Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Your Own 60 Minutes

The thing that you may not know about porridge, is that it's made up of a little bit of everything in the world that can be classed as 'not interesting'.

So, in your average bowl of porridge there's a bit of Question Time, some calculator buttons, most comedy panel shows, a single person's opinion on what's wrong with couples, most couples, Tim Burton's later career, some hessian, orthopaedic shoes, Jersey, instructions for use of anything electrical, Kevin Spacey and most people at University.

That's why porridge is so filling - there's a lot to get through in each steamy bowl. If you choose to use skimmed milk, the least interesting of all the milks, then you're essentially running the risk of creating a black hole into which your desire to be someone will disappear.

In recent years people have tried to liven porridge up by adding apples and portioning it into tiny sachets that seem fun and handy. It's a little bit like choosing to supply heroin already in the syringe so that people can ruin their day, and possibly their lives, that little bit easier after purchase.

If you spoke to the average apple when it's still on the tree, dreaming of one day being a traditional cider or a child's playtime snack, it would literally burst into pieces with despair if you told it it was going to be in some Oat So Simple. It's fully necessary to stun, drug and lie to any and all fruit that will eventually be in porridge just to stop it putrefying where it lays. Porridge is so boring it can turn a delicious apple into Gary Neville through sheer fear.

Of course, you can't blame porridge - porridge would love to be a Pop Tart. But it isn't, any more than you or I are Jessica Rabbit or Imelda Staunton.

Porridge is best served on a cold frosty morning directly into the bin before you go out and eat a fry up at a lovely independent cafe where they know how you like your toast and they keep small talk to a minimum unless you're a tourist or a woman over 40. There's no excuse for porridge in this day and age, this era of neon and canvas, cars and Pygmy animals, Twitter and shatterproof rulers. If we've been able to stop rulers shattering for at least 27 years then why can't we lay porridge to rest? Place it in the human race's shady past alongside brown cardigans, lava lamps and slavery.

Let's end this madness. Today.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Hey! It's Thanksgiving Day!

I've been trying to think of a very 'JD from Scrubs' way to start this blog post for some time now. I was trying to think of a "...this is a poignant reflection on relationships and such..." angle. I've got several drafts and some frown lines that prove there isn't one. So fuck it.

I am scared of falling asleep at night and waking up with a mouse trying to get into my bum hole to eat my internal organs.

There. I've said it.

I revealed this fear to my boyfriend recently and I swear nothing I've ever said to anyone has ever made them laugh like that did to him at 3am.

Now, let me explain. I am not scared of mice, but, over the years I have developed a fear of mice around me when I am trying to sleep. When I lived in London I had a mouse in my room one night that was scurrying around on the lino while I was in bed. I was too frightened to get up and do anything about it in the dark in case it chewed my feet when I put them out over the bed. Then, the stupid sodding thing got itself stuck in my waste bin and spent a solid hour pin balling round the damn thing while I lay there soaked in my own cold sweat in case it rocked up enough momentum to fling itself up out of the bin and onto my bed.

When I woke up the next morning after the devil Mickey had finally gone quiet, he seemed to have gone. I don't know where, and I never saw him again.

I'm a thinker, when I have a fear I like to try and find the route of it, and generally I like to get over it. So, I thought about what it is about a mouse near me while I'm asleep that I don't like and it's definitely the thought of them being on me. Why would a mouse be on me? Either hunger or warmth, logically. Warmth: not so bad. I'll hug a mouse. Hunger? More os a problem. It's either going to want my eyeballs, my mouth or my undercarriage as these are all easier access to fleshier parts. Mouth and eyes are both going to be closed as I don't snore, and I'm dreaming.

Undercarriage. I'm not a knickers to bed kind of a gal (who knew this post would be so saucy) and so the undercarriage is the most accessible source of food to a mouse who is hungry.

Logically, it seems unwise for me to leave a different source of food near the bed with a sign saying "Please eat this instead." as I think this will just attract more mice to the scene and then the food I have laid out may not be sufficient and it will cause them to be more desperate for bum flesh.

I'm also doubly worried at the moment because I have been sleeping on the floor since Christmas when my bed broke and I don't know any carpenters who can come and fix my bed and alleviate the mouse issue.

Not that I have mice in my Brighton house, I should point out, these are theoretical hungry mice with a taste for ass.

So, leaving food out won't solve it, wearing pants is a waste of time because I think if a mouse is hungry enough to be wanting to eat sphinctre then some ASDA George cotton (DOUBLE SAUCY) isn't going to stop him/her, and sharing the issue with a loved one hasn't made me worry less either. Some fears must just be fears because you're meant to be afraid of them and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.

I'm too afraid to Google it and see if anyone has ever been eaten alive from the inside out by a mouse but I'm thinking that in the entire history of the world it must have happened at some point and that makes it ok to be nervous/waking up in the night petrified every time something rustles.

As I said at the start, there's no conclusion or moral to this. I'm literally just telling you.