantime, I offer you a clip from Les Uns Et Les Autres. If anyone ever says you "oh look at this it is a seminal piece of French cinema", biff them on the nose and run away (or go and watch Mon Oncle instead). If you do not believe me, watch this. I am hoping, for your sake, that it will put you off forever.

Pip pip!

NWM

I am invited to a Christian nudist brownie bake-off (no aprons)

2011-01-06T06:43:00.008-05:00

For once, there is nothing to say. You can see this comment "in situ" by looking (with your eyes) at my last post.

If you are interested in finding out more about getting closer to God through nudity and food, here is a link to "Christian Naturists", the website mentioned above. (Last time I looked, there was a comment entitled "What about Ham?". I don't think they were talking about the pig-based meat product.)

**UPDATE** I am always the first to encourage new Christian naturist bloggers. Following a recent comment from (the possibly existing in my imagination only) Keith Van Graff of Tucson, Arizona, might I recommend As God Intended, a new blog set up by Keith and his wife, Maureen?

I read comments on the internet

2011-01-02T12:25:00.002-05:00

When I tell you that I came across this comment on a recipe for baps you will not, I am sure, believe me - and yet it is true.

Ain't life grand?

I offer you a New Year treat

2011-01-01T17:48:00.000-05:00

I would

I wish you all a most delightful New Year, and wish to herald its successful beginning with a French LadyDo that is as wonderful and well-thought-through as I know your year is going to be.

I love you all.

I welcome Australian readers

2010-12-29T07:46:00.000-05:00

I have noticed that, of late, more and more readers are coming from Australia. I am delighted to hear it, and both welcome and salute you.

Are there any particular things you would like to see or read about, visitors from Australia? Do let me know and I shall do what I can to 'oblige'.

Pip Pip!

NWM

I am in France still, wondering about hair, and hats, and pies

2010-12-28T14:08:00.001-05:00

Greetings, dear and loyal readers. I trust the last few days - regardless of your beliefs etc - have passed pleasantly and that you feel a firm resolve to do whatever it is you think you should for the next few days/year etc.

I have passed an excellent few days in my parents' house underneath a pile of food, emerging only to watch the ghastly new "Upstairs Downstairs" with some close friends and associates, all of whom agreed on the following:

1. Downton Abbey was one million times better.
2. They did not sound one bit posh; not one bit.
3. There's no way Lady thingy would shake hands with the servants.
4. There's no way the under-footbutler would have come in the front door.
5. Lord thingy had a common mouth (my own observation).

I have no doubt that the producers, director, cast and production team responsible for this stack of televisual plop all watched "Downton Abbey" through a mist of tears whilst drinking cheap whisky straight from the bottle through a bendy straw. (So saying, I would put Eileen Atkins in a fight vs. Dame Maggie any day, and wouldn't be sure I could predict the result.)

But I digress. My fascination with the Hair of France continues unabated. Witness, if you will, this latest delight, spotted in a Supermarché (as they call supermarkets in France) just outside Cognac:

And what does this man, spotted in the Super U on the road from Rouillac to Sonnac, have hidden under his hat?

Who can tell? My guess is a rutabaga, but I have often been wrong about rutabaga in the past. Anyway, other things are in France, but rather than writing about them with my hands I will just let them exist, possibly with a caption, possibly not. Here goes:

The Saddest Sign I Ever Saw

Cock Pie 2010

A rabbit having a tug on a snowman's nose

The window of the local driving school. Why, Worzel? Why?

Cock Boots

There we go. If I do not find more amazing French hair to post between now and New Year's Eve, it remains only for me to say: Happy New Year - and may it bring you exactly what you wish for.

Pip Pip!

NWM

I complete my Christmas cake

2010-12-24T17:10:00.003-05:00

Regular readers will be aware that I have started a "food blog" - something that no-one else has ever thought of doing, ever. However, it is Christmas and it is time for cakes, robins, snow etc, so for once I will go "off piste" and will treat you to a photograph of my "chocolate log". Here goes:

Do you like it? I know I do. And what is more, it is delicious - poo and all.

Pip "Happy Christmas!" Pip

NWM

I am still wondering at the hair of France

2010-12-23T16:33:00.002-05:00

Regular readers will be aware that I am in "France", which is ace. France is a country just across the Channel from the Yew-Kay. It shares a border with Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain - and that is just the countries I can remember . I have been on covert operations in Paris for two weeks, but now I am in Charente-Maritime with my parents, in their house. We are having a nice time; a very nice time.

What is an actual fact is that wherever you are in France there are 'themes', like for e.g. excellent food everywhere, loads of wine that you can drink in your mouth, Serge Gainsbourg on the radio all the time and the President of France doing French kissing with his Italian wife. Another 'theme' is that some English people (not me and/or my family obv) move here but do not bother to learn to speak French. Happily, there is a corner of a foreign supermarket that is forever England, so they do not have to engage with the locals. Here is evidence:

French speakers will enjoy the sign in the background - and I think that is a fact.

(I am not sure what Fluff and Dr Pepper are doing there, but no matter; the point is made.)

Also, they have AMAZING hair in France - hair like soft fluffy sheep. Here is further evidence; for the original evidence, simply scroll down or click here for my last post, which also dealt with the astonishing subject of French hair.

In other news, my mother brings out meat-based foodstuffs and one of the dogs looks at them:

You are correct. That is a Radio Times.

And in the local hunting shop, otters gambol in the window, holding between their paws delightful Christmas balls.

They, like me, wish you a Merry Christmas. May your festive "season" be exactly as you would wish it to be.

Pip "Jingle Bells" Pip

NWM

I wonder at the hair of France

2010-12-20T11:12:00.001-05:00

It is not the first time I have wondered about the hair of France. There seems to be a coiffeur on every corner of every street in Paris, and yet the hairstyles seem to come in only four varieties:

Ladies under 45: Long, slightly tousled, choppy fringe or unspecified 'short'
Ladies over 45: Crop with frondy bits dyed dark black/purple or blonde helmet head.

But the men! The men I am most often in contact with in France (don't ask) have shaved heads and bustling beards. Some of the older gentlemen have nondescript short hair; this type of thing is mercifully rare...

...As is this mother-and-daughters trio o' mullets spotted in the Louvre 2 summers ago. (They were not French, so they don't really count but still - wouldn't YOU want to find an excuse to post a photograph of three ladies with matching mullets?)

But yesterday, whilst lunching with the incomparable Belgian Waffle, I began to detect what can only be described as "a pattern". Here is a man I saw in Paris two years ago:

And here is a man dear Waffle and I saw yesterday, captured on my SpyCam, and enabled by two glasses of wine. You will note with interest that the texture of his hair matches his collar exactly - the kind of attention to fashion-detail we have come to expect of our French cousins. (The temptation to nestle in his curls was almost overwhelming. Waffle says she did not want to lick them, but I do not think she was telling the truth.)

On that note, I must leave you. I have only two more nights in Paris before I must leave, propelled into the loving arms of my husband and simple-minded (but enthusiastic!) parents.

Pip "Curly" Pip

NWM

It is still snowing

2010-12-18T17:50:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow morning at 11am, I meet a very special "associate" outside a shop opened by the man who invented the Baba au Rhum. Other than that I have very little to do this weekend; for example today, the only things I had to do were:

Walk to Sacré Coeur, because I cannot remember ever having been inside it and it is a good walk from where I am;
Buy something for supper;
Not eat a macaroon.

It is now the end of today, and today has been a mixed success.* Sacré Coeur was indeed a good walk from where I am staying. It (and the surrounding area) was also full of people who, like me, are not from Paris. I did not have to engage with any of them until it became clear that out of the thirty people getting in the way of me getting a ticket for the funicular, I was the only one that understood the instructions on the machine.

