Why I will never be an artist

Recently, one of Sarah Lucas's Nud sculptures came to Edinburgh. Looking at it I was suddenly struck by inspiration for a powerful conceptual piece describing the life of a single woman pushing 50:

an unused, out of date condom filled with cat hair.

Fired up with artistic fervour I rushed home and started the creative process.

Then I threw it out in case the cat sitter saw it.

Personality quiz

1) You go to the cinema. There is one other person in the auditorium. Do you sit:
a) in front of them?
b) as far away from them as possible?

2) You get on the bus. There is one other person on the upper deck. Do you sit:
a) right next to them?
b) as far away from them as possible?

3) Why are people such assholes? Open question - no word limit.

Tis the season to be selfish, failalalalalalalala

I was very struck by an advert I saw on the cover of Time Out this week. It was for something like Night Nurse and urged the reader that if they wanted to snog Barbara from accounts at the Christmas party, to make sure they take their cold relief medicine before the party. But this stuff doesn'r cure your cold, it just covers the symptoms. In other words, let Barbara gargle your germs unaware, just so you can get your jollies.

Nice.

I find the much vaunted John Lewis hare and bear advert to be similar. I see nothing to suggest that the bear is miserable at missing the tawdry commercial festivities. Nope, the hare is buying a present for the bear that the hare wants for itself, the bear's company at Christmas. If I were that bear and I'd found a way of sleeping through the horror of the season and someone had woken me up just to entertain them, I'd have ripped the furry little pest's head off and swallowed its ears.

This post is brought to you by Christmas music. When I'm in charge, and I will be, it will be banned for every day except the 24th and 25th December.

Good intentions?

I'm still not entirely sure what happened Tuesday evening. All I know for sure is that I started off being rather stupid. Rather than get the train back to the hotel before supper, I ate straight after work with the idea of taking the train back to where I was staying a bit later. As I walked back to the station in the dark, I decided to take a short cut through the underpass rather than the long way round above ground. It was about 7pm. Stupid, as I said, but it's a relatively safe seeming town.

As I entered the underpass, I heard a man behind me say, "Hello." There wasn't anyone else around. It wasn't a voice I knew and I hadn't heard him come up behind me. Fortunately for him, I completely forgot all my Krav Maga. I have however had a lot of experience in the past of talking myself out of potentially violent situations and that kicked in. I introduced myself. I asked his name, how he was doing. I established a link. We got the station and I got on a train that pulled out before he got to it.

He told me during the chat that he'd seen me going into the underpass, was worried for my safety and decided to escort me. I have absolutely no idea if that's true or not but in the end I came to no harm except getting a really severe fright. But what the hell was he thinking?

When I got home I found that someone had switched off both the heating and hot water. I presume the cat sitter was trying to be helpful. I had a cold shower this morning on the coldest morning of the year so far.

Stop trying to be helpful, people. Please.

Back in harness

Today's Observer relates the story of one Helen Morrison who in 1727 placed one of the first known personal ads in a local Manchester paper. As a result of this, the Mayor of Manchester had her committed to a lunatic asylum.

He may have had a point.

I'm at it again and have two dates this week. I really don't know why. I feel very little enthusiasm. Yes, the alternative is another thrilling evening in Woking Travelodge but with enough chocolate and a good book that surely beats awkwardness, tedium, rejection and potentially worse. If only the cats could talk and had more than another 5 years in them I think I could do without a relationship. I get more than enough of people from work at present.

Also wrong

Being princesses, the cats will only eat tne expensive stuff when it comes to wet food - Gourmet Ocean Delight in pouches. Like all cat foods this smells fairly repulsive and when I open the pouch, it tends to splatter. I usually get some on my hands in the process and have to wash them before dishing out the dry food to Rosa who doesn't like wet food for breakfast. This morning I absent mindedly licked my fingers on the way to washing them.

And it tastes good... A bit like Marmite but milder...

Wrong, wrong, wrong

I saw something so beyond wrong yesterday that I've had a fun 24 hours thinking about a post about it. A driving school advertising driving lessons for 12 year olds. 'Junior driver' is what they call it. 'Encouraging joyriders' is probably a better name. I hope the lessons come with a free booster cushion.

I mean seriously, why?

Unlike some visitors to the blog, I'm not against teens doing adult things. Voting for example. I have no problem with 16 year olds voting as they will do in next year's referendum. If you were going to ban them from voting because they are ill informed, impetuous, only think of their own interests, short termist and the sundry other things thrown at Salmond when he announced it then logically you should be banning Tories from voting too and I don't see anyone suggesting that.

But why do teenagers need to drive*? I don't even think 17 year olds need to drive frankly. Because given all the above qualities, it's a lot easier to kill someone with a car than with a vote.


*I can see a small argument in favour of farmers' kids being able to drive farm vehicles. But not on the road.