vermin-realm.com

Woah - there’s a flipping huge great fire spreading across London at the moment - the biggest blackest cloud spreading really quickly.  It looks like it’s over the museum of London/ the Barbican center, but I can’t find anything in the news.  I’m just watching it spread past my 7th floor window with the morbid fascination of a true Londoner getting all excited over a drama!

Not very long ago Si got me a Creativ Zen mp3 player, which is very cool and hopefully the software won’t crash my computer like the iPod software did.  But one of the more exciting features is that you can record music from any system that will allow you to use headphones. So pretty much all of them.  I’ve had a lot of fun recording songs NOT off youtube at all no no no, that’s naughty.  But anyway, something reminded me yesterday of a musical I was once in.  You won’t have heard of it - of that I’m certain.  But it was a musical we did while at school called Brother Jacques, written by these guys from Devon called Chris Williams and Nick Stimpson.  It’s a really awesome musical and they gave me a tape copy of another production they had produced a few years before.  I was 16 at the time and listened to it quite a lot.  I had been cast as Madame Cat, a semi-major role (think Carlotta in the Phantom of the Opera for an idea of the size of the role).  I had a solo and solo parts in other songs.  Anyhow, the musical is awesome and I often wish it had become famous.  It was known in Plymouth I guess, and other parts of the Westcountry.  I listened to the tape so much and then, as cassettes died a death and my cassette walkman was barely used it was abandoned in an old drawer.  Well, so then I start thinking about how if i could only dig out the tape, put some batteries in my old cassette player I could record the songs onto my mp3.  Which I am now in the process of doing.

The story is set in the French revolution.  Jacques and his brother Guy are sons of the Madame Vervier who is executed on the guillotine.  Before she dies she sees her maid, Madame Cat, and begs her to look after her sons, which she initially refuses.  As the guillotine falls Guy runs into the crowds and the mob close in on the little boy Jacques.  Madame Cat intervenes and saves him.  She sings a beautiful song to him about how his life will now change (which many people believe is the best song - it is wonderful and very moving) and raises him as her own.  Years pass and Jacques, brought up by MadameCat and her son Francois, go to fight in the war against England.  Madame Cat begs Jacques not to force her reluctant son to go but they go anyway.  They enter a great battle and lose, are captured and taken to England as prisoners of war.  There they meet up with Guy de Marrett (yep, you’ve guessed it, it’s Jacques real brother) a sadistic arrogant git of a man, and ‘Long’ Ross, the Englishman who is in charge of the prisoners.  Treated dispicably they are billeted into the small village of Crediton (I used to work there - horrible place) where they are treated with prejudice and cruelty by the vilagers.  Over time though they integrate with the villagers and even find love.  All the time Jacques is desperate to escape.  When he does he hides out with the prostitute girlfriend of Long Ross but he, also an sadistic git, is tipped off by the tart and is arrested and thrown into the notorious Dartmoor Prison.  Eventualy the French are all taken to a horrible prison-like place and are virtually left to die.  No-one knows where Jacques is but eventually they find him but he’s gone mad.  But as Francois and the now reformed Guy talk to him he gets flash-backs of the past and is brought back to reality.  Ahh. The end.

I really really wish there was an on-line version where I could point people to a version (any on other than the one I was in - we were terrible and as soon as I saw the audience I was so crippled by stage fright that I refused point blank to sing in key.  Probably didn’t help that the chap playing Francois kept trying to feel me up back-stage.  My own son no less, tsk tsk.)  But maybe I’ll be naughty and upload the songs, now I have them on my mp3 player.  I just don’t know how!!