Unfortunately, I have the kind of simple-minded face that means that people ask me for directions and instructions wherever I am in the universe (even Mars). It was therefore ten minutes, three Chinese people, a cluster of Japanese, some Spaniards, five Americans and a group of disorientated Greeks before I managed to mount the funicular myself, accompanied by my grateful international consortium of new best friends. (Next time, I will stand by the machine wearing a badge that says: "I put the fun in funicular". FYI this is the best joke I have ever made.)

Anyway, here are some photosnaps from my walk. Have a look. You may like some of them; you may not. Either way, it is snowing again tonight and properly chilly, but I have wine in the bottle and the knowledge in my heart that in four sleeps, I will be boarding a train to Angoulême with my husband, the French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist; after two-and-a-half hours, I will get off the train and find myself waving my tiny monkey paw at the simple drooling faces of Monkeymother and Monkeyfather. Thereafter, we will get inside their car and disappear into Christmas-related activities for two weeks. It will be great. In the meantime, I must not eat too many macaroons.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with standing outside in the cold taking
photographs of people buying things made of butter. And crying.

Regardez! C'est le Père Noel. Do not be afraid. He cannot see you naked.

Statue man. Smoking a fag. And fucking loving it.

This man played "Greensleeves", and then he played the theme from The Godfather.
I laughed very loudly by mistake, felt guilty and gave him 2 Euros because I am an idiot.

I can barely look at this photograph, which is why it is smaller
than the others. If someone put this on my plate with those
fucking crustaceans looking up at me, I would faint.
If you are insane, you can click on the photograph and have
a better look. I have deleted the original.

Anyway, that is enough of that for now. If anything else interesting happens, I will let you know.

Pip "stop looking at me you shelled freakshows" Pip!

NWM

*I succeeded on the first two fronts but failed on the third. (You may, if you wish, see evidence of the success of number 2 and the failure of number 3 here).

It is snowing

2010-12-17T14:36:00.003-05:00

I am having a strange time. I am in Paris, on a covert mission that I cannot talk about, living in the building in the picture in a tiny apartment that smells of someone else's poo.

Every day I go somewhere where extremely nice people who are 10 years younger than me carefully explain things that I know already. I watch things happen and try and make them go as well as they could; if they do not, I demonstrate my maturity by not worrying about it. I go for a long walk and I look at things; in the evenings I go to the many food shops on rue Montorgeuil and look at things I do not buy: cheeses and confections, mainly, although tonight I have a small apple tart and some Tomme de Savoie and a pear.

I come home and I drink one or two glasses of faine waine; I eat a salad or a grilled meat and some sort of vegetable; I watch television programmes on the internet; I go to sleep, and I sleep well, and I wake up and it starts again. I am not sure where the time is going, although it is passing pleasantly enough.

My husband is not here, which is not as it should be. But still, it is beautiful here, and I feel as if it, like London, is sort-of my city, because we lived here when I was a tiny child for four years. We lived in Neuilly-sur-Seine and my brother and I went to L'Ecole Active Bilingue, and became bilingual when we were very young; when I was 12 and doing my French O-Level oral exam the lady said: "There is no point carrying on; you speak better French than I do." It was true; she sounded like an underpaid extra from 'Allo 'Allo. Now, of course, the Parisians pat me on the shoulder and tell me that really, my accent is not so bad, and that I should not worry, because I do not yet have "a trace of Quebec".

I walked a long way the other day to go to a bookshop on the rue de Rivoli. The rue de Rivoli is full of stupid tourist shops selling aprons with cats in berets on. I was looking for Shakespeare & Co which I thought was there but that wasn't; instead there was an alarming branch of WHSmith, that I did not go in to, and another shop, called Galignani, which said on its awning that it was "the first English bookshop established on the continent". It smelt like a French bookshop smells, and the boys at the till wore tight cashmere v-necks and heavy spectacles and muttered rudely about the man who ran up and down the shop building a pile of hugely expensive art books. "C'est une PATHOLOGIE", said one, as he deposited a book about Vermeer that must have cost a hundred Euros.

It is snowing now. They do not really know what to do with snow here, despite the fact that the hipsters wear Canada Goose jackets and gigantic beards. I am going to stay inside in my tiny poo-smelling flat and eat my apple tart and watch English television on the internet, and tomorrow I shall go and look at Versailles.

I am in Amsterdam

2010-12-11T19:01:00.000-05:00

Mainly I am in Paris, still on covert operations, but this weekend I am in Amsterdam with good old friends and my splendid family.

So far, it has resulted in this, my favouritest Facebook status ever:

Otherwise, I am here, taking photographs of foodstuffs.

Yours distractedly

NWM

I read an email

2010-12-09T07:32:00.001-05:00

In it, the following line glowed at me in the manner of a phosphorescent, potentially fatal jellyfish in the calm waters of Reason:

"It'd be an idea to verbalise it to the audience we're with tomorrow."

Would it? Would it really?

I hope things are going to get a little more 'jazzy'

2010-12-05T09:51:00.000-05:00

Yes, it is true. Tomorrow I am leaving Canada for a month. I will first of all be engaged in covert operations in Paris (with brief sojourns to Amsterdam and London) for a fortnight. On the 21st of December, I will leap aboard a TGV, accompanied by my 'husband', and travel south to see my parents, who will meet us and drive us to their house in a village near Cognac. There, we will sample three flavours of Bailey's and play Trivial Pursuit, using questions published in 1983.

Life is Canada is of excellent quality and extremely pleasant, but my monkey sense - fuelled, as it is, by absinthe and Hula-Hoops - tells me that this web-blog may once again become more interesting, what with these instances of travel and amusement. Who can tell? It is probably better not to promise too much, but - fingers crossed!

Pip "Jules Verne" Pip

NWM

I am presented with a mystery

2010-12-04T15:24:00.003-05:00

What in cock's name is a London Routemaster bus (now out of commission, unless you are having a 'special event') doing in the middle of rural Quebec? Someone put it on a boat once and sailed it across the sea.

It is mysteries like this that fill me with wonder every day.

Pip "Lew-ISS!" Pip

NWM

Do not forget my other blog. It is ace. (Or so I tell myself as I sip gin through a long bendy straw and rock backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards.)

I am preparing for Christmas

2010-12-04T11:21:00.001-05:00

Radiohead do Joy Division

2010-11-29T12:19:00.000-05:00

Not much else to say really. And anyway, I am busy taking photographs of porridge for my new foodblog.

Oh, and there's also Radiohead covering The Smiths.

Sigh.

I have made a new blog

2010-11-27T18:45:00.002-05:00

Yes, it is true. I am being unfaithful, and now have "a bit on the side", in the form of a web-blog full of bad photographs of random foodstuffs and food-related items. "Why is that?", I hear you cry. The answer is simple: 90% of the time, I am thinking about what I am going to either cook or shop for or eat next.

I am also trying not to be such a fatty fatster, but this time (cough), it is quite easy and relatively entertaining. "How can that be?", you murmur, your loving synapses confused by memories of cake-chat and biscuits. "Well", I reply, sucking on my small clay pipe and taking a minuscule sip from a glass of low-sugar absinthe, "I have realised that most of the fun is in the shopping and cooking and doing new things, and trying to cook delicious things that are good for you day after day is quite the challenge. Biscuit?" True fact.

Anyway, this isn't a diet blog thing, no way José, yes sirree Bob. It is just photographs of food-related items. It is here. Let me know what you think (as long as you are very complimentary).

Pip "Multi-tasking" Pip!

NWM

I share more photosnaps from my recent jaunt to gay Paree

2010-11-27T12:37:00.001-05:00

Next week, my travels take me to Texas. I have little to say about this, other than that I shall travel with a camera "fully-loaded", and endeavour take photographs that will capture the essence of this, the biggest-hatted of the United States of America.

Anyway, to business: some more photographs of gay Paree, scene of my childhood and where, in my head, I will live one day, eating tiny éclairs and drinking tisane, wearing turban hats and pearls and smoking cigarettes out of the side of my mouth.

