Saturday 3rd November – How’s That for Exciting?

Well, I managed to bumble through yesterday’s entry o.k., and according to some docile friends who agreed to road test it for me, I actually managed to publish it.  I feel that this is a promising start for such an imbecilic technophobe as myself.  It either means that I am (as I wished,) getting more technologically advanced, or that technology is being written for complete dullards.  Sadly it seems likely that the dullards option is the most realistic…Still, one can always dream that beneath this housewifely exterior lurks the razor sharp mind of Stephen Hawking, and that one day I too will have the faculty to do something as amazing as describing the shape of the universe.  I saw, on QI, because clearly I’m not going to read his work, being as how it’s to do with science and maths, that the universe is in fact saddle shaped.  This is a bit disappointing to say the least.  I think it would be much more fun if it were the shape of a cream horn, or possibly a cello (with the strings).  The saddle shaped nature of the universe however, means that people will now spend endless years speculating as to whether we are in fact saddled to anything in particular.

People like juxtaposing the animal and the scientific, hence the idea that we are floating around on the back of a giant turtle, or that if we shut Schrodinger’s cat in a cupboard it might not think it’s a cat anymore, or maybe we won’t, or maybe it will have gone out while we weren’t looking, but we will open the door and see it’s not there and be amazed by the quantum nature of the universe, when in fact it sauntered out casually through the window two seconds after we shut the door, went upstairs to pick its toenails clean on our best bedspread and has been asleep for the past three hours dreaming of voles.

Anyway, to get back to the whole what we are saddled to question, I think it will probably be some kind of sea creature, or possibly a camel.  The camel theory would help to explain all the natural catastrophes, such as earthquakes and volcanos.  It’s probably the saddle shifting, due to the wobbly nature of the humps.  Why on earth bother to ride a camel?  Really, I mean, I know they’re a bit stretched for wildlife that reaches more than two inches off the ground in these desert-like places, and it’s certainly going to be more fuss than it’s worth to try to saddle a scorpion or something, but really….they’re a bit crap aren’t they?  I can think of better things to saddle.  Cows would be good.  I’ve always fancied riding a cow, but according to my friend Andrea, who does a bit of farming in her spare time, cows’ shoulder blades are a bit tricky and should be avoided at all costs.  Sheep would be a bit near to the ground for comfort, although you’ve got plenty of tufty bits to hang on to.  Perhaps if you covered a cow with a sheepskin it would stop the pointiness of the shoulder blades becoming an issue and provide suitably tactile grabbing material for the holding onto of.  Food for thought there…

I suppose after that interlude I really ought to get on to talking about my day.  Sometimes though it’s just hard to know where to begin, and then when you do start, suddenly you’re just wittering on about cow’s shoulder blades instead.  Focus is what is required…

Yesterday I left you just as we were about to go to our Bonfire Night party at my mum’s house.  My mum has a much bigger garden than we do, so you can set off mondo fireworks without having to sneak into the neighbours house, (which is what we ended up doing last year, it was her field actually.  Sadly we blew rather a large hole in it, and got quite severely told off later on. Spoilsport.) and pretend that we were looking for our ball.  My mum’s garden would be stupendously good for long range explosions if it weren’t for the fact that she has a decrepit gazebo in the middle of it, which both restricts your line of vision and is highly flammable, so we still had to approach with caution.  Despite this we did manage to burn a large quantity of paint off the door with a malfunctioning Catherine Wheel, and we also set the ivy on fire.  Luckily my Dad hates the gazebo, so he was very understanding, and my mum was busy in the kitchen at the time, so we simply put it out before she noticed.  Heaven help me when she does find out though.  She still hasn’t forgiven me for fringing her landing curtains with a pair of nail scissors in 1982, and that was twenty five years ago.  I wouldn’t mind except that she didn’t notice I’d done it until two house moves later in 1997, so she can’t have liked the curtains that much.  I know if I die before her she will just have to mention it in the eulogy.  Be sure our sins will find us out…

The fireworks were o.k. although as is the nature of all old fudgies, I seem to remember my childhood fireworks being much more explosive, longer, sparklier and generally more amazing in every way.  It’s the Curly Wurly syndrome, as I like to call it.  Everyone I’ve ever met who grew up in the Seventies is overcome by a kind of impotent rage when faced with a Curly Wurly now, or even the mere thought of one.  The term ’sacrilige’ can surely not be strong enough to describe the horrendous sense of outrage that in the good old days, Curly Wurlies used to be seven feet long and so tenaciously toffeeish you could use them to bind broken legs together.  Now, oh! Now!  Yes, they may be called Curly Wurlies, but they’re just pretenders to the throne of Wurliedom, coming in at a feeble couple of inches long and made of the most pathetically drooping attempt at toffee you can imagine.  I ate one with the kids the other day and my filling didn’t even come out.  Shoddy workmanship, that’s what it is!  If I could be arsed I might write to my M.P. from ‘Outraged of Glenfield’.

