Holiday 2013 – Days Nine, Ten, Eleven & Twelve & a bit of Thirteen

I'm back in England now. Why would I want to write about my holiday? I was wearing shorts, for Pete's sake! I packed eight pairs of socks and didn't wear any of them. It was a different world.

And now I need to cast my mind back to day NINE?! The number is meaningless. I'm sure I was still alive on day nine, but I wasn't the same person I am now. I'm wearing socks today. To not wear socks is unthinkable.

But I can't abide a tale half-told. I can't stop my holiday account at day eight. It would be improper. And would confuse future-me. He'd wonder where the time went.

So here it is. Day nine was, what, Saturday? I was probably wearing shorts and wishing I could trim my moustache. But you can't take scissors on a plane or buy them once you arrive. Bin Laden deserved to die, if only for that.

Here are some things.

We went to a place called Göcek. It's one of those yacht places. You know, with, like, a wet bit where the boats go, and then a dryer bit where there are shops and cafes and mooring posts and people staring at yachts? A yacht place.

(Do you know what the sad thing about this story is? It happened on Day Eight. But I'm so confused, I'm writing about it here.)

Apparently, the rich and famous go there. Our tour guide said that sometime in the late 90s, Sting and Dustin Hoffman visited there. In the same yacht.

I don't get yachts.

I'm not totally immune to the allure of a millionaire's lifestyle. I can see why people would like luxury cars and mansions, and why they'd like to have a diamond-encrusted George Foreman Grill.

But yachts are stupid. How can a tiny boat be luxurious? It's just a bobbing caravan. Get over yourself, Hoffman.

If you chose to get on a boat, you have abdicated all authority anyway. You can drown at a moment's notice. Every seaman is nothing but Neptune's bitch. A rich movie star on a boat is just shark food in an expensive suit.

If I was a millionaire, I wouldn't want to be robbed of my dignity. I'd stay on land at all times. People can look up to you if you're on land. Nobody looks up to boat people.

Stick with what brung you to the dance. If you're rich, you made your fortune on land. Stay there.

Unless you're Daryl Hannah. She has one fin in each camp, and a stupidly-spelled name.

When we were in Göcek we had tall frozen lemonades, with lots of fruit. They were the most refreshing drinks. Mmm. I'd like one right now.

Also, earlier on the same day (EIGHT - NOT EVEN NINE), we went to a treetop cafe in the mountains. We had Turkish tea and saw dragonflies and horses. But that's not what I'm going to write about, because I'm not a square.

We'd walked down some rocky stairs to photograph a waterfall or a unicorn or something, when our tour group started moving on. We went to join them, but an old woman was coming down the stairs, blocking our way. She was having difficulty making the descent. Her family was helping her. She had a walking stick. She was taking ages.

If this was a more interesting story, we might have found ourselves cut adrift from the rest of our group, forced to climb through the mountains and find our own way home. But that didn't happen. We just waited.

When we got to the top of the stairs, one of the Turkish cafe staff (who had been watching our predicament) said to me in perfect English, "one day, we will all be old."

He was right. It was a nice thing to say. He obviously understood the situation and didn't want us to feel angry or annoyed at the woman. He recognised that she was only human, and our having to wait a few extra seconds wouldn't make much difference. There but for the grace of God, go us.

We agreed with him. One day, we will all be old. He was right. We shared a moment of human empathy that crossed national boundaries. At that moment, we were united by our appreciation of the fragility of life.

Then he said, "one day, we will all be dead".

Now, I thought this was one sentence too far. It's true of course. We will all be dead. And it seems like a continuation of his previous thought. It's an understanding and wise statement. But it didn't really apply.

The slow woman was old, but she wasn't dead. Empathising about her age was warm and humanistic. Empathising about her death seemed premature.

"One day, we will all be old" is a beautiful and melancholy piece of language.

"One day, we will all be dead" sounds like a threat.

Of course, I agreed, and hurried off. I'd gone from moved to unsettled in about five seconds.

But the cafe worker was right. Because, as we looked back over the beautiful scenery and watched the river flow down the rocks, much as the the river of time does flow, we saw, through the dappled sunlight and the vivid forest flowers, that the old woman had fallen down the stairs and died.

One day, we will all die. He was right. It was an appropriate thing to say. As I looked at her corpse and her broken walking stick, I thought: "that will be me one day".

He winked.

Some of that story isn't true. You can decide for yourself.

Anyway, where was I...?

Oh yes. Day nine.

Nothing.

Day ten. Nothing. Some swimming, I guess.

Day eleven. We came home.

The journey was long. Our bus to the airport left at 10pm. Our flight was at 2am. Our bus on the way back was at 5:05am GMT, which would be 7:05 TMT (Turkish Man Time). We got home at about 6:30am GMT, then had to go out again.

It was not unexhausting.

The flight was strange. People were sleeping, but I was not. I couldn't get comfortable, even though there were lots of spare seats, as it wasn't a full plane.

My arm kept... being there. Humans should evolve retractable limbs. I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

Humans should evolve retractable limbs.

There was an eerie light everywhere. My fatigued brain started playing tricks on me. The clouds looked like the sea. There was a thin blue line of dawn on the horizon that never grew, because we were flying away from it. It couldn't catch us, but was shaking its fist.

The soundtrack of my delirium was this short song by Adam Buxton (of Adam and Joe fame). It's about nettles:



This song played in my head about five thousand hundred million times.

Nettles - also like the band The Police...

There was a child sleeping across the seats in front of us. I was worried that my stupid non-retractable arms and knees would be disturbing her, so I was semi-frozen in shaky discomfort like a shit statue.

Lucy got some sleep, lying across the seats next to me. She had a shawl draped across her, which took on an odd luminescence in the artificial night light. The shawl rose and fell, and seemed to me to be undulating like a wedding-white jellyfish.

Nettles! Nettles!

Eventually, we landed in that land of my forefathers: Gatwick.

I slept on the coach on the way home, leaning against nothing, my slumbering head flopping around like a melon on a weak spring. I retained verticality by biting the inside of my mouth at regular intervals. It was relaxing.

By this point it was technically day thirteen, but who's counting?

This holiday journal has never been a systematic catalogue of events. It's more of a series of impressions, bound together by hyphens. If you want to give a sense of an experience, there's no point in trying to replicate it. You have to just say things like "you know how sometimes it's all a bit fleeeuuurrrgg?".

AND PEOPLE SAY YES I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN.

Oh - also we had a big bread that was like a steam-whale. That was day twelve, but who's counting?

I can't believe it's all over. It was so interminable and so brief, like a mayfly opera.

Time to put away the shorts.

Time to put on all the socks.

Time to post photos to Facebook to tell the people - who, unlike you, dear reader, are not my real friends - that we had a well good time and look at my muddy torso and don't you wish you were here? Don't you wish you were there? Don't you wish you were me?