Here goes. The bride arrived outside the Opéra (building, not singing ladies etc) in a white stretch limo, and was accompanied by 3 stylists, two of them carrying sequinned shoes. (NB: there is a chance I may 'have' to go and live in Paris for a couple of weeks, which clearly would be rubbish - so if you know of anything magical and not in all the guide books, will you let me know?)

Galeries Lafayette Christmas lights and the heads of thousands of crazed shoppers.

Urban foxes captured shortly after having broken in to the Galeries Lafayette Christmas window(s).

In other news, one of my dearest friends sent us a belated wedding present. I had a little watery-eyed moment. If you like it, you can get one here. (NB: that is not our wall. It is the wall of the maker of the poster.)

I hope you like it. I do.

Pip "A litte more than enough to drink" pip!

NWM

I reveal the dangerous consequences of living with a veterinary histopathologist

2010-11-26T08:16:00.001-05:00

"When you saw that photograph of the pigs in the cake shop in Paris, did you know I would buy you one?". "Yes", replied my husband (a French-Canadian veterinary histopathologist who spends much of his day examining slices of pig that are a hundredth of a millimetre thick), "I did".

"And would you like to eat it?". "Yes", he said. "I would."

**WARNING** Contains images of live necropsy*.

Do not say I didn't warn you.

Pip "And the cake was delicious too!" Pip

NWM

* Like an autopsy, but for non-humans.

I am in gay Pareee

2010-11-23T03:51:00.000-05:00

"How's Paris?", said my husband, the French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist. "Well, you know, it's Paris", I said. I lived here when I was a tiny child (and even now speak French like, apparently, "an English person who learnt French that sounds like a Parisian trying to do a Quebec accent to fit in"), and I have been back many, many times, but even so, it is Paris, and it is always magical, however many times I come back and look at it with my seasoned old eyes.

Despite its magic I am, however, always able to lower the tone. Here, then, are some photosnaps:

Pip "fromage!" Pip

NWM

I am off to gay Pareee

2010-11-21T17:22:00.000-05:00

Yes, it is true. I am going to Paris now. It is not for fun, exactly, and yet it is not exactly for work either. I am not at liberty to divulge my PURPOSE; suffice to say that I cannot and will not be drawn, but that I will try and pay more attention to this, my web-blog, and maybe put some pictures up.

Pip "au revoir!" pip

NWM

I announce the winner

2010-11-15T16:42:00.000-05:00

The winner is clear. I thought about it on the train and laughed. I thought about it on the platform, at the butcher (buying sausage) and whilst making a cup of tea mere moments ago, each time laughing more than the time before. I sat in the car and laughed and laughed, even though I had to show my 'husband' this video so he would know why I was laughing and laughing at the pictures in my tiny head. ("Is this something they do only in your land?", he asked.)

Yes. The winner is LutraLutra.

"Oops Upside Your Head, I said Oops Upside Your Head."

Congratulations!!

I wish you a happy Friday

2010-11-12T09:32:00.005-05:00

Here is some magnificence:

Also, do not forget yesterday's caption competition. We already have a number of strong contenders: can you be one of them? Can you?

**Update**

"You know, you can have too much magnificence", writes Redgrittybrick in the comments box below this post. I do not know if Redgrittybrick is a man or a lady, but I welcome him/her to my many legions of adoring readers and/or fans and say: No, Redgrittybrick, it is NOT possible to have too much magnificence, and here is the proof. First of all, I give you this:

And second of all, I give you this:

Pip pip!

NWM

I run a caption competition

2010-11-11T17:10:00.001-05:00

Last time I ran a caption competition it was AWESOME (as they say in Canada all the time), so let's do it again - this time with pandas rather than clowns and monkeys.

I go out

2010-11-10T17:02:00.006-05:00

In January or February, I will have my Canadian residency. This will mean that I can work in the Canada, which is where I now live.

Work, as we know, is a necessary evil, but given the right 'mindset' (as I believe they call it in management circles), all should be well - allowing me to enjoy a balance of doing work I find interesting with people I like, laugh every day (a new and excellent criteria added by our new friend John) and have enough money to buy sweets, crisps and hats.

The last "sortie" into full-time employment did not reap juicy fruit(s). I resigned because there was no point being there. "What have you learnt in the last eighteen months?", I was asked just before I left. "That the last eighteen months have been a total waste of time", I muttered, staring out of the window. But it was not all a waste of time: despite my professional reputation being enhanced by a vague understanding amongst my colleagues that I was good at making biscuits, I made some good friends and met enough nutjobs to create a cast of characters sufficiently large to populate a trilogy of 800-page blockbuster novels.

But I digress. To get a job, you have to talk to people and/or have interviews. I am old now so interviews don't really happen in the same way that they did when I was 22 and wanted to be a Parliamentary lobbyist. (Interviewed by twelve people at once, I fell at the last post by mis-spelling "bureaucratic" in a quick-fire parliamentary lingo spelling bee.) As far as I can see you go along and have a chat with people and see if you get on with them or not, and see if the job you might be offered will be interesting or not. Then you sort of go from there.

I have had a few chats recently. They have been going OK. Despite being asked for "down-to-earth, blue-sky thinking" and alarming conversations involving expressions like "vertical workstreams", it is all very pleasant and full of possible things to do in the future.

One did not go so well. The conversation was excellent. We were all (for there were six of us) laughing and laughing and being quite clever now and then. Earlier that afternoon I had put a yoghurt in my computer-bag-rucksack knowing, as I stuffed it in, that it was bound to end in tears. I was not disappointed. "Nice bag!", said one of the men, showing me his; it was like mine, but brown. "Yes!", I barked, pulling my own bag out from under my coat. "What is that?", said the man. "That, my friend, is yoghurt", I said, admiring how the yoghurt had jizzed across my coat. "What is that?" said the man, pointing at more colourful jizz exploding across the top, covering my computer, wallet and gloves with a sort of raspberry spew flecked with old porridge. "That, my friend, is the delicious fruit compote that you are supposed to stir into the yoghurt."

Some time later, I am in the bathroom of the office I have visited scraping porridge out of my makeup bag. A lady comes in. "Don't see that very often, do you?", I say. "What?", she says nervously, backing into the stall. "A yoghurt that explodes in a computer bag!!!". She says nothing. The stall door closes, and she starts to wee.

The best website, like, ever

2010-11-03T11:40:00.001-04:00

It really is. There is no point pretending otherwise. Make sure you hover your mouse over the 'enter' button and do - if you value all that is good and just in the world - have a little wander through "music" and "animation". You will not be disappointed.

Here it is, right here: the website of a website designer who is going to be getting a bit of a SHOCK today as his traffic will go up 1,000,323%, based on the amount of links I have seen to it in the last hour. In his defence, there is a lovely 'clunk' when you click through to something else and it loads jolly fast, and he will probably get a lot more business out of the whole thing.

Phew!

In other news, what is your favourite time-wasting destination on the interwebs? I am very keen to find out these new things. Let us have Reader Recommendation Week. I think it will be nice. I will review them all AND put the results in a post. Everyone will feel like it is Christmas a bit early and cry a bit.

I love Google Translate

2010-11-03T10:17:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I press on "Next Blog" at the top there. Sometimes something comes up in a language I do not recognise. "Would you like to translate it?", asks Google. "Oh yes!", I cry.

I remain,

A sworn love of all lung fascinated and your friend in the internet,

NWM

I discuss the facial features of the people of our respective countries with my "husband"

2010-11-01T23:47:00.003-04:00

My husband is a French-Canadian who, if it wasn't for his distinctly North American hair, looks like he is half German, a quarter Scottish and a quarter Swedish. I am British (I sound sloppy RP-English, but am I think also Scottish and, dare I say it, Welsh) of some sort, but do not "look typical" according to him, which, as you will see if you read on, is probably just as well.

Winter is coming and we hate hockey, so there is not much to do in Canada at the moment. The garden is tied down and the bushes are in their special jackets; our coats and boots are out of storage and the beaver hide in the garden lined with moose fur. All we can do now is wait for the snow.

