Friday 15 October 2010

Santander are vexing me now. Their suspicious activity software is way too sensitive and seems to trigger warnings whenever I buy stuff from t’internet. I had to ring them up and went through a robot system which read out my recent purchases, and I had to press 1 to confirm that it was me that actually purchased them. I want to deal with real people. Had someone with common sense examined the purchases they would see that it was minor purchases and exactly the same sort of thing as I’ve bought in the past. If someone was regularly buying Vin Diesel’s underwear on e-bay, you’d think Santander would make a note of it and register it as normal behaviour.
I haven’t had a celebrity omen for some time. I did see Ginny Weasley from Harry Potter on the Central Line some weeks ago but I’m not sure if she counts. She’d be a negligible omen at best.
Today, however, I was coming out of Edgware Road station and saw Kröd Mändoon going in. Strangely, some time back I saw Rula Lenska exiting this very station, rising up the stairs with her scarlet barnet shining like a hairy dawn.

Wednesday 17 March 2010

Cellophane (n) A protective plastic covering specifically designed for cellos.

On the Piccadilly Line this morning I ended up standing next to Charlie from Big Brother (that’s the cute gay Charlie, not the ugly feral Charley from Croydon). He was looking very well-scrubbed and wearing a nice suit. He caught me staring at him and shifted away.
Regular readers will know that I am a great believer in Celebrity Omens, and I haven’t had one yet this year. I am wondering however, whether he is enough of a celebrity to merit an omen. I imagine it would be a minor omen, portending something unsurprising along the lines of Ricky Martin coming out of the closet. Who can tell?
Another man on the Tube was wearing a badge which said ‘Daddy Has Meow Meow’ which was a bit tasteless given that this is another name for the drug Methedrone, which has sent several people to the great beyond of late.
Some CDs and books arrived today as well as my new 1 terabyte hard drive. Hoorah!

Sunday 30 August 2009

I went to the Celebrity sauna again today. I was hoping that no celebrities would be in evidence today, and for a while everything was quiet and uneventful. Most of the clientele looked like one of our shorter engineers, which gave the steam room the look of a cloudy bald hobbit convention.
However, some time later, who should walk in but the singer from ‘Right Said Fred’, who squatted in the TV lounge singing under his breath ‘I’m too sexy for this sauna… too sexy for this sauna… I’ll sit here in the…… corn---er!’
It all went downhill from there, so I got dressed and went to Waitrose.
This was, I imagine, a celebrity omen
The UO made us a nice pork and potato casserole, and we watched the new ‘Wuthering Heights’ with the sexy but scary Tom Hardy as Heathcliffe.

Friday 16 January 2009

‘you german bastard!’
a cyclist, shouting to me.
he left, unchallenged.

On my cigarette break, some way outside the secret government bunker in which I am employed, I was abused by an old rastafarian on a bicycle.
‘You German Bastard!’ he shouted, several times. This was, I presume, because I was wearing a parkah with a german flag on the sleeve and not because I look particularly german. Even if I did, I see no reason for the abuse. I am too young to have been involved in any Nazi war crimes, or the war, for that matter.
On my way home, I saw the actor who played Count Scarlioni, The Last of The Jagaroth in the Dr Who episode ‘City of Death’, back when Tom Baker was Doctor Who. He was on his way through Hammersmith Tube Station. He didn’t call me a German bastard, thankfully.
We have a new Doctor Who now, a young whippersnapper who is surely too young to play a Time Lord, but Time will tell... (did you see what I did there...?).

