Hipsters and hellhounds

Shopping in Hackney is always an interesting experience. By interesting, I mean sometimes amusing and often ball-achingly frustrating.

I live in one of the best cities in the world for shopping. I ought to be at Borough and Broadway markets buying fresh asparagus, venison burgers and stinky French cheese. But, I'm lazy and poor. So I go to my Tesco Express.

In the aisles, the twentysomething E8 hipsters mope foppishly about, baskets full of organic hummus and CheeseStrings. (It's fucking ironic, yeah? Like, it's not REAL food, yeah?) Maybe a can of cider or two. Hipsters don't really eat anyway, skinny jeans are unforgiving and it's important to have the slightly rickety demeanour of a Victorian orphan round here.

I once nipped in for a quick vaguely hungover shop (paper, bacon, Diet Coke) and got to the checkout only to question how drunk I'd been the night before. There stood three art-studenty looking types, two in full animal outfits (I think zebra and bear) and a guy sporting shiny leggings so tight I could tell he shaved his gentleman's area. They had big messy hair and were probably called Poppy, Giles and Jinty. They tried to buy three single cans of Kronenbourg (OMFG, I'm like sooooo drunk from last night, ya? Let's get beer for breakfast, it'll be, like, MENTAL!) then had an intense debate about which fucking pack of chewing gum to purchase. I gripped my basket tightly and restrained myself from swinging it violently in their direction.

Mingling with the big specs and deckshoes is normally an eastender or two, their slavering, big-bollocked Staffy-cross guarding the door while they yell across the shop.

"'ere! Maureen! Put that fackin' real butter dahn, I ain't fackin' made o' money. Pick me up a Sun yeah? And forty Sovereign."

I actually quite like the people in there, it's always entertaining. What drives me mad about Tesco is the product selection. What I LOVE is that I can't buy ground black pepper but I can buy four different varieties of chickpea flour and coconut milk. And I most certainly can get mugged off by paying over a quid for a teeny butternut squash. Oh, and I might be a working-class northerner living in Hackney, but SOMETIMES I JUST WANT SOME FRESH HERBS, DAMNIT.

So, while I commercially and morally disagree with Tesco's aggressive land-buying and marketing techniques, I'll just keep moaning and still patronising them because I can't be arsed with Borough Market today, and they once forgot to scan my bottle of wine resulting in FREE BOOZE. In your face, THE MAN!

Dear Twitter...

 This blog post comes from a conversation with a fellow Twitter user @CyrilCacoethes, who's quite amusing if you like mostly rude inanity. I requested he expand on a story he told me about a deer that spat IN his mouth, and he did me a special blog post and everything. I was then pondering my next post, and he suggested a Twitter complaint letter.

I love a good complain. So here it is.


Dear Twitter,

Hi. You're mostly pretty fun and amusing, and even educational from time to time. (How else would I know what Jedward are doing when they give their carers the slip and gain internet access? IT'S IMPORTANT.) However, there are a few things, just little things, that frankly, get right on my tits.


 Celebs being shit at Twitter. I know they all get told by their agents to get involved in social media (or, as I was once corrected by a date, "a real-time information network" - fuck off), but just because they *do* it, doesn't make them good at it. I get driven potty by celebs who retweet their OWN #FollowFridays - to their EXISTING followers. In order to see that tweet, they already follow you! It's more pointless than Fearne Cotton, you flangewombles.

Overuse of exclamation marks. I've said this before in relation to general communication. But please, for the love of GOD, stop it. Adding seventeen exclamations to a statement like "Going shopping!!!!!!!!" doesn't make it more interesting or informative. It just makes you appear to have the mentality of an American seven year-old.

Pedants. Now I'm not against pedantry persay. Detail is important. But don't criticise someone's use of language, if you type tweets in text speak. Because it just makes you look like a twat, not me. I don't really understand having a go at someone on Twitter because you don't like what they write. Just unfollow. Or, if you are compelled to have a pop, make sure your own ramblings are immaculately spelled and all language is correctly used. Then fair enough.