Struggling to pass the time, we often talk about the facial features of the people of our respective countries. Recent conversations include the following incisive commentary, muttered in restaurants, on the street, or at the television when I am illegally watching British TV:

"That man has an English face. His eyes are on the same level as his nose, and his mouth is too far down. He looks like a shark."

"She's one of yours. Massive gums, like fucking massive, the size of the moon. And the eyes. Always too close together. Descendants of peasants. French ones."

"Pointy noise, sandy hair, flat hair, like all your women."

"Twatpatch. Oh sorry. Soulpatch. And over-complicated t-shirts."

"A lot of product in the hair. Looks messy but is done on purpose. Sticky."

"Why do your young women dye their hair black? Do they know it ages them?"

"See him? His ancestor from La Rochelle was a cut-price pirate."

"You British. You all have thin lips."

"See her? Typical. Looks like Red Rum. Who won the Grand National a lot."

"Tattoos, dirty ones."

"His eyes are on the side of his head, like a fish with big watery eyes."

It goes on for hours. There are only so many times I can say "look at the fucking gums on that!", and in the end the only way to really communicate what we are thinking is to do drawings for each other. I share them with you now; I think they are self-explanatory, and I hope you find them as offensive as we did. (Oh, and if you're not British, will you tell me in the comments box what you think the typical British face looks like? If you listened to my husband, you'd think we all looked like sand-coloured rats with wigs - in plaits too, judging by his drawing.)

Pip "Un-PC" Pip

NWM

I will never be on Desert Island Discs

2010-10-31T19:10:00.005-04:00

"What are your Desert Island Discs?" people are always asking me, non-stop and all the time, even when I am at the dentist or having a biscuit or trying to have a wee in a public lavatory. I cannot ever answer the question because I think it is odd. I would never be on a desert island for starters, not even by choice, and I will never be famous enough to be having a chat with Youngy, so there will never be a reason to have to think about it properly.

But I think about musak that never, ever annoys me quite a lot, partly because the decision about whether I like most things is based on how much it does (or doesn't) annoy me. For example, I am with the person I married and he is with me because, on balance, we don't annoy each other. That may not be enough for younger people who think love, marriage etc is about hot love in the pants and going on romantic minibreaks and being told you are pretty the whole time, but let me tell you - what you're looking for is someone who doesn't annoy you.

Anyway, back to the sort-of point. There is some music I love a lot with my bones but cannot listen to without wanting to lie on the floor and weep, like Hurt , or High and Dry, or Wake Up or Asleep in the Back or Chicago or Free To Run, and there is other stuff that I can listen to over and over again and never be annoyed by (which is different to being bored of something).

The list makes literally no sense, and it could probably go on for quite a long time, but I will try and keep it short-ish. Here we go. Ignore the videos. I do not watch the videos. I listen to the musak either privately or in public, sometimes with accompanying movements from my fez and/or small clay pipe.

I wish that I could see you soon. Herman Dune. (In this case the video is also ace, with puppet angels and beards)
All of Jill Scott's This is Jill Scott. Here is one song from it.
All of Bryter Later, but this one is always good for the nerves
No Fear of Falling, I Am Kloot
Save Me, Turin Brakes. Odd how I don't find it annoying.
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, despite having no right to listen to The Smiths
The Best of My Love, cure for all ills, The Emotions
La Femme d'Argent, Air
Douna Ma Yelema, Boubacar Traoré (Everyone should own this record. It is very good for the nerves.)
Keep the Car Running, Arcade Fire
Rhythm and Blues Alibi, Gomez
Once In A Lifetime
Strangely, most of LCD Soundsystem and New Order, e.g. this and this.
Most of anything that came out of Mozart's head, but this bit of this in particular; I think it, too, is good for the nerves. (I am not sure about this recording of it, but I know fuck-all about classical music so won't even go there.)

** UPDATE** after a prompt from the owner of one of my favourite internet destinations: I include most of what came out of Bach's head, including obv. this, which is astonishingly good for the nerves.

I will stop there, because this list could be 100 things long, and just spurting that bit out of my fingers took about two hours. Still, it is good; it has reminded me to spend more time listening to musak and staring out of the window, and less time thinking about things that there is no point fretting about, or watching Come Dine With Me on 4oD.

What is one (1) song you do not ever find annoying? I would like to hear about it.

Pip "Do Re Mi!" Pip

NWM

Snow!

2010-10-31T00:27:00.003-04:00

It's snowing tonight and it is only October. The amount of snow that has fallen is enough to prompt a severe weather warning in England, but not enough to persuade a Canadian to get their winter coat out of storage. I've only lived in a place (i.e., Canada) where it snows for three years, so I am still quite interested in it and I like it a lot and find it to be very attractive, even though I can't walk in it without looking like I have legs of wood. In summary: snow is great.

Here is a poem not-really about snow. You probably know it, because you are a reader of this web-blog and are, therefore: a) moderately well-read; b) attractive in certain lights; c) muscular in surprising ways. Here goes.

Snow

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes –
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands –
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.

Louis MacNeice

Coming soon: I receive a mysterious of gift of two severed hands from Portugal (one missing some fingers), and continue to live with the very real consequences of finding out how to watch English television in real time from Canada.

Pip pip!

NWM

I can't remember

2010-10-28T18:19:00.001-04:00

...If I have posted these, ever. If not, it is important that you see them.

It is also important - if you do not know about them already (not likely if you live in the UK but possible if you live somewhere else) - that you read Modern Toss. Are you aware of the work of Mr Tourette?

Their comics and books and that are 10/10, but they also make stuff. For e.g. they now make this teacloth and I am paralysed by my desire to own it.

Anyway, that is all for now. The wind is up and there is baking to do, plus I have over 180 feet of 3 foot beans in my fridge and they need attending to.

Pip pip!

NWM

I don't understand either

2010-10-25T14:31:00.002-04:00

These are mysterious times, my friends. Why would I want to wrestle with a pony? Why is the expression "delicious aromas wafted up the stairs, permeating my hungry nostrils" going round and round in my head? And what is going on the streets of Montreal and/or St-Joseph-du-Lac, where I live?

First of all, this enticing sign outside our local ostrich farm (NB the nonchalant way I say 'our local ostrich farm', like it is normal):

Second of all, these dogs in necklaces (not local, but mysterious nevertheless):

Third of all, what are these leaves doing on this scooter?

Fourth of all, how am I going to get through my fourth Canadian winter? I might go to the gym. I might take up the Marguerite Patten Potluck Project again. I may do both. Or I may just stay in watching "Come Dine With Me" and rocking.

Pip "Cackle" Pip

NWM

I play a game

2010-10-25T00:32:00.003-04:00

It has been a weekend of excitement. On Friday, an "art film". (I am glad I went, but will draw a veil over the rest of my response to the work.) There were Q&As afterwards; one of the overly self-aware students behind us started her question with "As a film-maker...", only to be followed five minutes later by her row-fellow introducing his question with "As an artist....". The director did not, to his enormous credit, smirk even slightly.

When the questions were over, the French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist to whom I am married and I kissed goodbye to our new friends and tripped out into the ever-cooling Montreal air. "Hello", said the histopathologist, shaking my hand. "As a veterinary research histopathologist, I wondered where you would like to have dinner." "Well", I said, "as an unemployed marketing and /or advertising (delete as appropriate) freelance consultant type thing, I do not mind." (We went here and had soup and salad and steak and frites, oh my.)

The next morning, I cooked for a friend's party. In the afternoon, we went to see Inception and did not drink a bottle of Vitamin Water, which cost $4 and tasted like bison wee. Inception was extremely funny and we laughed and laughed the whole way through. I recommend you go, but only if you get a free ticket. (One of the best bits is where a scientist makes a sleeping draught that that somehow manages to knock you out for a week whilst "not interrupting your inner ear function". Believe me. Much much funnier than it sounds.)