Tuesday 4 November 2008

It seems incumbent upon me to bring my readers up to date with the events of the last three months, although very little has happened in the majority of it. The Ugly One and I went to Asturias for a wedding and had a very relaxing time, despite the fact that most negotiations in restaurants were carried out by the long held tradition of pointing at the menu and saying ‘para dos’ while simultaneously holding up two fingers.
Until last Thursday life was rather calm and idyllic. I’ve been painting portraits of people I know, staying up late watching ‘Boston Legal’ and focusing my binoculars on the shirtless crane-operator high above Westfield, sitting alone in his cabin in his cut-off denim shorts.
Westfield, as most people cannot fail to know, is the new mega-mall situated on the site of the White City Olympic Village.
It opened last Thursday, with something of a splash, and a celebrity omen.
Some years back, the UO and I lived in a bedsit near Shepherds Bush Roundabout where we had to share a toilet with two large South Africans and a Kiwi couple.
Directly upstairs was a grumpy gentleman who looked a little like Mr Filch from Harry Potter. Mr Filch complained that our TV was too loud. We duly turned it down in the interests of good neighbourliness. Mr Filch complained again, and we invited him in to demonstrate the volume, which was as low as we could go without having to employ ear-trumpets.
Mr Filch was not placated and, the next morning, decided to place his radio face down on his floor (i.e. our ceiling) and blast us with Radio 2 at five o’clock in the morning. The UO was not amused by this and threatened to put Mr Filch’s radio in a place where Terry Wogan might be somewhat more muffled. Mr Filch moved out shortly afterwards.
Thursday morning, I settled down with my coffee to watch the morning news on which a reporter was interviewing Shepherds Bush residents to get their views on the opening of Westfield.
Without any warning, the face of Mr Filch appeared, spread across my screen like an evil wrinkled logo.
‘We don’t want it here!’ said Mr Filch. ‘They should have put it outside the city somewhere where it won’t bother nobody.’
It’s nice to know that the years have mellowed him.
Still in shock from this vision of the past I stumbled onto the train and sat down, only to find myself looking straight into the gormless face of Boris Johnson, on his way to the Westfield opening ceremony. Boris gave me one of those bland political smiles. I pretended not to know who he was and returned to reading ‘The Kraken Wakes’.
I can’t see that an encounter with Boris, celebrity omen though it was, could portend anything but doom.

Tuesday 5 August 2008

As it was our anniversary we took ourselves off to The Bombay Bicycle Club on Holland Park Avenue, a slightly upmarket restaurant which does a rather nice line in fish curries. I went for a lamb fillet khabli as a starter and continued with a Monkfish Machli, which was excellent.
The Ugly One and I were deep in conversation about notable lines from Tennessee Williams films, and were stuck on the name of a film.
‘It’s ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’’ said the young man on the next table.
We thanked him and let him and his young lady get on with their dinner. It wasn’t until I sneaked out for a cigarette and got a good look at him that I realised it was the man who played the gay black footballer in ‘Footballers’ Wives’.
Oooh. Celebrity Omen! I thought. What could this portend?

Friday 20 June 2008

i could go to north greenwich
to look at the dome,
then i’ll sigh, wonder why
and go home.

I saw Douglas Hurd in Hammersmith Tube this morning. What celebrity omen will this portend?
And of course, today everyone is talking about Alexandra from Big Brother who was taken out of the house due to her repeated intimidatory behaviour, which of course she did not see as being intimidatory at all.
Is she mad, or merely a sociopath? It is clear that she has severe emotional problems and has great trouble dealing with anyone who does not agree with her rather narrow view of the world, as well as which she pronounces muslim with three syllables, which none of the real muslims who I know do.
She also had an argument with Mohammed, who wanted to have a cross-dressing party, and insisted, rather curiously, that Mus-a-lim men did not do this, and ‘we are drinking and smoking, which is bad enough, but this is going too far.’
It’s an odd set of values. Allah, it seems, may turn a blind eye to the drinking and smoking, but wearing a bra may send you to Hell.
From what I’ve learned, it seems that the alcohol prohibition is not one of the more seriously enforced Muslim laws, and as tobacco was presumably not extant in the Middle East when the Koran was written it seems difficult to imagine how a smoking ban could have been incorporated. I am not aware of any specific part of the Koran which forbids the wearing of women’s clothes for fancy dress purposes as I am not an expert, although I do seem to know more about it than Alex does.
Anyway, this pure moral Mus-a-lim woman the next day, having found herself up for eviction, seemed quite happy to launch into a rant about how ‘personal offence is never forgotten’ and that she has gangster friends who are going to get to know everyone’s friends and family. It was very disturbing viewing as, for me, it was quite clear that Alex was threatening to have her ‘gangster friends’ deal with the people who nominated her. Whether or not Alex has any friends at all, whether they be gangsters or fellow croydon-facelift hairstyle fetishists, is a moot point. I suspect she hasn’t.
Before this programme I made the mistake of tuning into Big Brother’s Little Brother just to check if the ghastly Zezi Ifore had been sacked yet. Alas no! There she was, baring her unfeasibly large teeth and bouncing around in a yellow and black number looking like a bee hunting for a place to die.
Ok, there’s several things wrong with Zezi (not including the unfeasibly large teeth and the bee outfit):-
1. A presenter should, wherever possible, present in as professional a manner as possible. It isn’t right to shout ‘Yeah!’ at inappropriate times or dance like an infant at ballet school behind someone else who is co-presenting.
2. When interviewing, it usually isn’t the case that the interviewer says more (mostly about herself) than the interviewee does.
3. A presenter should not interrupt or talk over people.
4. A presenter should really have better teeth. I know I wasn’t going to mention the teeth, but the Gormless Shoe Tree insists on pushing her gob right into the camera and it looks like we’re entering some kind of mouth-based Moria.

