The king of the garden

Good reasons for this declaration of rampant alcohol imbibing behaviour.

Since the merry month of May (I missed the merry bit but I like alliteration) I have had hairy-arsed workmen obliterating the innards of my house. Just a simple job of transforming the hall and landing into something that looks habitable I suppose. All doors, skirting boards, bannisters, newel posts (yawn this is tedious I know) and everything that hollers chipped gloss gloop has been eradicated. After two months of Laurel and Hardy type antics it was finally completed on Saturday. Not before wiring was cut, neighbours' car brakelights were broken, heating was rendered defunct and Jackson Pollock-type wood stain was spattered a la Reservoir Dogs up the walls and doors!

Today I welcome the Boulder Brothers. They are as I type this, cutting the front of the house AWAY!!!!!!

One vicious word that inspires terror into the darkest living interiors of anybody that lives in something with a roof, walls and floors: SUBSIDENCE.

More banging, hacking, scraping, drilling, grinding, knocking and just about the lexicon of everything to do with a fucking nervous breakdown ensues.

I did warn the Boulder Brothers that I've got the teensiest hangover today. And that I have suffered this sort of thing from their bretheren since May. They think I'm joking. Ha! When they put the scaffolding up they cannot fail to notice the empty wine bottles I hurled out the window in a fit of drunken mischief last night.

Nevermind the nuisance value of the bendy bus.

Mayor Ken Livingstone has commissioned these new brighter buses for London.

I've just spotted a flotilla of rubber ducks all floating down our street. Just nipped out to post a letter most likely

Looking stylish this soggy summer has never looked easier.

Discard the Hunter wellie and hurl out the Havaiana flip-flop. The High Tide Heel has arrived.

Whether you need to wade out to the swim-market for the groceries, shop around for a great underwater second-hand car or just attend a goldfish christening these sexy rubber heels make a bold yet practical statement.

May need the additional purchase of talcum powder for ease and comfort of fit. Latex spray polish comes as optional extra.

Bob Dylan wrote...."the times they are a changin'" and there's no disputing that. Or was it Bill Withers? Anyway the man had something to say about the wind, the socio-political changes, the number 43 bus and nylon socks. Stay fresh socks came later.

Well I have to say I feel very sorely for anyone whose life has been blighted by this appalling so-called summer weather. To see everything you have toiled for destroyed by an act of Sod and be absolutely helpless to stop it makes you halt in your tracks. Remember but for the grace of God go I? Yes indeed.

So it was with this thought in mind that I was woken this morning by the next-door-but-one fishwife. I have to call her that as she bellows louder than a town crier without the bastard bell. She may think she lives on a sheep ranch in the outback. She may think she lives on a Mexican cattle ranch banging a tin plate with a soup ladle. In fact she lives in the sub-blurbs of North West London in a bastard semi! We have as much privacy in this street as the ladies prison in Holloway. Don't ask me how I know this.

The fishwife twice daily - morning and evensong - bangs a tin plate with a soup ladle and bellows her mantra. She is calling her cats in to dinner.

The cats names? SCROFULUS AND MINGIES. It maybe Socrates and Milo but frankly I'm going to kill her.

After a long hard think......................

No there is nothing I could possibly want in the soggy summer sales.

You can stick your thongs, your barbecue tongs.

You can stick your potted plants, your chino pants.

Your summer frocks, your sandals sans socks..........

Will somebody please buy me a sunny day?

Just the one.

With a blue sky and a view

That is fuck-far-away from London.

I've just got out of my scratcher at 10pm.

I went to my scratcher at sometime today after drinking copious amounts of Pimms. Not really sure what time it was. I do remember playing "Rebel-rebel....you've torn your dress, your face is a mess" at blitzkrieg altitude level Blasto!

Then with mild amusement considering sectioning all my friends. This was in idea I'd gleaned from Peep Show. Just pick up your mobile and dial NHS direct. Ask for "the Sectioning" section and get a mate sectioned. It just saves the embarrassment of having to tell them you don't like their music, clothes or take-away pizza choice.

