Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, all!

I didn't really intend to blog over the holidays, but after about 48 hours of no internet exposure I begin to experience withdrawal symptoms. I'm not really sure how I ever survived without an internet connection when I was a child; my home first got the internet when I was 11, though for several years I had to endure a painful dial-up connection, and the only thing I had the patience to use it for was homework and browsing Amazon's book catologue with lust. (Yes, lust. I loved my books when I was a kiddly-wink.) Now we have Broadband and stupid addictive sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter... and, for me, some random game in which you're a cute little bear and you have to knock bricks over with a sword.

All this is beside the point, though. I only came on here to wish you all a merry Crimbo and to tell you all the mundane exciting things I got up to yesterday. Mostly, those things consisted of drink, and knitting. (If anything, at least I'm not predictable.)

I'm not a big drinker (I'll have a glass of champagne for special occasions and maybe the odd vodka and coke when I'm out and feel obligated to drink because everyone else is), and yet I struggle to get drunk when I do drink. The most drunk I've ever been has been room-wobbling-drunk, but it wore off after about half an hour and I didn't even get a hangover. I'm a lucky sod, aren't I? But yesterday all my drink-mixing must've done something to me, because this morning I woke up, looked over at my knitting, and thought to myself, "My scarf looked like it's been mauled by a lion."

Thankfully, my mother is like one of the Shreddie-knitting grannies, and she managed to undo all my drunk-knitting and leave me with a tidy (if slightly thin) scarf. Apparently my tension is tight. You're freaking well telling me.

I think I'll lay off the drink today. People tell you to have a merry Christmas, but no one ever suggests you have a merry Boxing Day.

Seductively picking my nose.

You know those music videos where you've got some guy in his house singing about a woman he's got the hots for, or where the woman is singing about some guy she's got the hots for? Well, why is the woman always lying on her bed half-naked? First of all, if this is happening in the middle of the day, what is she doing still at home in her lingerie? Doesn't she have a job to go to? Or perhaps some errands she needs to run? And if this is happening in the evening, surely she'd be cooking herself some dinner (or at least heating up a Pot Noodle) or watching EastEnders.

Secondly, why doesn't she have any clothes on? Is it hot? Why doesn't she turn the heating down, or open a window, or get herself a glass of water? Maybe she's too poor to afford any clothes, but again, if she went to her job, rather than lazing about on her bed doing random over-elaborate arm movements in the middle of the day, chances are she'd be able to afford some clothes. I reckon she does have the money to buy clothes, though; judging by the state of her bedroom (which looks like a page torn out of the IKEA catalogue - hello, where are the dirty socks on the floor?), she's got a spare bob or two.

Maybe she does have a job, and errands to run. Maybe she does own clothes, and maybe the temperature of the room is perfectly reasonable. Maybe she just makes an effort, once a day, to lie on her bed in a seductive fashion. Maybe it comes right after cleaning the toilet and right before writing out a cheque to her gas company.

Oh yeah, and that whole scenario where a guy's on the phone to a woman, and she happens to be either a) half-naked in the kitchen, b) half-naked in the bedroom, or c) fully-naked in the bath? Yeah, she's probably not doing any of those things. She's probably either a) in the kitchen, eating cake, b) on the bed, picking her nose, or c) in the bath, cleaning it.

Reality is harsh.

Chat-up lines of the 21st Century

I'm sure chat-up lines are getting worse. Yesterday I found myself in a scenario whereby a man was boasting to me and another woman that his ex-girlfriend wore a "600 cup". What that's supposed to mean, I'm not entirely sure, but I think it has something to do with her bust measurement. For the man's sake, I hope he was taking the pee. If he was trying to be funny, nobody laughed; if he was trying to be impressive, we were not impressed (I know the general rule of the thumb is "the bigger the better", but there have to be some exceptions, surely), and if, heaven forbid, it is true that his ex-girlfriend had a bust measurement of 600, I can only presume that she ate A LOT of pies and that the woman has, by now, serious back problems. Him taking the pee out of us is the only feasible excuse for coming out with such a weird confession, I'm sorry.

Things didn't get any better for the poor soul who was trying to being smooth, either, for after making statements about his ex's alarming boobage, he then went on to inadvertently admit to wearing women's clothes - which might not have been such a bad thing, if it weren't for the fact that he didn't look like the most 'secure' of men.

I'm curious, though: is there such a thing as a good chat-up line? Did all the good ones become cheesy clichés, and all the bad ones, by default, become ridiculous? Even my cat has more class than most men these days: about a week ago, our tom demonstrated great chivalry in bringing a leaf in from outisde and placing it at our female cat's paws. This was right before, y'know, he jumped on her back and started biting her neck. But at least he was gentleman enough to bring her a gift first.

Ooh, to be a Gooner

OK, here's one very important thing you need to know about your blogger: she's a HUGE Arsenal fan.

