January 2012
2 posts
1 tag
2 tags
November 2011
2 posts
1 tag
3 tags
It's a bit of a xanthic mess outside.
But before you scurry alfresco in desperate search of nuclear fallout and The Rapture—which empirical statistics suggest isn’t imminent for another 345-odd days*—appreciate for a few moments and not one moment longer that it’s a very yellow autumn this year.
I’ve seen trees—and bushes; and hedgerows; and shrubberies; and curvilinear Quattron televisions—with more yellow in them than the sun....
October 2011
3 posts
Halloween.
Not sure how it came to this, but now I investigate far-eastern bionic lavatories equipped with posterior-pampering utility and automatic opening and closing functionality. They have buttons and everything.
2 tags
I say, I'm getting jolly peeved at all these...
I found the crumbled remnants of one unfortunate specimen lodged beneath my armpit this afternoon as I rumbled around Hillsborough Forest, awestruck at the sequence of percussive sounds generated by the pitter-patter of my feet across the barren earth. That’s the second clothes-hanger to which I have laid waste today as if I were some sort of Norman—and the eighty-sixth I’ve...
5 tags
September 2011
1 post
2 tags
August 2011
3 posts
5 tags
4 tags
2 tags
Does anyone remember Tipp-Ex?
It was some sort of vaguely opaque fluid with coagulant proprieties that came into effect with jaw-breaking hyper-speed upon application. To illustrate: There was once a raging river between two swathes of land that could only be crossed by sending six members of a family across on a raft in a certain order—but after thirty long and highly miserable seconds of trying to work out why the mother...
May 2011
1 post
1 tag
Cripes. Some things are heavy to watch.
April 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Epiphany.
I am blessed with such a sparkling variety of nicknames. Jackamus; Cracko; Wacko; Jackov…
I couldn’t ask for a kinder nor more empathetic array of appellations if I robbed a bank and started dealing narcotics on the streets. To children.
1 tag
March 2011
3 posts
Requiem for a particular kind of ladder.
Nowhere in this world can you buy a good old-fashioned single-ladder any more. Double-ladders are everywhere—like Vauxhalls, or bits of wood—and you might, peradventure, hazard across a triple-ladder in your local B&Q…but you won’t happen upon a good old-fashioned single-ladder. It’s extinct. Somebody wiped them out.
Go to Jackie Brown’s in Ballynahinch,...
2 tags
2 tags
Adversity.
I’ve always felt outfoxed by the kiwi. Dressed up in a fuzzy suit resembling dehydrated excreta, the kiwi’s muddy membrane requires a delicate procedure of removal. Knife in hand, I unsheathe the clever sod from his shell with all the dexterity of a sheep on acid, and—roughly speaking—around 26% of the awareness. Awakening from a harrowing fantasy of undressed kiwis, I find the...
February 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Winter blues. Or greys. Or some kind of hazy white...
They say there are two winters in one year. Whoever they are. But these miserable misers would have a point—if you let them. The instant you decide that ‘tis the season, you step out into January and the Ice Queen swoops down in her bob-sled like an owl upon a rat, turning you to frosted stone with two flicks of her magic wand. It’s happened to me twice, you know. Though in the first...
January 2011
1 post
2 tags
Title (optional)
I tried to defrost a blackberry today by broiling it in the microwave.
After I heard a unsettling hissing sound, I wrenched open the microwave door and seized the specimen to sample its sugars, causing it to explode and shower everything with a deep red juice.
I spent the rest of the day looking like I’d been freshly stabbed. Or freshly stabbing.
December 2010
2 posts
1 tag
1 tag
November 2010
3 posts
2 tags
A mysterious package arrived in the post on...
…which was just about the most exciting thing to happen that day.
Well, aside from getting to explore the Biomedical Sciences building, that is. Beseeching the use of the lavatory, I was sanctioned to gallop down eerie corridors and through unfamiliar gates, eventually happening upon a charming collection of loos. Decisively, the taps for the sinks had rotating handles. That’s classy stuff;...
Tesco’s Antibacterial Hand Gel
It’s so lovely and smooth and everything when you lather it on your hands; it’s like swimming in treacle. But when you inevitably get the sniffles on these cold autumn days, you tend to…you know…use your hand to brush away the snot, ‘n‘ all that. Note that sinister overlords at Tesco’s intend to purge you of this impure deed. Because once you get a waft of what must be the single most formidable...
October 2010
7 posts
Routine dental examinations.
Every so often, such examinations are held in order to evaluate if dentists are doing their jobs correctly, which means some poor unfortunate soul is invited to attend an unforeseen session carried out by an unfamiliar dental person. It’s like jury duty; you just pray it never happens to you.
Futility! Excitedly rip open that nice brown envelope addressed to you, one cold autumn morning, and you...
2 tags
'Ice to see you.' Erm...
I’ve always been sceptical about hair products. With Pantene offering some 628 classes of shampoo to administer such effects as shine, gloss, and perhaps even outright luminescence, I have historically taken to calling the company’s bluff. It’s all the same caustic mix, one should reason while stroking one’s chin grandly.
And this was a view I cherished dearly till this day, when I made the...
1 tag
I cannot say with any conviction that I truly believed, at the outset, that a search of my pyjama-drawer would yield any alarming results. So when I found a foreign pair of blue pyjamas whose leggings had plainly been tailored for a man with thighs the size of He-Man, I not only declared that the excess fabric could substitute my duvet, but nodded smugly at the cat as well. I can now use my duvet...
2 tags
September 2010
10 posts
2 tags
1 tag
3 tags
1 tag
The new Pokémon games launched in Japan today, so...
1 tag
4 tags
I wanted to write a roving summary of how...
4 tags
1 tag
August 2010
11 posts
3 tags
Our cat is clean!
It lost five teeth and was jabbed by several needles in the process, but by blazes that vet knew how to cleanse feral beasts! May he rest in peace.
Some call her Devil Cat.
4 tags
1 tag
3 tags
