Two nations separated by Piers Morgan

I was mulling over the differences between our colonial cousins in the Unites States and us over here in Wonderland. I've been doing this a lot lately what with one thing or another. We get to hear about the contumelies and brouhahas of the American body politic and I've enough friends, acquaintances and colleagues over there for me to have news feeds full of their various arguments for and against one or other course of action.

Over here, we tend to forget that the United States is a foreign country. And a very different one at that. The idea that it's the same as us but bigger, or worthy somehow of being patronised as a younger sibling with lots of big ideas that could easily be transplanted over here is, of course, a nonsense. We struggle to get our heads around the Tea Party and they struggle to understand our love of socialised health care. They have the constitutional right to bear arms, we have the constitutional right to make fists in our pockets so long as we don't make a fuss about it. This last point came home to me the first time I went to visit friends in the Wild West and we went shopping. Standing in the queue for the till I glanced at the mither merchandise. Where we'd have had sweeties or chocolates or copies of "Hello" magazine ("Dame Flora Robson shows off her amazing baby bump! Exclusive pictures inside!") they were displaying shotgun cartridges and boxes of bullets.

We need to respect our differences, they're what makes the world what it is. And we need to be careful when we try to transplant ideologies from one place to another that they're both viable and appropriate in their new environment.

Probably stuffing his cheek pouches somewhere

Well, that's Easter done and dusted and not a sign of the Easter Hamster, the wretch.

Most years the Easter Hamster can be trusted to trawl across the land bestowing chocolate teapots to all the little boys and girls who have been good throughout the year. A bit like Santa Claus with more disciplined whiskers and a cute button nose. It is a highlight of the magical year.

 But not this year, and I have been colossally good: I haven't killed any library managers; I didn't send the "Fuck off you stupid bastard" email(s); and I didn't throw bricks through any of the windows. That's pretty damned good by anybody's standards. And what do I get for that? Not so much as a sniff of a chocolate teapot, I even checked in the back garden underneath the fence panels I haven't put up yet. Bastard.

I notice he drank the glass of sherry and ate the dish of sunflower seeds, though.

April fool

Ken Reid's delightful "Jonah." Back in the days when you got your money's worth from your comics.

God bless D.C.Thompson. And all who sail in her.

Sailing by

People ask me what it's like now I've climbed aboard The Battleship Lollipop. It would not be too far a stretch to say that it was a rip-roaring adventure. In fact, it would be a craven lie. It is as it is.

Enterprises of great pith and moment do as such moments do and so it has done. You never spot all the snags until you've occupied the place, as the Afghans told Alexander the Great, and look what good that did him.

All that stuff you're reading in that Wendy's blog? I suspect we are both part of the same architectural experiment.

Now where did I put those fart machines...?

Should have gone to voice over

I am sore vexed by an advert on the telly. For spectacles. Sore vexed. It involves a grey-haired bloke sidling up to a mirror and saying:

"It's goodbye Trevor, and..."

He dons his glasses

"It's hello to..."

And that's the bit I can never catch. I'm convinced he says "Tito," which makes sense because he looks like Marshall Tito, but it doesn't seem right even for a spectacles advert.

Some of the ones I should have saved for the secret secret blog

Some more post titles lost to the mists...

• Now look what you made me do: I've squashed a chaffinch!
• Can you hear the Trappists sing?
• Blue geraniums will mean your biro's leaking
• Jamming with the Freddie and the Dreamers tribute band
• Jimmy's magic patch: a social worker writes
• We've had to nail down the mobile chip shop
• The Girl With The Peggy Mount Tattoo
• Arsehole's Comedy
• Heaven and Charing Cross
• The Shrieking Pit and other lollipop ladies

Dancing with tigers

Judging by the state of the The Cat I Don't Have the growing season is upon us, which is a tad premature given that the Daily Express is promising us another Ice Age and all the musk oxen you can eat at your local MacDonald's. At the moment it is 55% by volume fur, 10% garden debris, 5% exotic fauna and, optimistically, we'd like to think the rest is cat. I'm happy to take it on trust, I'm not going in there no matter how insistent the invitation.

Last weekend we were ripped from our slumbers by the most appalling caterwauling. The Small Object of Desire sat bolt upright, looked at her watch, realised it was not quite yet noon and said things Not Fit For A Sunday. I looked outside and saw that it was cat. She was sitting in the rosemary bush yelling like The Banshee Who Stood On Some Lego at Frankie Howerd, the cat from two doors down. They are not friends. We call him Frankie Howerd partly because he looks like the late Frankie's last Irish but mostly because he has the same vocalisations. It's quite unnerving to be lying there in the footstep hours of the night listening to something outside going: "Oooh... No. I'm down to my last titter." If he ever encounters the collared dove that sounds like Lesley Philips we'll be having Elstree on the doormat asking for royalties.

Guilt tripping

That Savvy and that Scarlet have decided to embark on the 365 day challenge (or in Scarly's case the 509 day challenge but she's always been a one for the wild excesses). This makes me feel tremendously guilty, given my neglect of this place. So I'll have a bash at it myself.

Let's see if I can make it last a week...

Career opportunities we missed

We were watching "It Shouldn't Happen To An Australian Zoo Vet" or somesuch on the Discovery Channel. Much time was spent on the business of giving a giant tortoise a barium enema. Isn't that brilliant? A world full of pain and misery and there are still people willing to go about the place giving tortoises barium enemas.

