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Sunday, January 30, 2005
I write this in a state of mental and physical exhaustion, after another weekend touring the streets and houses of Tunbridge Wells. My dad put us off the house we thought we liked by pointing out that it lacked privacy, what with the eyeball-to-eyeball view of the neighbours as you and they did their washing up and the public front which could well have the neighbours' kids and dogs running all over it come the summer. A home needs to be a sanctuary, a place to retreat to after work and commuting, so privacy is important. Oh, and we don't want to live next door to anyone with children. Ugh - heaven forbid. Today we saw a house that hadn't been redecorated since 1974, another house with a picture of Uma Thurman sellotaped to the front door and the owner asleep on the sofa, and another which was so cold that the vendor was wearing gloves indoors. But then we saw a house that gave us that tingle. Lovely open-paln lounge, secluded and spacious garden, three bedrooms. Shame about the boy racers zooming up and down the street, but I think this could be the one. Until my dad puts us off again. I will, of course, keep you posted. I visited Simon Finch Rare Books on Friday to choose my £250 prize. My eyes immediately fell upon a signed 1st edition of Philip Pullman's 'Northern Lights'. A snip at £9000. A paperback proof of 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets' was £4000. There wasn't much in my price range, but I settled on a 1st edition of Iain Banks' 'The Wasp Factory', a signed 'Interview with the Vampire' and a signed 'The Remains of the Day'. Friday night was karaoke night. I've been desperate to experience karaoke Japanese-style since leaving Tokyo, so I assembled a group of friends and colleagues - the ditty dozen - and took them to Karaoke Box Dai Chan in London's Frith Street. The rooms were smaller than those in Japan, and the competition to get on the mic fiercer, but everyone had a superb singsongy time, and I knew I'd had a good night when I awoke at 3am with ringing ears, a screaming head and a tongue like a dried-out cuttlefish. Sunday, January 23, 2005
Last month, fewer first-time buyers than ever entered the housing market in the UK. This weekend, as the kind of people who like to buck trends, Butter and I started to look for a place to live, a new MarkCity crib, somewhere for Syd and Nancy to run, play and chew - although we're also hoping to get a cat or two, which might not please the rats too much. Can cats and rats co-habit happily without the rats becoming a snack? Hmm, we need to research that one. Anyway, we've already visited most of the estate agents in town and been to view five properties. We're going to have to choose between a small two-up-two-down house or a large flat. I think we'd prefer a house, somewhere with a small garden which doesn't require too much maintenance. Lawn-mowing, and gardening in general, is one of my least favourite things in the world. I nearly killed myself once while mowing the lawn, chopping through a live lead with a pair of shears; there was a huge bang and a chunk of metal flew out of the shears. But I survived. What a way to go that would have been - even a terrible ironing accident would be better. I keep digressing. Of the houses and flats we've looked at, four have either been too grotty or too expensive. One house can't have been redecorated since the sixties, and I know that shouldn't put you off but... well, they even had a Huey Lewis CD in the bedroom. The place is tainted. Then we met the landlady from hell, who's selling a flat out from under the current tenant. The tenant wanted to buy it but then split with his girlfriend so can't afford it now. Unfortunately for him, the landlady had smelled cash so is now turfing him out and selling it to someone else. We saw one house that we really like, but I don't want to jinx it by writing much about it. Plus, you never know, the seller might stumble across MarkCity. Highly unlikely, I know, but stranger things have happened to me. In other news, I finally got my prize - vouchers to buy £250 of rare books - from Zembla Magazine. I promised to post the (very short) story on here, so here it is. It had to be fewer than 300 words and written under the title, 'What I wish I hadn't seen at the beach'. My girlfriend was like Othello, but ginger. I sensed her narrowing her eyes and watching me. Her sister had just taken all her clothes off and I didn’t know where to look. Fairlight Cove naturist beach was a fifteen-minute skip from the caravan park where I was staying with my girlfriend, Debbie, her sister, Amy, and her friends, Julian and the pregnant Juliana. Debbie had needed some persuading to come. ‘All those girls. Including my sister.’ Two years older than Debbie, Amy once had a poem published. She was blonde and pretty. Debbie loved her, hated her and thought I fancied her. I didn’t – I loved Debbie – but the more I was told I fancied Amy, the more I thought about her. Julian and Juliana were hippies. Juliana was planning to give birth in a cloud of dope smoke. ‘Public nudity equals freedom from the fashion fascists,’ drawled Julian. We followed them to the beach. I wish I hadn’t seen that man bend over and air his haemorrhoids. I wish I hadn’t seen Julian’s crooked cock. I concentrated on the sea. Nudist soup. Fat ones, skinny ones, little kids, old ladies. ‘I’m going to do it,’ giggled Amy. ‘Go on,’ urged Julian. Debbie glared at them. I watched Amy’s shadow as she pulled off her top; heard her unzip her jeans and wriggle free. My mouth was dry. Wanting to act natural and casual, I turned to talk to Amy. She had perfect breasts and a freckle on her hip. That night, Debbie cried. ‘You shouldn’t have looked.’ ‘I wish I hadn’t.’ ‘But you did.’ She carried on like this all night, sitting outside the caravan. I sat there and made reassuring noises while picturing her sister’s breasts. Saturday, January 08, 2005
The beasties above are the latest additions to our household: Titus the bear, Affonso the rhino and Hannibal the gorilla. They are members of the IWG - Insurgents Wilderness Gruppo, a group of mutated animals who have declared war on hunters and poachers. As well as being extremely cool, collectable vinyl toys, a proportion of each sale goes to wildlife charities. Happy Birthday Elvis, 70 today, wherever you are... sunning yourself on an island with Princess Di and Marilyn or working in a chip shop in Grimsby. An Elvis single is being released every week between now and the end of So there's a good chance that Elvis will have the 1000th No 1 single in the UK. Apparently, Jailhouse Rock is on course to be the 999th when the chart is announced tomorrow. On a much more sombre note - and I feel quite uncomfortable veering from the trivial to the horrific like this - we found out that the hotel where we stayed in Phi Phi, the PP Princess, was completely destroyed by the tsunami. That's completely destroyed. 49 staff and approximately 100 guests died; many more were injured. The before and after pictures are here, but be warned, they're terrible, especially if you've been there. Saturday, January 01, 2005
Over the last few years Butter and I have celebrated New Year in a number of ways: at a house party, at a temple in Kyoto and - possibly the best - sitting on my sofa while Butter languished in her sick bed. (Speaking of whom, she bought me a Gameboy for Xmas and has been hogging it all afternoon and I want a go!) Last night, we did something we've never done before: joined the throngs in London Town. We stayed at a hotel near Waterloo called the Mad Hatter - motto 'You don't have to be mad to stay here, but it helps'. Actually, it was okay, apart from the apple pie beds and the lunatic at breakfast (more of him in a sec). After a warm-up drink and a pizza, we went to see Bill Bailey, half-man, half-troll, at the Apollo. He was very funny, although he's been doing the same routine for years. Still, when you're onto a winner, why change things? The only moan I have is that, as always, the man with the world's largest head sat in front of me. I wouldn't mind so much but the bastard didn't laugh once. Perhaps he was a Belgian tourist who'd wandered in by mistake. Leaving the theatre at 10.15, we found ourselves among the madding crowd flooding around Leicester Square. Ah, it made me proud to be British: drunks fighting with corner shop proprietors while the police stood nearby munching KFC; swarms of chavs staggering towards the moshpit of Trafalgar Square, furtively smuggling Bacardi Breezers into the alcohol-free zone. We manouvered our way onto the Embankment, where thousands of people were crowding to get a view of the London Eye and the midnight fireworks display. We ended up watching it from behind the Royal Festival Hall, near some bins. It was highly impressive, although it had been scaled down because of the tsunami, and there was a minute's silence before midnight, which nobody in our vicinity was aware of. Finally, we went back to the hotel for a nice cup of tea. It was the most sober New Year of my adult life, and it was lovely to wake up this morning without a hangover. So, back to the breakfast-time nutter. There we were, peacefully awaiting our breakfast, when the man at the table behind us accused us of complaining about him. Then he thought we'd stolen his toast, and tried to take ours. He couldn't work ouy why he only had four slices while we had twelve (er, possibly because there were four of us and only one of him). He kept walking in and out of the kitchen, haranguing the staff, before returning to his table and muttering swear words under his breath. The best bit was when, just before he left, he walked over to the buffet, produced a plastic bag and filled it with rolls and fruit. Fantastic. My aim for 2005 is to not have a single accident. Oh, and we're hoping to buy somewhere. Expect months of tortured descriptions of the house-buying process. Happy New Year. |