Domestic bliss

Most beloved to me in this moment is my flatmate Edgar, with whom among many I share an open plan, multi-layered corner of a former ammunitions factory.

Walking through the front door of a Sunday Edgar exclaimed,
‘Fuck, it smells of GAS in here!’

Having been seated in the kitchen for several hours, I felt hazy and relaxed from the natural high of being at home, and immune to the influences of any potentially malodorous scent.

‘It really, really smells of gas in here. Man that is STRONG. I’m gonna go out the front door and walk in again . . . Yeah, definitely smells of gas.’

Edgar then walked to his room before returning to the kitchen with a can of air freshener which he spritzed zealously about the length of the substantial space, alternating between sniffs and sprays to curate the effects of the solution.

‘Edgar, I don’t know that that’s improving the smell’

‘Really? I think it’s alright!’ he said smiling, his voice fading softly as he retreated to his bedroom, ‘chemical after chemical after chemical after chemical . . !’

Seldom overheard

‘It was very courageous of you to send that text’

The output of Tracy Emin as experienced by my 93-year-old grandmother

‘Well I was very surprised because I’d never heard of her, but at this exhibition, it was just all the one artist, the same person over and over again. And apparently at one point she taught at a school. Well it seems to me that someone whose mind is so fixed on sex really isn’t fit to be teaching children. I must say my impression of her is that she has a strong line, very much the same thing over and over again; one leg up in the air and the other down on the floor. Well, now I know who Tracy Emin is and I can talk about her!’

Relaunch of The Gilt Press

Reader, as I feel the terms of my employment to be drawing towards a natural conclusion, I believe the time has come to focus my efforts more sincerely on the commercial potential of my as yet unfounded publishing company. Perusing for alternatives to my present labour, I have felt alienated by the requirements of the standard cash-for-hours model, and believe that I have allowed my true passion to languish for too long. This conviction has been further solidified by the discouragingly large proportion of adverts that seek a professional willing to go the extra mile. Reader, I must confess that I have trouble going the requisite mile. At times the learning curve can feel like an uphill struggle, with particular reference to proficiency at Microsoft Excel.

That’s when it hit me: a novel! That is precisely what is needed! But of course! The reputation of an entire publishing house can be founded on the strength of a single bestselling publication. To this end, I have begun collating material for my forthcoming masterpiece.

Material to be sure to include:
The righteous anger experienced by those travelling in an elevator who know that their stop is the highest
The particular scrutiny of persons who work in minimum wage jobs for the work performed by persons in other minimum wage jobs (Clara who works in a children’s shoe shop feels affronted by the sub-standard service she has received in an adjacent sandwich shop, ‘when I asked if they had coleslaw she just said ‘No’ and that was it, she could have offered me a wee fucking alternative like, a few wee options to consider instead of my initial choice you know? And who doesn’t have coleslaw anyway? You’re a fucking sandwich shop.’*)
The surprising quantity of people who neglect to flush perfectly flushable toilets
The surprising quantity of adverts put up for single beds describing them as ‘massive’
Some satirical elements at the expense of the financially wealthy (‘These are my sons Bassett and Vander, and this is my daughter Clunis. We intend to spend our weekend sat in our houses, burning fossil fuels, eating Quavers from a glass bowl.’)

* Clara, whose name has been changed to allow her to present herself in the way she chooses, is in fact extremely well spoken. All obscenities and regionalisms are included to express the editor’s prejudice.

On the intimacy of one’s own company

Sometimes I am so glad that the world on the whole averts its eyes to the existence of the private individual. For example, when on a Saturday night at around half past eleven pm I walk into the Marks and Spencer in Waterloo train station and select a sharing packet of Szechuan chilli flavour crackers then walk to the till, with conviction, only to be put off  by the foreboding length of the queue and the dark fear that the people I am supposed to be meeting would arrive in the two minute window between purchasing the sharing packet and disposing of the empty sharing packet surreptitiously in the plastic recycling bin. Reader, in the time I was waiting, I performed this procedure twice, on both occasions thinking better of my revelatory conviction to purchase this luxuriant snack. I then sat in a metal chair and wondered if my present condition was a microcosm of urban decay. I then checked my telephone for new texts, which I had not received. By this time it was nigh on eleven forty five. The night was as they say young.

