Hermits crabby

I am tracking a Ukulele on ebay. Cherry red with chrome bars. Yum.

It's in an auction. I like auctions. I love the thrill of the chase that comes with an auction.

I remember the time I tried bidding for Peter Noone.

You know, the Kennedy-looking one from Herman's Hermits.

Me Mam fancied him for Christmas, and - as he wasn't very big, and therefore wouldn't need much wrapping up - I thought I'd buy him for her.

He was on ebay.

I waited until the last twelve minutes of a seven day auction.

0 bidders.

Not one. "Starting bid 35.00 US dollars" - which is about 1 pound, seven and sixpence in English money.

So I bid that much. Surely Herman-boy would be mine.

And I refreshed the page every twenty seconds or so, to make sure I was still the wining bidder. And I was. I was!!!

I ignored the warning "You could still be outbid" because there were just moments left! Noone was mine. Mine! I had him, parcelled, on the sofa.

All I had to calculate was how I'd get him to me Mother's in Bournemouth, through the post...












I was outbid with 16 seconds left. Not even time to submit a new bid.

Tsk.

Mind you, personally speaking, I'm not a fan.

I'd rather listen to the Monks. Or the MC5. Or the Stooges (Larry couldn't drum, and Mo couldn't sing, but, fucking hell, Curly could play guitar)!

So take that, whoever pipped me with a High Noone bid. Something tells me I'm into something good.

And you're into something shit.

Anyway, obviously I didn't want to disappoint my Ma, specially at Cliffmas, so I had to find her something equally small to go in the wrapping paper.

£8.50.

Francis Rossi.

Saints Go Frog-Marching In

I was listening to the radio this morning.

That's the 'wireless' for those of you over fifty, the 'crystal set' for those over seventy and the "what the hell is that box making a noise in the corner?" for those of you over one hundred and four. Anyway, I digress.

There was a fellow on the radio, about to give the sports report. He was doing the 'two-way' with the main presenter about some breezy, chit-chatty thing they were talking about, and - as part of his reply - he indicated that a particularly smart-arsey listener knew more about SAINTS than he.

"There's a word for that; knowing about saints", he opined, "But I can't remember what it is".

"I dunno", says main presenter chap.

"You have four minutes to find out, while I talk about sport", grinned Sport boy.

Now, you need to know that at that point I was shouting "HAGIOGRAPHY!!! HAGIOGRAPHY!!! IT'S BLOODY HAGIOGRAPHY!!!!!" at the crystal set. I, clad in a towel - having recently emerged from the shower - reached for the mobile phone and desperately typed in the message, "He's looking for the word Hagiography!", so I could send it to the presenter.

The text message would not send.

WOULD NOT SEND!

This was stressful to the point of almost causing the regurgitation of my scrambled eggs and muffins. It wouldn't fucking send!

Four minutes later, Sport boy asks if presenter boy has got it.

"Nope", says dopey, "the internet just brings up Southampton Football Club..."

Oh. Ho, ho ho.

By this point I was too exhausted with stress to even shout again, and had collapsed on the bed grinding my teeth with unhappiness.

"I've remembered!", exclaims Sport bloke, "It's"..."Hagiography", we said together.

Dammit! I wanted to be right. Me. I did.

And the bloody text would not send.

That was a terrible start to the day.

I don't know why that happens, by the way. Well, either of those things. I don't know why I have an overwhelming urge to be first and right about everything. And I don't know why I know that the word is HAGIOGRAPHY. I just do.

There may be something intrinsically wrong with that.

The rest of my day was like a supermarket. Bright; loud; filled with people who don't want to have to interact with me; likely going to cost too much money, and not somewhere anybody would choose to spend the whole day.

I do not mean I spent the whole day pushing a trolley around; choosing between brands of tinned goods; squashing fresh bread and trying to work out which aisle had the most attractive check-out operative.

It was like a supermarket for the first list of reasons. Okay?!

I may have over-extended an already flimsy metaphor there... That may have been what caused that faint snapping noise some time around the words "likely going to cost too much money".

