I want a hamster

Here is a photograph of the pathologist's cousin and his hamster. (Please note the co-ordinating expressions of boy and rodent.)



There was another long post, but the computer ate it. I may re-write it, but first: to New York, where I shall be driven through thunderstorms to attend a wedding.

Pip pip!

I am terrific

I receive a note from one Michael Moran, an excellent gentleman, sometime co-resident of Brixton and longtime supporter of this web-blog. "I have written about you in my Saturday Times column about the Web & such", he writes mysteriously. "I don't suppose they deliver The Times out there in North West Passage Land but your mum might like it".

He is right. My Mum, better known to readers as MonkeyMother, does like it. "Mummy is so proud", she writes, swallowing all her principles (as a long-time subscriber to The Socialist Worker) to go to the corner shop, buy The Times and scan in the thing that Michael Moran has written.

I receive it in Canada, attached to an email. (I have said it before and I will say it again - the internets is miraculous and I admire it very much.) And I must be frank: I feel about Michael Moran's piece much as he does about this web-blog: it is terrific, and so intelligently written! My portrait - hand-rendered by none other than Mr Dave Shelton - is there in full colour, my small clay pipe, Hula-Hoops and absinthe clear for all to see. Not for the first time, I observe what an excellent looking monkey I am, and re-adjust my fez.























Regular readers will I am sure be celebrating the recognition of my genius (long known to them) all across the world. New readers may be interested to read a little more about the Brixton Hill incident, a matter that concluded a few days later with a lifting of a modesty panel.

Now all I need is a book deal and then I can be properly non-working forever!*


* Writers: do not try and tell me that writing things down for (for e.g.) newspapers and/or novels is 'work', especially when you consider what I have to do all day, e.g. sit in conference calls, read management books and listen to other people.

I am alive!

But I have been distracted:

1. Buying and moving into new flat;
2. See (1);
3. Work;
4. Misc.

I will be back soon, including a rationale on why the word 'twinkle' should be banned.

I am back from holiday, and come across the most ghastly of all the expressions

"Thank fuck for that!", I hear my legions of adoring readers screech, their tiny voices obscured only by the popping of multiple champagne corks, "now we may recline sharply in our Lazboys, safe in the knowledge that our favourite online web-blogger is back and In Business!".

Favourite, that is, except dear Anna, with whom I shared a plate of gingerbread pancakes and a 'mimosa' (seen in the photograph to the left), in America's fashionable San Francisco Monday last. We touched upon many Topics, including the notion of inflating like a flesh balloon, the wonder of bracelets of saints (I must confess that I copied dear Anna and bought my own - $3.99, made in China - in Santa Cruz a few days later), and other privit topicks that I was keen to discuss, e.g. the Daily Mail website and how many Americans (but not all!!!!!) do not understand irony*; sadly, however, my companions did not share my enthusiasm, choosing instead to suck hungrily from their coffee cups and comment on the weather.

After that, the only other person I know in San Francisco happened to see me walking past his window (this is not a joke; suffice to say we screamed and embraced), and the pathologist got up to his usual tricks with squirrels:



This is not the first time he has hypnotised squirrels; here he is in December 2006:





























And here he is again, practising his dirty mind games on Montreal squirrels in the summer of 2008:



But all this is by-the-by, for I have only one thing of any import to tell you, and that is that I have found the most revolting expression in the English language. I have not forgotten the list; I will update it in due course, but surely this is the worst thing anyone has ever said out loud with their mouths:

"Yes, they are meaty nipples."

"Meaty nipples"? God help us, each and every one.


* When at the University of York not studying for my degree in English and Related Literature (e.g. Anglo Saxon, which is related to no language I know), I did a special paper in Jane Austen, which resulted in a 15,000 word essay on "The Role of Carriages in the Novels of Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth" (2:1, but only because no-one could be bothered to read it). In my class was an American lady who said - and I swear on my life this is not made up - "Could you define irony for me?". Obviously we all screamed with joy, as Americans and their apparent lack of irony is the only way English people can console themselves re. loss of empire, etc.

I add even more words

I am in California, where a numberplate tells me that the many assumptions I make about BMW drivers are probably correct*:






















Meanwhile, the list of awful words grows and grows. It is great. As ever, new words at the top; where appropriate, the supplier of the word can be accessed by pressing on the word they have supplied.

Beverage
Spacious (as in, "spacious property")
Ensuite (as in, "they have an en suite" - the "bathroom" part is usually left off)
Take as in "So, what's your take on antimacassars then?"
Twist as in "a modern twist on the antimacassar"
Fleshy
Nestling ("...in a bed of lettuce")
Drizzled
Sourced ("for crying out loud", adds the anonymous submitter)
Coulis
Suckling

And this particularly good suggestion from Dan (who has no blog):

'The'. Yep. When people refer to their own medical conditions and try to detach themselves from them. Like not using 'my' somehow sounds less distasteful. "It turns out the infection has spread to THE eyes from THE arse etc". In the way that dog owners try to pretend that the animal crapping on the pavement is nothing to do with them despite their being connected to it by a length of chain.

Oh, and 'quilt'? As a noun.



* If I need to explain why this numberplate caught my attention (and not in a good way), you are no longer allowed to read this web-blog.