Day 480: I Need Some Help From My Readers

I am going to Toronto tomorrow to talk to some people about some jobs. The jobs are things that apparently I can do in Montreal (which is the nearest big place to where I live*) and that is just as well as although Toronto is in Canada (like Montreal is), Montreal to Toronto is the distance equivalent of (for e.g.) Yorkshire to Tiananmen Square. (Canada is very big, in case you had not noticed.)

But I digress! I have some matters for your urgent attention, matters that I trust you will be able to solve and/or answer whilst I am skipping about in Toronto tomorrow. (Talking of which, I've got four hours to kill there tomorrow afternoon; any suggestions?)

The first is some help with dream interpretation. I cannot say where this dream came from, who had it and about whom it was had, but none of those facts are relevant. I am very aware that the dreams of others are fuck-boring, unless they involve oneself, a gimp mask and a squirrel monkey called Jeffrey; this one, however, caught my attention (and I am not even a Freudian psychotherapist!!):

"I had a dream about you last night that was very long and detailed. You had 2 loos: a bucket for weeing in (because it was more ecologically sound) and a loo for doing poos in. I dropped a bottle of Dove shampoo and conditioner (like the one I bought yesterday to go to the gym) and one of those plastic mesh body scrubber things in your weebucket and fished them out and rinsed them.

Then you let me use your poo loo for a wee. The rest of the house I can describe in complete detail too - suffice to say you were renting it and not unhappily but weren't that keen on the dark green sitting room carpet."

What is this about? There is no sexystuff between either person involved, and this I must make clear! Please do not send in stupid answers, e.g. "you like wee", but I will certainly consider answers from for e.g. psychotherapists and/or Russell Grant.

If dream interpretation holds no interest for you, you may find this film interesting. In it you may see the name of the village in which I live (I will give a prize if you can guess which one it is) - but that is entirely secondary to the main event, which is a woman called Muguette singing "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" in French. It is called Ces bottes sont faites pour marcher, and I believe Muguette is French-Canadian rather than French.



I am also looking for some toy help. I cannot remember the name of two toys I would like to own again, and I have a broken toy that needs mending.

First of all, the toys I cannot remember. I will describe them and then you can tell me what they are, as I know that one (or many) of you will remember:

Toy One: Vision Camera Thing With Circular Film Inserts

This is a very good thing. My grandmother had it; I think it had originally been my father's. There was the camera thing itself and then all the picture things that were set along the margins of a circle. You slotted the circle thing (each one containing a number of different images) into the camera thing, then held it up to your eyes and pressed a button and it moved the pictures along.

When you looked into the picture in the circle it was amazing, like you were actually there ('there' being for e.g. in Brussels, or looking at the tower thing in Toronto). I often think of this magical toy, and wish to own one again (perhaps using the power of the internets).

Toy Two: Magical Plastic Garden

This was also a really good thing. There were brown plastic 'ground' bits that you put the flowers, plants etc into. It was really really good. I think I played with it when I was c. 8 and I am 38 now. Like the circle film vision thing, I would like to own it again, very much.

Broken Monkey

I have a very special monkey. He is broken and needs mending, re-stuffing and general care. The Royal College of Needlework claimed that they did stuffed toy repairs, but did not reply to my electronic mails. (Perhaps they thought it was impossible that such a monkey could exist and did not reply as they thought I was joking.) Does anyone know of a really good toy repairer?

Finally, the childrens' programme I think I imagined. (NB: I was a child in England, and was born in 1969.) It has been haunting me for many years, but all I can remember is that there was something really really really bad involving electricity pylons, aliens, and everyone evacuating England and going to live in France.

(There is a chance of course that it was not a television programme and is actually a fact - a fact that explains why perfectly nice parts of France are drenched in ghastly English people who must be controlled by aliens, which is why they cannot speak French.)

Thanking you in advance for your kind attentions I remain in this, as in all weathers,

NWM



* I say I live in Montreal because I live in a place there is NO WAY you would have heard of, unless you are intimately acquainted with the 640 and often visit Oka.

