Wednesday, February 20, 2013

The Perils of Being a Clawhammer

Sometimes I think of these titles before I have fully thought through whether or not there's anything I want to write about.

Friday, February 15, 2013

Turtle Sweat

The other day, David Attenborough faithfully informed me that when turtles lay their eggs, it's the temperature of the egg that defines the gender of the unborn turtle. Turtles turn into ladies when they're warm.

I turn into a mess when I'm warm. Not, like, all the time. It's not as if I put the heating on and turn into some kind of hormonal Hulk. I mean at night, if I get too hot, I wake up in a semi panic attack type fluster. Unfortunately, last night I fell asleep in my slippers and my sweaty feet have caused me to start my day in quite an undignified manner.

For starters, the dream that finally pushed me to wake myself up was one in which Nazis were having a rally from the top of some London buses in a city I was in. I ran away, as did a lot of people and suddenly I was fleeing African Guerrilla soldiers from Iran with a family who were trying to liberate their tiny children. At least, in my blind panic, I seem to not be too specific in which nationality I am designating to be my tyrannical night terrors.

The worst thing about the dream was that the first leg of my escape was happening in a remote controlled helicopter which felt neither stable nor big enough for my leggy physique.

It's not that I'm blaming David Attenborough, turtles or myself for the issue - it's just that, if I one day wake up having panicked myself into the shape of a turtle then I want everyone to know why. So, now you do. It'll be the Congolese Nazi Iranians and the three preschoolers that have done it. Phew.

Monday, February 11, 2013

Losing Omens

So, here's a post I've been meaning to do for a while. All about why I hate Finding Nemo. And yes, before you ask, yes I do hate Dory.

I hate Finding Nemo. I hate the film, I hate all the characters, I hate the nauseating plot and I hate that I've sat through it more than once.

I firmly believe Finding Nemo is an animators project to make a collection of wholly irritating and unloveable characters beloved by having some of the most spellbinding graphics yet produced for a film.

Here are some of the reasons I hate Finding Nemo:

Marlin is a horrible, rude, mean spirited, over bearing yucky little fish who should either learn to become a delicacy or just lie down in an anemone until something unmentionable happens due to natural causes. In the wild, lady clown fish will leave a man clown fish if he doesn't keep the anemone up to scratch. WHAT ABOUT IF HE'S JUST THE MOST PLAIN FACED BORING PERSNICKETER THAT EVER SWAM THE SEVEN SEAS? I would throw myself down the gullet of a much larger fish too, if I was his bride and saddled with his million yucky egg babies. Fuck off Marlin. Nobody likes you, not even your own son.

Nemo is a disgraceful little upstart who needs boundaries. He has an irritating voice, he is so egotistically challenged that he gets his Dad pretty much killed over trying to prove himself a worthy man/fish. This isn't World's Strongest Fish, Nemo, you have to know your weaknesses. Your weakness is your gimpy fin. Deal with it. You live in the ocean - the best thing you can probably do is feed something else. I know it sounds harsh, but you irritate me immensely and I'll feed you to anything just to get you off my screen.

Dory. There is nothing special about Dory. Oh! She has memory loss?! HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA. She's a fish! She doesn't have much of a capacity for memory anyway. It's not a character trait if it's just an excuse to do the same tired old joke through the entire film. Yuck.

Some more things I hate about Finding Nemo:

The dentist. Yuck. I hate dentists. Darla. Yuck. All of the other characters. Yuck. The plot. Yuck.

I think I've made my point.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Trashmates

I am totally hooked on Downton. Totally hooked and so late to the party that someone's already pregnant and the one person I know here is throwing up in a flower bed. I'm also not really sure why I'm at the party. I saw the invite when it first arrived, I thought it looked a bit twee and full of people I'd want to roll my eyes at. Now I've put my frock on and got here, I see I was right and I want to leave and go home to my party that Tina Fey is throwing except that I can't because I need to find out if Julian Fellowes is going to try and eat 10 litres of ice cream like he's threatening.

