2012 - 36

Jubilation

If nothing else this weekend offers up two favourite British moans - the weather and the Royal family. Sorry, did I say moans? I meant celebrations. The jet stream has decreed that Liz must shiver in her octogenarian skin if she wants to reach out and touch her people.

The news that Prince Phil has been taken to hospital has already prompted some people to forecast that this could be a tragic jubilee. I mean the prince is about 200 and standing in sub-Arctic conditions on a barge yesterday for 25 hours couldn't have done the old boy any good whatsoever. I hate to say this, but if it does turn out to be serious, it will be the ultimate let down on a week that (had it been held last week) might have been really good.

I have to be honest, despite feeling smatterings of pride, the whole thing has left me feeling slightly misanthropic and eager to lock the front door and watch old films.

Of course, it isn't helped by the fact I'm bunged up like a Glastonbury toilet. The virus now having transformed into a fully-fledged snot-fest. Still, I've not let it spoil my long weekend and we've taken the dogs for long walks (leaving me feeling drained but at least exercised); I've pruned the dead bits off of the apricot tree (and noticed that this year there probably won't be any fruit); mown the lawn, re-potted the nectarine tree (as it was looking a touch un-green) and finally got the weeding done.

To avoid hours of banal jubilee commentary, I've watched (the previously mentioned) old films; the new Chloe Sevigny TV series Hit & Miss (complete with prosthetic penis), listened to Classic FM, got involved in a discussion about the Alien franchise of films, became obsessed with something and generally said 'yah-boo sucks' to my ails. Tonight will involve the finale of Crunchy Gussets, another transsexual hit man adventure and possibly a second attempt at watching Aliens: The Special Edition, as last night's attempt was stopped after 20 minutes because the sound was out of sync. There's also Terminator on and that's always good for a laugh.

It's all far too exciting...

The wife is looking forward to a double helping of quiz fun this week; as we've decided to make a return to the Malt Shovel for their monthly quiz with the incredibly annoying host thrown in and his assistant who looks like the non-Welsh twin sister of Alex Jones (of the One Show) but with much smaller tits.

I have a reunion with some old work colleagues on Wednesday; a date with One El at't'pub on Friday (after another potential reunion Friday morning), and a possible visit to Peterborough on Thursday. Had the weather been better, I would have set up a mini-office in the garden, got the net book out and made a start on some writing. The short story I got most of the way through has veered off in an unexpected direction and I appear to have come to the conclusion that abandoning it might be better than trying to make it work. My brother-in-law says that books that write themselves are rarely any good and while I disagree with that, I know what he means, because normally when that happens you end up following stereotypes and cliches. This story has done the exact opposite of that and after adding a further 3000 words over the last few days, I've noticed that one of the two characters in it has changed and a bit too drastically.

Fuckwit has bought a new car; well, not new new, but small, compact and less likely to piss of the inhabitants of the street with his thoughtless parking antics. The irony is that he's had a mechanic out all day working on it because it won't start. Fuckwit's fat missus has been trundling around on Fuckwit's Motability scooter, putting the little rubber tyres under increasing pressure and begging a question that won't be asked here.

Fishwife and family seem to be taking the Jubilee like old pros, with bunting, a quite unseasonal barbecue and a procession of friends and relatives visiting and all making more noise than a Greek wedding. But they have two kids and I'm sure it's all done for them.

On a trip down the shops this morning, I heard some old woman wish the Albanian who runs the place 'a happy Jubilee', which might sound nice, but probably doesn't mean much to a man who 10 years ago lived on beetroot and gravel.

The Sexually-explicit family all piled into their Merc on Saturday lunchtime, dressed up like they were going to a wedding and they haven't been seen since; just a succession of strange eastern Europeans stopping for unspecified amounts of time until the door remained unanswered.

Obviously because of the Jubilee, nothing much else appears to have happened in the world; the most talked about news item, other than said Jubilee and Prince Phil's bladder infection has been the growing debacle of the England squad selection. Injuries have cost us, but the real cost has been the extreme lack of quality that has been picked. People are saying this is just a preparation and that the real objective is the World Cup in 2014. That'll be the one in Brazil then; obviously England's best chance of winning the trophy since 1966 provided they can kill all the members of the other teams before the tournament starts, because they won't win it playing football. Apparently, England are 10-1 to win this current competition. I wouldn't have a quid on them if the odds were ten times that.

And that appears to be that. Yes, tomorrow is also a bank holiday, but I'm already bored with having nothing to do. This long weekend has been a bit like Christmas with poorer weather and no presents. I do have a coconut cake to look forward to.

Blogger seems to continue having a mind of its own and will change format mid sentence for no rhyme nor reason. It's default setting seems to work like a frequency modulator; too long on something and it changes.

There isn't any stuff; it's all the same as it was yesterday, except I've been listening to some German music that I'm struggling to label - futuristic ambient guitar nonsense seems to be the best description and, sadly, my ghetto blaster appears to be on its last legs...