Caricature of Life

Jan 5

It's that time of the year again...

where the supermarket shelves are beginning to look a little spacious in the aftermath of the pre-Christmas loss of sense and sanity. And as is now tradition in the British retail industry, the gaps created by the end of the festive season are filled by a healthy delivery of Easter stock (which actually arrived in store on Christmas Eve...)
Colleague {excitedly}: Creme Eggs are the best thing since sliced bread!
Me {non-excitedly}: Yup, I especially like them toasted....
It sounded quite quick-witted and humorous at the time, but now that I am reading it back, it seems pretty peculiar.

“If I had £100,000 for every time I was asked for salt today then I would be absolutely stinking rich!” I’ve never understood the phrase, “if I had a penny for every time…” I guess it is said to emphasise the great regularity with which something has occurred, but I am more of the belief that it emphasises terrible business acumen.

Dec 31

“There isn’t a person on Earth who can predict the future with absolute conclusive certainty. Not even Superman. But I have a real feeling; in my heart, in my soul and in my mind, that 2010 is going to be a wonderful year. 2009 turned out to be pretty amazing too - a lot better than I could ever have dreamed it would be twelve months ago - but I am ready now to wave it farewell and embrace 2010. Happy New Year Tumblr: I don’t know you, but you know me a lot better than I know myself!”

If 2009 taught me one thing....

it is that if you want something
I mean,
if you really, really, really, really
want something
and you believe
in your heart
that it is right
and meant to be,
then no matter which
obstacles
or
unforseen events
or
setbacks
or
heartaches
encounter you,
you must overcome them.
Because if you really want something,
really, really, really, really want something
then it is worth every tear
you can cry
and every moment where you feel
like you are going absolutely crazy.
So when you get that feeling
in your heart,
that numb feeling
that feeling of
one hundred thousand
butterflies
fluttering,
you must do everything
everything
in your power
to make it happen.
Because if you feel it
and if you believe in it
really, really, really, really
feel it and believe in it
then it is right
and it is meant to be
and it will happen.
It will happen.
It WILL happen.
IT WILL HAPPEN.

The Highly Original "Best of the Decade" Playlist

Fifty of my favourite songs from the “noughties”. Rather ridiculously, Spotify doesn’t have anything from Ryan Adams’s Heartbreaker album, so it kind of isn’t really that accurate of a list. I limited the number of appearences from artists to three, and there’s quite a wide range of music to enjoy in there, and probably an equally wide range of songs and artists who I have completely forgotten!

EDIT to add that I’ve been secretly adding songs throughout New Years Day. It’s not like you’re paying attention anyway :-)

Ten of '09

Seeing as this is the time of year where everybody and their dog (if, of course, the dog has a Tumblr account) is posting this sort of thing, I thought I might as well through a little something together before the Budweiser+Jack Daniels+Jaegermeister commences. So click on the link for my ten favourite songs of the year. Spotify account required, of course. Just missing out of a place on my list are the eternally gutted Camera Obscura with the beautiful French Navy and Paolo Nutini’s sweet Candy.

Dec 29

“You know what I dis-like about Christmas? Receiving tubs of Celebrations. That has to be the most frustrating gift. Not because I don’t like miniature chocolates. I love them, as it goes. But because a tub contains approximately 3 Malteasers and 50,000 Mars bars.”

I fucking hate posting photographs of myself. It’s something somebody else should do on Facebook or in hell. I hate it because…..ugh, for so many reasons. But I really had to do it tonight, for two reasons.

1) I’ve been wanting a skinny black tie for the longest time now. I am so happy that I have found one. Not that you can tell from the picture. But, yeah, I have a skinny black tie.

2) I just shaved. Five minutes before taking that photograph. And I don’t have a babyface. All thanks to the wonderful BaByliss i-Trim Stubble+. I’ve been shaving with it for around two weeks now and haven’t had a babyface since I started. I hated that post-shave soft, smooth twelve year-old boy face. Grrrrr. But I no longer have to suffer that, and I am so much better off for it. Five o’clock shadow twenty-four hours a day; wooooo!

Dec 28

Pain in the arse...

Should your bottom still be rather sore a week after slipping thrice on the ice? I’m no doctor, nor am I an expert on bottoms, so I really don’t know what the deal is here.

