Life Lessons

Road hog

If I’ve almost killed one student, I’ve almost killed athousand of the ignorant fuckers. Living near a university campus means a daybarely passes when I don’t find myself bearing down on some undergrad or otherbefore pulling over onto the side of the road to sick up into my own lap withterror. This, though, has sod all to do with the state of my driving. It’s allabout the inability of said Pot Noodle enthusiasts to tear themselves away fromtheir mobile phones before leaping from the kerb.

Tell you what, for what should be the most intelligent groupof people in the country it isn’t half heavily populated with idiots. Or thesuicidal. I haven’t yet decided which. Either way, they step, lemming like,into the road with such frequency that I’m wondering whether the local bywaysshould  be populated with emergencytelephones like the Golden Gate Bridge.

What the fuck is wrong with these individuals? Exactly howhard can it be to check the road before stepping onto it? And what in the fuckis happening on their phones that’s so much more important than protectingthemselves from the bus that’s hurtling towards them? They must be in receiptof some stunning information, if it’s enough to blind them to a steaming river ofvans and lorries.

I dunno, perhaps they’re furiously texting state secrets orreceiving incoming messages about the development of their terminal cancer.Surely, these emergency missives wouldn’t contain anything as unimportant aspictures of kittens wearing moustaches or offers at Bargain Booze.

Seriously, driving a car around here is like a test ofendurance. And being aware of the idiocy of the local undergrads I’ve developeda road awareness of Olympic proportions. Yet, astoundingly, it’s still notenough. Exactly how many times have I reversed in a car park, after severalchecks of my mirrors and blindspots, only to suddenly find my rearview window filledwith the whites of a student’s eyes? Too fucking many. That’s because it doesn’tmatter how careful you are. A lecture-bunker could leap out at any givenmoment, like demented flashers, from the bushes.

It’s hard to believe that these festering gimps will one dayrun the country, lead our government or develop our cities. If their foresightis anything to go by we’re fucked. Armies of fascists could be scrambling theirway over Dover cliffs and they wouldn’t notice.

Of course, all this is based on the premise that thesepeople are still alive 20 years from now. At this rate, that’s laughingly unlikely.So rather than braking, perhaps I should be revving. Something tells me I’d bedoing the nation one fuck of a favour.

Art Attack

I just like blue, innit

Youknow what makes me ever so slightly nuts about modern art? Not the art itself,no. In fact the art itself I love.What makes me wantto run through a gallery with a flame thrower, though, is the little explanationsthat accompany said pieces of art. Jesus, what stunning displays of completeand utter bilge.

In fact, I reckon that these little plaques which have beenadorned with 200 words of festering bollocks are works of art in themselves.How else could you explain the levels of creativity employed to make a canvasof splodges appear to be the work of the giddying extremes of humanity?

This is partly down to the fact that I have my own mind.Look, if a lawn mower strewn with condoms and bunting is your contribution tothe world of art, fine. Just don’t tell me what to fucking think about it, OK?

Yet my loathing is more down to the irrepressible poncinessof said descriptions. No one ever accompanies their work with a plaque thatsimply says “I just like pink, that’s all” or “It’s something I knocked upwhile I was watching Corrie.” Oh fuck, no. I get the feeling that anything lessthan three paragraphs of indecipherable toss and a reference to an abusive pastgets you chucked out of the club.

In fact, one way to pass the time while surrounded by modernart, however much you love the stuff, is to play bullshit bingo. Just look outfor the following words:

• Juxtaposed
• Vagina
• Reference
• Idealised
• Coherence
• Juxtaposed
• Dialogue
• Penis
• Organic
• Femininity
• Encapsulation
• Juxtaposed

And that lot is just to accompany the building works thatare currently going on in the reception area.

I once had to be removed from the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in LA after reading 500 words about one tiny pencil mark on ablank wall. Then there was that moment in Madrid when a white canvas was saidto represent my very own ovaries. And in the Glasgow Museum of Modern Art,after learning how a pile of bricks and drainpipes represented the journey offeminism, I filled an entire page of its guestbook with my own lengthyexplanations. I do believe that had my fellow visitors been playing bullshitbingo they would have then spotted the words:

• Cobblers
• Ponce-buckets
• Conceited
• Stool-water
• Spleen
• Bastards
• Don’t
• Sausages

So spare me the convoluted imaginings of exactly why a onedollar note has been pinned to the wall, will you? And don’t bother with thedeep and meaningfuls over an empty milkbottle that’s been balanced on ashoe. You’ll get more admiration from meif you put your wittering to one side and just admit that you think it lookskinda cool. Oh go on. It’s called showing originality, isn’t it?

Talk Talk

Connolly's not here yet?

Oh Jesus. By all accounts Michael Parkinson – professionalYorkshire-born gruffbag  – is coming outof retirement to host his own talk show again. Just what telly needs, yetanother outlet for celebs to have themselves tickled under the chin.

Now, Parkinson would quibble at that description, I have nodoubt. It’s clear from his quotes about his latest televisual skirmish that hethinks he offers viewers something new. He grumbles: “If you look at Graham(Norton), Jonathan (Ross) and that chatty person (Alan Carr), the host is asimportant as the guest. That’s fine but there isn’t the kind of show that Iused to do...We’re kind of stuck in this area where it’s all about humour. It’scertainly not about interviewing.”

Well, fuck me. Call Billy Connolly. And David Beckham. Oh,and Billy Connolly again, because every time they’ve appeared on his show inthe past (they’re on some 3-week rota or other) they sure as shit don’t get thebusiness end of Jeremy Paxman, do they? No, they get to breeze their way thougha few carefully chosen anecdotes at the growly nudging of best mate Parky whowould rather renounce flat caps than offend them. It’s celeb chin-tickling atits fawning best so it beats me why Parkinson has the bulging hump over thelikes of Norton and Ross.

And, yeah, Parkinson may be remembered for his must-watchinterviews but they are now dust-bunnies under the futon of modern telly.Muhammad Ali? His last interview with Parkinson was in 1981, thirty one yearsago. And Rod Hull and Emu? That was in 1976, thirty six years ago.

Problem is, the world, telly and the juggernaut of celebrityhas changed since then. If Parky thinks he can take his pick of A-listers andgrill them until they sweat spinal fluid then I fear he is deluded. Their PRs would be all over him like syphilis and the show producers would live in fearof pissing off the screen meat. His no-nonsense recipe for a show would soon bediluted and before you know it he’d be interviewing Billy fucking Connolly forthe fifteenth time.