And the Facebook people will be all like "yes, I do wish I was here/there/you. *like*".

But you, dear reader, are my real friends. And you know in your heart of hearts, that whether you're there or here is nether here nor there. The only thing you're sure of - from reading this very blog - is that you'll never wish you were me.

Would that you were.

Would that you would.

Holiday 2013 – Days Six, Seven and Eight

We continued our pattern of two days doing nothing, followed by one day of doing too much. Today (day eight), we went on another trip. This one was really nice – we went to good places that were warm and interesting. I didn’t spot any “funny” billboards though, so I’m LIVID. What does a guy gots to do to get blog fuel around heres, huh? (That’s how I talk for the duration of that sentence.)

Luckily, I’ve finished the Stewart Lee book, so my writing style will no longer be so derivative. Or if it is, it will be derivative of something completely different. I’ve just finished Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, which is an unsettling horror story. I don’t think I can write like him though.

The other thing I’ve been reading is a volume of Jamie Hernandez’s Love and Rockets comic. (His brother Gilbert also does them, but I haven’t got anything by him yet.)

Man, it is a classy comic book. It’s full of strong, complex, predominantly female, characters, beautiful artwork, wrestling, punk rock, Latino slang, sex, dinosaurs, gang violence - all combined to make incredibly funny and often moving stories. Love and Rockets began in the early eighties, and is still going (or at least was until recently). Classy, classy stuff.

I’ve started to use ‘classy’ as a compliment more and more recently. I think the word fell out of fashion when it became associated with monocles and hot tub chandeliers. But it’s time it was reclaimed for things refined, sophisticated, and of high quality. They don’t have to be posh or stuffy.

Love and Rockets is classy.

The three things I’ve recently been describing as classy are:

1)      Love and Rockets

2)      Former AWA wrestling champion Nick Bockwinkel. To be fair, he probably fits the original definition too. He was a star in the seventies and eighties. In character, he was a superior heel. Out of character, he seems like a real gentleman. Classy.

3)      Rickie Lambert, striker for Southampton FC. He's a classy footballer. People who don’t watch him regularly may think he’s just a big, strong lower-league brute. But he has a vision and touch that’s a joy to behold. He can knock the ball down, or hold it up and bring others into play. His passing is incredible. He’s a bit like Dimitar “the Scimitar” Berbatov in that he moves slowly, but everything he does is crafted beautifully. He may not have pace, but he has vision. And he scores goals. And he’s good in the air. And he’s excellent with set-pieces. And he’s never missed a penalty. And Andy Carroll is in the England squad ahead of him.

That was weird. My three things there relate to comics, wrestling and football. These are three of my main interests, but I don’t talk about them much. I suppose I worry that people won’t be interested. But how would that explain the rest of my content? I can’t be writing my usual meaningless waffle because I think people are actually reading.

My other main interest is comedy.

Hey here’s a joke that I sort-of thought about, but gave up before finishing!

My cousin wrote to the police repeatedly, claiming she was being “storked”. They didn’t seem to take her seriously. Which just goes to show – spelling matters. Ironically, she ended up pregnant.

The good thing about the storked/stalked confusion is that it’s a joke which doesn’t work either out loud or written down. The mistake might make sense in some third medium – i.e. telepathy.

Also, why would she write to the police? Also, why wouldn’t she offer any further details? Also, is this a "rape joke"?

As I said, I never finished it. There are a few kinks to work out.

4)      Comedy. Classy.

***

Isn’t it weird that “worship” and “warship” are only one letter different, but are completely different things? And, to a lesser extent, “workshop”.

I think the Turkish air is doing wonders for my ponders. When I’m back in Blighty (which is what I call my kilt), I’m going to grind to a halt. That’s why this blog is such a valuable resource. It’s like a humour reservoir. A reservoir-ha-ha, you might say. In the barren months ahead, I can revisit these blog posts and think “Storked. Yes. There’s something in that.”

Holiday 2013 – Days Three, Four and Five

You may have noticed that I’ve increased the rate of my reportage.

This is for two main reasons.

1) There isn’t enough content on each day to justify its own entry. See Day Two for evidence.

2) More importantly, I’m only six blog posts away from number 800. As you know, I like to mark each of these anniversaries with a feature-packed avalanche of content, and feel this can only be started on British soil. I’m going to have to squeeze all of my holiday adventures in before that.

Day three has now become completely unrememberable. Not unmemorable (though it was that too), but unrememberable. Nobody could remember it. Not even if their brain was a computer(‘s brain).

I think we went to the beach. We might have caught some sun. I might have worn sunglasses.

I don’t usually wear sunglasses. I bought them especially for this holiday in a Gatwick shop. Having viewed some photographs of me wearing them, I’m suddenly aware that they’re a bad idea. My eyes are the saving grace of my face. (The Saving Grace of My Face is the provisional title for my autobiography)

I need my terrified eyes to counterbalance the viscous smirk of my cheeks, mouth, chin and philtrum. This is a very delicate balance indeed. It’s a bit like this blog, with the eyes playing the part of my self-deprecation, and the rest of my face playing my prose. One false step, and the apple cart has lost all credibility.

Day four was a very nice day indeed. We went to a private beach that our hotel has some sort of relationship with. It was at a place called the Blue Lagoon. It was a lagoon, and it was blue. It was very tranquil. We swam. Lucy taught me how to float. I’d known how to do it before, of course. In the pre-beard days. But I had to re-learn it, like an amnesiac re-learning to furrow her brow.

We had a nice lunch and there was a big fluffy white dog there, who looked hot.

And hot he very well might (look).

I think it was 34 degrees. So hot, I can’t even be bothered to find the degrees symbol.

°

Ah. There it is.

Wait, that symbol is used for temperature as well as angles, right? I never paid attention in thermometer college.

Day five is very fresh in my mind because it is this very day. Not only can I actually remember things, but we actually did some things.

We went on an excursion, which was run through our holiday company. It’s a good way of having an adventure without having to use your initiative.

I could spend many paragraphs talking about the exciting things we did. Carpet weavers! Mud baths! Sulphur pools! Boat trip! Turtles!

(In fact, today we saw a turtle, a sea snake and a couple of lizards. I think we win Reptile Bingo.)

But instead of talking about those things, I want to talk about a couple of things that happened on the bus on the way home. This was the most boring part of the day, but was also the most recent. Events that have just happened always seem more exciting than those of a few minutes earlier. Forgetting the past is an evolutionary knack. It helps us get over the pain of childhood and being beaten up yesterday.

We was going down the road, right? Right. A policeman flagged us down. After a few (Turkish) words with the driver, he boarded the vehicle.

He was a proper Turkish policeman. He had a gun. (I didn’t actually see the gun, but Lucy assures me it was there. She has never been known to lie about firearms.)