The problem is, that since this whole "falling in love" problem I have had to spend a lot more time by myself than usual. Sound ridiculous? Well, yes, you'd think. But two comedians trying to date is as awkward as trying to lick your elbow with positive magnets on your tongue and funny bone. It's not very comfortable and you suspect you look like a bit of a mess for trying.

What with a lot of my free evenings shifting into battles of will power not to go and hug a radiator and sing Celine Dion into my slippers, I have had to take up television as a replacement for housemates. What better housemates could one ask for than these excellent husky women with pearls in abundance and hair like chocolate? I never thought I'd be learning about feminism from pre-WW1 aristocrats. Go figure.

I hate being alone. I have never been very good at it - my sisters used to have to remove the shoes from the hall if they were going out for long enough that I'd notice. It seems teeth marks in leather are less of a symbol of affection than I'd hoped. Well, they might be symbols of affection in some circles but certainly not between West Country sisters it turned out.

I cannot deal with silence and have been nurturing a healthy addiction to Radio 2 since I was 15 to try and deal with the problem. I don't know what it is that I find so hard about being alone - I am obviously very cool and fun, you'd think I'd be great fun to be with. It'd be all like:

"Hey Laura, let's get drunk and sing loudly."

"Yeah, cool! I'll wave this bright fabric round my head and blow a whistle."

"Good plan, we're so cool. Let's make a pact never to have a Downton binge and then cry because we're not as husky as the chocolate haired ladies of leisure."

"YEAH! We're too cool to be a bit turned on by the idea of two footmen rubbing each others hairless torsos."

"Yeah!"

And then we'd high five together (me and me) and probably drink some tequila to sure the deal. It'd be excellent and worthy of a montage.

It's not like that though. Weirdly. Go figure. It's more like:

"Shut up, we're watching Downton."

"Ok, but would you like a sticky bun?"

"Yes, but we must remember to wipe down the remote this evening in case the volume button gets stuck again."

So, I end up watching Downton Abbey and inflicting my musings on the subject on innocent people on the inteweb. Not that I think the old Abbey residents mind - they seem oh so terribly top notch I think I'd fit right in. I may start practising so that when my time comes I know how to fit in. If anyone knows of an impotent chauffeur at least 3 classes below below me and hopefully related, let me know as we really ought to be dating by now.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

El Presidentist

I visited the dentist today for a filling. Not in a fun "Carry On" sense where a chubby old man would grope me while I giggled and paved the way for law suits everywhere, no, I got a filling in the tooth. And not in the fun "Carry On" way where someone sticks their dick in your tooth, because that has probably never happened. It would be gross for the tooth holder and not comfortable for the dick purveyor.

I needed a filling in the normal sense when referring to dentists.

I kind of feel like one filling in exchange for 8 years of avoiding the dentist like it was a raggedy ass hole that wanted to live between my eyes, is fair cop. I was pretty OK with needing a filling. I'm not shy about my love of sugar or other edible products that are systematically rinsing my body so I feel like this filling was to be expected.

The only problem is, while I'm not scared of getting the filling, I am pretty petrified of the dentist as a whole. The last time I visited the dentist was when my wisdom teeth started trying to gnaw their way out of my eye sockets using Kerry Katona's voice and a belt full of rusty nails. Unfortunately for me, I got landed with a pretty shitty private dentist who reduced me to tears informing me that he needed to immediately remove 4 of my teeth and I would need to have £500 for him by next week. What with me not having £500 nor wishing to give it to a psychotic lunatic with a sucky straw and a monobrow, I left and rescheduled an appointment with the fellow who today filled me in. Not in a vaginal sense. In case you hadn't picked up on that.

My poor new dentist (whose name is Yogi, like the bear, and answers far too many questions with the word "probably" to make you feel particularly secure in his chair) had barely prised my lips apart before I was weeping into his favourite dental nurse about not wanting to die. He claimed he'd seen it all before so I took that as a green light to use his sleeve as a tissue and tell him that I hadn't really wanted to lose my virginity when I did either.