After the cinema we went to the bookshop, which spent over 23 minutes trying to drive us out back out into the Montreal night with a cunning combination of awkwardly-placed Céline Dion biographies, incomprehensible gift cheeseboards and Michael Bublé, the Canadian housewives' favourite, singing "Desperado" by the Eagles through the 'soundsystem'. I bought Daphne du Maurier novels, and the histopathologist, a book about science.

Later that day, we went to a late Thanksgiving dinner. I entered carrying baskets of muffins and sprouts and meringues in my delicate monkey hands. We ate the Thanksgiving food and then we played a game that we only realised was a drinking game after we'd stopped playing it called "What the F*ck" (their coy asterisks). It involved reading out questions in a book and then arguing in a lively style about important topics like whether would rather lose your right arm or your left leg. I am, as it happens, quite a fan of this style of questioning*, but even I fell silent when confronted with these two beauties.

Here they are, reproduced in full, for you to enjoy (and ponder!):

Question 1

Would you rather receive a phone call from:

a) the mayor of your local town; or

b) Satan

Question 2

What would you rather wrestle in straw bales with?

a) a trained and oiled Sumo wrestler; or

b) a pony.

And with that, I say:

Pip "Satan, obv" Pip

NWM

* "Who do you like more? Me or the cat?" "What's your favourite, bread or cheese?" "Of what you have done today, what has been your favourite bit?" "Who's your favourite?" "If you had to decide between biscuits or cake, which one would it be?" "What's more likely, ghosts or homeopathy?". Etc.

I receive a letter from a neighbour

2010-10-22T09:15:00.000-04:00

WARNING: I am obsessed with noisy neighbours and how fucking irritating they are. This is probably quite boring unless you also find noisy neighbours annoying and/or enjoy a poorly-written ill-focused rant. If you do not, I would come back tomorrow, when I will be doing something else - probably involving a biscuit and/or a Golden Eagle. Perhaps both.

Either I am surprisingly intolerant, or I have been blessed with shite neighbours. First up there was Twat Boy in Brixton, swiftly followed by his Amsterdam twin, the clog-dancing sexyboy De Twat. The neighbours in the Quebec countryside are so far away from us that we can only just hear the tinkling of their miniature watermill water feature over the roar of passing Harley owners, so they are OK.

In Montreal, however, we are blessed with two of the most gigantic fuckwits ever to draw breath; these knob-ends live below us with two annoying dogs (bored and badly trained), and a propensity to get all their screamingly boring friends out in the "yard" to "drink beer" under our bedroom window at 4am. When they are not doing that, they are having screaming matches; he is the most boring little man, and she a screaming Mexican underwear designer, so you can imagine what that's like.

Next to us live two artistic types. They have just moved in with their daughters. The husband is nice. He is an actor and director with eyes pointing in different directions and eventful hair. The wife lowers her eyes when we come out of the door and does not say hello; sometimes she does work for a place "where spectators become engaged citizens through the power of theatre". I do not think we would have a lot in common. The daughters are children, and are as children are.

They have just started doing a lot of building work. If I was a normal person with a job and out all day, and not someone aimlessly waiting day after day for my Canadian residency to come through whilst 90% of my friends are skipping about on another continent (yes, I am bored, so bored in fact that I am about to slip into the Slough of Despond), I would be out all day and therefore not here to listen to:

banging, endless banging
knocking on the back door (only accessible if you come through the downstairs garden and up the stairs, i.e. very difficult to do unless you are a burglar), revealing a wild-eyed building contractor whose accent I do not understand asking me if he can carry his logs up our staircase;
banging and ringing on the front door, revealing a sad-eyed young chap asking me if it is my BMW and/or truck blocking in his green van, and if it is not, would I mind knocking on the neighbour's door every 10 minutes or so to check if they are back to deliver a message on his behalf?

But I am in, and I have to listen to it, and it is a bit annoying. But yesterday I saw the man with the eventful hair. He was charming. Apologetic. Sympathetic. Absolutely clear that should the noise be desperately intrusive, we should phone him immediately and tell him. It was nice and we had a friendly and understanding neighbourchat.

That was enough, as it happens. But then the letter from the wife! The lady helping people get engaged through theatre! My. The problem is this. The letter is absolutely correct. It is polite, it is clear, it is friendly. But I am not pre-disposed to like her, and it is affecting my ability to read her letter with reasonable eyes:

"You may have heard a bit of noise coming from our house over the past two days. I apologize for the dusturbance. Al and I (and our two daughters E and B) have embarked on a renovation project that may last as long as two months."

Their daughters are about 8 and 5. I am not sure they have opinions about for e.g. the placing of joists and girders. (Talking of joists and girders, here is a joke.) Is this not a bit fey? I am not going to be sympathetic to fucking massive amounts of noise because E and B are 'involved'.

"Our contractor, D, works from 7.30am - 4.30pm Monday to Friday. I am afraid that between now and Christmas there will be a fair amount of banging, sawing, etc ... coming from our house during those times."

Yes. It is a fair amount. 7.30 is legal in Quebec so even though it is fucking ridiculous, there isn't much I can do about it. It is so loud, and so violent, that it makes things fall off my kitchen counter. I have no need for an alarm clock. Christmas?

"Again, I apologize ro any inconvenience this may cause you and I invite you to communicate with me or with my husband A if you ever feel that the work is having a particularly negative impact on your life."

I do not know what to do with this. It feels passive aggressive, but maybe it is not. Maybe it is just very polite and slightly formal (and a bit la-la, but then she does engage citizens in the power of biscuits via the jizz of theatre for a living). What I actually want to say is: "Get it, absolutely no problem, hope your new bedroom is very nice - but can you just let me know how long the REALLY loud stuff is going to go on for, 'cos then I can piss off to the country and get away from it." But can I? I do not know.

Pip "not really a moral dilemma" Pip

NWM

I show you some things

2010-10-21T10:59:00.001-04:00

It is raining in Montreal today. Winter's coming, even if the odd improbably-coloured leaf is still hanging on for dear life, and even though the temperature is still a reasonable 7 degrees. It'll drop to -3 tonight and that is what tells me that it is time to out MonkeyMother's "Special Cocoa", which is 60% cocoa and 40% Cognac (or rum, if you're feeling piratical).

There will be snow soon, that much is sure, and it will soon be so cold that going outside without mittens (not gloves, mittens) would mean your hands would just snap and fall off on the floor, like that, leaving you looking like the chap on the left there.

When we were away on our grand tour (which I know so many of you followed, your loving mouths open with amazement and joy), my friend Miss Li stayed in our flat. She left it (far) more tidy than she found it, and left (amongst other things like a fully-stocked fridge, homemade biscuits, fruit and chocolate) a present so strange and so lovely that I keep looking at it and wondering if, secretly, it might be the best present I have ever been given.

So it makes sense, here is what she wrote on the card (and warning: the photo doesn't do it justice - phone rather than camera):

"From my heart to yours ... vintage watch part containers filled with a watch part and star ... in the Chinese Origami world these are lucky stars ... watch gears represent time ... three different sizes of containers represent big to small moments in your life ... all together, wishing you luck all the time and any time."

And here is another lovely thing I am happy I can look at every day. I bought it in Hastings with my dear friends L&S. L says he knows that the poem is without looking it up; I haven't worked it out yet - if you do, let me know, and no cheating; you can work out "roseate" which would probably be enough to find it online, but that would be cheating, deffo. (I can't remember what these are called - L knew but I didn't write it down.) Anyway, it was made in 1842, and I particularly like the first picture of the little carriage going through the arch.

There we are then. Pretty things for a rainy day.

In other news, I made some Apple and Banana Bread out of the very dusty, very 80s Cranks cookbook I found on my shelf last night. It is quite amusing if you make it in a cake tin; cross between banana bread and real bread. Toasts well an' all. Yes. (I used pear instead of apple and added a chopped up pear. Nice.) Bit out focus, this, and the sugar monster is making itself known in the background, but still, you'll get the gist:

Pip "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" Pip

NWM

I observe some local attractions

2010-10-19T16:00:00.003-04:00

You are very lucky! You know it and I know it. Why? Because I have decided to share with you (via the power of the photograph) some of the amazing attractions available to me, my husband, the inhabitants of the village in rural Quebec we call our "occasional home", and any visitors to the area. (I am hoping to photograph the ostrich hotdog at some point over the next couple of days. And the face in the bush.)