Everyone felt very tense. I suddenly felt a wave of baseless guilt wash over me. I noticed there was a seatbelt sign in the bus, but I wasn’t wearing mine! What if he chastised me? My sphincter contracted to further conceal the small balloon of heroin that I obviously wasn’t smuggling over the border.

I didn’t want to go to a Turkish prison. They are legendarily uncomfortable.

My fellow tourists must have felt the same thing. There was a tension in the bus.

The tour guide finally – after four agonising seconds – revealed that the policeman just wanted a lift down the road.

Unfortunately, I had pulled out a knife after the third agonising second. I am now in a Turkish prison. The Wi-Fi is spotty.

Hahahaha! Not really! That was just a made-up end to a story with no climax.

(A Made-Up End To a Story With No Climax is the provisional title for my obituary.)

The other thing that happened on the way back was we passed a billboard. I don’t know what it was advertising, but it was illustrated with two cartoon pictures. One was of sarcastic comic strip cat Garfield. And the other was of Jerry from Tom and Jerry.

It was just the two of them.

It seemed like a strange combination. Admittedly, they are cat and mouse. But as far as I know, they’ve never even met.

Seeing Jerry solo was a bit strange. He’s almost always seen in conjunction with Tom. To have one member of a double act on his own is unsettling. It would be like seeing a billboard featuring Dec from Ant and Dec, but not Ant from Ant and Dec. Just Dec. Together with... let’s say... Norman Mailer. You’d wonder what the advert was for.

Don’t get me wrong – if I was going to choose only one of Tom and Jerry to feature in an advert, it would definitely be Jerry. Tom ain’t selling shit.

No kid is going to point excitedly at a sign that just has Tom on it. “Hey! It’s Tom!”

At least Jerry has some energy to him; some pizazz. Tom is a born loser.

He’s one of that school of Warner Brothers cartoons featuring a loser and a winner, and the roles are never reversed.

Tweetie-Pie and Sylvester; Bugs and Yosemite Sam; the Roadrunner and Wile E Coyote. It’s a strange dynamic for a work of fiction. If your protagonist is never under threat, where’s the jeopardy? How can the perennial winner be a hero?

I suppose it works on the basis that, in real life, the winner is the underdog. The mouse generally loses to the cat, the bird loses to the cat, the rabbit loses to the prospector, the roadrunner loses to the schmuck with a middle initial. It must originally have been an interesting inversion of the natural order.

But after a while, that premise must have worn off. Suddenly the story is just about a dick defeating a starving wretch. No-one cheers for the Roadrunner, do they?

That’s the thing, I suppose. I’ve never met anyone who cheered for the Roadrunner. Even though the bird and the mouse are ostensibly the heroes, we want to see them beaten.

Wile E Coyote is the real hero.

Which makes the whole thing quite depressing really. We keep watching, knowing that we’ll never get what we want. These cartoons are just harrowing vignettes of perpetual disappointment. It’s a wonder they’re so popular.

Anyway, I’d like to see a cartoon featuring Garfield and Jerry. I think they would enrage each other, and not in a conventional way. Garfield would be his usual curmudgeonly self, and Jerry – sensing that his foe was unwilling to engage in a chase – would get antsy, and would probably turn to drugs.

The final insult of this billboard was that Garfield and Jerry were not to scale. They were presented as being the same height. Ridiculous. That kind of unreal nonsense is part of the reason that I ignore all advertisements, and never give them even a second thought.

That sulphur bath smelled bad. I can still smell it. The mud made my skin feel nice, though.

There are photos of us all mudded up, but I’m not ready to share them. Also, the internet isn’t working here, so by the time you read this, it will be Day Six. Who knows what kind of reptiles we will have seen by then?

***

Oh. It's working again. That's good. It's still today. See you for Reptile Watch 2013 again tomorrow. Chris Packham will be dressed as an egg.

Holiday 2013 - Day Two

I usually start my blog post with a relevant photo. With these holiday entries, it would make sense to use actual holiday pictures. We have taken some, but don’t have the facility to get them onto my computer. So for now, I’ll just have to use text to paint a picture.

UUUUUUUU

IIIIIIIIIII

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

Look. That’s an accurate depiction of wine glass parts, before assembly.

It’s hot. How hot? So hot that you could fry an egg topless.

Our first day was a mixed bag. I'm not really interested in giving a full description of the resort and town, but it has nice food, music that’s too loud, a nice pool where the music isn't so loud, other people (none of whom we've spoken to, but they all seem fine), some birds, some insects, a spectacular mountain, lots of paragliders, a shingle beach, lots of touristy shops and bars, and a mysterious cat.

I don’t really like the idea of doing a serious holiday journal. It’s not just because of the reasons I listed on day one’s entry, but just because I get bored relaying things. I've lived them once, I don’t want to relive them in pithy sentence form.

It will probably make this whole thing unreadable. Then again, my blog has always been about nothing in particular, so this will just be a continuation of that. But slightly more Turkey.

I don’t really have enough clothes for this trip. I'm going to have to make some new ones out of local materials (kebab meat, fezzes and... oh I can’t even be bothered to be racist. It’s too warm, really. And now I'm stuck in brackets. How embarrassing.)

My problem is that I'm writing this on Day Four, so I can’t just share my current thoughts. I have to remember what my thoughts were two days ago. I can’t even remember what my eye colour was two days ago.

I’ll just skim over the past and get to the present.

CAN I BE THE NEW MICHAEL PALIN NOW PLEASE?

Holiday 2013 - Day One

I’m in Turkey. The country, not the supermodel.

But geography can’t stand in the way of a good blog post. It can’t stand in the way of a bad one either.

Don’t worry though. This won’t be one of those annoying holiday journals, full of sunny photos and descriptions of exotic meals. I hate those things.

As far as I’m concerned, anyone who willingly talks about their own holiday is a filthy scumbag. I don’t even want people to enjoy their holidays. But if they have to enjoy them, they should have the decency to hide that fact from everyone. Even if they’re directly asked how the holiday was, people should simply shrug and mutter something about mosquitoes.

When I see someone outlining the joys of their vacation, I feel sick. And as for people who post holiday snaps on Facebook? Vermin.

Worse than vermin. Liars. Lying vermin. It’s always an airbrushed, carefully edited selection. You never see photos of the corpses and cockroach vomit that comprise most foreign excursions. And to misrepresent travel like that does a disservice to Britain. If you chose the right pictures, even a weekend in Gosport can seem like a technicolour wonderland.

So it won’t be one of those. I’m not going to brag about the fun stuff I’ve been doing. If I mention an event and you think it sounds like fun, you’re wrong. It isn’t fun.

Nothing is fun. Holidays are always terrible, and this one is no exception.

