Runny Thoughts

Spoilt brat.

I am reading a book.

Why thank you. I’m proud of myself too.

Not any old book though - a murder-mystery-detective-type-thing. It’s very good.

As is normal in these situations, there is a blurb on the back, which, effectively, gives you three Crucial Pieces of Information:

CPI 1: there is a murder. So far, so normal.

CPI 2: there is another murder. Again, only to be expected.

CPI 3: one of the main characters disappears. Aha! An interesting twist. Wonder where it will lead?

There is also the usual bit of guff about the main detective. Fair enough - they have to tell you something.

There is, however, a problem.

The problem is not CPI 1 - the book starts with the first murder, and, let’s face it, it wouldn’t be much of a m-m-d-t-t without one of those.

CPI 2, coming as it did at page 100 (of a 320-page book), was only to be expected - we had, after all, spent about ten pages inside the murderer’s head (MWAHAHAHA!!) as he planned it, so it would have been a little bit of a let-down if he had decided to stay in and watch reruns of Quincy instead. Plus, to be honest, if the body count stops at one in a book of this type, you feel a little short-changed.

I keep reading. And I keep reading. And keep reading. It’s all terrific stuff, but I can’t help thinking: “when do we get to the bit where this character, the one I’m reading about right now, the one whose internal machinations I am currently privy and in thrall to, the one who is quite clearly a pivoty central-type-person in the plot, because it says on the back cover that she disappears, when do we get to the bit where she actually, you know, disappears? You know, THE BIT YOU’VE ALREADY TOLD ME ABOUT”.

Page 200, that’s when.

Page 200. That’s about two thirds of the way through the book.

WT, as the saying goes, F?

It’s as if I was watching a film, and as the opening credits roll, someone stands up and announces to the assembled throngette: “you see him? He gets killed eighty minutes in, he does.” (In fact, don’t get me started on cinema trailers).

Charlie Brown would have known what to say.

Aaaaauuuuggggghhhhh!!!!

Who does these things? What blithering, lobotomised, candy-floss-brained son of a mongoose thinks: “I know, as it’s a murder mystery, let’s unravel the writer’s carefully-crafted, finely-wrought, clever-twisty-plot-type-stuff by telling the reader what’s going to happen in the book before they’ve even started reading it”?

And I thought spoilers were the things on the back of naff cars.

Gah.

That’s all.

Gah.

It's a mad world. No, really.

I don’t get political very often on this blog. But here’s a brief rant. I’m afraid those of you who have come to expect writing of a comedic and trivial nature here will have to wait a bit longer (those who think my writing is more laughable than funny should, on the other hand, feel right at home).

The papers, blogs and social media were abuzz yesterday with the story of the cat and the wheelie bin.

If you missed it, a lady in Coventry was caught on CCTV stopping to stroke a cat before whipping open a handy wheelie bin and popping the benighted moggie into it.

It’s ok. The cat (Lola) survived. It is possible that the lady (Mary) won’t, given the level of vitriol that has been spat her way. The inevitable Hatebook pages have been started up etc etc.

Disclaimer: I love cats. There is one sitting next to me as I write. It is slightly damp from an ill-advised jaunt into the rain, but I love it still. And along with many people I was disgusted and fascinated by the thing wot that lady done. It weren’t right, were it?
But people, please. If we’re talking animal welfare, let’s turn our attention towards battery farms, shall we? Organised cruelty on a massive scale, not just a random and slightly mad act of temporary incarceration.

And if we want real perspective, how about going here and giving all you can afford to the flood victims of Pakistan?

The world has gone mad. Mad, I tell you.

Ok, rant over. I promise I’ll be trivial again soon.

Tough Choices

On the eve of the FIFA World Cup, I find myself torn.

On the one hand, a victory for England would be a disaster.

It would send the message to the world of sport that the way to win things is to have a bloated domestic game that threatens to eat itself, reward your relatively untalented young players with obscene wealth and fame, and ship in the best available foreign manager to win the big championships.