For anyone who’s ever owned a cat… “Instructions for application of oral medicine to domestic feline …  or ‘How to give a pill to a cat.’”1.  Pick up cat and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby.  Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat’s mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right hand.  As cat opens mouth, pop pill into mouth.  Allow cat to close mouth and swallow. 2.  Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa.  Cradle cat in left arm and repeat process. 3.  Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away. 4.  Take new pill from foil wrap, cradle cat in left arm, holding rear paws tightly with left hand.  Force jaws open and push pill to back of mouth with right forefinger.  Hold mouth shut for a count of 10. 5.  Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of wardrobe.  Call spouse from garden. 6.  Kneel on floor with cat wedged firmly between knees, holding front and rear paws.  Ignore low growls emitted by cat.  Get spouse to hold cat’s head firmly with one hand while forcing wooden ruler into mouth.  Drop pill down ruler and rub cat’s throat vigorously. 7.  Retrieve cat from curtain rail, get another pill from foil wrap.  Make note to buy new ruler and repair curtains.  Carefully sweep shattered figurines from hearth and set to one side for gluing later. 8.  Wrap cat in large towel and get spouse to lie on cat with its head just visible from below spouse’s armpit.  Put pill in end of drinking straw, - force cat’s mouth open with pencil and blow down drinking straw. 9.  Check label to make sure pill not harmful to humans, drink glass of water to take taste away.  Apply Elastoplast to spouse’s forearm and remove blood from carpet with cold water and soap. 10.  Retrieve cat from neighbour’s shed.  Get another pill. Place cat in cupboard and close door onto neck to leave head showing.  Force mouth open with dessertspoon.  Flick pill down throat with elastic band. 11.  Fetch screwdriver from garage and put door back on hinges. Apply cold compress to cheek and check records for date of last tetanus shot.  Throw T-shirt away and fetch new one from bedroom. 12.  Ring fire brigade to retrieve cat from tree across the road.   Apologise to neighbour who crashed into fence while swerving to avoid cat.  Take last pill from foil wrap. 13.  Tie cat’s front paws to rear paws with garden twine and bind tightly to leg of dining table.  Find heavy-duty pruning gloves from shed.  Force cat’s mouth open with small spanner.  Push pill into mouth followed by large piece of fillet steak.  Hold head vertically and pour a pint of water down throat to wash pill down. 14.  Get spouse to drive you to emergency room, sit quietly while doctor stitches fingers and forearm and removes pill remnants from right eye.  Stop by furniture shop on way home to order new table. 15.  Arrange for RSPCA to collect cat and call local pet shop to see if they have any hamsters.

# My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.

# My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.

# My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.

# Shooting is not too good for my enemies.

# The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.

# I will not gloat over my enemies’ predicament before killing them.

# When I’ve captured my adversary and he says, “Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?” I’ll say, “No.” and shoot him. No, on second thought I’ll shoot him then say “No.”

# After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks’ time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.

# I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled “Danger: Do Not Push”. The big red button marked “Do Not Push” will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labelled as such.

# I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum — a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well.

# I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.

# One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.

# All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.

# The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request.

# I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.

# I will never utter the sentence “But before I kill you, there’s just one thing I want to know.”

# When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice.

# I will not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would provide a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time.

# I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero’s rugged countenance and she’d betray her own father.

# Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it’s too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.

# I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my Legions of Terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi stormtroopers, Roman footsoldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set.

# No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head.

# I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way — even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless — my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks.

# I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line “No, this cannot be! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!” (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)

# No matter how well it would perform, I will never construct any sort of machinery which is completely indestructible except for one small and virtually inaccessible vulnerable spot.

# No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is probably someone just as attractive who is not desperate to kill me. Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my bedchamber.

# I will never build only one of anything important. All important systems will have redundant control panels and power supplies. For the same reason I will always carry at least two fully loaded weapons at all times.

# My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which I could not accidentally stumble.

# I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion.

# All bumbling conjurers, clumsy squires, no-talent bards, and cowardly thieves in the land will be preemptively put to death. My foes will surely give up and abandon their quest if they have no source of comic relief.

# All naive, busty tavern wenches in my realm will be replaced with surly, world-weary waitresses who will provide no unexpected reinforcement and/or romantic subplot for the hero or his sidekick.

# I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by.

# I won’t require high-ranking female members of my organization to wear a stainless-steel bustier. Morale is better with a more casual dress-code. Similarly, outfits made entirely from black leather will be reserved for formal occasions.

# I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.

# I will not grow a goatee. In the old days they made you look diabolic. Now they just make you look like a disaffected member of Generation X.

# I will not imprison members of the same party in the same cell block, let alone the same cell. If they are important prisoners, I will keep the only key to the cell door on my person instead of handing out copies to every bottom-rung guard in the prison.

# If my trusted lieutenant tells me my Legions of Terror are losing a battle, I will believe him. After all, he’s my trusted lieutenant.

# If an enemy I have just killed has a younger sibling or offspring anywhere, I will find them and have them killed immediately, instead of waiting for them to grow up harboring feelings of vengeance towards me in my old age.

# If I absolutely must ride into battle, I will certainly not ride at the forefront of my Legions of Terror, nor will I seek out my opposite number among his army.

# I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve.

# Once my power is secure, I will destroy all those pesky time-travel devices.

# When I capture the hero, I will make sure I also get his dog, monkey, ferret, or whatever sickeningly cute little animal capable of untying ropes and filching keys happens to follow him around.

# I will maintain a healthy amount of skepticism when I capture the beautiful rebel and she claims she is attracted to my power and good looks and will gladly betray her companions if I just let her in on my plans.