Hmm.

I may have gone a bit too far in the other direction. I do want to avoid gloating, but I don’t want to go the other way and make it into a whiny confessional. I don’t want it to be disaster laden Watchdog misery porn.

It should be something in the middle. I’ll be even handed. I’ll give you the facts and you can make up your own mind. It will be like a David Attenborough nature documentary. Yes, there will be scenes of tremendous beauty. But there will also be brute facts of the natural world. Real life isn’t one or the other. It contains both heady highs and disturbing ant fungi.

I’ll start with the journey. I’ve just realised that I can write an entry for each day, boosting my post count. It will make me look prolific.

We got the plane from Gatwick, and we had a two-hour bus trip on either side of the flight. It was a long day.

At the airport, we saw professional know-it-all John Sessions sitting in Pret A Manger. It was probably the most middle class piece of celebrity spotting ever done. I’ve emailed the story to Heat magazine, but have yet to hear back.

The flight itself was four hours of being in the sky. We were flying at sunset, which I don’t think I’ve done before. We were travelling east, so the sunset was twice as fast. You can get things done more quickly if you work as a team.

The sinking sun made the evening look apocalyptic; big plumes of cloud like atomic candy floss. As night fell, the roads far beneath us glowed like rivers of lava. I ate some biscuits.

We were exhausted by the time we got on our connecting bus. We were told to put up the arm rests on the outside seats in case we were flung out at sharp corners. Lucy’s arm rest didn’t work, so I held on to her leg. I should consider seatbelt as a possible future career path.

We barrelled along the dark alien roads, hot and barely conscious. We passed strange signs in a language that seemed totally not English. It was as though we were in a different country.

We were discussing whether or not Turkey was in Europe. We hoped that it wasn’t, because it will sound more exotic when we tell people about it. But not you, dear blog reader. We know each other too well for me to invent minor geographical milestones. Except the time I went to Super Wales.

I’m pretty sure we drove past a shop called ‘Pedo’, but I don’t want to google it to check.

We arrived at our hotel at 2am and pretended to listen to what the receptionist said. Before being shown to our room, they stuck paper wrist bands on us. This was so we were identified as guests of the hotel, so we could get our free meals and wouldn’t wake up in a bath full of ice, sans kidneys.

I don’t like the wrist band. I don’t like wrist band as two words, even. How does the spell check feel about wristband?

It’s fine. I’ll use that from now on.

There’s something a bit demeaning about wearing it all the time. I don’t like being marked out. Wherever we go, people are judging us as clueless tourists. It’s true, of course. But I prefer the old-fashioned method of exposing my own ignorance through conversation and too much politeness.

The wristband makes me out as a member of a certain group. It’s oppressive. “Now I know what concentration camp tattoos must feel like,” thinks an appalling man who has nothing to do with me.

My first thought was actually the film The Running Man. Or is it just Running Man? I can’t check. The internet here goes in and out. That’s why I’m writing this in Word. You might find the font or formatting of this post unfamiliar. If so, it will give you your own flavour of exotic adventure. This is a reciprocal relationship. You’re feeling what I’m feeling, and I’m guessing what you’re feeling.

In Running Man, there’s a prison camp where the convicts wear explosive collars. If they leave the prison grounds, it detonates, and the wearer gets all blown up and that. I don’t think this wristband is explosive. But I have it on my left hand anyway, so it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

I keep wanting to take it off, but I can’t. It’s waterproof, so at least we can go swimming. But can we swim in acid? There’s plenty of time to find out.

We found our room, which is perfectly nice. I eventually got to sleep. Lucy didn’t.

That was our first day. It seems a bit negative, this post. I’ll grant you that.

But I’d like you to keep in mind a couple of things.

Firstly, we hadn’t yet seen the hotel or the grounds or the town. That was to come in the second day. So any negativity on my part comes from the inside of my head. You can’t blame Turkey for that.

Secondly, I’ve been re-reading Stewart Lee’s book here, and so I’m sure I’ve taken on certain elements of his writing style. He’s sarcastic and glib. I can’t imagine him writing a gushing holiday journal. Having said that, he does describe various interesting places he’s been on tour, interesting people he’s met, and life-changing experiences he’s encountered.

These are all explained through a veil of cynicism. But shining a torch on your life, even if it’s a critical torch, is still reprehensibly arrogant. Just because you’re glib, it doesn’t mean you’re not a dick. Just because your holiday journal is peppered with misery, doesn’t mean you’re not forcing strangers to read about it against their will.

It’s a lesson I have learned, and will continue to ignore. I need to keep this month’s post count up after all.

Stick of Rock

It's been a while.

Please excuse the large gap between the past and the present. I've been on holiday, so have not been able to type words into this box. Luckily for you, I have loads of hilarious holiday-based material to mine. I've made some pretty stunning observations about air travel that could well be revolutionary, and have also taken a sideways look at the Italians.

With nowhere to record the many one-liners that have popped into my head, I've had to store them up, stuff them in my hand luggage, and hope that some of the more Allah-centric of them don't cause a ruckus at immigration.

And so here it is. My comedy holiday review:

I saw several lizards.

Thus concludes my comedy holiday review. I hope you enjoyed it. I'm the new Bill "The Bison" Bryson/Michael Palin/that guy who wrote A Room With a View. Robert Forster, I think it was.

Interesting. In 1998, Robert Forster was in both the remakes of Psycho (with Vince "There's Something About Him I Just Don't Like" Vaughn) and Rear Window (with Christopher "I Don't Actually Have An 'S' In My Surname" Reeves). He obviously chooses his roles based on the futility of the project.

I hope I haven't missed anything important while I've been away. Everyone in Oxford seems to be speaking Space-Russian and wearing explosive obedience collars, but I assume that's just a new fashion trend. I'm glad to see people mixing things up a bit.

I'm going to brush my teeth now. For me, it will seem like a few minutes before this blog continues, but for you it will be almost instantaneous.

***

I'm back. I got distracted after brushing my teeth, so about fifteen minutes have passed for me. For you, no time has passed. That means you're now fifteen minutes younger than me. Or fifteen minutes less old, depending on your starting age.

I can't believe that a simple distraction has increased my relative age. If I'd taken much longer, I'd almost be ready for relative retirement, which actually sounds quite nice.

I'm wearing a T-shirt which isn't quite dry. It's mostly dry; it's not too wet to take off. But it is noticeably damp. Why don't I put on another, drier, T-shirt? Because I don't have one. I only have four items of clothing, and three of them are cummerbunds. I have to be creative with design and shadow when going outside, so as to arouse no suspicion/people. The skill in minimising visible exposure is a lot like the skill of the magician: lots of misdirection and one jaded rabbit.

Have you missed this? I've missed it.