Day 478: I Am A Winner

Regular readers will be surprised to know that I never win prizes. There is a obvious explanation for this astonishing fact: simply put, I do not enter competitions.

I do not enter competitions because if I did, I would definitely win them all and that would be unfair: other people need a chance - a chance they would not have if I were in the competition with them.

To 'demonstrate my point', here is a list of the prizes I would have won, had I been 'in the race', as it were:

Olympic Gold for Britain (three day event)

BAFTA for Best Actress for the film I wasn't in because I was doing my O-Levels*

Masterchef Grand Prix (Loyd Grossman era; I am not sure who the two oiks doing it now are)

Ask The Family (if I had entered by myself without my family, who shout "gin!" if you ask them anything at all)

Mastermind (specialist subjects: Literary Jurisprudence And The Novels Of James Joyce; Cakes of the World; The Evolution of Cockrings, 1902 - 1984)

The Krypton Factor (no explanation needed!!!)

The X-Factor (no explanation needed!!!)

The Orange Prize for Literature , which I would have given back because it is ladies-only therefore sexist, and I am definitely not a sexist. For example, I think that men should clean houses sometimes (e.g. when the woman is ill with tuberculosis and/or two broken arms), and some women should be allowed to drive, but only on special occasions.

The Booker Prize (very close between me and The Byatt, but I get it in the end, obv)

Nobel Peace Prize (no explanation needed!!!)

Instead, I have a couple of prizes from The Kinross Show (1975-1981) for various artistic endeavours, e.g. "Miniature Garden Made of Peanuts and Jelly Tots" (2nd place), and "Pasta Diorama of The Royal Wedding" (joint 1st place), a second-place award for my donkey, Roly (in pic), a distant memory of winning a bottle of sweet sherry on a Tombola in 1984, and the definite knowledge that I have 'won the heart' (!) of a French-Canadian pathologist.

All this is good, but is it enough? No it is not. As a web-blogger of some repute (and very low daily visit statistics), I am constantly hoping that my Work will be recognised, that that I will win for e.g. a big award that has the National Press (nationality irrelevant) telephoning me, and publishers begging me to write a real book for them. (This is unlikely, but only because this particular craze passed in 2005, much in the same way that we had all moved on from Space Dust by 1980.)

There have been some 'blips' (as it were); a man called Tim once gave me a Swampy, whatever that is; but since then, nothing.

That is until yesterday!! Oh my word. Miss Baroque has given me an award!. It is really good too! Is it for being "powerful and a tonic" and also for being The Only Person She Knows Who Can Use Capital Initials Without It Being Cringeworthy. This is better than a first-place rosette for a pic of Chas 'n' Di made out of macaroni, let me tell you! Thanks, Ms B!



* For younger readers: O-Levels and CSEs were in the olden days, before children were stupid and had to do GSCEs instead. O-Levels were harder than CSEs, both of which were harder than GSCEs. I have 11 O-Levels, which means I am very clever, and 4 A-Levels, which means I am even cleverer. Also I am beautiful with a singing voice not unlike that of a young Mick Jagger.

Day 476: I Am Astonished By Phil Collins

Regular readers will be aware that I have excellent taste in all things (fezzes, cakes, Facebook friends, small clay pipes, cockrings, etc). I also have particularly good taste in music, which is a fact so obvious that it requires neither proof nor substantiation.

It has thefore been a very tricky couple of days, marred by the horrible realisation that I know every single lyric of each of the following songs:

That's All (Genesis)
Turn It On Again (Genesis)
In Too Deep (Genesis)
Abacab (Genesis)
Follow Me, Follow You (Genesis)*

I even know exactly how the weird timing goes in Turn It On Again. You know, the "I ... I ... get so lonely when she's not there" bit. That fact alone makes me want to vomit into my own lap with shame.

In fact, so sure am I that I know it that I shouted "he got THAT wrong, the twat!" at the performance of a Genesis tribute band in France earlier this summer. (A Genesis tribute band who were, I am happy to tell you, staying at the house of my parents; apparently Tony Banks visited the keyboard player at home and in his honour, the keyboard player baked a keyboard made of biscuits; but that's another story.)