If your French is not 'up to snuff', I am happy to reveal that this sign translates as "The Squash Interpretation Centre".

In other news, today I am 41. Things do not appear to have changed much since 2008; I still find myself puzzled that my belly button is where it is and not where I thought it was. So far ageing is going OK, i.e. I do not care about it as am already saggy, and I've only got one grey hair (in my right eyebrow).

There are few wrinkles, but I must confess to being very troubled about one thing, and that is the apparent emergence of a crêpey bosom, esp. the skin above my enbonpoint and in the bit in the 'crevasse of pleasure', as Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen once called it (in my dreams).

It is worse in the morning when I have been sleeping on my side; I think the sheer weight of bosom sort of pulls it about a bit. Anyway, apparently Botox is good for it so although I won't be stuffing Botox in my forehead, I may be stuffing it down my cleavage - unless you, my adoring readers and/or fans, have any homegrown tips. I am already:

- putting sun block on my exposed chest (and face) when strolling around outside in the sun;
- putting moisturiser on my neck and chest now instead of just my gurning monkey face;
- wearing appropriately supportive 'underwear', costing about twelve million pounds per rigging.

Come on then! What have you got?

So. Middle age. Here it is, properly, looking at me in the face and lightly suggesting I invest in an anti-ageing eyecream. I suppose the days of chewing gum in the ladygarden are well and truly over. Instead I must turn my fading blue eyes to the future: a future full of mystifyingly thick black hair (on my face, despite over one thousand pounds spent on laser hair removal), wrinkled bosoms and teeth falling out on the floor unexpectedly.

On the other hand, I wouldn't be 20 again for all the bloody tea in China. What I have lost in elasticity and memory function I have gained in the sure knowledge that:

No amount of watching the phone, self-criticism, plucking hair, waxing, hairdos, new dresses, fancy sex-moves, not eating too much in front of someone else, analysis of every word said, in-depth discussion with friends for over 12 hours with 12 bottles of wine, pretending you like music you don't, pretending you like films you don't, new pants, etc makes much difference. If it's going to work it's going to work. What you said last Wednesday isn't why he hasn't called. He hasn't called because he doesn't want to. One day someone will want to _____________(fill in the blank as appropriate) even if you are having a bad day, smell slightly of hamsters and are sitting in your pants watching "Location, Location, Location" eating fishfingers and peas.
I am not sure that this stuff about not sleeping with each other on the first date is true. It has not, shall we say, made much difference to me and about 65% of the loved up peeps I know. Horses for courses mind you, but you get my point.
99% of the time 99% of people are thinking about themselves, not you, so don't worry about it so much (whatever "it" is), as it is unlikely that anyone else either noticed or cares. This is not to say the world is uncaring and awful. Anything but.
If in doubt, just ask yourself if it (whatever "it" is) makes you happy.
And finally, and most importantly: if you can stay non-working in your heart, do it. Your life will be immeasurably better.

Pip pip!

NWM

I am still back in Canada, but am thinking about Cambridge (and a bit of Bedford) and London

2010-10-18T15:02:00.004-04:00

I am dragging my feet. "The only thing I really regret", I say, looking at my feet rather than at the keenos in college scarves, "is not applying to Oxford or Cambridge."

"Would it really have made such a difference to the course of your life?", says my sensibly rational uber-qualified 5-degreed research scientist husband. "Well, I'd have had different friends, for starters. Which would have been bad, come to think of it. And it's prettier", I say, waving my arm at King's College Chapel. "You've seen York campus. Hideous compared to all ... this". "Prettier", he says, adjusting his knapsack*. "Is that a reason to choose an academic institution?". "Yes", I say. "I like pretty things."

My best friends from school went to Cambridge. I didn't work hard enough and only** got 2 As and 2 Bs in my A-levels, so I probably wouldn't have got in even if I'd tried. I didn't get into Durham which, to this day, remains a vast and often forgotten blessing ("Do you play hockey?" "No". "Are you happy with the idea of being in a womens' college?" "No". "Are you quoting the notes from the Arden edition?" "No"), so I ended up at York and was stupidly happy for three years. I still remember very clearly, aged 18, picking up the phone to call home and thinking: I am miles away from everything, and everything can start again. It did and it didn't, but I made friends I still have and I do not regret a second of it and even though (yet again) I didn't work hard enough, I remember writing something about Astrophel and Stella and chewing a pen until it exploded on my chin and thinking: Oh. My brain works, how nice.

It didn't last, of course. These days, I earn money (when I am working) doing advertising and marketing type things which, despite the protestations of all the young people doing degrees in Communications Media Jizz and Celebrity PR at the University of the West of Arsebiscuit are not (I repeat not) 'academic' subjects. Still, it is amusing, and it affords me enough time to lie on the floor wondering if it is too late to do an MA in Biscuit Theory at McGill. (So saying I dislike the opinionated young, so it is probably better if I stay away.)

Anyway, Cambridge. Pretty. Very. You have seen it all before a million times. King's College Chapel quite extraordinary and very secular; more Tudor than God. Quite small, though, is Cambridge, with a very high scarf-per-inhabitant ratio.

You may not have seen Kettle's Yard, though. It is lovely, lovely, lovely and worth the trip to Cambridge to see. Smallish gallery, but much more interesting (to me anyway) was the house of the chap who set it up, Jim Ede, who was a curator at the Tate in the 50s. I can't begin to describe it but do look at the site and the link; suffice to say (assume Estuarine twang) that I will never think of pebbles in the same way again.

After Cambridge, we went to Bedford to see our friends and their children, our godchildren. Puppy cake was eaten and there were not enough candles to say 'Happy Birthday', so the cake said "Yipy" instead. Much better.

The next day: to London. I drove my husband to the airport and spent a couple of days in London up to no good, making ham sandwiches in Battersea and eating preposterously nice food and watching The Inbetweeners (finally) and sleeping. It was nice.

Then Friday came, and with it an oddly pointless Premium Economy seat behind two ghastly children who shouted and played with the lights whilst their stupid parents sat, slack-mouthed and headphoned, in front of "Sex and the City 2", oblivious to the tuts and furious stares of the successful small-to-medium-sized entrepreneurial businessmen around them.

Anyroad up, that is it. I am back in Canada and my travels are over (for the time being). But before I go, let me ask you: have you ever noticed that people in Business Class often wear jackets a bit like this? And have strange hair? And also: do you want to cry hot tears of rage when you see a CHILD in business class? I know I do.

Pip "Yipy" Pip

NWM

*It had cognac and faine waine in it
** It was 1987 and I went to THAT sort of school.

I am back in Canada, but still thinking about my holiday (in this case, York)

2010-10-17T18:47:00.002-04:00

Yes. It is Sunday. I returned from the Britain, place of my birth and holding-centre for most of my 'loved ones', on Friday night. I drove nearly 1,500 miles in 9 days in a Ford Focus Titanium 1.6L (whatever the shit that means) and did not break it. My companion was the ever-magnificent French-Canadian veterinary pathologist to whom I am married (today is our first anniversary!): he responded well to being in Britain, saying "pretty!" regularly and, by the fifth day, asking to "stop for a nice cup of tea" unprompted. Progress indeed.

We went from Inverness to Skye (v. lovely drive), from Skye to Glasgow (v. lovely drive, apart from the sudden-death risk of windy too-narrow roads down the side of Loch Lomond), from Glasgow to Windermere (efficient motorway, nice finish), and from Windermere to Yorkshire through the Dales.

I love Yorkshire so much that all I can do is put pictures up for you to look at with your eyes, because if I write about it I will start squirting inappropriately on my screen, and it is still a new computer that I would not like to break.