***

There was a dull photo of a sink at the top of my last post. I'm worried it might have put people off. So I've gone for something more exciting this time. The three blasts above seem to be re-enacting the famous Cleese/Barker/Corbett class sketch from The Frost Report (I can't seem to find a good version of it on Youtube, but you know the one I mean).

The explosion on the left is upper-class, the one in the middle is middle-class, and the one on the right is a furious Ronnie Corbett. I think it says a lot about social hierarchies and flammable stuff.

Have you missed this? I have.

Still, I don't want to over-extend myself on my first time back. You have to walk before you can run. You have to crawl before you can use the expression "you have to walk before you can run". The process is slow, but I should be firing on all cylinders by the middle of next week. By which time I hope to have made up those errant fifteen minutes of youth by being briefly encased in amber.

Beaming

I'm writing this from an unusual seat. In fact, it's an unusual building.

But my brain is thoroughly usual. As is my face.


I'm in a cottage in the Cotswolds. There are beams and everything.

I'm pointing at my eye. I tend to do that every now and then. There's no particular reason for it - it's not a special eye. In fact, I have two. The other one is in the corresponding area of the Western hemisphere of my face.

I might review this region of the country in a future blog entry. Or I might not. I'm notoriously unreliable.

That's not true. I'm not notorious in any way. I'm not-notorious. Or nottorious.

Or torious.

I wanted to write a blog post to keep my hand in. Or my oar. Or keep my end up. But I think I'd rather be reading.

I have a book of Kurt Vonnegut short stories that is very good.

I am reading, I suppose. I'm reading these words as I write them. But - and I don't think this is underselling myself - I'm not quite as good as Vonnegut.

Then again, I'm sure he went through a long editing procedure.

It may surprise you to know that these posts don't go through a long editing procedure. Or an editing procedure of any length. The words plop right out of my brain, through my fingers, onto the keys, into the computer, onto the screen and into your eyes through photons or something.

At no stage is thought involved.

If you read my previous entry, seeds of suspicion that this is the case might well have been sewn.

That was a clumsy sentence. But, as discussed, it can't be edited.

Anyway, I don't think the Vonnegut stories were as fresh and organic as this. Which is why (though they are technically "better"), they don't provoke the same visceral thrill as reading these words.

What will I write next? Even I don't know. It might be something about a turnip wearing a pork-pie hat. But it could just as easily not be.

I think I'll go for the more cerebral and "well-written" Vonnegut-reading, rather than the exciting, ramshackle, "not well-written" words of my own thinking, fingers, keys, screen, photons and eyes.

Or I might watch The Man With The Golden Gun.

Ben Grimm and friends

Some things have happened to me. Not interesting things (you Facebook voyeurs can move away from this preview now and continue building a new Gulag as part of a hilarious application).

But things nonetheless.

Thing #1

On Monday, it was my birthday. I'm now 28 years old. And 40 years young. Which makes me -12. Which coincidentally is also my shoe size. I have trouble finding socks that fit correctly.

I'm not a big fan of birthdays. They don't depress me, but they don't impress me. I like to avoid attention, I'm not too fussed about presents and I have a pathological fear of accurate badges.

I should check what I've written about in past years to make sure I'm not repeating myself. And then I can copy them out to make sure I'm repeating myself verbatim.

In 2007, I wrote:

I suppose I should write about my birthday.

I'm not doing anything special. In fact, I'm at my desk, at work, and it feels just like any other day (except I've been decorating Christmas trees).

But still, I am 25. 25 years. It seems like a pretty long time. 25 is really the first of the landmark birthdays to be a negative one. 18 is fine, it means you can legally drink. 21 is a coming of age thing. 25, though. You're grown-up then. At 25, I could be on Friends (the first series).

I think your prime decade is probably 25-35. After that it's essentially downhill. And I haven't really got as much going on in my life/career/experience as I'd like.

By now, I should have toured with a punk band or invented a cylindrical waffle or made my first million. At this rate of income, I'm not going to make my first million until I'm around 100. And that's if I don't spend any of it, which seems unlikely. The chance of me resisting ordering a Domino's pizza for the next 75 years isn't high.

I'm not crazy about birthdays. I think the mother should receive gifts on the anniversary of their child's birth instead. They did all the hard work. Except my mum had a Caesarean Section - lazy.

My disinterest in my birthday is made worse by the memory of how excited I used to be at this time of year.

I couldn't sleep. Birthday then Christmas! Brilliant! But now I feel cynical and old.

25.

To be honest, my age doesn't really bother me. But lack of achievment is. I think the coming year will be a big one.

I'll be sending off writing everywhere and trying to find some calling. In a year's time, if I'm still writing this blog, I'll be able to see how far I've come. And I'll realise that I'm still an office temp with delusions of grandeur, and I'll pierce my temple with a stapler.

Oh well, at least Lucy's made me a spectacular cake!

(That's made a cake for me, rather than making me into one. Although, rest assured, if I were a cake, I would be fucking spectacular.)

Well, I'm not a temp anymore at least. And Lucy made me another spectacular cake! I took photos of it, but can't seem to extract them from my phone.

In 2008, I wrote:

Me, December 13 2007: To be honest, my age doesn't really bother me. But lack of achievment is.
[2008 Paul - Man, my grammar was used to been rubbish!]

I think the coming year will be a big one. I'll be sending off writing everywhere and trying to find some calling. In a year's time, if I'm still writing this blog, I'll be able to see how far I've come. And I'll realise that I'm still an office temp with delusions of grandeur, and I'll pierce my temple with a stapler.

Well, I'm not an office temp anymore! I have a permanent office job! So. That shows you, you idiot of the past! What do you know? (By the way, place a bet on Sarah Palin being nominated as the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate - you'll make a million pounds).

I still have delusions of grandeur, but I think that's a pretty good quality to have. If you're going to have delusions, they might as well be grand. And if you actually have grandeur (without the delusions), you're probably a bit pompous and annoying.

What kind of fool has grandeur? I'll tell you who: Terry Wogan. A year on and not much has changed.

But at least I've been doing something creative. I've written poetry and made a video. That's something.

I'm also doing a job that I don't hate, with people I don't want to stab. That's also something. Ricky Gervais was 40 by the time he made it big. I've got ages. In fact, I'm probably trying too hard, if anything. I might have all these blog entries pulped (e-pulped) and start smoking, just to give my inevitable success a little bit of suspense... [boring reviews edited out]


All in all, I'm quite happy at the moment. I don't think there's any need to pierce my temple with a stapler. It would be difficult to do.

Of course, the question is, what will I be doing in a year's time? Probably writing a defensive rebuttal to the 2008 Me explaining that although 2009 was the year I lost all my friends and became homeless, I'm still living a full life vicariously through the marionettes I've made from cigarette butts and rat-hair.

