In a slightly rash move, I’ve just signed up to take part in the Nike 10K on October 8th. I’m on Team North (because we all know that North is best) and I’ll be in the second wave. Now I just have to get fit enough to actually run it…
Is what they’ve forecast for Wednesday. I am concerned. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced temperatures hotter than inside my own grumpsome, turbulent body. What will happen, I wonder? Will the tiny air-con units give up the ghost and cause mass hysteria? Will I involuntarily climb into the fridge? Will I pop?
It’s a worry. Especially as I have agreed (in a characteristically feeble attempt to augment my Mr Muscle physique) to attend yet another Body Pump. It’s the only exercise class in West London where you can simultaneously heave hefty weights and relive the pain that was Drop Dead Gorgeous by Republica…
So Russell T Davies is creating a Dr Who spin off featuring John Barrowman. At first I had visions of an embarrassingly camp romp through space, but then it was pointed out to me that Russell T Davies simply cannot fail to write compelling drama. How true, thought I, and rooting through good old IMDB I rediscovered Dark Season: my number 1 sinister kid’s TV programme of all time (much better than The Girl From Tomorrow).
It was one of the weirdest programmes ever beamed from the broom cupboard, involving kids getting their minds warped by pre-historic laptop computers, and then some mad old bat unearthing a giant metal ‘computer’ underneath the school. It had everything! Nutty woman happily trapped in a machine! Massive blonde electric-shock haircuts! Kate effing Winslet!! You don’t get kid’s TV like that these days, oh no. It’s all po dipsy la la dick n’ dom fimbletubby bungalow claptrap, and I should know as I have just spent four years being a student layabout.
The Beeb even think its greatness might’ve transcended the Atlantic, citing possible influences on Buffy’s creator Joss Whedon:
“Could Joss Whedon have been inspired by Dark Season when he was coming up for idea for Buffy? The whole plot about a school hiding ancient secrets beneath its foundations and an awesome Behemoth rising from its tomb, is very similar to Buffy and its Hellmouth beneath Sunnydale High. Could Marcie, Reet and Thom be a prototype for Buffy and the Scooby Gang?”
So imagine my horror to discover that Dark Season never even made it onto VHS! I need to see this series again in its entirety! Join me on my campaign to have this wonderous show re-aired or released to us, the adoring geek-public. Or y’know, just ignore this little rant from my 8-year-old self entirely…
Now I’ve discovered freecycle.org, I may never go to a normal shop ever again. Some of the items that people offer are amazing:
If you’ve not come across it, check it out…
You know that phrase, ‘burning the candle at both ends’? Well it doesn’t make sense, does it. Candles have to be the right way up, because everyone knows that fire defies gravity and doesn’t like being upside down. And even if it did, there’d be hot wax everywhere, which would just be messy and foolish. See? Fire knows best.
So anyway. Where am I going with this? Oh yes. I haven’t been burning the candle at both ends. But. I have developed a one-to-many (and indeed, one too many) relationship with alcohol, which was disabled my ability to refuse a second (or eleventh) drink. It’s all been about excesses in good company, rah rah film previews (ok, so there was only one, but I want to boast, despite the awfulness of the film), getting limbs caught in night bus doors (classy), random swedish ladies called Freda (who called me a Welsh rabbit), innocent smoothies as a substitute for proper nourishment… and… well… my body has responded accordingly.
I have an ulcer. No, not a stomach ulcer, it’s not got THAT bad yet. It is a mouth ulcer. No ordinary mouth ulcer, it’s a BIG ulcer, protuding from one side at the back of my tongue (making it look like a mitten for people with half-sized thumbs). It is stopping me from eating, drinking, swallowing and now talking. No more socialising for me this weekend, then. HSBC says no. Body says no. Simon says… well, nothing, because it hurts too much.
Humph.
Silver lining: until today I hadn’t gargled the Neighbours theme tune since I was about 7, when my sister and I used to try and do it without spitting all over the floor. Awesome.
1349 posts, 2901 comments, 3 different URLs, 3 different locations (Wrexham, Guildford, London), 14 redesigns, over 1000 images, 190,000 unique visits… and so much besides.
This weblog is 5 years old today, and it’s only just struck me quite how different my life would be if I’d never started it in the first place. I wouldn’t be in my current job, I would never have met an unreasonable number of lovely folk, and so much other inexplicable stuff besides.
Here’s to five more years of nonsense.
It’s just too easy to dirtyfy Damien Rice lyrics.
There’s still a little bit of your _______ in my _______
Ah, Friday afternoons…
The biggest downside of moving to London is my current lack of access to a piano. I am without keys, locked out of one of the most enjoyable facets of my life; the thing which inspired, calmed, grounded and sometimes astounded me. My fingers are growing wide and stubby.
I never thought I’d miss it quite this much.
Walking home from work is usually a very mundane affair – pop into the shops to get some munchie goodness, watch the teenagers playing football under floodlights, avoid the scary pub, nod at the couple of cheeky kids opposite the stadium, get onto my road, put the key in the door, etc.
At no point in my daily journey do I expect to see some creepy bloke in the nip at his bedroom window pleasuring himself for the whole world to see. But there he was – unashamedly gripping his todger and smugly glaring out into the street. It was about 7pm last Wednesday, when it was still quite light – evidently this was more arousing for him than Emmerdale or Channel 4 News.
The little reaction-inducers in my head thought I should do the following things:
Now I’m pretty shy and obviously the consequences of 1 and 2 became clear to me from the outset, so I hurried down the road to my house.
Then I started to worry about the kids around the corner. Will they think it’s funny? Or acceptable behaviour? Will they be scarred for life? Will they just throw things?
So I decided to trawl the net, and according to Section 66 of the Sex Offences act 2003:
ExposureA person commits an offence if-
- (a) he intentionally exposes his genitals, and
- (b) he intends that someone will see them and be caused alarm or distress.
(more for the curious here, thanks to Naturist newsletter website)
I haven’t reported yet it to the police. Should I? Should I wait and see if it happens again? Maybe I’m the last witness they need to convict him? And would I be comfortable with that? Bleurgh.
As a giant social experiment (and also as a test of my drinking stamina and ability to navigate around the city), I attended three separate social gatherings last night; two south of the river and one quite a long way north. Travelling ate into drinking time substantially, which was a bad thing. In spite of the fact that these three parties contained very separate groups of people (my uni, work(ish) and warwick uni(ish)), the multiple party-going threw up a number of points about how small the world is:
All in all – sticking to one party would’ve been the best idea, mostly for the sake of my sanity…
minor9th.com is a weblog about music, running and geekery by Simon Pearson, a web producer and bathroom entertainer in London.
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