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| The Daily Mumble December 2003 Archive |
| December 2003 was pretty full on. Battles with Orcs, my TV debut, mad dreams, alcohol, an anti-Christmas... all part of the fun leading up to the end of a very difficult year for a Tame Gone Wild. Read all the sordid details right here in The Daily Mumble! |
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Saturday 6th December 2003 -10:50 GMT At home, Bristol, England It's karma I have been so EXTRA nice to people recently (as opposed to my usual nasty self RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA) that I knew that life had to shine on me sooner or later - and wadda you know, this weekend life's very sparkly & shiney! This is resulted in me being in a very silly mood as can be seen in this video (80kb MPEG). Last night I met a dear friend called Francesca. I've known her many years, she's an artist from Peru. We met in a bar in Bath. She wore a dress woven from a fabric of fallen autumn leaves, their fiery glory preserved by a coating of the natural secretions of the Bilbao tree of her mother country. After several hours spent musing over the eccentricities of life we returned to my home, where our camomile teas went unsipped as we laughed and smiled and celebrated the joys of companionship. This afternoon I'm going to go to the cinema with a friend from college to see the film Love Actually. I've warned her that I'll probably cry or end up emerging from the protection of the dark theatre with an intense desire to fall deeply, madly, passionately in love. Just like they do in the movies. Last night, just before heading out to Bath, I got a call from one of my two bestest bestest friends ever, Jo. She and Boy Joe (her boyfriend) are coming to Bristol tonight for a party just down the road from where I live, and would I like to join them? yes please! The only thing is, it's a School party, i.e. everyone has to dress up as school girls. Selene - can you send over your gear please?! I think I might have to trawl the Gloucester Road Charity shops for a short black skirt later! I haven't been to a party for literally MONTHS! Oh, well, since last month's fancy-dress party actually. So, needless to say, I'm looking forward to it! Tee hee tiddly pom!
So, Thursday night, 9pm on BBC3, the widely advertised "Body Hits" episode on love was broadcast. I'd already seen it having received a copy a few days back. ...or at least I THOUGHT I'd seen it. Turned out, when I got the tape from the BBC it wasn't rewound to the beginning, so without realising it I'd only seen the program from halfway through. *IMAGINE MY SURPRISE* when, on Thursday night, I turn the TV on just to check that it really is being broadcast... and see a whole load more footage of me me me that I didn't know they were going to use. I mean, I'd given the BBC permission to use it and everything, but had assumed that they'd just decided not to use those bits. It was the video I'd shot in the toilet of the Boeing 747 whilst 33,000ft above Russia that was particularly embarrassing. I was in floods of tears, could barely speak, and my nose looked soooooooooooooooooooooooooo big. Now I know I have a big nose anyway, but on this video, well, it was MASSIVE! I think it was the camera angle. The other complaint I have, which is no-one's fault but my own, is that I'm sooooooo serious throughout. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I come across a complete depressive! I only get one joke in! Ugh ugh ugh. Everyone'll think I'm a miserable bastard that takes life far too seriously! Despite these bad points however, I think that overall it wasn't too bad. The BBC cameras were pretty kind to me. So what's it like being a celebrity then? Erm, well, so far I've only had 1 sort-of stranger approach me. Last night in the pub. I don't know his name, and I've never spoken to him before, but he was in my cultural studies class until recently. I could tell that he really DID want to ask for my autograph but was too embarrassed to do so. Well, it's understandable really, when in the presence of such a media icon as myself. My agent has been so busy since the broadcast. I've had to turn down offers from several multinationals on ethical grounds, but am considering a request by a local dating agency to star in their next advertising campaign. mail me | guestbook | top | photos Sunday 7th December 2003 -10:50 GMT At home, Bristol, England aaggghh... my brain hurts
mail me | guestbook | top | photos Monday 8th December 2003 -20:56 GMT At home, Bristol, England
mail me | guestbook | top | photos Monday 8th December 2003 -20:56 GMT At home, Bristol, England Meet Moopheus. Blue pill or red pill?