All of which means that Parkinson needs to wake the frig up.Unless he really is going to make a new interviewing mark and to fuck with themodern etiquette of celeb-loving, that is. Otherwise we’d better gird ourselvesfor yet another foray into Connolly’s well trodden past. Oh, and another andanother...

Beauty Myth

Shut it, Hurles

Liz Hurley. Isn’t she just vile? I’ve just had one of herquotes pointed out to me, a jumble of words that have made me search for acorner in which to vomit. And while this quote was uttered many years ago, byall accounts, it’s still worthy of my rage, as are most things that I come acrossthese days.  Here you go, here’s the Hurleygem: “I’d kill myself if I was as fat as Marilyn Monroe”.

Oh. My. God. There are so many things wrong with this vapidfucking statement that I’ve had to invent numbers to count them all. It’s just11 words but they carry such a burgeoning amount of snobbery that it’s amazingthat the sentence hasn’t collapsed in on itself, creating undiluted evil.

For a start there’s the suicide reference, a boggling reactionto the piffling issue of putting on a few pounds. Not for Hurley, the prospectof suicide as a reaction to the death of her entire family or the loss of allof her lower limbs in a bomb attack. Christ no. Instead she keeps a stash ofparacetamol and razor blades next to her weighing scales in case her entirelife is inverted by the appearance of an extra ounce.

Then there’s the laughable comparison of herself with MarilynMonroe only for her to conclude, by her remark, that she is thinner andtherefore better than the bombshell of blondeness.  Fuckety-fuckety-fuck. First, the only way youcould put Hurley and Monroe in the same category is by identifying them both asfemale. That Hurley thinks she is up there with one of the most beautiful womenin the world displays a giddying lack of self awareness, a bit like David Cameronbelieving that he’s actually improving the NHS.

Worse, Hurley has then studied Monroe’s curves and definedthem as fat and therefore as ugly. Oh fucking hell, Hurley, spare me, will you?Not only was Monroe the definition of womanliness,  so it’s no surprise that Hurley doesn’trecognise it, but she was hardly trapped in her bed under 40 stone of suppuratingflesh either. Monroe? Fat?  Then pass methe Mars Bars because I’d prefer that to looking like the lettuce-suckingHurley.

Anyway, tell me who is more fun to be with, who is moreappealing? A gorgeously curvy woman who knows exactly how to treat a chocolate éclairor a hatchet-faced stick insect on alert for rogue calories? Quite.

Which is why Hurley’s statement blows holes in the beautymyth that she’s surrounded herself with. It’s brimming with ugliness,bitterness and self-obsession, none of which makes Hurley the beauty that shethinks she is. Shrivelled. That’s the word that springs to mind. Inside andout.

Dog Days

I blame Dastardly

Shit on a shovel. Literally. Orshould I say shit in a sack. Again, literally. 

I've noticed a bleak trend on my daily constitutional along apopular walking trail near my cave. Dog shit, strung along fences and treebranches like festive turds. Steaming mounds of poop festoon trees like baubles andfence posts like finials, thinly disguised in red, yellow and green plastic.

Course, you know what this is allabout don’t you? Arse-brained dog owners who have the scant capacity to cleanup after their squatting hounds but clearly not enough left to then dispose ofsaid outpourings in a way that doesn’t make you want to put your own eyes inthe bin.

Tell me, boggled reader, just who doesthis? Who puts their dog’s shit in a poop-a-scoop bag and then hangs it on atree or fence? At what point does that constitute cleaning up after your pooch,exactly? Yes, the offending turd has been picked up off the ground and that fulfilsthe first portion of the cleaning up process. However, it has then been drapedon the adjacent flora, thus, as far as I’m concerned, obliterating the firstact so completely that it’s like the Hiroshima of dog walking.

What a stunning fucking disconnect inthe minds of these idiot dog owners. It’s as if their brains short circuitmid-cleanse and they suddenly wake up to find themselves clinging onto a bag ofshit before casting it into a tree in a blind, amnesiac panic.

It’s also so astoundingly selfish thatmy own brain short circuits at what this means for fellow path users. And youknow what it does mean? That some poor fucking council worker, who gets paidsod all to roam the area with his litter picker, has to collect up these arselygifts like a cat burglar with a fetish. It also means that the rest of us havetheir glorious spring walks regularly punctuated by the sight of trees thatactually look as if they’re growing their own tag nuts.

Worse, the area in question actually hasbins for the disposal of dog shit. Yes, bins. In which bags of turds are placed.A stunning invention, I’m sure, but one that has passed by these dog ownerscompletely.

So perhaps I should start stalkingthese fat-handed twats, collecting up their stinking decorations and strewingthem about their own gardens in the dead of night. I mean, who needs petuniaswhen poo will do? Bastards.

Flight of Fancy

I feel your pain

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, KLM, abso-fucking-lutely no. It has been brought to my attention that the airline KLM has launched Meet & Seat, a service that allows fellow passengers to view your Facebook and LinkedIn profiles and then find out where you are sitting on the flight you are sharing. You know, just in case they fancy passing the time by indulging in a little light harassment.
Oh my giddy God, what in the fuck is KLM thinking? That it just doesn't carry enough stalkers on its flights? Or that not enough passengers end up sitting next to people they hate? Ok, so you have to sign up to this service to allow fellow passengers to see photos of you snogging at last year's Christmas party on Facebook but why the fuck would anyone do that? Even in the name of networking and good business practice are you really going to leave yourself open to the wiles of any old crotch grabber who happens to share the flight with you?
Worse, the service is currently only available on flights from Amsterdam to New York, San Francisco and Sao Paulo. You know what that means, don't you? That you won't be lumbered with some business obsessed bell-end for just an hour. No, no, no. You'll be forced to make small talk over your poxy in-flight catering for anything up to eleven hours. Eleven fucking hours!
Christ, I feel the need of a scalding shower just thinking about it. Imagine settling in for a long flight with a good book and pressure socks only to have some nutbag with a comb-over give you the hard sell on some new breed of semiconductor all the way to San Francisco? Sod the added security. I'd chew my way into the cockpit and plunge the plane into a nosedive with my own bloody hands.
And what's with this need to make every second of every day profitable or valuable or useful? What in the frig is wrong with just watching a film, listening to music or reading a book? Christ, do we even have to be networking at 3am somewhere over the Atlantic?
Oh, spare me KLM, spare me. If I wanted to spend the best part of 12 hours with a loon I'd catch a bus to Broadmoor. I sure as fuck wouldn't pay your inflated prices to do it. No. I'd use that money to buy a seat with a security guard instead.