# I will only employ bounty hunters who work for money. Those who work for the pleasure of the hunt tend to do dumb things like even the odds to give the other guy a sporting chance.

# I will make sure I have a clear understanding of who is responsible for what in my organization. For example, if my general screws up I will not draw my weapon, point it at him, say “And here is the price for failure,” then suddenly turn and kill some random underling.

# If an advisor says to me “My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?”, I will reply “This.” and kill the advisor.

# If I learn that a callow youth has begun a quest to destroy me, I will slay him while he is still a callow youth instead of waiting for him to mature.

# I will treat any beast which I control through magic or technology with respect and kindness. Thus if the control is ever broken, it will not immediately come after me for revenge.

# If I learn the whereabouts of the one artifact which can destroy me, I will not send all my troops out to seize it. Instead I will send them out to seize something else and quietly put a Want-Ad in the local paper.

# My main computers will have their own special operating system that will be completely incompatible with standard IBM and Macintosh powerbooks.

# If one of my dungeon guards begins expressing concern over the conditions in the beautiful princess’ cell, I will immediately transfer him to a less people-oriented position.

# I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about.

# If the beautiful princess that I capture says “I’ll never marry you! Never, do you hear me, NEVER!!!”, I will say “Oh well” and kill her.

# I will not strike a bargain with a demonic being then attempt to double-cross it simply because I feel like being contrary.

# The deformed mutants and odd-ball psychotics will have their place in my Legions of Terror. However before I send them out on important covert missions that require tact and subtlety, I will first see if there is anyone else equally qualified who would attract less attention.

# My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice.

# Before employing any captured artifacts or machinery, I will carefully read the owner’s manual.

# If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner.

# I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am.

# My five-year-old child advisor will also be asked to decipher any code I am thinking of using. If he breaks the code in under 30 seconds, it will not be used. Note: this also applies to passwords.

# If my advisors ask “Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?”, I will not proceed until I have a response that satisfies them.

# I will design fortress hallways with no alcoves or protruding structural supports which intruders could use for cover in a firefight.

# Bulk trash will be disposed of in incinerators, not compactors. And they will be kept hot, with none of that nonsense about flames going through accessible tunnels at predictable intervals.

# I will see a competent psychiatrist and get cured of all extremely unusual phobias and bizarre compulsive habits which could prove to be a disadvantage.

# If I must have computer systems with publically available terminals, the maps they display of my complex will have a room clearly marked as the Main Control Room. That room will be the Execution Chamber. The actual main control room will be marked as Sewage Overflow Containment.

# My security keypad will actually be a fingerprint scanner. Anyone who watches someone press a sequence of buttons or dusts the pad for fingerprints then subsequently tries to enter by repeating that sequence will trigger the alarm system.

# No matter how many shorts we have in the system, my guards will be instructed to treat every surveillance camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency.

# I will spare someone who saved my life sometime in the past. This is only reasonable as it encourages others to do so. However, the offer is good one time only. If they want me to spare them again, they’d better save my life again.

# All midwives will be banned from the realm. All babies will be delivered at state-approved hospitals. Orphans will be placed in foster-homes, not abandoned in the woods to be raised by creatures of the wild.

# When my guards split up to search for intruders, they will always travel in groups of at least two. They will be trained so that if one of them disappears mysteriously while on patrol, the other will immediately initiate an alert and call for backup, instead of quizzically peering around a corner.

# If I decide to test a lieutenant’s loyalty and see if he/she should be made a trusted lieutenant, I will have a crack squad of marksmen standing by in case the answer is no.

# If all the heroes are standing together around a strange device and begin to taunt me, I will pull out a conventional weapon instead of using my unstoppable superweapon on them.

# I will not agree to let the heroes go free if they win a rigged contest, even though my advisors assure me it is impossible for them to win.

# When I create a multimedia presentation of my plan designed so that my five-year-old advisor can easily understand the details, I will not label the disk “Project Overlord” and leave it lying on top of my desk.

# I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.

# If the hero runs up to my roof, I will not run up after him and struggle with him in an attempt to push him over the edge. I will also not engage him at the edge of a cliff. (In the middle of a rope-bridge over a river of molten lava is not even worth considering.)

# If I have a fit of temporary insanity and decide to give the hero the chance to reject a job as my trusted lieutentant, I will retain enough sanity to wait until my current trusted lieutenant is out of earshot before making the offer.

# I will not tell my Legions of Terror “And he must be taken alive!” The command will be “And try to take him alive if it is reasonably practical.”

# If my doomsday device happens to come with a reverse switch, as soon as it has been employed it will be melted down and made into limited-edition commemorative coins.