mail me | guestbook | top | photos Wednesday 10th December 2003 -09:41 GMT At home, Bristol, England I have the lurgie It's my own fault. I was warned before I saw my friend that I should keep away from them, but I didn't listen. Yesterday I was at the runny nose stage. Today I've got cold-sensitive-tingly-skin syndrome, acheyness and am snorting like a wilder beast. Luckily I don't have to go out until about 5pm - I've got two end-of-year Japanese exams tonight. Wish me luck. Bizarre dreams last night. I was going to Japan, but upon arrival at the departure airport I was told that as there weren't many passengers that day (nine in fact) we'd be flying in some kind of solar-powered glider. I know where that notion came from: I was reading about a plan to circumnavigate the globe in a solar-powered glider the other day. Anyway, my pilot, who was the daughter of an army sergeant, wasn't terribly skilled (I think that's because the other day my psychology lecturer told me that Jim Davidson once refused to get on a plane because it was piloted by a woman, his argument being connected with their ability to park cars). She was continuously crash landing and after several hours we'd only reached Belgium. Whereas most passengers were sitting in standard aeroplane seats (which had been fitted following the removal of the glider's two showers - I remember musing over where the water tanks were and why one shower cubicle had only had hot water and the other only cold), I was told to sit in the tail of the glider to balance it for take-off. Unfortunately, the window at the back opened at one point (it was the kind of window you'd find in a Swiss chalet as opposed to a modern 747), and all of my belongings were sucked out and strewn across the European countryside... 3 hours later... Why is it only my left nostril that's getting blocked up with snot? My right is perfectly clear and has been all morning, whilst my left is attempting to imitate Niagara falls just after the whole of the Pacific Ocean has been emptied into the river 2 miles upstream. mail me | guestbook | top | photos Saturday 13th December 2003 -16:59 GMT At home, Bristol, England Drunken post-sushi stunts I dreamt last night of returning home from a Japanese restaurant, and being so drunk on sake (rice wine) that I decided to do a lap of honour on my mountain bike around the cricket ground down the road, right in the middle of an internationally televised horse race that for some reason was being held there. Having completed my stunt I returned home, and woke the next day to remember nothing of it. My ignorance did not last long however, as Tim had a video of the previous night’s broadcast. Wow, I was incredible. You should have seen the stunts I’d pulled in my drunken unconsciousness. Standing on the handlebars as my bike whizzed around the track. Somersaults and oojimaflips, I did them all with stunning accuracy. Despite his initial fury at having had the race interrupted, the owner of the racetrack soon came to appreciate that my actions had boosted the TV ratings considerably, and so rewarded me with a place on the national English cricket squad. It’s Saturday afternoon. I’ve just woken up. Garfield Villa, the home within which I live, took us out for supper last night to Budokan, a Japanese restaurant in the centre. I got incredibly drunk on sake (rice wine). It was all so good. The sushi. The ramen. The music. The atmosphere. The company. The waiter. he was cute. The waitress. She was cute too. I just hope Tim hasn't got a video to show me... I so wanted to be back in Japan. My friend called me this morning from Tokyo. We must have talked for over an hour. Didn't really have anything to say to one another, but it was what we didn't say, it was the comforting silences that felt so natural, it was those minutes that reassured us that we're still "here" for one another in our shared loneliness. That's what loving friendships are all about. I'm tired, sleepy. This morning I watched the first of the three Lord of the Rings films. This evening we watched the second, the special extended edition with about 30 minutes of extra scenes that really do help explain a few bits and bobs missed out in the cinema and rental editions. The third comes out in a few days. Those films give me hope. There is hope. There's always hope. my ideal girlfriend I am of the opinion that in 2004 I will meet someone very special. Perhaps that's a foolish expectation to have. After all, expectations invite disappointment. Perhaps I should rephrase that sentence: "I bloody hope I meet someone very special in 2004!" 