Word Up

Yup, I'm talking to you

Far be it from me to get arsy about anything. You should know by now that I'm a seeping heap of serenity and calm. Except when it comes to the misuse of apostrophies, a practice so spleen-explodingly evil that I harbour fantasies of thrashing literary miscreants with a copy of The Oxford Guide to English Useage.
Jesus, not a day goes by when I don't see such reprehensible sights as 'Vegetable's for sale' or  'Terrys Bike Shop' or 'Its time for tea'. For fuck's sake, you have to wonder what the point is of English teachers, when so many people leave school with the glaring inability to stick a punctuation mark in the right place.
Worse, though - much worse - is that signwriters, the very people who use the English language for a living, are just as incapable. What the frig is with that? Imagine if a brickie didn't know how to use a trowel or a nurse was bewildered at the sight of a syringe? You'd me more likely to employ Harold bloody Shipman on your ward than someone so incapable of the basics of the trade.
Yet there are signwriters who rape the English language every day of their lives but, miraculously, stay in business. How can you not know where to use an apostrophe when it is your fucking job to use apostrophies? Eh? Go on, signwriters, explain that one.
And, Ok, Joe Bloggs the butcher may have asked for a sign that reads 'Quality meat's inside!" but surely it is then the signwriter's job to take to one side the purveyor of said produce and point out the error of his ways. Well, you'd frigging think so, wouldn't you? If, as a journalist, I was asked to write sentences backwards I'd make it known that the request was a bag of bollocks. Why signwriters are incapable of doing that is bloody well beyond me. 
Which means that until said profession bucks the fuck up I'll have to keep on correcting their mistakes with a fat red pen. Someone's got to teach them how it's done. Well at least while thrashing people with a copy of the The Oxford Guide to English Useage remains illegal. Shame.

Dog Days

Here, boy!

Pit bulls:
Q. Bity little bastards or misunderstood pupsicles? 
A. Bity little bastards, you dimwit.


Just sayin'.

Talking Balls

I know the feeling

Apparently we are part-way through the Six Nations. I know, I could have lived without that particular nugget of information too, but there you go. Thing is I have more interest in the toilet habits of our binmen than I do in rugby. So it may surprise you that I used to work for the Welsh Rugby Union before I cleaned up my act and went into journalism.
In fact, until I worked at the WRU I was an enormous rugby fan, but therein lies the problem. Working for the WRU didn't cement my love of rugby - it shat all over it. Shat all over it with a capital splashback.
Looking back at my years at the WRU is like shoving my hand into a basket of vipers. And, fuck me, was that place one big sack of snakes. In all my life I have never met such a bunch of bitter, recalcitrant, childish, sexist and backward-looking individuals. It's no fucking wonder that Welsh rugby remains a mystery because even after working there I still have no idea how the place even clawed together enough nous to unlock the doors of a morning. 
In fact, it was an education in how to cold-shoulder good management practice. As a woman I wasn't allowed into committee meetings even though I was meant to report on them - only the minute-taking female secretary was granted access - and several committee men even refused to deal with me. One nameless 18th Century grumbleshit would come into my office, ask to speak to a man and, if none was available, would walk out again. And perhaps the less said about very senior members of the WRU, the better. Suffice it to say that in my years there, one very big management name only ever addressed me via my tits and was known for his casual and daily harassment of other female members of staff. Yup, an all round Great Guy.
The Admin department was equally as incompetent. The dept's manager would hoard information as if it was his own lifeblood being pissed against a wall. Problem was that my dept had to manage press enquiries which, of course, meant having information. Well, fuckadoodledo, if that wasn't in the admin manager's plans. Seriously, we sat two desks away from the guy and we'd have to phone journalists to find out what he was up to. It was like working at the fucking Kremlin except it was colder, greyer and even more miserable. 
Course, the guys on the General Committee were the biggest nightmare. You knew when the new kit had arrived at the WRU because there'd be committee men climbing out of the woodwork just to fill their own car boots with the stuff. It's was like sales day at Harrods but with more girly grasping, which was impressive for a herd of fifty-somethings from the arse end of Bynea. The same scrambling went on for tickets too. Seriously, I reckon these guys had enlarged pockets sewn into their blazers for the sole purpose of stuffing them with stubs.
You can see how, by the time I left, my enjoyment of rugby looked as if it had been fed through a scrum. And yeah, there were a few great people there but over time they were equally worn down too. I even recall the head of one department - a guy who had the intelligence, business nous and enough charisma to run a small country - sitting at a desk with his head in his hands because the ineptitude of the ruling idiots had dragged him to the brink.
So, no, I shan't be watching the Six Nations. I'm working hard to blank that part of my culture from my memory. And I've got a funny feeling that thanks to the WRU as I knew it, I'm probably not the only one.

Oh, Baby

Pasties all round

Blimey. I watched Jeremy Kyle over my porridge this morning and I almost choked on the boy Quaker. What's with these women who tell their partners that their offspring may not be theirs before quibbling that the terminally bewildered men aren't doing their bit in the childrearing stakes? Girls, are you for fucking real? Or are you just hard of thinking?

Firstly, it seems - from this and my other skirmishes with the ringmaster Kyle - that these idiot women fall into two categories. There are those who genuinely don't know who the dad is and those who holler the killer blow during an argument just because they've run out of expletives to lob. Either way, the blokes end up nursing mammoth amounts of doubt that invariably lead them to breakfast time soul bearing on national television.

Thing is, so many of the women who find themselves at the heart of this procreative chaos then proceed to rip the shit out of their stupefied partners because they haven't "stepped up the plate" or "been a man" when it comes to plunging their hands into shit-stuffed nappies.

Girls, what in the fuck do you expect? No, really, exactly what is it that you want these pasty faced blokes to do? Ignore the fact that you claimed to have got knocked up by someone else before taking on the life-changing responsibility of raising another man's child? Christ, that's one fuck of a leap of faith, don't you think? I mean, if your bloke came home with a baby that he'd sired during an affair and asked you to raise it as your own, would you? No, darlin', quite.