That's not to say that I am both an Arsenal supporter and morbidly obese; rather, the severity to which I am consumed by Arsenal FC is quite huge. For instance, as I sit here now, typing away at my desk, I can see the following:

1. Framed photograph of Arsenal captain, Cesc Fabregas. He was the third man ever to steal my heart, after Michael Jackson (a sentiment I have since retracted ...R.I.P btw) and former Arsenal player, Marc Overmars. He's a quality player, but I fear I may have to take the picture down in the summer, should he decide to go to Barcelona. (And Cesc, if you're reading this, don't go to Barcelona, please. They'll stick you on the bench and you'll be doomed to forever exist in Lionel Messi's shadow. Even though, y'know, you're taller than him and all that.)
2. Tiny replica of the Arsenal bus. But shh: I stole it off my brother several years ago and he still hasn't noticed.
3. Thierry Henry: The Biography, by Oliver Derbyshire.
4. Fever Pitch, by Nick Hornby.
5. A stationery box, upon which I covered with Arsenal stickers when I was about 10-years-old, including the old Arsenal crest and Patrick Vieira's former no.4 shirt.
6. The Arsenal Enclyopedia, I kid you not.
7. Two Arsenal matchday programmes.
8. Vieira: My Biography
9. Three other random Arsenal books.
10. An Arsenal blanket.

Also scattered around this room you'll find an Arsenal calendar, canvas prints of Dennis Bergkamp and Tony Adams, an Arsenal flag, several Arsenal shirts, an Arsenal beanie baby, an Arsenal hoodie, an Arsenal hat, Arsenal gloves, ticket stubs to Arsenal matches, Arsenal pyjamas and a couple of posters of the Arsenal team. Oh yeah, and I'm wearing a 1970s-style Arsenal shirt right now. Not to mention the wallpaper on my phone is a picture I took last year, while at an Arsenal match.

So you get that I like Arsenal, right?

That doesn't mean that if you don't like Arsenal you have to stop reading, though, nor will I hate you if you tell me you support Manchester United (though I will probably roll my eyes and mock throwing up; I should probably warn you now). However, it does tend to mean that I will like you considerably more if you tell me you happen to be a fellow Gooner. I'd make a totally crappy judge; I mean, can you imagine the scene in court?

Me: Mr So-and-so, you robbed seven stores, then ran over a pigeon and left it for dead. I hereby sentence you to six years in...
Defendant: Wait! The only thing I stole from the stores were Tottenham magazines. I was trying to save the small boys and girls the torture of seeing Robbie Keane's judging face staring down upon them as they peruse their favourite comic books. I ran over the pigeon because it called Fabregas overrated, and I only left it there because I had an Arsenal match to get to and I was late. Don't you understand!?!?
Me: Oh. [Long pause] Community service should do it, I would think.

Anyway, there was a point to all this. I'm just trying to remember what it was.

Oh yeah! I went to an Arsenal match last night. Anyone who caught the Arsenal vs. Partizan Belgrade match on ITV1 would surely remember seeing me (the woman looking cold) screaming at the pitch and declaring that "You [the Partizan Belgrade fans] are not singing anymore." Though, actually, they were. At one point one of them whipped off his shirt and waved his pie-gut to and fro, as if it were a football scarf. I'll never know.

[This is my evidence that I was actually there. Don't like it? Well, screw you: I'm a writer, not a photographer.]

I'm beginning to think that fans should get tickets on the basis of how noisy they are. I mean, I'm a quiet person, but stick a football scarf in my hand and chuck a few players on the pitch, and I'll have lost my voice by the morning.

I urge anyone, football fan or not, to get to a match at some point in your lifetime. There's nothing like getting away from it all for a couple of hours, and asking a complete stranger earning 100 times your wages, "Who ate all the pies?"

Let it snow, let it snow... then let it go.

I don’t really get why people like snow. Especially people who, like me, live in a fast-paced city which literally grounds to a halt whenever the temperature drops below zero. I suppose I can forgive the children for revelling in it; after all, they haven’t seen a lot of snow in their lives, making a snowman is fun for about fifteen minutes (five minutes longer than any other activity they might choose to embark upon) and there’s always the possibility of school being closed. But adults? I am ashamed of the lot of you.

Falling over is not fun, being cold is not fun, walking like a constipated penguin is not fun (finally it makes sense why penguins hobble the way they do; if their strides were any bigger there’d be a lot of bruised penguin bum-bums), travelling for hours longer than you should have to is not fun, and having some random idiot chuck a snowball at you from across the road is only fun if you are alert enough to retaliate within five seconds and chuck one back, in which case it is extremely fun. But that is the only exception.

I feel slightly conned. My favourite season is autumn, and with it snowing in November (yes, I’m aware it is now December, but it was snowing yesterday, OK?!?!), my favourite season has therefore been cut short. The owners of all those gas-guzzling 4x4s have a lot of explaining to do. (Yes, I am single-handedly blaming them. It would take too long to cite everyone else responsible.)