Bridging the hygiene gap between myself and my uncle

‘Thing have changed a lot in the last generation, in my day there was none of this getting up first thing in the morning and leaping into the shower, it was unthinkable. You could have a bath once a week if you wanted to. Now it’s part of the culture.’
‘. . .’
‘I don’t wash every day.’
‘Well that’s very honest of you.’

14 Things To Make You Feel Shitty

1. At some point in your mid twenties you will expand from a US size 4 to a US size 6. You’re not exactly sure how US sizes convert to UK sizes because it varies depending on which website you check. Either way, the sad truth is that you’re simultaneously too fat and too thin, and it’s only going to get worse whichever direction it changes in. Stop eating cupcakes and judging yourself at the same time.

2. You’re still worrying about how much you weigh? Aren’t you over it by now?! Just accept yourself and be who you are because no one else is going to do it for you. Or with you. Because it’s got boring. You’re so self-obsessed.

3. Your one task this week has been to find the exact length of skirt that says you’re cool, liberated and comfortable with your sexuality, without it being slutty, desperate and embarrassing. You think you’ve cracked it, but don’t put on any weight otherwise it’ll ride up.

4. You like to think you have lots of friends but actually they live in loads of different cities and have subtly changed since you last saw them in ways that make you completely unrelateable and now they don’t get your jokes any more. That’s fine, it’s all part of growing up.

5. Your boyfriend’s not exactly right for you or you don’t have one. Either way we’re all in the same boat, alone.

6. The internet is meant to be an enormous ball of freedom bouncing through the airwaves of a global community, but the non-porn fragment of it seems to be mostly lists of stuff you should never do or stuff you should already have done but don’t feel bad if you didn’t, honestly, because I spewed right after and it was totally worth it but that’s just not the kind of thing we should be doing at this stage in our lives anymore. Whoops.

7. It’s okay to let go sometimes, but not all the time. It’s fine to be cute, but don’t shit in public. Otherwise everyone will roll their eyes and go ‘okaaaaaay then!’ like it’s the nineties or something.

8. Your job is badly paid but at least you’re doing what you love. OH WAIT. Naw don’t sweat it, everyone’s unhappy. Learn to find that consoling.

9. You’re too old for your post-ironic sense of humour but too young to descend into dad jokes. You’re struggling to find a personality that will tide you over for the next 10 years, until you can just slip on a pair or cords, get amicably tipsy and dance with excessive use of your hips, and that’ll be your regular source of muted hilarity. No one will even want to LOL anymore. The future is such a safe haven.

10. Your life isn’t what you thought it would be, why did you spend so much time thinking about what you thought it would be? You could have been high. Get high!

11. Stop thinking about your life, just live it, thoughtlessly. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from what little time I’ve had, it’s don’t look back. The past is an abyss of closed possibility. Take it from me, I’m experienced.

12. Anyway, no one said you had to have kids anytime soon. Your boyfriend wants to travel and it would be wrong to use your cutesy wiles to make him not want to anymore. He’s his own person.

13. Everyone thinks they’re talented.

14. Look I’m not saying anything about you that you didn’t think already, otherwise why would you even care? Stop projecting, because that’s what the popular girls did in school. You faked that last orgasm.

The wait at the fracture clinic is 1hr 40m as of 11.15

‘why’s everyone looking so miserable for?’
‘coz they been waiting in a stinking hospital for hours innit’
‘I know but nobody’s smiling innit, everyone looks like they’re DYING. Got bare dying people here innit.’
‘can you shut up alright? no one wants to hear you’
‘LOOK AT THEM!’

The love of a good woman

One of my mother’s most particular peculiarities is her habit of informing me that she has a present for me. This could really be anything ranging from a fleecy new jumper to a demand for unpaid council tax to a bar of white chocolate laced with hazelnuts to some leftover cheese in the fridge to a spare telephone charger to a rediscovered relic from my childhood to an item I forgot on my last visit. All presented with the selfsame tone of  prefatory glee.

‘I’ve got a present for you!’

This unambiguous yet free-roving sentiment is derailed further by the exclamation she most regularly chooses to accompany the discovery that her cat has defecated within the parameters of her abode.

‘He’s left a present for me!’

Hot tip please read

Don’t set your watch fast, set it to exactly the right time. I had my watch set fast for years and I wasted 8 minutes of my life.