Worse, so often these girls seem to accept a stunningly paltry amount of responsibility for their actions. They drop these baby bombs, raising their heavily plucked eyebrows and shrugging "What? What're you blaming me for?" before banging on about plate stepping again.

Problem with saying this stuff out loud is that it automatically turns you into a Daily Mail columnist. It's looks like just one other thing to bash women with. This time, though, the women who do this are genuinely misguided. Cowering behind dated ideals that men are always in the wrong and can be blamed even for their girls shagging about is so deeply irresponsible that makes my brain sweat. 

And yeah, there are plenty of men out there who don't do their bit, knocking up women before washing their hands of them. But two wrongs don't make a right and, anyway, that's another sweary blog post entirely.

So girls, put your brains in will you? If you don't want to spend your prime yelling at a bloke for not doing what you told him was not his responsibility, keep your mouth shut. Oh, and your knickers up. 

Bap Attack

Classy girl, her

Could someone do me a favour and remove Loose Women’s DeniseWelch from the public eye? Because if she flashes her tits one more time I’mgoing to have to remove my own eyes, decontaminate them, encase them inconcrete and bury them a mile below the surface of the earth for the next onehundred years.
What the fuck is wrong with the woman that she has to keepflashing her saggy funbags at photographers? Christ, it wouldn’t be so bad ifthey were a magnificent paean to the wonders of the female form but, let’s befair, they’re not. They swing in thewind and are encased in flesh coloured bras. I know this. I have seen them overand over again, as has the rest of the poor, sobbing nation.

Anyway, that’s besides the point. The real conundrum is whatmakes a fifty-something successful woman whip out her knockers at any givenopportunity? It reeks so badly of desperation, insecurity and some wild cravingfor the front pages that it’s actually distressing to watch. And no, it’s notabout women reclaiming their bodies, grasping equality from men and beingballsy and life-loving. There are ways of doing that which don’t involveforcing your dignity through a cheese grater, which is what Welch seems to doevery time she leaves the house.

Look, I’m not a fanof Welch anyway, mainly because I’m not a fan of the show Loose Women.  It’s like a lunchtime parade of screeching fishwivesthat makes me wonder how much more damage womens’ rights can take before menattempt to lock us back up in our kitchens.

This bap parading,though, is doing the equivalent of taking womens’ hard-won equality and rubbingits face in the dirt. Girls, you want to be accepted in the boardrooms of thenation? You want to reach the giddy heights of senior management? You want toclaim the Cabinet for your own? Well, whatever you do, don’t ask Welch for hersupport. She’d forsake intellectual argument and negotiation for dragging her oft-seennips across the shag pile of the boardroom floor. Classy, Welch, classy.

There can’t be a soul on the planet who doesn’t witness Welch’santics with a giant, internal ‘ouch’. It’s cheap and nasty and whether it’s asymptom of her personal turmoil or not she has to show mercy and stop.

Den, love, just take a breath, have a think about whetherthis is how you want to be remembered and tuck the tits away. I’m sure there’sa clever, engaging, intelligent woman in there somewhere. You just have to openyour mind to find her, not your top.  

Head's Up

Noggin lovin', brain toastin'

Well, bugger me backwards and spit out the bits. What's this madness I've witnessed in the last two days where tiny babies have been outside without hats on? It's been - pardon the jargon - fucking freezing but these teeny tiny creatures, with the same capacity to regulate their temperatures as a bag of sand, are out in the equivalent of the Everest death zone as bald as Britney.
Please tell me what the frig is going on. Why, in the depths of winter, would anyone take a baby out without a hat on? Are they trying to create genetic popsicles? Jesus, you'd have to bath the kids in anti-freeze just to thaw them out.
And, as sure as shit, it gets worse because the people who were carrying these nippers were wearing bobble hats. I know, I know, I wish I were making that up too but alas, no, such spam-faced idiots really do exist.
I mean, if it's cold enough for an adult to dig out a woolly hat surely it's cold enough to stick a titfer on a baby. What the frig makes parents think that their offspring is somehow immune to the blasting, sub-zero wind from the Urals? Or that they have a blossoming Torvill and Dean-like obsession with ice? 
Christ, the moment KJ splattered forth from my screeching, prostrate form the midwife stuck a hat on her to keep her snug. She hasn't been titfer-free since then either - it's woolly in the winter and wide-brimmed in the summer. For fuck's sake, I couldn't even tell you what colour her hair really is. It's like living with a three foot high Dolly Parton.
Perhaps I should start staging infant interventions, lobbing baby beenies at gimply parents until they defrost their brains enough to form a sensible thought. God alone knows how many beenies it would take though. Fuck knows if there's even that much wool in the world. For some bleak reason, I doubt it.

Knocked Up

My kind of baby bump

You'll be thrilled to hear that this weekend I read something that made my head explode. It was an agony aunt-type column about a woman who was suffering depression after giving birth to the child she thought she'd never have. And all I can say is hallel-fucking-ujah.
You know, I actually, really and truly thought that I was on the only person who had gone through this. After a thousand years of a health problem that had caused infertility, somehow I managed to get knocked up. Problem was that when the rest of the world was rejoycing about my miracle baby and how I'd managed to kick the odds up the arse I was plunging into the mental health equivalent of a nuclear meltdown over the sudden destruction of my identity.
Within 60 seconds of wizzing on a pregnancy testing kit I'd gone from being a 36 year-old, happily infertile woman to a 36 year-old mother-to-be. And this, after twenty years of being told that it would be easier for me to climb the Eiffel Tower with my tongue than have kids. 
Jesus, no wonder I went on to have a breakdown. Thing is, while my body was playing host to the burgeoning form of Kraken Junior, my brain was playing keepy-uppy with the pre-pregnancy, career-chasing, travel-loving Kraken. Talk about the perfect fucking storm. It's no wonder that the first time I felt KJ kick my hand through my belly I screamed with horror. 
Worse, everyone was so deranged with joy at my news that my mental carnage went unnoticed. I was told a million times that I must be thrilled, that my baby was here for a reason or that I was unbelievably lucky. All of which, while heartfelt and natural reactions, made things even worse. Not only was I not coping with the fact that I had gone to sleep one person and woken up another but now I was the mam-to-be of some Christ-like figure who was here for some mysterious and wonderful reason. How the fuck the Virgin Mary never lost the plot is beyond me. I'd have kicked the donkey to death and told the three wise men to go fuck themselves.
Problem is, no one ever thinks to ask how you are feeling at times like this. It's assumed that you are with child and therefore must be chuffed to fuck. It's not that black n white though is it? Pregnancy tests don't come complete with party poppers. I was about as far from chuffed to fuck as I could get without being on Death Row. It's just that no one knew it. Anyway, how do you tell people who are actually, physically skipping about at the news that they need to take it down a peg or two? Well, don't ask me. I still haven't got a bloody clue.
Course, now that KJ is here, running amok and asking 'why?' like she has exclusive rights to the frigging word, I can see that she is the best thing in the world. But before you sit back in your chair to give me a satisfying I-told-you-so I've paid a heavy price for it. I've had nine months of panic, four years of depression, two career collapses, several thousand milligrams of anti-depressants and anti-psychotics, ten months of therapy and one breakdown that's wiped out the person I used to be forever. 
But yeah, KJ did come here for a reason. And if that reason was to ask me daily why cups are round or what makes yellow not red, then I've seen the light. It just blinds me sometimes, that's all.