Moral highground bandwagons. Twitter is highly entertaining on big news days, as everyone wades in with an opinion, mostly from people who don't actually understand the issues or stories. However, the same faux outrage and topical 'jokes' can get a bit wearing.

Anyway, that's it. If you could find a way to remove boring and stupid people from the service, that would be splendid. For the most part, I like conversing with entertaining people, watching celeb feuds kick off, the incessant punning and the endless videos of kittens riding tortoises.

Ok, thanks. Bye.

"You're just being a bit Italian about it."

It'd been years since the old uni lot hung out together, everyone's very busy and a bit shit at organising things, you know how it is. So we planned a few drinks on a Friday night in central London. I met The Cyclist and Badger and we went to the Ship & Shovell - a lovely old pub off the Strand, alas on a Friday night it's rammed with City pissheads and has a scary barmaid who shouts at you if you step outside the painted lines that corral the smokers outside the pub. (Obviously we tested this by standing on the line/ with our feet within the line but our upper bodies out of it... she wasn't very impressed.)

The pub is at the top of Villiers Street, and you look down the covered arches that lead down to Heaven nightclub. We were waiting for The Gay (he's not really, but he is the campest straight man I know. Saying that, I can't vouch for his heteroxexuality 100%) and befittingly, the first we saw of him was him strolling under the arches right next to the massive rainbow sign that advertised the night G-A-Y at Heaven. He clocked us watching him and proceeded to skip jauntily up the steps to us, sporting an 'I Heart Tea' t-shirt and wearing his omnipresent bike lock around his chest like some sort of confused He-Man.

After a few pints of everyone catching up and watching The Cyclist's other half Mr Scooter talk about his new vehicle and do excellent impressions of how cool he looked on an 80s Honda Vision compared to cyclists and mobility scooters, we went for some Mexican food at the first place we stumbled across.

It was too busy to get a table immediately, so we were ushered down stairs to the 'bar' - a tiny floor space where we generally got in the way of other diners and nosied in cupboards next to us. Mr Scooter nicked the last mojito they had but he kindly shared it with us, we were undeterred even when he licked the straws and some of the ice before offering it to us.

Once we were equipped with a round of margaritas and a table next to the boiling hot kitchen, we pored over the menu. For some reason that I'm still not clear on, the male members of the table decided that it was a brilliant idea to take the little ramekins of Mexican condiments and do them like shots.

"Can we have another round of shots please? Er, I mean, some more sauces?"

"I'm not swallowing a spoon, I am still waiting for this wedge of lime to go down."

The sensible people in our group decided to leave after dinner, whereas Badger and I thought having more drinks was a wicked idea. He tried to shove me over outside and I stumbled into some people who worked in the restaurant we'd just been in. Despite us clearly being idiots, we got chatting to Stefano the Italian manager and he kindly invited us back to the restaurant for a lock-in.

This is why I found myself, post-tequila, in a cupboard in the restaurant basement with Stefano ranting about how much he hated one of his colleagues and how he didn't know what his next move should be. I tried to be empathetic and offer him genuine, well-meaning career advice. Badger just looked at him and said,

"Stefano. You're just being a bit... Italian about it. Chill out, yeah?"

Stefano didn't mind this and still wanted to try on Badger's leather jacket so we avoided upsetting him. I think. We thanked him for the tequila and headed back to mine, where Badger got fixated on brushing my hair at 4am which was nice. If not a bit odd.

What I really enjoyed on Saturday morning though, was being woken up by a slap to the forehead and some abuse. I tried to go back to sleep for a bit and was just about to succeed when Badger poured cold water directly into my earhole, the utter, utter bastard.

I swear my balance hasn't been the same since.

