To best enjoy this blog post you must recline. You must pour yourself a glass of wine and you must put on a very specific playlist. One that begins with Bastille's Pompeii then segues neatly into Daft Punk's Harder Better Faster remix. Then the Dartmouth Airs remix of Remix to Ignition. Because you deserve smooth RnB lovin'
Jesus, the shit I have to tell you lot. And I'll do it too, the minute I figure out how to extricate myself from a smug gentleman purring on my lap.
No kiddies, it's not about to get R rated.Yet. I've had several thoughts in that direction but I think my mother reads this blog sometimes. Not that she'd disapprove. No indeed, there are fouler and more terrible things than your mother disapproving.
Your mother cheering you along, that's far worse. Once she wanted to talk about "50 Shades" and the enigma of Christian Grey in a Starbucks. Not him being mysterious in a Starbucks, when we were Star... never mind. Suffice it to say she's like Stella getting her groove back.
Enough about my beloved smother! We're back to me balancing a cat and a laptop at new landlady's who we shall call Jenny. We like Jenny, there is Internet at Jenny's house. There are warm duvets and squishy pillows at Jenny's house. There is TV, there is every good thing. And a cat, just to be a bit more Dr Seuss. I like the cat. I hope it doesn't die. Not like the last pet.
There is also me being utterly fabulous. I say utterly fabulous, I'm eating Victoria Sponge that Jenny has baked and drinking orange juice that Jenny has poured. I feel like little orphan Annie at Daddy Warbucks'.
Life goes on in the wide world. Let me tell you about it.
The quote in the title is from Charles Dickens himself and it is to his local that I went last Tuesday night, "The Olde Chesire Cheese" hidden away in a little alley off of Fleet Street. The stone step was so worn down that there was a metal grating over it to let patrons in and out. There was no question of replacing that step. Because that step was worm down by the tread of Hemingway and Dickens and Twain and Tennyson. It has been eroded by history. I went there with people from work. People from work are massively dead on.
Second reason for the dinosaur in the title, I went to see Jurassic Park at the IMAX and I loved. Every. Single. Moment. They do not make them like that any more. They simply do not.
I love Dodson, we got Dodson over here!! You see, no one cares... That was a childhood staple.
Mind you the biggest laugh was not at any of the still hilarious gems. (Example, what do you call a blind dinosaur? A Do-You-Think-Ee-Saurus!" Ah, classic) The biggest laugh was reserved for "Oh my God, an interactive CD-ROM." Touch screen darling. It's gonna be big...
And Dr Grant, don't get me started on Dr Grant because I would. And you would too. Mind you I also would Robert "Clever Girl" Muldoon. But never Ian Malcolm. Girl have standards.
We had a grand old day wandering around the South Bank and the posh people's market. We knew it was a posh people's market because of the non-segregation of the vegetables. They were artfully arranged in a sort of Bacchanal mess. And nobody was looking at me flicking though racks of knock off dresses, squinting one eye appraisingly and opining unasked-for "Sorry, dahlin' we ain't got nuffin' bigger than a meed-jum in with that lot." The indignity. Anyway, yes posh people's market.
It took me quite a while to distinguish actual posh people from my Southern English friends who had just grown up anywhere south of the imaginary line from Wolverhampton to Kings Lynn. All southern English people were de facto posh where I come from. Well, they were called a lot of things before posh, but I promised we'd keep the blog relatively clean.
Speaking of market stalls all those "pale ales" and "slow roasted peppers" were not a patch on Notting Hill Carnival. Oh yes.
We did that shit right. Dragged ourselves out at 8am on a Saturday morning and got on the Tube to Westbourne Park and arrived there before everyone. When the port-a-loos were still spotless and the streets gleamed and all the stall holders were just setting up.
Now the first thing I wanted to do before finding a suitable place to watch many scantily clad women and men parade by in wild abandon, a genuine Bacchanalia, I wanted me some jerk chicken, rice and peas and fried plantain.
I am not actually talking to you at the moment because if I was rest assured I would immediately and unapologetically launch into full "Yu'know I grew oop juust a stone throw awai from Windward Ro-wad" mode and I have yet to ascertain whether that has a happy ending. We got spectacularly pissed at last Friday of the month/pay day drinks and I ended up telling everyone about Notting Hill in that accent. And just when I though I would finish there would be a "Haaaaaaaave you met my friend" moment where I was presented to more people who now only know me as "the girl who does voices." They all came out. Sean Connery, Bernie Mac, Pitbull, Tevye the Dairyman, and the lady from the Caribbean food stall at which we rocked up.
I was so excited for food. Let us face reality, I am always excited for food. But this was special because I had never had plantain and jerk chicken before and it did not disappoint.
"Can I have some plantain too please?"
"You don' worry duhlin' I'm a puttin' a bit of everything on y'here. You don' mind spicy? Then I give you sum jerk sauce on the chicken there."
It was delicious. You pulled the chicken apart with your hands and found the good mouth watering meat and the jerk sauce tasted like all it was ever made for was to be shaken liberally over hot chicken to the jaunty rhythm of steel drums.
And in the way of the world Pooh decided to find himself a smackerel of something sweetly...alcoholic. So I tried to buy a coconut full of rum.
Mind you these things are heavily heavily policed. I saw more Metropolitan police in five hours than I've seen all day on the 12th July at home. But the point is that they ID-ed like a bitch and because I lost my drivers license to the last Cindies ever (don't ask, just think stampede by the Ganges or at Mecca, last Cindies was our pilgrimage) and wasn't carrying my passport so when refused I shuffled my feet and said awkwardly to the dreadlocked purveyor. "Can I just have a coconut?"
Now because we had come early and because we had had a chance to do more wandering that everyone else had lo it came to pass that I was the only person there sipping from this massive green coconut. And those things are full of water, just like Castaway! Or, in fact, just like real life. I desperately wanted to find paint, slap a handprint on there, lob the coconut onto the crowd and cry "WILSON!!" as it drifted away. But I resisted.
Others were not immune to the lure of the coconut.
"Daddy, daddy, that lady has a coconut."
"Yes she certainly does."
"Daddy, daddy...<whisper, whisper, whisper>"
"Excuse me, where did you get your coconut?"
Elsewise work takes up most of the week and now flat hunting does as well. Estate agents. Four bedrooms means four bedrooms. It does not mean lounge that could be converted. Do not lie to my face.
But there is writing! There is the odd little moment that happened in a Vodaphone shop when I was topping up my Dongle for the last bittersweet time. There was a nice chap there who was having trouble setting up a business line and for the last fifteen minutes (slow slow service day) me and him have been doing that odd "Are you in line, ah you're coming back into line, oh no you need to sort something out over the phone, oh yes sorry I'll move along" silent dance with shakes of the head and apology smiles. He comes off the phone and returns to the queue, smiles and reaches out his hand and says "Hi, I'm Manolo, what's your name?"
I suspect this is called flirting. I understand this happens sometimes. But I am not entirely sure and am not able to distinguish this mythical business from being nice. People are often nice to me, I think its the glasses...
And he talks for a little bit more and he's been here for an hour already, silly Vodaphone, and he has to go soon as he's meeting friends it's a Friday and what do I do for a living?
"Me? I'm a writer. The paid stuff's not all that exciting."
But I am. Under my email signature it says my name and Junior Writer in italics.
Calloo-callay.
Mind you he leaves thinking my name is Lily (because of my natural suspicion of that uncertainty) and I haven't seen him since. If I do your all to be my wingmen and swear I've been known affectionately as Lily since birth. Because that sort of stuff's on the list as well. Practice makes perfect.
Until I get a minute my friends
xo
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