If it's good enough for Peep Show it's good enough for me.

SHABBA!

At 1pm today my friends left Hereford to travel to London. They are still stranded on the M5!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The torrential rain has flooded all the roads in and out of Hereford. And the rest of England too judging by the news this evening

Earlier today it was like the gods had emptied their chamber pots out of the great big window in the sky.

No doubt summer never came this way.

Wellies or thongs? The right to choose.

I've just come back home from a delightful day out at B&Q. Or as I call it P&Poo! No they never had anything I wanted. Just row upon row of cavernous nothing. And if they did have what you wanted - could you find it?

I wanted a door knob. A bloody door knob for my new front door (which doesn't shut properly) so perhaps this is an academic exercise.

P&Poo are hopeless. So armed with nothing I came home to find blog world topsy-turvey. What is going on? Have we gone non-smoking, low carbon emission, low fat, eco, climate control, fair trade friendly in design or what?

I'm just going outside to scream.....................in a non-screaming place

It happened on the way back from Spec-savers.

A bit of a to-do on the M25. A minor road vexation incident.

This isn't me by the way. It's my Mum. Some old folks carry throat lozenges and those see-thru' rain hats that fold up like miniature accordians. Mum likes to be prepared. She carries an Uzi.

She shot the postman last week - not the sherriff. That's the real reason why there's a postal strike today!

I can't get out of this room at the back of the house................

All morning I've been forced to play in blogland and I'm getting cabin fever. Is this what it must be like if you have to sit at a desk at work everyday?

The very thought of it! It's cruelty on a vast scale! Has anyone died as a result of sitting at a pc for an intensive 4 hours or longer? I mean naturally nobody would ever be made to work at such a cruel device for 8 hours! Would they?

This is torture on a level not seen since the enforced orange boiler suit wearing, and sedan chairs at Gerinomo Bay......Nobody wears orange today. I just don't care what Yves St Laurent says.

I need a break.

Can someone make me a strong coffee please - gold blend with sweetner

And stop banging those doors!

LORD ON A LAVATORY! It's stopped - the banging and noise. They've gone home. I can come out now................

The new Seven Wonders in full are:

Chichén Itzá, Mexico - a new chilli paste that doesn't give you indigestion

Christ the Redeemer, Brazil - that fool on the hill

The Great Wall, China - a bit smaller than Hadrians wall but you get the idea

Machu Picchu, Peru - multi-coloured weave blankets with super tog 15

Petra, Jordan - New baby of page three chimp/and or number one single by Boney M

The Roman Colosseum, Italy - Ace cinema modelled on the Odeon Barnet

The Taj Mahal, India. - Commemorative aprons of a contemplative Princess Di

Oh and Number 8 - The Hanging Gardens of Babylon (that kebab shop on Woodseats road - Sheffield)

Erm Number 9 Essex Henge - a sun worshipping community in blogland. (this one really stretches credibility)

"That's the trouble with Reality, it's taken far too seriously........"

An emotional fish - goldfish with diarrhea

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rtvBBL9NEaM

Or just a stinkingly good tune once you get passed the crackly bits

Words banned from my everyday usage and substituted with my own version after reading yet another nauseating article on yet another nauseating event in London

Summer = Bummer
Carbon footprint = cardboard bullshit

In other news I believe we are trying to ban cows farting. Cows produce 4,000 grams of carbon dioxide a day. Compare that to a Landrover at 3,419g on a 33 mile trip.

Blimey and a Landrover is so tasty with a portion of chips too!

Oh dear rain again. What a bummer!

Addendum to my substitutes

Refugee = wait 'n see

With Jack White glowering like a petulant Morticia in the background (and love child of Lemmy) this album Broken Boy Soldiers is a collaboration between him and Brendon Galoshes. Pardon my pedantic knowledge of all things musical but I'm just about to make an eggbod toasted sandwich and I'm a little distracted.

It's Brendon something-beginning-with-B and I don't mean to dismiss the man so easily. Brendon Benson - there! Benson and Hedges or Lambert and Butler.

