You're dear to me because I want to embrace you

Just as I got back into blogging, I managed to nearly break my finger thanks to cricket and my magic ‘cat-like’ reflexes. So I have to type without the middle finger of my right hand. This is quite tricky, as that finger is responsible for some of my favourite letters, such as I or P. So this blog entry is brought to you without those letters.

In an ominous changing of the guard, the day before I twatted up my finger I started tweeting. I have the vague excuse that it’s for my work and our nice editor explained to us that it’s important using lots of pictures of offices surrounded by walls, but really: I have no excuse.

But it makes sense at the moment, because you don’t need ten fingers to tweet. You only need one. Blogging is the past, twitter is the future; at least, until it is superseded by an even more micro blogging site, where one is able only to choose one’s favourite colour, provided it’s not brown or yellow. Or green. But by then we’ll be living in Matrix-style pods, so we’ll probably have more important things to worry about than letting people know that we’ve just done a poo. Like attempting to free the human race from the machines.

So as I’m flying to America tomorrow in order to get married to someone amazing, I thought I’d best blog to mark the occasion. I’ve always managed to mark the major and important moments of my life via blogging, such as when New Malden Wimpy shut down and when I got kicked out of Glastonbury.

Without wanting to use clichés like ‘it’s the end of an era’, it’s the end of an era. My twenties are coming to an end, New Malden, or at least my presence in it, is again coming to an end (one and the same thing, surely).

And it’s also goodbye – joyful goodbye – to this strange period of waiting, of being separated from the one other person I’ve ever met that makes exactly as little sense as I do, of heartbreaking airport farewells, of late night silence and cheese.

I’ve tried to stay busy. There are many things I vowed to do with my spare time, and some I have achieved, like learning German, knitting a ladder to the moon and become a ukulele virtuoso. I also debunked every conspiracy theory since JFK and made some crop circles.

Unfortunately the last paragraph contains some exaggeration. But that’s the thing – when Morgan and I are finally living in the same country, which barring major disasters should be in less than a month, anything will be possible again. There are so many things I’m looking forward to doing with her – from the boring to the ridiculous; from the banal to the sublime. We have trains to catch, cakes to bake, bikes to ride, songs to sing, projects to write.

We just have to try not to spend all of our time staying in watching Azumanga Daioh.

For those about to eat sushi, we salute you

A week ago I caught a train to Nottingham. Inter City trains, as I insist on still calling them, are my favourite. Travelling by train is one experience that hasn't yet been utterly destroyed, if you travel at the right time and avoid carriages full of people shouting into their phones.

I like to surround myself with tea, newspaper, book, pen, notepad, music player, and Nintendo DS, so that there is little danger of boredom or human interaction - and then spend the journey looking out of the window.

This time, however, my fellow train-users (What are rail companies calling them these days - Passengers? Customers? Consumer units?) were more interesting than the Bedfordshire countryside, and so I spent the journey watching them instead.

First up were a Turkish couple with a poodle. In truth I have no idea if they were actually Turkish, but I would confidently place them in that 5,000 mile radius. They were a bit foreign looking. The poodle was silent and haughty and seemed to be in charge. Fucking poodles. On the next table was a businessman. He looked like an adult, the way people younger than me now look. He had a shiny suit, a laptop and an ipod. He was all set for his journey. He was looking out of the window.

Interrupting this peaceful scene, a crowd of geek metallers arrived, kicking the Turkish(?) couple out of their seats, waving their pre-booked ticket stubs in insistent authority. They had been reserved for METAL.

If trains aren't full - and this one wasn't enormously so - I don't understand why people are so determined to sit exactly where their reservation commands them to. I guess it's down to a love of order, or fear of MILD EMBARRASSMENT

In any case, the poodle was moved on, last seen heading towards the buffet car, and the geek metallers made themselves comfortable, with a seemingly endless stream of black t-shirted longhairs continuing to arrive, like a column of hairy ants. They took up the poodle table, and spilled over to take the three remaining seats of the businessman's table. He was marooned in a sea of rock.