It would also spark off a horrendous wave of Cross-of-St.George-waving, forehead-vein-throbbing, pit-bull-terrier-called-Tyson-walking, foreigner-hating (except-for-Fabio-because-he's-ok-look-wanker-he-just-is-now-fuck-off-ok?), England-is-the-best-country-in-The-World-keep-it-English-now-where's-my-pint-of-Stella-drinking, BNP-voting, White-van-with-four-flags-on-it-because-I'm-more-patriotic-than-you-driving, not-caring-about-anyone-else-that's-their-lookout-innit apologies for human beings being completely uncontrollable, thinking they're somehow validated because England's overpaid millionaires are less dismal at kicking a ball than the overpaid millionaires of other countries, and wreaking havoc in hostelries and high streets the length and breadth of what once passed for our fair land.

On the other hand...

Come On England!!!!!

Ok. I'm all better now. Thanks. I needed that.

Blog posted here.

Running On Empty

A day without food.

Not my choice, you understand. Gastric doo-dahs.

It kicked in on New Year’s Eve, in fact. It was as if the virus was sending me a message, a message that said: ‘ok that really is quite enough now’. The virus has been with me, on and off, for the last five days. I say ‘on and off’, not just because it describes my relationship with the lavatory in that period, but because I have, to a great extent, had a normal appetite, and been able and willing to pursue a regular-ish diet. None of the usual lying-in-bed-with-a-cold-compress-on-my-head-while-watching-entire-series-of-The-West-Wing that is the standard upshot of such a virus.

Odd.

So I have had appetite, eaten, and then bowed (or squatted) to the inevitable consequences.

Today, belatedly and reluctantly, I took a day off food, hoping to settle things down a little bit. My only indulgence has been copious amounts of water and a couple of cups of sweet tea. Result: decidedly calmer on the digestion front and some thoughts on the nature of food, hunger, and all that malarkey.

An enforced layoff makes you (or me, really. Sorry, didn’t mean to speak on your behalf) realise how little food we actually need to survive. How glibly we say 'I'm starving' when actually we mean 'I'm quite hungry and haven't fuelled my gluttony for a couple of hours.' Hunger comes in waves, and can quite easily be fended off with other activities.

Sorting Lego for three hours, for example, or watching Ashes DVDs.

But crikey how much you notice what other people are eating. Deprived of my grape nuts this a.m., I coveted, even more than usual, The Boy’s mid-morning crumpet with grape jelly; as morning passed to afternoon and The Flame-Haired Temptress tucked into scrambled eggs on toast, I felt like Winnie the Pooh towards the end of his week stuck in Rabbit's front door - no amount of sustaining books would soothe or comfort this wedged bear. And by eventide the prospect of a dry oatcake had me salivating like an interloping crocodile at the annual meeting of the National Society for Overweight Rodents.

So what of it?

Well I don’t want to come across as all worthy and everything, and I’m sure I will revert to my evil ways soon enough, but we do eat far too much. Far far too much. Far far far too much, if you’re anything like me.

And we go to ridiculous lengths to fuel our ever-increasing gluttony, freighting tasteless imitations of real food all the way round the world so that we can eat it out of season, when it’s worse than pointless.

‘Bloody hell,’ the cry goes up, ‘bloody Tesco Express were all out of asparagus’.

Yes, well, it’s January. Go figure. Have a slice of swede and shut up.

[Please note that I don’t hold myself up as a paragon in this area. Come June I will be waxing lyrical about the magnificence of the Alfonso mangoes that have been flown to my doorstep (or Tooting, which is very nearly the same thing) at plenty of cost to myself and the environment. But I just think we should try to do a bit better.]

So I’m going to try to eat less this year. No, I really am. And not just through January, either. Through all the other months, even the ones ending with ‘-ember’, when I find the going gets really tough, and our natural inclination is still to fatten up for the winter.

And I’m going to write it all down, so that at the end of the year, should I be so inclined, I will be able to compile a list, which will in all likelihood begin ‘235 bowls of Grape Nuts’ and end ‘87 Pret Choc Bars’. If you look hard enough, somewhere in the middle of the list, you will find lurking the admission ‘53 Alfonso mangoes’.

I can already feel that it will be a chastening experience.

Some of it I will put on the web. Again, should I feel so inclined.

To that end, here is my first entry:

4/1/10
Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Followed by niente, and washed down by thin air.
There. I feel better already.