"Do you miss not drinking?" Edinburgh part 2

Saturday. I wake up to The Blonde bringing me a cup of tea in bed with The Geordie behind her singing "We brought you teeeeeaaaaaaa!" I ask him what the fuck he's doing and he looks at me like I'm stupid and says,

"I'm singing the tea song." I don't question him any more.

We hang out in their room drinking tea piecing the night back together, I wonder exactly what I did to my fingers as the bruising is now quite impressive. They put the Comic Relief dancing programme on to catch up from the night before. Noel Fielding comes on doing his amazing Kate Bush routine.

The Geordie looks like he's been struck by the most amazing insight.

"PUFFIN! It's YOU! You look like Noel Fielding dressed as Kate Bush!"

I find this slightly complimentary since when I first saw him doing the routine I was sexually confused as I find him hot in real life, and found him to be an attractive woman. I'm not sure what this says about me.

We slowly get ready after haranguing the poor Geordie to go and get us brekkie from the local cafe, and head out again into town. We go to a bar. I bet no-one saw that coming, eh?

The rugby is on, we order brilliant Bloody Marys and settle in for the afternoon. The music is something ambient and mediocre. The Geordie pipes up again to me.

"This sounds like your sort of shit - it's got lots of 'wooooos' in it." The Blonde pisses herself and I glare at him. It seems unfair to engage in a serious music debate when he's at a natural disadvantage since he has the music taste of a thirteen year old girl.

The Blonde studies her Bloody Mary. "I love celery. I love cucumber. Is cucumber a vegetable?" I pat her on the head and we carry on with our conversation. As long as you humour her and feed her the occasional alcoholic beverage and packet of crisps, she's fine in public.

The Geordie studies the rugby and works out the implications of each team winning.

"That'll be good for England!" The Blonde exclaims brightly to every scenario he mentions.

"Are you just saying 'that'll be good for England' for every result I say?" he asks.

The Blonde smiles and nods brightly like a good little wife.

A new friend of mine, The Thinker, comes to meet us for a drink. He's not drinking so I am scared as to what he'll make of those two mentals, but it all goes very well. The Blonde chooses to divulge her waxing story within the first ten minutes of meeting him, and he doesn't run away so I'm satisfied he's not too scared. We get on to the subject of his teetotalism. The Blonde ponders,

"Do you miss not drinking?"

The Thinker and I look at each other.

"Do you mean, 'does he miss drinking'?"

The Blonde looks earnest.

"No, I mean, does he miss not drinking?"

"But he doesn't drink... how can he miss it when that's what he's doing - ie. NOT drinking?"

We go round in circles for a good half hour, I even draw a diagram of The Thinker WITH drinks and without drinks, and still she doesn't get it. She's a bright girl really, but this really foxed her.

I apologise to The Thinker for some of the lairy conversation. He says, having met me twice before, once on a thirtieth birthday party weekend in a big house,

"I now associate you with the nickname Spaz, being too wasted to play tabletennis with me, and now, intimate waxing stories."

Thanks chums. I say I'm embarrassed about being too inebriated to play ping pong very well.

"I didn't realise you were that drunk, I just thought you were REALLY REALLY shit at it."

We stop discussing my sporting ability and get on to chatting about the recent horrific events in Japan, and The Blonde contributes her stellar social opinion.

"Tsunamis are so powerful aren't they? It's scary. Do you think there'll be pirates?"

We all nod soberly.

She carries on.

"It makes me worry for us on our sailing holiday later in the year. I actually worry about pirates EVERY day you know."

We ignore her.

Later that evening, we meet up with other dear friends for an excellent night in The Standard. It involves feeling No'rn Ir'on's considerable breasts, doing her hair in the middle of the pub and The Grumpy Scot almost crying with laughter at the Modern Toss iPhone app while we're outside smoking. It also involves another horrific story of The Blonde and The Geordie's sex life.

"Oh Puffin, when you'd passed out in the spare room, The Geordie and I got a bit amorous. I normally have lube in my room but I'd put it away on account of you coming to stay. Well, it wasn't to hand so I used my Clarins Flashbalm."