I watched his reaction as they sat down. He was silently furious.

He retreated into his electronic people-ignoring armoury.

The geek metallers were lovely, as such people tend to be. Their t-shirts featured bands, giant manga robots and programming jokes. Their long lank hair was entrapped in pony tails, for now was not yet time to rock. That time would come later - they were on their way to the download festival.

They had one token not-quite-metal-yet friend, whose apprentice status was highlighted by his non-black t-shirt. He had much to learn, and listened intently to his would-be peers.

There was also a token girl.

Settling into their journey, they started talking about the soundsystems of London venues. One, located in Elephant & Castle, was deemed the most metal.

"One time it was so loud it made my nose vibrate, and set off a sneezing fit!"
"Wow! You were fucking nose raped!"

They ate sushi and drank supermarket lager. They also had lots of acoustic guitars.

Acoustic guitars are totally not metal.

The Thick Of It

I'm excited like a giddy schoolboy - they're filming The Thick Of It here at the office. I just went down to the lobby to be treated to the sight of my hero Armando Iannucci, high grand master of them all, and assorted cast members.

I wasn't sure what to do with myself at this stage, so I kept on going, through the revolving doors, past Chris Addison and someone else I vaguely recognised. Still wasn't sure what to do, so I headed right to where Grauniad types usually smoke under the protection of the wavy front of their environmentally well-meaning new building. I tried smoking my phone, but it was fairly acrid. Someone shouted "cut!". Maybe my phone smoking wasn't naturalistic enough.

Then I came back.

Yesterday there was a thunderstorm on my road. I'm not sure if storms can be that specific, but the walls shook, the noise was overwhelming, and a papergirl got struck by lightning. The word on the cul de sacs is that her mum had rung her to see if she was ok in the storm, and, as when you have ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife, the phone acted as a conductor and she got struck in the face. It's funny, though, and you're allowed to laugh about it, because she's not dead or anything.

I went to the pub to watch the cricket in the afternoon. I went on my own, and was surrounded by people who weren't on their own. They had other people to talk to - friends, acquaintances, families and the like. I had a newspaper with me as a psychic shield, and sat fairly happily at my table, watching the humans around me (and the cricket).

Humans are really strange. They wear certain clothes and talk about things in a really odd way. It almost seems like they're acting; pretending to know what to say, what to think, and what to do. When I'm sat on my own, and surrounded by humans, I feel like I'm one of the mass observation people from the 1930s, observing the habits of these mad creatures in their natural habitat, marvelling and wondering at their ease of conversation, mating rituals, and indoor hat wearing.

I presume I'm not the only person that feels like this sometimes - like an alien from a different, though not necessarily more advanced planet. It's not like I sit there going 'puny earthlings, with your pork scratchings and inferior carbon-based barmaids'. I just sit there, happy and calm enough, but expecting someone to jump up at any moment, point at me, and say: "LOOK AT HIM! HE'S AN OUTSIDER! HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND US AND OUR WAYS! HE'S WEARING A WOODEN DUCK ON HIS HEAD! THROW HIM IN THE STOCKS!".

They never do. But they're thinking it.

Anyway, we won the cricket.

Voting For Wimpy

Last night I did my democratic duty and put a cross in a box to help lessen the impact from those foolish or ignorant enough to vote for one of the parties that make up the axis of bigotry.

I managed to get Alastair out to vote too, for only his second time. When we arrived at my voting station, the Methodist church, they couldn't find his name on the register. To our surprise, the election officer was very helpful, in that instead of knocking Alastair unconscious and throwing him in the back of an unmarked van, he rang around the other voting stations until his name was found, and gave us the address of his voting point. We left flushed with pride for the basic competence of our political system, which will remain until we see how many cunts voted for the Tories. I'm preparing for the full onset of seemingly inevitable Tory rule - we've had 12 years of Tory lite, with the Thatcherite project continued by a bunch of fools and cowards who pissed their collective conscience down the river. This time, we'll get to see it done with gusto, by true blue believers. It's a fucking terrifying prospect.

