Twitter - Shitter more like

I just don't get it - I know that it's supposedly a great marketing tool, and that you can use it to send up to 140 characters of information about your life to any number of people who might not otherwise know what you were up to all the time. But I don't get it - I can't follow anyone unless I know their e-mail address, and if I knew their e-mail address then I'd probably just e-mail them to ask what they're up to. I know my brother 'tweets', and I am constantly reading long earnest articles about how important it is to avail yourself of all the social media you can get your hands on lest you miss some important snippet of information, come late to a discussion about your niche or find that someone has tweeted something you disagree with and you're not the first to comment. I am sure I will get into it - it's my first day after all, and because I am doing it for work, I can't really just get fed up and jack it all in, but I really can't believe that it's more efficient just to e-mail the people you know and tell them that you're 'feeling slightly sick' or any of the other gems I have seen on there so far...

Shopping at Christmas

Yesterday I went to Tesco. I should have thought about it and not gone, but we needed to replenish the alcohol stocks for Christmas as the in-laws are coming over, and I thought I could pick up some light bulbs and Christmas crackers as well. Now, I know that supermarkets have several reasons for keeping all the drinks far from the front door - risk of theft, the hope that as people wander round the shop they will get distracted and buy something else too, not to mention the pretence of relevance which they maintain by keeping 'seasonal items' by the front door - but as far as I am concerned, any place where you are expected to put eggs in your trolley before you get 4 cases of Bow is severely misunderstanding good shopping practice. So, savvy shopper that I am, I loaded up with booze which I then delicately accessorised with a light sprinkling of fruit and veg in order to give the impression that I am not a raging alcoholic. Then I searched for the light bulbs - I started in 'Household Goods', checked the aisle-end displays in case they were hidden there, took a brief spin round the pet food aisle, and then cracked and asked a member of staff. 'They're over by the entrance, in the non-food section where the electrical items are'. I had not realised that light bulbs now came under the heading of 'electrical items', but by this point I wanted to jam light bulbs in my eyeballs, so I just said 'I'll kill myself if I have to go over there again - fuck it, we'll have Christmas in the dark.' If I see her again on one of my many fun jaunts to Tesco, I will apologise as she looked as though she was scared I was going to just abandon my trolley and collapse in a quivering, crying heap. But I pressed on, unsuccessfully trying to make small talk with the surly checkout lady, wrestling my over burdened trolley back to the car and realising only when I got home that I hadn't got the buggering crackers either...

Losing my trousers in my lunch hour

Over the last couple of years, I have been making an effort to discount 'fear of looking stupid' as a reason not to do things. It's something that I feel has probably held me back at some points, and although I am not really shy, there are times when I have stood on the sidelines of something I wanted to join in with because I was worried about looking a tit. A look at almost any photo of me will reveal that this fear was entirely unfounded, as I have realised that I spend a large amount of time looking like a tit anyway, because my face does complicated and unwarranted things when I am not paying attention to it. But when I started swimming in my lunch breaks, there was no such fear - I worried that I would run over a small child as I drove into the car park of the school where the pool is, but I think that's relatively rational. I didn't worry about losing my trousers though, which is why I had no action plan when it happened. I went swimming as was usual, got changed, got in the pool, did some lengths and got out again. It wasn't until I was actually standing in a top, a towel and a pair of flip flops that I had a rummage around for my trousers. Assuming that I must be missing them somehow within the confines of the not entirely roomy canvas bag I take swimming, I had another rummage. 'Doh' I though as I abandoned the changing room to find the locker where I had stashed my stuff during swimming, assuming that they must have worked their way loose and escaped while I was trying to pick up all my stuff without getting it all wet. They weren't there, nor were they in the locker below, or any of the adjoining lockers. I went back into the changing cubicle for another fruitless search of my bag. I then began to wonder whether it wasn't that I had somehow managed to lose my trousers, but that someone had stolen them. I decided it was very unlikely that there is a pervert in the changing rooms who only likes trousers - my underwear was in there, so I figured the chances that someone would choose to steal my trousers were pretty minimal. So after I had looked in all the lockers in the changing rooms, all the cubicles and various other areas where I thought trousers might lurk, I decided to ask at the front desk, so I shuffled out into reception in my top and towel, only to find that instead of a friendly receptionist there was a group of school children waiting for their lesson. Evidently, I looked quite amusing but after bearing their sniggers for a short while, I decided to go and have a really good look in the changing rooms again, in case a pair of chocolate brown trousers had somehow been camouflaged against the white tiles or grey locker interiors. I had just decided that the only course of action was to flee to my car in my towel, ring work and tell them I was feeling suddenly sick, and then go home and try to avoid all our neighbours between getting out of the car and making my way into the safety of the house. I was happy to admit that I had lost my trousers, but I wanted to be there when people found out as I could only begin to imagine what would be said in the office if I wasn't there to answer questions. Fortunately, as I completed one final sweep of the changing rooms and gathered up my bags I saw one of the boys who works there wandering around and collared him. My relief was short lived as I tried to ask if they had found my trousers without sounding like a complete tit - I'm not entirely sure if it's possible to ask for missing trousers without sounding like a tit, but I am entirely sure that I can't. But the boy produced the trousers from under the counter and asked if they were the ones I was after (how many pairs of trousers did they have back there?), and I made my way back to the changing rooms with my trousers and the new-found love I had for my trousers and made my way back to the office without having to make any excuses. I did subsequently tell people about the mishap, but at least I was there to explain that it's a lot easier than it looks to lose a pair of trousers over lunch...