Get Zezi Out! Get Zezi Out! Get Zezi Out!

Monday 21 April 2008

i saw art malik
searching the street; an actor
lost for direction.

I had a rare day off today and took myself up to Holland park where a celebrity omen appeared to me in the form of Hollywood and Holby City star Art Malik, who was roaming up and down Holland Park Avenue, clutching a piece of paper, checking the numbers on the doors and looking generally exasperated. Eventually he got through to someone on a mobile and strode off in a huff in the direction of Shepherds Bush.
What could this omen augur?
I took myself into The Mitre and had a quiet glass of wine while chatting to the Brazilian barman.
This evening the BNP broadcast their party political message which said very little. The only coloured face in the film was a green bin with eyes and a smiling mouth. That said more than the broadcast did.

Monday 30 July 2007

the sun made us slow
and we ticked with heavy beats
inching through the day

Ian Reddington must be an Omen of Disease as I have been struck down by the evil lurgi of flu-ness.
Please list him in your Celebrity Omen Almanacs under Pestilence.

Sunday 29 July 2007

horn hooted, flags waved.
they stopped the traffic and danced.
we’d just thump people.

I was up Edgware Road today and spent a pleasant hour in the park, writing and dealing with odd green insects who, for their own strange reasons, seemed to find me irresistible.
A woman came to sit on the next bench.
‘Sundays are boring, aren’t they?’
‘Well, they don’t have to be.’
‘I’ve been dealing with my husband..’
I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to this, as I was debating whether she was talking sexual services or murder, but before I could formulate a response she continued…
‘He’s broke his hip and he’s been in bed for four weeks.’
‘That must be difficult.’ I said. It’s not that I didn’t feel sorry for the woman, but I suspected she was after a little more than a chat about bedbaths.
I was saved from any further embroilment as just then all hell broke loose and cars started whizzing by, tooting their horns and waving flags out of their windows. It was the Iraqi flag, which I only realised because three teenage boys ran past me with the flag on the front of the T-shirts and IRAQ written in big letters on the back.
‘Have we withdrawn the troops?’ I thought, ‘Is George Bush dead?’
It turned out that Iraq had won the Asian Cup at Football.
By the time I reached Edgware Road itself, traffic was at a standstill and people were out of their cars and dancing in the street, music provided by their state-of-the-art in-car stereo systems.
It was a good half-hour before the police cottoned on and arrived to divert the noisier of the celebrants into the side streets where they could hoot and dance to their hearts’ contents.
I escaped into Marks and Spencers where I bought a bottle of wine.
‘Do you have ID?’ said the twenty-something cashier.
‘What for?’ I asked, bemused.
‘I’m only joking,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I snapped, still smarting from the Bill Oddie comparison, ‘Very funny!’
I will have to do something about my image.
At the tube, I was confronted by another celebrity omen, as who should be walking into the Tube but Ian Reddington, better known as Vernon from ‘Coronation Street’.
What sort of omen is he?
Only Time will tell.