Queue Goblins II

Back for more

I know, I know, I've banged on about these beasts before but, Jesus, they don't know when to stop, do they? No, literally, they don't. I'm talking about the idiot shoppers who walk through the doors of a shop before stopping dead to gaze about the place as if it were the Sistine Chapel. Sod the poor bastards who have slammed into the back of them and are now piling up like motorway slush. Same goes for escalators. These goblins have all of 20 seconds to get carried from one floor to t'other - so it's safe to assume they know they are on a moving stairs in a shop - before stumbling off and coming to a dead halt at the top. Behind them there's carnage on the conveyor belt of humans, hair snagging, limbs tangling and infants disappearing into the greasy workings below.
Please, someone tell me what it is like to be so utterly bewildered that, even when you're entering a shop so rammed that you need to breathe in, you actually forget that you are in the company of other human beans? That welding yourself to the spot in the very doorway of the store makes a stunning amount of sense? Don't these people fret about the amount of snot that's being smeared on their coats by the poor bastards behind them?
And it's not that I'm an advocate of rushing about the place like a Broadmoor escapee. It's just that neither am I a fan of having intimate lurchings with whoever the frig has ground to a halt in front of me either. Look, if I want to find the hot cross fucking buns in Asda I'll make an educated bet that they're in the bread aisle and keep walking towards it. I won't set up camp in the foyer and rummage in my bag for my bloody radar equipment. 
Shopping is enough of a pain in the arse as it is. This idiocy really isn't helping is it, my little store-struck friends. Just put your brain in before you get your purse out and, to revert to the technical jargon, shift your frigging arse. 
I've said it once and I'll say it again. Goblins. 

Candy Floss

Almost but not quite

Pink, pink, pink and more fucking pink. This, I'm afraid to say, is life with a four year old female of the species. Pink everywhere. No, really, every-frigging-where. Until she was born our laundry piles were divided into whites and darks. Now it's whites, darks and fucking pinks. 
It would be easier to avoid the grim reaper that it would be to avoid your daughter becoming mesmerised by the colour pink. I reckon Kraken Junior is less child and more black hole, slowly sucking into her all that's pink in the world. Seriously, she's got an event horizon that would put cosmological phenomena to shame. I'm even avoiding redecorating her -currently lime green - bedroom because there's a vile inevitability in her wanting to turn it pink. Jesus, it'd be like creating a giant, walk-in cervix. Stick her in the right clothes and she'd so match her environment that we'd need heat-seeking equipment to find her.
That's why I've started buying her boys' clothes, because unless she starts wearing blues, yellows, greens and reds she'll turn some strange strain of colour blind. You know how pit ponies stop being used to the light? Kraken Junior will stop being used to anything that doesn't resemble a crushed fucking raspberry.
I blame social stereotypes. If you should want to dress, feed or entertain your child first you have to chose between pinks and blues. Seriously, you want to buy a set of pyjamas, prepare to be funnelled into one or t'other. Or perhaps you want to buy a bike? Then make your choice. Jesus Christ, Kraken Junior even has a trampoline that's pink.
And yeah, this pinky overkill is partly down to myself and Conjugal Kraken buying the stuff but, for fuck's sake, sometimes you get sick of fighting your way upstream and just give in. Ok, Ok, it's weak willed but you try tussling with ethical dilemmas when you've had five hours sleep and are arguing the toss with a toddler in the middle of a heaving Asda. You'll give into fucking anything, just to get out alive. She could ask me for a chainsaw and I'd shove one in the trolley just to snag four (that many?) seconds of peace.
So pink has one frig of a lot to answer for. It's turning my kid into a walking strawberry sundae. Stick a Flake in her gob and Mr Whippy could flog her from a van. Well, at least the music would be Greensleeves.

Pedal Power

Ding ding.

What po-faced fucks serious cyclists are. No, really. I live on a trail that's popular with said beasts and every time I use it I'm faced with some lycra-sprayed, muddy arsed goon who is doubled up over his bike as if Lance Armstrong himself is trying to throttle him with a yellow jersey. I wouldn't mind except that these guys (because they're always, always men) are too up their arses to slow down, shout a warning or avoid walkers, kids, dogs and any other being who believed that the sign 'public footpath' implied democratic use. 
Just what is their problem? Oh, don't tell me, they're practising for the Tour de France. No? Oh, in that case they must be trying out for the Olympic team. Oh, not that either? Then they're trialling some new super-bike that'll explode under speeds of 40mph. Nope? Then they must be inherently incapable of giving a shit about anyone or anything that doesn't come clad in knacker-gripping shorts.
What is it about sharing that they are unable to grasp? It's as if these trails belong exclusively to them which would account for the sneering looks and spinning silence you receive when you 'hello' anyone who comes towards you. Christ, they can't even warn you that they're bearing down on you, giving you a chance to drag your toddler or terrier out of the way. Clearly bells are for bell-ends. 
Anyway, if this is what they chose to do with a Sunday morning why in the fuck do they look so miserable about it? Jesus, I've seen funeral mourners with perkier faces. You'd think they were cycling with barbed wire wrapped around their knackers rather than just taking an hour out to indulge a hobby.
Look, you tit-heads, you're on a footpath in Wales, OK? You're not heaving through the Samatan - Pau stage of the Tour de France. And no one gives a fuck whether you make your PB or not. They do, though, give a fuck if you happen to knock their three year-old into a hedge and take one of the legs off their dog. 
Just how far up his arse does a serious cyclist have to clamber? Jesus, but the single-sacked Lance Armstrong has a lot to answer for.