And so, after that brief interlude, the fireworks spluttered on desultorily, with the most excitement being the imminent conflagration of the gazebo, and the fact that I got to write my name with a sparkler.  Which is still entertaining after all these years.  I might even buy myself an emergency packet, so that on very dreary days when there is nothing on but Richard and Judy and the whole world is going down the toilet, I can tear myself away, into the garden and write my autograph in fire.

We had a terrible cake issue last night as well, which certainly put a damper on my night, although I can’t speak for the others (actually I can here can’t I?  But to save you worrying, I won’t. Yet…).  My mother foolishly gave the job of buying dessert to my father.  I should have known when she rang me breezily on Thursday afternoon to tell me that pudding was under control because my father had bought ‘a carrier bag’ full of cakes that it couldn’t be as fantastic as it sounded, and that somewhere, something was sure to go terribly wrong.  In my normal, razor sharp state of heightened acuity around the world of cakes, I would immediately have quizzed her on the quality and nature of such cakes, but due to my optical crises (see yesterday’s entry for full, and I mean, full, details), I let it ride.  How foolish.  Men (unless they are Nigel Slater), to quote Molesworth, ‘as any fule no’, are crap at buying cakes, and sadly for me, the party did not prove the exception to the rule.  Yes, yes, he did buy a carrier bag full of cakes, but it was the nature of the  cakes that proved so tragic.  He bought, five, yes five, different types of BAKEWELL TART, the idiot.

I for one, did not know that so many variations on the Bakewell existed, which is probably why my cake sensors were so dulled.  Who would expect someone to buy FIVE different  variations on the same cake, assuming for all the world that the best loved, most idolized and requested cake in the Western hemisphere is the bloody Bakewell sodding tart.  Words cannot describe my sense of loss, disappointment and anger.  Never, ever again will he be allowed to buy even so much as a Victoria sponge without the strictest supervision.  I could tolerate a Bakewell if I was starving to death and there was nothing else to eat but lower forms of wildlife or something that Ray Mears had rustled up with roots, but it wouldn’t even feature in my top one hundred cakes list for God’s sake.  The plain ones are pretty ropey ( don’t be fooled by the glace cherry, they only put those on there to take your mind off the general crapness of the rest of the cake.  It’s the culinary equivalent of going: “Oh! Look! is that Esther Rantzen taking her tame shrew for a walk? Rubbish.) but these were even worse.  He’d picked, in no particular order of rubbishness, coconut, blackcurrant, lemon, toffee and plain ones.  He’d bought two packets of plain ones in case demand outstripped supply.  Phew!  There were only ten of us at the party for heaven’s sake…Mind you, if he’d bought angel cake or sacher torte there’d have been nothing left but torn packaging and crumbs.  Luckily, because he’s not a man of violence, he didn’t, and the lack of rush for the Bakewells ensured a peaceful night was had by all.  Just wait until his next birthday by God, I’m going to jump out of a giant Bakewell.  That’ll learn him.

Today has been nice and quiet.  We bimbled round in our pj’s for most of the day watching rubbish Saturday telly and then bimbled round the shops and back in the afternoon before feeling weird in proper clothes and dashing to put our pj’s back on again.  I once read an interview with India Knight where she put forth the idea of wearing pyjamas full time instead of clothes, as they were much more comfortable.  I think it’s an excellent idea, and if I ever get to be world dictator I might make one day a week sacred to the wearing of pyjamas.  When I was a kid, in the trippy Seventies, my mum had a psychedelic kaftan a la Dennis Roussos, that she used to wear as a nightie.  I remember her picking me up from school in it one day, and me being really amazed that my mum had gone out in her pyjamas and telling my friends, much to her mortification.  I had thought it was because she was being cool and laid back (probably having ingested a tab of LSD whilst rodding the drains and listening to the Archers earlier that day), but apparently it was because the washing machine had broken, we had run out of clothes and she was hoping that nobody would notice!  Poor mum.  Just goes to show that if you want to be a master of deception, it’s always a good idea to let people you expect to conspire with you in on your plan before you launch it upon an unsuspecting public.

Well, as you can see, I could witter on for hours with great ease, but I need a cup of tea and a wee, and sitting here isn’t going to make me any less thirsty or my bladder any less full, so it’s time to say adios amigos.