Le Mermaid
Did you know that David Beckham is transgendered, no; well it’s true ‘cos I saw it in a newspaper that one of my colleagues at work was reading. I must add that it wasn’t MY newspaper; I’m much too toffee-nosed and stuck-up to read one of THOSE newspapers. It was a picture of him topless and my dears, the guy’s torso is covered in tattoos, and it’s positively revolting, his skin now resembles that of a fish; hence my thoughts of how he looked like a mermaid. Sticking with fishy things, I think there’s something fishy why women find him so attractive, I mean, he never shaves properly, has little squinty eyes and that voice, oh my god. It must be the $ signs in his eyes but no matter.
As we all know, fish like water but did you know that water likes me. Over the years, I’ve lived in flats where there has always been a bit of a problem with the wet stuff. Let me explain some more my dear, cuddly, loveable reader. In my current abode, which incidentally, is mermaid friendly because it’s literally by the Thames, the flat is a bit of a tip. Apparently, so I’m told, the previous occupant – a News of the Screws journalist – was so embarrassed by its state that when he, I’m sorry about this but it's true, when he wanted to screw himself – with a her not the cheap solo substitute - he used to take the young lady off to a hotel for the night. I’m told by the same source that the current occupant i.e. me, is much tidier. Come to think of it, like the previous tenant, I too have never…
The problem with my present apartment is the kitchen and bathroom. The kitchen hasn’t any space for a fridge AND an oven. I make do with a microwave and, and the bathroom has been challenging. Basically, the tiles and plaster have come off exposing the brickwork around the wash basin so it’s like shaving in the Rocky Mountains; very unfriendly to Mermaids too. Round the bath, the tiles started falling off like rose petals leaving the most horrible black gungy fungus on the walls. This fungus even started seeping from under the bath as well and smearing the floor and whatnot. I did contact my housing association by using their website button called ‘repairs’ but that too was in need of repair because they never got back to me. That must have been a year ago and I’d kind of got used to the problem by adjusting, as they say.
A couple of weeks ago the caretaker knocked on my door while I was shaving in the mountains, with him were a couple of David Beckham look-alikes and asked if they could inspect my bathroom. Not right know I said but I promised I'd give them the spare key to check when I was out. To cut a long story short, the bath and tiles problem has been sorted out but not the washbasin bit yet. The care taker said that next time I’d be charged for the work. This sudden adjustment to the English common law whereby tenants pay rent, a service charge AND pay for repairs too left me a tad perplexed.
Below my flat is a common room and bar which is frequently used for meetings and parties; come to think of it, there haven’ t been any lately. My neighbough told me that there’d been ‘a bit of a problem' there caused by my bath. I rather nonchalantly strolled down there and oh my stars, the black stuff was back and the ceiling, just avoid dancing in the south east corner my darling.
We’re holding an art exhibition in the common room soon where some of the writing from this blog is to be exhibited – plus piccies, arty farty stuff and all that malarkey; in fact a lot of money is at stake. . It's being rigorously promoted by the housing association, which owns my block, is advertised in the local rag and has become something of an ‘event’ amongst the local Rotherhithe set. The problem is that we’d need an ambulance standing by in case a chunk of plaster falls on someone’s head. I’m keeping a low profile just now in case the exhibition has to be um, postponed or worse. Having just peeped at the common room again, it really does look dreadful, I can see ‘Notice to Quit written all over it.
Many years ago I had a flat where the bath emptied itself fully into the bedroom below and brought the ceiling down. A little while later I came home from work to find very official looking men wanting to get into my flat; ‘it’s ‘im’ cried the neirghbour below. Apparently, water was poring into her flat like a waterfall. It turned out that it was my neighbour upstairs who’d got stoned and left the bath taps running – two ceilings down and her downstairs weren’t happy - ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha and three more ha- ha[s].
Cheers.
Andrew
Feast of the Assumption of the BVM
16th August 2009 (once removed)
The Grotto {sic] Shop
William Shakespeare in ‘As you Like It’ has a character who says “All the World’s a Stage”. Indeed it is and Reggie Perrin from that famous TV series quite clearly had taken this on board when he plays different roles from farm hand to successful entrepreneur by establishing a chain of shops selling grot or absolute rubbish; the stuff sold like hot cakes. I thought of Reggie when looking at a copy of a newspaper recently in which the founder of an organic chain of shops admitted that most of the things he had been selling were in fact, um, crap. Well OF COURSE it was all crap, I mean...
I recall once being in one of the organic crap shops in Bayswater and thinking of the marvels of an economic system whereby people with a considerable amount of disposable income will part with his or her hard earned cash to buy fresh vegetables costing about four times more than those found in Sainsbury’s or Tesco’s. Apparently, organic stuff is more natural and good for you, what a load of crap [sic]. The way to save the planet is to go for genetically modified veggie as a first stage and then genetically modified human beings too, so that they don’t spend an eternity trying to bump each other off. Personally, I’d have genetically modified Adolph Hitler and turned him/her into a lesbian and the first ever inclusive Archbishop of Canterbury who couldn’t speak English, hmm, sounds quite funny. I digress, sorry.
Let’s pretend that I was running this organic shop in the said Bayswater. There’s a lot of rich media types there with ‘loads of money’ so I’d first sell ‘em real crap as a starter, mine in fact. Say I go once a day - if we include the Misses, I’ve already doubled the output - easy money my dears. I’ll just call it ‘Chinese-herble-wong-cheung-yeti manure’ and say it contains special nutrients that help slow the growth of cancer cells. I could make up posh looking instructions about how to spread it in on a vegetable patch etc, the problem I suppose is that there would be a certain perfume. This odeur [sic] could well become a stench in time, especially if I also sold bottled Japanese anti-winkle cologne – basically my piss. I could of course go to Sainsbury’s and buy their basic bottled water which only costs 11 pence. I could label it and sell it for 11 quid as ‘Nepalese holy water from the monastery of Ding-Doing province which makes you sexy and desirable’, phew.
The best surely would be to run a dating agency in the upper-east-side, New York City. First, I adore NYC and second, Americans are so gullible. Ideally, I’d sign up really ugly men and promise them beautiful dates. The girls would be recruited from ‘those’ places and told to give the guys a good time. I’d pay the hostesses handsomely but the guys would be taken to the cleaners by me. The guys would keep coming back for more, paying a fortune for the ever elusive wife, ha, ha, ha, ha ha ha. Think I’m being silly dear reader, each week millions of Brits buy a Lotto ticket; they’ve actually got more chance of being hit by an asteroid than scooping the jackpot ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha and err, ha.
See yer.
Andrew.