# If my weakest troops fail to eliminate a hero, I will send out my best troops instead of wasting time with progressively stronger ones as he gets closer and closer to my fortress.

# If I am fighting with the hero atop a moving platform, have disarmed him, and am about to finish him off and he glances behind me and drops flat, I too will drop flat instead of quizzically turning around to find out what he saw.

# I will not shoot at any of my enemies if they are standing in front of the crucial support beam to a heavy, dangerous, unbalanced structure.

# If I’m eating dinner with the hero, put poison in his goblet, then have to leave the table for any reason, I will order new drinks for both of us instead of trying to decide whether or not to switch with him.

# I will not have captives of one sex guarded by members of the opposite sex.

# I will not use any plan in which the final step is horribly complicated, e.g. “Align the 12 Stones of Power on the sacred altar then activate the medallion at the moment of total eclipse.” Instead it will be more along the lines of “Push the button.”

# I will make sure that my doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.

# My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them.

# If a group of henchmen fail miserably at a task, I will not berate them for incompetence then send the same group out to try the task again.

# After I captures the hero’s superweapon, I will not immediately disband my legions and relax my guard because I believe whoever holds the weapon is unstoppable. After all, the hero held the weapon and I took it from him.

# I will not design my Main Control Room so that every workstation is facing away from the door.

# I will not ignore the messenger that stumbles in exhausted and obviously agitated until my personal grooming or current entertainment is finished. It might actually be important.

# If I ever talk to the hero on the phone, I will not taunt him. Instead I will say this his dogged perseverance has given me new insight on the futility of my evil ways and that if he leaves me alone for a few months of quiet contemplation I will likely return to the path of righteousness. (Heroes are incredibly gullible in this regard.)

# If I decide to hold a double execution of the hero and an underling who failed or betrayed me, I will see to it that the hero is scheduled to go first.

# When arresting prisoners, my guards will not allow them to stop and grab a useless trinket of purely sentimental value.

# My dungeon will have its own qualified medical staff complete with bodyguards. That way if a prisoner becomes sick and his cellmate tells the guard it’s an emergency, the guard will fetch a trauma team instead of opening up the cell for a look.

# My door mechanisms will be designed so that blasting the control panel on the outside seals the door and blasting the control panel on the inside opens the door, not vice versa.

# My dungeon cells will not be furnished with objects that contain reflective surfaces or anything that can be unravelled.

# If an attractive young couple enters my realm, I will carefully monitor their activities. If I find they are happy and affectionate, I will ignore them. However if circumstance have forced them together against their will and they spend all their time bickering and criticizing each other except during the intermittent occasions when they are saving each others’ lives at which point there are hints of sexual tension, I will immediately order their execution.

# Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb in size.

# Finally, to keep my subjects permanently locked in a mindless trance, I will provide each of them with free unlimited Internet access.

If many of the following apply to you, then you’re probably from Devon…

… you’ve bought stationery at Trago Mills

… you think Exeter’s a big city

… you can tell sheep from goats

… and straw from hay (obviously!)*

… you once went to Totnes for the day and returned three weeks later, very happy, but with no idea why

… you think London’s ‘up north’

… you know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows Joss Stone

… the smell of cow shit makes you feel at home

… everywhere else in the UK feels cold

… you have a friend who lives on a farm

… you live on a farm

… you know and love Massey Ferguson*

… you learnt to drive in a field or on a beach

… you live in a cottage

… your home has a thatched roof

… you’ve been stuck behind a stupid tourist on a country lane

… you saw the total eclipse in ‘99

… your local newspaper’s lead story is ‘cow falls off bridge’

… you turned to drink, drugs or heavy metal at an early age

… you know the best sledging to be had is at Haytor

… your friends say you sound like a farmer

… you have nothing to do after 5:30pm

… you think pink wellies are a fashion statement

… you know ‘Cornish’ pasties are actually from Devon

… you’ve boiled / frozen / been washed away during Ten Tors

… you know how to walk over a cattle grid

… you want to know who came up with ‘take moor care’

… you know all about ‘letterboxing’ (but wish you didn’t)

… you watch ‘Spotlight’ (and know Teresa Driscoll, Justin Leigh, Russel Labey, Craig Rich and the gang )

… you’ve been pony trekking

… ’short and choppy on the North coast’ makes total sense to you

… you think nothing of grass growing in the middle of the road

… your town is ‘the gem of south Devon’ or ‘the English Riviera’ despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary*

… you think a barn dance is a wild night out

… until you went on holiday, the tallest building you had ever seen was Debenhams in Exeter