Faking It

Me, when I get up in the morning

What the frig is all the vitriolic fuss over hot pop warbler Lana Del Ray? If the ranting on the t'web is anything to go by you'd think she'd spent her life kidnapping children to feed to her whippets. But no, she hasn't. Instead she had a failed pop career under her real name of Lizzie Grant before rebranding herself as Lana Del Ray. This, though, has turned her fans against her to the point that they're this close to holding a witch hunt. What, may I ask, the fuck?
So she found herself a new image, new name, savvy record company and banged out some new and improved songs. Amazingly that's set t'internet afire with the rage of fans who claim to have been duped. Excuse me? Duped? Oh, do you mean duped in the same way that Lady Gaga fooled the nation by not really being hatched from a giant egg when she was Born This Way? Or perhaps you mean duped in the way that Michael Jackson wasn't really a white man? Or duped, perchance, in the way that the Spice Girls presented themselves as singers?
So do these distressed fans think that Del Ray is the first popstrel to ever fake it for the fame? Oh spare me, you indignant, goon-eared fools. Who the fuck do you think fills the charts at the moment? Mustachioed, overweight, wart-sprinkled women or lythe, golden-skinned and clear-eyed beauties? And where, pray, do these beauties come from? Well, they sure as shit don't crawl out of local talent shows looking like that. They - get this - fake it. They change their images with diets, cosmetic surgery, furious gym habits and armies of stylists. Every one of their moves is decreed in the meeting rooms of record companies and the media dictates everything else, from what they say to who they shag.
In fact, you'd need a skull crammed with hamster droppings to even imagine that the usual MTV fodder hadn't been manufactured in some way. 
Del Ray has hardly dragged the music industry to a new low by cranking up her image. For frig's sake, we're talking about an industry that's accepting of the toss that's turned out by the X Factor, where desperados sell their souls just to get a walk on part in a Cheeky Girls video. Is Del Ray really more conniving and cynical than that? Unless she's Harold Shipman without the beard and scary stethoscope, I doubt it.
Which means these duped fans need to get what is commonly known as a grip. It's pop music for Christ's sake. Pop music. We're not talking about perverts parading as paediatric consultants, here, or Syria's Bashar al-Assad opening a HR consultancy. We're talking about the bollocks that Fearne Cotton knocks out on Radio 1 of a morning. 
So as we say on a Saturday night out, leave it, mate, she's not worth it. No, really. Leave. It.

Pop Picking

Al would turn on his table

Look, explain something to me, will you? Which is Beyonce's/ Rihanna's/ Gaga's latest single again? See, I haven't got a frigging clue because they churn them out at such a rate of knots that I fear they're colluding to create a new measurement of speed.
Just how hard do these people work? When do they ever get to take a shit? Jesus, Beyonce's been knocked up since last summer (until recently) and suddenly she's got so many singles out that I fear she's given birth to a child made of vinyl. And as for Rihanna, she's been around for the last 20 minutes but already seems to have enough released singles for a bloody box set.
I just can't keep up with them. Can you imagine what their record management meetings are like? They must consist of shiny-suited music execs pushing miniature figures of Bey/ Ri/ Whoever across a table-top map of the globe, like domination hungry Nazis, as they bark at each other about the military-like timing of the next release.
Worse, they're on a loop on TV's music channels. At any given time you can grab yourself an eyeful of Rihanna's waggling or Beyonce's jiggling just because they're never, ever off the bloody telly. Seriously, if aliens tuned into MTV they'd weep for us based on the fact that we seem to have a total of three singers worldwide.
Thing is, this lot just don't have to work this hard, do they. Don't they ever demand a break? Do they ever look at their musical achievements and think,"Fuck it. I've done my bit. I'm pissing off to the Bali dope trail for a year". Or do they live with some terrible fear that if they don't release a single fortnightly the world will forget about them in a fit of global amnesia? Christ, Grand National horses don't get flogged this hard. If I were RiRi or Bey I'd start demanding a nosebag.
Anyway, if they take a break then we'll get a break. There's only so much more of these singers that I can stand before I start pouring concrete into my ears. Yeah, yeah, yeah, RiRi, you found love in a hopeless place. Just stop fucking banging on about it will you? And yeah, Bey, finally he's put your love on top. Perhaps it was in an effort to get you to shut the fuck up.
Laydees, spare me. Girl power is one thing but girl omnipresence is doing my head in. Change the bloody record, will you?

Boffins

A starter for ten

If you ask me - you didn't, but that's the risk you take in these here parts - there's only one good reason to watch the geek-swollen, virgin-fest that is University Challenge. Sod the finer points of geo-thermal dynamics or post-modern American literature. It's really about the reaction of the contestants whenever they answer a question correctly.
Have you ever seen a more socially inept bunch of individuals? Yeah, they may look like regular human beings but this thin veneer of normality is cracked wide open whenever they bag themselves points. They just don't look like they know how to handle it, do they? I've seen less seat shifting in the local GUM clinic. In fact, you can narrow their behaviour down to just four responses:
The shrugger: It's the boffins' version of 'whatever', as if answering a question about the conversion of carbon dioxide into organic compounds is the equivalent of doing up your shoes with velcro. 
The bored: As if being on University Challenge is so, so dull that they're desperate to get back to the lab. They'll answer a question about interpretivism in political science while learning back in their chair with such an insouciant slouch that they look dead.
The ashamed: It's that embarrassed look they get when they manage to identify the Laughing Cavalier from a quarter inch of canvas. I say shame because there's a direct correlation between their correct answers and the number of extra years they'll have to wait for a shag.
The hotshot: With that self-congratulatory nod that displays such enduring smugness it's hard to believe that the contestant hasn't learned to blow themselves off yet. 
Funny thing is that these responses look laughably well practised, like actors who've lost out on an Oscar while still having to gurn happily for the camera. Jesus, across the land there are lank haired contestants standing in front of mirrors in their pants while learning how to say 'photosynthesis' or 'Aristotle' without exploding with happiness at their own intelligence.
And that's the problem with University Challenge, isn't it? The contestants. They actually make me grateful that I spent more time necking cider than I did studying. Appearing on UC would have been social death. Well, for normal human beings at least.

Boo!

Yup. I have this effect on everyone.