Well, 2009 Paul, I just want to say: you have my full, misplaced confidence. After all, this is a team game. I, 2007 Paul and 2006 Paul are all behind you.

(2005 Paul didn't want to join in. Twat.)

I didn't realise I was that self-indulgent so early. I didn't even notice my 2007 grammatical mistakes this time around. I must be getting old.

(This may get confusing. Just so you know, everything in black text is 2010 Paul)

I don't remember writing any of this. I'm as excited as you to know what happens next!

In 2009, I wrote:

It's just about my birthday and I'll cry if I want to. I'm my own man. Ain't no onion gonna tell me what to do!

[then a long, serious assessment of my teenage years and the film Grosse Pointe Blank]

So, I've started this birthday with feelings of nostalgia for an old film, which is itself about nostalgia. A little bit self-indulgent, but it is my birthday after all.

Anyway, I like over-analysing things. If you take things apart and scrutinise them, it makes the whole seem that much more wondrous.

I'm 27, but I'm still romantic and optimistic and excited by the world. Which sounds like arrogance.

It is arrogance. But it's also a big compliment, and a big thank you, to my parents, which makes it a bit more palatable.


That's it. I must have forgotten about the whole talking to future Paul thing. I do it in my anniversary posts anyway, so I shouldn't overuse the clever device. (I also recognise my self-indulgence. That's like double self-indulgence. Which is fine.)

Would 2007 Paul be happy with the things I've done since, and where I find myself?

To be honest, he probably wouldn't really care.

Hard to imagine, I know.

In conclusion: I'm doing fine at 28.

Thing #2

I got my hair cut.

That's two separate words. A noun and a verb (I think).

I also had a haircut.

That's just one word. A noun (I think).

Well, I had my hair cut, had a haircut and had several of my hairs cut.

And had a harecut.

And a boycott.

And had my boys cott.

(Hang on, I think this is heading into interesting territory...)

And...

my...

uh, Herr? Cut?

(I was wrong)

Here I am:

For most people, this would be the scariest picture they had of themselves. For me: ... top 5. Probably.

I've messed around with the colours and stuff. Lucy says I look like I'm wearing eye-shadow. Which I don't need to do. I have lovely eyes.

Look at me up there. Staring at you.

Yes: YOU.

I know what you're doing right now.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

And me.

I have short hair and a big, fluffy beard. I think I look like an interesting action movie villain. My friend Katy says I have an upside-down head. Another friend, Holly, says it makes my head look big.

But I like to stand out from the crowd.

I'm fearful and middle class, so my only means of expressing my status as a heroic indie pariah is by wearing a long leather coat, and having a terrifying head-enlarging, head-rotating beard.

I like to scare people as a political statement.

And I like to be mocked by my friends.

Which is also a statement of a sort.

I'm not one of those sheep that has a small, right-way-up head. I'm bringing down the government with the glare of my purple eyes.

Thing #3

I'm on holiday. Not sunning myself in Acapulco. I hear going there can lead to serious mental health problems

But I've finished work for two and a half weeks. The longest I've had off since starting my job.

I'll try to use the freedom to write more of these blogs.

Currently I'm a bit downbeat due to being buried in snow and poverty. But I'm sure my mood will improve with every delightful shopping trip and novelty bear.

What a world!

What? A world?!

Waterworld.

(Hang on, I think this is going somewhere...)

...

Wart.

uh...

whirled...?

...


....

*cough*

I should... probably... you know... head off now...

...stay ahead of the weather and stuff.

Gleanliness is next to Godliness

I've taken next week off work. It's the first full week's holiday I've had since Christmas, and is well needed. Hopefully it won't stop me from regularly updating this blog.

I considered keeping a daily Holiday Journal like I did last summer, but decided against it. We're just staying at home this time, so don't have the benefit of unfamiliar surroundings to mask the mundanity.

At least in Sidmouth, if I had an anecdote about seeing a bird, or looking for a pen, I could create an air of intrigue by mentioning it had happened near a beach. Beaches make everything more exciting. If you're on the coast, you're literally living on the edge. 50% of all people who live in coastal towns end up drowned. It's the price you have to pay for so many ice-cream vendors.

In Oxford, we're about as far from the coast as it's possible to be. Far from the edge. If I drown, it would have to be down to my own carelessness (like searching for a coin in the toilet and getting stuck) or some kind of foul play.

But I'm glad I don't live on the edge. The security of my geographical life provides an anchor for me to explore the vast dimensions of consciousness and human potential. I live on the mental edge.

People who live in Poole (to take a notorious example) aren't free to think about the nature of life, or cosmology, or evolution. They're too busy preparing sandbags in case of a flood alert.

Whereas I'm allowed free reign. It's this freedom that allows me to do what I'm doing now: writing a blog entry, listening to The Rolling Stones, wearing no trousers, straining my eyes in a dimly-lit room (as I'm too lazy to replace one of the bulbs), and reaching important realisations.

It's a noble quest. I think Socrates did this kind of thing. He almost certainly wouldn't wear trousers.

So I suppose I should impart some wisdom that I've gleaned. I don't glean often, but when I do glean: I glean. Here's what I've learned today:

1) The Departed is a decent film, but not that great

2) Lucy's lasagne is top-notch

3) It's impossible to absolutely finish all the washing-up

That's it. A noble quest, as I said.

***

I wish could use those three asterisks in real life.

Whenever I was boring myself, or digging myself deeper into a conversational quagmire, I could just hold up three asterisks and we could all move on.

I'd have to do them simultaneously, or they'd think I was referencing a footnote. And I'd have to get a friend to stand at the end of the room with a corresponding asterisk, ready to fill them in on the extra information. He could be dressed as Asterix, just to add an extra layer of confusion to the whole affair.

***

I should probably stop now. This evening isn't going to waste itself!

Holiday Journal - Day 9

Holiday Journal - Day 9 - 31/08/08

We woke up after very little sleep and struggled through the journey home. Somehow our luggage seemed to increase in size ten-fold, and we had a million bags to carry through assorted trains and buses.

I had left-over pasties from the party for breakfast and lunch. I now feel about 50% pasty (up from my usual 30%).

Coming home was great. Nothing had been stolen, and there didn't seem to be any floods/murderers. There's no socialising to do, and we can walk around in the nude. I'm sure my parents wouldn't have said anything if we'd tried nude-walking in Sidmouth, but propriety caused us to be clothed.

So, the holiday is over. And I'm fucking shattered.

I always feel that you need a week off to recover from your holiday. It's like a quarantine procedure. I'd like to be purged of the trauma of novelty and scheduling and unfamiliar linen. But there's no time, and I'm off to work tomorrow. It will be a culture shock to find myself suddenly in a world where spreadsheets are everywhere and incest is frowned upon.

And I'll get some rest when I'm retired, I suppose.