The tragedy of disappearing food

I have a slightly compulsive approach to food. Despite the fact that my mother is eminently sensible and would encourage my brother and me to eat a wide variety of foodstuffs, never really allowed snacking and was in control of our sugar intake, the more devil-may-care attitude of my father towards our health included allowing us to eat/drink condensed milk straight from the tin, serving 'experimental' dishes based loosely on recipes he had cut out of the paper and a completely unfathomable love of faggots and lardy cake which he tried (unsuccessfully I might note) to imbue us with. These contrary approaches somehow combined to form a bit of a monster - I have incredibly faddy eating habits, often falling in love with a product for weeks on end, only to abandon the industrial quantities I have purchased when a new treat takes my fancy. As a child I used to go into raptures when allowed to eat frozen peas, raw dried pasta and whole cucumbers. As an adult, with full editorial control over what I eat, recent food affairs have included tapenade (consumed with every meal at the height of its popularity), chav-wiches (a salt-and-vinegar crisp filled savoury muffin which makes me feel wrong, yet right all at once) and the current favourite, Belgian waffles with a dusting of icing sugar (our tolerance of dust is surprisingly high, so this is more generous than it might otherwise be). Despite the fact that the Boy Wonder mocks me mercilessly for the manner in which I acquire favourite foods, he is often the originator of a particular fad, but where he revisits a long-neglected foodstuff with interest and nostalgia, I will sample it already knowing that it wouldn't take much to make it onto my food-of-the-month list. The only problem (as far as I can see - if other people have a problem with the way I conduct my faddery then it's no concern of mine) with the way I fall in love with certain products is that there is a distinct correlation between the ease of procurement of a certain food item and the amount I love it. Unfortunately, the correlation is inverse, and so I often find myself fruitlessly searching for foodstuff which my brain and stomach are telling me must be there, but my eyes are putting up arguments like 'Seriously - if they were going to be anywhere, they'd be here, and they're not, so just try somewhere else. No, you haven't forgotten what they look like, this shop just doesn't sell them.' The most calamitous example of this phenomenon is without doubt rice paper. My love of rice paper began when I was younger, probably about six, and would be given money to go to the shop round the corner from my Dad's to buy sweets. Even at that age, I would regularly clear the shop of their rice paper stocks, buying 50 sheets at a time, occasionally accompanied by some sherbet to make my own version of flying saucers. Then, as adulthood encroached, I kind of forgot about rice paper, writing it off as a treat from my past. So when the Co-op round the corner from our old flat started selling it, I was entranced. I would regularly go and buy 10 packets of perhaps 40 or 50 sheets each, polishing them all off within days, and guarding them jealously, despite the Boy Wonder's palpable lack of desire to steal them. When the Co-op suddenly changed sweet supplier and stopped stocking them, I was sad, but once again I came to terms with the fact. Then, when we moved to The Village, I was delighted to discover that the newsagent a mere 200 meters from our house sold rice paper. I was overcome with excitement, and cleaned them out on the first occasion I spotted them. The nice lady behind the counter looked at me as though I had a problem, so I told her that I did, impressing on her at the time my excitement at having discovered an outlet of this near-forgotten foodstuff so close to our new home. So, imagine my disappointment when the shop closed temporarily for refitting (and apparently installing a tardis as it is about twice the size now, and that can't just be down to the clever positioning of everything next to everything else, regardless of whether there is room for customers to actually move around) and re-opened in a blaze of glory, but with a new generic sweet supplier and no room at the inn for the brightly coloured sweets of which I had almost got used to having a regular supply. That was it - the last time I came across rice paper was in a shop somewhere in the middle of nowhere and when I bought their entire stock, I was told that even they wouldn't be ordering it again, being as I was the only person to even consider purchasing the stuff, let alone demonstrating any enthusiasm. So, whilst I can accept that I am in a minority (my brother will eat rice paper, but I don't think he dreams about it like I do), I cannot accept that someone willing to buy copious amounts of the stuff cannot find anywhere which will sell it - I can't promise that I will eat enough to sustain an entire factory, but I could easily promise that you would only need two or three more like me to achieve that goal...