You know what's the bat shit craziest thing about having depression? No bugger ever asks you how you are. Well, no bugger outside the circle of family and close friends, that is. It's as if my depression is a grenade and that asking "how are you?" will yank out the frigging pin. That'll also explain the look of abject fear that I see on some faces, as if I'm perpetually on the verge of going postal. At least, I hope it will.
What the fuck is it all about? I've had the mental equivalent of a train crash but no one ever mentions it. If I'd just recovered from a broken arm or a gall bladder removal I suspect I'd have no end of questions about my fluctuating health. Yet recovering from a breakdown seems to befuddle said well wishers into such a deep state of panic that they're rendered incoherent. 
Twice in recent times I've been invited to mates' places for grub only to feel as if I'm making everyone so maniacally uncomfortable that I'm better off nipping to the chippy. Seriously, I've sat at tables where everyone has been asked about their work, kids, hobbies, views on whatever-the-fuck but I've been asked little more than to pass the salt. And when I have chipped into conversations - offering vignettes on day to day life, say - everyone shifts as if they've collectively had pins stuck in their arses. Some mates' dates have even turned into interviews because they have been so scared of asking me anything that I have simply fired questions at them in a hideous effort to keep the conversation going. I come home exhausted at having made sure that everyone else is having a good time.
Thank fuck I'm able to talk to my close friends and family. My best mates will happily ask me how I am doing, crack jokes about my ongoing banana-ness and offer all manner of wonders when I am mid-meltdown. And behold! None of this has ever come even close to pushing me further over the edge than I already am. In fact, I'd rather a stammered and panicky "how are you?" rather than no "how are you?" at all.
Then again, p'raps this is the price I'm paying for being so open about my depression. Had I spent the last two years sobbing and gibbering yet glossing it all over with a "No, I'm fine!" then perhaps everyone would feel more comfortable about me losing the plot. They could pretend that my marbles had done anything other than rolled away.
Thing is, though, that would have made everyone else feel better but it would have sent me straight to B&Q for a length of rope. And I'll be fucked if I'm going to let politeness kill me. You know, when it comes to being bat shit crazy I reckon I'm the only sane one out there.

Falling Stars

Inside Glitter's mind.

Look, just tell me that's not Gary Glitter who's, er, popped up on Twitter will you? Either him, or some nutbag fake him, has started a Twitter account announcing a comeback tour, autobiography and various other activities for covering up kiddie fiddling. 
Fuck me, though (and I can say that because I'm way too old for Glitter), if it's his followers who are giving me the shits this time around. Have you seen their comments? Have you? Well go and have a look, come back here and try to do it without taking a scouring pad to your eyeballs. 
"Gary, you are the best! Welcome back!" blathers one twatter. "I hope everyone can get over that unpleasantness now, Gary!" moons another. Oh, and how about this gem of "Gary is too precious for us to be without him!" Oh fuckety, fuckety fuck. Are these scrotes for real? I refuse to believe that Glitter has followers at all, let alone people who would publicly offer him their devotion. 
I dunno, perhaps they're all tweeting from a home for terminal amnesiacs or perhaps the GG fan club is offering free lobotomies with every concert ticket. Can you even start to imagine what a stadium full of these fans would look like? Dante's Inferno comes to mind but that didn't have nearly enough circles of hell. Nine don't even scratch the surface. Glitter's minions would pitch it well into double figures.
Oh, and I love the request that we all allow Glitter to put his fetid past behind him, a past that's so recent it's almost yesterday. His last conviction for pawing at minors was in 2006, for fuck's sake. Anyway, I bet his victims would equally love the chance to put the past behind them but crucifying flashbacks of Glitter looming over them have probably put paid to that. 
All of which his loyal fans seem too gullible to remember. What pitiful creatures they are.
Still, at least they can be guaranteed prime seats at GG's comeback tour (a worrying title for a tour where GG is involved, according to Conjugal Kraken). I'm not sensing a sell-out here. And if I were Glitter I'd hold on the t-shirt printing too. I reckon he's got enough front to go around the entire bloody nation.
Spare me, Glitter, spare me. And something tells me that it's not the first time you've heard that request either.

Bleeurgh

Just. Go. Away.

Alex fucking James: strummer, cheese fondler, champagne swigger, failed artist, professional toff, skint festival organiser, Sun columnist and now sell-out personal plaything of McDonalds, KFC and Greggs.
What a complete and utter tosser.
Just sayin'.

Dawn Chorus

Yeah, you're laughing now...

Whoa! Just came out of my shed where Radio 2's Steve Wright kindly regaled me with Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing amongst other popular music choices. Having never bothered to listen to the song before, I've just realised the complete fucking outrageousness of the lyrics. No, no, no I don't mean the bits where Marv, ahem, bangs on about wanting a shag. But the part where he hounds his, undoubtedly knackered, ladyfriend with his "wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up..." and "get up, get up, get up, get up..." for the purposes of said procreative activity.
Ha! Ha ha ha ha! Haaaaaaa! Marv, mate, are you frigging kidding me with this stuff? Wake up? Get up? Jesus, are you seriously telling me that you've woken up at 3am with a semi and considered it a good idea to nudge the missus until she's wide awake just to ask for a happy finish? 
Fuckadoodle do. Marv had a shed load of kids too so bare in mind he was harassing the women who probably had, just hours before, exhaustedly collapsed into bed after a day of funnelling baby vom, spilling shitty nappies, singing The Wheels on the Bus and generally talking to one-year olds as if someone had kicked their brains to death.
And after all of that he thought it a good idea to wake them up and ask for a shag? I'll tell you something, had I been one of Marv's good lady wives he'd have needed more than sexual healing after coming at me with a woody at 3am. He'd have needed gender reassignment surgery and a good defence lawyer.
Either Sexual Healing is a testament to how utterly out of touch Marv was when it comes to the perils of mothering or it's a towering monument to a man who didn't know when to stop pushing his luck.
In fact it's a miracle that Marvin Gaye was shot by his father. Personally, had I ever woken to Marv's nudgings after endless hours of dribbling my own tit milk down my front I'd have taken a fucking gun to him myself.
Perhaps Marvin should have recorded Afternoon Delight instead, at least hedging his bets that his woman had two minutes to spare before the school run. Or perhaps Morning has Broken, with Broken being a direct reference to what would be left of him should I ever have received a stupid o'clock booty call. Yup, heal that, Gaye m'boy, heal that.

Baby Talk

Oh, the glamour!

