I have come to a conclusion

Regular readers will be aware that I am currently literally non-working, what with stopping doing my job in March and all of that.  Ten peaceful weeks have passed, and now it is June: unidentifiable birds squawk in the slightly common pink cherry tree outside the window; noisy young men, too old to be on a skateboard, crash up and down the street and the neighbour's fucking dogs, whose owners I blame for everything, are silenced by the underhand yet strangely brilliant ultrasonic bird house, which emits a noise that only they can hear; a noise activated by their barking, and silenced by their non-barking.

As time passes, I am beginning to understand that I was right (which will come as no surprise to you, my adoring readers and/or fans), for my general belief - fashioned in my own mind as I was preparing to resign - was "fuck it, get out of this, then everything else'll work itself out" and, miraculously, everything does indeed seem to have worked itself out.

Time has passed. What was frustrating and irritating is now just something that happened once, and I have come to the conclusion - one that everyone else in the world has probably already come to - that I require the following for happiness in the workplace:

1. Work with people who are not twats (and who swear)
2. Be allowed to do my job without having to get into chitchat about politics and all of that
3. Not have to be in the same place at the same time every day without (very) good reason
4. Be able to take pets to work, inc. marmosets with golf balls
5. Not have to spend half the day making a listening face when in fact am thinking about biscuits
6. Have time to do the other stuff I like doing, inc. 'accidentally' watering the heads of people walking under the balcony.

On this final point (i.e., point number 6), I have realised something everyone else probably already knows.  I like a) cooking; b) writing; c) making stupid films feat. talking bears with giant heads.  But being 'successful' (i.e. paid for them, or recognised as being good at them by other people) doesn't matter, because (ta-dah!) the only important thing is that I like doing them, whether I'm good at them or not. (Just as well, frankly.)

There is no doubt that I would very much like to be paid for writing and making films featuring bears with very large heads (I would not want to be paid for cooking as do not want to do washing up etc), but that is unlikely. In the meantime, when I can, I shall be a "freelancer", able to work in my pyjamas at 5am in the morning, if I so wish, and able to write my web-blog and cook things in full business apparel at 3pm in the afternoon, if I so wish.

I think I have cracked it!!!

Pip pip!

NWM

P.S. Even if you do not speak French, you may find this film - in which some French Canadians laugh themselves hoarse over a gigantic clam - diverting.

I am honoured in tin foil

Yes. It is true. This afternoon, following a call for suggestions on the Twitter, the magnificent Belgian Waffle fashioned many accessories from tin foil using her own hands and imagination (and, presumably, a roll of foil).  Amongst the articles created was a foil fez, suggested by me in a highly original and comedic style.  I am sure you will agree that it - and she - is magnificent.

In other news, I will soon be doing something about smells that smell like smells, gaffer tape and another Bad Boss Blockbuster (but not all at the same time).  Too much excitement in one go, I am sure you will agree.

Pip pip!

NWM

I do the housework

There is rain, there are no new Archers podcasts and my tooth is sore. Still, there are other things to like, i.e. pals coming round for a barbecue (in the rain) with delicious panacotta that I did not think would work but  has, judging by the two dainty monkey teaspoons I have just tipped into my gaping monkey mouth.

They are not coming round for a while, the friends, so I will do my monthly 'housework'. The two are not related: I don't want other people to think I am actually dirty and/or smell (i.e., have things festering where they should not), but I am not one to dip the entire house in Lysol every time someone comes round.  My 'housework' usually involves a loose combination of the following: 

1. Dusting, i.e. taking a Swiffer on very long handle to the top of things and poking it through newell posts.
2. Hoovering. Take out the central vacuuming 'system', pull it around, lug it up the stairs, give up, listen to "women are bad at putting hoses away" in exchange for not having to put the hose away. Drink tea.
3. Micro-hoovering. Surprisingly entertaining. Attach tiny nozzle to end of gigantically powerful vacuuming 'system' and hoover up crumbs, dust, hair, old socks, mystery balls from behind washing machine, unidentified crusts in bottom of kitchen drawers, spider bodyparts from behind cookbooks, corpses of dead insects that usually gather in drifts 20 insects deep on my office window sill, human hair, cat hair, oats (that seem to be everywhere in the house, even in the bathroom upstairs),  etc
4. Cleaning loos. Involves at least 5 different cloths, some kitchen roll and the fervent wish that the septic tank could take bleach. 
5. Cleaning bathrooms. Spray cleaning stuff at everything. Get distracted. Stuff dries. Start again. Rpt. 
6. Cleaning the fridge out. I did this yesterday for the first time in a long, long time. It look over an hour and I flushed a lot of things down the loo, e.g. things in jars marked 'pickle' and 'gooseberry' (which were in fact I think 'mulled wine stuff' and 'marmalade') and some salad dressing from 1983.
7. Putting things in jars. I am very bad at opening packets of things, so prefer instead to decant stuff into jars which lessens the likelihood of 5lb bags of clumsily opened flour with massive rips down the side exploding onto my head.  Here, for your viewing pleasure, is one of two food cupboards; the other one is not as full of exciting things in jars: 

 I love jars, because putting things in them makes me feel like I am being tidy when in fact I am not; I just think everything looks better in a jar, including the cats and all of my shoes.   I suffer greatly from living in North America, because it is very hard to find Le Parfait jars here and they are jolly expensive when you do find them, so I have to make do with something vaguely similar from IKEA which are OK for storing things in, but no good if you want to preserve gigantic jars of tomatoes, etc, as they are not always water-tight, leading to explosions and seepages the like of which I would not wish on anyone (except Sting and Trudie).