And now, to put the fecking tin lid on it, I realise we were both wrong. Intrinsically. Wrong.

Me and Sport boy - both utterly, devastatingly, depressingly and intrinsically wrong.

It should have been hagiology.

Smells Like White Spirit...

You see, they just feel the need to run their mouths off, don't they? Fools, that is. And their many subsets... The immature. Children. Teenagers. Racists.

You hear it all the time with teenagers. They'll be in the middle of a reasonably ordinary conversation about a third party (not present) when they simply splurt some complete and utter nonsense.

"Yeah, and, like, maybe he had, like, porridge in his eye!"

This is followed by that hideous snuffling, self-regarding giggle they feel they have to do.

Fnnnuffff, fnnnufff, fnnnufff. Fnnnuffff, fnnnufff, fnnnufff.

Bwarrrhhaarrhaarr. Bwarrrhaarrhaarr. Bwarrhaarrhaar.

This last bit, the very loud 'bwarharhars', is, by the way, entirely for the sake of ensuring that everyone - and I mean everyone - who might be within earshot (usually on the bus) understands that they have just said THE SINGLE FUNNIEST THING ANYBODY HAS EVER SAID.

Ever.

It then stands to be repeated several times.

"Like, porridge. In his eye".

More bwarharhars. Until eventually the grim reality sets in; they realise that they are not at all amusing, and they shut the fuck up.

But really they're just waiting for the next chance to say THE SINGLE FUNNIEST THING etc....

There is allegedly an Australian politician who has made some ludicrous public statement about how he would treat terror suspects. He uses overtly racist language, and would - he claims, bravely - use a car battery for the purpose of torturing people.

Bwarharhars. Many. And sadly not all his own.

He's gone quiet now, through (presumably) the same kind of embarrassment that the teenager suffers, I would hope. The embarrassment which comes with that horrible realisation of one's own awful mundanity.

But he's only really waiting for his next chance to say the single stupidest thing anybody has ever said.

The question is, 'do you have a thing about bats, Mr Wayne?'

God Almighty. The elder steppy has just come back from seeing 'Watchmen' at the cinema.

"What did you make of it?" asked I.

"Fnrrrfff shnerf shnuffy nerfff", she said.

She mumbles. Usually with her hand over her mouth; so lip-reading is ruled out too. It's a result, not of shyness, but of massive laziness. She just can't be arsed to speak properly, as it would take too much energy to move her face that much.

Anyway, apparently, if you ask three times the magic spell works and translates "Fnrrrfff shnerf shnuffy nerfff" as "It was all right, like, I suppose".

"Only 'all right'"? I wonder.

"Well, yeah, like, I din't get why that bloke's mask kept, like, moving and that".

"What do you think Rorschach's mask is?" I ventured, almost afraid to ask.

"Well, it's like, just a piece of, like, old cloth, innit?"

"Why would it have those shapes though?" Oh, I am so much the pedagogue now...

"Well, it's, like, ink and that."

"But why?"

"Dunno."

I explain, and wonder aloud how an eighteen year old can never have heard of a Rorschach Test.

"I suppose I, like, have and that, but it's like, you know, one of them words I have, like, heard, but not known what it was".

"And were you never once moved to find out what it meant on those occasions when you have heard it?"

"Cun't be, like, bothered, and that."

I think someone once used the term 'fuckwit'.

Not the steps we take; those we send...

I am listening to Laura Veirs. The truth is that Laura isn't all that good. There are several rather better at what she does than Laura, sadly (for her).

And I am planning how best to spend a week away from home, with what will likely be unlikely people in a place where there is nothing else to do.

Laura Veirs is not the answer, although the new Howling Bells album might be.

I have just tried in the briefest possible manner (attention spans of 18 year olds being what they are) to explain to my steppy that going off to University on the basis of moving in with her father is a big mistake. Not because of him, although I think there is an issue there - what with him being a complete dickhead and all - but because the WHOLE POINT is not living wth parents, surely??


So that'll guarantee he gets her as a lodger then...