I'm not sure at what point I got confused as to which medical professionals chair I was sat in, but we shared some hearty truths and Yogi the Dentist managed to scoop out my tooth and fill it with what looks a lot like some gum he had lying around underneath his evil slanty chair of truth bombs and drills.

The moral of the story? Something about a dick in your teeth.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Narrow Pink Here

As a general rule I do not get overly excited at the thought of travelling. A backpack and a lack of shampoo doesn't fill me with excitement in the same way it seems to do a lot of folks in the 18-25 bracket. I am looking forward to us all being about 45 when, hopefully, I'll have the money to see all the places they saw, but with a hotel to sleep in and no chance of catching various diseases while I experiment with potential soul mates.

I have lots of interest in seeing the world, my top 5 places still to visit are Peru, Norway, South Africa, David Attenborough's current location and Italy. I just have very little interest in travelling there.

I am a nervy traveller. I don't sweat the big stuff: I'm not in the least nervous about flying, I rarely think boats I'm on will get attacked by sharks, and I have never been given sufficient reason to believe I might bump into Alesha Dixon in any of my holiday destinations. The one, tiny, exaggerated fear I have is that I will somehow get myself into a situation that only Liam Neeson can rescue me from, but that is pretty well kept under wraps.

It's the little things that I am terrified of: losing passports and being stuck somewhere, missing planes and ending up missing the entire holiday, breaking legs in countries where I don't speak the language (everywhere except places that speak very limited French or use "un bocadillo de jamon Yorke" for everything), losing paperwork, getting shouted at... the list goes on and it doesn't get any more interesting so I'll spare you it.

This year I was all set to have a nice Staycation in the Lake District. It would soothe my eco conscious mind, help me squeeze in a Scottish gig midway through, and generally mean that the paperwork I had to get right was just renting a car and booking a hotel. All fine. You can imagine my delight, therefore, when it turned out that you had to be able to physically shit physical gold through your physical bum hole to be able to afford to look at the Lake District on a holiday. I mean good and holy Lord Pullman what are they hiding amongst the lakes in that District that makes it ok to charge those prices to be slightly wetter and further away from where you are now? I'd probably need one of the lakes naming after me and for it to be full of the cast of Overboard re enacting the film for my eyes only. Give over.

So, instead of driving up there and giving the Lake District en masse a piece of my mind, we resolved to go to Prague instead. Prague is a city where the cuisine is best described as "salty and fleshy" and the buildings are pretty enough to make you feel cultured while you shuffle through heart attack laden alleyways.

I got pretty nervous straight away but figured, "Hey, I'm a grown up now, and have recently flown to Slovakia to tell jokes to Slovakians so I think I'll be OK using lastminute.com. Also, I have a boyfriend now who delights in doing things well so I am less snappy and unpredictable with my criticism". The stage was set for us to spend a cosy Thursday night in booking the holiday and getting excited.

The first disaster occurred the night before when I arrived in the Cotswolds a mere 24 hours early for a gig and discovered I would not actually be home after all on the Thursday because I would STILL be in the Cotswolds. Never mind, I thought, I'll leave it to the big man at home. He'll book it.

And he did, he booked it. After he'd booked it, he phoned me and asked me where his passport was. This immediately set my heart to a rate previously reserved for when I think I might be in with a chance of getting Peanut Butter Cups. I suggested the most obvious place the passport might be and it turned out it was there. Panic over. Except that the expiry date on the passport was also there. It was simultaneously there and a year ago.

I am now merrily imagining how I will spend 3 days in Prague and then a 3 day road trip from Freuchie in Scotland (don't ask) by myself. I imagine by the end of it I'll have an imaginary friend who encapsulates all the people I love in my life and is with me on holiday because he's hiding from the law after decapitating a guy in Brighton with an expired passport.

Turns out though, if you're willing to pay, you can fix any problem and so Monday saw my hearts desire and my heads bane heading to London to get a new super fast passport so we could jet away into the frosty Czech Republic. What else could go wrong?

Tune in tomorrow for "Oh, fuck, Laura, you're not going to believe this but my driving license has expired too." and other fun stories.