… you’ve reversed for 3 miles when you met a stubborn tourist on a country lane*

… it takes you 4 times longer to drive anywhere between May and September*

… you carry an umbrella everywhere even when it’s 35 degrees (because it WILL start to hail randomly)*

… you’re a closet fan of The Wurzels

… your second cousin is also your sister’s stepmother

… your neighbours’ average age is 76*

… your best friend goes joyriding in tractors*

… your parents regularly thanked God for Crealy Country Park and Woodlands*

… your teachers regularly thanked God for Paignton Zoo, Buckfast Abbey, Morwellham Quay and the legendary House of Marbles*

… you can’t stand the grockles, despite living off their money*

… you thought it was normal for more than 50% of your high street’s shops to be operated by charities*

… everyone you meet has been on holiday to your home town - no wonder it’s so busy in summer*

… you spent your entire childhood wanting to leave the place, yet now that you have, you cry yourself to sleep then dream of rolling green hills and long, sandy beaches*

… you used to look through your physical geography textbook because you knew half of the places in there

… you know that ‘the Launa man can’*

… your most thrilling childhood experience was the Death slide at Woodlands / Crealy / The Devon Shire Horse Centre*

… before Freeview, you didn’t believe the rumours about a ‘5th television channel’*

… you don’t yet have Freeview - what 5th channel?

… you found out about Plymouth Hoe / Westward Ho! before you realised the name could be entertaining*

… your local shop sells clotted cream fudge and bucket/spade packs, but not newspapers

… your local publican (who has sideburns and red face) is a member of CAMRA, and thinks a ‘gastropub’ is a medical complication (he serves peanuts & crisps)

… you don’t understand why a cinema would need more than two screens*

… someone once ran past you clutching a burning barrel of tar*

… your birthday was read out by a rabbit called Honeybun, Gus Honeybun*

… you use the ‘fast and close’ method for passing cars on country lanes - passing places are for grockles!*

… you can tell animals apart by their crap*

… you have had to walk home with only one welly on, after the other one was sucked into a bog / thick mud*

… you thought Hot Fuzz was a documentary*

… you think that running into the sea on New Year’s or Christmas Day is brave, not foolish*

… you always thought of Gandy Street as a rich and varied shopping experience*

… your car is considered a Site of Special Scientific Interest due to its unique collection of sand, mud, twigs and general wildlife from various Devonshire walks*

… you recognise a fellow Devonian across a crowded room when you hear the phrase “where you to”*

I managed to put my back out today AND cut my ankle off shaving.

I am so  pathetic

I seem to be under blister attack at the moment.  I have quite a few deep, sore blisters about half a centimetre under my skin on my right foot, and one nasty bugger on my left hand.  Not only do they look unsightly but they are really really sore.  And I have the tell-tale stress blisters appearing on my left hand too.  I’ll explain.  When I was training to be a teacher, which was a horrible time for me (isolation from everyone at it’s finest, thank you Rolle College!) I started getting these really nasty blisters all over my palms - absolutely covered.  They were each about the size of a pin-head, about 10 per square centimetre, and they looked absolutely terrible.  They just kept spreading and spreading, and were all down to stress.  It took about three months to get rid of them, and I’ve had occaisional recurrences of them ever since.

Gah, it’s difficult being this sexy you know!

Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds is never as good as you remember it being…

OK, interesting.  I have to attempt to be more interesting.  I do not like seeing my friends’ eyes glaze over when I start to tell an anecdote (either because they’ve heard it before or because it’s as dull as anything) so I have to make a concerted effort to be interesting

Which means - no rats.  No story about me meeting Gerard Butler at the ‘300′ premiere (wibble).  No rats.  No showing them my art-work or photography. No informing them about the fact I’m going to be Milly’s godmother. No rats.  I’m stuck already.

OK, all joking aside - I’ve been trying to make my life more interesting for me (don’t worry, this is self-improvement, not something that’s come about in response to something someone has said or reacted to).

Wellllll… I found out over the weekend that I work very close to some Banksy pieces.  I’ve just been to see them in my lunch hour.  One is about 2 minutes away from my office; the other, about a 5 minute walk (but a nice walk along Victoria Embankment).  The first stencil I found very quickly; the second required a little more patience, but they were both very cool.  Banksy’s work seems so personal sometimes - like he put it there just for you to find.

Problem is, both the stencils were of rats (toxic rat and photographer rat).  So, back to square one!

It’s been such a long time since I had a blog that wasn’t vermin-related, I wonder if there’s anything at all I can put here.  So much revolves around the rats (who have a seperate blog) and my work (which i can’t really blog about) that I’m not sure what exactly I will end up writing here.  Maybe nothing - but the template is so pretty!