Ironic Driving

This is a phenomenon which seems to be spreading, and is mostly noticeable on my journey to work, during which time I travel from a 30 zone, into a 20 zone, back to 30, up to 60, slowing to 40, back up to 60, then finally 30 as I get closer and come through a residential zone, and during this time I will occasionally find that I am behind the same person almost all the way. Occasionally this person will shoot through the 40 zones at 50 miles an hour, but then maintain that speed in a 60 mile an hour zone. Now, I appreciate that sometimes people aren't confident driving at speed, and that the speed limit is a limit, not a target, but when a driver displays such flagrant lack of regard for these facts by speeding at inappropriate times, it makes me think that they don't really understand the national speed limit. They see the sign with the black line across a white background, and they aren't really sure how fast they're allowed to go, so they toddle along at about 50 just in case. I don't really understand it as there are only two speed limits really - 60 on a single carriageway and 70 on a dual carriageway in a normal vehicle. Presumably, those who have taken extra tests to be allowed to drive a vehicle which has different limits should really have learnt what those were when they took their tests. So why is it, that on a clear road with no obstacles and no adverse weather conditions, someone who just hooned through a residential area at 45 mph suddenly gets all shy and sticks to 51 on the A-roads. Another practice which I can't fathom is that of over-taking at either terrifying speed, terrifying proximity or both, only to then start driving slower than the person you overtook was driving. Why? What on earth makes you risk your life to overtake if all you wanted to do was drive slower than the person in front of you? It does make me more confident in my own driving abilities - because I passed my test when I was about 22 and everyone I knew had been driving for longer than that I always felt as though I was catching up and that I was the only person on the roads who didn't know what I was doing. This feeling stayed with me until the beginning of last year which is when I started to drive to work, meaning that instead of driving approximately once a week, I was now driving twice a day, which has done wonders for my confidence, but has so dented my confidence in other people's driving that I think my overall road confidence is just about balanced out as I exercise extra caution to avoid being the unfortunate victim of someone else's witless inability to wait, watch or just drive properly generally. All the same, I do like to imagine a world where everyone drives with a bit more care and really thinks about whether their personal desire to get somewhere really outweighs their desire to live, own functioning legs or sleep at night without the soul-gnawing knowledge that their twattishness has had a horrific impact on someone else's life. Until then I will just be content that I wasn't the spanner I saw the other day who indicated left, but instead of making the turn, pulled out to his right instead, still indicating otherwise - he must dice with death on a daily basis, I just hope it's his own.