Though I guess in a way I should be thankful for my pained bum. There is a really lovely, polite elderly gentleman who comes into the store every morning. He will always wish me a good morning, especially if Celtic have won. He does an extraordinary amount of work in fundraising for the Cathedral. I can even forgive that he buys The Herald. Today, after having completed his shopping, he fell on the ice as he walked back to the bus stop, dislocating his shoulder.

It doesn’t seem right. How can he fall once and dislocate his shoulder and I fall three times in the space of fifteen minutes and the worst I get is a bruised derrier?

Don't ask me why...

but I find the act of lighting a cigarette in the drifting snow to be quite erotic.

There’s something about the spark of the lighter and that little flicker of a flame that resembles the electric caress of a lovers fingertip on your skin.

The first puff of smoke lingers in the icy air and kisses the black, blanketed sky. And it melts.

*sigh*

Dec 27

“If I was the evening, you know I’d send you a breeze
I’d let it whisper in your ear, kiss you and sing you to sleep” Ryan Adams, Miss Sunflower. Taken from the unreleased Suicide Handbook album, it’s one of my absolute favourite songs. The lyrics personnify beauty and the music is sweet and romantic. Or so I think it is. I lost my ‘copy’ of the Suicide Handbook ages ago. I so anger myself sometimes with my carelessness. Grrrrrrrrrr.

Dec 26

A traditional Boxing Day in the non-traditional traditions....

In a whimsical, It’s A Wonderful Life type reminiscence, I can remember the Boxing Day’s of years gone by. December 26th as a twelve year-old lad was a great day. All of the previous days presents are neatly (kind of) packed away, tins of chocolate sit waiting to be demolished and there are gift vouchers ready to be spent eagerly in the handful of shops that are open.

You hang around impatiently for your dad to get ready. He always takes forever. Especially on Boxing Day when you know that he doesn’t really want to leave the house. But he does, because you and your brother have gift vouchers and they must be spent today!

So you set out into the cold. It’s probably rainy, perhaps rarely snowing and usually somewhere in between. There are a few souls wandering the streets of an otherwise ghost-like town, straggling between the few shops actually open on Boxing Day. We grip our gift vouchers for dear life, as though they are some sort of token for entrance to a better place, as we enter Woolworths and WH Smith. Immediately we scarper off to the entertainment section where we studiously browse the sales area for CD’s and DVD’s, looking for those few bargains worthy of parting with our gift vouchers.

Today we don’t have just a handful of shops open; rather, a handful of shops remain closed. Here in Oban there is no Woolworths and WH Smith is a shadow of what it used to be. George Street in Oban is no longer a ghost-like town. It is a ghost town. Now instead of pounding the pavements with gift vouchers in hand we are clicking links and tapping the keyboard with printed Amazon vouchers next to your steaming mug of coffee and assortment of unwrapped sweeties.

Boxing Day has changed. And we don’t even have cold leftover turkey sandwiches to look forward to this afternoon. We ate it all yesterday.

Dec 23

This looks like the ideal way of blowing away the 'post-Christmas blues'...

Martha Wainwright. Intimate setting. London. Swoooooon.

“

There are a lot of songs on my MP3 player. I’ve forgotten how many exactly. The annoying thing about that is that it seems to play the same twenty or thirty songs on an endless loop. What that means, though, is that every so often a song which you haven’t heard for a while will sneak in, and that is truly one of life’s little joys.

Today my MP3 player re-introduced me to one of Whiskeytown’s sweetest songs, Paper Moon. The lyrics cannot help but create a warm glow, and the closing lines are some of my favourites in all my record collection: “love takes care of love; hate just burns you out.” Ah =]

I also discovered that, no matter how awful this is going to sound to anyone with even a passing interest in music, no song puts a wry smile on my face like Rollin’ by Limp Bizkit does. That’s the sort of thing one could only admit to a Priest in the confessional box, but it’s one of the very first songs I loved. That and the theme from Ghostbusters.

”

Walking for the first time...

I took a walk down into town today for the first time since my fall (x3) on Monday. I felt as though I was a small toddler learning to walk for the first time. Every step was taken with intricate caution. One foot before the other, very slowly, extremely lugubrious, absolutely aware of every glaring patch of ice on the pavement. Arms outstreched just a little, balance of upmost importance.

I felt like a small toddler, but I probably had the appearence of a wee penguin, though not the type you would want to take home. I adore penguins, and I think I would love to keep a penguin in the house, but I’m not the type of penguin I would want around the house.