On the walk back to his house I casually mentioned my plan to write a travel book about Wimpy. Though I'm still working out exactly how to go about it, the gist is that I'll visit every single surviving Wimpy in the country, starting at the one nearest to me and fanning outwards, and see where I end up and who I meet. I expect many of them to close while I'm in transit, such is the desperate state of this once proud institution (Church, State, and Wimpy... the holy trinity).

The point of the book is to investigate the places - and people - in Britain that are unfashionable and forgotten. Wimpy is a good medium for this, since surviving Wimpies tend to be found hidden in the less loved folds in our nation's bloated geographical belly: tired satellite towns, windswept seaside resorts, Long Eaton. I will have my beautiful foreign wife in the country by then, so this should also act as an introduction to how stupid being married to me is. If she can survive six months of being forced to travel to places like Southend-on-Sea then she can survive anything. That's the hope, anyway.

I hope the book will appeal to intellectual types who enjoyed things like "Dave Gorman meets other people called Dave Gorman" and "Comedian goes around Ireland with a fridge for some reason".

Anyway, Alastair was pretty incensed. Firstly, I think, for for not thinking of it first. We discussed the idea that we attempt to get competing Wimpy books published, a bit like when two films about Volcanos / CGI ants came out the same week.

Secondly, perhaps realising that he'd be A Bug's Life to my Antz, he then indignant at my pooh-poohing of his wish to visit every single Wimpy in the country with me.

He has fair justification for this. He has been a Wimpy partner in crime these past fifteen years - indeed, if anything, he is more obsessed with it than me. I am a sophisticated Wimpy customer, willing to accept Wimpy Quarterpounders are part of a healthy and balanced diet, but that it is necessary to eat, and indeed do, other things sometimes. Meanwhile Alastair has the crazed hunger of the zealot. Back when we were teenagers, when he would visit me every summer for an exciting week in New Malden watching horror films and playing Sensible Soccer, he would wish to visit Wimpy every single day*. Through the magic of compromise, our average was thrice a week. Maybe four times.

Also, ten years ago he helped me do my grand survey of Wimpies that we had so far visited, ranking them via important categories such as "greasiness of chef" and "proximity to my house". Amazingly, given that second category, Penzance Wimpy won.

But I placated him by reassuring him that he will play a very large role in my book. How could he not?

*RIP New Malden Wimpy. Your passing has been greatly mourned

Welcome To The Jungle

Last night I ate some wonderful sausages. They were both pork AND beef, and were sold to me by an awkward man in a Waitrose hat. I am also awkward, so it was a suitably awkward exchange. I'm used to just buying sausages that have been caught, processed, packaged, and left for me on the shelf, with handy packaging telling me what they might taste like, what shape they are, and how long I should cook them for to make sure I don't die.

But I've been feeling in a crazy mood since Monday, when I cycled to Brighton to prove to myself that it was possible to cycle to Brighton, so I went to the butcher's counter and interacted with a real, other, human being. I looked at the sausages, he came over. I wasn't ready to choose which sausages I wanted, because I hadn't looked at all the sausages yet. So I rejected him. He hovered for a bit. Then he walked away, just as I was ready, so I had to call him back. Then I pointed at the sausages, but like a dog he didn't understand pointing, and so just looked at my hand. So I read the name of the sausages out loud. I told him how many sausages I wanted: four. Greed. Then I went home and cooked the sausages.

Back home an hour later, I was just finishing my fourth and final sausage, ignoring my vague plan to hold one of the sausages back for the following morning's commute (I've never eaten a sausage sandwich on a packed commuter train before, but - as I mentioned above - I'm feeling a bit frisky at the moment so the idea appealed to me). I was watching Channel Four news with my grandma, (we both congratulated Jack Straw for how he handled the lusty questioning of folk hero John Snow) and trying to decide what to do with my evening.

