Day 432: I Invent And Play A New Game

I have invented a new game. It is called “Who’s The Cunt Now?”, and you play it with traffic wardens. The rules are terribly simple; as far as I’m aware, if you need a residents’ parking permit, you qualify to play. I’m addicted!

How To Play

Take your residents’ parking permit. Do not put it in the windscreen; instead, display it prominently on the dashboard.

When the residents’ parking restrictions are in place, sit at a window where you can see your car (and traffic wardens). In my case, I sit at my desk (which is placed in the window so I can alternate sending electronic mail to my imaginary friends with staring at the street), between 10am and midday.

What will happen is this.

Traffic wardens will drive past your car and look for your permit. They will not see it in the window, so they will stop suddenly and park their traffic warden car.

One of them will sit in the driver’s seat whilst the other one gets out, re-adjusts their cap, and marches towards your car with their camera and little ticket machine.

Just as they get near your car and begin to raise their camera, open the window and shout “IT’S ON THE DASHBOARD”.

If you are really lucky, the one with the camera and little ticket machine will look at the permit, look at you, shake their head, look really fucked off, march back to their car, get in it and drive off.

You can ‘pep it up’ a bit by laughing, a lot, out of the window and shouting: “If you need a pound* that badly, I’ll give it to you”. You get an extra point if one gives you the evil eye as they drive off; if you get the evil eye from both of them, you get two points.



* As far as I am aware, this is the commission a (Lambeth) traffic warden gets for every ticket they give out.

Day 430: I Identify A New Career

Regular readers will by now be stultifyingly aware that, next Thursday, I shall get on an aeroplane and fly to Montreal. There - for a while at least - I will sleep in the same bed night after night*, make jam, try and plan out a book and be nice to a self-haircutting veterinary pathologist. I am really looking forward to it.

But this bliss will not last forever, for I will at some point have to work again. I have been worried about it, I must confess; I do not particularly enjoy doing what I have done before, as it is fairly pointless and often frustrating (other people are involved, you see, including other people who are idiots).

Happily, however, I think I have found the answer! Last night, my oldest friend and I were in the street in Glasgow walking to the pub. "Look at that!", she mumbled, pointing at a shop. "That's good."

It is true. It was good, very good. Here is what we saw:

























I have been so inspired by what we saw last night that I have decided to make plates for a job in Canada.

There are many reasons why I think this would be a good thing for me to do:

1. Cheap to produce (inexpensive raw materials; low overheads)
2. Little or no skill required
3. Market already really big and will never get any smaller.

In fact, I have been so inspired that I have already made a start. I think it's going really well, but judge for yourself: this is a mock-up of what one of my plates could look like:



















If you would like to order a real one (that I will do with paint), then please email me at nonworkingmonkey@mac.com with a photograph of you and your special friend (or whoever else you would like me to put on it).

It is £60 for a side-plate, and £200 for a dinner plate. Mugs are £45 each. As a special introductory offer, I am 'throwing in' (no pun intended!) a pair of matching eggcups, one bearing the face of Pierre Trudeau, and the other Celine Dion.


* By July this year, I had slept in 34 different beds. I am still counting. (I am not a floozy, no no. There is only one person I have shared a bed with since 23 September 2006, and I rather hope that I will be sharing beds with him on 23 September 2008 and for a long time after that.)

Day 429: I Ride Upon An Aeroplane To Glasgow

I am on the aeroplane to Glasgow. I am feeling sick, and dreaming of fresh laundry and clothes that are hanging up and not in a suitcase. I go into a trance as I think about ironing, and wonder if you can buy lavender ironing water in Canada.

But I am interrupted. A man behind me is doing the crossword in Puzzle Twat Weekly. He is using the help and mind of his ladywife.

Man: What's this one, love? 'Funeral poem, five letters.' 'E' something...

Wife: Effigy?

Man: Yes. E.F.I.G.Y.

Silence falls. He scratches out the five letters with the pencil he is clutching in his tiny stubby fist. Without looking, I know his tongue is sticking out a bit.

Man: There we are.

Wife: Well done, love.

Day 428: I Return From Wales

Children are unspeakably dull unless you are their parent, grandparent or godparent. "Children say the funniest things!", squeaks the television programme. "No they don't", you mutter in response, sucking on your gin; "they really don't. They are dull, and high-maintenance, and need attention".

I am the godmother of a child who is not yet three. She recognises me, and accepts the fact that I hold her upside down by the ankles and give her fingers of toast with jam on. She is, therefore, amusing. Particularly when she talks about me.

Small child: Is she going back to London? (Points at me with her small-child arm and finger of jammy toast.)

Father of small child: Yes, and then she is going to Montreal. So every time you see an aeroplane, it might be her, going to Montreal.

Small child: Her, in the sky? (Pause) In the sky? But she will come back.

So sure is she that I am coming back that she wanders off singing her own version of Spiderman. (It is really good: "Spiderman, Spiderman, has big shoes and a boat".) Her mother and I look at the floor and then say goodbye using only the power of the wave (we cannot look at each other for fear we may weep), and I drive 300 miles back to London.

Day 425: I Lose My Post On The Way To Wales

I have just written a really great post containing at least six good pictures, 45 statistics and the word "cockring", but it has disappeared. It is a great shame, for tomorrow I am going to Wales and as everyone knows, there is no internet in Wales.

I shall be back at the weekend (unless I find a place where they have piped in the internet from England or Scotland).

Pip pip!

NWM