2003 has been a self-inflicted outright disaster for my love life. I hope I don't have to go through all that stuff again. ...but it was self-inflicted I guess. Why the changing of the calendar should make any difference I don't know. Well, of course it doesn't, as it's merely the representation of the continuation of the passage of time. Here's me thinking though, "Well, I'll be starting uni in the autumn, I'm bound to meet some lovely people there". Then I turn and think; "Autumn?! I'm not waiting for ANOTHER 9 months!!! Bollocks to that!" Thing is, here in Bristol I really limit my chances of meeting new people. It's a kind of self-inflicted, self-protection thing I think. I've made very little effort since my return from Japan to get out there and make lots of new friends, that is, apart from the madness of the summer - when I was far too tied up with my former partner to face anything new. Eight months of non-voluntary abstinence (with 3 notable exceptions when it was voluntary tee hee!) have given my ego a real bashing. I guess I was spoilt in Japan, being an exotic foreigner etc. On top of the problem of women not finding me attractive, is the additional problem that since my return from asia I find only a small percentage of English women attractive. I've become so sizeist, it's shocking. My landlady was pointing this out last night: "you're missing out on some absolutely lovely people by disregarding them due to their physical appearance alone." I find people over 5 foot about as attractive as giraffes, whilst big bums and big boobies are also out. Shocking, isn't it? I think I'm scared of big breasts actually. Scared of being bullied or whacked by them. My friend Stuart, who now lives with his Japanese wife in Tokyo, always used to say, "small but firm, think long-term". Perhaps it is due to the reasons I have outlined above that I love my teddy so much. No, I do not have a sexual relationship with him, but he is just the right size to cuddle (he's about one metre tall, small breasts, small bum, very cuddly and warm). At the end of the day of course none of this really matters. I found myself in a compromising situation with someone who's about as tall as me a while back, and I found them as sexy as sexy can be, and that's a hell of a lot sexier than even the most sexy giraffe. Ok, so I did suggest that she try walking around on their knees for a while. She wasn't too impressed. Crikey, it's 00:50am, I gotta go to bed. mail me | guestbook | top | photos Sunday 14th December 2003 -12:03 GMT At home, Bristol, England Am I just stupid or what? How could I be so ignorant? Yesterday, I read an article in the Guardian Newspaper's Weekend magazine about milk. It's shocking. The bad-for-your-health aspect was not altogether surprising as I knew about that anyway, and the involvement of profits-before-ethics Monsanto in ensuring that all American milk contains GM products (thankfully banned in the EU, Canada, Japan and 100 other countries) came as no surprise. What did shock me though was the inhumane aspect of dairy farming. I'd just never considered it before. It had never occurred to me that a cow has to get pregnant in order to lactate. And I once worked on a Swiss dairy farm...
Thankfully, I don't feel at all hypocritical as I rarely consume any dairy products, being in a vegan household, and when I do it's usually only Yeo Valley yogurts, whish is totally organic. They've got a nice website too. Mind you, I have been known to slip up when drunk. I was really very embarrassed and ashamed the other day. It was the day after the schoolgirl party. We were all eating supper together, when Tim asked me what was on the top shelf in the fridge. Somewhat bemused, I told him that I didn't know... and went to find out. Shock Horror Embarrassment and Guilt - it was a KFC bag with a half eaten chicken in it! It just goes to show how strong that punch had been - I'd lost all sense of right and wrong and stooped as low as supporting the colonel. mail me | guestbook | top | photos The
Daily Mumble Advertisement Department Dedicate a new life to someone this Christmas
Sunday 14th December 2003 -23:43 GMT At home, Bristol, England Resolutions for the coming week 1) Get a girlfriend. Can probably pick one up in a charity shop if all else fails, although it's likely she won't be much under 60-years-old. 2) Either go to the barber and ask him to shave the annoying whispy bits of hair off the back of my head OR go to an electrical store and buy a shaver, then do it myself using two mirrors. On second thoughts, if I do that I'll probably end up having to go to the barbers afterwards due to an unfortunate mishap which will necessitate the removal of all my hair again to within 1mm of my scalp. 3) Enjoy every day.
Resolutions for Christmas week 1) Make mad passionate love all day, every day, with my new girlfriend. 2) Stop day-dreaming so much. 3) Accept the reality of the situation, i.e.that I'm working on the Monday and Tuesday, and that I'll be single for the rest of the year and well into the 27th year of my life which begins in one month yesterday, and in fact will probably be single until I leave England in 2008 due to my complete inability to promote myself effectively on the mysterious UK market. 4) Remember to take teddy with me wherever I decide to spend Christmas. Bah humbug. mail me | guestbook | top | photos Saturday 20th December 2003 -08:36 GMT At home, Bristol, England I'm falling in love!! Meet my new girlfriend, Smeagalina!
She calls me "My precious" and is ever so good at catching fish with her bare hands. Admittedly she is a bit smelly, and her table manners aren't the best, but hey, beggars can't be choosers.