Holiday Journal - Day 8

Holiday Journal - Day 8 - 30/08/08

It was my mum's birthday today, which meant a day-long session of socialising, talking to strangers and pretending to be interested in things. It was knackering.

The trouble with greeting people at a party like that is not only do I have no idea who anyone is, but I don't know who knows who. There were probably several subtle webs of associations that I wasn't aware of, so I just acted polite and tried to stay out of everyone's way.

As our garden room was part of the party set-up, there was no refuge. I could have avoided some of the awkwardness by drinking alcohol, but I've decided not to drink any more. If I'd have gotten wasted, it might have made for a more interesting time.

I had to make an embarrassing speech in front of everyone. I should have done some of my paedophile jokes.

All in all, it was a tiring end to a tiring week, and one of the least relaxing holidays ever. I know I shouldn't whine about it. After all, it was nice to have some time off, and to stay in a nice place.

But still a blog is a haven for whine-age.

Holiday Journal - Day 7

Holiday Journal - Day 7 - 29/08/08

Lucy made a cake today. I wasn't of much help, but did enjoy spreading the icing and getting it all over the table-top. It was a birthday cake for my mum, who's 50 on Saturday.

It seems like a momentous birthday, but it's not really. The importance of 50 isn't real, just make-believe. Even in a purely mathematical sense it probably isn't that important. If we judged birthday milestones on mathematical importance, we should have special celebrations whenever we reached a prime number. Or a perfect number.

I don't really know much about those, so any further speculation is ruled-out.

In the morning, we went out for a cooked breakfast, which I heartily enjoyed (although I'm sure my heart didn't). The only problem was three large flies hovering around the cafe. Nothing conveys filth and depravity more than three large flies. Also, there were sautéed potatoes, which I don't consider part of the Full English.

I remember having a conversation about how the Full English was the Top Trump of foods. We then had to explain to a German friend not only the nature of the Full English, but also explain Top Trumps. It was confusing. We also once made her watch Back to the Future II when she hadn't seen the first one. Understanding the second film out of context is almost impossible. Still, confusion is an important part of personal development.

After cooked-breakfasting and cake-baking and Lucy-hair-cutting, we didn't do much. We watched Mock the Week with my parents, and felt embarrassed at the more offensive jokes. I'm very sensitive.

Back to work soon. I'm looking forward to being in Oxford again, but I don't know about the whole 'work' thing. I'm already looking forward to next weekend and my next day off.

Holiday Journal - Day 6

Holiday Journal - Day 6 - 28/07/08

Today I wrote a blog entry.

The only other thing of note is that Lucy dyed her hair. It's dark red and very nice.

I dyed my hair once. I meant to go blonde, but I didn't leave the dye on long enough, so it came out all orange. No pictures were taken, so I may have imagined it.

Apart from that: same old, same old.

I didn't even have any interesting ideas. I thought I'd had an interesting idea, but then I realised it was: "I need to go to the toilet", which was less an idea, and more a physiological impulse. And it certainly wasn't interesting.

My brain activity is approaching zero. When I return to work, I might need to snort some raw ground coffee or drink a mug of hot cocaine to jolt me into action.

I could affix a defibrillator to my face, but I can't really be bothered.

Holiday Journal - Day 5

Holiday Journal - Day 5 - 27/08/08

I really shouldn't have built this up as a 'journal', as the entries have been rubbish. Most peoples' journals probably include details about their bungee jumps or holiday flings or the time they almost saw Cilla Black in a New York H&M's (that one actually happened to me - good times).

Today we went for a pleasant walk up to Connaught Gardens in Sidmouth, which is a pleasant place to be. Then we retired to a cafe for some Earl Grey tea and a slice of cake. All very civilised. And pleasant.

I still don't feel very relaxed. But I do feel tired. Intense fatigue is a bit like relaxation, because you don't move much.

In the evening, we watched Liverpool almost lose, and I ate too many chocolate fingers.

And that, my friends, is it. Wow, that was a whole lot of nothing. Maybe I did do some more exciting things, but have forgotten them. I'm writing this on Thursday after all. You can forget a lot in half a day.

Did I go bungee-jumping? I don't think so. Did I see any celebrities? Well, I did see someone who looked like a handsome movie-star, but then I realised I was looking in the mirror! Then I wept...

Maybe I was drugged and subjected to strange experiments. I did sleep in quite late. But I don't feel particularly sore in any sensitive areas.

So I suppose it must just have been tea, walking and footie on the television. What a life I lead.

Oh, there is one other thing. In the evening, my mum reminded me of 'back-slang' which is a kind of Pig Latin variant that we used to speak as a child. It's impossible to convey written down, but involves adding the sound 'aig' into every syllable. We proceeded to speak this way all night, until we no longer had any sense of normal language or propriety.

To demonstrate the language, I'll embed an audio file of my reading the first stanza of a D.H. Lawrence poem in back-slang. Read along with the recording. I'm sure it will entertain you. Sure.

Brooding Grief

A yellow leaf, from the darkness
Hops like a frog before me;
Why should I start and stand still?

(For some reason, my voice will only record at a very high pitch, but high voices are always funny. That's why I keep children in my basement.)

Holiday Journal - Day 4

Holiday Journal - Day 4 - 26/08/08

For a change of pace, we went into Exeter to do some clothes shopping.

It was awful.

Exeter was hot and crowded and full of idiots. Idiots like shopping because they are in constant need of stimuli. Their brains are too shallow to process anything with depth, so they have to cram as many objects into their lives as possible, swiping them across their consciousness like a supermarket check-out. Idiots.

Also, idiots can't walk properly, so they're always in the way. And they can't regulate the volume of their voices, so they yell and whoop like a Spaniard in an abattoir.

I bought lots of new clothes, which should tide me over for a couple of years. I bought lots of socks - a huge assault in The War To Own Socks, which I had been losing up until today. All my socks are odd and full of holes. But I'll never give up.

On the way home, the bus was filled with loud idiots. It was rubbish.

Coming back to Sidmouth was quite nice, though. Although the shopping trip wound me a few notches tighter, I loosened up somewhat in the evening.

This is the first day where I would have been working if I was back in Oxford. It's good to not have to be there, but I can't shake the feeling that I'll be missing lots of fun at work. If I find out that all my colleagues had an impromptu orgy at Alton Towers, I'll feel left out to say the least.

I realised today that my ideal holiday would be staying at home and using unspent trail/plane fare on Domino's Pizza and videos. Holidays are far too stressful. Any period of time where I'm required to wear trousers cannot be considered a true holiday.

It provides a handy key: the fewer clothes I wear, the more relaxed I am. Some day I'll shave off all my body hair and achieve something close to nirvana.