We sit around looking horrified.

"It really DOES brighten and tighten!" she exclaims brightly.

Sunday morning I nick some of her Flashbalm in the bathroom in a hungover haze, then suddenly the story came back to me.

My face feels violated.

"I don't know how you're not in hip-hop." Edinburgh part 1

Ahhh, Edinburgh. Land of kilts, haggis, people wearing tweed and a 

group of endearing misfits I call my friends. It'd been far too long 
since my last visit so No'rn Ir'on and I booked it. And visit we did.

After a four hour journey where I mainly pondered what it was about 
trains that attracts the most bizarre social cross-section, I arrived 
and in typical style, headed to the lovely Queen's Arms to meet The 
Blonde. The Geordie came to meet us too and we grabbed ourselves a 
booth to have a good old catch up.

The Geordie, positioning himself in front of the tv screen:

"The cricket's on so I'm not interested in you for the next half hour, 
ok?"

He then proceeds to tell me ALL about the game while The Blonde was at 
the bar, while I wondered just how rude would it be to put my 
earphones in?

The Blonde comes back with Pinot and launches into a loudly graphic 
description of the intimate waxing module on her spa therapy course.

"So, I'm on all-fours, she's behind me with a spatula of hot wax and 
the whole class is looking up my foo-foo."

Suddenly, The Geordie shows a flicker of interest.

"Did you get your ass bleached too?!"

The Blonde ignores her husband and continues describing how it feels 
to have every hair from your genital and bottom regions removed in 
front of a gang of your classmates.

"Honestly, it was so painful, I could've done with a leather bit to 
bite down on."

The Geordie looks interested again.

"So, the teacher was showing us the Brazilian method and one girl in 
my class volunteered. She's a proper ginge. It was like a fish 
finger!" The Blonde continues gleefully.

We get to talking about her upcoming exams. I reassure her that she's 
totally capable and will pass with flying colours.

The Geordie sniggers, "You're handi-capable."

A fair bit of wine having been consumed at this point, we take a few 
snaps of our reunion. I lament one of them, saying I look awful.

The Blonde: "What don't you like about your face?"

Me: "It's spacky."

The Geordie: "CAZTARD!" 

Him and The Blonde collapse in giggles and high-five each other. The Blonde wipes tears from her eyes and suggests I tweet this. 

"Tweet it, don't delete it, innit!"

Me: "I don't know how you're not in hip-hop you know."

The Blonde: "I know! Me and my repartee. Repertoire. See?!"

We carry on drinking and chatting, punctuated by The Blonde panicking slightly while eating wasabi peas.

"I've dropped a pea in my scarf!" She rummages through her voluminous leopard-print scarf while The Geordie and I pretend we don't know her. 

We head back to their flat to get ready to go out (really not a great idea as we've had a skinful already.)The Blonde drags me into the bathroom, saying,

"Puffin, look at this!" I think she's about to show me some amazing new beauty product, but instead she drops her trousers and shows me the results of her intimate wax. I don't know where to look but utter the words,

"I can never unsee that!"

To get over the trauma, I carry on drinking wine while The Blonde does my makeup, showing off her new skills. As we head out again to meet friends in town, I say that I could be a model with the amazing makeup job she's done on my face.

"Yeah a model for Scope!" shouts The Geordie. 

After a blurry few more drinks in 99 Hanover Street, we decide to head back to Mr Tizz's house for music, food and more booze. I don't remember much past this point but apparently trapped my fingers in a door somewhere as they KILLED when I woke up Sunday. Apparently, Mr Tizz put Muse on the iPod at some point in the evening and I went on a drunken rant about how much I fucking hate Muse, Matt Bellamy and his smug pomposity. Apparently, Mr Tizz's face fell a bit. I don't recall. 