Saturday 20th December 2003 -09:36 GMT At home, Bristol, England Nominations now being received for the Man Of The Year Awards 2003...
mail me | guestbook | top | photos Saturday 20th December 2003 -09:42 GMT At home, Bristol, England What planet are they on? For unfortunate technical reasons I have to suffer the indignity of relying on AOL for my internet connection. Although I try and ignore this fact, now and then I can't help but glance at the sign-on page. Occasionally they come up with some fantastic suggestions on how to improve all sorts of areas of your life: here we have an extract from their guide to making sure She has a fantastic Christmas.
Hang on a sec, this is the UK version of AOL I'm using isn't it? - or have I inadvertently clicked onto the Australian site? Let's have a look at the 72-hour forecast for maximum temperatures in the UK shall we?
mail me | guestbook | top | photos Saturday 20th December 2003 -10:20 GMT At home, Bristol, England You wanna do what with me? What are you? I received an email this morning from a relatively new internet-aquired friend. "I was wondering if you use YAHOO messenger? ...i'd love to be able to just shoot the shit with you every now and then. I'm an inInternetunkie, so i'm onon line lot. Shoot the shit with me? Well you're certainly not doing that round MY house thanks all the same, sounds really messy. You're an inInternetunkie are you? I know what kind of lines you're onon a lot! I haven't heard from my Philippino friend for ages. You know, the guy who wanted me to visit so we could take a nap naked on his bed. I miss his mad declarations of "brotherly love". Mind you, I did receive quite an interesting letter from a stranger in Uganda this week - he'd read a magazine article I'd written about talking fridges in Tokyo (if you leave the door open for a little while a pre-recorded message asks you to please shut it).
I'm not quite sure what he's referring to re. the feet (it's a talking, not walking fridge). Still, I shall reply to him asap and seek to reassure him that this technology is really quite friendly (if not utterly ridiculous). Mind you, he has prompted me into thinking, does a fridge talk when there's no-one there to hear it? mail me | guestbook | top | photos Saturday 20th December 2003 -10:45 GMT At home, Bristol, England Stuff This week's been really busy and pretty stressful. I've been subjecting myself to endless dollopings of stress by half-avoiding an assignment that needs writing. I'm feeling a bit better today as I got quite a bit done on the train yesterday, despite spending most of the Taunton to Exeter stretch playing peek-a-boo with a little lad sitting in the seat opposite. I had a great time last night which is another reason for my somewhat relaxed mood today: I went to bed at 7.30pm and didn't wake up until 7.30am! Ah, now THAT'S what I call a good Friday night! I did get a drink in at lunchtime though; a whole bunch of us piled out of the office and into the local pub to celebrate Pete's retirement. Pete was a victim of the closure of the old head office of the company that I work for. I was supposed to be a victim of that too, but my manager, wonderful lady that she is (kiss kiss) has agreed to extend my temporary contract until the end of January, meaning that every Thursday and Friday I'll be continuing the 4-hour round trip between my home and my desk. That's great, as I don't have to worry about finding another job just yet. Here's a fantastic going-to-the-pub-in-Natalie's-mini action shot.