Living with a hedgehog

The first thing to know about living with a hedgehog is that they smell. It's not the first thing I found out about living with a hedgehog, because I have little to no sense of smell for periods of time and don't really notice that it's gone again until someone says 'What's that smell' and I have to either admit that I can't smell it (which usually results in them asking me questions about not being able to smell that I don't know the answers to), or I have to guess a smell from the look on their face and pretend that I can smell it too, which can go drastically wrong.
 However, the Boy Wonder reliably informs me that our hedgehog smells, which is unsurprising given that he is used to outdoor life in the country where pretty much everything smells, and anyway there's enough air to make smells go away quite quickly unless it's a really big area of poo in a field. I didn't really realise how much the country smells until I moved to some country, and bearing in mind that I can only smell, at a guess, two thirds of the smells available to me, it must really smell to everyone else. On the plus side, we do live near a tannery which is another surprisingly smelly business and having limited olfactory ability is definitely a blessing when it comes to the once or twice a month when they do whatever they do that smells so bad.
Another useful thing to know about living with a hedgehog is that they eat REALLY loudly. Not just quite loudly like you might think when someone says a small creature eats really loudly, but seriously loudly, to the point where you can hear our hedgehog eating in a box downstairs from our bedroom upstairs - not a huge distance, but certainly further than you would expect to hear a hedgehog eating over. (Or, to be more pedantic, a distance over which you would not expect to hear a hedgehog eating.) There are a few other interesting things about living with a hedgehog to do with an apparent fondness for burrowing into towels, a cheeky way of pretending to be on the verge of death one minute by breathing all oddly and then getting up, running about and eating some food the next minute just to keep you on your toes.
 Another hedgehog fact, further to a conversation with our local hedgehog hospital, is that our hedgehog now has pets of his own. I bought him wax worms, which are little caterpillar kind of things which will turn into wax moths if left for too long. Hopefully our hog will eat them all before it comes to that as the Boy Wonder hates moths and being as he is the one who is enduring most of the smells, it seems a bit unfair to inflict a live moth farm on him too.
 To his immense credit, the Boy Wonder is really very understanding and even came with me to take the Hog to the vet yesterday - he makes some pretty weird noises and because he spends most of the time hiding, sleeping and waiting until we go to bed before getting up and stampeding around his box it's hard to tell whether the noises are symptoms of some kind of illness or just normal noises for a hedgehog to make. Our vet is a very nice man - I took Mogbad, our stolen cat to him, and even when he fell out of the scales and weed on the table, nice French vet man was overwhelmed by his attempts to get attention and joined me in wondering how anyone could abandon him (more on Mogbad at some point). So I wasn't entirely surprised when nice French vet man was very nice to Hoggle, describing him as 'very sweet' and giving me props for taking him on.
However, nothing quite prepared me for the sight of nice French vet man trying to listen to Hoggle's chest through a stethoscope pressed to his spines - it looks about as ridiculous as you would imagine such an endeavour would look, and I was very glad to be there to witness it, particularly when the lovely vet turned to me and said 'I cannot really 'ear anything' with an admirably Gallic shrug.   As it turns out, so long as he is eating, defecating (medical terminology for the vast and unholy deposits he seems determined to leave in his water bowl) and curling up when poked, that's about all the signs you can hope for from a healthy hedgehog and I am now reassured about his health, meaning that I won't have to mute the TV every 10 minutes to attempt to engage the Boy Wonder in yet another thrilling game of "cough, sneeze or grunt".
 All in all, whilst it is quite fun to have a hedgehog in the house, don't let the fact that they seem to do all right in the wild fool you - as soon as they know you care, they need a constant temperature of 20 degrees, insects and live worms to eat to keep their teeth healthy, a never-ending supply of places to poo and people who don't mind waking up at 5 in the morning whispering 'was that a burglar or the hedgehog?'. Oh, and you have to keep them until after the last frost of the spring, so he's living with us till April now.

Dreams reflect life...

I am in Amsterdam with friends from school, who are bickering amongst themselves about something I don't really understand or want to get into. Finally they persuade me to come along with them to a concert and when we get there, to my horror, it is a show featuring Mark Owen and Liam Gallagher (I found out I don't know what he looks like as he looked like Vernon Kay in my dream and then somebody had to tell me who he was). I leave the show immediately, but now I am in Amsterdam on my own, and I don't want to be there, I just want to be at home with the Boy Wonder. I resolve not to call him as I know I will cry and make him feel bad that there's not much he can do to help me, and fortunately I come across a Mutley-a-like selling tickets for a boat tour. I board the boat and try to enjoy myself, but all I can think about is 'Why did I agree to this - I knew I wouldn't have a good time and now I'm not.'. In some ways this genuinely reflects the situation I often find myself in - with advance notice I occasionally agree to do something without the Boy Wonder, about which I get a growing sense of dread in the few days before the event and then when I get there, far from what I tell myself, I actually don't have a good time and I want to come home. I don't really get homesick, but I miss the Boy and I can't really imagine anything that I would rather do without him. However, this is generally considered to be pretty pathetic - I have been told so by people when I explained that I didn't really want to attend the Christmas party at work, the fact that he wasn't invited being one of the major reasons. Now why people who I only spend time with because I am paid to do so would think that I would choose to spend time with them over him of an evening, I don't know, but I do resent being told that I should be able to 'manage for one night' when the fact is I choose not to. But apparently, honesty is not what's required of me in this situation - I am supposed to pretend that it costs too much (the option I have gone for in the face of scornful remarks) or that I wouldn't be able to get home, when the truth is, I would rather be snuggled up on the sofa with the man I just married than watching the people I work with getting drunk. Astonishing? Maybe, but I think the astonishing thing is that people really cannot grasp the fact that I am happier with the Boy Wonder than I am anywhere else - I wonder how sad their lives and relationships must be if they long for a night out with their friends which doesn't include their partners, but it wouldn't occur to me to insult them on those grounds. I am aware that people think it is normal to spend a great deal of time apart from their other halves, and as far as I am concerned that's their business. But being without the Boy Wonder trying to have fun against the odds is something which I not only don't enjoy, but which invades my dreams, and anyone who has a problem with it can cock right off...