Climbing obstacles like old people fuck

Yes yes it's been a month, what of it? So much has happened, but then that's months for you, they have stuff in them, generally.

I have been anointed with an actual job, starting shortly, picking the bits off other people's writing like some kind of baboon. Excellent. I am still staggered at this evidence of my employability. Now I just need something similar to convince me that I'm a writer, ish, and not just an indolent hack who hasn't even been that great at hacking. Oh is she never satisfied? No, but here is a list of things that have satisfied her in the last four calendar weeks:

Green & Black's (currently, butterscotch)

Antony Gormley (wonderful)

Prince (joyous and impish and excessively freaky)

Shedfoxen

Fat moths

Family Guy

Pastry-bestowing boss

Wi-fi Skype handset

Red t-shirt with guitars on

SLEEP.


Yes, those. Also moments of synchronicity of which there seem to be more at the moment. Am I just noticing them, or is this, like, a Sign that something good is going to happen and the Utah Saints are gonna play? Pfft. Fun though and deserving of a new section thingy methink.

Synchroliciouses

Music: Pet Shop Boys 'Being Boring' - "all the people I was kissing, some are here and some are missing in the 1990s..."

Visuals: Poster for book, 'The Missing', seen by totally unneccessary spontaneous crane of neck.

And the rest, well y'know.


Gains

Oh so much free crap including:

Some socks with silver in them
Some face goo smelling faintly of fake strawberries
Two copies of Prince's new album which isn't that great but y'know, it's Prince
Box of insane and fascinating Oriental confectionery, none of which is edible, and some of those little paper bangers that you throw at people's feet and do not think we didn't
Two battery-powered massagers (ha ha, 'silent' ones), one with light-up feet
An iPod case, which is very pretty but I cannot use it, having no iPod except that Shuffle which is still in its case
3959879 sundry USB flash drives
A fetching pink phone, although I have to give it back, but it shows birds in the day and shooting stars at night and it pleases me, even if it has no damn credit on it dammit
Bottle Pimm's
Dog grooming vac attachment (yes)

And

Some gloves, because they are selling them, and they will soon be necessary
Hat, ditto
Some money, finally

And

A cousin, by marriage
Some new friends and acquaintances (I'm getting good at acquiring those, it's just finding places to put them, y'know?)
Shortly, a flatmate, and very welcome she am


Losses

One of the best days of the non-summer, at a festival with terrible sound and 20 toilets for five or perhaps even ten thousand people (I'm not getting into all that again but suffice to say, grrr)

Some nice sunglasses, sat on by someone (anguish)


Wants

Oh we're not going there.


I also went to a wedding in the Lakes and had this insane insect bite that made my leg swell up for a week hobble hobble, and saw what turned out to be the world premiere of a brilliant film, and most recently went down the canal, fed swans and gazed upon the glory of shabby old marvellous peaceful London, soon to be shafted by the fucking cursed Olympics.

(Yes and here the font changes, but it is significant of nothing more than my sneaky cutting and pasting and my inability to be Bothered.)

Meanwhile, the straight to hell moment of the week (so it's not this week, so who's counting? What am I, a schmuck on wheels? etc).

I get the bus to the tube, past some flats. Monday there are police outside. Tuesday there’s police tape, forensic suits and witnesses. Wednesday there are flowers tied to the railings. Thursday I get out a stop early to look.

The local papers had the story reassuringly splashed on the front page. It’s when it gets to a note on page six that you start to worry about the area. Although actually anything that brings property prices down at this point is fine by me; yes I am so desperate to property-own that I would live in a place where I had to take a bath in full riot gear. Anyway, it was a stabbing, 34-year-old dead from single wound to the thigh (often happens apparently, hits the atery and you’re fucked). Grim.

The card with one bunch of flowers had a little rhyming message. It did give me pause. It went:

We didn’t always see eye to eye

But you didn’t deserve to die

Now your up in the sky

Hmm. That first line immediately rings alarm bells for me. The bloke was an MC. MCs have beefs with other MCs on occasion. And when an MC dies violently, you do not want to pay tribute with heavy implication of beef. Muy suspicious. It (I thought to myself) really might as well have said

We didn’t always see eye to eye

Which is why

I had to stab you in the thigh

Goodbye.

In any case, they’ve got the bloke, or at least a bloke, and he’s going to the Old Bailey. His name is amazing. It combines a classical Greek reference with one of the elements on the periodic table. Amazing.