Thursday 26 July 2007

the well-spoken man
announced the minor delays
as though they were gifts

The bizarre bit of religious news this week is the plight of Shambo, the sacred bull of some Welsh Hindus. Shambo has been diagnosed with TB and the authorities have, quite rightly, I suppose, decreed that Shambo should be put down. The Hindus disagree, and once again, we are faced with a situation where people feel that their religion puts them beyond the law.
Shambo is a Friesian, by the way. I am not sure why that makes him sacred. Would an Aberdeen Angus be less holy?
On my regular journey between the Eastbound Piccadilly Line platform at Victoria and the Southbound Victoria Line platform I have to walk along a sizeable tunnel which is currently having its poster frames refurbished. Today, all the poster frames were empty and I was struck by how refreshing it was to see a kind of frosted refection in the steel at the back of the frames rather than a gallery of mostly tedious adverts for things people don’t much want.
When I got home, I was just heading along the street to my home when who should I spot walking toward me but Paul Ross, the spiv-suited brother of Jonathan Ross, usually to be seen as a talking head on those ‘100 worst (insert category here)’ programmes that seem to show interminably on Channel 4.
This was no doubt a Celebrity Omen, though what it may portend I cannot yet fathom.

Monday 25 June 2007

our trains have evolved
engines are muted thunder
the roof speaks in tongues

I took the train from Paddington to Southall while thunder grumbled overhead. At the station, the rain was a little strong so I popped into an Indian bar called The Glassy Junction.
Decorated rather like an Indian Restaurant, with some fab brass Indian elephant heads holding the bar rail to the bar, I felt a little out of place, but as there was only me, the barman, and an elderly Sikh, I didn’t feel too intimidated.
At one point an Irish construction worker came in, who needed to do some work on the pavement outside near the cellar door and so needed to know what day their deliveries arrived so that he avoided his concrete being trampled by draymen.
Unfortunately, the Irish accent was so strong that the barman couldn’t understand him so I had to translate into Standard English, and after several minutes of tortuous repetition everyone was happy.
Later, some young Indian men from Manchester came in, and were videoing the pub, no doubt for the benefit of their Manc relatives, and even videoed me, waving and grinning like a special needs uncle, as I tend to do when confronted with cameras.
I do have to say, that of all the pubs I’ve visited in London this has to be the friendliest. Everyone is happy to chat, and no one seems to have an attitude. I will have to pop in here again.
On the way home I had a celebrity omen, as, when coming out of Paddington Station, I saw John Barnes (the footballer, not the Science Fiction author, sadly) sauntering in with a Hugo Boss suit over his shoulder.
What could this portend?

Tuesday 22 May 2007

It’s been a very strange week, which started with a celebrity omen.
Last Monday, feeling a little poorly after an evening of spicy takeaway, I rang in sick, but by the afternoon was feeling well enough to venture out. Whom did I spot wandering toward me but Doctor Fox, Radio DJ and Pop Idol judge.
I find the efficacy of celebrity omens depends very much on the relative fame and quality of the celebrity. The effect can be increased exponentially by multiple sightings of separate celebrities in the one day.
About an hour later I spotted an Irish comedian whom I had seen in one of those sketch shows which have cropped up of late and tend to be shown after ten on BBC 2 or 3. Alas, I could not count him as a celebrity as he was merely a recognisable face from TV, who is so far nameless and hence without power to affect my destiny.
What could the Doctor Fox omen bode?
The next morning I rose as normal, had a coffee, a cigarette and my ablutions, and was roused from my stupor by voicemail from my boss.
‘There is no electricity in the building,’ she said. ‘Feel free to stay at home today.’
So! The Doctor Fox omen is a good one. I shall note it in my Celebrity Omen almanac.
I have spent the week out and about exploring London, as every morning I got the voicemail telling me to stay at home until Friday when, it appears, the power of Doctor Fox eventually ran out and we had to return to work.
Boo!