What a glorious and wonderful thing it would be to have that on your curriculum vitae: "I have the ability to give give tortoises the shits."

Fancy dress

The Small Object of Desire and myself are going to a wedding this Spring. Not ours, I hasten to add; we've had that conversation and although (a) we both have the dressing-up togs and (b) we intend living together for a bit, it turns out that neither of us are fussed enough to go to the expense and neither of us could fit into the clobber anyway. Somebody else's.

The tension, as always in these affairs, is clothes. The bride-to-be told her bridesmaid (The Small Object) that she can have any colour dress so long as it's mid-blue. Luckily, in the end they both fell for something in royal blue with a blue gauze-y thing overlaying it to make it look shimmery mid-blue which they can both live with. So that leaves the shoes. Women and shoes. You know what I mean. Made worse by the bride's having Very Strong Views On Shoes and the Small Object having completely different Very Strong Views On Shoes. As only women can. Even intelligent women capable of being quite sensible and practical when the mood takes them. Or perhaps especially so. I suggested wellingtons. I don't know how I survived into my fifties.

And then there's the elephant in the room: my suit.

"We need to think about getting you a suit."
"We did that last month."
"No. A suit for the wedding. What sort of suit were you thinking about getting?"
"I wasn't. Can't I go in my new suit?"
"No, that's your work suit."
"How about one of the beige linen suits I've got?"
"Because they're beige and because they've all got stains along the arms where you've spilt tea and leant in it."
"They're good suits. Very comfy."
"Not with those trousers. I can tell your religion when you're wearing them."
"So not them then?"
"No. What sort of suit are you getting?"
"How about something nice in Black Watch tartan?"
"We'll talk about this later."

The awful thing is: I'm now at an age where I can see myself buying and wearing a suit in Black Watch tartan.

Rubbing shoulders with the stars

I bumped into Eugene Pallette on the tram this afternoon. He was passing himself off as a matron from Crumpsall but the voice was a dead giveaway.

It's January. We all have to talk about snow, so here goes...

I spent most of this morning listening to the snow melting in the sunshine.


We've been largely snow and ice free round here this week (unlike Helminthdale, where a layer of ice hung around the pavements like last season's dog dirt). Yesterday tea time it started snowing properly for an hour then spent twice as long pouring down with rain, which made for an adventurous trip to the Co-op.

Then it started snowing with a vengeance.

The Small Object of Desire spotted it first: the sky had gone quite orange (the local light pollution bounces around quite remarkably in the snow light). I had a quick dekko out of the front door: big, big fluffy flakes of the stuff. Luckily we had no reason to do any other but to batten down the hatches for the night, herself gleeful 'cos she loves snow, me less so 'cos I don't like sliding around and falling on my arse. The Cat I Don't Have snoozed carelessly on the lady's lap (in between having a yawn and falling off the sofa). Winter Wonderland bliss of sorts. Right up to bed time. Which, of course is when the cat realises that it needs to go out for a crap. This, in turn, means that I have to hang around while the daft pillock gets back (we don't allow her a latch key because she keeps losing them). Sigh...

The plus side is that I got to spend ten minutes watching a couple of courting foxes running round the playing field across the road, which was quite sweet. The cat, quite understandably, has other views on the matter, as was made plain when she came back in a few minutes later.

What this council really needs is some dirty great Moscow State Circus posters plastered all over the windows

I recently had a drink with that nice Macy when she stopped at Clogtown on her whistle-stop tour of the stopped whistles of Olde England. During the course of the conversation she asked if I missed the other blog and I gave her a somewhat evasive answer. Which wasn't fair really, but I didn't want to get maudlin about it.

The truth of the matter is that yes, I do miss it, but I can't go back. I do miss the sense of community it engendered (and thanks to all of you for that) but reading back through it is painful: it's already a far-distant piece of history, just as much as Reckitt's Blue and Mazawattee Tea. It's an awful thing, God help us all, that those tales of mismanagement, fuckwittery and the infuriating waste of time and energy, staff and resources depict A Golden Age. Which is not to fall into the currently-fashionable trap of "It was all better when T.Aldous was in charge, he wouldn't have let all this happen." The generation of T.Aldouses and Marys, Julias and Reggies have a lot to answer for: even the best army would struggle in battle after it's spent two decades chasing sheep on pogo sticks and eating pebbles for no apparent reason. And now, and now... Oh God, you couldn't believe it. It's pure comedy gold every single day and I can't even bear to laugh at it.

So I can't go back there. I'll just have to stick here and make a nuisance of myself.

Drums along the Mersey

Visitors to our fair city are beguiled by the romance of the place names on our public transport systems. They marvel at the merest thought of St. Wereburglar, the patron saint of those who are law-abiding enough save under the influence of the full moon. They crowd over to MediaCit Yuk, the gleaming chromium-and-neon spires where once there were the skinners' yards, hoping to catch a glimpse of Simon Dee or even Michael Miles. And talk of Robert Shaw's Mumps makes young men quiver.

The trams are coming to Helminthdale. Sing calloo! calloo! callay!

Joy Division oven gloves

I've just noticed that these underpants have a label saying: "Keep away from fire." There are whole avenues of human experience that I've left unexplored...