If I ever wrote, designed or even produced an album of such outstanding quality I would certainly get all my facts right first off. And not be waylaid by mundane esurient snackings!

Incidentally there is a song about the sun on this album, track (hang on back in just-an-i-Tunes jiffy) 8. But the least said about that right now the better. Any song with the sun featuring in it is like a .................red rag to a jam jar!!

Oh yes and I'm off to Wimbledon tomorrow so it's bound to rain. Better watch it from the bar instead then. That's Shark speak for pretending to be a lawyer. And forgetting my briefs.........(Fades out with some dramatic, malodious American theme toon)

Wanted: Round yellow mass of flame, sometimes floats around in the sky.

Answers to the name of: SUN

Last seen in the southern hemisphere.

If you see him tell him it's fucking July and he should be in the northern hemisphere.

Lazy, malingering bastard!

It suddenly struck me - matches.

Will they become redundant along with bic disposable lighters and ashtrays?

Unless we all opt for lighting candles out on pavements in tea/candle lighting breaks

I may just have committed the biggest crime since Ronnie Biggs ran off with more than one laundry bag of used reddies.

Does one hang one's under-rods, crackers, knickers, boxers, trollies, doillies, skids, thongs, y-fronts alfresco? Or is it the biggest sin since Mother Theresa's sandals got thrown in the bin?

Okay there is a lot of knicker action around this fortnight. Not a lot of tennis mind but a lot of knicker sightings and that does have some baring on my troublesome question.

Is it polite in present company to hang underwear on the line or does it lower the tone and frighten not only the horses but suggest a common, slack alice, bra-strap flashing mentality?

A considerable moral dilemma is posed by the even bigger question:

Does one hang a mate's knickers on the line? If said mate is at work, you're staying there as a guest and you're helping out with the chores.

I once had the audacity to hang my best mate's husband's boxers (hang in there no pun intended) on the washing line. Whilst said mate was at work and Vera (the nextdoor neighbour) looked on, or rather, over the fence in barely concealed confusion and a bemused bewilderment worthy of an American tourist at the Wimbledon fortnight.

Cry me a river!

I've left my knickers on the washing line and it's lump-hammering down (again). It's raining so hard the hailstones have made little perforations in back of the fabric

Might as well leave them there now and take them down to Oxfam when the rain stops. They might be damp but at least they are clean.

I'm convinced that tomorrow when I arise from my bed I shall shed fish scales.

Looking out of the window it looks like an aquarium. Green algae everywhere. There's a treasure chest in the garden that opens and closes slowly. Instead of grass there is green lumi-gravel. Our neighbour-friendly giant, Leylandii has grown 12 inches in two weeks and my sunflowers are depressed. I shall liquid feed them some prozac tomorrow. If I see the printed word "summer" or "barbeque" from this day forth, I shall kill or at least pout at the clouds.

If this is summer you can shove it up your arse.

Place Jude Law in her backing band line-up

As the smoking public mourns the exile of the ashtray blasted into orbit and destined for a supermassive black hole or planet bash, there is one public place that is exempt.....still.

The Houses of Parliament! Oh yes they are still smoking in designaated areas in the Lords.

"Houses of Parliament: Smoking
Lord Faulkner of Worcester asked the Chairman of Committees:

The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara): The Administration and Works Committee published a report today recommending to the House that, except as permitted below, smoking should be prohibited in all parts of the parliamentary estate occupied by the House of Lords.

21 Mar 2007 : Column WA201

In the interests of smokers, the committee recommends that specified smoking areas should be provided in the following locations within the Lords estate:

Black Rod's Garden State Officer's Court Peers' Inner Court
The committee also recommends that smoking should be permitted in an area at the end of the Lords Terrace abutting the Commons Terrace. Given the usage of the Lords Terrace for the consumption of food and drink, this provision should be reviewed if excessive smoking creates a hazard or offence.

Blah-blah-blah-blah but whichever way you word it, clearly what is sauce for the general public is not the same brand of HP for the Houses or Parliament.