Even more irritatingly, the jam jars you can buy in the shops here have those stupid 2-piece lids and stupid shapes of flowers and marrows all over them.   All I really want are jars like these ones: straight sided, with screw-on lids, that I can put my jam in when I make it and that I can put labels on that I make myself, but they seem to be as rare as unicorns. (If anyone in Canada knows where I can buy such a thing, will you let me know? You can buy them online but the cost of shipping is the same as the jars themselves so it isn't worth it.)

But that is quite enough of that. I have housework to do.  There is a chance I may become more interesting again but for now, there is dusting to do and breakfast to make.

Pip pip!

NWM

I am trying to choose my favourite word

So far, it is a choice between:

1. Cockbiscuits
2. Fuckbutton*
3. Shitstick
4. Assclown
5. Cockmonkey
6. Fuckwit
7. Twat
8. Cock
9. Knob
10. Arsehole

The thing I always want to say to people I dislike is: "You are a fucking arsehole", so I think on balance that my favourite word must be "arsehole" - but for "cockmonkey" which, when combined with "preening", describes Sting absolutely exactly.

What's your favourite word? It doesn't have to be a rude word, although obviously they are often the most pleasing. Sadly, "douchebag" only works from North Americans - and "arsehole" (in English English) seems to be more effective than "asshole" in North American English.

In other news, this has just come on the radio in Canada and made me shout:



As Lloyd Cole-aware readers will be aware, it contains the fine lyric: "I may come to a conclusion other than that which absolutely necessary".  I love Lloyd Cole, despite wanting to punch him in the mouth. Also, my French-Canadian husband does a very, very good impersonation of him. (Other singers in his repertoire include Simon Le Bon's peculiar vocal performance in Rio and Michael McDonald, ever unable to forget that he's not in love anymore.)

And now I must go, because the radio is now, having played Lloyd Cole, finishing Situation by Yazoo (known to North Americans as Yaz) and is now - Oh God, it is too late, it is on - playing Wouldn't It Be Good by Nik Kershaw and I am time travelling: yes, it is 1984, and I am 15 and in my O-level year at Godolphin & Latymer. I am surprisingly tall for my age, I hate Nik Kershaw and at lunchtime, we go to the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith and smoke Silk Cut and have 75p baked potatoes.  (You will be interested to know that I got 11 O-Levels, despite my Silk Cut and baked potato habit.  For younger readers: O-Levels were what we did before GSCEs. They were difficult, and there wasn't one in media studies.)


* I am aware that there is a popular beat combo called Fuck Buttons, so do not tell me.  Also FYI I do not like "bitch" and "cow" at all;  they make me flinch.

I receive a care package

The heat continues in Montreal. Yesterday was unbearable: 93 degrees and soggy. It was like being wrapped in a gigantic version of those hot towels they give you in Chinese restaurants with pretensions.

I left the house three times: once to get a cab to the airport to meet a friend; once to go to the shop to buy some beer (which I drank most of) and the third to go out to drink more beer, pints and pints of it - pints that then turned into sweat and came spurting out of my face.  When I was not performing these small beer-rich activities, I was standing on a ladder, holding my monkey face in front of the air conditioning unit and wishing I'd brought a beer up with me.

It is going to go on for a bit, although at a more reasonable level (i.e. 81, not 93), and so tomorrow I will go back to the country where there is a swimming pool (last seen a month ago in a fucking snowstorm), air conditioning, clean clothes and a slight breeze.  And to the country I will take most of the contents of a magnificent care package, brought to me from England by my visitor from his wife, most of the contents of which are shown in this high-quality panoramic photograph:

Bearing in mind that the visitor and his wife are the two people that wrote the best wedding speech ever given,  it is no surprise that between them they should be able to smear my tiny kitchen table with joy.

This shit is fucking gold dust.  English sweets (that have gone straight into the freezer for fear I scarf down a StarBar in one go); a family pack of Hula-Hoops; 3 (3!!) Guardian magazines;  a copy of The Guardian actually given to me on the day it was published; two copies of Private Eye, a copy of The Tippler; a Guardian Guide with LCD Soundsystem in, two English Heritage magazines and a leaflet for a lovely English Garden that I am very much looking forward to visiting, for reasons that will become clear if you a) click on the photo and make it bigger; or b) click here.

Other things in the care package (inc. 2 other Curly Wurlies) included many PG Tips teabags, a family pack of Berocca ("I don't care if it doesn't work, I LIKE it"), and a stack of books as high as the moon.  I cannot, dare not, open the Maltesers and have asked the French Canadian veterinary research histopathologist with whom I live to hide them, but the rest I will plough into like the simple-minded media-starved ex-pat that I am whilst The Archers dribbles out of my computer.

Pip pip!

NWM