Here we go then. (NB: sensible combination of Wensleydale cheese and fruit cake; Poppy the puppy; the house, which was our v. excellent B&B).

As excellent as mosaics are, however, there are some things that need to be in the 'close up'. The photograph I am about to share with you, my loyal and adoring readers and/or fans, is of a man who sat in the window of Starbucks near York Minster for at least two (2) hours. No, I don't know either.

Talking of York Minster, I spent more time there on our holiday than I ever did when I was at university (in York, obv). It is GREAT. I spent a lot of time looking at the gargoyles, some of whom were surprisingly cheerful, and an inordinate amount of time looking at these memorial stones (is that the right word?). I would very much liked to have know the last lady. She sounds ace.

And to round this splendid post off, here is a Fat Rascal. What used to be called Taylor's - a place where I would have tea with unsuitable suitors who were either on army scholarships, double-barrelled and Christian or future Telegraph journalists - is now Little Betty's, which annoys the tits off me, but no matter: the only thing that matters is that Fat Rascals exist, and they have almond teeth, and that I can eat a whole one with butter and a pot of tea and feel that really, all is right in the world.

Pip "I wish I were in Yorkshire now" Pip

NWM

P.S. I know this is pathetic but I can't help it. Here is a photograph of some chickens talking about whether to cross the road or not. I laughed so much when I saw them I nearly drove into a pair of matching old ladies in tweed hats.

I interrupt my amazing Travel-Blogue

2010-10-11T17:29:00.000-04:00

Yes it is true. Despite focusing all my attention(s) on delivering to you, my adoring readers and/or fans, the finest details (with pics) of our 21-day cross-continental cross-country 'holiday', I must also rest my brain and look at super things to keep myself fresh and alert. That way, I will stay thrilling.

One of the things that keeps me thrilling (and thrilled) is this most lovely of blogs, Topinambours. I cannot explain it, but it is excellent. And it contains things like this:

I hope you like it too.

Tomorrow: Yorkshire!!!

Pip "Pudding" Pip

NWM

I am on holiday, Day 18

2010-10-11T14:21:00.000-04:00

I should point out that the days (i.e., Day 18) does not refer to today (Monday), but to the day I am writing the post about (in this case, Saturday). Why do I do this? I know you do not care, but in the olden days people would notice such things and write me odd emails. I didn't know what to do with the emails then, and I wouldn't know now, so I thought I would "head it off at the pass", as I believe Alexander the Great once said.

We drove from Inverness to Skye and from Skye to Glasgow (both very nice routes if you are looking out of the window and/or used to British roads; neither are advised if you have only ever driven on American highways). Our final morning in Glasgow was tinged with whisky breath and sadness knowing, as we did, that we must leave our pals and go South, but before we left we received two special gifts of love: an unexpectedly foxy statue of Darwin and his monkey friend (both are in the Botanic Gardens in Glasgow, should you wish to see Darwin's carved buttocks up close):

And this sign of excellence, depicting a shop owned by a man whose teeth were not a good advertisement for his services:

We left Glasgow and drove towards the Lake District, remembering to stop at the Tebay Services, as recommended by our excellent Glaswegian hosts. My word! If only all motorway service stations were like this! The world would be better, and full of people eating delicious lunches and coffee cake and buying nice pottery on their way to somewhere organic. All they would need to do is add some bedrooms and I would spend all my holidays there eating their fruit cake and looking at their pies.

Our B&B in the Lake District was an Inn, i.e. a pub with rooms upstairs and food and all of that - clearly the best idea in the world ever (apart from Tebay Services).

Here is the bed we slept in:

To get to this quite nice room, you leave the nice pub and cross a tiled floor that smells of loo cleaner left over from 1972. It spoils the effect somewhat, as does the hair of the previous guest stuck to the wall with lemon shower gel.

This was the view out of our bedroom window.

Dinner was strange. The potted shrimp were hot, the lamb free of lambyness, and the potatoes so abundant that I could have set up a chip stand out of the back of the horsebox across the road. An American lady at the table came in sweating, and leant saucily across the table to whisper loudly to her Spanish lady companion that she "found the steak was looking most provocative". We did not wait to find out what happened next, and, weighed down by potatoes, spent the night in a sweat thinking about the hair in the shower.

The next day, fortified by strange toast, we set off for Yorkshire. Yes. Yorkshire. The best place in all of the world, perhaps.

Pip "hiyaaaa!" Pip

NWM

I am on holiday, Day 17

2010-10-10T04:38:00.002-04:00

Before I met the the French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist with whom I share my life (and fleas), I thought of moving away from London, to either a) Glasgow (practical AND possible) or b) a farmhouse in a dangly dell in Wales (possible but definitely not practical). Anyway, I ended up in Canada which is nothing like either of them, but it doesn't mean that I don't often think of Glasgow and/or Scotland in a wistful style. Why? Because my oldest (and one of the most loved) friends, her husband (who I also love) and her children (who I am stealing) live there, and ALSO I like all her friends (who I would also attempt to steal).

For this post, there is no need for chitchat, just pictures. We stayed with the friends I describe in such loving terms above, and it was great. Really great.

Here is the bed we slept in when we were staying with them. It is a very bad picture that does not do its comfort and loveliness justice at all because I was, not to put too fine a point on it, shitted, and the pathologist had had so much whisky he got is whisky finger out* and told me, as I was putting him to bed, that what I needed was a donkey to look after.

And here is what I mean by not needing words. This outfit was put together by the two sons of our lovely hosts "as an homage to the visit of the Non-workingmonkey":

See these animals? First ones ever made by Naughty Lolo. They are made from marzipan and the colour was hand-mixed. They are astonishing. We laughed until our undergarments could have done with a freshen-up.

See? Nothing to say, is there. Apart from "amazing", or perhaps "very fucking good indeed".

Now we are in the Lake District, except we are leaving to go to Yorkshire in a minute. It is "all go".

Pip Marzipan Pip

NWM

* 'Whisky Finger' is what comes out when you have had too much whisky to drink and you are pointing at people and ranting or saying "no but just listen right" with your hair standing on end.

I am on holiday, Day 13

2010-10-07T14:17:00.002-04:00

I have lost track of time a bit and keep forgetting to take photographs of breakfast, but things are going well: we sleep well (although I have dreams of playing a gigantic cat in a play with Sienna Miller and Jude Law, and last night I dreamt that I was the leader of a band of vampire killers on the Upper West Side - the vampires could see me when I was on the loo, which disabled my vampire-killing powers), and watch television in our pants at night. In the day we go for walks and look at the sky.

Here is the bed we are sleeping in. This is an ungenerous self-catering cottage that does not provide sugar or a teabag or oil or soap, so it is a blessing that the water is hot and the bed comfortable despite the non-feather duvet and furniture made out of sticks. Please note the excellent tartan detailing:

If you look out of the window, though, you soon forget the tartan ribbon round the lampshade:

Yesterday we drove through rain and looked at things and went for a walk and ate lamb chops. Today the rain was not here and the sun was, so we drove the opposite way and looked at different things. The things included Dunvegan Castle, which was MUCH better than I thought it would be - mainly because of the walled garden and this letter:

After that, we did a vague sort of walk to the coral beach and had a picnic. As you can see, the quality of foodstuffs supplied (by me) was moderately high; you may also see (by looking at the backgrounds) that we were in quite a nice spot. It may not be clear that we were also in a force 100 gale.

Delightful smoked salmon sandwich nestled in foil, moistened with cream cheese and made vicious with pepper.

Prince of Snacks, the hard-boiled egg, with salt and pepper from A TWIST OF FOIL. In the background, a hill.

My "husband" triumphantly holds aloft a ham and lettuce sandwich against a backdrop of sea.