Holiday Journal - Day 3

Holiday Journal - Day 3 - 25/08/08

I've realised that this journal is approaching levels of tedium usually reserved for student poetry and ITV dramas with James Nesbit in them. This is even duller than my normal life, because even though I'm doing similar things, when I'm in Oxford I'm doing them in a place with a larger population and a higher proportion of attractive people.

This morning, there was no dull sport to watch. But there was nothing to watch at all - an appalling range of viewing for a Bank Holiday. Where was Bedknobs and Broomsticks? Where was The Great Escape? I even could have stood for one of those identikit computer-animated 'classics' from Dreamjerks or Prixar.

I modified their names into an insult. That, my friend, is satire.
We were forced to watch Cool Runnings; a film that passes through so many layers of cheese and self-parody, that I got motion sickness and had to dry-heave into a paper bag.
In the afternoon, we visited a different set of relatives, and had an entirely different set of awkward conversations. I don't know how Lucy is holding up with all this socialising. This is surely no holiday for her - more like a community-service sentence. At least she hasn't been forced to pick up litter with a big spike yet. Yet.

In the evening we did various evening things, like eat and watch television. On occasion, I'd annoy people by playing a few chords on the piano - these are limited to the two bits of music I know how to play. Having a talented musical sibling makes things like that embarrassing for all concerned. It's like Alexander Fleming's younger brother seeking approval for inventing a slightly more capacious petri dish.

We came to bed early, to listen to some Russell Brand on BBC's excellent Listen Again service, and now I'm writing this.

The day might end with a fist-fight or a bull-fight, but it's too early to tell.

Holiday Journal - Day 2

Holiday Journal - Day 2 - 24/08/08

We woke up very late, which was enjoyable. I have yet to be disturbed by the seagulls. Wildlife plays quite a role in Sidmouth life. If it's not the noisy gulls or the crushable snails/slugs, it's the spiders.

As our room is separate from the main house, and is up the garden, we're susceptible to arachnid invaders. The main one lives in the door bolt-hole, and is surprisingly big. We've called him Usain Bolt-hole. We're too cowardly/caring to evict him, so we have to avoid him whenever we enter or leave the room.

In the early afternoon, we saw some of the Olympic closing ceremony. It was pretty good. Seeing Boris Johnson come out was a bit of a shock, though. I'm surprised he didn't make any racist comments or knock over the Olympic torch and set fire to Leona Lewis. A missed opportunity.

In the afternoon, we went up to have afternoon tea with my Granny and Great Aunt. It was the most English of affairs - a quaint cottage, freshly-made scones and cakes, little cake-forks, tea and awkward conversation.

In those situations, I feel that my powers are limited, because I can't fall back on my tactic of talking about ridiculous or obscene hypothetical situations. That's my only tool in social interactions. But when you're in polite and slightly aged company, it's difficult to ask what would happen if all world leaders and some wolves were locked in a branch of Ikea. I don't think my granny would really engage with that.

I think this will only be the beginning of the family socialising, which is a drawback to holidaying here. My extended family are lovely, but it's a bit difficult to truly relax when there's the possibility of a visit at any time. I still don't feel particularly relaxed. I may not manage it before we have to leave.

But still, I'm glad I don't have to wake up early. I think my ideal holiday would just be spending the whole time in bed. I could order pizzas and watch TV. Verticality is overrated. Almost everything fun can be done lying down. I bet very few injuries are caused when people are horizontal. I've seen the future. It's flat, safe and soft.

Holiday Journal - Day 1

Holiday Journal - Day 1 - 23/08/08
We woke at 10am, which was a bit early for my liking. I was hoping this holiday would consist of lots of post-noon awakenings. But there's still time for all that.

I had a tasty breakfast (of Crunchy-Nut Cornflakes), a tasty lunch (of Devonshire ham, Hayman's amazing Scotch Eggs and soft bread), a Devon scone with clotted cream and jam (fuck Cornwall) and a tasty dinner of salmon and vegetables. I may well gain weight here. I also had loads of Cadbury's chocolate fingers and a million cups of tea.

I watched a million sports, which alienated Lucy. That was not my intention. I saw controversial Taekwondo and dull running and duller football.

We went out briefly, but I didn't like it. Sidmouth is much too busy today, full of people in costumes and tourists (I could clarify my grammar there, but I like the visual of people in tourists), and it was all humid and crowded and I just felt ill.

We watched a little bit of Short Circuit which was much shitter than I remember it.

In the evening we watched some fireworks on the sea-front, which were entirely adequate. Workmanlike. Fireworkmanlike.

I'd forgotten how frustrating it is avoiding snails in the dark.

It's weird to be back here. I'm still not entirely relaxed. I hope I achieve relaxation at some point, because if I return to Oxford all tightly-wound I might snap and kill some people. I don't want to kill people for the most part, and I hope to avoid it.

Lucy bought a Guardian, which included a supplement with an interesting cover:


It's for an article about breast-feeding and is trying to show a woman suckling a goat (or something). It has generated some discussion.

I think it's fair enough. I mean, we drink cow milk. It's only fair that the exchange should be reciprocated. Of course, we don't drink directly from the cow's teat. Well, you don't.

All in all, 'Holiday - Day 1' has left me uneasy and conflicted, full of food and interesting visuals. I think any day that you see fireworks counts as interesting though. Unless you work inside a fireworks factory. In which case, it is utterly mundane.

But I don't. So it's not.

Vacation

I'm going on holiday today. Back to Sidmouth, the site of my early (classic) blog entries.

It's a holiday town, so it counts as a holiday, even though it was my everyday life for six months. If it has sticks of rock, it's a holiday. That's the rule.

I think I'm going to try and keep a holiday journal every day. I can write about what I've done, the places I've gone to, the people I've met. It will be short, I'll grant you.

My plans include any or all (or none) of the following:


- Buying clothes (I've run out of every type of clothe. I need pants, socks, t-shirts, shirts, stockings and ear-muffs. Of course in Sidmouth you can only buy old-people clothes, so might just come back with a long, grey mac and a brown checkered flat-cap. And a feeling of abandonment and confusion.)
- Drinking tea (I might just connect a teapot intravenously)
- Watching Inspector Morse/Star Trek: The Next Generation and doing stupid jokes in the voice of Morse/Picard ("Captain's Log: Stardate 674.2. I had to defrost my freezer today. Mr Data just laughed, the plastic twat" - and Lewis looks confused)
- Swimming in the sea (depending on the weather. Also, I haven't taken my swimming costume. Swimming naked in the freezing ocean will not display my physical form to the best of its potential. Also, my willy will shrink)
- Meeting a Famous Five-style group of wholesome, intrepid young people, and getting them to try mescaline
Trying to punctuate that list gave me a headache. Do I use full-stops? Can I put sentences in brackets? What about capitalisation? Screw it. It's my blog. I can make up my own rule's.