Wondersnever bloody cease, do they? I’ve just been privy to an absurd debate on how theMTV shows 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom glamorise teenage pregnancy. Shiton a stick, it was like listening to common sense and intelligence spiral downthe plughole.

Have thesepeople ever seen the shows? If they have while simultaneously witnessinganything that encouraged teenagers to get knocked up then I’ll willingly letthem take their pick of any of my vital organs. I’ve watched the shows since theyfirst clogged up MTV and I’ll be fucked if I can remember a single moment of glamour.In fact all I can remember is broken hearted parents, abandoned 15-year oldgirls, feckless boyfriends, screeching infants, resentful 3am feeds and fuckall chance of a decent education this side of Russell Grant being straight.

Sotell me, which part of this is glamorous?  At what point would any half-sentient teenagerwatch these shows and think, “what a fucking great idea! If I’m pregnant byNovember I can be dumped, broke, uneducated and friendless by Christmas.Whoo-oo!”

I’veeven heard the argument that these shows encourage teenage pregnancy. Are youfor fucking real? Encourage pregnancy? What, by wooing viewers with graphic scenesof teenagers tearing their vaginas during childbirth? Or by wowing them withthe blazing rows they could have with boyfriends who swear the kids aren’ttheirs? Look, if this stuff encourages some girls to get pregnant then may Iput forward the idea that said girls are unlikely to be chucking away greatcareers as physicists or diplomats as a result. Instead they’re probably so batshit crazy that they’re an insult to bat shit.

Problemis, this argument is reeled out whenever any TV show or film addresses theshittier side of life. Chuck a scene about drugs, booze or sex into a show andsuddenly we’re glamorising anything from overdoses to abortions. Oh spare me.No fucker ever complains that Eastenders glamorises the soul-sucking boredom ofrunning a market stall on the square you are born and will die on, do they? Andfrankly, I find the encouragement of the latter way more worrying than the encouragementof the former.

Soturn your ire on something a little more deserving, you soothsaying nutbags.When you see a show that rewards pregnant 12 year olds with duffel bags of cashand a shag with Justin Bieber feel free to holler. Until then, try rescuingyour common sense from that plughole, if it’s not too late.

Toffs Ahoy!

Bastards

Oh God, oh God, oh God, I think I'm having a relapse. I can't stop weeping, panicking and feeling as if I've been tossed into the blackest of pits. Oh, hang on though. It's not depression. It's just my reaction to MP Michael Gove's comments that the Queen should be given a new royal yacht to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee.
This is almost more than I can comprehend. Gove, the flap-mouthed Tory arse-wipe, is seriously suggesting that in these times of economic crisis, spiralling unemployment and commercial and personal debt that the nation coughs up £60m as a gift to a woman who has already spent her entire life living off the tax-payer? 
Well, fuck me, Gove, I've clearly had my priorities wrong all along haven't I? And there I was fretting about how young people are wasted in the dole queue, how intelligent kids are excluded from a university education because they can't afford it, how millions of people can't afford to get on the property ladder, how libraries are closing almost weekly, how families are collapsing into debt because they can't afford the basics, how pensions are being stolen from those who've spent their lives paying into them...Clearly, all along I should have been focusing my 3am fears on the fucking Queen and how nightmarish her life must be without a brand new tub to flash about in.
Astounded doesn't cover it. Just think what £60m could do to alleviate some of the biggest social problems this nation faces. And just think of how often the fucking Tories have told us that there's no more money left in the pot. Yet, suddenly, there's £60m sloshing about in some dark corner of the Conservative Party's bank account and the best that Gove can do is to blow it on the Queen?
You know, all I hope is that something good will come of this. Perhaps all of those people who foolishly voted Tory in 2010 will suddenly see what a big fucking mistake they made when they put their cross in the box. Like receiving a kiss from a prince, the nation could now stretch and yawn, gaze about and realise that they've been well and truly had. Let's hope that the nation's memory isn't so short this time around though and that next time they stumble into a voting booth they'll remember Gove, his cash-blowing stupidity and his haw-hawing chums. A Tory government? For fuck's sake, at the next election let's put that one astern.

Overload Overlords

Just say no

Don't know about you but I'm worried about Katherine Jenkins. What I mean is that if she doesn't take a day off soon from forcing her way into 'nation's sweetheart' status, she'll implode, dragging fellow crumpled sweetheart, Dame Vera Lynn, into the warbling black hole she'd have created. 
Jesus, does Jenkins ever say no to anything? If she's not knocking out tours or tunes for people with the musical discernment of Helen Keller, she's dragging her arse in front of anyone who'll have her, from desert-dusty troops to drunk rugby fans. Forget asking her to attend the opening of an envelope. She'll be too busy attending the opening of someone's bowel.
Perhaps my impression of Jenkins is such because my kraken cave is in Wales which means that, thanks to the desperate Welsh media, she is never, ever out of the bloody headlines. Jenkins represents a tenuous link to the Principality's global importance so all she has to do is take a shit and the Welsh papers are all over it like fleas on a mongrel's bum. Jesus, The Western Mail - our national rag - would prioritise a story about how Jodie Marsh's grandma once visited Tenby so you can imagine what a meal it makes of K frigging J. The paper is this close to printing a schedule of her menstrual cycle.
It's desperate stuff and it's going to get worse. The Six Nations is around the corner so I have absolutely no doubt that Jenkins will be wheeled out to do everything from bawl through our national anthem to lead the Welsh players through tunefully pissing against their urinals. Add to that her bookings at the Olympics and the Jubilee and she's going to redefine the word overload in ways that have hitherto been unimaginable. For fuck's sake, she's even been quoted as saying that the reason she couldn't get around to marrying her (now) ex-boyfriend this year is because she's got too much on. Take a hint Jenks, take a hint.
Fuck knows what will happen if Jenkins is taken out by a missile the next time she's harassing our troops. Wales would plunge into mourning so deep that it'd have to be crop-spayed with prozac. Our papers would drop 16 pages overnight, our TV channels would be physically sick onto the nation's carpets and the M4 would curl up into a ball. It'd be like some freakish wartime experiment to test the mettle of the Welsh.
So, kraken-lovers, we need to gird ourselves in 2012. We're heading for one fuck of an overload of warbling, doe-eyed, bottle-blondeness. I'd suggest ear plugs and a blindfold. Me? I'll be staying in my cave and probably beating my head against its walls. It'll be much more enjoyable.