This Charming Man

I thought it'd be the last of Mr Maps after the cancelling. And the indecision. And the general fuckwittery. But no! He had more treats in store, as I was to find out.


I wake up Saturday to find two missed calls from him. One at 1:30am, one at 2:16am. Curious, I thought. One call could be a sit-on-your-phone accidentally scenario. Two separate calls intrigued me, and I was interested to see if he had an excuse or was just a bit mental. The following text conversation ensued.

--------


Hey. I had two missed calls from you at 2am. Everything ok...?


Sorry for drunky calls at silly o'clock. Brain switched off and willy started driving. X


Riiiight... do you always call random people you've never met for 2am booty calls? x


No. Sorry x


Cor, talk about mixed messages. Could've been quite simple had we just had that drink x


Sorry about that. I was horny and drunk x


Still not doing the dating thing? I notice you're still on the site. x


I don't think I want anything serious, just some fun x


Fair enough - tough call to make though if you've not even got as far as a casual drink with someone. x


I know, I just want to be honest. x

Course. Surely it's a case of seeing what happens right? You can't have expectations if you've not met :) x


Busy tonight?x


Why, you taking me for that drink? x


Maybe x


Man you've pushed your luck... If I say yes, will you just cancel again? x


I'm driving. I'll give you a text in a bit?


Let's leave it. Sorry. x


 --------

Face like Crime Watch

Well, here it is – the first post of 2011. And it’s going to be a moany one. About dating.

With the business of Christmas out of the way (shopping, drinking, hangovers, eating, drinking, hangovers, glowering) I decided to get back into the dating thing for 2011. What people don’t tell you is that it’s hard work. You have to be prepared to find time to trawl through endless profiles, for someone who’s photo isn’t like something off Crime Watch and who’s personal description goes beyond “I like smiling, the gym and socialising.” Then there’s the contact thing. It takes time to reply to messages and filter out who you are and aren’t going to respond to. Then there’s the actual dating – going to meet a stranger in a pub after a busy day at work to make wry, flirty, intelligent conversation, when all you really want to do is sit about in your pants and have a nice glass of wine and some crisps while you watch My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding… what do you mean, that’s why I’m single? Shut up.

Anyway. The etiquette of contact. What I am finding is two things: one, I attract some dodgy types who can’t actually type English (the best one’s personal tagline read ‘Where is soulmate?’), and two, there are a fuckload of timewasters on this site. Before Christmas, it all seemed quite straightforward and everyone I met was normal. (With the exception of the Doctor who clearly had the mental stability of a post-Haribo and Capri-Sun binge Jedward on a trip to Alton Towers.) Arranging dates was simple and they always turned up.

Since Christmas, I’ve had messages from three men who looked interesting enough to agree to meet for a drink. It started off with the usual slightly laboured conversation based around something they’d seen on my profile, then getting down to the business of date arranging. Having been asked out, and accepted, I then started the process of when and where we were going to meet. Herein, it seems, lies the problem. Apparently, this is very difficult for grown men to arrange. Two of these conversations ended up fizzling out halfway through arranging a drink. Not a good sign for the future really.

The third one impressed me with the cut of his jib when he simply messaged me ‘cut to the chase – can I take you for a drink?’ No messing about, I thought, how refreshing. We swapped numbers and began texting to finalise details. Then the cancelling began. Firstly, admittedly, it was me. But I was genuine about rearranging. Which we did, four times – and each time he would cancel. This morning I got the classic text (after we’d arranged to meet this Wednesday) saying ‘Hey, I’ve been thinking and I’m not sure I’m ready to date. There’s no point meeting up. Sorry x’ – which is fine….. but prompts the question, WHY in the name of Zeus’s beard are you on a DATING site, actively asking people out?

Tool. Perhaps I should take ‘where is soulmate?’ man up on his offer. If I’m lucky, I might get taken to Wetherspoon’s for a Bacardi Breezer and a packet of Nobby’s nuts.