Self Plate-rait

The Kitchen of La Belle Sonje. It's yellow, it has plates, what more do you want.

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N for Nawtee

No, I haven't gone all corporate or received a vast sponsorship deal from a certain network operator named after a fruit that isn't an apple (though I'm more than happy to sell-out if the bunce is nawtee enough). This picture, taken in the aforementioned network operator's reception area, demonstrates the impressive capabilities of my Nokia N90's onboard camera. OK, so I'll be the first to admit this is a bit sad, banging on about one's new mobile phone, especially when one works for the creator of the operating system, lurking within the innards of said phone. I didn't want to post anything but sigh9 forced my hand by drawing a wee picture demanding succour. So there, you happy now? You've forced me into branding my blog with advertising tat. Not that I really follow this new campaign for the fruit related net-ops. They seem to have taken a rather random group of animals, a raccoon, a panther, a canary and a dolphin, to represent their new mobile packages. No doubt intensive marketing reasearch was done to determine which animals mankind felt the greatest affinity with. A dolphin makes sense, free to roam, man's aquatic best friend, higher brain function, tuna friendly etc. A panther is almost acceptable. You could get off on being a panther, prowling the wilderness, befriending abandoned children and bears, maiming campers, lotta fun, lotta fun. I'm not so sure about the canary. Many's the time I've enviously eyed that weird piece of cuttlefish in a canary's cage and wished I could be the little feathered fella for a few minutes, just so I could rub my beak against that strange bio-ceramic carapace. I'm not sure anyone else on the planet shares this view though. As far as a racoon is concerned however, no one in their right mind wants to be a raccoon. They may be mildly endearing in a ring tailed bandit masked kind of way, but it never really works out well for their kind. Raccoons either become roadkill or hats, or dubious ad campaigns. If given the choice, I'd take the pantechnicon any day.

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Damn, knew I should have finished reading the paper on Saturday, I might have read the Zoe Williams piece on the same subject, ah well, great minds n' all. Nice spot Strcprstsk

Not a drop to drink

Growing up in a country which seemed to be perpetually in the throes of devastating drought, it's a tad depressing to sit on a grey, miserable, rainy island and have to endure it all again. Though admittedly, 'endure' is laying it on a bit thick, as no-one has yet suggested we put a brick in our cisterns or pour the bathwater into the loo (if we should be so reckless as to have a bath in the first place). However, Red Ken has advised we don't flush if we've 'Just had a pee'. Cheers Ken, that's the sort of cutting edge conservational thinking a crisis like this demands. It's the kind of insightful thort which makes this toilet notice in the pub I visited last night, all the more amusing. The Water Poet (it just gets better and better) has had water gushing up through the floor in the Mens for weeks, despite endless appeals to Ken's plucky crew of divinators at Thames Water. Luckily I have no grass to be banned from quenching with either hosepipe or sprinkler. The bedraggled Plant of No discernable Identity(TM) in my kitchen, seems to get by on a pint of the clear stuff every six weeks/when I remember. I hardly water my rubber plant at all and it's rapidly taking over the dining room and will soon require some brutal trimming with a machete. I know too well, the grief a person can suffer by growing overly attached to houseplants and indeed, fauna in general. My Mother rashly returned to the Zimbabwean homestead she was forced to abandon last June, only to discover that the year she leaves, the country is drowned by torrential rain. After endless seasons of futile drought busting (roaming four + acres with buckets of bathwater) she found her pride and joy transformed into the Island of Dr. Moreau, though fortunately without Marlon Brando in a sheet, lurking in the undergrowth.

All this drama, and Summer hasn't even begun, I dread to think what the Nation's mood will be mid-August, when they're all onto their third layer of skin and temperatures are 'Soaring' into the twenties. At least my rubber plant will be happy.

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The house always wins

One of the most alluring and infuriating sounds in the universe is the distinctive 'tiddlipoodlitiddlipoodli' of the modern slot machine. It calls to you from every single corner of Vegas, from the airport lounge to the petrol station rest-rooms, there is no escaping its insidious siren song. I hear it tiddling in my mind as I attempt to fight jetlag in my ridiculously large hotel room. I've exhausted the joy of the electric curtains, the telly in the bathroom and the childish, though strangely satisfying action of lifting up the jelly babies, then replacing them just before sixty seconds is up and you automatically get charged for the stupid things. My superb blag/v.important high level meeting in America's own Sodom and Gomorrah, has sadly failed to alter my fortunes (other than for the worse) though it has had a detrimental affect on my waistline. In this town, the carnivorous lard eater is King. The rare vegetables that accidently make it to your plate, huddle in the corner, crowded out and humiliated by the bloodied haunch of cow that takes centre stage. Promenading down the strip, I encountered this other famous carnivore. When I suggested to an awestruck out-of-towner that they should cut the top half of Roy's head off just for the sake of continuity, he looked at me like I'd shat on his golden calf and stomped off into some plastic vegetation. Me and my crazeee limey humour.

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