Natalie has the fortune of sitting at a desk positioned so she can look at me all day long from less than two metres away. Lucky girl. Hope she appreciates the placement of this photo of her looking like a octopus that's got it's tentacles stuck in a cheese grater on the infamous Daily Mumble. Well, I'd best get on. Breakfast to eat, shower to have, essay to avoid. Flapjacks to make. Bjork to dream of. mail me | guestbook | top | photos
Friday 26th December 2003 -10:20 GMT At me bruver's place, Totnes, England You know what I say? As you may have noticed, I don't have much time for Christmas. I was brought up a Roman Catholic, but at the age of 13 or so had a strong reaction against the whole guilt thing and the manner in which it was drummed into me during services which I simply found to be... dull. I have no objection of course to others practicing any religion whatsoever, each to their own. Anyhow, my agnostic views, in conjunction with the experience of living in non-christian countries, have helped to remove any culturally influenced obligation that I may have previously felt to celebrate christmas. On top of that, I have my anti-consumeristic streak (after all, I bought all my gadgets last year and can now feel comfortably unhypocritical when criticising it!). I don't know about you, but this past month I've been really shocked by hard hard we are pushed into consuming all manner of crap for christmas. I don't remember it being like this... it's just sick, and it makes me feel sick when I see friends around me buying into it. The present thing doesn't seem to be about giving and receiving gifts with love anymore, it seems to be about how much money you've spent. As you may know, I opted out this year. I haven't bought a single present for anyone, I haven't sent a single card. I've made some flapjacks for the family, and very happily received the most lovely rug handmade by my brother and his partner. I've written letters to those who have sent me cards, and I did the washing up both yesterday and today. Oh, and took about three buckets of compost out. I know I should do those sorts of things anyway, and I do, although not normally here in Devon because it would take over 5 hours to empty the compost if I had to come down here to do it. That's a lot of travelling to empty the compost. The other thing I want to rant about is the TV, and the food thing. It was so perilous yesterday... I could feel myself teetering on the brink of wanting to switch the TV on and watch all the crappy christmas TV, because that's what we do in this culture. Thankfully, I had family and friends around to support me, and in the end, apart from the Singen Blingen Tringen Tree the TV was only on for 15 minutes to catch Nick Park's classic Creature Comforts. And as for Turkey... well don't even get me started. It's an apalling industry worthy of having it's willy choppped off. RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA So, to sum up all the above, I say
and all the smelly cheesy culture around it although I must admit the cheese bit is rather nice. Ate loads of Stilton yesterday. No, you could argue that I'm a misreable old git, just like Charles' Dicken's character that I played back in the early nineties...
...but I'm not, because I can only be classed as a miserable git if I'm assesed in the context of modern popular culture, which I have opted out of, so NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA you can't label me as such ah ah ah (evil laugh). I am the ghost of Christmas google... mail me | guestbook | top | photos Friday 26th December 2003 -17:20 GMT At me bruver's place, Totnes, England Life is really really exciting It really really is. Really. Ok, ok, so I've been single for like 9 months now, and that is a major problem. Don't get me wrong, I'm not obsessed with being in a relationship, but I will just say that the only reason that I'm on this planet is to indulge in some lurvin. I feel like a Beagle 2, my 9 note signal is just not being picked up by any receiver on this planet. Anyway right right right life is really really exciting because like I'm really lovin being at college and learning stuff and interacting with people who even after a whole term are relative strangers apart from Jo who being a member of the Steiner gang iI feel I can instantly kinda get where she's comin from. Other reasons why life is wonderful:
Saturday 27th December 2003 -00:35 GMT At me bruver's place, Totnes, England Skimmin' over the ocean liks a stone I was thinking, this past year, at least this past 6 months or so, I've been skimming aross the ocean like a stone. Propelled by the energy of a dream and a strong desire to pursue my passions, skipping along the surface of life, only occasionally making contact with the reality of it all. The momentary contact, whether it be in the form of a brief encounter of the emotional kind, or the weekly viewing of The Office, is just enough to give me renewed propolsion up and onward as the time flies by. It's feels great - and there's the excitement of knowing that sometime in the coming year I will plunge below the surface and into the riches of the deep blue below. [for more on stone skimming, visit the website of the world stone skimming championships] mail me | guestbook | top | photos Saturday 27th December 2003 -23:15 GMT At home, Bristol, England Did you see it?
I
love it. I hate it. I can't bear it. I can't get enough of it. You know
exactly what I mean if you've seen The
Office. Possibly the best thing to be broadcast on television anywhere
in the whole world in the past 200 years. You've never seen anything like
it before, and chances are you'll never see anything like it again.
Tonight was the final episode - it will not be returning. I could
barely watch, but I had to.
It's so realistic you can't help but be dragged into the lives of the
monkeys who work at Wernham Hogg. Everyday people, who really do exist
in the office where YOU work. No canned laughter, this is fiction that
barely passes as such. I know of friends who have to leave the room
when it's on, hide behind the sofa - I never watch it without my scarf
which can be used to shield me from the sheer horror of it all. Post credits I felt at a loss. Yes, I guess those people do still live
on... but that knowledge alone is not enough. That's why I've just spent
the last 30 minutes downloading video clips, models for paper
aeroplanes with David's face on, desktop wallpaper
and screensavers.
I even downloaded a big image of his tie
and facial
hair, designed to be cut out and stuck on for the camera. Is this obsession?
mail me | guestbook | top | photos
Goodbye 2003.
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