We were driving back from Quebec's fashionable Montreal earlier with a car full of carrots when a very good radio programme came on the radio, so we listened to it and commented on what a good radio programme it was. They played a bit of Against All Odds which merely served to increase my overall concern about my lyric-memory realising, as I did, that I also knew all the lyrics to that as well.

And here's the thing. If you think Collins is a twat, or if you are a Gabriel-era Genesis lover who holds Phil Collins personally responsible for making a band that were already quite embarrassing so embarrassing that admitting you know all the lyrics to Turn It On Again pales by comparison, you should listen to the radio programme too. It is about a woman who was dumped writing a love song. Collins gives her advice. You will also discover some astonishing information about his contribution to Genesis - and may end up quite liking him! (Or at least wanting to send him a birthday card, for reasons that will become clear.)

Here is the programme. It is called This American Life. The bit I am talking about starts about 5 minutes in, and it is a bit that somehow makes knowing all the lyrics to In Too Deep vaguely alright (if you like PCP).

* Genesis is not the only appalling one in my repertoire. You would be astonished. I know I am.

Day 475: I Beg For Urgent Cake Assistance

I must make a cake! It is a cake that they eat in the Canadia. It is called Queen Elizabeth Cake or Gâteau Reine-Élizabeth, if you are a French Canadian (or French, French-Belgian, French-Swiss, from a French colony, or a pretentious twat).

I had a bit of one once, taken from the plate (or should I say 'assiette'!!) of a French-Canadian self-haircutting pathologist. I have never had a sticky date pudding, but it tasted like I would imagine sticky date pudding would taste (if sticky date pudding exists), except with sweet coconut jizz on the top.

But I digress. Soon there is a birthday, and I must make Gâteau Reine-Élizabeth for the person whose birthday it is. I have found a recipe, but following last week's events involving a recipe for spotted dick, a squirt of what is known in the Netherlands as 'slagroom' and a passing Mexican, I am reluctant to put all my birthday cake eggs in one basket and use an untested internet recipe again.

What is more, extensive research (involving 'online research' for up to and including five minutes) 'throws up' a multitude of Queen Elizabeth Cake examples, each one slightly different:

Cake 1











Cake 2












Cake 3













Cake 4













Cake 5















Cake 6











What am I to do? Which is the most accurate? More importantly, who - and you will have to supply REALLY good evidence that your recipe has a solid provenance - can give me a recipe for this accursed cake that they know FOR A FACT is a) nice; and b) works?

There is no prize for it, just the pleasing knowledge that you have made a French-Canadian research pathologist very happy, and perhaps contributed towards supplying him with enough empty-calorie energy to cut the hair that is, even now, flowing down his manly back.

In the meantime, if you neither know nor care about recipes, do us a favour and let me know which of the cakes above you would most like to stick in your hot greedy mouth.



NB: Despite evidence suggested by the weirdly camp QE2 cupcake photograph filched off of Flickr, I believe the Queen Elizabeth in whose honour the cake was created was in fact Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, the now-dead suet-faced mother of our* current dear Queen.


* that's you too, Canada!!!

Day 473: I Wonder If I Really Do Have 202 Friends

Visual Device Representing Actual Breakdown Of The 202 Friends I Now Allegedly Have, According To Facebook

(Click on it. It'll get bigger, like a Magic Tree dipped in water.)


















In Other Facebook News

Stop the status updates about your children. Now.
345 pictures of yourself?
No, I do not want to be turned into a vampire.
Dan Brown?
Yes, I will play Scrabulous with you, but I will probably cheat.
I'm trying to find a really polite way of saying "who the fuck are you?"
Did you ask permission before you tagged me?
If I log in to Facebook more than twenty times a day, am I a twat?
I like you, but ... isn't the BlackBerry thing a bit ...
Look. I can draw a giant cock on your graffiti wall!
No, we're not related.

In Further Facebook News




And Finally, Some Gnomes: Here, as reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.