We are now once more in our pants watching the television. Tonight, it is leftovers out of the refrigerator (O the joy of cooking for oneself and having a washing machine after 2 weeks of travelling!) and more television; tomorrow, to Glasgow to see my oldest and one of my most beloved friends. We shall bestow wooden snakes upon her sons (who are probably too old for them) and jump up and down with excitement. After that, to the Lake District.

Soon, I shall write more about anoraks and how I feel about owning one. I may also introduce you to Mr Stick. But that is for another day.

Until then, I remain, in my pants, eating tablet and watching TV,

NWM

I am on holiday, Day 12

2010-10-05T17:21:00.001-04:00

We are in Scotland now, on Skye, and it feels just right: both like I remember it and far more astonishing than I thought it was. Marrakech was the dogs because we were there for my little brother's wedding, but somehow it wasn't surprising, and I felt like I had already been.

On top of and in addition to the vague lack of surprise, it was hotter than a mosquito's tweeter, and I am the enthusiast of the colder climate as, also, is my "husband", a French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist who is able to walk uphill on ice. (I am also an enthusiast of food, esp the 'cuisines' of the Middle East, and I was astonished that I didn't like specifically Moroccan food more; it is very sweet, and I do not like very sweet things much. Highest per capita consumption of sugar in the world in Morocco, apparently. Yarp.)

I had allowed 7 hours to get from Heathrow from Euston to get the sleeper to Inverness, but no need, Oh no, for Royal Air Maroc were efficient and also on time, and we emerged burping into the tube strike at Paddington like two sunburnt food-poisoned moles concentrating hard on holding in their waterpoos. We chanced our arms: using the power of our mouths, could we bend the minds of the coach attendants to persuade them that our 23p inflexible ticket could be transferred to the 9.15pm sleeper to Inverness rather than the 11.50pm to Edinburgh? Yes we could. We achieved this feat by me keeping my mouth shut and my "husband" asking Lucille, the attendant lady, about Manitoba.

Eleven hours, haggis, neeps and tatties, half a bottle of red wine and some surprisingly peaceful sleeping later, we arrived in Inverness. Because I am trying to be true to the original point of this "Travelblogue", I will now show you the bed we slept in last night. I had the bottom, and my enticing "husband" the top:

The drive from Inverness to Skye is the bollocks. We stopped at the famous castle that has excellent fake puddings in its fake kitchen:

And we drove slowly behind Bert and Elma, who I think were invented before the Highway Code, and were therefore incapable of driving faster than 32mph:

And then we got to Skye, and we went to the supermarket and did not buy this:

And we found our cottage and sat by the window and looked out of it, because what we saw out of the window was better than the best film you have ever seen, e.g. Working Girl or Terminator 2.

Tomorrow, for a walk, our knapsacks full of nuts and cheese sandwiches.

Pip McPip

NWM

I am on holiday, Day 11

2010-10-04T18:03:00.001-04:00

We are back from the Marrakech and in one piece, despite being accosted by a henna lady and despite it taking over 23 minutes to buy two wooden snakes. Tonight we go to Inverness on the sleeper. I am losing my voice but am in good spirits, and am glad to be in a climate that is cool and that threatens rain. More tomorrow once we are in Skye, but in the meantime, here are some more photographs.

To start with, here is the ceiling of the bathroom in the second bathroom we had in our hotel. If you look carefully, you will see a bird's nest, and perhaps a bird. But not the poo it left in our bath.

Here are some photosnaps of Marrakech. The problem with taking photosnaps in Marrakech is that every single one has probably been taken better by someone else a million times. Still, some of them are pretty. I like the old man best, even though "Arjun" probably means "fuck off, tourists".

We flew back to Heathrow with the charmers that are Royal Air Maroc. Despite their astonishingly bad reputation, the flight was on time and our baggage arrived before we did. NOT ONLY THAT, but they had my secret favourite pudding for lunch (that weird French custardy stuff), which more than made up for Mystery Meat and Rice of Damp Wool:

Most intriguing, however, were the safety card things. Not only does it seem to be frowned upon to kick fellow passengers out of the door,

but kicking them out of the window is also not recommended:

And neither is strolling up and down the aisle smoking a poo.

And now to the train, and Scotland!

Pip McPip

NWM

I am on holiday, Day 10

2010-10-03T06:24:00.000-04:00

There is not much to say, other than my brother, Runningmonkey, is now married to the loveliest girl in the world. It was good, and everyone is happy. Particularly them.

I am on holiday, Day 9

2010-10-02T06:38:00.001-04:00

"I have a friend", says my father, "with a cat organ, who made Prince Charles cry with laughter". "Not only that", I add. "He lives in a biscuit factory and once made a keyboard out of biscuits for Tony Banks." "I won't get in to how we met", says Monkeyfather, "but I would like to talk to you about him."

We are sitting on top of yet another astonishing riad in Marrakech that looks from the outside like it might be a ladies' prison but, once inside, is a hotel of fancyluxe of the kind that makes me confused. Still, the view from the terrace on the top is worth the climb and the sausage rolls are nice, and we are drinking the rosywine and wondering if it is sensible to move from Canada to Africa.

Something passes across the face of the man we are talking to. He is a publicist. "I should tell you that I represented Andrew Lloyd-Weber for three-and-a-half years", he says, looking at his shoes.

We are not quite sure what to do with this information, so we change the subject instead to the incident in which the words "... so he stuck a pound coin up his anus which meant he could get the bus home" wafted across the pool at a volume higher than was (we are sure) intended, and drink some more wine.

Later that evening we eat the food of Morocco. I order badly, because however delicious the pastilla in question, I have never been very good at the sugar/meat combo. The couscous of my 'husband' is however magnificent, and I am quite the fan of the oranges, despite the glace cherries. A fight breaks out about these. "You don't see those much in England anymore", says an Englishman. "What are you talking about? Have you been to Tesco recently?", says his other 'arf, a Frenchman who knows more about British cookery than Jane Grigson.

Still. On Saturday (which is today) is it my brother's wedding, so here are some pictures. Until then, I remain

NWM

I am on holiday, Day 8

2010-09-30T06:19:00.001-04:00

A dark day yesterday. The Waterpoos began in the night; a day out of joy for my future sister-in-law was cut short by the sweats and an inability to eat a delicious breakfast, and finished in a bed wrapped in jerseys and blankets, despite it being 98 degrees outside. The evening was spent with a club sandwich and sorbets of various fruits and the first two episodes of the BBC's Sherlock Holmes.

I am recovered now, thanks to sleep and the ministrations of the two Doctors (one my husband, a pathologist, and the other the sister of my sister-in-law and now sister of mine, a person doctor).

The club sandwich was breakfast; here it is:

The pre-sweat attempt at breakfast at the Jardin Majorelle offered many delights, including:

We were not sure what would happen if you cupped the pistachios near the banana slit, but we thought it best not to think about it too much.

I also met my cousin, Nonworkmonkah. Here is a hurried snapshot of him protecting the handle of the mint tea teapot.

Later, to the Medina on a bus. There will be photographs. You mark my words.

Pip Parp Pip!

NWM

I am on holiday, Day 7

2010-09-29T05:52:00.000-04:00

Yes. It is 7am. People still find it necessary to send me emails about work to my home email address, so they ping into my "iPhone" (which is a miniature internet) and wake me up. Also sometimes they call me and also wake my husband up. I then find out that Marrakech is on 'special King time', so we are in fact an hour behind London rather than an hour ahead. It makes no sense, a bit like cucumber.

I have no picture of my breakfast yesterday because I forgot to take it, but it was a small, slightly runny omelette and a bun. Both were very pleasant. The entire day was spent lying around the preposterously lovely pool pretending to read and doing ironic high fives at the sight of various family members and friends and enormous bottles of rosywine.

Now I have the Waterpoos. I do not know where from, but my tummy doesn't hurt so I think it will be over soon. I have done my counselling for this morning (see phone calls, above) and today I will go on the day out of love for my future sister-in-law, which involves brunch at Yves Saint Laurent's garden and other similarly charming activities. Later, there may be dancing.