Addendum

While I'm on the subject of myself, having just reclaimed my identity, I would like to mention something. On Monday, during my tragic descent into guts-ache, I had the fortune to visit some friends around the area of Winchcombe. I'd like to make it clear that most people in this area are very friendly and welcoming. And that where we eat was great, with super food, etc.

However.

At least one person there took exception to the idea that a family might eat together, in a civilised fashion, in a restuarant. Today we have social problems of vast importance: family breakdown, parents and children at each others' throats, lack of communication, problems with diet....

so you'd expect people to be delighted to see a family eating with their young children and expecting good manners from them, you know, demanding pleases and thank yous, etc, etc.


Au contraire. In the minds of some of the Great British Public, that a child should be seen - much less heard - in public is still offensive.

And no, there was no screaming, shouting, running about, or anything else that could rationally be construed as offensive. Just children being happy and eating with mummy and daddy.

If we do want to do something, anything about our social problems in this country, we could do worse than encourage families to eat together, in situations where they are expected to behave well, rather than get all nineteenth century on their ass....no?

The Girls They Love to See You Shoot

Sometimes...if it is the right time; if it is too soon, they don't. Obviously. Easier said than, er, well, you know what I, er...

I wonder if the great Gang of Four realised this application when they penned the title lyric of this post. It seems to ironize the entire song, the entire surface meaning of an otherwise easily comprehendable track. What's the point?


I wonder why I am hinting at my sexual failings over the internet. It is that truly odd mixture, that bizarre conflation of the intimate and the professional that one gets with the internet generally and email and blogging generally. Why do we find this space which is at once private and at once so utterly, tantalisingly, public? It is the day by day equivalent of the party you used to go to where you'd occasionally find someone who didn't even know your name, or who couldn't even see you, but was still interested in you, and the feeling, if it was that, was mutual.


Oh, well, it is the way it is. My arms ache, my tummy aches, all the bits of my body with no muscles ache, I am weak and stupid and in pain.

Exercise kills.

Kids - just say no to the gym!! Have a pie instead!