Then the phone rang. It was Alastair. I went outside to answer.

"Hello. Are you at home?", he said.
"Yes. I'm full of sausages", I replied.
"That's excellent. I'm wandering the streets of New Malden because I have cleaners in my flat, and I don't know where to go. Do you want to go to the pub?"
"Yes."

Shortly after this, we met in Bar Malden and bought some beer. Alastair explained that, as he is selling his house soon, he needed to get some cleaners in to make his house look presentable, as he couldn't be bothered cleaning the house himself, on account of his being lazy.

"It's hard to find good cleaners. Did you get a recommendation off someone?"
"Yes I did, but they didn't turn up. So I just got some off the internet"
"Fair enough. They must be reliable if they know how to use the internet"
"Yeah. I've just left my house to them. They have a dog. They should be finished soon. I'm really worried they might just steal all of my stuff"
"They won't do that. They have a website."
"But they're quite young. What if they steal anything? Bis told me to trust the kids. If they steal anything, I'm writing to Manda Rin to complain."

We talked for a while, about important things: his move to Bristol, how it feels like the end of an era, and Geordi La Forge's failure to sleep with any women over the course of 178 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

"I think it's really unfair that they made the only blind member of crew hopeless with women".
"Yes, but it's not like they were going 'I'm really sorry Geordi, but I can't go out with you... because you're blind'".
"Yeah, but it's what they were thinking"

After ninety minutes or so, it was time to head back to Alastair's flat, to see if the cleaners had stolen his Sheffield Wednesday clock, his figure of Nagash: Lord of the Undead, his Play Station 2, or his Playstation 3.

As we approached we could see them hoovering his front room. The woman shouted "Shit, he's back already!" in Polish to the other two, and to the dog. (Fuelled by alcohol, we could, for this moment, understand Polish)

We came up the stairs. The dog was outside. I introduced myself to it. Alastair talked to the cleaners, who said they needed another fifteen minutes. What could we do for fifteen minutes?

We went to another pub, one slightly closer to his house. It was one of those murderer's pubs, full of locals and murderers. Despite living in New Malden for a large proportion of my life I'd never been to that pub before, because it was full of murderers.

By the time we got there, as Alastair pointed out, we only had seven minutes before we needed to go back, so he ordered shots of Tequila while I went to the toilet.

The regulars watched us very closely, with some puzzlement evident. They were too puzzled to murder.

We drank our drinks and left minutes later. On the way back, we passed an emo kid, walking up and down an alleyway smoking weed and looking unhappy. We talked about our infamous (within our own personal friendship narrative) monopoly pub crawl of ten years previous, which we vowed to finally complete within the next month. Only eleven squares to go, from Fleet Street to Mayfair. Hopefully we'll arrive home before... hopefully we'll arrive home this time.

We get back. They're just finishing up. I sit outside with the dog.

They bring out massive amounts of rubbish. Alastair gives them a wedge of cash. They leave, carrying beer and cleaning equipment.

We head in to the flat. It looks ok - bathroom looks like how bathrooms are supposed to look. Carpets are clean. They've done an okay-ish job.

Alastair goes to the fridge for beer. It is empty. He looks at the freezer. It is also empty.

I look through the cupboards - no sign of it.

I'm not saying we're desperate for beer, or anything, but we decide to rummage through the bins.

Alastair salvages many things from the bin bag: frozen food, plastic fridge compartments, a fajita kit. His oven gloves. They threw away his oven gloves. But no beer.

It eventually transpired that Alastair told them to "take everything out" of the fridge, to help them clean it. Translated via Polish, and giving them the benefit of the doubt, we decided that had been taken to mean "take everything from the fridge".

So they did. They drank some of the beer while they worked, and took the rest home with them. They threw away his oven gloves. They had a lovely dog.

The final sign of their visit: while they were cleaning, or drinking, they put a CD on. Their choice? Guns & Roses.

In Eastern Europe, it is still the late 1980s.